pretty much the exact same time the ticket receipts were being stolen down in Medicine Lodge.
And considering the string of previous thefts, he had to figure all of the incidents were connected.
He slumped in a corner of the swaying smoker bench and sucked on his cheroot.
The only real suspect he had—and that was on thin ground—was Nat Lewis and his mysterious meetings on two separate occasions.
But, dammit, Longarm himself saw Nat involved tooth and toenail in the brawl with the locals down in Medicine Lodge. And the man was right there on the ball field in plain view of Longarm and about five hundred other citizens at the approximate time the Hoskin post office was being broken into.
A man would have to work real hard at knitting those facts into a blanket of guilt.
Longarm scowled at the ash on his cigar and conceded that the only thing he knew for certain sure was that he didn’t know hardly anything.
He closed his eyes and waited for the Plains and Pacific to catch him up with the rest of the team.
Chapter 25
“Where in hell have you been, you miserable, skirt chasing, ball dropping son of a lowlife bitch?” The team manager winked at Longarm—which the rest of the boys weren’t in a position to see—and expanded considerable on the theme already established.
Chet Short, it seemed, was due for a proper tongue-lashing for missing yesterday’s train out of Hoskin.
After several minutes of loud invective—pretty good stuff, too, if Longarm did say so—McWhortle appeared to calm down a mite. He snatched Longarm by the elbow and led him off a little ways, dropping his voice so the others could no longer hear although they continued to look on in amusement and no doubt also in some appreciation for the fact that it was this Denver newcomer who was getting the needle and not themselves.
Once they were well clear of the team members, McWhortle said in a perfectly calm and controlled tone, “Sorry, but I think you understand.”
Longarm nodded and tried to maintain the look of a man who was in the process of getting his ass chewed.
“How did it go yesterday?”
“Didn’t learn much, dammit. No clues t’ who’s behind all this.”
“None at all?”
Longarm shook his head without having to give the question so much as a moment’s thought. And if he happened to have a suspicion or two, well, that wasn’t anything like being the same as having an actual suspect. And if he did come up with a genuine suspect it still wouldn’t be any of Douglas McWhortle’s nevermind.
The truth was that Longarm thought McWhortle was straight and clean. But he didn’t exactly know that for a certain fact, did he.
And about the only human being U.S. Deputy Marshal Custis Long would be willing to confide unconfirmed suspicions with would be United States Marshal William Vail, anyhow.
Longarm wasn’t even tempted to mention the strange goings-on involving Nat Lewis. Not until or unless they turned out to mean something.
“What’s the deal with this place here?” he asked instead of responding to the manager’s question.
“The game is tomorrow afternoon at half past noon. This time in a field behind the livery stable over there.” McWhortle pointed. “You already missed lunch, I’m afraid, and the boys would find it very strange if I offered to buy you a meal off the menu. We won’t eat again until eight tonight. In the hotel dining room, of course. They will have a big table set up for us.”
“Can’t get in any earlier’n that?” Longarm asked. He hadn’t eaten on the train and could feel the beginning of some rumbling in his gut.
“Go in and order something any time you’re willing to pay for it yourself,” McWhortle said. “But the price I worked out for the ball club says we all eat together and all get the same dinner.”
“Cheap,” Longarm said.
“Cheap,” McWhortle concurred.
Longarm knew what that would mean. A hotel equivalent of boardinghouse food. Lots of starches and damn little in the way of meats or sweets. Beans, potatoes, gravy made sticky with too much flour. Yeah, a prospect like that would make a man’s mouth water all right. “We gotta practice this afternoon?” he asked.
“Of course. We were just getting ready to go over to the field. Jerry left with the equipment already.”
“Any way I could get out of it?”
McWhortle frowned. Legitimately this time, Longarm thought. “Too tired from last night’s acrobatics with some amateur whore?”
Longarm gave the young baseball manager a steely look to put the fellow in his place. “I got work t’ do, y’know, that don’t involve grown men playing at kids’ games.”
“I don’t want the boys to think you’re being rewarded after you missed the train yesterday.”
“Then whyn’t you get so pissed off that you suspend me for a game or two? You know. Get all red in the face an’ scream some more an’ jump up an’ down where they can see. I’ll get pissed off right back at you an’ storm off an’ not come back until suppertime tonight or about then. Would that work so’s you wouldn’t lose any control over your team?”
“That would be all right,” McWhortle decided after a moment’s thought. He hesitated a few seconds more, then winked at Longarm and took a deep breath.
