Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

through to Longarm also or there would not have been that question about him showing up.

Thank goodness. He would not have to face the White Hoods alone.

?I need to send a reply.? he told the telegraph operator.

?Write it out now if you want to. Marshal, but we gotta relay through Soda Springs to get down to the Union Pa­cific an? the Western Union operators. There?s no night man on at Soda Springs now. He signed off twenty, thirty minutes ago. So whatever you send, it won?t go out till tomorra morning when he comes on again. Me, I?d like to go home now too, Marshal.?

?You?ll stay right here,? Henry snapped forcefully. ?You shall keep this key open regardless.?

?Yes, sir,? the operator said with a weary sigh.

?And I shall wait until morning to write out my answer. Perhaps by then we will have heard something from Thunderbird Canyon.?

?Yes, sir,? the operator said with absolutely no belief in his voice.

?If anything does come in

?

?I?ll find you.? the operator said in a bored tone.

?Right.? Henry snapped the brim of his derby, spun on his heels, and marched back out onto the street feeling much better now than he had earlier.

Longarm and Smiley and Dutch should be here soon. Already he was feeling less alone.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Longarm shivered and cursed. The damned game trail went somewhere, all right. It led to a rock slide that had swept the whole damned thing away.

There was a gap of thirty or forty feet between the part of the trail he was on and the place where the trail resumed on the other side of the break. The trail was clearly visible in the moonlight. There just was no way to get to it from here. The trail carved by generations of wild sheep and goats had been wiped completely out by the rock slide.

Longarm stood and peered up and down the mountain­side. There was no sight of the gunman he had been chas­ing, and in both directions the mountainside was barren except for loose scree. There was no place the man could have hidden. There was no way he could have gotten across the treacherously loose rock left in the wake of the slide. He was not up here.

With some more muttered cussing, Longarm turned and began retracing his steps along the abandoned game trail. He had been climbing the trail more than an hour, but he had had to move with slow caution then on the assumption that the gunman was somewhere just ahead of him. Now he hurried, trying to get back down to the ledge before the man realized that Longarm was no longer behind him and tried to double back to the safety of the town where he could lose himself in the crowd.

Longarm had never gotten a look at the son of a bitch. The man could stand next to him at a bar and Longarm would never know it. Not if the fellow reached Thunderbird Canyon.

Longarm stretched out his strides, moving as fast as he dared on the narrow trail, now and then dislodging a stone that went tumbling over the lip and clattering down the mountainside. There was no help for that, though. He had to hurry or risk losing the man.

He reached the place where the trail and ledge met in little better than half an hour. Without hesitation he turned onto the ledge in the direction he had originally been fol­lowing. If he had missed the gunman?if the man had already realized that he was free to head back to town? there was nothing Longarm could do about it now.

The only chance Longarm had to catch him was the hope that the gunman was still somewhere ahead of him on the ledge or wherever it led.

Very far ahead of him.

Or free and laughing behind him.

Bitter at the thought of his own miscalculation, Longarm hurried on.

Chapter Thirty-Six

?You sure look like shit this morning, Marshal,? young Frye said. Longarm met him at the courthouse steps as the local deputy was coming outside.

?I?m entitled to look like shit, Charlie. I had quite a night, and I feel like shit too.?

Frye grinned, obviously unaware of the previous night?s excitement. ?Say, Marshal, you didn?t bust the window in the jail, did you??

Longarm glared at him. ?No damnit, I did not break your window.?

?I was just asking. Jeez. No need to get touchy about it. I mean, I asked that fella in the cell, but he couldn?t tell me nothing.?

?Potter??

Frye shrugged. ?Yeah, I guess that?s his name. You know, the dummy.?

?He?s still in his cell??

?Sure. I was just up there. I was going to get his break­fast now. You want me to bring you something too??

?Please. And, Charlie??

?Yeah, Marshal.?