Longarm didn’t want to point out that it hadn’t been all that difficult of a chore, when it had obviously proved too much for this local lawman. He merely shrugged and jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the prisoner. “There’s half of ‘em.”
“Where’s Lloyd?”
“In a shallow grave about twenty miles a little north by west from here.”
Thorp stepped forward, suddenly showing even more interest. “That’s on the other side of the Brazos.”
“Yes, sir, it is,” Longarm agreed. “We crossed the river along about noon.”
Thorp reached out, grabbing hold of the Appaloosa’s bridle. “Did you see it, man?” he demanded in a shaky voice. “Did you see it?”
Longarm wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, but he asked the question anyway. “See what?”
“The Brazos Devil!”
Chapter 4
Longarm hesitated, unsure how to respond to the man. He looked over at Marshal Mal Burley, but didn’t get any clue from the diminutive lawman. Longarm had a pretty good idea what Thorp was talking about, but he didn’t know how much he wanted to say about the incident beside the river earlier in the day.
He was saved from having to say anything by the pitiful whimper Rainey suddenly let out. The outlaw might have been almost back to normal when they entered town, but now he was hunched over in his saddle again and that terrified, furtive look had returned to his eyes. His breath hissed between tightly clenched teeth.
Thorp turned toward him. “You have seen it!” he exclaimed. “You must have! Was there a woman with it?”
The man’s excitement was drawing a crowd, and Longarm heard the murmured comments that leaped from bystander to bystander. “The strangers had a run-in with the Brazos Devil!” one man said. Variations on that theme filled the air.
“Maybe we’d better go on over to your jail,” Longarm suggested to Burley as he put away his cheroot still unlit. “Then you can tell me what’s going on here.”
“Not a bad idea,” Burley said. He lifted his arms and raised his voice as he addressed the gathering crowd, and the words boomed out with a surprising resonance for a man of his size. “Just go on about your business, folks! This is nothing to do with the Brazos Devil!”
Nobody seemed to believe him, but the crowd parted to let Longarm, Rainey, and Burley through as they headed for the jail. Thorp strode along right behind them as if he belonged, and for all Longarm knew, he did. Maybe he was the mayor of Cottonwood Springs; Longarm just didn’t know.
He didn’t know anything about a creature called the Brazos Devil either, but he could make a reasonable guess. The people in this area had themselves a local legend, and judging by its name, the Brazos Devil was some sort of monster, like the Wendigo, Sasquatch, the Caddo Critter, and that Goatman.
Well, Rainey had seen something, whether he denied it now or not, and something had made those tracks Longarm had found near the river. It had been his experience that things supernatural always turned out to have some logical, reasonable explanation. But there was always a first time …
The crowd trailed along behind Longarm and his companions, and stood around chattering excitedly while Longarm dismounted and hauled Rainey down from the chestnut’s saddle. Marshal Burley took the reins and looped them around the hitch rack in front of the jailhouse made from blocks of native stone. After sending one of the bystanders down the street to fetch the doctor, he led the way inside and the crowd stopped short of entering—all but Thorp, that is. He shut the door behind them and said urgently, “Was there a woman with the creature?”
Longarm ignored the question for the time being. He took hold of Rainey’s arm and pulled the outlaw across the small office in the front of the jail toward a heavy wooden door with a small barred window set in it. Longarm knew from experience that such a door always led to the cell block. Burley went first, using a key from a large ring to open the cellblock door.
The cells on the other side were all vacant, their doors standing open. Longarm took Rainey to the closest one and shoved him, not too roughly, through the door. He slammed it shut with a clang.
Rainey was quaking like an aspen. He sank down on the cell’s hard bunk and drew his legs up beside him, curling himself into a ball. He seemed to relax a little then, as if the knowledge that he was locked in a cell made him feel better instead of worse. Rainey might be locked away from everything, Longarm thought—but everything was also locked away from Rainey.
Thorp came into the cell block. “Well, what about it?” he said harshly. “For God’s sake, tell me what you saw out there!”
“I’m getting a mite tired of your tone of voice, mister,” Longarm said. “Hell, we haven’t even been introduced yet, and you’re already full of questions.”
Thorp’s eyes widened as if no one ever talked to him that way, and Burley stepped smoothly between him and Longarm. “This is Mr. Benjamin Thorp, Marshal,” the local star-packer said, “owner of the Bank of Cottonwood Springs and the Rocking T ranch.”
“And the richest man in town,” Longarm guessed.
“I don’t give a damn about money right now,” Thorp said. “I just want my wife back. Did you see her or not?”
“I didn’t see anything,” Longarm said, “but I wish one of you fellas would tell me what this is all about.”
Thorp opened his mouth to speak again, but Burley stopped him by saying, “Come back out into the office with me, Marshal Long, and I’ll explain the whole thing. Maybe you can suggest something I haven’t thought of.”
Longarm couldn’t tell about that until he knew what was going on. He followed Burley from the cell block into the office, and Benjamin Thorp brought up the rear.
Burley went behind an old desk with a scarred wooden top and gestured toward a chair in front of the desk. The chair was padded with black leather. Longarm sat down, propped his right ankle on his left knee, and took off
