“No.”
“Will you come back to visit me?”
“Of course. Will you be all right?”
“Judge Getty and my sister never had any children, and he left this mansion and everything else to me, including a very substantial bank account. I’ve nothing in respect to finances to ever worry about. In fact …”
She couldn’t seem to finish so Longarm said, “What?”
Lavinia took a deep breath. “I know that I’m older than you and that we have very, very different backgrounds. But if you ever get tired of your hard and dangerous line of work, or get hurt, or …”
Longarm knew what she was trying to say, and he was touched. “Thank you, Lavinia. You’re a beautiful and passionate woman and you still will be forty years from now. But …”
“Is there someone else?”
“No,” he said, “it’s not that at all. It’s just that I don’t think it would work between us and-“
“Shhh!” she whispered, placing her fingers to his lips. “Custis, please don’t say anything more. You may change your mind some day. Let’s just keep alive the possibility that I could give you sanctuary, love, and companionship—if you ever need me. All right?”
“All right,” he said, leaning down to kiss the dear woman on the cheek. “I’ll be back and when I do, we won’t have to make love on the parlor couch.”
Lavinia hurried away with blushing cheeks, and Longarm had started to finish his champagne when he heard a shout and then a scream. Suddenly, he turned to see his new horse, Target, tearing out fifteen feet of picket fence as the gelding tried to go after a yellow cat that had made the mistake of parading past the mansion.
“Target!” Longarm shouted as the cat disappeared under a hedge and the very distressed pack mule started to hee-haw.
Longarm vaulted over the veranda’s railing, then sprinted across the judge’s beautifully manicured front yard. Fortunately, Target was too encumbered to go very far since he was dragging the fence and a very upset-looking Geezer.
“Damn you!” Longarm swore, grabbing the palomino’s reins and finally managing to untie them from the uprooted length of picket fence. “I’m not sure that you and I are going to get very far before I put a damned bullet in your stupid head!”
Target rolled his eyes, still looking for the yellow cat. People were crowded against the veranda railing staring at Longarm, the mule, and the handsome palomino. Longarm swung into his saddle and spotted Lavinia among the spectators. He wanted to tell her he was terribly sorry and embarrassed for tearing down what was now her nice picket fence. But instead, he just decided to wave good-bye. To his relief, she blew him a kiss, and he guessed it meant she really wasn’t all that upset about the ruined picket fence.
He was angry at Target, and pushed the horse hard into the mountains. As promised, the palomino didn’t even break out in a sweat. Target was in superb condition and showed no sign of fatigue, even after many hours of climbing. Geezer, on the other hand, was very unhappy. And although the mule was lightly burdened carrying just Longarm’s food, extra clothes, ammunition, and supplies, he was not nearly so youthful or energetic as Target and resented the difficult climb up into the Rocky Mountains.
Longarm rode until well after dark, and stopped at a little way station called Pine Flats where he’d gotten a room and meals on a number of occasions. He paid the owner extra to put Target and Geezer in a stall instead of out in the corral with a bunch of other animals.
“You got any cats, pigs, or chickens on the place?” Longarm asked the man.
“Why, sure!”
“Well, this palomino doesn’t like them,” Longarm told the proprietor, Doug Paulson. “That’s why he’s much better off in a high-sided stall.”
“What kind of horse is that?”
“He’s got his peculiarities,” Longarm said, “but he’s a travelin’ sonofabitch. I’ve never rode a horse that possessed such extraordinary stamina.”
“Must have gotten it chasing other animals,” Paulson opinioned. “Don’t worry about him tonight. Come on inside and get a good feed and rest your bones.”
“Thanks,” Longarm said. “And remember that I prefer not to have folks know that I’m a federal marshal.”
“Why is that?”
“it just gives me a little advantage, and you never know who might carry a murderous grudge against a lawman.”
“Yeah,” Paulson said, “I can see your point. Used to be people respected the law and those who enforced it. But these days, what with all the riffraff we’ve gotten coming into these mountains looking to strike it rich, no one knows who to trust anymore. Damn shame what things are coming to.”
“Isn’t that the truth,” Longarm said, removing his hat and going inside to wash up and then to eat.
There were six other travelers who had decided to put up there for the night, and when Longarm sat down at the community table, they all nodded silently and went right on with the important work of filling their empty stomachs. Longarm did the same. Doug Paulson, the owner of this establishment, employed a grinning Chinese cook who served nothing but beef, potatoes, stewed tomatoes, and beans, along with the best sourdough bread for hundreds of miles around and cherry pies that would make any man come back for seconds.
Longarm wasn’t disappointed in the meal, and afterward he dragged his chair over to a big rock fireplace. Feeling full and content, he lit a cheroot and smoked it in contented silence while the other guests chatted about the weather and the latest news concerning ore strikes and the general state of the world. Eventually, the subject of Judge Getty’s murder came up as a topic of conversation.
