'It'll only be a moment,' she replied, leading Longarm out of their office.
Once they were out on the board sidewalk, Martha slipped her arms around Longarm's waist. Tears made her eyes glisten. 'It just occurred to me that I may never see you again.'
'I swear that I'll return.'
Her lower lip trembled. 'But not to take that job or to get married.'
'I can't say what I'll do for the future, Martha. All I know for sure is that I've already got a big job to do.'
'You don't know anything about this bunch and you don't even know how many there are.'
'I'll know more when I pick up their trail,' he said. 'A lot more.'
Martha laid her head against his chest. 'I'm scared for you, Custis. What if you get killed?'
'Then your life goes on just as it did before we met two days ago.'
'It seems like we've known each other for years. I can't imagine not having known you.'
Longarm hugged her tightly. 'Martha, I have to go now. Stretching out a good-bye never does any good.'
She released him and stepped back. 'I've told Mr. Evans and Mr. Black that they can either buy me out of their partnership or bring me into the firm that my father founded as an equal partner. It seems that they're having a very difficult time with that decision, but I'm sure that they will make the right choice. You see, they both have suffered investment losses and don't have much cash on hand.'
'I wish you a good start on your new life,' Longarm said before kissing her and then turning on his heel and marching on down the boardwalk.
'I'll be waiting for you!' she called.
When Longarm reached the telegraph office, there was a telegram from his boss that read: GET THE BASTARDS DEAD OR ALIVE. Billy had also wired a check for two hundred dollars, which told Longarm better than words that he was supposed to stay out on the trail no matter how long it took to bring Eli Wheat and the train- robbing gang to justice.
'Your boss sounds pretty upset,' the telegraph operator said. 'I never got a telegraph like that before.'
'Marshal Vail means business, all right,' Longarm agreed.
A few minutes later he collected the cash at the bank, and then went to collect his horse. It was nearly noon before Longarm was ready to ride.
'I hope you shoot them,' Bob said as Longarm mounted the sorrel. 'I hope you kill every last one.'
'My job is to take them alive, if possible, and bring them to trial.'
'If you do that,' the liveryman said, 'I'll come down to Denver to watch them dance on the gallows.'
'You'd be welcome,' Longarm said as he reined his horse west and put it into a gallop toward the nearby Laramie Mountains.
It was late afternoon and the snow was almost gone when Longarm rode the tough sorrel gelding up to the site of the train wreck. Union Pacific crews were everywhere cleaning up debris and searching for more bodies. Jim Allen saw Longarm, and came over to greet him.
'More bodies?' Longarm asked.
'Two. I think we have them all now. It's a wonder that everyone wasn't killed.'
'Yeah.' Longarm glanced up the line toward the summit. 'Did you see any sign of an explosion?'
'I haven't had time to look. All my attention has been down the side of this mountain. That big locomotive will rest in that gulch forever.'
'Let's take a look up the track and see if we can find out why it derailed,' Longarm said, reining up-slope.
He rode about two hundred yards back up the track, and dismounted to stare at the great pit where dynamite had exploded to twist the tracks like hairpins.
'Holy cow!' Allen said, catching up. 'They must have used a barrel of dynamite.'
'nat's right,' Longarm said. 'They weren't scrimping, that's for sure. And they brought a wagon along to carry off whatever they could find, including the safe in the mail car in case they couldn't blast it open.'
'At least it should be easy tracking them,' the railroad supervisor offered hopefully.
Longarm handed the sorrel's reins to Allen and began to study the signs. He saw boot marks and cigarette butts and plenty of horse tracks just up-slope and behind a pile of rocks.
'They didn't need to hide, but they must have been trying to get out of the weather as they waited for the train.'
'I wish they'd have frozen solid,' Allen spat out.
Longarm spent another fifteen minutes studying signs. There wasn't a lot to see because the snow had covered the ground, then melted, leaving everything indistinct. He wasn't even sure how many men had been involved.
'You find anything real important?' Allen asked.
'Afraid not.'
'Too bad. Looks like they had a wagon that should be plenty easy to follow.'
Longarm's eyes followed the wagon tracks. He was very sure that he would find the wagon abandoned somewhere up in the mountains. Furthermore, he was expecting that the tracks of the horsemen he followed would
