Longarm had scowled. “Dammit, if I’d wanted somebody to make this job harder, I could have done it myself. That’s the damnedest idea I ever heard of, and I ain’t going to hear a word more on the subject.”
As they were finishing up their breakfast with a last cup of coffee Davis had told him, “You know, I’ve heard the name Diver one other time and it ain’t been that long ago. I was in Rock Springs, which is about halfway between Junction City and Eagle Pass, and I run into an hombre named Vince Diver. Looked to be a fairly capable man with a revolver. Didn’t talk much, but didn’t nobody mess with him.”
“How old a man was he?”
Davis had shrugged. “Hard to say. On the youngish side, though he could have been thirty. But not much more. Also could have been twenty-five. I didn’t have no reason to inquire.”
Longarm said, “As I understand it, Dalton Diver ain’t got no sons.”
“Could be a brother. Maybe even a nephew or a cousin. You say this county is a-flood with the same blood.”
“But no other Divers. Not that I know of.”
“Just thought I’d mention it.”
Now Longarm was picking his way along the little road between the low humps of the hills of the broken country. There weren’t that many trees that abounded, the predominant types being post oak and mesquite, but there was enough mayhaw and wild plum and elm to give a nice variety and show some color as the leaves changed and fell to the ground. It was pretty country to look at, but hell to make a living in, Longarm thought.
But that brought him right back to what Austin Davis had said about the amount of money in the town and county when, by rights, they ought to be poor. Hell, it wasn’t anything he could do something about, so his best hope was to plug away at the Diver girls and then Old Man Diver himself and Bodenheimer. Something would break.
There was a hill that Hannah’s cabin backed up to. The road led around it. Once he was there, the cabin would be off to his left with the river some fifty or sixty yards straight ahead. He came around the last clump of bushes and opened up on the flat ground that ran down to the river. He was just at the point of reining his horse toward Hannah’s cabin when he became aware of a man crossing the river, coming from the other side, heading toward Hannah’s place. Longarm instantly stopped his horse, but he had already been seen. The man was about halfway across, some eighty or one hundred yards from Longarm. The marshal could see him clearly. He had a youngish face with a sparse mustache, and was wearing neat and well-kept clothes.
As Longarm stared, the man put his hand on the butt of his revolver. He did not draw it, but Longarm immediately wheeled his horse to face the man, giving him less of a target, and started his horse at a walk toward the river. For a second the man hesitated, and then he wheeled his horse and quickly rode back to the other bank, climbed it, and took off across the rolling prairie at a brisk lope. For a second, at the river’s edge, Longarm was tempted to give chase. Instead, he wheeled his horse around and rode to the front of Hannah’s cabin, calling her name as he neared. She came out the door almost before he could stop.
He said, “Did you recognize that man crossing the river?”
She was wearing a lightweight blue frock and had her hair nicely brushed. She said, looking up at him with her big blue eyes, “Why, my yes, that was my husband. That was Gus Home.”
Chapter 5
Longarm stared at her. “You sure?”
“Well, land-a-mercies, yes. I never seen him all that much, but a girl don’t forget the man she was wed to.”
“Was he coming or going?”
“Coming, I reckon. First sight I had of him I was alookin’ out the window. Lookin’ for you, as a matter of fact, and then I seen him. And I says to myself, ‘Why, look yonder, that looks like Gus Home.’ And it was. I didn’t know what to think.”
“Dammit!” Longarm said. He swung his horse around. The man had a good lead and the advantage of knowing the country. Behind him he could hear Hannah yelling. He looked back. “What?”
“Where you think you be goin’? You already late for supper last night. I done took a bath an’ washed my clothes and all that.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Go in the house and sit real still and you won’t mess your dress up.”
Then he put his horse’s hooves in the water and urged the animal across the swift-running water and the slick rocks. Fortunately, the land was flatter on the far side. It only rose into hills after a quarter of a mile. But still, Gus Home had managed enough of a lead that he would be hard to catch, and harder still to track over the rocky, stony ground.
The country at first was much more flat and open than he had expected.
There was no sign of Gus Home, but Longarm proceeded cautiously, eyeing the ground for sign while taking quick, sweeping looks around for any indication of an ambush. Now and again he caught sign of a hoof imprint in the short, cured grass. The sign led to the southeast, and he bore in that direction. Soon the ground was starting to rise quickly, heading for a line of short, hard-topped hills. He rode carefully, still searching ahead for any sign of Home before glancing at the ground ahead. By the overhead sun he calculated it was noon. Apparently Gus Home had been planning on dropping by to see his bride over lunch.
Longarm wondered what had caused the man to make an appearance after all this time. He wondered if it had anything to do with the auction barn robbery or the arrest of Otis Bodenheimer.
But he broke off his musing as the trail led to the south and entered a broad, sandy rise heading toward some mesquite-topped hills. Off to his right was a jumble of rocks and brambles of weeds. The tracks were plain now, though they were beginning to veer toward the right, toward the rough cover on that side. A thought hit him that his quarry might be doubling back on him after giving him such plain sign to follow. At the instant of the thought, two things happened; his horse suddenly spooked to the left, and a slug thudded into the saddlehorn, throwing pieces of leather and wood in all directions. He heard the sound of the shot booming as he let himself fall backwards off the left side of his horse, drawing his revolver as he did.
