Longarm and the Diamondback Widow (11 page)

Longarm untied the bay's reins from the hitchrack and stepped into the saddle. He backed the horse away from the sheriff's office, his four callers turning their heads to follow him.

To a man, they looked dubious. Mulligan's alcoholic nose turned a darker shade of red.

Longarm pinched his hat brim. “Luck to you.”

He touched heels to the bay's flanks and sent the army remount galloping east along Diamondback's main street, heading for the open hills and the pass beyond the town. He did not, of course, reach those hills.

A quarter mile out of town, he stopped the bay and looked back toward Diamondback, which was obscured by wolf willows, rocky knolls, and sage. He could see no one moving about, which meant he was likely out of sight from town now, as well.

Quickly, he reined the bay south for another half a mile before turning the horse to follow Diamondback Creek nearly straight west, toward the Dan Garvey ranch and, hopefully, whatever problem had lured Sheriff Des Rainey out this way the day he was killed.

The ranch headquarters was nestled along the north side of Diamondback Creek. A high sandstone ridge towered above it on the south side of the creek, which was lined with mixed conifers and aspens.

The Garvey Ranch announced itself by letters burned into the top crossbar of a timber portal straddling the trail leading into the place, and by a Box G brand burned into both ends of the crossbar. Longarm stopped the bay just inside the portal and looked around.

It had taken him an hour and a half to ride out here. Now at noon the sun blazed straight down on the low, gray, brush-roofed log cabin with a barn and corrals and a smaller cabin to the left, and two corrals to the right. A dog had come running out from the trees along the creek to stop in the middle of the yard and bark warningly at Longarm, glancing over its left shoulder at the cabin. It was a shaggy black-and-brown dog—probably a collie-shepherd mix. A man came out of the small cabin just beyond the barn to stare toward Longarm, a cup of coffee in his hand. He wore torn dungarees and suspenders, no hat.

It was noon and he was probably having lunch.

Just then the door of the main cabin opened. The man who'd opened it stayed back in the cabin's shadows for a time, so Longarm couldn't see much about him. The man reached to his left for a rifle. Cocking the rifle, he stepped out of the cabin and onto the narrow stoop fronting it. He glanced to his right, at the man standing in the doorway of the smaller cabin.

That was probably Garvey's hired hand, Calvin Johnson.

The man outside the main cabin, who was probably Garvey, stood in the middle of the stoop holding the rifle down low across his thighs, with casual threat. He canted his hatless head to one side as he stared toward Longarm.

The dog continued to bark. Inside the cabin behind Garvey, a baby was crying.

Longarm lightly touched heels to the bay's flanks, putting the horse forward. As he moved deeper into the yard, the dog barked louder, more angrily, though it moved only a few feet closer to Longarm and stopped, dutifully glancing over its shoulder toward the cabin to make sure its warning had been heard.

“Go lay down, Duke!” the man on the porch yelled.

The dog whimpered and, putting its head and tail down, strode back to the cabin and lay down near the bottom of the porch steps, continuing to stare toward Longarm.

The man whom Longarm assumed was Garvey came down the steps and stood by the dog. He was a lean, brown-haired man in suspenders, dungarees, and a spruce-green work shirt, the shirt's sleeves and white underwear sleeves rolled above his elbows.

“That's far enough,” he told Longarm, and glanced at the hired man still standing, coffee cup in hand, in the bunkhouse's open doorway.

The lawman stopped the bay in the middle of the yard. “You Dan Garvey?”

“Who's askin'?”

“Custis Long. I'm a deputy U.S. marshal out of Denver. Rainey sent for me. I understand you're one of the last men—aside from his killer—to see him alive.”

“Ah, shit!” Garvey said above the crying of the baby in the cabin behind him. “You're all I need!”

A woman holding a small child appeared in the cabin's doorway, atop the stoop. Around Garvey's age—late twenties, early thirties—she wore a plain gingham dress and an apron with frayed edges. The apron and the dress bulged over her pregnant belly.

“You know about Rainey, I take it?” Longarm said.

“Who in this county don't know what happened?” Garvey pointed an angry finger at Longarm. “You can just turn that horse around and ride the hell out of here. I don't know one damn thing about Rainey's killin'. I had nothin' to do with it! I don't know nothin' about it!”

“What did you want to see him about, Garvey?” Longarm slid his glance to the man standing in the bunkhouse doorway. “Why did you send your hired man into town to fetch him? That's all I want to know.”

“Get out of here, goddamnit”—Garvey lifted his gaze to peer warily around behind Longarm—“before they see ya out here and get me an' my family in trouble.”

“Why would you be in any trouble?”

Garvey just stared at Longarm, as did the woman and the hired man.

Longarm decided to play another card. “His wife sent me, Garvey. She wants to know who killed her husband. Can't blame her—wantin' to know that. Your wife would want to know.”

Garvey pinched his eyes and opened his mouth to snap angrily back, but then the woman said something too quietly for Longarm to hear. Garvey closed his mouth and stood scowling at the stranger sitting the bay in his yard. Finally, the rancher rested his rifle on his shoulder and walked out away from the cabin, heading toward Longarm.

The dog rose and followed him slowly, tentatively, from five feet back, working its nose and lifting its bushy black-and-brown tail.

“Look,” Garvey said, “I want no part of none of that. I got a wife and a kid, and Sarah's in the family way. I got a ranch to run. I can't get in no trouble with them fellas in town.”

Longarm swung down from the saddle. He wanted to put himself on even footing, smooth the rancher's feathers. “What kind of trouble?”

“What they done . . . over there at the Bear-Runner Place.” Garvey lifted his chin to indicate east. “They was good folks and they didn't deserve what happened to 'em. That's why I fetched the sheriff. But those men in town, an' Tanner Webster—they killed him because they thought he was gonna cause a stink over it.”

“Who're the Bear-Runners?”

Garvey glanced over his shoulder at his wife, who seemed to encourage him with her eyes, gently jouncing the child in her arms. The hired hand shuttled his skeptical gaze between Longarm and Garvey.

“Injun family back down the creek the way you came. About two miles. Someone shot 'em, killed 'em, burned their cabin. Hanged one of the boys—George.”

“Why?”

Garvey looked around as though worried someone else were hearing. He scanned Longarm's backtrail and then looked toward the north.

The rancher ran a nervous hand across his mouth. “I think maybe Tanner's lost some cattle and he just naturally figured the Bear-Runner boys had collared 'em, maybe sold 'em up on the Wind River Reservation. That's where most of the rustled beef ends up around here. The price of rustlin' out here, especially if the rustlers is Injuns or even half-breeds, is just what happened to them.”

Garvey shook his head, looking down, a pained, angry look in his eyes. “I don't like it. No, sir. Bear-Runner's family—they was good folks. Them boys was quiet, but if they was gonna collar beef, hell, they'd have collared mine. And I haven't lost no beef to nothin' but winter snows and coyotes and bullberry thickets in the three years since the Bear-Runners moved in down the creek. They cut firewood for me, gave me a good price for it. And when they shot a deer on my land, they always left a quarter of the carcass on my doorstep. No, sir—I think Tanner was barkin' up the wrong tree and them poor Bear-Runners paid the price for it.”

He threw up an angry arm and jutting finger. “But don't you tell no one I said that. You do, and I'll call you a bald-faced liar!”

He paused and then added, as he rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth again and turned to stare north, “Me an' Rainey buried 'em. Someone bushwhacked us. We didn't get a good look at who it was. Maybe one of Tanner's men, maybe one of Richmond's. But the same shooter must've killed Rainey when he got back to town.”

“What does Richmond have to do with Tanner?”

“They're in business together. Hell, this is a small town. All the mucky-mucks stick together. The ruination of one could mean the ruin of all of 'em. It's sort of an unwritten rule in this town, ever since Tanner and Richmond set up the bank and then Mulligan came in from back East to run his law practice. He's Tanner Webster's brother-in-law.”

“What's the sawbones got to do with it?”

Garvey hiked a shoulder. “Nothin'. He's just the third man on the town council's all. Richmond, both Alexander an' his son Jack, runs things around here. Them an' Mulligan and Tanner Webster.”

“And you think Tanner killed the Bear-Runners, and the rest of the town is protecting him because he's rich.”

Garvey laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah, that's what I think! He goes out of business, the whole town suffers.”

“Where will I find Tanner?”

“North. Straight north about six miles. But I wouldn't ride out there, if I was you. You ain't got no friends here, Marshal. You ride up there, you'll disappear and no one'll ever hear from you again. Rainey an' the Bear-Runners—they're dead. It ain't right, but that's how it is. Me? I got my family to think about. I don't know if you're a family man, but even if you ain't, you got your own neck to think about.”

Garvey turned to share a look with his hired hand. “I'd think about it, if I was you. And I'd ride back to Denver and forget you ever heard of Diamondback.”

“And what'll I tell Rainey's widow?”

“Tell her he's dead an' buried. We all gotta die. The livin' folks—they gotta move on.” Garvey started to turn away, but then he stopped and said, “It's just like what happened two years ago out east. No sense in it.”

“What happened out east?”

“In the next valley over, a family was murdered. A whole family—prospectin' family with a purty young daughter—burned alive in their cabin.” Garvey shook his head. “It's just like that craziness over there. It's a cryin' shame. There ain't no sense in none of it, but there it is.”

Shrugging, the rancher turned and strode back toward the cabin, the dog growling softly at Longarm and then turning to follow its master.

Garvey's wife walked out away from the cabin and stopped at the top of the porch steps. “Mister!” she called. “You tell Meg Rainey that just as soon as our second one is born, I'll ride to town to see her. I know she needs a friend, and I'll be in to visit with her before the winter. I'll bring her a cake!”

Longarm pinched his hat brim. “I'll tell her, Mrs. Garvey!”

Longarm swung up onto the bay's back and trotted out under the ranch portal. He knew that Mrs. Garvey meant well, but Meg Rainey needed more than a cake. And Longarm was going to get it for her before he'd even consider leaving Diamondback.

Of course, the attempt might get him killed, with the number of men he suddenly found himself up against. When he got back to Diamondback, he'd send a telegram to Billy Vail and request a little help . . .

The thought hadn't finished passing through his mind before he gave an ironic chuff. Wasn't that just what Rainey had done before that shotgun blast had blown him out of his office and into the street?

Longarm glanced north, toward the Webster Ranch, and considered all that Garvey had told him. He'd have to visit the place sooner or later, but first he'd check out the Bear-Runner Ranch. The killers' trail was likely cold by now, but Longarm still felt compelled to visit the place where all the trouble had started, the place that Rainey had visited just before he was murdered.

He swung off the trail and followed a game trail that hugged the creek. It was shady here, the warm breeze rattling the cottonwood and aspen leaves. Longarm paused to let the bay drink from a small, dark pool pushing up against the low bank, and then he rode on, following the gently meandering creek along the base of the steep southern ridge.

He'd been in some tight spots before, but this was a kicker.

About forty-five minutes after he'd set out from the Garvey Ranch, he rode up to the edge of the Bear-Runner place. He recognized it by the cabin and barn, both heaps of burned and half-burned logs encircling separate messes of more burned and charred heaps of furnishings.

He rode around the cabin one time and then he rode around the barn. He wasn't looking for anything in particular. The killer or killer's trail was cold. He was just riding and thinking about what to do next.

He saw the four graves mounded near the creek, and rode over and swung down from the bay's back. He removed his hat and stared at the mounded dirt and rocks. Coyotes had been poking around the graves, trying to burrow in. But Rainey and Garvey had buried the Bear-Runners well. The carrion-eaters hadn't dug down to the bodies.

Longarm looked around at the creek and at the burned cabin and barn and then at the corrals. A forlorn feeling came over him. He hadn't known the Bear-Runners, of course, but Garvey had told him a little. Longarm had the sense of a family at work here. A family at odds with most other folks in the county, including the people of Diamondback, because their skin had been a darker cast.

Whatever the color of their skin, they'd been a family, and they'd obviously worked hard together. They'd no doubt loved one another in the way that most families did, helping one another through the hard task of surviving in a place this remote. There was an air of industry and goodness here in the way that the Bear-Runners, a family of outsiders, had built this humble ranch along this quiet creek.

A ranch that someone had burned, the same someone who'd killed everyone in the family. The killer likely thought he could get away with what he'd done because the Bear-Runners were Indians and half-breeds. Who would care?

Longarm had no idea if there'd been any rustling or not. The injustice of the savage attack set a fire in his loins. Fanning the flames was his knowledge that he very likely would never be able to run the killer, or killers, to ground.

The odds were against him. A powerful rancher. A town. A county. The whole matter enswathed in secrecy nourished by powerful white men . . .

Longarm had been sitting on a log by the creek, the bay standing in the trees nearby, cropping grass. Now, intending to head to town and send that telegram to Billy Vail, he rose from the log and turned toward the horse.