Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

Longarm smiled and squeezed the man’s shoulder. “You’re probably too young to’ve been in the war, but I know a lot of soldiers then got so shook up in the fighting that they never fired at all, or if they did just shot into the air. Why, they used to go out on the battlefields when everything was over and recover all the rifles that’d been dropped. They tell that a lot of them, not just a few, but an awful lot of them, would be full to the muzzle with unfired charges. The soldiers would be so excited they’d never remember to pull their triggers. They’d load, throw the guns to their shoulders, then take them down and load again without ever shooting. Or they might shoot off the first round an‘ then never remember to load again during a whole battle. Yet they’d go right on fighting, and if you asked them afterward they’d honestly believe they’d been shooting the whole time. They really never knew different. Believe me, you boys did just fine.”

“You really mean that, Marshal?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Thanks. I guess. But let me tell you, Marshal, this business of shooting people just ain’t for me. I

I got sick afterward. It isn’t something I’d ever want to do again. I just don’t know that I could. For sure not as a regular thing.”

“Killing is ugly, Arnold. Sometimes, though, it’s necessary. You boys did the right thing.”

Lordy, how long had it been since he got sick after having to shoot someone? Too long, that was how long it had been. In a way, that was a damned shame. He didn’t want to take human life lightly, damnit.

But the fact was that seeing men die, and taking lives, became easier with experience. In a manner of speaking, Longarm actually envied Arnold Batson his innocence and his reverence for life. When the time had come, though, Batson had done what he had to do. And perhaps that more than anything else was the measure of a good man.

Batson brightened a little. “We brought the money back, Marshal. I think we got all of it. It counts up to near sixteen thousand.” He smiled a little. “Even when he was trying to bribe us, the son of a bitch was holding back plenty for himself.”

Longarm laughed. Greed was something a man could count on, by damn. It was seldom possible to overestimate the power of greed in a man. Even when he was faced with the end like a rat caught in a corner and was bargaining for his life, Paul Markham stayed greedy.

On the other hand, Arnold Batson and his boys hadn’t been swayed by the offer of a bribe of $11,000, and they wouldn’t have been any more tempted by $16,000, Longarm felt sure. Some men are just plain straight and decent, and that was a good thing to remember.

Batson could have tried to pretend that Markham was empty-handed when he was caught—which Longarm would not have believed, but Batson would not have known that—or could have kept most of the money and turned in a few thousand.

Longarm had no doubt at all, though, that the men were proud to turn over every penny they recovered. What it came down to, he supposed, was that their pride and self worth were more valuable to them than $16,000. And there probably wasn’t one of them who would ever see more than $50 per month pay in their entire lives. There were some real assholes in Thunderbird Canyon. But there were also some mighty fine people here, and Longarm was facing three of them.

“We’d‘ve been back sooner,” Batson was saying, “except for having to chase down some of that currency from outa the rocks and then having so much trouble getting the litter fixed up and hauling the, uh, the body back down.”

“Nobody could’ve done any better than you did,” Longarm said. “If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d take Markham’s body the rest of the way down to the icehouse, and then you can meet me at the hotel. I think the government owes you the best steak in town at the least. I’d be proud to set it up for you.”

“Thanks, Marshal, but if it’s all the same t‘ you, sir, what I want more’n anything right now is to go home an’ take a hot bath and a shave an‘ just

be by myself a while. We talked about that some. I think Lew and Johnny feel the same way. We don’t want nothing out o’ this but to try and forget it ever happened. If you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

“Mind? No, I certainly don’t mind. You have my thanks, though, if that’s all you will accept. Maybe later we can get those steaks.”

“Yes, sir,” Batson said politely. Somehow, though, Longarm knew there would not be a later. These boys were heartsick over having killed someone, even a shit like Paul Markham who was trying to kill them, and what they genuinely wanted now was to put the experience behind them and resume lives just as dull and ordinary as possible.

The three of them picked up Markham’s body and struggled off toward the icehouse with it, and Longarm turned away. They were good men, he reflected.

And that was one problem that was off his back now. Paul Markham and Jessie were both dead now, and there would be no case to take before a federal judge on behalf of those Mexican girls waiting uncertain of their own futures at the whorehouse.

It occurred to him that something would have to be done with the money Batson had recovered from Markham. It belonged to no one, really. Longarm smiled and thought again about the captive, unwilling whores. He suspected he would be able to find something to do with that cash. Meanwhile, he still had to do something about the White Hoods.

As he walked back toward the hotel and a belated lunch, though, for some reason he kept thinking about Paul Markham and his capture. There was something in that that was nagging at him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. Oddly enough, he had the impression that it had little or nothing to do with Markham and Jessie. But he just couldn’t quite drag it out to where he could look at it. He chewed on the thought while he walked.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Longarm jerked upright in his chair and slapped his fork down beside his plate.

“Of course, damnit,” he said aloud. “But who?”

He laughed, the sound abrupt and loud in the near silence of the restaurant.

Two men having a late lunch at the next table gave him a look that said they thought he was daft, but Longarm didn’t care at all.

That was what had been gnawing at him ever since Arnold Batson told him about running Markham to ground.

It all fit now.

The failure of the White Hoods to show on Friday afternoon.

The explosion in the bank.

The fact that no one but poor, half-witted Donald Potter tried to leave town Saturday morning.

Even, by damn, the flour-sack hood found in Potter’s pocket.

Longarm smiled to himself, thinking about the way Potter had had no idea that the flour sack even was a hood. When Longarm handed the article to him, Potter took it and used it to wrap around the coins for safekeeping.

That was the whole bugaboo with this search for the White Hood Gang. There were no White Hoods! Not, at least, in Thunderbird Canyon.

His thoughts were coming together now, and Longarm was becoming excited at the process of discovery.

The ambusher who had tried to kill him the other night

No wonder the man wanted Longarm out of the way. He desperately needed to get the train running again. So he could make his escape with the stolen payroll money. Hell yes, he did. With the train running—whether Longarm was alive or dead—the law would be looking for strangers trying to escape in hiding. But the man who planned the payroll robbery would be a familiar face, right there in plain sight among people who thought he was a decent member of a decent community. The son of a bitch would be able to board the train and wander off to Meade Park in full view of everyone. No one would be inspecting baggage for the stolen money. They would all be looking for the sinister and unfamiliar members of the White Hood Gang.

Longarm almost admired the simplicity of it.

And when Longarm thought the man was trapped on the mountainside following the attack out of the night, he had been right about thinking a stranger to the country would follow a game trail before a ledge.