Longarm on the Overland Trail (15 page)

He assured her he'd keep that in mind and, since he doubted he'd be anywhere near at six, he tipped her a whole quarter, lest she feel he didn't admire her batty eyelashes.

The awful breakfast made him feel better and, along with the crisp, cool air up here, put more spring in his legs as he toted his riding gear ever onward in hopes of finding something worth putting it on.

Pop Roberts turned out to be a friendly old cuss who agreed young Ruby was a pretty little thing, even if she was sort of stupid, and said he'd be proud to sell the U.S. government a horse, since that was what he raised them for. The conversation got a mite less friendly as they looked over the stock in the corral, and the old man tried to tell Longarm a wall-eyed paint with scarred flanks was just the critter to carry a man his size.

Longarm said, "I can see he's barrel-chested enough to have fair wind at this altitude. But how come he's so scarred up from scraping corners, likely moving sudden?"

Pop Roberts looked innocent. "Well, to tell the truth, he don't see so good. But, as you say you're going up into the South Pass country, where trees and even fence-posts are few and far between-"

Longarm cut in, "They make me dress like this because I work for an administration that don't serve hard drinks at the White House no more. But that don't mean I'm a total dude. I don't mean to brag, but I have done some riding in my time and, whenever possible, I've rid horses, not crow-bait you couldn't sell to a greenhorn with a lick of common sense."

Pop soothed, "I can see by your boots and them bullet holes in your Stetson that you've been around, old son. How do you feel about that handsome black gelding yonder?"

Longarm said, "I've been around more than that. If he ain't spooky I'm in need of specs. What about that chestnut mare with the blaze and white socks? I like her lines, and she looks steady as well as frisky."

The sly old horse trader smiled despite himself. "You do know which end of a horse the shit falls from, don't you? That one will cost you. I've been saving her for a serious riding man."

"What do I look like, a ballerina?" Longarm asked. "I'll give you a quarter for her."

Pop said, "No you won't. That pretty little thing is worth six bits if she's worth a dollar, and you're still getting her for a steal because I'm so patriotic. I'd never part with her for less than a flat hundred if you was just another cowhand."

"Two bits. I just aim to ride her. I don't aim to make her the mother of my children and the solace of my old age, you know," Longarm said.

They argued back and forth until they finally settled on forty dollars and a handshake of mutual admiration. Pop Roberts roped the bay and hauled her out for Longarm to bridle and saddle. She didn't fight them. She looked like she was anxious to get out of there as well.

Once he was properly mounted, Longarm asked for directions to the nearest local law. The old horse trader sent him back the way he'd just come, the harder way. Longarm thanked him and rode back to such center as such a small town could be said to have. He dismounted, tethered the bay, whose name had turned out to be Ramona, and told her, "I like you, too, and I'll be right back as soon as I pay my dues to this friendly little town."

He strode into the lockup and town constabulary, and found yet another old gent dozing behind the desk. It seemed one had to be too old to move on, or too young and foolish to know better, if one meant to stay long in Saint Stephens. He introduced himself to the town law and gave him a quick rundown on his reasons for being this high above sea level. The old constable looked worried until Longarm told him, "I doubt Black Jack Junior will come your way. You ain't on the trail he admires so. But I thought it best to warn you it's possible, if he gets as smart as me about more modern forms of transportation. You know what he looks like and I want you to take it serious when I add that he's ten times more dangerous than your average Crooked Lancer on the warpath looks. So if he should come your way, shoot to kill, and then shoot him some more until his tail stops twitching."

The older and now more worried-looking lawman thanked him for his words of cheer. "I'll spread the word and tell even the preacher to strap on some hardware, like when the Shoshone went loco a few years back. You say you're trailing such a whale of destruction alone, Deputy Long?"

Longarm said, "I got to. But, what the hell, he's alone, too, and I've got an edge the others he's beat to the draw might not have. I know how sudden and crazy he can move."

"You mean to shoot to kill on sight, then?"

"I mean to try. I can only hope I'm good enough. I no longer care if it sounds fair. He'll try to kill me on sight. He's killed others that wasn't even armed. I'd feel worse gunning a mad dog in a schoolyard full of kids. A mad dog might have started out decent. The murderous little beast I'm after seems to have been no damned use as a child. He even hits women."

The old man behind the desk looked shocked. "In that case, put one in him for me! If he comes through here, we'll be ready for him. I'll tell the boys he hits women."

They shook on it and Longarm left, hoping his warning was just a caution and no more. He mounted up and rode southwest through scattered timber to where Beaver Creek crooked into the white-water of the Little Popo Agie. He followed the wagon trace leading up the right bank of Beaver Creek even though he knew he'd have to ford it, higher up. The Beaver was white-water, too, but not as ferocious as it could get. It was a lot cooler up this way in high summer, but just as dry as the high plains he'd come up from. For such rain clouds as came through this time of the year tended to trip over the higher peaks to the north and south.

A couple of miles outside of town, he watered Ramona where the wagon ruts swung closer to the Beaver and let her graze some while he dug into his possibles for more sensible trail wear. He sat in the shade of some lodgepole pines to change into blue jeans and matching work jacket. Then he stuffed the tobacco-brown tweeds they made him wear where other sissies could see him into his saddlebag, untethered Ramona, and mounted up to ride on a lot more sensible. He knew that from here on over into Mormon country he was unlikely to meet anyone who wouldn't laugh at a gent in a tweed suit. He knew that if he swung just a mite to the west as he rode southwest he'd be able to stop for a howdy at a certain cattle spread where he'd no doubt be offered a warm welcome. But he knew he shouldn't, so he knew he couldn't. It was likely just as well. Every time he and that pretty little Kim Stover got together for a spell they both wound up hurting. It wasn't the kissing of Kim Stover that hurt so bad. It was the stopping that hurt. For they always had to stop, even when he wasn't in this big a hurry, and save for a certain other blonde down Texas way, there was nobody he hated to stop kissing more.

He was tempted to lope his new mount. He could tell she was willing. But they had a good ride ahead, and if he was at all able to read a maniac's mind they had a good four or five days' lead on the real reason for all this traveling. He chuckled and told his mount, "You're sure lucky your kind ain't in heat all the time, like my kind seems to be. If I didn't know myself well enough to control myself so good, I'd run your ass ragged trying to kill two birds with one chestnut, and then I'd have two gals hating me in the end. Old Kim always swears she hates me when she can't get me to stay just a little longer, and Flora Banes is going to hate me for gunning her crazy kid brother, no matter how in the hell I explain it."

The mare didn't know what he was talking about so she saw no need to reply. He kept his thoughts to himself as he considered and rejected plan after plan for taking said brother alive. For, though he didn't give a damn about the feelings of a killer with no feelings about others, he knew poor little Flora was going to be upset as hell, even though even she had to know, deep down, that anyone who shot the silly little bastard would be doing her a favor.

Even if there was some way to take such a raving lunatic alive, there was no way in hell the docs could cure him. Longarm had read that even doctors smart enough to say what was wrong with a human brain in long German words admitted they had no cure for total lunatics. They could humor such a case who didn't seem out to hurt nobody. But what could anyone do with such a case once he took to killing folk for no sensible reason at all?

A crossbill chirped at them from a nearby pine and Longarm said, "Aw, shut up, bird. A lot you know about the rotten chore they sent me to do."

He rode on and, after mulling it all over some more, decided, "All right, God damn it. I know I'm only a deputy, not a judge or a head doc. I'll try to deliver him alive, and let smarter gents than me decide what's to be done with him. But I sure wish I was smart enough to know how I was supposed to do that. Even if I get the drop on him, he don't figure to listen. The real Black Jack Slade never did. That's how come they had to kill him to stop him, too."

He tried to get his mind on something more cheerful than Kim Stover's nice build or Black Jack Junior's disgusting ways, knowing neither could be within reach for quite a few miles. But his mind kept swinging back to one or the other as he rode on and on.

A good five miles up the trail, he spotted a figure running down it towards him. He saw it was a boy of about fourteen, barefoot and wearing nothing but bib overalls. The poor kid's feet had both been cut on sharp pebbles or glass he'd run over, and he was bleeding like hell from a cut across the forehead as well. Longarm reined in. The kid ran past him as if he hadn't been there.

Longarm blinked in surprise and heeled Ramona after the running wonder. Catching up was easy enough. But since Longarm didn't carry a throw rope on his McClellan saddle, he had to lean out and grab the running boy by the X of his overall straps.

Longarm reined in again, saying, "Hold still, damn it. I'm on your side, whatever the hell you're running from."

He dismounted, on the off side, as the kid kept trying to run on, blubbering, "Lemme go! Lemme go! My mom's hurt bad and I gotta git the doc!"

Longarm shook him to plant him in one spot. "You ain't fixing to make town on them feet, now, boy. Simmer down and tell me what happened and how far."

The boy sobbed, "Pappy licked her bad, with a loop of bobwire. I tried to stop him but he licked me, too. When I was able to stop him she was lying all over the floor, bleeding all over, with her dress tore half off. I think she's dead. I got to go get the doc in case she ain't."

Longarm growled deep in his throat. "Judging by that slice the bobwire took out of your face, we could be talking more blood than fatal injuries. I'm handy at stopping bleeding, and no doubt she's bled more than she really ought to by now. So we're going back, riding double. Because you can't run much further and I don't know the way. Hear?"

The boy seemed to see him for the first time. He sobbed, "You can help her, mister? You can keep Mom from dying?"

Longarm didn't know, so he didn't answer. He remounted and hauled the kid up behind him, and if it wasn't comfortable atop a bedroll, it still beat running or even walking on torn-up bare feet.

Knowing which direction the kid had been running from, Longarm rode them that way a spell before he asked, "Do you want to tell me where we're going, or would you rather I just guessed?"

The kid told him to swing left at the next fork. When they topped a gentle rise, and Longarm saw wagon ruts through the grass running in to join the main trail, he did so. The grass was taller and greener at this altitude. The tracks led across the bottomlands of the Beaver to run between two big granite outcrops. Then they were in a shallow dell, surrounded by more rim-rock, and occupied by a mighty lazy homesteader's notion of an improved claim.

The cabin and outbuildings had been thrown up sort of cockeyed, with as little labor as possible, and skinny logs even a weakling could chop through with a few blows. Plank roofing like that was supposed to be shingled or at least sodded unless one enjoyed cold unexpected showers every time it really got to raining, and up here it was only dry most of the time, not all the time. It was the wrong time of the year to worry about cabin chinking, so Longarm didn't comment on cross-ventilation as they rode in. He asked the kid behind him where they might expect to find the man of the house, and in what condition.

The boy said, "I reckon he's dead. I had to make him stop."

Longarm thought that over before he asked quietly, "How did you stop him, son?"

"With an axe. There was one by the fireplace and when he knocked me headfirst into the kindling wood, I just come up swinging what was handy."

Longarm whistled softly. "Well, a boy has to protect his mom, I reckon. How come your old man was acting so ornery in the first place?"

"I don't know. Neither of us had done nothing to make him mad. But when Pappy got to drinking, he didn't need much excuse. I was out back milking the goat when I hear Mom screaming for mercy. When I run into the cabin Pappy had her on the floor as he went after her with that whip he'd made of bobwire. I took holt of his arm and begged him to stop, but he hit me with it as well. I tried to grab him again and he backhanded me clear over the table into the fireplace. That's when I come back at him serious with the axe. Do you reckon they're going to hang me for hitting Pappy with that axe, mister?"

Longarm shook his head. "Not if your mother lives to back your words, son." He reined in by the wide-open cabin door and added, "She's what we got to worry about now. Justifiable homicide can always wait until the law gets around to it."