So far so accurate.
The Overland Trail, like a lot of stagecoach trails, had more or less died with the coming of the Iron Horse. Rails now ran along parts of it. Other parts were still used as wagon traces by local traffic. Some had just been allowed to go back to seed, mostly tumbleweed. The old Overland Trail didn’t interest Longarm as much as the wild-eyed rascals who’d haunted it back in the transcontinental stagecoach era, and as he read the book, he had to allow the writer had tried to get some of the facts Longarm already knew right. So it was safe to assume some of the things Longarm didn’t know could be based on yarns still fresh at the time of publication.
Trying to make old Black Jack out a misunderstood Robin Hood was silly, of course. Slade had started out decent enough with an honorable discharge after the Mexican War and had been hired as a supervisor by the Central Overland California & Pikes Peak Express Company, posted at Julesburg, where the stage lines forked to serve both the older mining camps out California way and the new Colorado strikes between Pikes Peak and Cherry Creek, as Denver had been called at the time. So he’d had a good job, had he had sense to behave right. Suffering snakes! His name had not started out as Black Jack. He’d been hired as Joseph Slade by Overland, and it was no wonder a half-cracked little bookworm had been struck by the fact they were both baptized the very same way!
Longarm read on about the Terror of the Overland Trail, and old Black Jack Slade had surely been that. He began his job for Overland by commencing to fuss with a French-Canadian fellow supervisor named Belle. The book said Belle was a dishonest employee who’d been robbing the company. It was a mite late to ask why Overland hadn’t just fired Belle, in that case. The mutual admiration between Slade and Belle had been settled by Belle shooting Slade first, a lot, making the mistake of leaving Slade alive, and winding up with his tanned ear dangling from old Black Jack’s watch chain.
Most gents would have stopped right there. Having established his rep as a mighty grim man to cross, Black Jack took to scaring folk just for practice. Within three years he was getting too famous to stay alive much longer in Julesburg, so he’d crossed into Montana with a Colorado warrant out on him.
He and his long-suffering wife settled down in Montana to raise cows and hell. There was no mention of them having any kids, so there went any hope of the latter-day Slade having any basis for his delusion. The original Black Jack hailed from Illinois, not Ohio. No matter how the writer tried to justify the original model as a misunderstood hero, Longarm could see he should have stayed in Julesburg, where at least folk were scared of him. Acting crazy-mean hadn’t worked so good in the Montana mining country around Virginia City. The local vigilance committee advised Black Jack politely to saddle up and ride far. He took this as an invitation to indulge in a week-long drunk and shooting spree the vigilantes didn’t find half as amusing. So they found a rope and a handy beef-loading scaffold in the Virginia City yards and hung him up to cool considerable. The sad tale ended with old Black Jack buried in Salt Lake City, Utah. The reasons given made no sense at all to Longarm. But then, nothing either Black Jack Slade had done made much sense.
He was going over that part again, sure it had to be a mistake, when two mistakes took place in the here and now in rapid succession. The homely Mex gal at the bar stepped away from it for another try at his virtue just as someone who had to like him less fired at Longarm through the window from outside.
The gal and a lot of busted glass went down as Longarm leaped up, gun in hand, to fire back as he charged. The sill of the shattered window stood two feet above the floor. Longarm leaped over it to land with both boot heels on something softer than he’d expected Larimer to be paved with. He fired straight down as he bounced off and put another round in the son of a bitch for good measure. Then he saw he was wasting ammunition and hunkered down by a watering trough to reload as he swept the rapidly clearing street with his narrowed eyes. He saw that nobody else seemed to want any part of the action. The only possible targets headed his way were waving police nightsticks, so he got to his feet and holstered his gun before they could make any mistakes about him.
One of the local lawmen shouted, “What’s this all about, cowboy? Oh, it’s you, Longarm. We might have known. Do you always have to act like it’s the Fourth of July?”
Longarm pointed at the body stretched out on the walk between them and said, “It was his grand notion, not mine. Hold the fort. There’s another one down inside.”
He ran back into the saloon. The only soul in sight was the Mex gal on the floor. He bent to help her. She was smiling up at him sort of confused, but he knew she wasn’t really seeing anything. He closed her eyes with gentle fingers and lowered her head back to the floor.
As he got back to his feet one of the copper badges came in to say, “It sure is easy to draw a crowd in this part of town, but my pard can no doubt keep anyone from stealing that other gent’s boots before the meat wagon shows up. Oh, I see you shot old Mexican Martha as well. Any particular reason, Longarm?”
Longarm said, “I didn’t know her. She was trying to know me better and got in the line of fire. She took a round meant for me, and I ought to be stood in the corner for sitting in view from the street outside after dark.”
As they moved back toward the open entrance, the barkeep rose from behind his bar to ask who was going to pay for his front window. Neither lawman answered. The Denver officer said, “He must have wanted you bad. Was he the killer they told us you all were looking for? No offense, but he don’t fit the description too good.”
Longarm stared morosely down at the taller, older man dressed in faded denim. “His name was Edward Morrison. They called him Texas Teddy. I put him away some years ago for stealing army supplies. He swore at the time he’d pay me back, and I reckon he must have meant it.”
One of the copper badges said, “He should have quit whilst he was ahead. One can see by his prison pallor that he ain’t been out long. Now he’s going to serve even more time, underground. Do you reckon he’s the one as fired on you earlier today? We heard about that, coming on duty just a while ago. The duty sergeant told us to watch for that bitty gent in goat-hair chaps, though.”
Longarm said, “I was watching for him, too. That’s why I thought it safe to let my guard down on a well-lit street, if I was thinking at all, cuss my careless brains.”
“You know, of course, that the county coroner will expect even a gent like you to show up for the hearing, don’t you?” one of the officers asked.
Longarm nodded. “My office is my mailing address, and you got it on file,” he told them. “I wish real life worked the way it does in penny-dreadful shootouts. I hate it when they ask so many dumb questions.”
“You think you got troubles, Longarm. We have to fill out all sorts of papers every time we bring in anybody.”
Longarm grimaced and went back inside. The scene was the same. He Put money on the bar and told the barkeep, “I want you to use this to see she’s buried decent. I can’t afford nothing fancy, but she deserves better than a scrap of canvas and a hole in potter’s field, see?”
The barkeep scooped up the gold coins and said, “I know an old Mex who’ll build a pine box and work something out with the sexton at the church of Santa Catalina across the creek. What the priest don’t know about old Martha won’t hurt him. But who’s going to pay for my front window?”
“I didn’t bust it. But I will, after I see you haven’t played me and this lady false. Make sure every dime I just gave you is spent honest on her burial and come next payday I’ll be by to talk about your glass. But if I find out she wound up in potter’s field—and I can, easy—you can commend your soul to Jesus, for your ass and everything else in here will be busted up by me.”