weather broke, which meant he also had to leave behind his usual watch chain … the one that had a brass-framed derringer brazed in place where a fob would ordinarily be.
Not that he was weaponless. He carried a double action .45 Colt revolver in a cross-draw rig just to the left of his belt buckle. And a four-shot Sharps Gambler in .32 caliber was in the watch pocket of his britches to make up for the lack of his old reliable derringer.
He himself considered his facial features to be rather ordinary if weathered and wrinkled some. But there were a fair number of ladies who, like those school girls, found him more attractive than the average Joe. It was not a situation that he complained about overmuch.
The simple truth was that Custis Long was satisfied with his lot in life. There wasn’t a thing he really needed that he didn’t have … a fair amount that he wanted but lacked, perhaps, but nothing that he actually needed … and nothing that he really wanted to do that he wasn’t able to accomplish. Including, by damn, getting out of this miserable heat. The Bidwell subpoenas would see to that.
He entered the office of the United States Marshal, Denver District, Department of Justice, and draped his Stetson over a peg on the coatrack near Marshal William Vail’s private office.
“G’mornin’ Henry,” he said to the mild-looking but, in fact, bulldog-tenacious clerk who sat at a desk near that door, guarding it as effectively as any dragon could ever have managed.
“Good morning, Custis. You can go on in if you please. He said he has something for you today.”
Longarm nodded and marched into Billy Vail’s office without the formality of knocking.
Yessir, he’d already checked the train schedule and had his bag packed and ready to go. He could be on a westbound up the South Platte valley by eleven fifteen and into the cool high-country air just a little past lunch-time. Right at that moment Custis Long was about as happy as a pig in the sunshine.
Chapter 2
“You can’t do this to me,” Longarm moaned. “You know I been counting on going t’ Leadville this week.”
“Now how could I have known a thing like that, Custis?” the balding marshal asked in a soft, patient tone.
“You knew,” Longarm insisted, noticing after the words were out of his mouth that his own tone of voice sounded more than a mite petulant. Well, dammit, that was just too bad. Billy Vail did so know Longarm was counting on getting into the high country to escape this heat. They’d talked about it just yesterday afternoon, hadn’t they? Or was that somebody else Longarm mentioned the fact to? Not that it really mattered. If Billy Vail hadn’t known then he should’ve guessed. The point was that Longarm was entitled to the job of serving those papers in and around Leadville.
“I am truly sorry, Custis, but I’ve already assigned Maeternick to the Leadville job.”
Longarm jumped like the boss just stuck him with a pin. Huh. More than a pin it was, actually. Maeternick? Puhleese! “Billy,” he protested with another heartfelt—if somewhat theatrical—groan, “doesn’t seniority have any effect at all around here? Ain’t I got any rights over the tenderfeet an’ the wet-ears?” That kid Maeternick, for instance, wasn’t hardly old enough to shave. Looked like he oughta still be in high school. Wanted the pretty girls to think he was a grown-up. At least that was how Longarm figured the infant’s appointment as a deputy. That and the fact that his daddy was a senator from one of those back-East states that nobody with hair on his ass would ever want to visit. Longarm rolled his eyes and slouched in his chair and otherwise tried to make known some of the things it wouldn’t have been polite to say right out loud.
“Of course seniority entitles you to some privilege, Custis. And next time if you’ll just let me know in time so that I can do something about it, perhaps things will turn out differently. In the meantime I have another assignment for you. Something suitable to your talents and experience.”
“But I wanta go to Leadville, Billy. You know that.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find this trip even more interesting,” the marshal said. “After all, it isn’t like you’ll be overworked. In fact, you can look at it as a sort of vacation. Why, it will be fun. Honestly.”
The red-cheeked marshal smiled, his expression a mask of innocence, and spread his palms wide. Nothing up those sleeves, nosirree-bob.
“A vacation, huh. I’ve had your kind o’ vacation before, Billy, an’ if it’s all the same to you I’d as leave spend a week stoking a furnace in Hell as take another one of what you call a vacation.”
“Custis. Really! You hurt my feelings. When was the last time I-“
“That’s when it was, all right,” Longarm injected. “Last time you put a hurting on me was the last time.”
Vail clucked his tongue and shook his head in a display of great sadness. “I am sorry you feel that way, Custis. Honestly I am.” He looked so completely innocent … hurt … feelings wounded …
Longarm looked at his boss. And thought that maybe, just maybe, this time he was misjudging the man. After all, they were friends. Even good friends. And they’d gotten along mighty well, everything considered, for all this time now. So maybe, just maybe … “What is it you’re wantin’ me t’ do, boss?” he asked.
And knew the question was a damn-fool mistake even before the last sound of it was outa his mouth.
Chapter 3
“Baseball?” Longarm asked with a groan that he didn’t bother to muffle.
“That’s right. It’s a game, Custis. You play it with a ball and a stick that they call a bat and-“
“Dammit, Billy, I know what it is. It’s just …”
“Sit back down there and listen for a minute, will you? Just let me explain.”
Longarm shook his head. But he also sat down. He reached into his pocket for a cheroot, pulled it out and went through the routine of trimming and lighting without bothering to ask Billy’s permission. Without bothering to offer a smoke to the boss, either.
He couldn’t help but sniff and grumble a mite. After all, why should the marshal be pestering a grown man with something about a kid’s game when there were papers to be served up in cool, quiet Leadville. It simply was not fair. Not no way at all.
