“Custis, if you try that, you’re a dead man as sure as the sun is rising.”
“You’re probably right, but I’ll take your father, your brother, and a whole lot more with me.”
Randy must have believed him because he swallowed drily, then slowly nodded his head. “All right, let’s go see if we can find Lupe.”
“Now you’re making sense,” Longarm said with a wide grin. “Any ideas where we can start looking?”
“A couple.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here before someone sees us and starts asking questions.”
“Someone will anyway,” Randy said as he quickly began to dress. “Pa’s put a guard out by the road into Helldorado. He’s going to question us.”
“Then you’d better have some answers for him,” Longarm said, “because we’re leaving.”
“And if my answers aren’t good enough?”
“Then the guard might contract lead poisoning,” Longarm said, pulling on his own shirt and coat and fighting back the pain from his bullet wound.
They had no trouble getting their horses saddled even though the sun had floated off the horizon and was blazing warmth across the sage-covered hills. The blue-green pinyon and juniper pine were damp with dew and steaming. About twenty-five miles to the west, the Sierra Nevadas stood like a line of tall medieval soldiers, helmets glistening with snow. It was an extraordinarily beautiful morning and, had it not been for the possibility that he might have to kill a guard, Longarm would have greatly enjoyed this sojourn.
“There he is,” Randy said, pointing to a man who rode out from a gully and approached them with a rifle cradled across the fork of his saddle.
“Is he reasonable?” Longarm asked.
“When he’s sober,” Randy said.
“Make him a believer,” Longarm warned. “We need to act a little drunk ourselves.”
“Hello there!” Randy called to the approaching guard with a loose grin and then a dry cackle. “Stayin’ warm this morning, Gil? Or are you freezin’ your ass off?”
Gil was a nondescript fellow, all bundled up in winter clothing and wearing heavy leather gloves on his hands.
“I damn near froze last night! Gonna be relieved in about an hour and the first thing I’m going to do is to find me a whore and warm myself up in her bed.”
Randy forced a sick smile. “Me and Custis been drinkin’ and whorin’ all night. We plumb wore ‘em all out, Gil!”
“The hell you say,” Gil exclaimed, shaking his head. “Where are you fellas headed?”
“Virginia City, by gawd!”
Gil’s smile slipped. “Mr. Killion didn’t say anything about anyone leaving Helldorado this morning.”
“We’re going to have us a high old time, Gil. My father won’t care.”
Gil frowned. “I don’t think you ought to do that without asking him first.”
“He won’t mind,” Randy said, his pathetic smile fading. “Now, just don’t give me any trouble, Gil.”
“But it’s my ass if your father finds out you’re gone and he didn’t want you to. You know that we’re riding north to hit that Reno bank Friday morning.”
“We’re gonna be back a day before that,” Randy said, prodding his new buckskin forward. “This horse needs riding and I need to see some new whores.”
“Yeah, but-“
“Out of the way, Gil,” Longarm said quietly. “We’re getting thirstier by the minute.”
Gil made a feeble attempt to block their path, but Longarm reined his horse past the man, and then they were trotting down the cold road toward the Comstock Lode.
“You better not be the cause of me getting on Mr. Killion’s shit list!” Gil shouted. “You’d better not, Randy!”
Randy didn’t respond. He just kept riding, and so did Longarm. “See,” Longarm finally said cheerfully, “no problem. And now we know exactly when your father and his gang plan to rob the Bank of Reno.”
“So you can lay a trap and ambush them?”
“No,” Longarm said, “so we can lay a trap and catch them by surprise and make our arrests before anyone else gets killed or hurt.”
“They’ll never surrender.”
“Then they’ll die,” Longarm said heavily. “It’s their call, but I promise you that we’ll give them a choice. That’s the best that they can hope for, kid.”
Randy swallowed and stared straight ahead as they rode on into the cold morning to learn if Senora Lupe Sanchez was dead or alive.
Chapter 16
“All right, Randy,” Longarm said, “assuming that Senora Sanchez is still alive, where do you think she might have gone after leaving Helldorado?”
“There’s a town called Mormon Station just southwest of Carson City.”
“I know it well,” Longarm said. “The town was cursed when Brigham Young called his flock back to the Utah Territory and practically forced them to give away their land.”
“That’s right,” Randy said. “Lupe’s son lives and works there. His name is Arturo and he’s a few years older than I am.”
“Wouldn’t that be the first place anyone would look for Lupe?”
“Sure,” Randy admitted, “but Arturo would never tell anyone what he knew. But he trusts me and he’ll tell us if she’s dead or alive.”
“So how come Arturo didn’t come to Helldorado and help his mother?”
“What could he have done other than gotten himself killed?” Randy asked. “My father would never brook any interference.”
“And Lupe allowed herself to be shut off from her son?”
“Every few months she would go to visit Arturo, his wife, and two children. I would always accompany her and stay at their place. We had good times there.”
Longarm chewed on that for a few minutes. “And did it ever occur to you just to stay in Mormon Station?”
“Sure!” Randy lowered his voice. “I often thought about staying. There’s a freighting road nearby that crosses over the Sierras that I could have worked on as a mule skinner. There are plenty of ranch jobs in that Carson Valley.”
“Then why didn’t you stay?”
“Lupe would talk me out of it.”
Longarm blinked with surprise. “She talked you out of leaving Helldorado? I don’t understand.”
“She …” Randy had to clear his voice. “She loved my father. You see, he is capable of being kind and generous. The first time that they met, my father whipped two bullies who had been harassing Lupe and making her life miserable. Then, he bought Lupe roses and courted her for two years, not once crossing the bounds of a gentleman.”
“While he had his whores to play with at night,” Longarm said, “and his get-rich-quick schemes designed to fleece the innocent and trusting.”
“Lupe had an old dog,” Randy said, not listening but trying desperately hard to defend his father. “I saw my father pick it up after it had been run over by a wagon and gallop twenty miles to get it to a doctor and then pay him a hundred dollars for saving that dog’s life and making Lupe happy again.”
Longarm was not greatly impressed. “All right, so he would do anything for the senora. That’s easy enough to understand because I’ve heard she was not only beautiful, but also a fine woman.”
“She is a saint,” Randy confessed. “She also has a fine education. When my father finally talked her into moving to Helldorado, she brought boxes and boxes of books. They’re the ones you saw in my room last night. Lupe can recite poetry by the hour.”
“I still can’t understand what she saw in your father.”
“And I doubt that you ever will,” Randy said. “He’s changed a great deal in the last five years, and not for the better. Lupe loved my father, and he was true to her until a couple of years ago. That’s what hurt her the most. That, and the killing.”
“Did she talk to you about leaving?”
“Oh, yes! But even as she would talk about it, she continued to hold out hope for my father. She would read the Bible and pray for him. I never saw a woman so prayerful as Lupe. She would ask me to pray for him too. And also for my brother.”