“Williams? No, I don’t recall anyone by that name. But then the camp isn’t that old, and I wouldn’t say I’m on close name-calling basis with more than a handful of fellas yet. I only been here myself a few weeks.”
“The camp goes back to last year sometime, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what they tell me. But then it’s all hearsay to me, don’t you see.”
“Sure, thanks. Uh, what’s your recommendation for a place where a fellow might wet his whistle?”
The smith laughed. “Knock on any door you come to, mister. Likely it’s a saloon. If it isn’t, they’ll pour you a drink anyway if you got cash money to pay for one.”
“Chinaman’s Knob not doing so well lately?”
“Let me put it this way. Since I got here most of my trade has been selling feed to fellas that want their stock strong enough to pull out for someplace else.”
Longarm felt a sinking feeling. Even if Maddy’s father was still alive and really had been spotted here in the Medicine Bows, there was a strong likelihood now that he might already have pulled up stakes and moved on to the next absolute, pure, and positively guaranteed bonanza of a gold strike.
“Thanks for your help, neighbor.”
“Hell, thank you for the dollar and a half. It’s a pleasure doing business with somebody that isn’t dealing in promises. Damn thin, that promise soup.”
“Yeah, I’ve had to eat a tot o’ that my own self. We’ll see you later. Oh, an’ by the way. We might be needin’ to pull out in the middle o’ the night. If we do, we’d kinda appreciate it if you’d make sure who an’ what is happening before you up and shoot at noises in the night. You know?”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Longarm waved a good-bye as he and Overton set out along the deeply rutted main, and only, street of Chinaman’s Knob.
“Do you really think we have a chance to find Williams here?” the lawyer asked.
“Damn small,” Longarm conceded. “But small chance is better than none, I reckon.”
“And if we don’t find him here, then what?”
“Then I expect we wire our regrets t’ the widow.”
“Jesus!” Overton said.
“Naw, no point in that. He’ll already know.”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“That looks like a saloon on that side of the street over there.
“Yes, and there’s another just like it over here. Do you know Windy by sight?”
“Of course. He never employed my services, and I hadn’t been in town very long before he disappeared. But Talking Water is a small community. I am sure I would recognize him if I were to see him again.”
“Good. That means we can split up and go through them saloons separately. We’ll cover them twice as fast.”
“And if we don’t find him?”
“Then we by God turn around an’ go back through them all again. Just in case he’s just come in or was in a back room with some whore the first time we looked. We don’t have time to visit any other camp in these mountains, but this is the latest boomtown so we put our money down an’ throw the dice right here, Tyler. This is our best shot, win or lose.”
Overton nodded. “I’ll take this side of the street. You take that one.”
“I’ll meet you at the other end.”
Chapter 39
Longarm groaned and squirmed about just a little. Something was tickling the right side of his neck. Unfortunately, it was not some pretty little thing doing it. He was sure of that much. After a few moments he came awake enough to identify the irritant. A wisp of hay that had invaded his shirt collar, and now was threatening to drive him plumb out of his mind.
He sat up, soft, sweet-smelling hay cascading to his waist from the loose blanket he had made of it, and began brushing himself off. It was coming dawn. Time to wake up anyway.
With a yawn he stood and went over to the back door to take a piss.
Tyler Overton, he was surprised to see, was already awake and about. The lawyer was standing in the corral leaning on a rail and peering off toward the east.
There was not a damn thing out there worth looking at, and for a moment Longarm wondered what Overton was doing. Then he realized. He walked over to the man and stood beside him, putting an elbow on the cracking aspen rail and joining him in staring sightlessly toward the east.
“I’m sorry, Tyler. For whatever it’s worth we did all we could.”
“I suppose we did. But what was that you told the smith about promise soup being so thin? So is cream of regret, Long. Not only thin, it’s bitter as hell.”
Some hundred or more miles to the east in Cheyenne Gary Lee Bell should be mounting the hangman’s scaffold just about this same time, Longarm figured.
