here that Tom isn’t his man Berman. He didn’t believe me.
“But the son of a bitch looks so much like Berman!”
Brownlee didn’t have time to say more. Gedrey was out of his chair in a flash and had Brownlee by the scruff of the neck, hauling him away from the table like you would an unruly dog.
Adrian Brownlee was half a foot taller than Tom Gedrey and probably forty pounds heavier. Gedrey threw him bodily out the side door and into the snow as easily as if he’d been discarding a pail of used dishwater.
“Sorry about that,” he said when he returned to the table.
“No need t’ apologize,” Longarm said. “It’s your table. I don’t see as you need to accept insults at it.”
Gedrey grunted and sat hunched over his coffee.
“You really do look an awful lot like Berman,” Longarm observed. “But he has a meanness in him that pinches his mouth and puts cruelty in his eyes. There’s none o’ that in you. I’m sorry you had t’ be bothered. But with a man like Berman we’d do anything it takes t’ bring him in. I hope you know there’s no ill will toward you. Just toward that murderer Berman.”
“I understand that. No hard feelings.” Gedrey reached forward to shake on that.
“No hard feelings,” Longarm affirmed.
But dammit, he surely did wish it had been Cyrus Berman in this gold camp after all.
Dammit.
Gedrey brightened and sat up straighter in his chair. “Tell you what, Deputy. Why don’t I cut us each a piece of my Edna’s pie to go with this coffee. She bakes a might fine pie if I do say it on her.”
“It’d be my pleasure, Mr. Gedrey.”
“Tom,” the recent suspect corrected as he went to get the pie.
“Fine, Tom. An’ it’s Longarm to you an’ A.T. here.”
Chapter 8
Failure was not exactly what Longarm had hoped to report to Billy Vail, but failure—at least in a manner of speaking—was his result here. Cyrus Berman was still out there somewhere, free to rob and murder and thumb his nose at all the deputies who wanted so badly to nail his ears over their mantle.
Longarm got directions from A.T. Dillmore, and found the telegraph office housed in a cubicle at the back end of the small shop that also included what passed for the post office in Talking Water. Apart from being a part-time telegrapher and postal clerk, the proprietor of the shop made shoes, repaired harness, sharpened knives or scissors, and for all Longarm knew read palms and told fortunes too. But he was just guessing about those last two. All the rest was documented by the myriad signs posted inside the shop and out. It was probably because there were so many signs and any one of them could get lost amid all the confusion that he hadn’t noticed the telegraph office sign when he’d been there earlier seeking directions to Adrian Brownlee’s place from the post office.
The man nodded when Longarm stepped inside and stamped the wet, clinging snow off his boots.
“Ach now, you could’ve told me before that you’re the deputy marshal sent up from Denver, couldn’t ye?”
“If I’d thought it was important. But how’d you find out about it in the last hour or so?”
The shoemaker/tinker grinned. “There aren’t a lot of secrets in a town this size, Marshal. Word traveled just about as quick as the stagecoach did, starting right from the time when you showed a badge instead of buying a ticket down in Bitter Creek.”
“How the hell …?”
“That’s the sort of thing gets talked about, you know. Gossip spreads faster than fire. That’s gospel.” The shopkeeper chuckled. “The only surprise is that I hadn’t got the word on you before you came in earlier. And you in town long enough to have a meal at Fred’s cafe too.”
Longarm shook his head and smiled. There wasn’t much else he could do actually. And anyway, it wasn’t like there was any reason to try and keep his job a secret. Everyone who might have cause to care already knew anyway.
“Since I see I’m right about you being the marshal, can I tell you what you came in here to do?”
Shit, maybe he’d been right about this fortune-teller stuff after all. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Those boots look to be in fine shape, so you didn’t come in for a repair job. And I doubt you have scissors to sharpen. Since Tom Gedrey isn’t the man Ad Brownlee claimed—and before you ask, most of the town knew all about that before you ever thought about coming up here—well, since all that’s the case, you won’t be staying in this god-forsaken little hole in the mountains long enough to send or receive mail. So what I conclude, Marshal, is that you’ve come to send a telegram. To take it one step more, my guess is that you’ll be wanting to report back to your boss that Tom wasn’t your man. That’s so they know to keep on looking someplace else for the fellow.” The man’s smile was positively beatific as he basked in the pleasures of deduction. And of perhaps a smidgen of showing off too.
“I’d say you’re doing right fine, friend,” Longarm allowed. “I’m impressed.” Which was obviously the sort of thing the fellow wanted to hear.
“Always glad to please,” the tinker/telegrapher said. “But I’m afraid that is the only satisfaction you’ll get here today.”
“Pardon?”
“Oh, it isn’t my desire to disappoint. Certainly not. But I’m afraid the telegraph line is down somewhere between here and Soda Spring. I can’t even raise McCarthy Falls.”
Longarm frowned.
“Sorry, Marshal, but it’s a common enough problem. The contractor who put in the wire was one of those who
