Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

there.

The young man in the hallway looked apologetic but eager. ?Good news, Marshal.?

Longarm grunted and stepped aside to let the man in, then took his time about lighting his smoke. Good news right now would be about twenty uninterrupted hours of sleep. ?What is it, uh

??

?Tim Blaisdell, sir. I work for Mr. Sawyer at the Tyler mine.?

Longarm granted again. He still felt half asleep.

?It?s the White Hoods, sir.?

Longarm blinked.

?We caught one of ?em, sir.?

That cleared the last of the cobwebs. Longarm was fully awake now. Early morning sunlight was streaming through the single window in the hotel room, so he could not have slept long. After that news, though, he did not need more. ?Tell me about it,? he said, reaching for his hastily dis­carded clothing from the night?morning?hour or two? before.

Blaisdell was grinning now. ?It was the boys down along the tracks that caught him, sir. Just where you posted ?em. This ol? fella came slipping along through the rocks just afore dawn. They hunkered down where they was

Bully Ryan, who?s in charge down there, he thought they should set up kinda out o? sight, y? see

so they stayed where they was and let this fella come to them. An? he did. Walked right into ?em and throwed his hands high when he seen he was caught.?

?And you?re sure he is one of the White Hoods.?

?Yes, sir,? Blaisdell said with a grin and a bob of his head. ?Had a hunnert dollars gold in his pockets an? a folded flour-sack hood stuffed in the same pocket, sir.?

?A flour-sack hood??

?Yes, sir,? the grinning security guard affirmed. ?Eye holes cut outa the cloth an? everything.?

?Well I?ll be damned,? Longarm said. ?Now wasn?t that a piece of luck.?

?Yes, sir. The whole plan worked just like you figured.? Blaisdell looked about as pleased as a pup with a new kid to play with.

Longarm finished dressing and belted the Colt in place at his waist, then stamped his feet to settle them inside his boots. His damned socks felt clammy and moist, but he hadn?t exactly had time to get laundry done lately. ?Let?s go meet this man with the white hood, Tim.?

?Yes, sir.? Blaisdell acted like this was about the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. And proba­ bly it was.

Longarm stopped downstairs in the hotel long enough to order a breakfast prepared and sent over to the jail?for himself, not the bastard with the hood in his pocket?then followed the guard to the courthouse.

The White Hood was a man in his twenties, large and heavily muscled and badly in need of both a shave and a bath. His nose showed signs of considerable battering in the past, and there were small scars laced over and through his eyebrows and on his cheekbones. A small-time prize­fighter somewhere in the past, Longarm concluded. And not a very good one at that to be so badly marked. This time, though, he himself was the prize, and his captors were congratulating themselves loudly.

?You haven?t left the tracks unguarded, have you?? Longarm asked.

?No indeed. We got a full crew down there still.?

?Good.? Longarm gave the prisoner a thorough looking over through the bars of the cell door, then said, ?The rest of you assigned down on the tracks can go back now. I?ll handle this gentleman.?

The guards looked disappointed, but they were still happy enough about their success that this would not keep them down for long. They gave a few last looks at the White Hood and left.

?Tim,? Longarm said before Blaisdell disappeared in the hallways.

?Yes, sir??

?If you would be so kind, Tim, stop at the hotel, please, and ask them to double that breakfast order for me.?

?Yes, sir.? Blaisdell thumped down the flight of narrow stairs, leaving Longarm alone with the prisoner.

The man looked apprehensive, as if he expected to be beaten now that there were no witnesses present. He sat on the flimsy cell cot with his back to the door and head hanging.

Longarm fingered through the things that had been taken from the prisoner?s pockets when they brought him in. There were the five gold double eagles Blaisdell men­tioned, a handful of loose change amounting to eighty-three cents, a pocketknife with a badly nicked blade, and a bright pebble.

The pebble was rose quartz. It had a clear, clean tint of pink through the translucent stone, was not at all cloudy, and was a pretty thing even though it was of no actual value.

The hood that lay beside the other items was as Blais­dell had described?originally a sack intended to hold probably twenty pounds of flour. The cloth had not even been washed, and a dry, dusty powder of ground wheat clung to the corners where the sack had been sewed by machine. Eye holes had been hacked out of the cloth, and a drawstring intended to contain the flour remained in place where it could be tied loosely around a man?s neck to keep the hood in place. A man wearing such a hood would be effectively concealed. The rig was simple but efficient.

Longarm tossed it back onto the desk and picked up the pebble. He crossed the small room to stand in front of