throughout the West had their own distinctive sounds, never to be forgotten once they had been heard... and Longarm had heard damn near all of them at one time or another.
When he turned onto a side trail that led up into the mountains a few minutes later, he heard another, all-too- familiar sound: the metallic clatter of a Winchester's lever action being worked.
'Hold it, mister!' rang a shout from a nearby stand of trees. The growth was thick and provided good cover for the rifleman concealed there. As Longarm reined in, he saw the blued-steel snout of a Winchester poking through the green pine boughs.
Longarm sat still in the saddle, making no move except to half-raise his hands, even though the rifleman hadn't told him to put 'em up. He didn't want to give the man any excuse for an itchy trigger finger. 'I'm not looking for trouble,' he called out.
'You're a cowboy, aren't you?' The angry, accusing words shot out from the trees.
'Not right at the moment, no, I ain't,' said Longarm. 'I won't lie to you, I did some cowboying when I came out West after the Late Unpleasantness, but I ain't pushed steers in a long time.'
'Fought in the war, did you?'
'Yep, but don't ask me on which side, 'cause I tend to disremember.'
A chuckle came from the brush, but it wasn't necessarily a friendly sound. 'Me too. What's your business out here?'
'I'm looking for the Mcentire lumber camp. Got business with the boss there.'
'Is that so?' There was a crackle of branches being parted, and the rifleman stepped out of his hiding place. He was in his thirties, Longarm judged, and his lace-up boots and checkered shirt marked him as a lumberjack, though at the moment he was wielding a Winchester instead of an ax. He gestured curtly with the barrel of the rifle and went on. 'I work for Mcentire Timber. Best tell me what your business is.'
Longarm shook his head. 'Nope. I'll only talk to your boss.'
The lumberjack's face purpled with anger. Given all the trouble the timber company had experienced recently, it made sense that they had posted guards. And the way Longarm was dressed, he wasn't surprised that this sentry had taken him for a cowboy, which made him a natural enemy so far as this lumberjack knew. What with all the tension between the two groups, it didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this fella might just blast him out of the saddle and be done with it.
Reading the menace in the lumberjack's eyes, Longarm said quietly, 'You might want to think twice about what you're considering, old son. Happens that I'm a lawman, a deputy United States marshal, and you don't want to go shooting federal officers.'
The lumberjack frowned. 'A marshal? You sure?'
'I can show you my badge, if you don't mind me reaching into my vest pocket.'
'Make it slow and easy,' the man warned.
Longarm was reaching for the wallet containing his identification when a wagon came around a bend in the trail up ahead. It was moving fairly fast, and the man sitting beside the driver, as well as the handful of men in the back of the wagon, were all well armed. Bristling with rifles, in fact. They were all timber-cutters, like the man who had confronted Longarm.
The sentry must have signaled somebody else when he spotted a stranger in range clothes, Longarm figured, probably by flashing a mirror at a guard post higher on the mountain. That had brought the whole wagon load of guards rushing down in case Longarm proved to be the vanguard of an attack. These lumberjacks really were worried about more trouble coming their way.
The man driving the wagon, though somewhat older than his companions, was dressed like them. His lined, weathered features and the iron-gray hair on his head set him apart from the younger men. Despite his age, his forearms were bulky with muscle under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, and his rangy build hinted at enough power and stamina to keep chopping down trees all day, and all night too if need be. He brought the vehicle to a halt about twenty feet away from Longarm and called out to the sentry, 'Who's this, Andy?'
'Says he's a badge-toter, Mr. Flint,' replied the guard. 'A deputy United States marshal.'
The man called Flint raised bushy gray eyebrows in surprise. 'Is that so?'
Longarm finished sliding his identification out of his inside vest pocket. He opened the wallet and held it up so that the afternoon sunlight glinted off the badge pinned inside. 'Name's Long, Custis Long,' he said.
Flint dropped down from the wagon seat and stalked toward Longarm, squinting up at the badge as he came alongside the roan. He grunted. 'Looks all right,' he admitted. 'I knew the government promised the boss some help. Looks like you're it.'
'Reckon I am,' said Longarm dryly.
Flint stuck up a hand. 'Jared Flint. I'm the foreman of the Mcentire timber operation. I can take you up to the headquarters camp if you'd like.'
'That's what I'm here for, Mr. Flint.'
'I'll turn the wagon around and you can follow us up to the guard post. I can pick up a horse there and take you the rest of the way.'
'Much obliged.'
Flint grunted again. He wasn't the friendliest fella Longarm had ever run across, but the hostility Longarm had sensed initially seemed to have disappeared. All of the lumberjacks had relaxed since finding out he was a lawman and not some cowhand from the Diamond K bent on mischief.
It took only a few minutes to reach the shack that served as a guard post. Flint swung up onto the back of one of the saddle horses tied there and led Longarm up the twisting trail that writhed back and forth like a snake across the heavily timbered face of the mountain. Longarm judged that half an hour had gone by when they came in sight of the lumber camp.
