Longarm #398 : Longarm and the Range War (9781101553701) (9 page)

“They work for Wisner,” Longarm said.

“That explains it then.”

“And the Mexicans?” Longarm asked. “Have they armed themselves too?”

“Not through me, they haven't. I sell them some shotgun shells and loose powder and percussion caps but nothing in any volume,” Johnson said.

“They haven't loaded up with firearms the way the Basques have,” DeCaro put in. “They just have what they normally carry to keep predators away from their goats.”

“So if it came to a war, the Basques would likely win?” Longarm asked.

DeCaro frowned in thought then said, “Maybe. There's more Mexicans than there are Basques, but the Basques are better armed. The Mexican boys are used to fighting. They've had more than enough of it down their way. They can handle themselves if it comes to a scrap. I don't know about the Basques. Don't know anything about how it is where they come from. In my opinion I think it could go either way.”

“What about you, Sam? What do you think?”

“Don't ask me, Marshal. I stay strictly neutral about things like this.”

Longarm thought about saying
And you'll sell arms to either side as long as you get your profit on the deal
, but he put a brake on his tongue. Instead he said, “Anthony, I'd like to have a word with you when you're done here.”

“Sure thing, Marshal.”

“I'll wait on one o' those handsome benches over by the courthouse,” Longarm said.

“Fine. I'll meet you there. Won't be but a minute and I'll be finished with my business.”

Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson toward Johnson, then turned and headed across the street toward the McConnell County Courthouse and the privacy of the public square, where no one was apt to be close when he spoke with DeCaro.

Longarm scarcely had time to finish a cheroot before DeCaro showed up and sat on the bench beside him.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting too long,” the young hostler said.

Longarm grinned. “Not at all. I sat here an' watched some fine-looking women out for their daily shopping.”

“Dwyer does seem to have some uncommonly good-looking women,” DeCaro said, “but all the really good-looking ones are married.”

“Now, that, son, is a damned shame.”

“What is it you wanted to see me about, Marshal?”

“I want to hire you, Anthony. Sheriff Tyler tells me you speak Spanish right well. Is that so?”

DeCaro shyly glanced down toward the toes of his boots and said, “I wouldn't claim to be any sort of flash at it. For sure I don't know anything fancy or flowery, but I expect I did grow up with it. I was raised down in Piedras Negras, if you know where that is.”

Longarm nodded. “I been there.”

“Yeah, well, me and my pals was over on the Mexican side of the river about as much as we were on the American side. Just raising Cain and like that. Nothing serious. We had Mexican friends, about as many as there were Anglos in our crowd. We all pretty much spoke whatever seemed handy at the time, so I can pretty much hold my own with it. Just what are you needing Spanish for, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I need to talk with these Mex goatherds, Anthony. I'd rather head off a war than step into the middle o' one. Figure I ought to get a look at their side o' things before I go to doing anything dramatic.”

“I can help you with that, Marshal.”

“The federal government will allow me to pay you a dollar a day for interpreting services. Will that be all right?”

“Marshal, I'd do it for nothing if it will help keep this county quiet.”

“A dollar a day it is then. And you can call me Longarm.” He smiled. “All my friends do.” He extended his hand to the handsome young man and they shook on the deal. “We'll start out first thing tomorrow.”

“There's only one thing wrong with that,” DeCaro said with a grin.

Longarm raised his eyebrows. “Hmm?”

“You're riding my horse.”

“I can get him back to you and swap you for . . .”

“Marshal . . . Longarm, I mean . . . I'm just funning you. I got plenty of decent horses to pick from. I'll come by Sheriff Tyler's house right after breakfast tomorrow.”

Longarm nodded. “Pack a lunch. Those goatherds are scattered all through the valley. It'll likely take us a while to chase them down.”

“I'll be there.” Anthony DeCaro seemed pleased as he stood to head back toward his livery stable.

“One more thing,” Longarm said, stopping him.

“Yes, Marshal?”

Longarm fingered his chin, dark with several days' growth of beard. “Where can I find a barber hereabouts?”

Dwyer's barber was a gentleman named Bert—Longarm did not get the man's last name—who was riding the borderline between middle-aged and just plain elderly. He was tall, bald, and frail, but he seemed to know what he was doing. Longarm sat patiently eavesdropping while the three customers before him received their trims and their shaves, until he was called to the chair.

“What can I do for you, Marshal?”

“Shave an' a trim, I reckon.”

Bert nodded, draped a striped sheet over Longarm, and brought a hot, slightly damp towel out of the warmer oven attached to a very small stove. He deftly wrapped the towel around Longarm's lower face.

“Damn that feels good,” Longarm said.

Bert smiled and began slapping a razor back and forth across a strop. When he was satisfied with the razor, he laid it on top of a clean towel and picked up his soap cup and brush, expertly whipping up a lather. He took the towel away from Longarm's face and began applying the lather.

“I'll let this set and soften your beard while I give you that trim,” he said, continuing to brush the lather on.

“That's fine,” Longarm said. “I'm in no rush.” He nodded to a gent who came into the shop. Bert seemed to be doing a good business here. But then he was the only barber in town.

Bert snipped at the back of Longarm's head and carefully trimmed around his ears before saying, “You should be about ready now,” and taking up his razor. He leaned forward to make the first stroke but was interrupted by the dull, booming sound of gunshots, two of them very close together, from somewhere nearby.

Longarm came out of the barber chair as quickly as if he were the one being shot at. He flung the striped sheet aside and headed for the door, unmindful of the lather that still coated his cheeks and neck.

He ran out without bothering to grab his Stetson off the rack near Bert's door.

In the wide street that fronted the courthouse he saw trouble.

There were two men. Or rather one man and what used to be another.

The one who was standing was small and dark and ragged. He held a double-barreled shotgun and wore a stunned and fearful expression, as if he did not completely understand what it was that he had just done.

And what it was that he had done was to damned near cut another man in two with those two gunshots.

That man lay sprawled in the dirt eight or ten feet away from the shooter, his chest and belly ripped open and turned into an exposed mass of blood, lungs, and guts. A shiny new Winchester rifle was on the ground at his side.

Revolver in hand, Longarm carefully approached the shooter. “Don't be makin' no sudden moves there, partner,” he said in a low, soothing voice as if speaking to a nervous horse. He held the .45 aimed at the man's midsection while he reached out and plucked the shotgun away from the fellow. The man offered no resistance, in fact seemed not to so much as notice what Longarm had done.

Longarm lay the shotgun on the ground and turned the man around. He shoved his revolver back into its holster and took handcuffs out of his back pocket, quickly snapping the steel onto the man's wrists. He bent and retrieved the shotgun then glanced toward the dead man.

The barber, who apparently did double duty as Dwyer's doctor and its undertaker, was kneeling beside the recently deceased. Others were beginning to gather close as well now that the danger was over.

“Can anybody tell me what happened here?” Longarm asked in a loud voice.

“Yeah, I can,” a young man wearing bib overalls and a denim cap said. He stepped forward. “These two were arguing, sir. Near as I could tell they were speaking different languages and neither one of them seemed to understand what the other was saying. They got real loud and angry. This one here,” he pointed toward the dead man, “started shaking his fist in that one's face. Then that one,” he indicated the survivor, “just up and cut loose on him. It was over just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “It was pretty ugly, Marshal. It was just plain murder.”

“This guy didn't point his rifle or threaten this one here?” Longarm asked.

The young man shrugged and said, “Damned if I'd know what either one of them said. All I could tell is that they both sounded pretty well pissed off shouting at each other like that, but I don't know about what.”

“All right, thanks.” Longarm nudged his prisoner into motion and guided him around to the back of the courthouse and down the steps to the sheriff's office and jail. He pushed the unprotesting prisoner close to the door, transferred the shotgun to the crook of his arm, and fumbled in his pockets for the key the clerk had given him.

He kept a wary eye on the prisoner while he got the door open and took him inside and straight through to one of the two jail cells.

Only one of the cells had a small window to admit air and a little daylight. Longarm propped the shotgun against the wall then put the shooter in the cell that had no window. He had to look around for the key to lock the cell. He found it hanging on a nail in the other room. Before he locked the man in, he carefully frisked him and took a folding pocketknife out of the man's pocket.

“Got anything to say for yourself?” he asked.

The shooter's expression did not change, and Longarm got the impression the man scarcely knew he was there. He seemed to be in a state of shock.

Longarm left him to get over it on his own and went back out to the office. His face felt drawn and uncomfortable from the shaving lather that was beginning to dry on it, but he had no towel to wipe it away or any water to wash it off. That would just have to wait.

He retrieved the shotgun and broke it open. Both shells had been discharged. He pulled them out and took a look. They were—or rather had been—buckshot loads. It was no wonder they had done such damage. Two loads of buck fired at close range? The dead man might as well have been standing in front of a canon.

He went outside, carefully locking the door behind him lest there be some of the dead man's friends in town who wanted a chance to visit with the shooter, then Longarm returned to the barbershop. The shave would just have to wait, but he wanted a towel to get the lather off his face, and he wanted to reclaim his hat and coat. Walking bareheaded in the sunshine felt vaguely uncomfortable; he was not used to it.

Stetson back where it belonged, Longarm walked over to the livery. He found Anthony DeCaro with a shovel in hand, cleaning out the barn stalls.

“I need your translating skills, Anthony. At least I think I do.”

“You
think
you do?” DeCaro responded.

“Well, I don't know for sure that this fella is a Mexican, but I think he probably is.”

DeCaro set his shovel aside and took out a bandanna that he used to mop the sweat off his face. “What fellow would that be, Longarm?”

“Guy I got in the jail. He's in there for murder?”

DeCaro's eyebrows went up. “I don't know that we've ever had a murder in Dwyer. Who is he and who did he kill?”

“Anthony, I don't have an answer to either one of them questions. That's why I'm hoping you can talk to him. See if we can make some sense of this.”

“All right. I'll be glad to help if I can, Longarm.” DeCaro brushed himself off a little, then headed for the courthouse and the sheriff's office in the basement there.

When Longarm and DeCaro got there, the door was standing open, and for a moment Longarm feared a lynch mob had broken in. He motioned for DeCaro to stay back and, revolver in hand, cautiously approached the door.

Inside he found Sheriff John Tyler seated at his desk, crutches propped against the wall.

“I heard the gunshots,” Tyler said, “and I could see all the commotion in the street. Saw the shooting to begin with, for that matter. I grabbed my crutches and started down here. I saw you had it under control, Longarm, but I wanted to be here anyway.”

“Nell is gonna be pissed off at you, y'know,” Longarm said, “coming all this way on your crutches. You'll wear yourself out.” He grinned. “That's bad enough, but she might blame me for not headin' you off.”

“She'll get over it. The point is, it is my job to keep the law in this town. I can't do it if I'm sitting on my front porch all the time.”

“You've seen the prisoner then, I take it,” Longarm said.

Tyler nodded. “I tried talking to him, but that didn't seem to do much good. I don't know as he understood a single word I said.”

“That's why I went to fetch Anthony here.” Longarm inclined his head in DeCaro's direction. “The prisoner looks to be Mexican. Maybe Anthony can get some sense outa him. I sure as hell hope so because I'm pretty sure the fella he killed was one of them Basque sheepherders.” Longarm took a deep breath. “John, this here could be the spark that sets off the range war we've been worryin' about. When the Basques find out about it, it ain't gonna be good.”