tonight and guess what? He’ll be looking for you.”
Longarm looked back at the sheriff and said, “Then it will be your job, Sheriff Smith, to keep him off my ass. I am a taxpaying citizen. I mind my own business.”
The sheriff looked at him sardonically and said, “Well, if minding your own business includes pistol- whipping Big Billy Castle, then you’d better take up another business.”
Longarm said, “Just who the hell are the Castles?”
The deputy answered first. “You ain’t ever heard of the Castles? Boy, you must be from a long ways off.”
Longarm’s head whipped around toward him. “Son, when you get to be half my age, then you can start calling me boy, but until then, it ain’t a real good idea.”
The deputy laughed. “Feisty old sonofabitch, ain’t ya?”
Longarm said evenly, “Feisty, yes. Sonofabitch, sometimes. Old, not yet. Watch your mouth, sonny.”
The sheriff said, “You’re causing nothing but commotion around here. You’re not really welcome in this town.”
Longarm said, “Well, welcome or not, I have business in this town and I intend on staying here until I get it tended to. Now I am a logical and a reasonable man. Do you mind telling me why I am supposed to treat these Castle folks so politely? How come they deserve the buttered side of the bread?”
The deputy said, “Because they keep this area going. They have two of the biggest cattle outfits around here. They are by far the wealthiest people around. They hire more men, they spend more money. They keep this outfit going. Ya need any better answer than that? Ain’t money at the bottom of most everything?”
Longarm said, “Well just who are they? Is it just one family?”
This time the sheriff answered. “The real head is old Vernon Castle. He was the first one out here. He’s got three boys. You’ve met two of them, Billy Bob and Glenn. Then there is a younger one, Virgil. He’s not much into the business end of things. Then there is Vernon’s younger brother, James. He’s got a pretty good-size spread. He’s got two young sons and two daughters. And, yes, they own just about everything that you see, including that hotel that you are staying in. So unless you want to get thrown out of there, you’d better mind your p’s and q’s.”
“So they run the town, do they? Do they run the law also?”
The sheriff’s head snapped up. “You know, I’m getting a little tired of your smart mouth, mister. How’d you like to spend a little time back there in one of those cells?”
Longarm said, “When I have done something that deserves it. You try to put me in there before that, you’ll see more lawyers than you’ve ever seen in your life coming at you. I’m not a man without means myself. I cut a little mustard back in my own country.”
“And where would that be, if it’s any of my business?”
“Well, it don’t happen to be any of your business, but it’s Tennessee and parts of Louisiana and parts of Arkansas. Us Longs, we tend to get around. There’s quite a few of us and we tend to get some people voted into office ourselves, so I understand how that works. You just make sure that the three-hundred-pound baby bull stays the hell away from me, or next time I won’t use the barrel on him. I’ll use it in him.”
Before the sheriff could answer, Longarm pushed away from his desk, gave the deputy a curt nod, and walked out of the office, well pleased with himself.
Later in the afternoon, Longarm saddled up the chestnut gelding with the intention of making a reconnaissance in order to get a lay of the land. He’d gotten some rough directions from one of the stable hands as to where the two Castle ranches were located. But the country was so big that all he’d really be able to do would be to place their headquarters. They owned parcels of land in a great circle all around the town.
He also had a map that the garrison commander had drawn him showing where the five soldiers had been killed. He eliminated the one that was stabbed in the alley, considering him as not part of the pattern since the others had obviously been bushwhacked by rifle fire.
He rode out of the town toward the south, taking a road that led toward Eden, some forty miles away. He thought to name any place Eden in such country showed a remarkable sense of humor on the part of the residents. He had, of course, no intention of going some forty miles away. His main interest was the location of Castle property in relation to where the four troopers had died.
It was a warm day and enough wind was blowing to raise the light, powdery, leachy dust that was so irritating to a man’s nose. He took a big bandanna out of his saddlebags and tied it around his face like a bandit, just over the bridge of his nose. His horse wouldn’t suffer because nature had put enough hair in a horse’s nose so that it would filter out such trouble.
He put the chestnut into a ground-eating lope and rode in a wide eastward swath until he located the headquarters of the James Castle ranch. They appeared to be running cattle that were a mixed breed of shorthorns and white-face Herefords with a base stock of longhorn mixed in with them. Only in the last ten years had the ranchers realized the necessity of breeding beef stock to the all-bone, longhorned cattle. The small gentle Midwestern beef stock couldn’t handle the harsh Texas climates by themselves, but if they were crossed with the hardy stock of the longhorn, then you got a good bit of the longhorn’s hardiness, and you put a little meat on his bones with the shorter-horned or Hereford cross.
He set his horse on the dirt road and looked out across the half mile between himself and the headquarters of the James Castle branch of the family. It was a big, two-story adobe or stucco structure with red Mexican tile on the roof. Even from that distance, he could see that it was a well-kept place, and around the barns and other outbuildings he could see men working.
He had no reason to suspect that the Castles had anything to do with the murders. It was just that they had come to his attention first, and if anyone would be interested in the welfare and management of the country around San Angelo, it would be the largest landowners, and that most definitely would be the Castle family.
He rode on, curving toward the north toward the little town of Wall, about seven miles east of San Angelo. He passed Wall and continued further north, disliking the country as much as he had from previous visits. They had done an excellent job of growing rocks, cactus, sand, mesquite trees, and a few scrub oaks, but there was damned little grass for cattle to eat and damned few cultivated crops. Here and there he saw some scraggly fields of corn, oats, and wheat, but he was damned if the country would handle more than one cow per one hundred acres. If a
