out.”
He left before anyone could figure out how to stop him, and legged it back to the hotel. He’d left his saddle and possibles in the stable with Blue Boy in case of more local travel in a hurry. So he could have gotten clear without saying adios to old Myrtle.
He was tempted. Weepy women were a pain. But he knew that, even if he never had to watch her weeping, she figured to feel even more used and abused if he just sneaked out on her. So he toted his gear inside, where Myrtle was minding her desk again and, as she saw he was carrying his luggage, she looked kicked in the belly more than weepy.
He told her, “It ain’t the way it might look, honey. I was sure looking forward to the sound of them bedsprings upstairs, but I just got a line on that young killer. I got to try and stop him before he kills again. This time he ain’t got as good a lead on me, but he’s still got a good one. So I got to go, and I don’t want you to take my hasty departing personal, hear?”
She stared soberly down at the saddle braced on his hip and said, “You could have left by the back way, at least, you brute.”
“That could have been took more brutal. I figured I owed a pretty lady a proper parting of the ways,” he told her.
She looked blank at first. Then she smiled radiantly. “I’ll be damned if I don’t think you meant that, and you’ve made my day in more ways than one, even if the night ahead promises to be an awful letdown. God bless you, Custis Long, and try to remember me the next time you’re back this way. For I doubt I’ll ever forget you and the all-too-short time you made me feel so young and pretty again.”
He leaned across to kiss her and promised to visit, should he ever pass through Julesburg again. Then he got away before she could blubber up on him. He knew that last part had been a lie, even if it had been a white lie. He passed through Julesburg often enough on more serious business. But he knew it was best to break clean, with even good-looking women, if one wanted a clear conscience and pleasant memories. He figured a lot of good old gals he recalled wistfully enjoyed their soft place in his heart because he’d had to move on before they’d felt free to nag him about the way he just was. He wanted to remember Myrtle as a sweet old gal So it was just as well there were other places to stay in Julesburg, if he ever got stuck here overnight again.
He’d memorized the local timetable, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a distant locomotive moan at a crossing off to the east. He legged it to the depot, put his saddle on an empty baggage cart and started to light a cheroot as he noticed there were seven other gents on the platform with him. He took them for fellow travelers until his match light glinted on the dress sword one of them had hanging down his blue pants. The same match lit Longarm’s face, of course, so the one with the sword marched over to say, “They told us we might find you here, Deputy Long. You can forget about that westbound train.”
Longarm shook out his light and said, “Evening, Colonel Walthers. Ain’t your corporal’s squad two men short?”
Lieutenant Colonel Walthers, U.S. Army Military Police, was a man about Longarm’s age and shape, in an army where fifty-year-old captains were not considered rare. Walthers was said to boot-lick his superiors with the same enthusiasm he bullied his inferiors, which included ninety-nine percent of the human race, to hear old Walthers talk. “You have to come back to Fort Halleck with us, Long. We’re holding a board of inquiry on the death of Sergeant Fagan,” he said.
Longarm said, “That’s the army’s business, not mine. I was nowhere near the idjet when he decided to commit suicide by slapping leather on a man I’d hate to mess with that way. There ain’t no mystery for the army to solve. Your sergeant went down in front of a saloon full of witnesses, and the gent who gunned him has owned up to it. I’m headed for Scott’s Bluff on a more important and less lawful shooting. So don’t mess with me. I mean it.”
But the officer told him, “I’m holding you responsible for Sergeant Fagan’s death. I mean that, too.”
Longarm snorted in disgust. “You know, every time I figure I know just how dumb you are, you have to prove me wrong by acting even dumber. This ain’t a beauty contest between you and me. You’d be pretty as hell if You wiped that constant smirk off your fool face. We’re both after a man who kills soldiers a lot more regular than old Dutch. He just murdered a civilian, for a change, in Scott’s Bluff. If you and your boys would rather pick nits about an open-and-shut case that can only go one way, that’s up to you. I see my train coming in now. It’s been nice talking to you.”
He picked up his saddle with his left hand and took a step toward the tracks. Walthers stepped into his path, stuck his chest out at him, and snapped, “If you won’t come willingly we’ll just have to disarm and handcuff you. Lieutenant Parsons, arrest this civilian!”
The U.P. westbound combo was rolling to a stop behind Walthers. Longarm clamped down on his cheroot with bared teeth, balled up his right fist, and planted it in Walther’s superior smile, hard.
The short-colonel went down, his face a bloody ruin, as the nearest shave-tail gasped in awe and said, “You can’t do that!”
Longarm drew his six-gun with the same lethal fist. “I just did. Before anyone else gets hurt, I want you boys to add up the odds here and… Keep that gun hand polite, Trooper. I mean it!”
The enlisted man who’d just unstrapped the flap of his holster had noticed Longarm seemed to be a man who meant it, when he said he meant it. So he froze, looking sort of sick.
Longarm threw his saddle aboard the nearest rail car’s loading platform, but kept them all covered. He smiled thinly and said, “That’s better. I know it’s six of you to five rounds in this wheel. So I know at least one of you would surely nail me no matter how the other five made out. I’m only human. For all we know, I might not take all five down with me. So place your bets and let the game commence.”
Nobody moved or said a word, save for Walthers himself, who was rolling about on the platform with both hands to his face, demanding they arrest his attacker.
Longarm climbed the steps backward, gun muzzle trained on the sullen but smart soldiers. After a few tense, awkward seconds the locomotive up ahead sounded its whistle, the platform under him jerked into motion, and Longarm was on his way west.
As he holstered his gun and picked up his saddle, a conductor Longarm knew came out to join him, saying, “Evening, Longarm. You don’t have to show me your U.P. pass. I’ve seen it often enough. What was that all about back there? It sounded sort of serious.”
Longarm shrugged. “I reckon they weren’t as serious as me, after all.”
