Longarm and the Whiskey Woman (14 page)

The old man said, "It ain't all as easy as you think. There's considerable work left to do. We've got more than a few orders to fill and damned little time to do them in. Mark has got a couple of boxcars ordered for three days from now. That means we got to get high behind getting this whiskey packed up and loaded onto them dray wagons so we can haul it to that railroad siding."

Longarm said, "Mr. Colton, where exactly is that railroad siding?"

From the other end of the table, Mark said with hardness in his voice, "There ain't no call for you to know that. You'll know when you get there."

Longarm gave him a mild look. "I was just asking, Mark."

"Who in the hell said you could call me by my given name?"

Longarm shrugged. He said, "All right, I won't. But if I say Mr. Colton, there's about four or five of you that could answer. What do you want me to call you? I know what I'd like to call you."

Mark Colton's face flamed. He half rose out of his chair. He said, "You might better be explainin' what you meant by that."

"I ain't in a mood to explain anything to you. Take it for whatever you want--whatever it's worth," said Longarm.

Mark Colton kicked his chair back and stood up. He was not wearing a side arm, but there was a rifle leaning against the wall, very near at hand. He said, "Listen here, you son of a bitch, maybe some of these folks around here can stand the smell of you, but I ain't one of them. You come in here, big-timing your way around. I don't see where we need the likes of you around, whiskey buyer or not."

Asa Colton simply lifted his hand in the air. He said quietly, "Mark, this man has come here as a guest. He's a-visitin' us. You'll damned well hold that rooster temper of yours in check or I'll know the reason why. Now, you just heard me say that I was going to sell this gent some whiskey. All you've got to do is get it ready. We don't need no more of your hard mouth, do you understand me, boy?"

Before his very eyes, Longarm was amused to see the big, two-hundred-pound man wilt under the gaze of the dried-up old man who was his father. Obviously, Asa Colton didn't have to raise his voice to make his wishes understood and obeyed.

Mark Colton sank back down into his chair. He didn't say anything else, but he shot several murderous glances in Longarm's direction. Longarm could feel Sally's eyes burning into him. It gave him a warm, lustful glow inside. He doubted that he would ever forget the picture of her lying on her back with her dress up and her legs open in that cornfield. It was as clear as a tintype photograph. He said, "Mr. Colton, I'm sorry if your sons don't like me. I never done nothing that was against them. I am obliged to you for selling me this whiskey. I think I can make a profit."

Asa Colton looked at him with washed-out blue eyes. "Young man, you take this whiskey on back to wherever it is you say you're from-"

Sally suddenly cut in. She said, "He's from Arizona, Daddy."

Asa turned a wondering face to her. He said, "How do you know that, girl?"

She blushed and looked back down at her plate. She mumbled something and Asa Colton said, "What?"

Sally said, "I don't know, Daddy. I think I heard Frank Carson say something about it."

Asa Colton's eyes lingered suspiciously on his prized daughter for a moment or two. He switched back to Longarm. He said, "She's sometimes just a little too nosy for her own sake, but I have to tell you that her mother was my second wife. She was the prettiest thing I've ever seen. It was a sore loss to me when she was taken from the bosom of her family, Having Sally here was like starting all over again, like when I was a young man, even though I wasn't young. I was married to her mother for many good years, and I don't think I'll ever see a prettier face, except for Sally, of course."

Sally suddenly said, "Daddy, ain't you ever going to let me get married?"

The old man frowned at her. He said, "That ain't fittin' talk for the breakfast table. I'll let you get married when I think a man is worth you."

Longarm was uncomfortably aware that Sally was staring at him. She said, "Well, Daddy, I'm beginning to wonder if you're ever going to think anybody's good enough for me."

Longarm cleared his throat loudly, trying to get the subject headed into another direction. He said, "Am I to understand, Mr. Colton, that I'll be taking delivery of the whiskey in three days?"

The old man nodded. He said, "That's when it's due at the siding. I can only say that if we do our part, you'll be takin' delivery of it. I do have to tell you something bad, though. Something you ain't gonna like."

"What's that?"

The old man hesitated. Finally he said, "Most likely Morton Colton will be there at the train when we bring the whiskey in to load it up."

Longarm flinched slightly. All he needed to do was to have a feud with a member of the clan deep into their territory. He said, "How come he's going to be there? I thought his job was to keep the lawmen happy."

"It is, and that's why he'll be there. Sometimes, there is railroad detectives. Sometimes, the local law comes along. But always the Treasury boys out of Little Rock comes along. It's just another way to get themselves a little more long sweetenin'. Now, we never mess with any of that. It's dirty work that we leave to Morton, so he's generally there.

Longarm said, "Will he cause trouble for me?"

The old man shrugged. "I don't see why he should. If you're smart, you'll stay out of sight until the whiskey's loaded, and then get aboard as the train's pulling out. There ain't none of us"--he gave Mark and John a look down the table--"gonna tell him. We think he's trash."

Longarm shrugged again. He said, "Well, I won't give him no trouble if he don't give me none. I've got to ask this. If it comes to trouble between me and him, how will Y'all stand on it?"

From down the table, Mark said in a hard voice, "Is your last name Colton? His is. That ought to answer your question."

Asa Colton gave Mark a look. He said, "Shush, Mark, and stay shushed. This ain't none of your affair. If I have to speak to you again, you're going to be in trouble. You ain't too old to take out and tie to a tree for a few days until you can get your thinking straight."

Longarm said, "Look, I don't want to cause trouble here in your family. That's the last thing I want; but I would like to have that whiskey. I'll do it however you say."

The old man nodded. He said, "We'll see how it goes."

Longarm had little to do with his time except think. He tried to stay out of the way of the other men on the place, especially Mark. This would be no time to get into a fight. He had a feeling that a fight with Mark would have to end in a killing. Mark didn't seem like the type who could take a good fist whipping and live with it. Longarm was pretty sure that if he did fistfight Mark and whip him, which he had no doubt that he could do, he'd spend the rest of his time wondering if there was a rifle trained between his shoulder blades.

Along toward noon, he wandered around to the back of the main house. There he saw Sally, radiant in a bright lemon-colored dress that revealed a great deal of her shoulders and her throat and neck and bodice. She and a colored woman were hanging clothes. She stopped as soon as she spotted him, standing there with her hands by her sides. He walked toward her, but stopped about ten feet short, making certain that no one could misread his intentions. Something had been bothering him, and he thought he would get it settled. She stood there, staring at him gravely.

He said, "Sally, something about you makes me curious."

"On account of I've chose you?" she said.

He half-smiled at her old-fashioned words. He said, "No, it's your name. All of the other Coltons have names out of the Bible. I didn't know there was a Sally in the Bible."

"Sally ain't really my name. My real name is Jerusha." She made a face. "But when I got old enough, I wanted to change it. Daddy said I couldn't, but I seen me a picture in a little picture book of a pretty little girl and her name was Sally, so I told my daddy and my mama when she was still alive that I was going to be Sally."

"And what did they say to that?"

"They said my name was Jerusha and that's what it was going to be."

Longarm said, "Then how come they call you Sally now?"

"Because I told them they could call me anything they wanted, to but I was only going to answer to Sally, and that was that. It was up to them."

Longarm had to smile. He said, "You were a little tough, even then."

She said, "I ain't tough at all. I just knows what I like, and I likes you. I choose you."

"Sally, how old are you?"

She said, "I'm twenty-one. Gonna be twenty-two at the end of summer."

"You're mighty young, and I think you're kind of inexperienced."

She gave him a look. "I may not be as inexperienced as you think."

"I wasn't the first, was I?"

She flung her head about so that her dark hair tossed and shone in the sunlight. "You can be the first if you want to be."

Longarm shook his head ruefully. He said, "It doesn't make any difference to me, Sally, one way or the other. I know women get urges just like men do, and you're a healthy girl. I'm just surprised that you haven't been caught."

"I don't expect you to have noticed, but some of these folks around here like Mark and John are way on the other side of dumb," she said.

Longarm said, "I don't think I ought to be seen talking to you. They may be way on the other side of dumb, but they don't care for me at all. It's been made clear to me that you are the jewel in your daddy's crown."

She took a step toward him. She said, "You better be in that cornfield about mid-afternoon."

He frowned and took a step backward. He said, "Sally, I don't think that's a good idea." Even as he said it, he felt the desire rising in him.

She took another step toward him. She said, "I'm gonna be in that same row that we were in before, and I'm gonna be laying on my back with my dress up, and I ain't gonna be wearing no underclothes. You still say you won't be there?"

His mouth suddenly went dry at the picture he envisioned in his mind. He said, "You're going to get me killed. You realize that?"

She said, "I got a feeling it would take a fair job of work to kill you. I'd reckon the man that set out to do that had probably better bring his lunch with him."

Longarm said, "I'd better get away from here. Right now."

She said, "I choose you. You don't forget that."

There was only himself for lunch. The stringy-haired woman who turned out to be John's wife, Rebecca, explained that the rest of the men were hurrying to get the rest of the whiskey into the jugs and then packed into the crates. She said, "They's a time when the whiskey is called bein' on the run. That's when you've got to get it jugged up, right then and there, or she'll swell up on you. So they're a-bottlin' it right now. They'll eat once they get the chance."

"Where are they doing that?"

Rebecca said, "In the juggin' shed."

"Which one is that?"

"Mister, I don't know how to tell you. I just know which one it is. Go out and look around."

Longarm said, "How long will it take them?"

"They ought to be comin' in for their meal at about two-thirty or three o'clock."

Longarm finished his lunch of fried pork and grits and canned tomatoes. He got up, nodded at the lady, and went out. The men would be in the house eating just about the time Sally would be in the cornfield. He went back to the cabin that he and Frank Carson had been using and sat down in one of the straight-backed chairs in front of the table. He poured half a glass of the only whiskey available, cut it with water, lit a cigarillo, and put his mind to the problems that lay ahead. He was not going to worry about what might happen with Frank Carson and the money wire. If Billy Vail fouled it up and gave him away to Frank Carson, he'd deal with that problem when it occurred. Mostly likely, it would involve shooting, and it would no longer be a question of doing his job but of staying alive.

The main thing worrying him was that he could not quite picture at what point it would be timely to make the arrests. Money was going to have to change hands. If it changed hands while they were still on Colton's place, it could get as sticky as barbed wire. He decided that he would refuse to pay until he saw his whiskey loaded on the train. That way, he didn't believe there would be as many men with guns there, and he would have a getaway method, even though it would be a slow-moving freight train. The fact that Morton would probably be there, according to Asa, muddied the water somewhat. That put a personal grudge into the pot--a pot that didn't need any more ingredients in it. As far as Longarm could tell, he was in about the messiest situation he had ever been in. The people he was investigating and was going to arrest were of varying degrees of guilt. If he could lay his hands on the Treasury officials, he would be content with them. Them and Morton Colton and then the law in the town of Little Rock that had been taking the bribes. In his heart, he didn't feel that Asa Colton and his clan were all that guilty. Hell, he didn't see how anybody could be defrauded out of much with that grade of whiskey.