On the way in, Pettibone called to the ticket man to locate the depot's telegraph operator. 'Tell him to wire the Sacramento depot where my wife and two sons will be expecting me in about three hours. Tell him to say that I have been delayed and will come home as soon as possible.'
'Yes, sir!'
'This way,' Pettibone growled as he strolled across the depot lobby and used a key to unlock an unmarked door.
Pettibone's office was in a clutter, which was a credit to the man as far as Longarm was concerned. Show Longarm a neat lawman or detective and he'd show you a man that did not have enough to do.
'Sit down,' Pettibone ordered.
'No,' Longarm said, dropping his bags and leaning his Winchester up against a scarred file case. 'I want to inspect the site of the derailment and then hear what you know before I tell you anymore.'
'I'm in charge here!'
Longarm shook his head. 'You know, that's exactly the same attitude that got Marshal Denton all banged up and admitted to the hospital.'
'Denton is in the hospital?'
'Yep.' Longarm massaged his bruised and skinned knuckles, and the meaning was very clear.
Pettibone's scowl melted and he even grinned. 'Well, I'll be damned! I thought that I was the one that was finally going to have to take that big bastard down a peg or two.'
Longarm said nothing.
'Listen,' Pettibone continued, 'any man that can whip Denton is a man that I can respect. Do you have any proof about Senator Howard?'
'Not yet.'
Pettibone frowned. 'All right,' he said. 'Have you ever worn snowshoes?'
'Once.'
'Good! We'll strap on a couple pairs and go for a walk in the woods. It's just up the tracks about a mile, but you won't be able to reach the wrecked cars. They tumbled far down in a frozen gorge.'
'That's what also happened at Laramie Summit,' Longarm said. 'These boys that are derailing the trains aren't delicate or fair-minded, are they?'
'No,' Pettibone said, 'they damn sure aren't.'
It took the better part of an hour to reach the site of the train wreck, and there really wasn't a lot to see once they arrived, but then Longarm did not need to see much.
'The method of derailment is the same,' Longarm announced. 'They dynamited the track just as the locomotive passed over it.'
'Not dynamite,' Pettibone corrected. 'They used nitroglycerine.'
'at?'
'It's banned because of its instability and power. The Central Pacific had to resort to its use when they were building the Sierra summit tunnels. Nitroglycerine has so much power that it once leveled an entire city block over in San Francisco. The stuff is extremely unstable but very, very powerful. It would take several cases of dynamite to lift a locomotive off the tracks, but just a jar of liquid nitroglycerine.'
'All right,' Longarm said, 'I'll go along with that. But so what?'
'I've been checking on every chemist in California and Nevada. One of them has to be mixing and handling that stuff. I'm expecting a telegram any day that will link Senator Howard to a criminal who also happens to be a skilled chemist.'
'Why don't we just keep an eye on the senator?'
'Because he is too smart to ever get personally involved in this. He'll use intermediaries. The only way we nail him is to catch someone who deals with him and is willing to testify against the senator in court.'
'So where do you suggest we start?'
'We start with your list of names. Are you ready to give them to me now?'
Longarm supposed he was. One by one, he reeled off the names that Fergus had given him, and as he did so, Pettibone's grin widened.
'You like what you've heard?'
'Damn right I do! Big Tom Canyon, Two-Fingered Earl, Shorty Hamilton, and most all the others are living in a cabin not twenty miles from here. They're at the north shore of Lake Tahoe.'
it was Longarm's turn to grin. 'You don't say!'
'I do say. But we'll never get them arrested without evidence.'
Longarm patted his six-gun. 'Evidence is usually found at the source. I'm going to that cabin and find it.'
'Whoa!' Pettibone cried. 'You can't just...'
'Just what?'
'Go busting in there!'
'Watch me,' Longarm said. Pettibone was better on snowshoes than Longarm and managed to get in front of
