“Whoa, whoa there, goddammit!” The driver came halfway off his seat as he hauled and sawed at the lines, trying to drag the lumbering horses to a halt in time to avoid a man who suddenly appeared in the road before them. The man, who was afoot and seemingly alone in the middle of the night, was holding a lantern high, waving it from side to side. “Whoa, I said, goddammit.”
Longarm reached under his coat and slid the .44 Colt into his hand, not making a big thing of it but intending to be prepared come whatever.
“Eddie? Is that you, Eddie?” Quentin Cooper called out. “Hold the light so’s I can get a look at you. Be damned, Eddie, it is you. What the hell are you doin’ out here on the road?”
“H’lo, Quint, it’s me all right. I come to tell you the crick is over its banks. You won’t be able to cross till the water goes down a good four, five feet.”
“How come the creek to rise, Eddie?”
“Rainstorms somewhere upstream, I reckon. I dunno for sure, but the ford here is swimming deep to a giraffe. Eli tried to walk it this afternoon, tryin’ to get the southbound across, but he like to drowned. Too much water running too fast for him to make it afoot. A coach and team would be swept away sure.”
“Where’s Eli now?” Cooper asked.
“He turned back. Said he’d take his passengers up to Howard Dancey’s place to spend the night, an’ asked me to wait here and tell you what was happening. Him and me figure you an’ your people can sleep over at our place tonight. Maybe by morning you and him can make your crossing. Barring that, we can rig some ropes and swim across any passengers in a hurry. Then Eli can turn around an’ finish your northbound leg whilst you take his people back south again. Depending on how the water is come daybreak, that is.”
“Sounds all right to me, Eddie.”
While that exchange was going on, Longarm returned the Colt to its holster and checked his pocket watch. It was ten before nine. Laying over for the night would put them behind schedule. Which was somewhat better than drowning, he had to admit. He stifled a yawn and pulled out a cheroot.
Looking at the bright side of things, maybe they could get something to eat at this farm or ranch or wherever it was they would be spending the night now. Longarm hadn’t had time to fill up back there at Moore’s Station, and a late supper would be welcome.
“I expect you all heard that,” Quint shouted down to the passengers inside his coach. “We’ll be turning off the road here and following this man for a half mile or thereabouts, then stop for the night.” Cooper spat a stream of dark tobacco juice in the general direction of his wheeler’s hocks and added, “Just don’t expect much in the way of accommodations. The Millers aren’t generally in the business of taking in travelers.”
Which, Longarm discovered shortly thereafter, was a truth and then some.
Eddie Miller’s place was a homestead. Barely. There was a cabin made of warped and twisted cottonwood poles, a three-sided shed, a rickety little crapper just about big enough to turn around in, a small corral, and a root cellar in the dugout that presumably had been the initial dwelling place on the claim.
Miss Holier-than-Thou naturally enough assigned herself the relatively comfortable sleeping possibilities inside the cabin with the Millers. The men would have to make do as best they could under the shed roof or wherever else they might find a soft spot to spread their blankets on.
“Miz Miller has some coffee and hoecakes cooked up for us,” the jehu announced before everyone scattered in search of sleeping space. “She has it laid out on a table on the porch over there, and she said she’ll do what she can to put out a breakfast for us all come morning. She’s a Christian lady, she is, an’ won’t take pay for being neighborly, but boys, if I was you I’d volunteer some little something by way of a thank-you for her trouble. And for the supplies she’s using up on us when she could be feeding her own with it.”
Longarm cooperated with the driver by taking off his own hat and passing it around. “None of that pale metal now, fellows,” he chided those who would have tossed silver into the Stetson. “If it ain’t yellow, then it better fold. You know what I mean?”
By the time everyone was done pitching in there was enough in the hat to feed the Miller family for the next month. Which seemed fair enough.
Once again, though, Longarm found himself at the ass end of the line when it came to choosing a place to sleep. By the time he’d taken up the collection and passed it along, all the available floor space under the shed roof was long since claimed. Longarm shrugged and carried his bedroll out past the corral on the theory that at least out there he wouldn’t have to put up with Fat Boy’s snoring. If that man could snore as good as he could eat, the inside of that shed was certain to sound like it had locomotives rumbling through it the whole night long.
Longarm sat for a few minutes admiring the stars and munching one of Mrs. Miller’s corn cakes, then loosened his clothes—but didn’t remove anything save his hat—and stretched out with his old McClellan saddle for a pillow. It wasn’t like this was anything new or strange to him. He’d slept in similar fashion many and many a night before this one.
It was a pretty enough night, but Longarm didn’t stay awake to think about that.
He was asleep within seconds of letting his eyes droop closed.
He felt … shitty, He hadn’t been asleep half long enough to feel rested and he resented being awakened. His face felt like someone had coated it with a lining of soft lead, and his head felt like that same someone had pumped it full of some thick, viscous liquid. Syrup or molasses. Or worse. His head ached and his throat was full of phlegm and all he wanted was to go back to sleep. But someone was walking around mighty close by, and he didn’t know who it was or what they might be up to, and he damn well wasn’t likely to fall asleep again until or unless he knew he was alone.
The footsteps came nearer and nearer yet, and he could hear the low murmur of voices kept deliberately soft. One male voice and one female one.
Well, that made sense. Of a sort. Sure enough, the two of them came close enough that he could get a look in the moonlight. It was Miss Priss—he could tell by the duster she wore and the wide, floppy-brimmed hat—and one of the men from the coach. Which one of those didn’t hardly seem to matter.
Longarm only hoped they weren’t going to get around to having their fun where they stood right now because that was only ten feet or so from where he’d laid his blankets and the situation could turn embarrassing. For all parties concerned, him included.
