“I’ll do whatever I can to stop this thing, Billy.”
“Good, Longarm. Thank you.”
Longarm retrieved his hat from the floor beside his chair and excused himself. He needed to see Billy’s clerk Henry about travel vouchers and maybe an advance against expenses. And there wasn’t any reason he’d want to stay and chat with Sam Beckwith, that was for sure.
“G’day, gentlemen,” Longarm said as he legged it out the door.
Chapter 4
The town was called Picketwire, named in a roundabout fashion for the river that was often miscalled the same. The river’s real name had started out in Spanish as River of Lost Souls. That later on became the French word for purgatory, purgatoire, and that, corrupted into saddlebag English, became Picketwire. Hence the town of Picketwire.
Longarm had reached it by way of a Denver and Rio Grande passenger coach south to Trinidad and a stagecoach east to Picketwire. As an officer of the United States government, his badge had let him travel free on the stagecoach since the express company had a government contract to carry official mail. The trip east from Trinidad had been free of charge but not free from complaint. The way the coach driver had carried on about the loss of a three-dollar fee, a body would’ve thought the price of the ticket was coming out of the driver’s own pocket instead of that of the Watson Express line.
“Here,” the driver now snapped curtly, an instant before he launched Longarm’s carpetbag into the air.
Longarm managed to snag his bag before it hit, but he wasn’t quick enough to also grab the saddle that followed. His McClellan, complete with scabbarded Winchester, hit the ground with a resounding thump heavy enough to raise a cloud of dark red dust.
“If you’ve gone an’ busted anything o’ mine …” Longarm started out. But the coach driver wasn’t paying him any mind. By then the sour-tempered son of a bitch was carefully, oh-so-carefully, handing a wooden crate down to a drummer who’d also been on the run out from Trinidad. Longarm knew, because the man had mentioned it often enough, that the drummer dealt in ready-made ironwork, things like cabinet hinges and mortise locks and other unbreakable shit of that nature. Yet the damned coachman handled the crate of iron bits like they were fine china, and threw Longarm’s valuables around like he hoped they would bust.
Longarm scowled at the man, but decided against trying to teach the jackass any manners. After all, he was supposed to stop problems, not make new ones.
He shouldered his saddle, picked up his bag, and gave some thought to what he should do next. It was late afternoon and there would be time enough later to find a room if it turned out he would be needing one in Picketwire, he decided. Whether he did or not would pretty much depend on what he learned about Harry Bolt and where he was working lately. Learning that was what Longarm had come to Picketwire to discover.
He carried his things inside the Watson Express Company office, and secured a promise from the clerk there that his gear would be safe behind the counter.
“I’ll see to it personally,” the young man in sleeve garters and a green celluloid eyeshade assured him.
“I’m obliged,” Longarm said. He grinned and added, “Just make sure your driver don’t get another crack at my stuff. He did his damdest to mash everything once, but that was when he had a moving target so the carpetbag had a sportin’ chance. I’d hate to see him get lucky the second time.”
The clerk laughed. “I’ll tell Tom to please keep his distance.”
“Like I said, neighbor, I’m obliged.”
“Anything for a customer, mister.”
Longarm concluded it might be wise to let that one go without clarifying the point. He wasn’t a customer exactly. Not a paying one anyhow. He settled for touching the brim of his Stetson in a silent salute and getting out of the stagecoach office before the driver, Tom, came inside.
Longarm stopped on the porch outside to light a cheroot and get his bearings—after all, it had been quite a while since he’d been down this way—then strode off toward the west end of the town, down along the sluggish and at times nearly nonexistent river that gave Picketwire its name.
When he reached his destination he grunted softly under his breath. The place hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been there. The peeled log walls had maybe weathered a little more, and the chinks between the logs had sprung maybe a bit wider. The gaps were too big to ignore, and someone was going to have to do some serious mud-daubing before winter or there wouldn’t be a stove made that’d be capable of keeping the place heated.
Still, it didn’t look all that bad. The building rambled this way and that, taking off from a central core little bigger than a homesteader’s cabin, and showing the numerous additions that’d been added on since that first structure was thrown together.
There was a lean-to on the right end that he didn’t think had been there before, and now there was a stout corral where before there’d only been hitching posts and a flimsy hay rack. Apart from those things, though, it still looked pretty much the way he last remembered it.
Longarm stood in the shelter of a cottonwood tree for a few moments while he finished his cheroot. Then he ground the stub of the cigar under the heel of his boot and, taking a deep breath, ambled inside the saloon, general store, and whatever else it might be.
“You again,” the barman said with an undertone of annoyance, sounding the way he might have if an unwelcome regular was stopping in for the third time on the same afternoon. It had been, Longarm remembered, something over two years since he’d last been underneath this roof.
“Nice to see you too, Gregory.”
“There’s a new saloon in town,” Gregory suggested. “Nice place. I think you’d like it. It’s up on Main Street. The Bob Dwyer, run by a guy named Bob though his last name ain’t Dwyer. Cute, huh? I’m sure you’ll like the place.”
“Thanks, Gregory, but I expect I’ll stay here for the time bein’.”
“Rye whiskey then?”
“That’d be fine.”
Gregory produced a dust-covered jug and pulled the cork. He tipped a generous slug of the aged whiskey into a glass and pushed it across the bar.
“I’m impressed,” Longarm said, lifting the glass and judiciously smelling the aroma before taking a small taste and allowing the liquor to lie warm on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed. “This is your good stuff.”
“I want you satisfied and quick as possible out of here,” Gregory said with a level gaze.
Longarm fished a handful of change out of his pocket and laid it onto the counter. Gregory ignored the money. “How much?” Longarm insisted.
“On the house,” the barman said. “Just drink up and leave.” He hesitated. “Please.”
Longarm sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of the impulse, and closed it. A moment later he said, “I won’t be long. This is business, Gregory. Official. I have to ask a couple questions. Then I’ll go.”
“Anything I can answer?”
“I’m willing to give you the chance,” Longarm said. “It’s about Harry Bolt, Gregory. I need to find him.”
The barman frowned. “You come in on the stage just now?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you just come down from where I thought Harry was still working. Last thing I heard he was night marshal at Trinidad.”
“I talked to the mayor there first thing when I hit town,” Longarm said. “He told me Bolt quit the night marshal job there about four, five months back. He said I should ask …”
“Dammit,” Gregory hissed. “If it ain’t one of you bastards it’s the other. I don’t know what she sees in you gun-crazy sons of bitches.”
Longarm gave the bartender a tight smile. “That’s the difference between Harry and me, Gregory. You can say something like that to my face an’ know I won’t blow a hole through your breastbone for it. You say the same thing to Harry Bolt an’ you’re a dead man. An’ anyway, you know good an’ well what she sees in us. It’s the smell of gunsmoke an’ the excitement of bein’ close to the Grim Reaper, Gregory. Not that I agree with any of that, mind. But it’s what she thinks she sees, which is enough to make it so.”