Longarm and the Arapaho Hellcats (12 page)

Behind him, the man screamed again.

And again.

A rifle barked.

The man yelped sharply. “Oh, you fuckin' bitch! Oh! My
knee
!”

The rifle barked again.

“Oh, you've crippled me bad!” the man bellowed.

His bellowing was cut off by another rifle blast.

Then there was only silence.

Late that afternoon, the sun nearly touching the tops of the western ridges, Longarm reined the sorrel to a halt and clicked back the hammer of the Winchester resting across his saddlebow.

He stared straight ahead at the old ghost town of Open Flat that was a ragged collection of log shanties and frame shacks nestled on this open stretch of high, flat desert, sandwiched between the Laramie Mountains to the south and the Snowy Range to the north. Nothing grew up this high except for bunchgrass, spindly cedars, and sage. And, apparently, tumbleweeds.

The ­silver-­gray old ruin of a mining town was nearly buried in them.

The sky was a vast, pale blue arcing over the broad valley in which Open Flat huddled, gradually being reclaimed by the high desert prairie.

The town had boomed about ten years ago, but when the silver and copper veins pinched out, the boom went bust and the people gradually started to leave the region. Now there might have been a ranch or two in this vast area southeast of Arapaho, but the town itself was nothing but moldering timbers, ­broken-­out windows, and disintegrating boardwalks piled high with tumbleweeds that blew here in the ceaseless wind.

Even now the wind blew, kicking up dust along the broad main street in front of Longarm, shunting miniature cyclones this way and that. A dusty shingle chain squawked, and a loose door tapped against its frame.

Besides the dust and a single tumbling tumbleweed, nothing moved. Longarm touched heels to the sorrel's flanks, and the horse clomped forward into the town, the lawman turning his head slowly from right to left and back again, appraising all the ­false-­fronted buildings lining the street. Most had boasted paint at one ­time—­the gaudy paint and ostentatious trim of a ­high-­stepping mining ­camp—­but time had long since painted them all dusty gray.

Here and there a swatch of purple or spruce green or sunrise yellow showed through the dust. But for the most part the town was colorless.

Longarm had been through the town a few times when it was booming, and a few times after the mines had played out. Last time he was here, maybe four years ago, an old fellow had been keeping a saloon open for the occasional stubborn prospector or saddle tramp with enough pocket jingle for a glass of stale ale or a venomous whiskey.

As Longarm rode ahead along the dusty street pounded to flour by thousands of ore drays, he looked around for the old watering hole, thinking there was a possibility it might still be open. But then, if he remembered right, the gent who'd run the ­place—­he couldn't recollect the man's name nor the name of his ­place—­had been old even then.

He'd be nearly as old as the mountains now. He'd most likely passed on. Longarm was convinced that was so when he'd reached the midway point of the ­three-­block-­long main street and hadn't spied any place that appeared to still be running.

Most of the buildings looked like the rotten teeth in a ­long-­dead skull. And from the way things looked, if there was anyone around but the stray coyote or packrat, he'd be mighty surprised.

That was all right with Longarm. His whiskey was nearly gone, and he could use a drink, but trouble was dogging his heels in the form of the Drummond gang, and he didn't want to bring the trouble to anyone else's doorstep. He'd headed here because he'd thought it would be a good place to fort up and wait for the Drummond gang's arrival.

What was left of them, that was. He and the women had probably whittled the gang's number down to around ten or so by now. Still stiff odds, but Longarm had thrown dice against higher and lived to tell the tale.

He hipped around in his saddle and waved his rifle in the air above his head. A few seconds later, Cynthia and Casey rode out from behind a clump of rocks along the trail, a quarter mile south of town, and started riding toward him.

“Well, I'll be a ­pan-­fried turkey buzzard,” a raspy voice said out of nowhere. “If it ain't Deputy United States Marshal Custis P. Long . . .”

The unexpected voice startled Longarm as well as his horse. The lawman held the sorrel's reins taut in his left hand while raising his rifle in his right hand.

It took his eyes a moment to pick out the old man sitting under a porch awning against one of the nondescript, ­age-­weathered, ­wind-­blasted buildings. Then he saw the broad, ­still-­intact front window that was relatively clean by Open Flat standards, and the two ­bat-­wing doors. The old man sat in a chair between them, leaning forward on a cane, a ­funnel-­brimmed Stetson on his withered old head.

He cackled, showing maybe two, possibly three ­tobacco-­brown teeth in his gums, and shook his head. “You didn't expect to find me still kickin', did you, Longarm?”

“Well, I'll be damned.”

“You look like you're seein' a ghost!”

“Avriel . . .” Longarm said, lowering the Winchester and frowning at the old gent until his full name returned to his memory. “Avriel Simms.”

“Want a drink, Longarm?”

Longarm surveyed the building behind the old man. Now that he looked more closely, he could see the badly faded sign announcing
AVRIEL SIMMS OPEN
FLAT SALOON
in large letters that had once been green but now looked gunmetal gray behind their coating of dust and grit.

“Your place still open, Avriel?”

“Why, sure it is. You're my first customer of the day.” The old man chewed on that, leaning forward on his cane and making a pensive expression. “Matter o' fact, you're my first customer of the whole week. The only one I had last week was ole Rowdy McNamara. He owns a ranch out on Bitter Creek, and when him and the old lady get to goin' at it . . .”

The oldster let his voice trail off as he turned his gaze toward Longarm's back trail. The two women were approaching now, holding their horses to slow walks, heads turned to regard the old man whose thin lips were shaping a slow, delighted smile. “Say,” Simms said, “what in the name o' Sam Hill is that.”

Longarm glanced behind and chuckled. “Those are called women. Surely you remember the breed, Avriel.”

“Sure, ­sure—­I remember. Don't remember ever seein' a pair as ripe as them two there, though. Holy moly!” The old man leaned forward harder, using the cane to hoist himself to his feet. He was so ­stoop-­shouldered that even standing he appeared to be half sitting. “My, my.”

“Ladies, meet Avriel Simms. He runs the saloon here in Open Flat. Avriel, meet Cynthia Larimer and Casey Summerville.”

The old man shifted his weight from one old boot to another and grinned lasciviously, his ­washed-­out blue eyes glinting copper in the severely angling sunlight. He removed his hat from his bald, ­age-­spotted head and clamped it over his heart. “Miss Larimer, Miss Summerville, it is a privilege and an honor, and rest assured you're a sight for these sore, old eyes.”

Cynthia swept a hand back through one side of her mussed hair. “I doubt that, Mr. Simms, but thank you for saying so.”

“I doubt we're much of a sight for any eyes,” said Casey, “but we do appreciate your saying so.”

“Come on in!” Avriel said, beckoning with his hat. “Come on in and . . .”

Just then a figure appeared over the ­bat-­wings—­a woman's craggy face capped with ­coal-­black hair that hugged her withered head like a cap. The old woman looked around, blinking, and croaked, “Who on earth are you talkin' to, you old goat?”

“Company, Gerta!” Simms said. “Come on out here and meet Longarm and his two young wimmen ­friends—­Miss Cynthia and Miss Casey!”

The old woman seemed to flush as she stepped through the doors haltingly, brushing at her hair that was pulled tightly back and wound in a ­fist-­sized bun behind her head. She wore what appeared a pink velvet ball gown, ratty around the edges, and a gossamer blue stole. “Well, well . . .” she said, glancing around. “Two purty girls and . . . why . . . look there . . . who'd you say the big man there is, Avriel?”

“That there is Custis P. ­Long—­deputy U.S. marshal. Most folks call him Longarm.”

“And you're welcome to, as well, Miss Gerta,” Longarm said, lifting his hat straight up from his head and dipping his chin in a courtly bow.

Gerta smiled shyly, slitting her long, dark brown eyes that no doubt had been quite ravishing in their day, revealing that nowadays she had a few more teeth than Simms, but not by much. “Oh,” she said. “Oh . . . how nice.”

Avriel said, “This here's Gerta Breckenridge.”

“Holy shit,” Longarm heard himself say though he didn't think he'd said it loudly enough for anyone except him and possibly the young women to hear.

“Yessir, Gerta Breckenridge,” Simms said. “Opera Queen of the New Frontier . . .”

“Sister of God with a voice like Mother Mary,” Long­arm finished for the man, remembering the famous line penned by a newspaper writer sometime just before the Civil War had broken out, and Gerta Breckenridge had been singing in saloons and beer tents from Texas to the northern Rockies.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma'am,” Longarm said, covering his chest with his hat. “Didn't know you were . . . were still in the, uh . . . profession . . .” he added, haltingly.

“Oh, I'm not in the profession anymore, Longarm. I came up here as a guest of Avriel's a couple years ­back—­I'd retired in Amarillo, don't ya ­know—­and while I've been known to sing a few bars now an' then on Saturday night when the cowboys pull through on roundups, mostly I just keep this old mossyhorn's feet warm in his old age!”

Gerta Breckenridge glanced at the grinning Simms, tipped her head back, and cackled.

The old man wrapped an arm around her and beckoned to Longarm once more. “Go on and put your horses up in the barn behind my place. Plenty of grain an' feed. Just had some hay and parched corn shipped in from Arapaho. Then you and the ladies come on inside for some of me and Gerta's special whiskey and rattlesnake stew!”

“We don't want to intrude,” Cynthia said.

“We sure don't,” Longarm said, leveling a serious look at Simms. “Trouble's doggin' us. Couple hours back. The Drummond gang.”

“Intrude, hell!” Gerta said before Simms could speak. “A coupla purty young gals and a tall, dark drink o' water like the one sittin' the sorrel couldn't intrude if you was bein' dogged by the devil's own ­yellow-­fanged hounds! Now, ya'll do as Avriel bids, and don't dally. The whiskey's still fresh, which means the rattlesnake venom hasn't settled to the bottom of the bottles yet!”

Gerta and Winters roared in ratcheting, ­crow-­like voices as they swung around together and pushed on through the ­bat-­wings to be consumed by the saloon's dense shadows.

Cynthia and Casey rode up to Longarm.

“What about the gang?” Cynthia asked.

“I figure we're about two hours ahead of 'em. By the time they get here, it'll be good dark. They won't try anything till morning.”

“And when they do?” Casey said.

“We'll be ready for 'em.” Longarm reined the sorrel around. “Come on. Let's stable these horses and accept the old folks' hospitality.”

As Longarm followed Cynthia and Casey through the saloon's back door and into the main drinking hall, the succulent smells of stew and fresh bread nearly laid him flat. His breath grew shallow, and an invisible fist inside him squeezed his belly. He salivated.

“Oh, my gosh,” Cynthia said. They'd been riding for a couple of days now on only jerky, peaches, coffee, and water.

“What smells so good?” Casey finished for her friend.

Avriel Simms sat at a table in the middle of the long room, the bar to his left. Gerta was working at a range behind the bar and left of a large, elaborate back bar ­mirror lined with shelves and glasses of all shapes and sizes.

Simms said, “That's my dear Gerta's rattlesnake stew and fresh bread. That gal could sing a lick or two in her day, but these days she can cook even better!”

“Ya'll go ahead and sit down,” Gerta said, cutting up a long, oval loaf of crusty brown bread. “I'll have the food over in a minute. Oh, this is just swell. Me an' Avriel haven't had a ­sit-­down dinner with guests in a coon's age. Just a coon's ­age—­ain't that right, honey bunch?”

“It sure is, sugar.” Simms popped the cork on a whiskey bottle and winked at Longarm. “We get a little lonely out here, don't ya know. But at least we have each other.” He held up the bottle. “We'll break into the whiskey later. This here's my very own special prickly pear wine. Goes right well with rattlesnake stew.”

There were five bowls and five small plates on the table. Two water glasses sat before each bowl and plate, one filled with water. Avriel filled the other glasses half full with the light, ­safflower-­colored liquid that emanated the smell of alcohol and something akin to dandelions and watermelon. Longarm and the women set their rifles on a near table.

The lawman lifted one of the glasses that Simms had poured his elixir into and sniffed.

He tasted it. He'd sampled prickly pear wine only in Texas, and he'd found it tasty enough, though no match for his rye. This stuff slid easily down his throat and spread a warm glow through his chest and shoulders. “Avriel, this is damn good. You might be onto something ­here—­Wine of Wyoming!”

Chuckling, Simms finished pouring the prickly pear wine into the glasses. Cynthia and Casey sat down as Longarm held their chairs in turn, and then he sat down himself at the end of the table opposite the bar. From here he had a good view of the front windows on each side of the ­bat-­wings and the street beyond.

It was almost dusk, however. Soon, he wouldn't be able to see much of anything out there.

Gerta came over and set a large, steaming pot of rattlesnake stew on the table and let everyone help themselves. Longarm thought he'd never eaten anything so delicious in his ­life—­white chunks of rattlesnake mixed with potatoes, carrots, and peas, and all floating in a rich, pale gravy. He tore chunks of fresh bread from the loaf, and dipped the bread in the gravy, eating with his fork in one hand, bread in the other.

No one spoke during the meal. Longarm looked up a couple of times, keeping an eye on the street, and he saw both pretty women eating as hungrily as he was, shoveling the stew into their mouths and following it up with large bites of the ­gravy-­dipped bread. Their mussed, ­trail-­dusty hair and the color from the sun gave them a wild, desperate look that Longarm couldn't help feeling aroused by. He looked away. This was no time for his ­billy-­goat lust.

The Drummond ­gang—­what was left of ­them—­could be entering town at this very moment.

After the meal, Longarm wiped his mouth with a napkin and slid his chair back from the table. “Miss Gerta, I bet that meal was tastier than the Last Supper. We do appreciate it.”

The women chimed in, Cynthia reaching over and squeezing Gerta's wrinkled hand while Gerta flushed and beamed and Avriel replenished the ladies' cactus wine glasses.

“No more for me, Avriel,” Longarm said, donning his hat and grabbing his Winchester off the table. “I'll be headin' out to see if it's as quiet and peaceful out there as it looks.”

Cynthia slid her own chair back. “I'll join you.”

“Me, too,” said Casey, sipping from her refilled glass.

“You two stay and rest,” Longarm said. “If I need help, you'll know soon enough. The way I figure it, when Drummond comes, we'll separate, get outside the saloon, and move around, drawing each one of them ­killers to us. That way, we'll have the upper hand, so to speak.” Longarm winked at both women. “If they show tonight, let's just be careful not to shoot each other in the dark.”

He looked at Simms. “Avriel, I do apologize for bringing trouble. When Drummond shows, you best take Gerta somewhere ­safe—­a pantry or a root cellar, something like that.”

“Don't ­worry—­I'll take care of Gerta.”

“These young ladies could use a bath and a shot of whiskey,” Gerta said.

“That we could,” Casey said, looking at Longarm. “But there's no time.”

Longarm shook his head. “You two take that bath Gerta's offerin'. I'm headin' out to look around. If there's any trouble, you'll hear the shots. Then you'd best grab your rifles and scramble.”

Longarm pinched his hat brim to the women, dug a cheroot out of his pocket, and pushed out through the saloon's ­bat-­wing doors. He dropped down into the street, letting the darkness absorb him.

He stuck the cheroot between his teeth but did not light it. He wanted the taste of the cigar following the meal, but he'd wait and smoke it later, when he figured it was safe to show the glowing coal.

There was only a little green light left in the sky and the first stars were sparking to life. The town was dark. The breeze had died, and a silence had fallen over the broad valley in which Open Flat lay.

He glanced at the saloon's dimly lit windows behind him and then crossed the main street. At the other side, in the dense shadows of the vacant buildings, he walked back in the direction from which he and the women had ridden into the town.

The settlement stopped abruptly on the far side of a boarded-up mercantile with a broad loading dock sporting more missing floorboards than remaining ones. Here, at the base of the dock, Longarm stared off along the trail that curved across the ­flat—­a pale tan line shrouded in the thickening darkness.

He scanned the terrain on both sides of the trail, pricking his ears. He flexed his hand around the neck of the rifle, which he held atop his right shoulder, and absently rolled the cheroot from one side of his mouth to the other.

Abruptly, he stopped rolling the cigar. He'd heard something to his right, and he turned his head to stare down along the mercantile to the rear shrouded in darkness. He wasn't sure exactly what he'd heard, but it had been ­something—­a soft thud or a tap. Possibly someone walking around back there?

Longarm took his rifle in both hands. Slowly chambering a cartridge, he walked down along the side of the mercantile, weaving his way amongst the tumbleweeds caught up in tufts of sage and wild mahogany. He stopped at the rear corner, pressed his right shoulder against the building, and edged a look around the corner and into the dark gap behind.

He could see the weathered gray privy leaning slightly to the north and several low mounds of ancient trash that had probably been well scoured by scavengers. Beyond were several smaller ­buildings—­sheds of a sort.

As he stared between two such structures, he saw a shadow move so quickly that he instantly wondered if it was merely the breeze jostling a branch and thus moving a shadow. But no. There was no breeze. The night was as still and quiet as an amphitheater, with shadows growing now as the moon began its rise above the southeastern mountains, spreading a faint sphere of lilac around it.

Longarm squeezed the rifle in his hands and, clamping down on the cigar in his teeth, stepped out into the mercantile's backyard. Looking around carefully, walking on the balls of his boots, he strode past the privy and covered the ­twenty-­yard gap between the privy and a corral against which many tumbleweeds had blown, forming a shaggy wall. There was a stable on the corral's far side, with a small log cabin hunched to the stable's left, with about a ­twenty-­foot gap between the two buildings.

Longarm had seen the shadow move somewhere in there . . .

He proceeded slowly forward, peering into the corral and then into the gap ahead of him. Once inside the gap between buildings, he pressed his back against the stable and cast his gaze at the cabin.

It was a long, ­brush-­roofed affair with a stone chimney on the far side. It appeared long abandoned, brush growing up along the foundations. The two windows facing ­Longarm—­one on each side of the ­door—­had been ­broken out. Something told Longarm to investigate it. But he'd taken only two steps before he heard a soft thump from inside the stable behind him.

He whipped around. The moon had climbed high enough that it shed some milky light over the stable, revealing that the plank board door stood about two feet open. Longarm glanced once more at the cabin and then moved toward the stable, lowering the barrel of his Winchester and extending the gun straight out from his right hip.

He nudged the door open with the barrel of his rifle, stepped quickly inside, tightening his finger on the trigger. Two small lights flickered before him, from about ten feet away. A shrill snarl rose, and Longarm drew back on the Winchester's trigger just before he eased the tension, knowing in the back of his mind what he was confronting just before the ­lights—­or eyes, ­rather—­disappeared.

The cat's ­head—­he recognized the pointed, tufted ears of a ­bobcat—­moved in front of a window on the other side of the stable. Then the head disappeared as the cat with its bobbed tail soundlessly leaped out the ­broken-­out window to the ground.

Longarm heaved a sigh and lowered the rifle. At the same time, he told himself, “­Wait—­something scared the cat in here.” The admonition had no sooner passed through his mind than he threw himself back against the wall beside the open door as a rifle flashed and cracked behind him.

The report drummed raucously in the gap between the buildings. The slug careened through the open door to slam into the stable's opposite wall. Longarm twisted around the door frame, poking his rifle outside.

A ­man-­shaped silhouette stood in the open door of the cabin on the other side of the gap. Longarm fired the Winchester twice, both spent cartridges arcing over his right shoulder to clink together on the stable floor.

The bushwhacker gave a chuff and flew back into the cabin, hitting the cabin's floor with a crunching thud and rattle of spurs.

He'd just slammed a fresh round into the action when something cold, hard, and round pressed against the side of his head, just beneath his hat. A low, resonant voice said, “Drop the Winchester.”

Longarm froze. He slid his eyes to the right and could see the shadow of the man holding the gun. He could hear the man breathing, smell the ­sweat-­and-­leather perfume wafting off of him.

“One more time,” the man said, dipping his voice in warning, “drop the Winchester.”

Longarm depressed the rifle's hammer and tossed the gun onto the ground. The man holding the gun against his head reached around Longarm's belly, released the keeper thong over Longarm's Colt, and slipped the piece from the holster. He wedged it behind his own cartridge belt.

He pressed Longarm's head sideways with the barrel of his own gun. “Now, let's go see what's cookin' over at Ole Simms's saloon. All right? Sound good to you, cowboy? I'm bettin' there's some scrumptious female flesh we should see about.”

Longarm turned his head to rake his eyes across the ­man—­a little shorter than Longarm and wearing a black hat, a green neckerchief, and a ­self-­satisfied ­­grin—­as Longarm turned and started walking forward along the gap, in the direction of the main street and the saloon.