But he found it most interesting that Clell Martin had such a hate for the Castles. At one part of the conversation, Longarm had wondered out loud what effect it would have on the peace and tranquility of the Castle family if they both got up on top of one of the buttes near one of the Castle ranch headquarters and lobbed a few shells through the ranch house roof. The old man had cackled with glee at the very thought.
But there was still a question that Longarm wanted answered. The best man for that was one of the town’s undertakers. He assumed that it would have had to have been an undertaker who’d readied the bodies of the soldiers to be shipped back home for their burial. However, only part of his mind was dwelling on the subject of the murdered soldiers. Other parts of it were playing around with the delightful prospect of dinner with the delicious Miss Mabelle Russell that evening. It was the one bright spot in an otherwise dreary time. As he rode toward town, he couldn’t keep from wondering where Billy Bob and his brother Glenn had been the night before. The deputy had warned him that they would come looking for him, but they hadn’t. What business could have been so important to keep them from seeking revenge? His problem was that he had no way of finding out. He simply couldn’t go around asking questions and he couldn’t go to the sheriff. He didn’t know any way to get any information without putting on his badge, and he wasn’t ready to do that. Yet.
When he got into town he inquired about undertakers, and was surprised to find that there was only one. With the state of civility in a place like San Angelo, he’d figured that they would need at least a half a dozen. He got directions and rode to the other side of town and pulled up in front of the building. As he dismounted from his mare, he noticed that there was a barbershop right next door, and it reminded him that it might be a good idea to get a haircut and a store-bought shave before his dinner that evening with Miss Russell.
Longarm learned very little from the undertaker, though the man was willing enough. He was an affable, plump man named Charlie something—Longarm never did get his last name. The undertaker had handled all of the bodies, including the one that had been stabbed. He had a vivid memory of each one. In fact, he went out of his way to make it clear to Longarm that he took pride in his work and in his handling of the bodies that were in his care. Of all the soldiers who had been shot, only one body had seemed to indicate that the bullet had been fired from an elevated position. Charlie was quick, and as soon as he caught on to what Longarm was after, he was able to draw on a piece of paper the locations of the entrance and exit wounds of all the soldiers who had been shot. One shot had been shot from a level position, which meant that the assassin must have been standing or kneeling or in concealment on a slight rise. The other two entrance wounds had been lower than the exit wounds. In all cases, however, it was clear that a high-powered, long-range rifle of a high caliber had been used since the exit wound had been so much larger than the entry.
The result was that Longarm had left the undertaker no wiser than when he had entered. He was not at all surprised that each of the murders had been committed with a long-range, high-caliber rifle. That only made sense. If you were going to ambush a man, it made sense to do it from as far a distance as possible, and that meant a long-range rifle. If you wanted to make sure that you killed him, that meant a heavy-caliber slug. But the information was virtually useless since he had no idea of how many old Springfields like Clell Martin owned or how many Sharps buffalo rifles or other high-powered long-range heavy-caliber rifles there were in the county. They probably numbered in the fifties or the hundreds. He doubted that he would find his killer through the weapon. His visit to the undertaker had been in the hope that all of the ambushing had been done from an elevated height, which would indicate that someone was using a position on one of the buttes, and that could point in the direction of Clell Martin. But he really couldn’t suspect Clell Martin because he didn’t have a solid reason. The Castles continued to be foremost in his mind only for the flimsy reason that he had no one better. And also because Billy Bob and Glenn had not come looking for him last night when the last trooper had been killed, and because the Castles were behind the effort to move the fort.
It was in a thoughtful mood that he went into the barbershop to get a haircut and a shave. It was a three-chair barbershop and there were quite a number of loungers hanging around. After the barber finished trimming Longarm’s hair, he leaned the chair back so that Longarm was lying almost horizontally and began lathering his face for the shave. As he lay there with the barber putting hot towels on to soften his bristly whiskers, he chanced to hear a couple of the loafers laughing about Virgil Castle. He just caught the end of the remark, which sounded like, “and you know that they found that fool running nekkid down the road with a rifle in his hand …” Another voice chimed in to say, “Yeah, I heard about that. You know that the boy gets stranger and stranger every year.”
Longarm suddenly got very curious. He asked the barber, “Who are they talking about?”
The barber was stropping his razor. He turned to Longarm and said, “Oh, one of Vernon Castle’s sons. He ain’t quite right, a little strange.”
Longarm said, “They called him a boy? Is he young?”
The barber answered, “Naw, he’s about twenty-five. He just ain’t ever growed up.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Naw, he just … he just ain’t quite right. That’s about all you can say about him.”
Longarm said, “When was he found wandering down the road with a rifle?”
The barber was busy scraping away at Longarm’s face. He stopped and wiped the razor on the cloth under Longarm’s chin, then asked, “What would be your interest, mister? You a friend of the Castles? You must not be or you’d know who Virgil is.”
Longarm said, “Well, just general interest. I’m a … new in town. If there is someone running around naked carrying a rifle, I guess I’d just kind of like to know about that.”
He said, “The Castles are highly regarded around here. We don’t do much talking about them.”
Longarm asked, “Well, by any chance was it last night that he was found wandering down the road?”
The barber didn’t bother to stop shaving Longarm’s face. To Longarm, it seemed like he dug the razor in a little deeper. The barber said, “Like I said, mister, the Castles are pretty highly regarded hereabouts. We don’t do much talking about them. It ain’t good for business, if you know what I mean.”
“Suit yourself. Really ain’t none of my business anyways. I’ll be riding on in a couple of days.”
“That might not be a bad idea.”
When the barber was finished, Longarm got out of the chair and paid for the shave and the haircut. He put his hat on and carefully looked at the two loafers he had heard talking before walking outside. He stood on the boardwalk for a moment thinking, then as if on sudden impulse, mounted his horse and set off at a good pace for the railroad station and the telegraph office.
What he was going to do was a long shot and not particularly legal. Technically, the action that he was about to take was within his jurisdiction, but it was not the sort of thing that Billy Vail would smile about.
Once at the telegrapher’s office, he wrote out his message, took it over to the operator, and handed it to him silently. He watched the man’s face as he read it. When the man had finished the rather long message, he looked up, startled, at Longarm.
Longarm said evenly, “I’m going to give you some advice, my friend. That message is federal government business. If it goes out of this office … if any word of it comes out of your mouth, even to your grandmother, there is an outstanding chance that you’ll be spending a pretty good chunk of your life at Leavenworth Prison.”