Longarm and the Yuma Prison (8 page)

“How'd you like my blue roan?” the liveryman asked as Longarm dismounted and handed him the reins.

“He's a good horse and he moves well. I'll rent him again if I have the need, but I think you should feed him better. He's close to being skin and bones and is too good a horse to be starved.”

The liveryman was a tall, heavyset man with a half-smoked cigar clenched between his yellow teeth. Longarm judged him to be in his late thirties.

“Well, mister,” the liveryman said, lips turning down at the corners, “I wouldn't tell you how to peddle cheap whiskey and I don't much care to have you tell me that I don't feed my horses well enough.”

“You look overfed,” Longarm said. “So it just seems odd that you'd get to be hog fat and yet you half starve your ponies. Doesn't seem right.”

The liveryman spat his cigar out and leaned in close on Longarm, who could smell the liquor on the man's foul breath. “Who the hell do you think you are comin' into town with that uppity young whore and . . .”

Longarm didn't wait to hear what the next words were to come out of the man's mouth. He slammed an uppercut into the liveryman's gut and when the man's eyes bugged with pain, Longarm drove a straight right cross into the side of his jaw and felt it break as the fat man landed heavily on his back. While the liveryman was down and howling in pain, just for good measure and because he'd called Jessica a whore, Longarm drove the toe of his boot up into the man's crotch turning a howl into a high-pitched scream.

“You ever refer to Miss Ray that way again and I'll kick your fat ass all the way up through your gullet!” Longarm hissed.

The liveryman couldn't answer due to his broken jaw and crushed testicles. He lay on the dirt floor of his barn writhing like a stomped snake in his terrible agony.

Longarm unsaddled the blue roan and led it into a stall and fed it a couple of pounds of grain; not enough to founder the poor beast . . . but enough to make it think that it had died and gone to horse heaven.

On his way out of the barn, Longarm glanced down at the liveryman, who was still curled up twisting and moaning. “You learn to mind your mouth or the next time someone might decide to shoot you dead. Hear me?”

Through clenched teeth, the fat man barely managed a nod.

 • • • 

Longarm made his way to the hotel and was about to start up the steps when the desk clerk called his name. “Sir!”

Longarm turned, one foot still on the staircase. “Yeah?”

“She's gone and I don't think she's coming back.”

“
Who
is gone?”

“Miss Jessica Ray that you came in here with the other day.”

Longarm was confused. He walked over to the desk and leaned on it saying, “Yuma is a small town so where did she go?”

“She went and got married.”

Longarm was sure that he had not heard the man correctly. “Say that again?”

“She checked out late this morning and left this note for me to give you when you returned. I ain't read it, I swear that I ain't.”

The note was written on hotel stationery. In her neat hand, Jessica had written:

Dear Custis,

I know that this is going to come as quite a shock but I married Kent Hamilton, the attorney. My father will be happy about that even though I knew you will not be at all happy. But I love, respect, and need Kent and he is crazy about me and is going to help get my father free. We'll still require your help . . . if you don't hate me. Please try and understand.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Jessica Hamilton.

Longarm carefully balled the note up in his fist and handed it back to the desk clerk. “Toss it in the trash.”

“Sir, I'm sorry. I take it this comes as quite a shock to you.”

“Yeah,” Longarm managed to say. “It sure as hell does.”

“If it helps, Kent Hamilton is a good man and he's loved Miss . . . I mean, Mrs. Hamilton for years.”

“Glad to hear it,” Longarm said, turning around and starting back out the door.

“Sir?”

“I need a drink,” Longarm yelled over his shoulders. “Probably quite a few drinks. I'll be over at the Cactus Saloon if anyone comes looking for me.”

“Yes, sir!”

Longarm
wasn't
heartbroken and he
wasn't
going to get drunk. Not with a man like Marshal Beeson looking for any weakness he could find in someone that posed a threat. But he would have a few drinks and buy a bottle of good whiskey for his room and then he would try to figure out what in the hell had happened between himself and Jessica.

On Monday morning Longarm knocked on Kent Hamilton's door and fidgeted impatiently while he waited. Hamilton lived in a nice stone house with a small porch. In Denver, the house would have been considered extremely modest in size and appearance, but in Yuma it was one of the better homes.

The door opened and there stood the man that Jessica had married. Kent Hamilton was of average size and build, with a long sweep of brown hair brushed across his high forehead. He had good features and a wide smile with even teeth. He was clean shaven and dressed in a suit, white shirt, and tie as befitted a man of his profession.

“Good morning, Marshal Long.”

The temperature was already in the low eighties and Longarm figured it would rise into the mid-nineties before the day was over. Longarm had not bothered to shave or have his clothes cleaned; he was irritable and aware that he cut a rather poor figure in comparison to the attorney.

“We need to have a talk,” Longarm told the man. “Inside or out here on the porch, whichever you prefer.”

“Come on inside where it's cooler. And I'm sure that Jessica would be hurt if she thought you were avoiding her.”

“I'm not avoiding anyone,” Longarm said too abruptly. “It's just that I don't like this town much and I'd never have come had it not been to help her and her father.”

“And now that she has married me, has that all changed?”

“No,” Longarm said with conviction because he had already given the anticipated question a great deal of thought. “I came to see if I could free a once very much respected federal marshal from prison . . . providing he was set up and killed those two gamblers in self-defense.”

“Please come in where we can talk privately,” Hamilton said, opening the door and stepping aside.

Longarm entered the small front parlor and smelled fresh coffee. Hamilton gestured toward a seat and then settled in close at hand. He called, “Jessica, Custis has come to visit.”

Jessica appeared and damned if she didn't look happy and even radiant. Longarm swallowed hard and rose to his feet. “I guess my congratulations are in order.”

“Thank you. Kent and I were together before and if everything hadn't gone bad so suddenly, we'd have married some time ago.”

“I understand.”

She moved close. “I do hope so, Custis. I wasn't using you.”

“Yeah, you were,” he said, trying to keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice. “But I came here because my boss knew and thought a great deal of your father. So now that our past is in the past, Jessica, sit down beside your new husband and let's talk about what I can or cannot do here.”

“There is a great deal you can do,” Kent Hamilton assured him. “Starting with keeping me alive while I go through the evidence and petition a federal judge to come to Yuma and preside over a new trial with fresh evidence.”

“Fresh evidence?”

“Yes. I have convinced a few witnesses to the shooting to testify where before they were too afraid to do so.”

“Did you pay them?”

Hamilton shook his head. “They have some legal problems of their own and I've agreed to help them for free if they do the same for us.”

Jessica smiled hopefully. “There were five men at the poker table when my father caught the pair cheating him and the others. Those other two card players are willing to testify that not only were the cardsharps working together in their crooked poker game, but that when my father challenged them, the pair of cheaters drew first.”

“I see.” Longarm frowned. “But unless we have a new judge, this fresh testimony won't matter.”

“That's right,” Hamilton quickly agreed. “We have to have a new judge. A federal judge coming in from the outside.”

That made sense to Longarm. “But how can you possibly convince a federal judge to come to Yuma to rehear the case?”

“I can because he is my brother.”

Longarm drew in a deep breath. “Wouldn't that sort of put you in a conflict of interest situation?”

“Normally, yes. But here are the facts. The two dead gamblers that Tom Ray gunned down had been in gunfights over cards before. They had killed a man in Taos, New Mexico, but got off clean. Also, I can prove that by putting Tom Ray forever behind bars, they were able to forge papers and take over his and Jessica's mining claim. I think we can get my brother over here and have the sentence reversed and all of this behind us in less than two weeks.”

Longarm came to his feet. “So my job would be to protect you and Jessica until that happens?”

“That's right. And the pair that are willing to testify that Tom Ray acted entirely in self-defense.”

“Who are these two guys?”

“They both work for Mitch Lang, who is tied in with the current judge as well as Marshal Beeson.”

“What does Mitch Lang do here?”

“About everything,” Hamilton said. “He owns the bank and the largest mercantile store. He has connections with the railroad and the paddle wheel steamboats so he actually controls most of the commerce that moves in and out of Yuma.”

“And I expect that Judge Thompson, Marshal Beeson, his deputies, and most of the city officials jump when he snaps his fingers.”

“That's right. Mitch Lang has a financial and commercial stranglehold on Yuma, but if we can prove that he was part of forging papers to take over Tom and Jessica's mining claim, I think we can break his power and maybe . . . maybe even see him and his cronies sent up to that prison on the hill where Jessica's innocent father now swelters and suffers.”

“I'd like to see that,” Longarm admitted.

“So would we.”

“I'd like to get back to the two men who were at the card table when Jessica's father shot them. Who are these men and are they working here in Yuma?”

“No,” Hamilton said, “they are working at the mining claim that you just visited.”

“How interesting. Please describe them.”

“Both are thin and missing several of their front teeth. Both are miners in their mid-twenties and sporting goatees and mustaches. They're nice fellas and . . .”

“I know exactly who they are,” Longarm said. “I got them drunk and they stripped down and soaked themselves in the river.”

“Their names are Albert Dodd and Carl Wittman.”

“Do they know what we intend to do?”

The attorney shook his head. “They don't know anything other than what they told me they saw that night of the shooting. And I'll be honest with you, Marshal Long, if they think that they are going to be killed over this . . . they'll bolt and run like jackrabbits. The only reason they are willing to testify is because I can help them in a courtroom and will do it for free.”

“And,” Jessica added, “I've agreed to sell them a share of our claim for a reasonable price.”

“Why would you do that?” Longarm asked.

Jessica looked to Hamilton, who cleared his throat and explained, “If we bring Mitch Lang, the judge, and the marshal down, my life and that of Jessica will always be in danger. Even from atop Prison Hill, deals are made and money changes hands. Lang has a lot of money and a lot of people that owe him favors. Sooner or later, he would kill Jessica and me so we've decided to move to Santa Fe when this is all past.”

“There is a small item of immediate concern,” Longarm said.

“And that would be?”

“Today is Monday and the marshal has ordered me to leave town on the train.”

“You'll have to decide whether or not you are going to do what he wants,” Hamilton said. “And to be quite honest, Jessica and I will understand given all that's happened here if you board that train and never look back.”

“Please excuse me for a moment. I need to think about this.”

“Take your time,” Jessica said. “And remember this . . . you owe me nothing. I . . . I am sorry about what happened and . . .”

“It's all right,” Longarm said. He exited the house and stood on the porch while he thought hard and then he sat down in one of the chairs and studied the hot and dusty little street. There wasn't much moving around or going on this morning and he could see that this was a nice, quiet, and humble little neighborhood.

He'd never been run out of any town, not even one as sun-blasted and desolate as Yuma. And there were good, hardworking people living here under a corrupt judge and marshal and a man he had yet to meet named Mitch Lang.

But how could he guarantee the newlyweds that he could keep them alive until after Tom Ray was set free from the Yuma penitentiary? Or how could he guarantee that he could keep Albert Dodd or Carl Wittman alive, either, for that matter?

And what would happen when the train was ready to leave in a few hours and he was not there with his bags packed and the marshal and his deputies were standing in wait?

Well,
Longarm thought,
today is likely to be even more interesting than yesterday . . . and that was saying something. So I think I'm just going to stay here and see this trouble through or else I'll always regret leaving a good lawman to die in a bad prison.

Having made his decision, Longarm stepped back inside and said, “I've never been run out of a town in my life and I don't see any point in letting it happen today. So let's play the hand out and see if we can get your brother to come over on a fast train and make sure that justice is served.”

Jessica jumped to her feet and hugged his neck, crying with happiness. Longarm breathed in her familiar perfume and felt the soft mounds of her lovely breasts pushing hard against his chest.
Much better,
he thought
,if the lovely Mrs. Hamilton had rewarded him with a simple “thank you.”