Longarm 242: Red-light (21 page)

Without moving his head, Jessup darted his eyes toward the shotgun, which was leaning against a table a few feet away. Nola saw the look and said, “I wish you wouldn't, Claude. I'll put a bullet through your head before you can ever reach it.”

Jessup sighed. “I made a bad mistake, didn't I?”

“I'm afraid so. Now back up, away from the door.”

With another sigh, Jessup stepped back. Nola followed, keeping the pistol trained on him. Jessup got another surprise when he saw how she was dressed. Three more women whom he recognized from the Silver Slipper crowded into the room behind Nola. All of them were dressed more like cowboys than saloon girls.

“Get the shotgun,” Nola said, and one of the women picked it up. The other two came toward Claude, veering to the sides so they could go around him. One of them was the big blond called Angie, and she was the one who grabbed his arms and jerked them behind his back. She held him while the other one tied him up.

With her foot, Nola pushed a chair over to him. “You might as well sit down, Claude,” she said. “You're going to be here for a while.”

Jessup sank onto the chair, and moving quickly, the women lashed him to it, even tying his ankles to the legs of the chair. “I'm liable to lose my.job because of this,” he said sadly.

“I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. That silver is going with us.”

“What about Marshal Long? Did you kill him?”

Nola looked genuinely offended at the question, and Angie exclaimed, “Of course we didn't kill him! What do you think we are?”

“Thieves,” said Jessup bitterly. “Thieves and whores.”

Nola's lips curved in a thin smile. “That's absolutely right, Claude. But we're not killers. Not unless someone forces us to be.” She holstered her gun now that he was tied securely. “Go ahead and gag him.”

Jessup made it difficult for them, jerking his head from side to side. The way he was tied up, that was the only part of him that could still move. But then Angie grabbed his jaw and held him still while one of the other women forced a gag into his mouth and tied it in place.

“ All right, let's take the silver out the back,” Nola said.

Jessup sat and watched helplessly as they picked up the mailbags and carried them out the rear door of the stage station. They left the door open, letting in cold air and the noises of a team of horses shifting around and stamping their feet. The women had a wagon back there, Jessup realized. They would need a wagon to transport such a heavy load of silver.

Nola stepped back into the building long enough to say, “Goodbye, Claude. I'm sorry we never got the chance to know each other better. You should have spoken up and asked for what you wanted when you came into the Silver Slipper. That's the only way you ever get anything in this world, you know.”

Then she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.

Jessup wasn't sure how long he sat there fuming. Finally, he lifted his gaze to the table where the lamp was still burning. His eyes widened as an idea occurred to him, and he began pushing with his feet, working the chair across the planks of the floor, inch by scraping inch. His bonds were so tight that his progress was maddeningly slow.

But gradually he drew closer and closer to the table. He was taking a chance, but he had to do
something.
If he just sat here and waited for someone to come along and untie him, those women would likely be long gone by the time he was discovered. Bat Thompson would fire him, and he would be a laughingstock.

Jessup wasn't going to let that happen if he could help it. When he was close enough, he tensed his muscles, gathering himself for the effort, and then threw himself forward, chair and all. He slammed into the table and sent it skidding several feet. Jessup toppled to the floor.

The lamp, knocked off the table by the impact, crashed to the floor a second later, shattering. The kerosene in its reservoir splattered and then caught fire. Flames danced up brightly as they started to spread. Jessup scooted as far away from them as he could.

Now, all he could do was hope that someone would spot the flames and come running to put out the fire ... before he burned to death.

Longarm let himself brood, for about five minutes, over what Nola and the others had done to him, then he got busy trying to figure out a way to get loose.

The chain looped around the bedpost would slide up and down a short distance, but the post flared out enough at the top to prevent the chain from coming off of it. The post was all one piece, too, unlike some that screwed down into the bedframe.

If he could get his feet loose, he might be able to twist around and kick the wall until someone came to investigate the noise. That was a possibility worth investigating. He stretched his arms toward his feet, trying to see if he could reach the knots of the ropes around his ankles.

The chain attached to the manacles wouldn't stretch anywhere near far enough, he discovered, and he couldn't draw his legs up and bring his feet closer because of the rope that ran from them to one of the posts at the foot of the bed. With that idea eliminated, he tried to get his hands on the knot at the back of his head so that he could get rid of the gag and start yelling. That didn't work, either. There wasn't quite enough play in the chain, no matter how much he twisted his head and strained. He flopped back on the bed, a little breathless from his efforts.

Nola had planned well. He had known she was intelligent, but he had never expected her to pull something like this. If she could fool Claude Jessup as well as she had fooled him, then the silver was as good as hers. And Longarm had a feeling Jessup would be even less of a match for Nola's cunning than he had been.

When he had recovered a little, he tried a new tack. Longarm grasped what little slack there was in the chain and pulled, lifting himself up off the bed as both the chain and the rope tightened. He only came up an inch or so, but when he took up that slack and pulled again, he rose a little higher. The rope at his feet became even more taut. Slowly, Longarm repeated the process.

This was sort of like how the old
padres
in the Spanish Inquisition had stretched fellas on the rack, he thought as he tried to ignore the pain in his legs and ankles. It was a matter of what was going to give first: the rope, the bedpost ... or his bones and muscles. The rope was a good strong one, and he didn't hold out much hope of it breaking. Those posts at the foot of the bed were thinner than the ones at the head, though. There was a slight chance... not much of one, though ...

But it was the only one he had right now.

The post was flared and curved like the others, and as Longarm heaved on the chain, the rope suddenly slipped upward a little. Only a fraction of an inch, but even that much was a blessed relief. Longarm was hanging between the posts with his weight completely off the bed now, and his arms and shoulders were beginning to ache and burn like fire. His side hurt, too, and he thought he felt a trickle of wetness underneath the bandages. The bullet wound had probably broken open again.

Longarm jerked with his feet, trying to slide the knotted rope farther up the post. The higher the rope was, the better the chance he could break the post. He knew that much about forces and angles, even though he didn't have an engineering degree like that El Aguila fella he knew down in Texas who rode for the Rangers. He pulled on the chain and lifted himself again, then began trying to draw his legs up. The first effort didn't accomplish anything except to send fresh stabs of pain shooting through him.

Catch your breath and try again, old son.
He repeated that litany to himself over and over as he strained against the rope. Finally, after God only knew how many tries he had made, Longarm was rewarded with a faint cracking sound. Encouraged, he tightened his grip on the chain and pulled again with his legs, and again he heard the cracking noise.

That was either the bedpost or his leg bones. At the moment, Longarm didn't really want to know which. He pulled again.

The bedpost snapped.

The sudden loss of tension dropped Longarm back on the bed. He yelled against the gag as pain coursed through him, not only from his side but also from his legs and arms and shoulders. The strain on his entire body had been terrific, and not very many men could have done such a thing. Only the fires of determination inside Longarm had kept him going.

He lay there for long moments, waiting for the agony to subside, breathing heavily through his nose since he couldn't gasp for air around the gag. Finally, when he felt strong enough, he drew his legs up, pulling the broken bedpost with them. By bending almost double, he could reach his ankles now, and he began tugging at the ropes that bound his ankles together.

The knots had been pulled even tighter by his efforts to escape, and he struggled with them for long minutes, breaking fingernails and scraping the tips of his fingers raw against the rope. He felt the bonds loosen slightly and redoubled his efforts. One by one the knots gave, and at last the ropes fell away from his feet.

That was when he discovered that his feet had gone completely numb. Pins and needles seemed to gouge his flesh as the blood flow resumed.

With his legs free, Longarm twisted around and pushed himself up onto his knees. He tried lifting the manacle chain off the bedpost, but as he had suspected, the post was too thick to allow the loop in the chain to pass over it. He pushed himself higher, creating more slack in the chain. Now he could reach the gag and rip it out of his mouth. He started yelling hoarsely as well as kicking the wall. Someone was bound to hear the commotion.

Sure enough, after about five minutes of hollering and pounding, a tentative knock sounded on the door. “You all right in there, Marshal Long?” someone called.

Longarm recognized the voice. It belonged to one of the bartenders from downstairs. “Get in here!” he bellowed. “Now!”

The door opened, and the man stuck his head into the room without coming any farther. His eyes widened when he saw Longarm crouched on the bed, his hands chained and blood seeping through the bandages that were his only garment.

It was embarrassing as all hell, but Longarm didn't have time to feel ashamed now. He shook the manacles at the bartender and said, “Have you got a key for these?”

“Ah . . . I don't know,” the man replied. “I can go downstairs and look around . . .”

“Get over here,” snapped Longarm. “Take my gun out of its holster and shoot that padlock off the chain.”

“I . . . I don't know if I can do that.”

“Damn it, I'm a federal lawman!” Longarm roared. “If you don't want to wind up behind bars, you'll do what I told you.”

By this time, more people were starting to gather in the hall. Longarm heard a few titters of laughter as they looked past the bartender and saw his predicament. He gritted his teeth. Nola was going to be sorry for more than stealing that silver, he vowed. She would pay for leaving him in this ridiculous position.

The bartender was still hesitating, and Longarm was about to yell at him again when a deep voice said, “What the hell is all this?” Charlie Dodson shouldered his way into the room, followed by J. Emerson Dupree.

Longarm closed his eyes and tried not to groan. He was glad to see Dodson, but the presence of the newspaperman made him worry about what the headlines might be in the next edition of the Galena City Bugle.

Longarm shook his head to drive that thought away, then said, “Charlie, blow that lock off, would you?”

“Sure.” Dodson drew his own gun. Longarm could tell that he was trying not to grin. “Get a little carried away with your foolin' around, did you?”

“Fooling around, hell!” said Longarm. “Nola Sutton and three of her girls have probably stolen that load of silver by now!”

Dodson's eyes got big with surprise. “The devil you say!” he exclaimed. He thrust out his pistol, aimed, and fired twice, shattering the lock that held the chain to the bed. The chain dropped away, leaving Longarm free at last to move around, even though his wrists were still manacled.

He grabbed his pants and pulled them on awkwardly, then said to Dodson and Dupree, “We'd better get over to the stage station.”

Dupree gestured at the bloodstained bandages. “You're injured again, Marshal.”

“No time for that,” said Longarm. “Come on.”

He practically ran out of the room, gathering up the chain so that it wouldn't trip him. Dodson got folks out of the way, and the three of them hurried downstairs and out onto Comstock Street. Longarm peered down Greenwood Avenue toward the stage station. Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary . . .

That was when he spotted the leaping red and yellow glow inside the building.

“Fire!” he shouted. “The stage station is on fire!”

Longarm, Dodson, and Dupree were in the lead, but a large group of people followed them down Greenwood Avenue as they ran toward the stagecoach station. Longarm was barefoot and nude from the waist up except for the bandages, but he didn't notice the cold. Why would Nola have set the stage station on fire before leaving, he asked himself, or was she not to blame for the blaze? Who else could have started it?

He got his answer a few minutes later. Charlie Dodson kicked open the door and plunged into the burning building while some of the other citizens began forming a bucket brigade from the town well. A moment later Dodson dragged a bulky, odd-looking form out of the station. As the flames grew larger and cast a garish illumination into the street, Longarm realized that he was looking at Claude Jessup. The stationkeeper had been tied to a straight-backed chair. Dodson took out his knife and slashed the ropes binding Jessup to the chair, then helped him to his feet. Jessup looked plenty shaken. With fumbling fingers, he pulled a gag from his mouth.