Longarm on the Overland Trail (4 page)

He nodded and said, "I'm missing something here, ma'am. From all the testimony you and everyone else seems to agree on, I'll be switched if I can see how come you've been so nice to even a kid brother all these years."

She shrugged. "It wasn't easy. Joseph was always a sullen little brute. But he was kin. He had nobody else to turn to after our folk died. I'd just married Tom and he was very sweet about it, until Joseph just stayed on and on, contributing nothing but trouble and an extra mouth to feed."

He'd already heard all that. Longarm said he understood and told her, "I've seen about as much as there could be to see here, ma'am. But before I go, could I have a look at your husband's workshop next door?"

She nodded and got out of his way. "Help yourself. The door's not locked."

Again she remained in the doorway as he entered the larger but, if anything, less cheerful room built in up there. The dusty heads of long-dead critters stared at him from all around. The workbench was cluttered with tools, from meat cleavers to surgeon's clamps, and a bitty library of brown bottles rose above it. Longarm stared at the dismal remains of a half-stuffed jackrabbit and asked, "Would I be safe in assuming your late husband's hobby could have been taxidermy, ma'am?"

"He liked to go hunting on his days off. That was another bone of contention between Tom and my brother. He offered to take Joseph along. Said it might make a man of him. But I guess Joseph preferred reading about Buffalo Bill to acting like Buffalo Bill."

Longarm stared at the not-too-well-mounted pronghorn before he muttered half to himself, "Until recent, that is." He could see all too clearly how an older man who fancied himself an outdoorsman, when he got a chance to get outdoors, could feel about a sickly bookworm, content just to read about the West all around them. He picked up some of the jars to read the labels. It sure took a lot of fancy chemicals to put a jackrabbit back on its fool feet after you shot it. He didn't find anything that could turn a sissy into a wild man, even if he could have gotten in here so easily. He asked the brunette if she had any idea as to how her late husband had brought down all these critters, explaining, "I don't see any guns or ammunition around here."

"There might be some spare shells among all Tom's things. His hunting rifle is in the house. Would you like to see it?"

He shook his head. "Not if you know for sure it's still there. As you may have guessed, we're looking for a modest-sized youth packing two pistols but, all right, what sort of rifle bore are we talking about? Would you know?"

She shook her head, then brightened and said, "Oh, I think Tom said it was a thirty something. Is that any help?"

"It is. Nobody around here's been shot with a.30-30 hunting rifle. So there's no need to pester you further."

As they went downstairs together she said, "I'd be happy to show you that rifle, and I still owe you coffee and cake at least."

He turned to her at the bottom of the steps. "Thanks just the same, but I've other calls to make. If you're up to one more dumb question, though, is it at all possible your side of the Slade family could be at all related to the late Black Jack Slade of Julesburg, Colorado?"

She looked blank and said, "We don't have any relation this side of the Mississippi that I know of. Mom and Dad came west from Ohio just before the War. Joseph and I were actually born back in Dayton, but of course we were too little to remember much when they brought us west with them. I guess I was about six or seven and Joseph was about three or four. All I remember is that he cried all the way."

"Men you and him grew up the rest of the way here in Denver and nowheres else?"

She nodded. "I've been up to the mountains with Tom a time or two. I don't know if Joseph had ever been out of the city before he joined the army. Why do you ask?"

Longarm said, "He was sure dressed cow for a city boy, the one time I saw him. Would you know where he picked up that outfit?"

She said she didn't. So he ticked his hatbrim to her and left by the alley exit. He knew Denver Dry Goods sold boots, big hats, and gun rigs But so did a mess of other stores in town, and it would be even hotter down along Larimer Street at this hour. When he got to the end of the alley he headed up the slope in favor of down. By the time he made it up to the more fashionable Sherman Avenue running along the breezier edge of what was in fact the rim of the higher ground surrounding downtown Denver on the South Platte bottomlands he saw he'd made a good move for once. It would have been cooler up here, where the richer folk lived, even if the sandstone walks had not been shaded with elm and cottonwood.

The houses to either side were mostly built with the same red sandstone they'd used for the walks. Rich people seldom got rich by wasting money. So the lawns, while well tended, had been left to turn summer-brown. Come late fall, they'd all get a dressing of manure from the packing houses down by the tracks and, come next spring, they would look nice and green for June weddings and such. But since summer-killed lawns were as delicate as they were ugly, all the neighborhood kids were required to play out on the dusty street and, school being out, they were. It wasn't true that kids who got to eat regular were sissies. The ones down the avenue just ahead were playing ball in the street as if it was a cooler day and they'd never heard about carriage ice. As he crossed an intersection, Longarm saw a ball coming his way. Since he'd been a kid once, too, he bent to stop it, lest it wind up somewhere in Cheyenne.

As he caught the bounding ball a bullet grazed his bent-over spine, hit his hatbrim, and took his Stetson off for him. He dove headfirst, landed on the back of his neck, and somersaulted back to his boot heels to make some sudden moves. The kids had to come first. He threw the ball as hard as he could. It passed over them, catty-corner, to roll across a forbidden lawn as the kids, being kids, chased it out of the line of fire.

By this time Longarm was behind the solid trunk of a good old elm and he was glad he was when he heard a second distant shot, a rooster laugh, and the bullet slamming into the far side of the trunk. It hit hard enough for a.45 round. He cursed and got his own.44-40 out to return the courtesy. But as he risked a peek he saw the only moving target back that way was a uniformed roundsman running his way with police whistle chirping and nightstick waving. Longarm cursed again, put his sidearm back in its cross-draw holster, and stepped into view, hands polite.

The copper badge recognized him, slowed to a wary walk, and called out, "I just heard gunshots up this way, Longarm."

"It wasn't me. You must have passed the son of a bitch just now. How come?" Longarm asked.

The uniformed lawman said, "I didn't pass nobody, save for some kids running for home as their mothers was yelling at 'em to do this instant. Who was shooting at whom, and why?"

Longarm looked the other way and, sure enough, the kids whose ball he'd stopped were out of sight, too. Rich folk were careful about their kids as well as their money, having got that way by being less casual about whatever they owned, most likely. He told the copper badge, "Some son of a bitch just pegged two shots at me. I'd say he was wearing hair chaps and a big black sombrero if I didn't respect a fellow lawman's vision so much. The man is little enough to pass for a running kid at a casual glance, if he was wearing a tamer outfit. You might not have spied him at all if he worked his way to wherever between two houses. Picket-fence lines and even hedges don't seem as fashionable up here along the avenue."

The roundsman said, "I've noticed that. It makes life hard on me on Halloween. You'd think a man with the money for a sixty- or seventy-foot lot would want to fence it. But most don't, and the little shits run every which way after they kick over an ash can. How do you feel about the shootist firing on you from, say, any one of them houses, themselves?"

"I'd feel surprised as hell. Both shots came my way fired level. Ain't a porch in sight that ain't well above the grade. Aside from that, I don't think the cuss who was shooting at me would be socially acceptable up here on Sherman Avenue. I know I ain't."

The copper badge got out his notepad and asked Longarm to try for some names. Longarm said, "It works more ways than one. Working as long as I have for the department, a man picks up an occasional enemy. As I hardly have to tell you, only a few of the rascals we arrest really mean it when they promise to look us up when they get out. But now and again one really does. It seems more likely, as I study on it, that I just saved myself a needless ride to Julesburg, though."

He brought the roundsman up to date on Joseph, alias Black Jack, Slade as they both stepped out into the intersection to rescue Longarm's hat. He picked it up, dusted it off, and put it on again as the Denver law opined, "He won't last long with that sort of attitude. He must be crazy."

Longarm said, "That's what makes him so dangerous. And, no offense, he ain't been caught yet, with every lawman in the city out to catch him."

The roundsman wanted Longarm to come to the precinct house with him to make a statement. Longarm shook his head. "There's nothing to report. I ain't hurt. He could be most anywhere in town by now. This ain't shaping up as a paperwork case. We've already got all sorts of stuff about young Slade on paper, and none of it helps. He's gone loco. He ain't acting at all like the sissy weakling everyone's always known. He's acting like he's turned into someone else entire. He may think he really has. So keep your eye peeled for a mousy-looking little shrimp as has suddenly took to acting like one of the wildest killers the West has ever seen."

As he shook with the copper badge and ambled on, Longarm mused aloud to himself, "I'm sure glad the one and original Black Jack Slade is dead and buried. I'd hate like hell to go up against two such dangerous lunatics at once!"

CHAPTER 3

Mavis Weatherwax was not a widow woman. She was a divorcee. Some said her former husband had settled a silver mine on her in exchange for her promise never to speak to him again. Her big bay-windowed house stood close to the capitol grounds, where they cut Sherman Avenue in twain. When she came to the door herself, Longarm sensed she'd given her servants the weekend off and had not been expecting company. The junoesque henna-rinsed divorcee had her red hair pinned up properly, but she wore nothing more than a green silk kimono over her considerable curves.

She told him he was a pleasant surprise and asked what she owed for the pleasure. They both knew he hadn't come for one of the piano lessons she was in the habit of giving. Longarm didn't know why a gal with her own income wanted to give piano lessons in the first place. The lady who had introduced them at a party a spell back had said Mavis found it a handy excuse to meet young fellows, but some women were inclined to say spiteful things about any gal who was halfway decent-looking and free to do the things they couldn't.

Longarm told her, "I got some sheet music I'd like an expert opinion on, Miss Mavis. I can't read music much beyond a hymn book but there's something odd going on here, unless I've forgotten Sunday School entire."

She hauled him inside and said she was ever ready to cooperate with the law. The powder and paint she wore looked softer inside, but her French perfume smelled stronger. She led him into her parlor, where a Steinway grand was corralled in the bay window, taking up most of the space. He handed her the "Ballad of Black Jack Slade." She blinked at the cover and said, "Good heavens," and slid her heroic silk-sheathed behind in place behind the keyboard. She patted what was left of the piano bench for him to sit beside her. He took her up on her invitation and, even sitting closer to her than some might consider proper, he had to let some of his own rump hang over the edge.

She didn't seem to notice his hip against her own as she put the sheet music on the piano rack and commenced to play. She sang the words as well, not badly at all, although they sure sounded silly coming from a lady with such a high-toned contralto.

He stopped her when she got to the bottom of the first page and said, "That's enough for now. The last time I heard this song sung it was sung to a different tune. I don't play the piano any better than I play the typewriter, but let me see if I can one-finger the way it went last night in less seemly surroundings."

She listened as he tried to reproduce the more dismal way the wanted man had sounded off in the Parthenon until she decided, "You're flat. I think I know that tune. It's an old Irish jig, and it goes like this."

He listened as she tinkled a few bars. Then he said, "Well, he must have been flat, too, but that's about the way it sounded last night. How come you say it's an Irish jig? Slade ain't an Irish name, is it?"

"I think it's an old Saxon name. That's not the point. Half our so-called cowboy songs are based on Irish, German, or old English folk songs. You could hardly expect a semi-literate with a poetic streak to compose original music as well. Is there any point to this discussion, Custis? By either melody, this attempt at a ballad is pretty awful."

He said: "You've helped me a heap, Miss Mavis. For now I know two things I didn't know for sure before. I am looking for a kid who don't read music and just admired the words of that song about his hero. Better yet, I know he never learned it riding with other cowhands, for had he done so, he'd have known the tune and not just one he'd heard in his modest travels."