Longarm got to his feet to follow as she rose and moved back to her own seat for their luggage, with little Cedric in her wake between them. Longarm noticed that she had a nice, trim waistline too. If only she didn’t have that ugly little kid with her… Under his breath, he muttered to himself, “Now just you back off, old son! They didn’t send us up here to spark a widow woman, ugly kid or no! How are you going to get them, their luggage and your own mount and gear unloaded without losing more’n half of it? Damn that prissy kid. What’s he gotten you into, anyway? Don’t you know better than to talk to strangers on a train?”
CHAPTER 3
The hotel in Bitter Creek wasn’t much, but it was the only one they had. After checking the widow and her son into one room and himself into another, and ignoring the leer in the old desk-clerks eye, Longarm went out, leaving her and the boy at the hotel and his army bay in the livery stable next door.
It was still early evening and the streets of Bitter Creek were crowded, not because there were a lot of people in town but because the town was so small. Nobody around the hotel had ever heard of the Widow Hanks or her in-laws at Crooked Lance. It was hard enough to find someone who’d admit there might be a place called Crooked Lance, “a day or so up yonder.” That wasn’t much help.
Longarm strode down the plank walks until he came to the town marshal’s office and went in. The deputy he found seated at a packing-crate desk seemed impressed by his federal badge and willing to help. So Longarm hooked his rump over the corner of the improvised desk and asked where in thunder Crooked Lance might be, adding, “This place I’m looking for is downright spooky, Deputy! You tell me it’s been shifted again…”
“Hell, we got it on a map over on the wall, Deputy Long. You wouldn’t be the one they call Longarm, would you?”
“You can call me that. You can call me anything but late for breakfast if you’ll answer some questions.”
“I figured you was Longarm. That Jasper they’re holding up in Crooked Lance must be somebody important, huh?”
“You know about Cotton Younger up in the Crooked Lance jail?”
“Sure. All sorts of people have been coming through here looking for him. I’ve been showing ‘em the same map you see on yonder wall. Seems like a lot of fuss and feathers over a cow thief, if you ask me!”
“Did another Deputy U.S. Marshal pass this way, asking for directions to wherever?”
“Sure, couple of weeks back. You looking for him, too?”
“Maybe. Was his name Kincaid?”
“Yep, now that you mention it, that’s who I think he said he was.”
“All right. We know Kincaid got as far as here and was last seen headed up to Crooked Lance. Who were these others you say were interested in that old boy they have up there?”
The deputy considered before he replied, “Don’t remember the names. There was a feller from the Provost Marshal’s Office, War Department, I think he said he rode for. Then there was this lawman from Missouri, county sheriff I think. Oh, yeah, and there was one real funny lookin’ jasper in the damndest looking outfit you ever saw. Had on a red jacket. I mean blinding red! Ain’t that a bitch?”
“Northwest Mounted Police!”
“Don’t think so. He said he was from Canada. what in hell did that poor cow thief up there do?”
“Enough to get a lot of folks riled at him. Funny nobody seems to have gotten to him, though! Tell me what you know about Crooked Lance.”
The other lawman shrugged and said, “Ain’t much to tell. Just a two-bit crossroads. Ain’t hardly a proper town, like Bitter Creek.”
“It’s my understanding this Cotton Younger’s being held by a vigilance committee. How does your boss feel about vigilantes operating in his neck of the woods?”
“Don’t make no nevermind to us. Crooked Lance is a long, hard ride from here. Besides, they ain’t what you’d call mean vigilantes. Just some old boys who keep an eye out for road agents, cow thieves, and such. They’ve never given folks hereabouts no trouble.”
“Do you know who runs things up there?”
“Hell, nobody runs Crooked Lance. It’s just a wide spot in the road. There’s a post office and the storekeeper tends the wire for Western Union, when the line’s up. There’s no schoolhouse, no city hall or nothing. It’s just sort of where the stockmen shop a mite and get together to spit and whittle of a quiet afternoon.”
“How come it rates a telegraph office, then?”
“That’s easy. The stockmen have to keep in touch about the price of beef. They ship beef here at Bitter Creek, but they have to know when to herd it down out of the high country.”
“Makes sense. Got any ideas on why that wire’s down?”
“Ain’t got idea one. Some fellers from Western Union rode out a few days ago to fix it. Next night it went out again. Likely high winds. This whole country’s halfwaY to heaven, you know. Hardly a month goes by without at least some snow in the high parts hereabouts.”
“Been having summer blizzards this year?”
“No, not real blizzards. But, as you’ll likely see when YOu study yonder map, there’s some rough country between here and Crooked Lance. Wire could get blowed out a dozen ways in as many stretches of the trail. The valley Crooked Lance sets in is lower and warmer, half the year. But it’s sort of cut off when the weather turns ornery.”
“Telegraph office open here in Bitter Creek?”
“Should be. Doubt you’ll get through to Crooked Lance, though. Feller I know with Western Union says they’ve given up for now. Said they’d wait ‘til the company decides on a full reconstruction job. Figures they’re wasting money fixing a line strung on old poles through such wild country. Said they’d likely get around to it next year or so.”
“I’ll get Western Union’s story. later. You know any names to go with the folks up in Crooked Lance?”
“Let’s see, there’s the Lazy K, the Rocking H, the Seven Bar Seven…”
“Damn it, I ain’t going up there to talk to cows! Who in thunder owns them spreads up there?”
“Folks back east, mostly. The town’s hardly there to mention, but the outfits are big whopping spreads, mostly owned by cattle syndicates from Chicago, Omaha, New York City, and such. I understand the Lazy K belongs to some fellers in Scotland. Ain’t that a bitch?”
“I know about the cattle boom. Let’s try it another way. You say they ship the beef from here. Don’t somebody drive them herds to Bitter Creek?”
“Well, sure. Once, twice a year they run a consolidated herd over the passes to our railroad yards. The buyers from the eastern meat packers bid on ‘em as they’re sorted and tallied in the yards. Easier to cut a herd amongst corrals and loading chutes, so…”
“I know how to tally cows, damn it. Don’t any of the Crooked Lance riders have names?”
“Reckon so. Most folks do. Only one springs to mind is the one they call Timberline. He’s the tally boss. I disremember what the others are called. They mostly go by Billy, Jim, Tex and such.”
“Tally boss is usually a pretty big man in the neighborhood, since the others have to elect him. You know this Timberline’s last name?”
“Nope. But you’re right about him being big. Old Timberline’s nigh seven feet tall in his Justins. Seems to be a good-natured cuss, though. The others hoorah him about having snow on his peak, ask him how the weather is up yonder around his nose and stuff like that, but Timberline never gets testy.”
“But he’s in charge when the Crooked Lance hands are in town?”
“If anybody is, it’s him. He’s the ramrod of the Rocking H, now that I think on it. I think it was Rocking H hands who caught that cow thief of yours.” He paused to think, then nodded, and added, “Yep, it’s comin’ back to me now. They found him holed up in the timber with a running iron on him. Dragged him into town for a necktie party, only some of the folks up there said it wasn’t right to hang a stranger without a trial. From there on you know as much as myself.”