deep dry draw. Only Dancing Dave grasped the full meaning of the hemp noose someone dropped over his head and drew tighter around his neck. Bubblehead had more trouble balancing on the less certain footing as the compact party proceeded almost joyfully out to the middle of the trestle. Everyone but Dancing Dave laughed when Bubblehead asked if they were almost there yet.
The one called Porky declared in a jovial tone, “This ought to do well enough, boys.” So they stopped. Two different members of the gang hunkered down to knot the other ends of the ropes around exposed railroad ties. Bubblehead asked if he could have a drink of water.
Porky pushed him off the trestle. Bubblehead’s short but chunky body snapped the rope taut with a jolt that twanged the trestle under everyone’s feet. Then, in the moment of silence that followed the loud snap, Dancing Dave Loman muttered, “You cold-hearted son of a bitch! You didn’t even give the kid a chance to say his last-“
And then Dancing Dave Loman was flailing his longer legs through thin air as he too went off the trestle to drop down, and down some more, until the trestle twanged under everyone else.
Then Porky chuckled knowingly and declared for the edification of anyone who cared, “Hell, I knew what both them bastards wanted to say at the last. They wanted to say they were innocent. That’s about all any of ‘em ever have to say.”
As he led the way back to solid ground and their waiting horseflesh, one of his followers thoughtfully opined, “That outlaw from other parts was innocent, as far as the crimes against Miss Mildred went. Ain’t we likely to have trouble with Uncle Sam when that U.S. deputy marshal arrives to discover we’ve strung up a stranger with a federal warrant on him?”
Porky shrugged his massive shoulders. “What can he do to us, seeing ain’t nobody in this county is about to tell him who done it? He’s welcome to fume and fuss a mite before he gets back aboard the train to let us handle things our own way in these parts.”
Someone else in the bunch asked, “What if he ain’t content to fume and fuss? I heard over to the Red Rooster earlier they were sending that tall drink of water they calls Longarm. He was up this way a spell back after some other old boys. I understand he just kept scouting for their sign until he caught ‘em too!”
An even more worried voice cut in with: “I heard the same. That’s how come they call him Longarm. What are we supposed to say if Longarm cuts our sign, Porky?”
Porky didn’t answer as he shifted his ten-gauge Greener to remount his pony. There were some questions that were just too dumb to answer.
Chapter 2
The bodies hung side by side, long and short, all through the night. So they were both stiff as planks when they were hauled in to town the next morning. Doc Forbes, the part-time county coroner, allowed their rigor mortis would wear off by the time he could hold his official inquest. So they were left in his root cellar atop good stout planks that spanned the sawhorses. Doc Forbes hadn’t kept potatoes and turnips down there since they’d elected him the coroner.
So that was where they lay, and how things stood, when the morning combination came up from Ogallala to deliver a tall rangy figure wearing a tobacco tweed suit between his dark pancaked Stetson and low-heeled cavalry stovepipes. He hadn’t thought there was any call to haul along his old army saddle or Winchester ‘73. So he’d left them in his furnished digs on the unfashionable side of Denver’s Cherry Creek. But he had leg irons in his one overnight bag to go with the handcuffs clipped to the back of his gun rig under his frock coat in case Dancing Dave Loman acted as frisky as some said he might. The same gun rig braced a double-action Colt .44-40 in its cross-draw holster on his left hip, with a double derringer clipped to one end of the watch chain across his tweed vest, should push come to shove.
The rail stop at Pawnee Junction had a handsome water tower and more than an acre of stockyards alongside the tracks. But passengers made do with an open sun-silvered platform, and settled up with the train crews getting on or getting off. A man getting off with only one bag didn’t need any help. The sheriff and his three deputies were only there to howdy and explain.
Since the four local lawmen had their badges pinned to their vests, with the older gent’s gold-plated, it was easy enough for a stranger to stick out his free hand and declare, “Morning, Sheriff Wigan. I’d be Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long of the Denver District Court, and I understand you picked up Dancing Dave Loman for us as he was enjoying a horizontal polka with one of your soiled doves?”
The older, taller sheriff shook hands with a sad little smile and replied, “We surely did, ah, Longarm. But I fear your long train ride from Denver has been in vain. Dancing Dave is dead. You’re welcome to attend the inquest, of course. But if you do, you’ll miss the last train headed south this evening.”
Longarm whistled thoughtfully and asked, “What happened? Did he try to bust out on you?”
To which the sheriff could only reply with a sheepish expression, “He was busted out and lynched, along with a murdering rapist, along about last midnight. We doubt they were after your federal prisoner. But you know how such gents get, once they’ve passed the jug and worked themselves up to enjoy a hanging.”
Longarm curled a lip under his heroic mustache and growled, “I do. I reckon my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, will be content with me arresting a handy half-dozen of the ringleaders. I’d be obliged for such help as you and your boys could give me, of course, and I’ll be proud to put it in writing if it’ll be of any use to you in the elections this fall.”
Sheriff Wigan shot a warning glance at an incredulous looking kid deputy, swallowed, and said, “We’d sure be willing to help you if we could, Longarm. But nobody knows who the Minute Men might be!”
Longarm squinted up at the morning sun. “I just observed it was an election year. Seeing you can’t point out any of your local registered voters, where might a stranger find a hotel in this fair haven of law and order?”
Before the sheriff could reply, one of his deputies suggested the Widow MacUlric’s boardinghouse across from the municipal corral a furlong up the tracks.
Sheriff Wigan cut in. “Hold on. I was about to say you were welcome as rain if you’d like to stay at my place, Longarm!”
The younger but doubtless more experienced lawman smiled thinly and replied, not unkindly, “Thanks just the same. But if it’s all the same with you, I’d as soon leave this bag in a regular boardinghouse. I got some valuable spare socks and a brand new bar of soap to worry about.”
He started walking. Sheriff Wigan tagged along, telling his deputies he’d see them all later at the office. As the two taller lawmen dropped off the end of the plank platform to trudge on along the crunchy railroad ballast between
