Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701) (7 page)

“This ain't bad,” he said after he got into the meat. “What is it?”

“Mountain lion,” Cruikshank said. “Tasty stuff, isn't it? The boys favor it and kill one whenever they can to keep it from taking any of the sheep. It's kind of a bonus that they cook up so good.”

Longarm nodded. “I heard they were good eating. Now I know for my own self.”

“What brings you here, Marshal?” Cruikshank asked, after giving Longarm the courtesy of letting him finish his dinner before they got down to business.

“Making rounds,” Longarm said. “Showing the flag, you might say. Letting everyone know that there
will
be law an' order around here.”

Cruikshank snorted. “Tell that to the greasers. They're the ones making threats.”

“Oh, I will tell it to them, but what's the deal with you and your Basques?”

“They're good fellows. Decent. Hard workers. Not afraid to stand up to wolves or mountain lions carrying nothing but staves or shepherd's crooks. I like them.”

“Funny-looking staves,” Longarm said, pointedly looking at one of the Winchesters propped against a rock close to the fire.

Cruikshank shrugged and went on, “They work for Mr. Brent Wisner up in Billings, same as I do. He owns the sheep. They work for wages and a share of the increase. Used to be the outfit was scattered all over this valley, but since the Mex'cans came here and started making threats, they stay pretty much bunched up like this for safety. O' course after dinner they'll split the flock into smaller groups and graze out; then toward dark they'll gather 'em up again. Used to be we could trust the dogs to keep watch overnight. Nowadays we post sentinels. You should ought to know that. If you come up on us at night, make sure you sing out who you are before you get close to the sheep. We, uh, we wouldn't want to make no mistakes.” He grinned again. “Not by accident anyhow.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Longarm said, reaching for the coffeepot for a refill. “One thing you might wanta know is that I don't intimidate real easy.” He looked square into Cruikshank's eyes. “We wouldn't wanta have any o' those accidents, you an' me.”

Cruikshank's answer was a grin. The Texan did not look any more intimidated than Longarm was.

It is good to know the opposition, Longarm thought. But it is even better if there is no opposition. After all, Billy had sent him up here to head off a war, not to fight one.

“Can I pour you another cup?” he asked.

“I'd like that,” Cruikshank said, reaching for his cup. “Thanks.”

Longarm had his lunch with the Basques—and came to his unspoken understanding with Eli Cruikshank—so he then excused himself and stepped back onto the little dun named George.

“Thank you, Eli.” He touched the brim of his Stetson and said, “Keep 'em out of trouble, hear?” In a soft voice he added, “An' yourself too.”

“Oh, I never cause trouble, Marshal,” Cruikshank grinned,

“but I'm generally up for any that comes my way.”

Longarm grunted and gently touched the dun's side with his heel. The horse headed downhill to the creek.

The water there flowed swift and cold, but nowhere did it appear to be deep.

Longarm could not help but notice as he splashed across that the stream was lousy with trout. They lay facing upstream, lazily finning and waiting for something edible to come floating by. It was just a damned shame that he had not come here to fish. An even worse shame that he had not thought to pass himself off as a fisherman. He might have picked up all sorts of information if neither the Basques nor the Mexicans knew who and what he was.

It was too late for that, however. Dammit!

Unlike with the Basques and their sheep, the flocks of goats and their Mexican herders were not conveniently bunched up where he could get a look at them—and they at him—all at one time.

Whereas the sheep had been herded together into one huge flock, the goats were scattered all to hell and gone in small groups of twenty or thirty animals or so. Like the sheep, the goats were being controlled more by dogs than by men, an efficient and inexpensive method.

Longarm spent the afternoon riding from one small group to another. Several key differences from the shepherds struck him along the way, apart from the way every lone goatherd looked at him with nervous suspicion when he approached.

The first was that there seemed to be no spokesman for the Mexican goatherds. At least no English-speaking spokesman that Longarm could find. The goatherds spoke Spanish, and that was that. Trying to question them only frustrated both the herder and himself.

The other major difference that was visible to Longarm's inquiring eye was that while the Mexicans were also armed, the Basques had been carrying modern Winchester or Marlin repeating lever-action rifles, but the Mexicans were armed with an assortment of old shotguns and Springfield trapdoor rifles, probably cast-off—and very likely worn out—army surplus.

If it came to a war, Longarm thought, the Basques would have a huge advantage. Not only were they much better armed, they had Eli Cruikshank on their side. Longarm suspected that Cruikshank was about as close to being a professional as you could come.

If it came to a war, he thought, it was apt to be a slaughter of the Mexicans.

He hoped it would not come to that.

It was his job to make damned sure that it did not.

It was well past dark when Longarm got back to Dwyer. Lights showed in the windows of virtually all the houses in town but practically none of the storefronts. It seemed that Dwyer was a town that closed up early. The saloons were open but nothing else that he could see. That included the one café in town, a place called, coincidentally, enough, Café. At least that was what the sign over the door said. At the moment it was as dark and empty as everything else around it.

Longarm did not know exactly what time it was, but he was sure it was much too late to expect Nell Tyler to prepare a meal for him. Beer and peanuts would just have to do, he figured. He took the dun to John Tyler's barn, unsaddled it and gave it a generous measure of grain, then briefly curried and brushed it before walking over to Helen Birch's saloon.

But then he had had worse more than once in the past. There were times when beer and peanuts would have been a blessing.

“My goodness, Marshal. You look like shit,” Helen said by way of greeting.

“Thank you so much. Where is everybody?”

“At home in bed like honest folks should be at this time of night,” she said. Then the woman laughed and added, “Which tells you something about you and me, doesn't it? But the fact is, I was just about to close up for the night.”

“All right. Sorry,” he said, turning back toward the door.

“No.” She stopped him. “Don't go. What can I get you?”

Longarm leaned on the bar and said, “A feather bed an' about ten hours o' sleep oughta do it. But I'll settle for a quick shot an' then leave you t' get on home.”

“Have you had any supper?” she asked.

He shook his head and yawned. “No, but that's all right. Shove that bowl o' peanuts over here, would you? I'll take a handful o' them. I can set on one o' those benches over by the courthouse an' shell the little sons o' bitches.”

Helen chuckled. “I think I can do better than that. I haven't had supper yet myself, so why don't you join me?”

“Lady, that's the best offer I've had all day. Thanks.”

“It will be nice to have company for a change.” She smiled. “I deal with people all day every day, but I never have any company, if you see what I mean.”

“Sure. It's the difference between workin' and visitin'. I get the same thing, I expect.”

“So you will do it?” she asked.

“I'd be pleased to.” He yawned again.

Helen lived in rooms behind her saloon. She turned the OPEN sign in the window over so that it read CLOSED instead and pulled the roller blind down before she bolted the door and extinguished all but one of the lamps burning along the walls. “This way,” she said, indicating a door behind the bar.

Helen went in first; she struck a match and lighted a lamp, then turned the wick up and lighted two more before she was satisfied. “I cook simple rather than fancy,” she warned.

“Simple is fine by me,” Longarm said.

“It seems I've caught you at a good time for my brand of cooking.” She laughed. “You're too tired to know if it's good or bad. Truth is, I'm not much of a cook. But I'll thank you to keep from saying so. To my face anyway.”

“Like you said, I'm too damn weary t' know the difference tonight.”

“Sit over there, Custis. I'll stir up the coals and get things moving.”

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

“There is. You can stay out of the way. Would you like a shot or a beer to hold you off?”

“No, I'm fine. Really.” He sat where Helen indicated and watched while first she built up the fire inside a cast iron stove no larger than a sheepherder-style camp stove, then poured water and put it on to heat for coffee. Once that was done, she dropped a large nugget of lard into a skillet and sliced in a generous mess of spuds. She sliced slabs of bacon into the same skillet and set it onto the fire.

“Now we wait,” she said, joining Longarm at the table. “Tell me about your day,” she offered.

He found himself doing exactly that. He told himself he hoped to get a local perspective on the situation in McConnell County. The truth was that Helen Birch was a good listener, and Custis Long was half-asleep and in a mood to talk with the handsome woman.

He rattled on right through the process of cooking—she was right; cooking was not one of her talents—and on through the meal. By the time the simple meal was finished, he had pretty much exhausted the subject of his rather frustrating day.

“It's the Mexicans I can't get a handle on,” he told her. “The Basques at least have one English-speaking fella I can talk to.”

“That would be Eli,” she said.

“You know him?”

“Of course I know him. Maybe you haven't noticed, but Dwyer is a small town. I know everybody. Besides, Eli doesn't only visit the girls at Rosie's. Sometimes he likes to come here for a quiet drink.”

“Right. Anyway, the Mexicans I can't talk to. Do you know anything about them making threats to the Basques?”

“I've heard the rumor,” Helen said. “I don't know how true it is.”

“The Basques believe it. I suppose in a manner of speaking that makes it true enough.”

“True enough to cause trouble,” Helen agreed. She yawned. “Excuse me.”

Longarm very quickly followed suit with a yawn of his own. “Damn things are contagious, aren't they?”

“Yes, and I've often wondered why the sight of one person yawning makes everybody around them yawn too. Look, can I be straightforward with you, Custis?”

“Of course. Please do.”

“I run a business here, a business where men drink, sometimes get drunk. I have to hold myself a little apart in a small town like this. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I think so,” he said.

“It would cause no end of trouble if I was to fuck around, you will excuse the expression.”

He grinned. “I've heard it before.”

“Yes, well, it's true. I don't dare have affairs. The town's wives would find out about it, and their husbands would not be stepping inside my door again. It would ruin me. But I am not an old woman and I'm horny. More than a cucumber can take care of. Would you very much mind giving this horny woman a roll in the hay?”

“Has anybody ever accused you o' being too subtle?” Longarm asked.

Helen laughed. “No. Never.”

“Good, because it wouldn't have been true.” He pushed back from the table and stood.

“Are you leaving? Have I scared you away?” she asked.

“No, woman, I'm headin' for the bedroom. If you'll show me the way to it, that is.”

Helen Birch was not a fancy woman. Her bedroom was a small, mostly bare chamber without windows or adornments. It contained a dark walnut wardrobe, a washstand that held a basin and pitcher, and an iron bedstead with a thin mattress and a pair of blankets on it. Underneath the bed was a plain crockery thunder mug and a pair of high-topped shoes that she likely wore for dress-up occasions. The only thing on the rough plank walls was one lamp, which Helen lighted and turned up high.

“Sit down,” she said.

There was only one place to sit, so he perched on the side of the bed. The springs creaked, and for a moment he wondered if his weight would be too much for them, but they held with no problem.

Helen knelt at Longarm's feet and, smiling, pulled his boots off. She set them under the bed, next to her spare shoes. Then the woman stood and began disrobing.

She was a big woman, with a thick waist and heavy thighs and surprisingly small ankles and delicate feet. She had a heavy thatch of pubic hair that was beginning to turn gray—he suspected she put some sort of color on her hair to keep the gray from showing there—and large, pendulous breasts.

Her dark red areolae were as large as saucers, covering most of her tits, with nipples like thumbs. Before Longarm so much as touched her, the nipples stood out hard and firm. Her breathing had become ragged; she was so hot he was afraid she might burst into flame and burn down half of central Dwyer.

“Do you . . . ,” she turned suddenly shy, “do you like what you see?”