"What has that silly young Vigdis got that I haven't got?" the visibly upset Ilsa asked.
It would have been needlessly cruel to tell her. So Longarm said, "We were talking about Helga Runeberg, and you have my word she don't like me at all. I just crawfished my way out of a fight with her and a bunch of her riders. They all seemed to feel I should have let an Indian who rode with them pepper my hide with number-nine buck." lisa said she knew all about Longarm's rough ways with both her sex and his own, adding, "It's about time some girl said no to you. You're too smug about your looks by hill!"
Longarm shrugged and just let her fuss a spell as they rode side by side along the cottonwood-shaded back street. When he saw a chance to slip some words in sideways, he said, "I know I ought to be hung as a menace to womankind, Miss Ilsa. Meanwhile, I'm still a lawman, and I keep feeling I've seen that surly little face of Helga Runeberg's at some other time and place, mayhaps on somebody else. Somebody told me she had a kid sister. What about brothers or other immediate kin that might have the same distinctive eyes and nose?"
The older county resident thought, shook her head, and decided he couldn't have ever met Helga's father or real uncle, Jarl, both of whom had died years before. She added, "The last I heard of the younger Runeberg girl, Margaret, she'd run off to Chicago with a cattle buyer. Somebody told us later they'd really gotten married and settled down fairly well off."
Longarm thought, then said, "I've been to Chicago Town more than once. But I reckon I'd recall any Swedish gals married up with either crooked or half-ways honest cattle buyers. There's no such thing as a totally honest cattle buyer."
Thinking of Chicago Town and the meat-packing trade made Longarm think of another widow woman, the younger and even prettier Kim Stover, who'd met up with him there, sort of like this afternoon, after they'd agreed to part friends out Wyoming way. A man could sure raise himself an erection astride a split-seat saddle, thinking about women whether he'd ever split their seat or not.
Then lisa coyly murmured that she had to turn off at the next cross street, but that she'd baked another pie and she could save some for him if he'd like to come calling after dark, well after dark, by way of her alley gate.
It was tempting in more ways than one. If the gossips up that other alley knew about him and old Viggy, it made no never-mind who he called on after dark as far as his own reputation went. After that, seeing he had to disappoint one or the other, this older gal doubtless had more delicate feelings, and it was sort of nice to pillow-talk afterwards with somebody who might really care about what you thought about something besides her.
On the other hand, if breaking up with a gal made a man look sort of dumb, breaking up with the same gal a second time made a man feel downright stupid. He was still pissed off at himself about all those tears and recriminations after that day and night in Chicago with good old Kim Stover, after the both of them had just about gotten over an earlier sweet night of madness and some cold gray empty mornings.
So when they came to Ilsa's corner he said he'd study on it, once he carried out some uncertain chores in town. For there was no need to burn a bridge behind him, and another way to feel dumb as hell was to make double certain you'd have no other gal to turn to if something unexpected got a beautiful blonde sore at you.
He left the buckskin, McClellan, and most of his gear at the livery near the river, and legged it back to the center of town with his Winchester and six-gun on foot.
He stopped first at the New Ulm Western Union. It was a tad early to expect answers to anything he'd sent from Sleepy Eye, but they were holding replies to some earlier wires he'd sent from New Ulm.
He put them away and legged it on over to the courthouse, where he found that clerk in the coroner's office had one, but only one, death certificate of any interest to either of them.
As the county man explained, "None of the others on your list seem to have fallen on greater misfortune than needing money at Christmas time. That one old gent who died after drawing out his life savings won't work as a murder victim either. As you can see from all this paperwork, signed by a town constable and half a dozen witnesses as well as his attending physician, old Jacob Thorsson was run over by a brewery dray in front of God and everybody whilst full of the holiday spirits, which would have been pear brandy in Jake's case."
Longarm studied the papers the helpful clerk had dug out of their files as he softly mused, "Gents have been run over deliberately, and this one had just drawn close to ten thousand dollars at his bank to just about clear his account entirely!"
The clerk nodded and said, "I mentioned your notion to my own boss. He'd like to know what ever became of the money too. But the trail is over six months cold, and as you see, old Jake lived long enough to absolve the brewery dray driver, allowing he'd been drunk as a skunk and not paying attention when he stepped off the curb. His dying words were backed by those witnesses interviewed on the spot by the constable. So how might a murderer get a drunk to stagger so conveniently?"
Longarm didn't answer until he'd finished scanning the neatly handwritten doctor's report. Then he sighed and said, "Poor old coot was cold sober when he died seventy-odd hours later, of internal injuries your own autopsy confirmed. So you're right, a man taking more than three painful days to die, with his kith and kin keeping him company, would have surely mentioned it if someone had pushed him in front of that dray. Running over a man with six draft horses and a load of beer seems an awkward means of assassination as well. But ain't it odd nobody seems to have wondered where all that money might have gone?"
The clerk agreed. "He sure as hell never got to spend it, seeing he drew it out of the bank the same day he got run over. Of course, he had time to spend at least some of it, and must have spent enough on brandy to get that drunk before sundown."
Longarm started to ask what time of the day the old man had been run over. Then he saw the town law had reported it as around six P.m., or about the right time for that brewery driver to be pushing for home after his last deliveries of the afternoon.
Longarm decided such details as whether the dray had been carrying full kegs or empties hardly mattered, since busted innards were busted innards and the dead man's missing withdrawal was more mysterious than what read as his fairly obvious cause of death.
Stuffing the new documentation in a hip pocket with those yellow telegram forms, Longarm thanked the helpful coroner's clerk and got on over to the county sheriff's office. He found Sheriff Tegner seated at his desk talking to a stranger dressed about the way they made Longarm and his fellow deputies dress around the Denver District Court. So it came as no great surprise when Sheriff Tegner said, "We were just talking about you, Longarm. Meet Deputy Marshal O'Brian out of your Saint Paul office."
As they shook, O'Brian allowed his friends called him Sean. He and Longarm were about the same age, with O'Brian about two inches shorter and a good bit broader, with big red fists that reminded Longarm of sugar-cured hams sticking out of black broadcloth sleeves. The man from Saint Paul wore his own.44-40 lower and side-draw under his somber frock coat. There was a lot to be said for that rig, if a lawman worked mostly afoot and wanted that extra edge a side-draw might give in an alley fight.
Longarm naturally assumed O'Brian was there about that recorded treasury note and the death of one known member of the gang who'd ridden out of Fort Collins with it.
O'Brian shook his head and replied, "Not exactly. Those stolen notes of noticeable denomination have been turning up all over this county, and I don't see how I could arrest an outlaw you've already put in the ground for us."
Longarm shot a thoughtful glance at Sheriff Tegner, who nodded and said, "Well, sure we let them bury the dead bastard. There was never any mystery about who he was, was there?"