“He asked me if I’d ever crossed the Wasatch Mountains.”
Longarm was suddenly all ears. “The Wasatch?”
“Yeah,” Murphy said. “I told him that I had and he asked me what pass I’d used.”
“And you told him?”
“I told him that I’d forgotten its name but it was just west of a rough mining and logging town called Whiskey Creek over near Colorado’s western border.”
Murphy poured himself another drink and Longarm saw that the man’s hand trembled when he said, “I remember the name of the town across the years because I drank so much whiskey myself that I staggered out of a saloon, went around behind it to throw up, and fell in that damn creek and nearly froze to death! I suspect I would have if I hadn’t been so liquored up.”
“Whiskey Creek. I wonder why he wanted to know about the Wasatch Mountain passes? As you well know, he wouldn’t need to cross the Wasatch Mountains if he were really taking your horses down to Prescott or Flagstaff.”
“You’re dead right!” Murphy grunted. “If he crossed over the Wasatch into Utah, he’d sure be taking the long way around to Arizona.”
“Exactly.” Longarm clamped a hand on Murphy’s shoulder. “You’ve been a lot of help.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Whiskey Creek,” Longarm replied. “Where else?”
“One last thing,” Murphy said. “If Buck and Clyde overtake that counterfeiting sonofabitch, they won’t leave enough left of him for the coyotes to chew.”
“I know. I’m going to do my level best to overtake and make them understand that this is a federal matter.”
“They won’t listen to you,” Murphy warned. “Buck and Clyde vowed to find and kill the counterfeiter. They’re pretty damn good trackers as well as being first rate with a rifle or pistol.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Marshal?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you takin’ that pretty woman?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just wanted to know if she was going to decorate Cheyenne long enough for me to ask her out to dinner … or something.”
“Sorry about that,” Longarm said. “But she also lost a lot of money and won’t stay behind.”
“That’s too bad,” Murphy said. “I sure think it’s a mistake to take a woman along. And if Clyde and Buck were to get the advantage on you, Marshal, there’s no telling what they would do other than rape her about a hundred damned times before they killed you both.”
Longarm nodded. “They’d go that far, huh?”
“Listen,” Murphy said, “they are the ones that you ought to be worried about … not Cox! Clyde and Buck have bushwhacked and beaten men to death. I wouldn’t want to be going after what they’re after.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Longarm said.
“Good luck,” Murphy said as he turned and walked away. “‘Cause it sounds like you’re going to need all that you can get.”
“So will you with the Denver mint people,” Longarm said under his breath as he went back to his hotel to get Diana Frank and start out on a muddy and miserable trail to Whiskey Creek.
Chapter 9
“They’re either headin’ for Whiskey Creek or else Redcliff,” Buck Zolliver shouted over the heavy downpour as he squatted in the fork of the muddy road.
“So what are we gonna do!” Clyde bellowed as thunder echoed and growled through the high Colorado mountains. “Dammit, Buck, we can’t go to both places at the same time!”
Buck was the older and smarter of the brothers, but Clyde was the biggest and the meanest. “We should split up,” Buck said. “Which fork do you want to ride?”
“I’ll take the one leading to Whiskey Creek,” Clyde decided. “It’s five or six miles closer.”
“Then I’ll go on to Redcliff,” Buck said, hauling himself into the saddle. “Whichever one of us finds that counterfeitin’ bastard takes him alive and then brings him back here, where we’ll meet tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why here?” Clyde asked.
“Cause it’s nowhere we can be watched,” Buck told his younger brother. “And because there’s some caves just up yonder that we can hole up in while we torture the bastard into tellin’ us where he’s stashed all that counterfeit cash.”
Clyde nodded with slow understanding. Like his brother, he was a huge, lantern-jawed man with a hooked nose and heavy, brutish features. Both brothers wore full beards, dark reddish-brown, thick and coarse as the coat of a grizzly. They were sopping wet despite their oilskin slickers and their long hair hung over their collars fanning across the hump of their broad shoulders.
“If Cox is in Whiskey Creek and I get my hands on him first,” Clyde promised, “I’m gonna bust up his pretty
