ADVISE YOU BY WIRE STOP WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN OLD SON OF A BITCH STOP AM GOING TO BE VERY INTERESTED TO LEARN HOW YOU MANAGED TO GET YOURSELF TAKEN HOSTAGE STOP YOU BETTER NOT SHIP ANY HORSES BACK HERE AT GOVERNMENT EXPENSE STOP DON’T SEND ME NO MORE TELEGRAMS THAT TAKE HALF THE NIGHT TO READ STOP YOU WOKE ME UP STOP AM COMPLYING WITH YOUR REQUEST FOR $500 STOP YOU BETTER BE ABLE TO ACCOUNT FOR EVERY PENNY OF IT STOP YOU BETTER BE DEAD RIGHT ABOUT THIS FEDERAL JUDGE OR YOU ARE GOING TO BE DEAD STOP
It was signed Billy Vail, Chief Marshal, Denver, Colorado. Inside the envelope was a voucher from the Western Union Telegraph Company that was good at any bank in the country. The amount was $500.
Longarm passed the telegraph over to Sarah for her to read. He watched her as a frown slowly built upon her face as she read on down through the words. When she was finished, she gave him a puzzled look and said, “Your boss is not a very nice man. Doesn’t he realize the danger that you’ve been put through? Doesn’t he have any sympathy for your plight?”
Longarm laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Darling, one of Billy Vail’s greatest pleasures in life is seeing just how much danger he can get me into. He does all of his men that way. I reckon people mistake his orneriness for orneriness and his crankiness for crankiness, but nobody mistakes his plain old meanness for just plain old meanness.”
She looked at him and smiled slightly. “You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?”
“It’s kind of hard not to be.”
They passed the morning in Sarah’s room. There really wasn’t anything Longarm could do until he heard from San Antonio. It was difficult sitting in a hotel room with a beautiful woman who was more than willing to play and to do nothing about it. Longarm wanted to make love to Sarah, but the saddle scalding on her tender skin in the exact worst place made it impossible. He had sent out to an apothecary for some proper salve and had taken great pleasure in applying it. She had protested, saying she could do it herself, but he had insisted, for obvious reasons.
The hours passed and then their lunch was brought up. They had roast beef, mashed potatoes with gravy, and green beans, and apple cobbler for dessert. They were eating well, but nothing else was getting done. After lunch, Longarm stood at the window looking down on the big plaza that lay between the town and the river. He could see people busily going about their business. It made him wish all the more that he had something to do. He finally began quizzing Sarah about where Richard would take Earl Combs if he was successful at getting him into his clutches. Sarah had no idea.
She said, “He has a big house here in Laredo. It’s a beautiful place. I know, I lived there for a little while. I assume his present wife is there. Why don’t you believe he will take him to the hacienda in Mexico?”
Longarm shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t think he’ll trust himself with such a valuable commodity so deep into Mexico. I think he will try to get the information out of the man somewhere on this side of the border. He’s got authority here. Do you know of any other hideouts that he has?”
She thought for a long time. She said, “Well, he sometimes kept rooms in the Palace Hotel. I don’t know what that was for, maybe just for other women.” She stopped and snapped her fingers. She said, “Oh, wait. There is one other place. He’s got what he calls a hunting lodge, but I don’t know where it is. It’s somewhere outside of town, ten or fifteen miles away.”
“A hunting lodge? Somehow your ex-husband doesn’t strike me as someone who would be much of a hunter.”
“He’s not really. I think it was just someplace he could go with his cronies and drink and play cards or where he could take women.”
“You have no idea where it is?”
She shook her head. “None.”
A little after one o’clock, Longarm got the roan out of the stable, and following the directions that Sarah had given him, he rode to the eastern outskirts of town to have a look at Richard Harding’s town house. It was in the nicer part of town, up on top of a small rise that looked down on the river to the south and the town to the west. There were several big homes out there. Longarm rode onto the place on the pretext of asking directions to look the big house over. He reckoned it contained some ten to twelve rooms. There were several hired hands about the place keeping the yard and the shrubbery up and working in the garden, but he didn’t see anything that would resemble a pistolero. As he was about to leave, he saw a young woman on the front porch. She appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Longarm guessed she was the wife that Richard Harding had taken when he had condemned Sarah to a living death. She was pretty enough, Longarm thought, but he wondered what kind of a marriage she had ended up in. While he was out, Longarm took the opportunity to stop at a bank and trade the voucher for $500. After that, he rode back to the hotel, put the horse up in the livery stable, and then went to wait with Sarah. They spent the time talking about Richard Harding, with Longarm struggling to gain every ounce of information about the man from a woman who really didn’t know him. It was hard going.
Then, at about four o’clock, there came a knock on the door to his room. Longarm answered it. It was another telegram for him. He opened the wire quickly and looked to see who it was from. It was from a Chet Smith, a United States deputy marshal in San Antonio, Texas.
Chapter 10
Without moving from his spot in the doorway, Longarm quickly read the telegram from the U.S. deputy marshal in San Antonio.
FEDERAL JUDGE HARDING IN COMPANY WITH THREE OTHER MEN LEFT SAN ANTONIO THIS DATE AT 4 P.m. ON THE SOUTHBOUND TRAIN STOP TICKET AGENT I QUESTIONED SAID ALL TICKETS FOR THE PARTY WERE FOR LAREDO STOP ONE OF THE MEN WAS EARL COMBS, WHO WAS MANACLED STOP OTHER TWO MEN WERE DESCRIBED BY JUDGE HARDING TO FEDERAL TREASURY OFFICIALS HERE AS FEDERAL COURT BAILIFFS STOP RELEASE OF PRISONER COMBS WAS DONE PER INSTRUCTIONS FROM CHIEF MARSHAL BILLY VAIL STOP HARDING MAKING CLAIM HE CAN FREE CAPTURED DEPUTY MARSHAL AND RECOVER EMBEZZLED MONEY STOP WILL STAND BY FOR ANY FURTHER ORDERS STOP
Longarm read the telegram again and then once more. Then he walked thoughtfully back into Sarah’s room and sat down at the table where he had a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He poured himself out a drink and then sat there thinking.
Sarah came up behind him. She said, pointing to the telegram, “Is that some sort of news?”
Longarm nodded slowly. He said, “Yes.”
“Is it good news?”
He looked up at her and smiled thinly. “It’s going to make things a little tricky. Your ex-husband is due in here tonight. I think the train arrives around eight, that is, if this is where he is coming. There’s one stop between here
