Longarm insisted, “None of us were there. Slade did live through a fusillade of pistol shots and shotgun blasts that time, and old Roy Bean down on the Pecos is always bragging about the time he got strung up by vigilantes and survived.”
Vail snorted in disgust. “That old windbag couldn’t tell the truth if it was in his favor. He don’t like to admit his stiff neck is from old age, so he made up a whopper to excuse it. I have never seen such a country for whopping, and I been out here all my life.”
Longarm nodded. “That’s my point. Black Jack Junior is living a tall tale. It’s like them other lunatics who insist they are the one and original Napoleon, even if they can’t speak a word of French or tell you where Waterloo might be. To track the rascal down, I have to know what he thinks his new self did in the past or might do in the future. So when I hand in my expenses on this case, I don’t want you fussing me about all the Wild West magazines you may find charged to the Department.”
Vail scowled and growled, “The hell you say. I have to justify such purchases to the accounting office.”
“I’ll put down five to fifty cents for an item called research material and it’ll be our little secret,” Longarm insisted. “I know he’s packing at least one magazine I ain’t come across yet, because there was nothing in that sheet music or the old account I found this evening about the time Black Jack shot up Fort Halleck. I only remembered, after his young namesake done it, that I’d heard the tale one time as I was waiting to change trains up that way. If I could come by the exact issue he seems to be following, I’d be in a position to head him off instead of just waiting to learn what he’d done next, see?”
Vail did, but he had to say, “I’m sorry I didn’t stick to my original disinclination and let the infernal army track him.”
“Do you really think old Colonel Walthers could do it, boss?”
“That puffed up blue-belly couldn’t track anything. I told you I wanted you to bring in that young killer, not to keep me up past my bedtime discussing his mental state. So get out of here and let me get to bed. Just thinking about you and that handsome young widow woman down the avenue has suddenly inspired me to turn in early, if I can inspire anyone else around here to forget about darning my socks. I can’t think of anything less interesting than darning socks. So let’s both call it a day hear?”
Longarm had more than one good reason not to take Billy Vail’s indelicate suggestion about the young widow woman just down Sherman Avenue. It was tempting, despite his earlier music lesson, but he knew she’d start by fussing at him for showing up on her doorstep so late, and he’d have a hell of a time getting any sleep before he’d convinced her that, no, he wasn’t using her as any port in a storm after another and no doubt younger gal had turned him down. He was really tired, and he had an early train to catch. So he headed for his own furnished digs, closer to the Union Depot. He chuckled fondly as he recalled the time he’d told the widow woman his landlady was the only true port in the storm he ever took advantage of. For she’d almost brained him with a chamber pot before he convinced her his landlady was older than both of them put together.
He chuckled some more as he strode down the steep slope to Lincoln, digging in his boot heels to keep from getting there faster than he wanted to. He knew that if he cut to his right and kept following Lincoln it would take him to the scene of an ugly shootout and the pretty Flora Banes. He wondered why such a notion had crossed his mind as he kept going straight. He’d just told himself a few hours in bed alone wouldn’t hurt too bad, and if there was one pretty gal in town he’d have a time bedding down with it had to be Flora Banes. For no matter how she might feel about her baby brother, she could hardly be panting with desire for any lawman out to bring the mean little cuss to justice. The house would no doubt be staked out by other lawmen by now, in any case. Flora’s brother sure knew how to make himself popular.
He crossed Broadway and strode through the shabbier, less well-lamped wedge of small businesses and low-rent housing beyond, until he got to Cherry Creek. There was a plank bridge about a quarter of a mile out of his way, but in high summer Cherry Creek ran so dry that one could ford it dry-shod by hopping from one sandbar to another. The school-kids of Denver did it all the time for fun. It was considered sissy for a kid to take off his or her shoes or socks, and dangerous to step in any of the places water ran mere inches deep. For it was widely accepted that the wide but almost dry watercourse was filled with quicksand, as well as placer-gold, of course.
The moon was high. Longarm made it across as good as any ten-year-old could have, and followed a cinder path to his rooming house.
No lights were showing in the front windows. He wasn’t surprised. His old landlady could spy on the world late at night better with her bedroom lamp out and her lace curtains closed. He waved up at her, anyway, and let himself in. He went upstairs to his own corner room and felt automatically for the match stem that should have been wedged into the jamb above the top hinge.
It wasn’t there. A man had to stop and study on a thing like that. It wasn’t cleaning day and, in any case, he’d trained the cleaning girl to put that match stem back in place after she’d dusted his seldom-used room once or twice a week. For there’d have been no sense in taking the precaution if it hadn’t been meant to inform him that someone had opened his door without his invitation.
The late Texas Teddy hadn’t been the only moody gent an ace deputy marshal had annoyed in six or eight years riding for the Justice Department. While Black Jack Junior had to be a good hundred and fifty miles to the northeast this evening, Longarm still drew his.44-40, took a deep breath, and busted in low and crabbing to one side, ready for almost anything but what was seated on his bed with the lamp lit.
Flora Banes gasped and jumped up as Longarm rose, gun muzzle more polite, to say, “Howdy, ma’am. Don’t ever do that again.”
“Your landlady said she didn’t think you’d mind if I waited for you up here, sir.”
He holstered his gun. “Call me Custis. I mean to call her something even sillier the next time I see her. But, as we both seem to have survived, what can I do for you, Miss Flora?”
“My house is infested with army agents, including a horrid man they call Colonel Walthers. I think they expect my poor brother to return despite all the trouble he’s in,” she told him.
Longarm took off his hat and hung up his coat. “I know Walthers. You’re right about him being horrid, but fair is fair, and your kid brother did run for home aboard a stolen horse after he’d given the army his home address. You’d be amazed how often deserters do that. I know I am. But nine out of ten young jumpers who go over the hill head right for the home they put down on their enlistment papers. We just got word that your brother has been mean to the army some more. I can’t say Walthers is a total fool if he means to wait and see where the kid runs to now. You still ain’t told me why you ran here, Miss Flora.”
She said, “I heard the soldiers talking about some army post up north they think Joseph just misbehaved on.”
“We don’t think it, ma’am. How many short gents in goat-hair chaps could be running about claiming to be Black Jack Slade in the flesh, even in the wildest West?”
She sighed and said, “I know. I hate to admit it, but that does sound like my poor sick brother. The soldiers said something about sending someone up there in the morning. I thought you might be heading that way, too.”
He nodded. “I have to. It’s my job. So, if you came to talk me out of it, I just can’t oblige you, much as I’d like to.”
“I know you have your job to do. But you’re not like the others. You seem more gentle and understanding. I fear that should anyone else find Joseph first they may hurt him.”