Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) (7 page)

“Hello,” Longarm said, approaching the pair. “Nice day.”

The larger and younger of the two pointed to the mare and grunted. “Sell for ten dollars.”

“No, thanks.”

The Indians went into a serious conversation in the Navajo language while Longarm stuffed his new purchases into his saddlebags and then untied the buckskin and prepared to mount up and ride away.

But the older of the Navajo grabbed the mare’s reins
and held her still for a moment, grunting, “Thirteen dollars and a good wool blanket.”

“No, thanks.” Longarm smiled. “Now you need to let go of my horse’s reins because I’m riding on.”

The pair stepped back, and the younger one said, “Twenty dollars. No more.”

“Not for sale.”

The Indians shook their heads and looked at Longarm as if he was crazy, then they turned and went into the trading post, heads down and looking dejected.

“You ought to thank me for not selling you,” Longarm told the mare as he used a winding and well-used trail that led down into the deep and wide gorge. “From the looks of the Navajo Indian ponies I’ve seen on this reservation, you’d have pretty much had to live off the land and fend for yourself.”

The mare tossed her pretty head and moved smartly toward the trail that led down into the Little Colorado Gorge.

Carl Whitfield and his cousin Al Hunt were lying flat on the red earth, and each had a pair of binoculars glued to their faces.

“He’s coming up the north side of the Little Colorado Gorge,” Hunt said. “I didn’t think he’d take the long way around this gorge like the wagons. We could kill him when he crests the top.”

But Whitfield shook his head. “Might be someone over at the trading post watching him until he passes over the rim and rides north a few miles. We’ll take him up in the hills.”

“Got to be careful not to let him see our tracks.”

“We’ll stay a mile west of him. I know a place that the road passes through a cut in the hills and it’ll be perfect for an ambush.”

“Hope it isn’t too far,” Hunt whined. “I’d like to get back to Flagstaff by tonight.”

“Might not be possible. We have to bury that federal marshal so deep that he’ll never be found.”

“If we’re going to do that, then why didn’t we bring a pick and a shovel?”

Whitfield curbed his anger. “Because I forgot. I had a lot on my mind before we left town.”

“Yeah,” Hunt said, unable to conceal a smirk. “And from the looks of your face, I’d say maybe the marshal rearranged some of your brain.”

“Shut up! We’ll just have to find a low place maybe in some arroyo and cover him with dirt and rocks even if we do it with our bare hands.”

“To hell with that plan. I say we just drag his body out in those dry hills and let the coyotes and vultures do the rest of the work. And what about that buckskin mare he’s riding?”

Carl Whitfield had been thinking a lot about the mare. “She’s too good to shoot, but we dare not take her back to Flagstaff, because everyone there knows the buckskin belongs to John Wallace. If we showed up with that animal, we’d be puttin’ a noose around our necks.”

“I guess that’s true,” Al agreed, “but it seems mighty sad to just drop a fine horse like that. Hey, maybe we should sell her at that trading post.”

Whitfield thought about that for several minutes. “Too risky. People will remember that horse and its rider. What are we gonna tell ’em when we show up with the buckskin? That the rider fell off and broke his fool neck not long after he left the post?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Well,” Whitfield groused, “it wouldn’t wash! But we could take the mare and the saddle over to the Hopi Reservation. I hear that there’s a big trading post at a place called Keams Canyon.”

“How far out of our way would that be?”

“Fifty, maybe sixty miles. An extra two days at most.”

“You think the mare is worth it?”

Whitfield nodded. “I sure as hell do. I’m certain we can get seventy or eighty dollars for her. Maybe even stir up a race. Those Hopi love betting on horse races, and I’ve seen the buckskin mare run before and she’s damn near unbeatable.”

“We got any money to put up on her?”

“I got thirty dollars cash. How much do you have?” Whitfield asked.

“Maybe twelve dollars.”

“That’s not a lot,” Whitfield said. “But we could put up our own horses and saddles as part of the betting.”

“And if we lost the race, what the hell would happen to us?” Hunt snapped. “We’d be up shit creek with no paddle. You reckon we could walk all the way back to Flagstaff?”

Whitfield shook his head. “Your problem is that you always worry too damn much about everything and are afraid to take a risk. I’m telling you, that buckskin mare is the fastest thing on four legs for a thousand damn miles. And you weigh no more than one hundred forty pounds soaking wet, so you could ride the mare. Al, for a little extra work and time, we can come out of this with five or six hundred dollars!”

“And kill the federal marshal.”

“That’s right,” Whitfield said, rubbing a hand over his battered and swollen face. “And there’s even more.”

“Keep talkin’.”

“The marshal’s wife is going to be going up to Lees Ferry…
alone
.”

“But she’ll be on the stagecoach.”

“Not all the time,” Whitfield said. “The stage holds over one night to rest the horses and passengers. We might be able to snatch her there.”

Hunt broke into a big smile. “And have our dirty ways with her before we kill her?”

“Yep. Or else figure out a way to ransom the beautiful bitch. It’s clear that she’s loaded with money. What’s to lose?”

Al Hunt chuckled obscenely. “I seen her when she got off the train and went into the hotel. Best-looking woman I’ve laid eyes on in years. Sure would like to ride her to a standstill.”

“Me too,” Whitfield said, voice hoarse with desire. “At the very worst, we could screw her for a few days and take all that jewelry she wears. I wouldn’t doubt that she’s also carrying plenty of cash.”

Hunt sleeved sweat from his bloodshot eyes. Up here on the Navajo reservation the dirt was red and fine, and there was alkali mixed in as well, and that was painful to the eyes. “Let’s get on our horses and get up ahead to that ambush place you were talking about.”

Whitefield thought that was a fine idea. He desperately wanted to kill the federal marshal who had once shot his brother to death. He’d wanted to kill the marshal in Flagstaff, even more after the bastard beat him up, and now his need for revenge was almost at a fever pitch.

Once they were on their horses, they kept the low, sage-covered hills between themselves and the federal marshal and made sure that they didn’t push their mounts hard enough to raise a dust trail.

“You know something,” Al said, “I got me a hard one just thinking about that blond woman and how much fun we’re going to have riding her while she hollers for mercy. I want her first, Carl. I
got
to have her first.”

“We’ll flip a coin for that,” Carl Whitfield said, feeling his own manhood swelling at the thought of the
pleasure they’d be taking from the rich woman in just another day. “ ’Cause I want her real bad, too.”

Al Hunt gave his cousin a hard look, which the liveryman didn’t even notice, but Al saw that there was a twisted smile on his blood-crusted lips.

Two hours later, Whitfield suddenly raised an arm and pointed to a gap in the hills just a mile ahead. “That’s the place.”

Hunt pulled his hat brim low and squinted into the dry, colorless distance. “You sure?”

“I’m dead sure. We’ll ride around to the north and take our shooting positions on both sides of the gap. When the marshal comes through, he’ll be in both our rifle sights, and it’ll be like a shooting gallery. Thing to remember is, don’t shoot too high and risk hitting each other and we damn sure don’t want to accidentally put a bullet in the mare.”

“I’m a better shot than you are,” Al Hunt said. “I’ll take the first shot, and if he’s still alive, you open fire.”

“Fair enough,” Whitfield agreed. “But we can’t let the mare race off, because sure as hell she’ll run all the way back to the Flagstaff and that stable where she’s been kept for years.”

“She’d run that far on her own?”

“Maybe,” Whitfield said, hedging. “But we just can’t take the chance on it. She’ll be spooked and might even be covered with the marshal’s blood. We’ve got to make sure we catch her up, even if she’d only run as far south as the trading post.”

“I don’t see that as being a problem,” Hunt snapped.

“Well, I do,” Whitfield argued. “Because I’ve seen the mare run and I know she’s a hell of a lot faster than the horses carrying our carcasses.”

“And you said
I
was a big worrier,” Hunt drawled. “Well look who is the worrier now.”

Carl Whitfield had never really liked this cousin, but he knew the man had killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in order to make some big money. Add that to the fact that Al was already salivating over the thought of repeatedly raping the blond woman in some sandy arroyo until she fainted or was dead, and he knew that his cousin was in this all the way.

But Al Hunt had one major shortcoming that could not be ignored. He drank too much and too often. And when he got drunk, he got yappy and he liked to brag. If they came into a lot of money off the dead woman and a Hopi horse race, Whitfield was pretty sure his cousin would go on a bender for weeks, and sooner rather than later he’d be spilling his guts about raping the marshal’s wife and how they’d killed both the marshal and the blonde.

That, Whitfield knew, was something that would put a noose around his own neck. So any way he looked at this, only one of them was going back to Flagstaff, and he was going to make sure it was his own suddenly much wealthier self. And while he’d suffer some remorse and even feel some guilt about betraying his cousin Al, remorse was something that faded with time. Getting hanged was something that gave a man no time.

“I’m gonna shoot him in the head,” Hunt said, more to himself than to his companion. “Or better yet, the throat. I never shot a man in the throat, but I heard they die choking and flopping around like a chicken with its head lopped off.”

“Shoot the marshal in the chest,” Whitfield ordered. “Put your first bullet through his heart.”

“Not much fun in doin’ it that way.”

“The hell with fun!” Whitfield snapped. “Just kill him
with the first shot. If he’s still alive, you can scalp him or cut off his balls. Slit his throat…hell if I care. But put the first bullet through his chest.”

“All right,” Hunt said, not looking very happy. “But you had better catch the mare.”

“I will. Now, let’s just shut up and start gettin’ our minds right on what we’re about to do to that big bastard who killed my brother.”

“No offense, Carl, but your brother was meaner than a rattlesnake and—”

“Shut up!”

Al Hunt clamped his jaw tight, and his hand went to the smooth stock of his rifle.
Maybe
, he thought,
I could kill Carl too and take the woman, the buckskin, and all the money for myself. Ride off with her to California or up to the Comstock Lode, take my pleasures wherever they might be found. Sell the blond bitch to a high-class whorehouse when I tire of her.

Yeah, Al thought, that was something to consider all right.

A short time later, they drew rein north of the gap, and Whitfield said, “All right, you get first shot and you’d better make it count.”

“I will. All you have to worry about is catching up that buckskin race horse that you been braggin’ about so we can take her on over to the Hopi Reservation and win us a big horse race.”

“I’ll do it,” Whitfield vowed. “Just wait until he’s right in the middle of the gap there and can’t go nowhere but forward or backward.”

“He ain’t goin’ forward or backward,” Hunt snapped. “The only place that big son of a bitch is going is
down
! Straight down into everlasting hell.”

Whitfield nodded and set off at a trot that would take him around to the other side of the gap between the sun-baked low hills. Al was the better marksman, but it didn’t hurt to be ready with his own rifle in case the man should happen to miss his kill shot.

Longarm’s full attention was directed northward, and his mind was on how to handle what he might encounter up ahead. Billy Vail had told him that the stakes were very high and that Judge Milton Quinn and his young wife were friends of the President of the United States. It all sounded bad to Longarm; even worse after learning that three riverboat men had been murdered. And then there was the matter of Heidi…and how to keep her safe from harm.

So as he rode into the gap between the low, barren hills, Longarm wasn’t as fully alert to danger as normal. And if it hadn’t been for the buckskin mare suddenly twisting her head around and pointing those small, black-tipped ears at something off to his right, Longarm would have been drilled through the heart.

But the mare’s slight hesitation of movement and the snort that exploded from her nostrils caused Longarm to glance from side to side just as the man he instantly recognized as Carl Whitfield and another smaller man on his left jumped up with rifles.

“Ya!” Longarm shouted, bending low in the saddle and sending the mare into a hard run in order to escape his death trap. “Ya!”

The mare shot forward like a cannonball, ears flattening against her head, neck stretched out, and legs reaching out to cover ground. The ambushers were caught by surprise, unprepared for the mare’s explosive burst of speed. They both fired and missed.

Longarm drew his six-gun and as he passed the two men, he opened fire, emptying his gun at the closer and larger target, Carl Whitfield. The liveryman staggered, dropped his rifle, and collapsed, even as his partner fired a shot that struck Longarm high up in the back and nearly knocked him from his saddle.

“Ya!” Longarm shouted, dropping his gun and desperately grabbing for his saddle horn.

The buckskin mare ran like the wind and Longarm heard one last rifle shot, then he was out of range and hanging on for his life. The mare had veered off the road and was crashing through brush and leaping over rocks. On and on she ran, until at last Longarm was able to exert some pull on her reins and she stopped, heavily lathered and breathing hard.