It was not until Longarm had crossed the peninsula and broken back into the open that he saw the fugitive had commandeered a rowboat and was madly rowing across the big lake. Tahoe, unlike the much smaller and shallower Donner Lake, had not frozen, although it was rimmed by shore ice. Longarm searched in vain for another boat, and when he saw that Eli would escape, dropped to one knee and took aim at the rowboat's hull.
'Eli!' he shouted. 'Turn around and row back!'
Longarm's voice carried strongly across the freezing, choppy water. 'You hear me!' he yelled. 'This is Deputy Custis Long and you're not getting away from me again! Now stop and row back!'
'Go to hell!' Eli screamed, oars flashing in the morning sun.
Longarm could have shot Eli, but he wanted him alive. The man was still less than three hundred yards out, but he was pulling away fast. Longarm had no choice. He fired, and saw the hull of the wooden rowboat splinter at the water line.
'Aim lower!' he muttered to himself.
His next bullet struck the waterline, ricocheted like a flat rock, and then exploded through the wooden hull. Longarm heard Eli scream as much in fury as in fear. Eli yanked off his jacket and desperately tried to plug the hole.
Longarm began to methodically riddle the rowboat. Each bullet ripped through the hull right at the waterline. He was careful not to hit Eli because he was sure that the killer would leap into the water and swim back resigned to face that Denver hangman.
But Eli fooled him. The man just kept rowing even as his boat took on more water and began to sink.
'You can't make it!' Longarm yelled. 'Jump and swim back!'
'Go to hell!' Eli screamed. 'I can't swim!'
Longarm lowered his rifle and came to his feet. He stood rooted to the muddy shore as Eli spun the oars and the rowboat slowly sank. Longarm felt sure that the outlaw would leap into the water and attempt to cling to the wooden hull, and maybe that was Eli's intention. But the rowboat was old and water-logged, so the thing just sank.
'Help! Help me, Deputy Long!' Eli screamed, hanging onto an oar and trying to make it support his weight. The oar, however, was too light.
The corners of Longarm's mouth twisted down as he watched the drowning. Eli Wheat fought the freezing water for several minutes, and then he disappeared in a swirl of bubbles.
When Longarm returned to the cabin, he found Bruce Pettibone inside, attending to the wounded and the dying.
'How many are going to make it?'
'Big Tom Canyon is dead. Hawk Jenkins is too. Two-Fingered Earl is lung-shot and he just drowned in his own blood. Indian Red Lopez won't last through the next hour.'
'Who does that leave?'
'Hamilton and Orr. Both are wounded but they're going to live.'
'Good. We'll need confessions and evidence against Senator Howard.'
'I've already gotten it. They're so spooked that I didn't even have to ask about the senator. They volunteered the information.'
'How are you doing?'
'I thought I was a goner,' Pettibone admitted. 'I saw my entire life flash before my eyes.'
'For a fact?'
'No,' Pettibone said, 'but it sounded good. I'll be fine. Maybe I'll look a little funny with just half a right ear, but I'm not complaining.'
'And neither will your wife and children,' Longarm said.
'What happened to the one that came out through the window and you chased after?'
'He drowned in the lake.'
'Drowned?'
'That's right. If they manage to fish out his body, they won't find any bullet holes. At least none that proved fatal.'
Pettibone looked around at the slaughterhouse filled with dead and dying men. He shook his head. 'I won't ever forget what happened here.'
'Me neither,' Longarm said, stepping out of the cabin and dragging in some clean, cold air.
The next day there wasn't much else that people in northern Nevada talked or read about other than how Longarm and Bruce Pettibone had survived a terrible gun battle with the notorious train-robbing gang at Lake Tahoe, and how the only two surviving outlaws would turn state's evidence against Senator Howard in exchange for their lives.
Longarm had sent a telegram to Billy Vail telling his boss that the reign of terror against the Union Pacific and its innocent passengers was over. Billy's answering telegram had come back within the hour.
NICE WORK STOP NED ROWE CAUGHT IN CHEYENNE BY FEDERAL AGENTS STOP RETURN TO DENVER FOR CELEBRATION STOP GLAD TO HEAR THAT TAHOE FISHES WILL EAT WHEAT STOP
The last line of the telegraph gave Longarm a belly laugh. The first he'd enjoyed in a good long while. He briefly considered visiting Veronica Greenwald, but changed his mind. Betsy would take care of Veronica, who'd probably
