When he reached his destination he grunted softly under his breath. The place hadn’t changed much since the last time he’d been there. The peeled log walls had maybe weathered a little more, and the chinks between the logs had sprung maybe a bit wider. The gaps were too big to ignore, and someone was going to have to do some serious mud-daubing before winter or there wouldn’t be a stove made that’d be capable of keeping the place heated.
Still, it didn’t look all that bad. The building rambled this way and that, taking off from a central core little bigger than a homesteader’s cabin, and showing the numerous additions that’d been added on since that first structure was thrown together.
There was a lean-to on the right end that he didn’t think had been there before, and now there was a stout corral where before there’d only been hitching posts and a flimsy hay rack. Apart from those things, though, it still looked pretty much the way he last remembered it.
Longarm stood in the shelter of a cottonwood tree for a few moments while he finished his cheroot. Then he ground the stub of the cigar under the heel of his boot and, taking a deep breath, ambled inside the saloon, general store, and whatever else it might be.
“You again,” the barman said with an undertone of annoyance, sounding the way he might have if an unwelcome regular was stopping in for the third time on the same afternoon. It had been, Longarm remembered, something over two years since he’d last been underneath this roof.
“Nice to see you too, Gregory.”
“There’s a new saloon in town,” Gregory suggested. “Nice place. I think you’d like it. It’s up on Main Street. The Bob Dwyer, run by a guy named Bob though his last name ain’t Dwyer. Cute, huh? I’m sure you’ll like the place.”
“Thanks, Gregory, but I expect I’ll stay here for the time bein’.”
“Rye whiskey then?”
“That’d be fine.”
Gregory produced a dust-covered jug and pulled the cork. He tipped a generous slug of the aged whiskey into a glass and pushed it across the bar.
“I’m impressed,” Longarm said, lifting the glass and judiciously smelling the aroma before taking a small taste and allowing the liquor to lie warm on his tongue for a moment before he swallowed. “This is your good stuff.”
“I want you satisfied and quick as possible out of here,” Gregory said with a level gaze.
Longarm fished a handful of change out of his pocket and laid it onto the counter. Gregory ignored the money. “How much?” Longarm insisted.
“On the house,” the barman said. “Just drink up and leave.” He hesitated. “Please.”
Longarm sighed. He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of the impulse, and closed it. A moment later he said, “I won’t be long. This is business, Gregory. Official. I have to ask a couple questions. Then I’ll go.”
“Anything I can answer?”
“I’m willing to give you the chance,” Longarm said. “It’s about Harry Bolt, Gregory. I need to find him.”
The barman frowned. “You come in on the stage just now?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you just come down from where I thought Harry was still working. Last thing I heard he was night marshal at Trinidad.”
“I talked to the mayor there first thing when I hit town,” Longarm said. “He told me Bolt quit the night marshal job there about four, five months back. He said I should ask …”
“Dammit,” Gregory hissed. “If it ain’t one of you bastards it’s the other. I don’t know what she sees in you gun-crazy sons of bitches.”
Longarm gave the bartender a tight smile. “That’s the difference between Harry and me, Gregory. You can say something like that to my face an’ know I won’t blow a hole through your breastbone for it. You say the same thing to Harry Bolt an’ you’re a dead man. An’ anyway, you know good an’ well what she sees in us. It’s the smell of gunsmoke an’ the excitement of bein’ close to the Grim Reaper, Gregory. Not that I agree with any of that, mind. But it’s what she thinks she sees, which is enough to make it so.”
“Damn you to hell, Custis Long.”
Longarm sighed again and finished his rye—it really was prime stuff—and said, “I may well be headed in that direction, Gregory. But lucky for me, that ain’t for you to say.” He shook his head no when Gregory offered to pour another. “Thanks, but one is enough for right now. Just tell me where I can find her.” He looked suggestively toward the wall behind the bar where a doorway had been cut through.
Gregory frowned, but after a moment nodded. “She’s there, Long. She’s most always there lately.”
Longarm raised an eyebrow.
“She hasn’t been feeling good, Long. She’s been real sick.”
“Sick, Gregory? Or …”
“What do you want me to say, Long? She’s been sick. Never mind that the sickness comes in a little brown bottle.”
“Damn,” Longarm said.
“Seeing you will make it worse again, Long.”
