kept Walthers from mowing down a mess of coal miners when we solved a case that turned out to be a plain old crime instead of the labor unrest the army gets to deal with so noisy at times. I don’t know why Colonel Walthers takes things so personal, but he does.”
Dutch laughed and said, “I know. I was in the army one time, too. There’s a brand of army asshole that’s so used to giving orders that it just goes loco when a man who don’t have to obey army orders points that out and, knowing you, you tends to say things plainer than some. I’ve heard you talk back to Billy Vail in a manner that would drive even a sensible short-colonel to total madness.”
Longarm chuckled. “As a matter of fact, I just this day drove a career sergeant sort of mad, and we was talking about you two today, too. I’m sorry I did, now. If either of you see a gent, wearing army blue or not, but sporting a nice set of shiners, keep an eye on his gun hand. His name is Fagan. I think he’s just a windy bully. But he’s dumb as hell, and if Walthers is out there cussing my name and allowing he’d like to see me dead or worse, there’s no telling what a really stupid bastard nursing a grudge and a busted nose might think he could get away with.”
Dutch laughed and said, “Let ‘em come, all of ‘em. I could never abide anyone above my rank when I was in the army, and for some reason I never got no higher than private.”
“Our department ain’t allowed to declare war on the War Department,” Longarm told him. “I mean that. Colonel Walthers can rave all he wants, but he knows he can’t do shit unless we give him an excuse. You go gunning any soldiers, even in self-defense, and you’ll be filling out papers past Christmas. So pay no attention to the boys in blue. What’s the latest on that boy in the goat-skin chaps?”
Smiley said, “There ain’t none. Not since he shot up the army last night. Billy wired the sheriff’s department, here. They wired back they couldn’t pick up the rascal’s trail and that, unlike the War Department, they’d take all the help they could get. They never said they’d back you against the army, though. That’s what Billy sent us to do.”
“Forget the fool army,” Longarm said. “You couldn’t have left the home office less than, say, four hours ago, so… Never mind. It was a dumb notion. It was more than four hours ago I heard the posse had given up and come on home. Let’s go get a drink. If anything new has happened this afternoon, they’ll have heard about it in the saloons.”
As the three of them headed for the nearest set of swinging doors in sight, across the street, Smiley asked where Longarm had been all day if it hadn’t been here or Fort Halleck.
Longarm said, “I was out over on the river, between here and there, scouting for sign.”
“Find anything interesting?”
“Not sign. Save for the ground near the water, the whole wide prairie is so baked a man could drive a locomotive across it, off the tracks, and it wouldn’t leave a trail to follow.”
Smiley said, “Billy asked us to ask about trains on tracks as we was riding one. So we did. The conductor we talked to said he had a flier from both the War and Justice Departments, as well as his own timetable. So he’d been working on that angle, too. He said but one train passed through these parts after the time of that last shooting, and that the crew would surely have noticed if a cowboy in fancy chaps had ridden it anywhere with a horse.”
Longarm waited until they passed through the saloon entrance and bellied to the bar before he said, “I read the same timetable, and our Black Jack Junior would have had to cut it fine even if the train crew was blind.”
“He could have changed his duds,” said Smiley.
Longarm signaled the barkeep over before he answered, “There was still no way he could have made it all the way back from Fort Halleck afoot before that Denver-bound combo stopped here just long enough to switch tracks and jerk water. I considered him getting about on foot, jingle-jangle spurs or not. It won’t work. On the other hand, had he ridden back from that army post and caught a handy train out of town, he’d have had to leave the infernal mount some damned where, and there’s been no reports on horses missing or turning up extra. We need three beers here, pard.”
The barkeep filled three schooners as Dutch began to tell a joke about a saloon cat pissing in beer schooners. But Longarm told him, “I heard it, and it wasn’t funny the first time. Get serious, damn it. I don’t mind saying I’m open to suggestions, because no matter how that loco kid done it, he done it, and the trail is a lot colder than this beer.”
“Let’s go on home, then,” Smiley said. “There’s no sense looking for a want where he ain’t been seen for almost twenty-four hours, and the rascal has run back to Denver before, you know.”
Longarm shook his head. “By now even he has to know we have his home address and, even if he don’t, it’s staked-out and he’d have walked into the trap by this time if that was his plan.”
Dutch said, “Not if he’s still riding that horse. He wouldn’t be a third of the way there yet, even if he just shot up that canteen and headed right for home.”
Longarm started to tell him how dumb that sounded. Then he said, “I’d best put that on the wire. It makes more sense than that dubious train. I know for a fact there’s green grass and water all the way to Denver if you follow the river. You boys stay here and try to stay out of trouble for now.”
He left them to warm suds and their own devices and legged it back to the Western Union. He picked up a yellow blank and a pencil that could have used some sharpening and wrote a message. He took it to the desk and told the night clerk, “I want this sent flat-rate to the sheriff’s department of every county between here and Denver that the same river runs through, hear?”
The clerk read the message, whistled, and said, “I don’t blame you. But we’re talking about five counties at five cents a word, if you include this one.”
Longarm said, “He might have stopped most anywhere for a swim in such hot weather. But make that just Logan, Morgan, Weld, and Adams. He’d have been caught by now if he was still anywhere in this county, and I mean to have a word with your sheriff in any case, come morning.”
The clerk said he’d get the intercept on the wire and added, “You don’t have to wait that long if you want to talk to our own county law, Deputy Long. I can’t swear the sheriff in the flesh ain’t gone home for supper by now, but the city hall stays open late in summer to make up for the noon siesta.”
Longarm thanked him, asked for directions, and left. The frame city hall wasn’t far, and sure enough all the windows were lit up.
