The thing was, the gunman was no stranger to this country. He had known where the trail and the ledge alike would lead and was shrewd enough to figure Longarm for sensible reasoning on the subject. That was exactly why he was able to stay on the ledge and give the slip to his pursuit.
Someone local, right here in town the whole time, had set this whole deal up.
The White Hood warning was a complete hoax, start to finish, just to force the authoritiesLongarm right along with theminto doing exactly what the thief planned. And that was to keep all the payroll and royalty monies in one juicy lump, ripe for the taking, under guard but all together and available to a thief smart enough and brash enoughand vicious enoughto go after it.
Longarm pushed his plate away. His steak was only half eaten, but all of a sudden he was much too wound up to care about food. He dropped a coin onto the table beside his neglected meal and hurried out into the sunlight.
He knew part of it. He was convinced of that now. But he still needed to fill in the rest of the picture.
He thought he had a pretty fair idea of how to go about that.
ChapterThirty-Nine
His first stop was the obvious one. He took the courthouse stairs two at a time. There was a chance, just the barest chance, that under the proper questioning Donald Potter might remember enough to give Longarm a clue to the identity of the thief and murderer of Thunderbird Canyon.
Because Longarm was convinced now that Potter was guilty of nothing more, really, than having been a tool used by the murderer. Potter was hired as window dressing paid a hundred dollars and told to try and sneak out of the canyon by way of the railroad tracks.
When the poor man was caught, as he inevitably would be, the hood in his pocket would prove that the White Hood Gang was behind the explosion and robbery.
And for a while Longarm had bought it, damnit.
No longer. Now Longarm cussed himself for not noticing before that the flour-sack hood taken from Potters pocket still had remnants of wheat flour in the seams, but there was no trace of the substance in the mans hair. Potter had never worn the hood, and in fact had not even known that he was carrying something fashioned into a hood.
If he had noticed that to begin with it would have started the doubts and this train of thought that much earlier, damnit. Being dead beat and dragging was scant excuse for that failure, but there was no point in worrying about it now.
The important thing was that now he could talk to Potter not about the White Hoods and a crime that he had had nothing to do with, but about the things that really might have happened that night.
Longarm was wearing a grim smile when he reached the top floor of the courthouse building and hustled into the jail.
The smile was wiped away by what he found there.
The door to Potters cell stood open, the keys still dangling in the lock. Donald James Potter was there. In the cell. Lying on the hard cot where Longarm had last seen him. The grass-stuffed mattress ticking was a dark and ominous red from drying blood, and the blood covered most of the upper part of Potters body as well.
Longarm cursed bitterly and made sure there was no one else in the place, then entered the cell with regret.
Potter lay on his back with his eyes wide and unseeing. He had been stabbed and slashed repeatedly. One hand was clutching something. Hoping Potter might have grabbed at his attacker and snatched some sort of clue from the killer, Longarm bent to the pale body and pried open the cold, stiff fist.
The only thing Potter had, perhaps the one thing that had given him comfort in his life, was the rose quartz pebble the poor fellow had been so fond of touching and stroking and playing with.
Longarm felt anger rise then.
The poor bastard had been harmless. He probably smiled at the man who murdered him, just as he had smiled at the man who put him behind bars. Donald James Potter had not had the brains or the guile to hate or to fear, either one.
Somehow Longarm found this murder even uglier than those of the innocent men who had died in the explosion at the small bank.
The murder meant, though, that the killer was getting worried. Longarm was still alive, the train remained immobile on the rails, and time was on the side of the law. The killer wanted out, and he was becoming worried about the delays Longarm caused.
Gently Longarm replaced the pink pebble in Donald Potters cold hand, and as gently pulled the dead mans eyelids closed. There was nothing more Longarm could do for Potter, except to find his killer, and unlike Arnold Batson, Custis Long was no stranger to death.
He turned and went back down the steps, although more slowly this time.
No, sir, I havent noticed anybody going up there, the county clerk told him. But then, I mean, I wouldnt. You know? Guys go up an down all day. I dont pay them any mind.
Thanks. It was not a surprising response. It was the same one he had gotten from everyone on the lower floors of the courthouse. No one paid attention to anyone else. Particularly to people they would recognize as familiar faces on the streets of Thunderbird Canyon. And it certainly was no stranger Longarm was looking for here.
He tried the last office in the building with a similar lack of success and then moved outside.
He walked to the bank building. The debris left behind by the explosion Friday night had been cleared away now, leaving only the remnants of the ground flooring and a gaping hold down into the cellar.
The last of the workmen had gone, and the rubble of stone and wood that once had been a building was piled to one side. Some of the timbers and most of the shaped stone building blocks would be useful again. Even as Longarm watched, a man pulled a small wagon close to the trash heap and began picking through the stones, selecting some of the smallest and most uniformly shaped and putting them into the wagon for his own purposes.
You couldnt tell me where the workmen have gone, could you? Longarm asked.
Not really, but I hear that most of the work was done by a crew from the Tyler. You could ask up there.
All right, thanks.
It was a long climb to the Tyler mine, and Longarm was puffing by the time he got there.
The man who had been in charge of the rescue and clearing efforts was a shift foreman named Simmonds. Longarm found him in the small boardinghouse reserved for security and management people. Longarm hoped Simmonds was off duty because by midafternoon he had already been drinking heavily.
Longarm introduced himself and explained what he needed to know. I was hoping you might have found something that would help, he said.
Simmonds grunted and reached for a refill, not bothering to offer a drink. From the way the foreman was going at it, Longarm suspected Simmonds did not want to let any of that bottleor possibly the next one eitherescape him.
Ill tell you wha we foun, Simmonds said in a slurred voice. A stinkin mess is wha we found. He grimaced and took another drink. Wasnt nobody lef alive in there. Couldna been. His face twisted and he looked like he might weep at the memory of the things he had seen in the remains of the bank building.
How many Longarm began, but Simmonds cut him off.
I dont know. Jesus God, man, thas the thing. We don even know fer sure how many died. They was
they was tore up so awful
we think
we think theres six dead. But Jesus God, we aint even fer sure about that. It could
it could be five. Could be seven. We aint even sure about that. He reached for the bottle again.
You didnt find any money, though? There was nothing in the vault when you got to it?
That was one of the things that was tugging at Longarms instincts now. The payroll money, more than $70,000 and all of it in minted gold coin, was one hell of a bulky, weighty haul. It would take either time or a great deal of manpower for someone to move it.