LONGARM AND THE SILVER MINE MARAUDERS
By
Tabor Evans
Jove Books
New York
Copyright (C) 1995 by
Jove Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. ISBN: 0-515-11612-2 Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc. A Jove Book published by arrangement with the author Printing history Jove edition May 1995 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
DON’T MISS THESE
ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES
FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts
Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith. LONGARM by Tabor Evans
The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice. LONE STAR by Wesley Ellis
The blazing adventures of Jessica Starbuck and the martial arts master, Ki. Over eight million copies in print. SLOCUM by Jake Logan
Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
Chapter 1
Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long was doing something he very seldom had the chance to do. He was doing nothing and taking quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. At that moment, he was lying on the bed in his room at the Grand Hotel in Taos, New Mexico, on a leave of absence, reflecting on the fact that he was in a hotel that had burdened itself with a name it couldn’t possibly live up to.
But then Longarm really didn’t care. It was late spring, the weather pleasantly warm during the day, the nights velvet with just a touch of ice for variety to make for good sleeping. He was taking a month of leave, something he did so seldom that he couldn’t remember the last real rest he’d had. Normally his boss, Billy Vail, chief marshal in the Denver, Colorado, headquarters, was able to persuade Longarm to do “just one more job” before any kind of leave. In fact, Longarm had known years to go by that way.
But, after a particularly rough winter job in the mountains around Durango, Colorado, where he had come as close to freezing to death as he had ever expected to do, Longarm had marched into Billy’s office and announced that he was taking time off he was due and that Billy and the marshals service could be hanged for all he cared.
Surprisingly, Billy had given in with barely a whimper. In fact, he’d had the gall to say solicitously, “Well, Custis, I think it’s about time that you took a leave. My God, a man can only do so much. You know, you ain’t getting any younger, Custis, and you have to look out for yourself. You’ve been pushing yourself way too hard lately.”
Longarm had stood there staring at Billy Vail. He’d been flabbergasted at the old hypocrite. So flabbergasted that he’d been unable to reply in kind with the same degree of hypocrisy. Instead, Longarm had said, “Consider me gone.” He’d turned on his heels and walked out of the office to leave word where his mail and any messages could be forwarded and where he could be reached in case of an emergency.
He’d also told the clerk at the administration office that it had better be a damn large emergency before anybody tried to reach him. He’d said, “The first time anybody puts out a hand toward me, they’re liable to draw it back missing a few fingers.”
He’d chosen Taos because it had warmer weather, there were some serious poker players in the town, there was horse racing, and there was always an excellent chance for female companionship of the willing persuasion. He liked the Grand Hotel because of the big thick adobe brick walls. It was cool in the day, and they gave you plenty of blankets at night. The food in the dining room was good and they had a first-class saloon where well-heeled poker players tended to show up. Longarm liked the town. It was old, and it had once been the site of the headquarters of the Taos Indian tribe, but they had long been scattered like most of the New Mexico cave-dwelling Indians. Taos itself sat down in a little valley, surrounded by some fair hills and mountains. Now it was greening up, and would be ripe and lush within another couple of weeks. Longarm had every intention of spending his thirty-day leave without ever getting astride a horse to go anywhere at all, except to the fairgrounds near the edge of town to watch the horse racing and maybe bet a few dollars.
Longarm had been there a week and was utterly content with life. He lay on the bed now with only his jeans on. He wasn’t a man who much cared for underwear except in the coldest of weather. He was of the opinion that it slowed a man down if a willing woman came along. Now it was a comfort to laze around without a care in the world, to take a delicate sip of the Maryland whiskey that he preferred—of which he had brought a fair supply—to eat when he felt like it, to get plenty of sleep, and to let the world look after itself for a change.
No one, except for his boss, called him Custis. Most people knew him by his nickname, Longarm. He had gotten that because of a combination of his last name, Long, and the fact that Billy Vail delighted in sending him to hell and back after whatever criminal or desperado Billy decided needed apprehending the most at any particular time. Hence had come Longarm, the long arm of the law. He didn’t much care for it himself, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it, so he generally answered to it when he was called.
Looking at him, you would say he was of an indeterminate age. His weathered face was marked by cold winds and hot summers, sandstorms and blizzards, and lined with worry and concern and fatigue and desperation. It could have been the face of a man at least forty, but his strong muscular body with his big arms, shoulders, and hands was more like that of someone in their thirties. He was about six feet tall, although he wasn’t sure exactly because he had never taken the trouble to measure himself. He weighed, depending on how he had been eating, somewhere around 190 pounds. He had a friendly face and hazel blue eyes that could go agate-hard on certain occasions.
Longarm was a deputy United States marshal, both by vocation and by conviction. He was a sincerely honest man who cared about his neighbor and who did not at all care for people who broke the law or who would harm those weaker than themselves. He was relentless in pursuit, merciless in a fight, and never willing to concede defeat so long as he was still breathing. Criminals and bandits and desperados knew him from the badlands of Kansas to the Mexican border in Texas, in Arkansas and Louisiana in the east, and in Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada in the west. There was nowhere he would not pursue wrongdoers, and once on that trail he would not stop until justice, in whatever form it took, had been done. He had fears, he was mortal, but they never showed. They only took their toll inside. Longarm was a man who, in the right circumstances, laughed easily, liked a good time, loved women, liked to gamble, loved to trade horses. But he loved his job more than anything else.
But sometimes he had to have a rest, and this was one of those times. It was with luxurious delight that he contemplated three more weeks of lying around, drinking and gambling, and satisfying to the best of his ability whatever female companionship chance might throw his way.
He sat up on the side of the bed, deciding that it was time for an afternoon drink. He poured out three fingers of the Maryland whiskey into a mostly clean glass, and was on the point of sipping it when there came a light rapping at his door.