The old-timer knew his law, too. He stared hard at Longarm and said, “You ain’t fooling us. We know you mean to hand the corpse in to the federal marshal in Lander so’s you feds can steal our case from us.”
Longarm grinned knowingly. “Hell, that’s only fair. I seen her dead first. I’ll tell you what. I’ll drop the body off at Lander, and after you boys bring Dan Hogan up to the county seat, we can let the federal and county judges argue about it.”
He detected the look of low cunning he’d been trying to inspire in that mean old face and quickly added, innocently, “You mean to bring Hogan up to the county seat for a proper view as soon as you can catch him, don’t you?”
The posse leader was grinning like a polecat regarding the open door of a henhouse. “Why, sure we are, old son. Meanwhile, we’ll just carry that dead little lady back with us to put on ice until we catch the rascal.”
Longarm sighed, turned to Ann, and said, “You’d best move over yonder, out of our line of fire, Miss Ann. For I do believe my message ain’t getting through to these gents.”
The older lawman looked more surprised than worried. “I reckon the lady better, too. I hope you’ve noticed you are making your brag with no more than six rounds against fourteen of us, each packing considerably more ammunition than that?”
Longarm nodded soberly. “What can I tell you? I have to uphold federal law as I see it. The woman was killed under my jurisdiction. I mean to carry her body to Lander as federal evidence. Anyone else who’d like to accompany her in the same condition is free to do so. But I can’t promise a tarp for each and every body. It’s your move. I’ve said all I mean to about the matter.”
A million years went by. Then one of them muttered, “The kid said he was the one called Longarm, Jim.”
Old Jim stared hard some more before he shrugged and said, “It must be. Nobody else would act so loco over a damned old dead woman. Let’s go, boys. We can still string that rascal up, if we can get to him first.”
As they turned to ride off, Longarm took his first deep breath in some time. Ann ran to him, long brown hair streaming, and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing, “Oh, Lord, you were ever so brave and I was ever so scared, Custis! You must be the bravest man who ever lived. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you stand up to all those horrid men!”
He patted her back. “I couldn’t believe it either. I don’t know what comes over me at such times. But it goes with my job. I’d say it’s safe to sit down some more, now. Where was we when we was so rudely interrupted?”
As they sank back down into each other’s arms, she giggled and took his hand to show him. But though he wound up with more than his hand down there, she said they’d have to wait until they got to town before she’d take off all her duds and go to town entire with him.
By the time they got to the county seat and end of the railroad line, the hard way, it was too late in the evening to do much more than ask an undertaker to put Blanche Hogan on ice and ask the turnkey at the federal lockup to hold her husband for the judge, come morning.
Longarm knew he’d lost two whole days of his lead on Black Jack Junior. He stood to lose most of another if the judge turned out to be picky about paperwork. But he was sort of looking forward to the night ahead after all the hours he and poor little Ann had spent prim and proper after that hasty ice-breaking with their fool duds on. So he sprang for the honeymoon suite at the best hotel in town, which wasn’t as grand as it might have sounded, and they were so delighted to hire the rooms that they saw no need to ask who she might be when he signed the book for them, singular case.
Once they were upstairs and she was blushing and flustering about checking into a hotel with a man she wasn’t even engaged to, he told her, “Hold the thought a spell. I aim to make you feel even more wicked as soon as I can. But I’ve got some errands to run before this dinky town closes down entire. I got to send me a mess of wires, and I might save time in the morning by picking up the makings of a new bedroll now.”
She didn’t ask why he wanted a new bedroll. She’d helped him unload the cadaver, still wrapped in his old bedding.
Down on the street, he found the outfitting store had just closed. But the card hanging behind the glass said they opened early in the morning. He made a mental note of the time they’d be open for business and headed next for the Western Union office near the end of the tracks.
Inside, he penciled a message for Billy Vail, bringing him up to date and assuring the home office he hadn’t run away with any circus. He figured he still had a lead on the lunatic he hoped to bottleneck on the divide to the west. But it wasn’t nearly as long a lead as before. So he wrote out a detailed warning, tossing in the suggestion that the want could be disguised as a normal man or even a woman, and carried both forms to the counter.
The telegraph clerk in Lander was around fifty, making him an old-timer in a rapidly changing West, so he felt free to scan the messages and opine, “You don’t want to send this one to South Pass City. The Overland stages crossed the divide by way of Bridger’s Pass, not the one that colored gent found.”
Longarm frowned. “Are you sure we ain’t talking about the Wells Fargo stages?” he asked. “I confess the railroad put all the transcontinental stagecoaches out of business before I ever got to ride coast-to-coast so uncomfortable. But I was told the Overland Trail ran through South Pass.”
The older man shook his head and insisted, “Bridger’s. I ain’t saying Overland never sent a freight wagon over the South Pass now and again. But time was money to a mail coach. So most used Bridger’s route, and to hell with the grade.”
Longarm swore softly. “Send that same message to every law office in the great divide basin, then. For Lord only knows where a gent mapping out the Overland Trail from London, England, might have told a homicidal maniac it ran.”
Western Union agreed and, having covered all bets, Longarm went across to a trackside saloon to consult expert opinion on just where in a lot of square miles he might be able to set up his ambush.
The cow and railroad hands he found enjoying their quitting-time cheer in the rinky-dink saloon were more
