Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) (18 page)

“He got away,” Jacob reasoned aloud. “But he wasn’t no river man.”

Right then Jacob knew what he had to do. He unsaddled the roan and corralled it with plenty of hay before he hurried down to the river, pushed a rowboat into the
current, and laid his rifle across his knees. He’d not be able to go more than a mile or two because beyond that he wouldn’t be able to walk back.

But he had to go that mile or two…just purely had to.

A short time later, and after running a stretch of rough white water, Jacob Young rounded a bend and saw the lawman walking along the beach acting as if he’d lost something.

“Hey!” Jacob yelled, rowing powerfully toward the beach. “You all right, Marshal Long?”

Custis heard the shout over the loud water. He looked up, saw the big Mormon kid from Lees Crossing, and then laughed.

“Got any food with you!” he bellowed.

Jacob didn’t answer until he’d rowed up on the beach. “Holy cow, Marshal, did you shoot those two Rowe brothers?”

“That’s right, and the sister almost killed me. I swear I’m going to watch her hang.”

“Ain’t too much chance of that,” Jacob drawled. “Danged if she didn’t try to shoot me and your old horse, but her shotgun blew up in her fat face. Blew it near clean away!”

Longarm’s jaw dropped. “She’s dead?”

“Dead as a post, Marshal.”

Custis Long grinned and clapped the Mormon kid on his broad shoulders. “Mrs. Quinn is just up the canyon a little ways, and she’s almost starved to death.”

“She’s alive!”

“Sure is.”

Jacob wiped his perspiring face. “Reckon we need to get her back upriver and feed her then.”

“I reckon we do.”

“River do that…take away most of your clothes?”

“It did for a fact.”

Jacob nodded with understanding. “That big Colorado will take everything a man has or ever will have given a chance.”

“I know that.”

“We’d better go and help that woman.” Jacob looked down at the old squash rinds. “She eat them Indian squash?”

“Tried to.”

“I can’t stand squash,” Jacob said, turning and starting to walk up the canyon.

“Neither could she,” Longarm muttered, “and she hated the pink rattlesnake meat even worse.”

Jacob turned. “The woman killed a rattler down here and tried to eat it?”

“Yep. Saw its remains with my own eyes.”

“Then she musta really been hungry,” Jacob said. “And that’s why folks need the bounty of good farmers.”

“I reckon that’s true,” Longarm agreed as he trudged up the canyon, thinking just how fortunate he and the woman were to be alive.

Watch for

LONGARM AND THE 400 BLOWS

the 400
^th
novel in the exciting LONGARM
series from Jove

Coming in March!