willing to explain all the details for us. I was fixing to bed down in that same Elk Rack Hotel he snuck out of. Might that be as wise a move as it sounds?”
Rothstein allowed the Elk Rack was as good a hotel as he’d ever find in John Bull, being it was the only one. So they shook on it and parted friendly in the tricky light of a mountain gleaming.
As Longarm headed up the plank walk in the deep shade of the overhanging snowsheds, a few of the establishments he passed were lit up. But most had either closed for the night or for good, with their windows boarded over or shabby pasteboard signs in grimy windows wistfully promising a glowing future at a great location for anyone who wanted to rent or, hell, buy the property outright cheap.
As he passed the swinging doors of a lamp-lit hole-in-the-wall saloon, a rinky piano burst into life. Longarm paused in mid-stride to peer in. Then he started walking again and, sure enough, so did that pair of high-heeled Justins that had come to a clunking halt when his army boots had just now.
That was more interesting to Longarm than the identity of the awful piano player inside. A quick glance at a flash of bright red had confirmed his suspicion. There was only one person in these parts who could make a living playing piano in the cracks between the keys. So now that he knew where Miss Red Robin was working here in John Bull, he wanted to know who was following him and how come.
He strode on toward the one hotel, trying to act neither hurried nor suspicious until he got to the next corner, ducked around it, and backed into the shade of some side stairs as he clunked in place to sound as if he was still going.
It worked. Those high-heeled boots came around the corner on the double as Longarm tried for the sound of boot heels fading away in the distance. So then it was a simple matter of reaching out to grab a fistful of shirt, swinging the cuss around to slam into the painted pine siding, and shoving a gun muzzle in his face for him to smell as its owner growled, “You’ve caught up with me at last, you sly son of a bitch. And now you’re fixing to tell me what you had in mind if you’d like your brains to remain in your skull this evening.”
What appeared a cowhand at Longarm’s mercy gulped hard and asked if this might be a robbery.
Longarm didn’t need to cock his double action .44-40, but he’d found in the past that snicking back the hammer seemed to underscore the message. So he snicked it as he bounced the young hand against the wall, saying, “I’m the one demanding some damned answers here, and when I implied your brains might be blown out this evening, I never meant later this evening. You’ve been walking in step with me two full blocks and around that corner. I ain’t going to ask you again why you did so.”
The younger but sizeable local, who didn’t seem to be packing a gun of his own on either denim-clad hip, gulped hard and decided to say, “You ain’t allowed to shoot me fatal for no reason, lawman!”
So Longarm sighed and said, “That’s true. I have to put some halfway sensible reason on my official report when I gun one of you assholes. But seeing you know who I am, asshole, you ought to know I can write official as hell, and here we are, with darkness falling, nary a witness in sight, and you following me from a jail where I just now questioned a dangerous criminal. Your turn, asshole.”
His victim blanched and protested, “See here, I had nothing to do with the killing of that lime juicer this afternoon, and I’ve never in this world laid eyes on that outlaw Amos Payne was holding for you all.”
Longarm made a mental note that the mysterious cuss knew the local law by name. Anyone who’d just come to town could have heard about the killing at the railroad depot a good four hours back. Longarm said, “In that case you’d better tell me what you have been up to.”
The kid said, “All right. I don’t want you messing with my Flora in any damned case. When I heard about her sparking with a big lawman from Denver aboard the train from Golden this afternoon, I had every right in this world to confront her about it. So I did. After a gal I’ve come calling on more than once told me I was a moon calf she didn’t want to visit with no more, I had every right in this world to suspect it was yourself she meant to be visiting with this evening. So I’ve been watching you, meaning to pop outten the shadows and call Flora Munro something worse than a moon calf when and if my suspicions panned out correct!”
Longarm laughed wearily and let go of the front of the lovesick cowhand’s shirt. “She had no call to imply you’re a moon calf when anyone can see you’re a total asshole. I don’t even know where your Flora and her kid brother and sister live. I got to talking with the bunch of them as we were waiting for that train together. On the way up the narrow-gauge line I talked as much to two other ladies and I sure hope nobody suspects me of sparking with them!”
He put his pistol away as he added, “Since this means so much to you, I was headed for the Elk Rack Hotel to hire a room for the night. After that I mean to enjoy me a sit-down supper and I may or may not seek further adventure with an old pal of the female persuasion. You have my word as a man I ain’t aiming to mess with any home gal you’ve been courting, and come morning I’ll be leaving town with my prisoner in any case. So do we have peace or war here?”
The big dumb kid said he reckoned he could have been mistaken.
Longarm nodded and said, “That’s good enough for me. You know who I am. So who might you be, amigo?”
The kid muttered, “I’d be Will Posner, off the Lazy Three, but I don’t see as it matters, seeing you’re leaving town with honorable intentions towards my Flora Munro.”
To which Longarm grimly answered, “It won’t matter to either of us unless I catch you trailing me through the gathering darkness again. I’m buying your story this time. You’re going to have more trouble selling your innocent foolishness a second time, and like you said, they expect official reports, with as many names as possible.”
Chapter 5
Summer nights were cool at that altitude. So Longarm hired a one-window room facing away from the street and then, with his hotel key in a side pocket, had a late supper downstairs. It was just as well he sat down to the table hungry as a bitch wolf. For while the spuds were fair and the peas were doubtless good for him, the meat they’d advertised as elk steak, ordered rare, seemed to have been left over from that elk rack the hotel was named after.
But he cut it fine and ate it all, reflecting on how the poor Ute and Kimoho had fought so hard to hang on to their elk-infested high country where the buffalo had seldom roamed.
Thinking about buffalo could make a man feel wistful as he gnawed on elk meat. But, of course, in their Shining Times the Indians had selectively shot does and fawns instead of magnificent stags for the pot. Lakota were about the only Indians in these parts who seemed to give a hoot about the skulls of bigger buffalo bulls, and even they preferred fat cows and calves for eating.
