Longarm kicked it away as he reloaded, staring down bemused at the softly smiling face of a total stranger as he reloaded. The dumb bastard looked to be around fifty. Longarm had just hunkered down to go through some pockets when Gordo, from next door, came timidly over to make the sign of the cross and shyly ask, 'For why did you shoot Senor Pryce just now, El Brazo Largo?'
Longarm was back on his feet and moving off as he called back, 'I had to. He was fixing to back-shoot me again. Tell Purvis who did it when he gets here. I'll tell him why as soon as I get back with his sneaky partner, Doyle!' He tore around the back of Gordo's chandlery, hauled that Coast Guard pony out of his brushwood stable, and forked himself up into his army saddle to ride after that son of a bitch.
The best way to chase another cuss was to figure which way he'd likely head, not give him a greater lead while you asked others for directions. So Longarm loped across the main street and headed west along that same lane leading to the inland wagon trace. For a man on the run with the law hot on his heels would likely choose some solitude as he lathered his own brute, and the coast road ran through much more of town as well as past that Coast Guard station to the north. All bets were off if the bastard was riding south, but from what La Bruja had told Longarm the shady meat packers had at least one mighty shady confederate up in Corpus Christi, if one of the partners themselves hadn't been trying to recruit Mexicans to dry-gulch a dangerous Anglo.
He had a better handle now on why they'd considered him dangerous. Thanks to old Reporter Crawford of the Denver Post, a lot of folks knew the notorious Longarm had spent some time punching cows before going to work under Marshal Billy Vail. Yet he'd missed what they were up to, and might have never studied on a dinky meat packing operation in a dinky seaport if they'd been smart enough to leave him the hell alone. There were heaps of stockmen coming and going all around the establishment of Pryce & Doyle, yet how many had ever seen fit to wonder how you ran a slaughterhouse without any stockyards out back, or why the tallow-rendering plants, fertilizer mills, and tanneries you usually saw next to a slaughterhouse hadn't been anywhere in the whole blamed town.
He was sure he had more answers than he really did as he tore out to the west with his saddle gun cocked across his knees, eyes peeled for ambush from the cactus hedges around the small milpas he tore by.
Then he spotted a small familiar figure afoot ahead, and reined in as that young Mexican gal Consuela turned around in the dusty road with a puzzled look on her pretty little face.
Longarm called out, 'I'm chasing that sneaky meat packer, Doyle. Might you have seen him out this way, on most any sort of transportation? I suspect he signaled his partner the jig was up and lit out when I got that partner instead.'
Consuela stared up owl-eyed to reply, 'Pero no, senor. I am on my way home for to search for wicked cabras my little brother just told me about. I told La Senorita Norma I had to go find them for Papacito before la aligador gets them. I do not know for why they run off into the spartina reeds like that when they are feeling bad, but they do, and I know where to search for them.'
He said he felt sure she did, and started to wheel his mount around to try another direction when what she'd said sank all the way in and he said, 'Hold on. You say your goats have been coming down sick, Consuela?'
She said, 'Si, more than half of them. Pero not all at once. One gets to shaking and dragging its poor hooves and then, just as it seems to feel better, another we thought was well again starts to cry and butt its head against things.'
'Like those folks in town!' Longarm gasped. 'Sick goats wandering into the swamps to get eaten by gators could account for a hungry gator boldly backtracking to your milpa in hopes of more goat meat and settling for... Do you folks sell a lot of goat meat in town, Consuela?'
She burst that bubble by shaking her head and declaring, 'Pero no! Where would we get the milk for to make cheese or put in coffee if we slaughtered our milk goats for meat, senor?'
Longarm didn't answer. He was already headed back to town, as fast as he'd just ridden out. As he hit the main street again he saw a considerable crowd to his right, near the meat-packing plant. He swung the other way, slid his mount to a stop in front of the old icehouse, and tore inside, calling out to Norma, 'Hey, Doc, I think I got it!'
The Junoesque Norma came across the cot-cluttered floor to meet him, looking innocent, in her fresh white outfit. But she smiled awfully sweet as she asked him in a puzzled tone what on earth he was talking about.
Longarm said, 'You were right about it being a fever carried by livestock. But it was the nondescript Mex goats that nobody pays much attention to. No cows have caught it yet. Goats don't graze on open range with Texas beef cows, in peril of their lives.'
She nodded but said, 'That only makes sense till you consider all the Anglos coming down with your mysterious goat fever, Custis. How many of these Anglo townsfolk, cowhands, and even Coast Guardsmen do you suspect of eating or even petting sick Mexican goats?'
Longarm insisted, 'It's the milk. None of those spreads we passed this morning kept one dairy cow on hand. Like everyone else down this way they buy the little fresh milk and cream they fancy off the local smallholders, who keep goats, not cows, for milking!'
Norma Richards was smart as well as passionate. So she thought, snapped her fingers, and said, 'Of course! You don't take cream in your coffee. I've been using canned condensed milk, here as well as out at that Coast Guard station, thanks to a generous mess officer who asked me not to mention it to Lieutenant Flynn.'
Longarm said, 'Flynn seems to strike lots of folk as a martinet. Either way, condensed milk explains why so few Coast Guardsmen came down with this fever, and how come the ones in your care seem to be getting over it naturally.'
But Norma was already waving all her volunteer gals in, along with some recovering patients she'd been putting to work there. Longarm didn't hang about to hear her explain why they all had to dash through town, shouting like Paul Revere about getting rid of all the fresh milk and goat cheese on hand. He was already on his way to get back to his own chores.
As he strode for the mount he'd tethered out front, old Constable Purvis cut him off, side arm drawn, demanding, 'Stand and deliver on how come you just shot a pillar of our community, Deputy Long!'
Longarm said tersely, 'Had to. It was him or me. I suspect that once we pass around some photographs, we'll agree those others I took for saddle bums were business associates of the late Mister Pryce as well. They must have had a time getting their regular help to go up against me and my rep, if they got desperate enough for the senior partner to try for me personally! I got to catch the junior partner now, and see if I can get him to fill me in on some of the missing pieces of the puzzle. I'm sure I got most of it about right now.'
He untethered his mount and started to mount up as the older law man pleaded, 'Tell me what's been going on
