“I’d like for there to be, son. I’d sure as hell like to talk you out of this scheme of yours. I’d like to see you pull outa here and—I dunno—go visit your papa while you still can. All that money, son, it won’t buy him a day more than his appointed time. Ain’t that what the Book says? Our days are all numbered an’ there’s naught we can do to change any least bit of whatever is ordained.”
“Do you believe that, Marshal?”
“The question ain’t so much what I believe, son, as what’s true. So what is it that you believe?”
“I believe that my loyalty belongs to my father, Marshal. And to justice. Regardless of law.”
“You don’t look as hard as you are, y’know that?”
The young man smiled, making him look even younger and more boyish than before. “Yes, in fact I do know that. It has stood me in good stead too, if I do say it.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. With that meek an’ mild look on you, Steve, I bet you can walk right up to a man an’ shoot him between the eyes without him ever once thinking his time had come.”
Reese laughed, and in the sound there was an edge of hysteria, or worse, that made Longarm realize for the first time that this gentle veneer the boy wore had no more depth than the clothing on his back.
Beneath the gentle, entirely presentable surface he showed to the world, Steven Reese was crazy as hell. Murderously crazy.
“Steve, what I think I’d best do is ask you to come with me while we check an’ see are there any warrants outstanding.”
“I thought you said …”
“When I left Denver there was a lawyer, a fella name of Beckwith, who was working on getting one issued.”
“Samuel T. Beckwith?” Reese asked. “I remember him. I remember all of them. The bastards. Not good enough to shine my father’s boots, those officers. If you only knew.”
Longarm looked past Reese toward Harry Bolt, who must have sensed that something was happening here, for now he’d left the table where he’d been talking with Clete Terry and was coming toward Longarm and Reese. The small but deadly little Smith & Wesson revolver was already in his hand. Longarm gave Harry a frown and a quick shake of the head to show that he had this under control. He didn’t need any help right now.
“You won’t mind if we check with the office in Denver, will you, Steve? I’ll get a telegraph message off. We’ll have the answer in a couple hours. Then if there’s no warrant I won’t have no choice but to let you go.” Longarm didn’t mention that he would be checking for state and territorial warrants in Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as for the federal warrants they’d been discussing. Surely someone would have paper outstanding on Reese.
“I haven’t violated any federal laws, Marshal. We both know that. And I admit to violating no state laws either.”
“Then you an’ me will just set an’ visit for a while until my answer comes back, an’ soon as it does I’ll apologize for your trouble an’ see you on your way. Now that sounds fair, don’t it?”
Reese smiled and bobbed his head. “Yes, Marshal, I have to say that it does.”
“All right then. Let’s take care of it.”
A few feet away Harry Bolt was leaning over the bar in whispered consultation with the bartender. Harry still had the little .32 in his fist.
“If you got a gun on you, Steve, I s’pose you oughta hand it over. Nothing personal, you understand. Just routine.”
“Certainly, Marshal. And I don’t take it personally, I assure you.” The beaming young man pulled his coat open and reached into a hip pocket.
There was a sharp whipcrack of noise from behind him, and the front of Steven Reese’s face bulged outward. Blood and specks of teeth and white bone sprayed forward, settling like a scarlet mist all over Longarm and painting his clothes red. Reese’s blood was blown into Longarm’s nose and onto his lips. He could smell the sharp scent of it and taste the salt and copper flavor of it.
Young Steve Reese collapsed before Longarm like a poleaxed shoat, twitched once or twice, and then subsided save for the gurgling of fluids and gases rumbling within the corpse.
“Jesus!” someone nearby muttered, crossing himself and scurrying out of the bar into the afternoon heat.
Chapter 34
Longarm sent Angela Fulton and Buddy on to Denver and Central City without him. He left them at Pueblo and stopped there long enough to transmit two lengthy telegrams, then took the first train west to Canon City and the cold, looming presence of the state penitentiary. The warden there was an old acquaintance if not quite a close friend. Close enough, though, that Longarm could count on his help.
From Canon City Longarm returned to Pueblo and entrained north again to Denver, where Billy Vail’s clerk Henry already had part of the information Longarm needed. The rest of it would be in the hands of Sam Beckwith, who was away in Omaha. Longarm fired off a message for the prosecutor and, with Henry’s help again, launched his own search for information in the archives of the Federal Building and in the state and old territorial government records of Colorado.
Finally, almost two weeks after he’d left, he headed south again.
As before the train announced the presence of a passenger by blasting the whistle, then dropping him at the spur switch. As before Rick came out with his wagon to pick up the fare. This time, however, there was no need for him to race Buddy and Peppy for the privilege.
“I thought you was gone, mister.”
“An’ so I was. Now I’m back. D’you want my business or not?”
“I want your business, sure.”
“Then load my things in an’ let’s go.”
“Yessir.”
Now that it was familiar to him the ride to Cargyle seemed short. He had Rick drop him outside Clete Terry’s—and Harry Bolt’s—saloon.
“Are you looking for a place to stay the night, mister?”
“Not this time. I’ll tend to my business and be gone before dark, more’n likely. But don’t go off too far. I’ll be wanting a ride back out in time to catch the eight-oh-five northbound.”
“You want I should look after your saddle and bag until then, mister?”
“That’d be good, thanks.” Longarm dragged his Winchester from its scabbard strapped to his saddle, but left everything else in the boy’s wagon.
Rick eyed the rifle. “Mister, you ain’t …”
“Yes, son?”
“Never mind. Never you mind, mister.” The boy rolled his eyes and got the hell out of there quick like he thought guns might start going off at any moment.
Longarm grunted softly under his breath and went inside the saloon.
“I can’t say I expected to see you back here, Marshal,” the daytime bartender said, greeting him.
“In my line, friend, a man never knows.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find Chief Bolt, would you?”
“Yes, sir, he and Mr. Terry are in the back.”
“Ask the chief to join me out here, would you, please?”
“Sure thing, Marshal. You want a beer or anything while you’re waiting?”
“No, thanks, I’m fine.”
The bartender nodded and, first checking to make sure no one needed his immediate attention at the bar, went into the back of the saloon.
Longarm wandered over to the corner where he’d spent so many hours before. The table he was used to had been dragged a short distance away, and the chairs were not arranged to his liking. He left the table where it was, but found the chair he favored and pulled it over against the wall, dropping into it with the Winchester laid across his lap.
Harry Bolt came out in a minute or so, Clete Terry with him. The two men stopped at the bar to draw beers for themselves, then carried those and a plate of pickled eggs over to join Longarm in the corner.