Longarm and the Diamondback Widow (8 page)

Longarm frowned at the paper on the floor.

The lawman rose from the cool water, stepped out of the tub, and walked over to the small envelope that lay in front of the door. Obviously, someone had slipped it through the crack beneath the door while he'd slept.

He picked it up and shook out the piece of paper tucked inside. It was a small slip of cream-colored parchment—the kind that ladies used to send thank-you notes. He opened it.

There were two sentences inked beautifully in flowing, feminine cursive: “Come to room nineteen after midnight and your questions will be answered. Do not tell a soul.”

Longarm sniffed the paper. It smelled like lavender and lilac.

He tapped the note on the envelope as he thought about it, and then slipped the note back into the envelope, set it on the dresser, and pulled a clean change of clothes out of his saddlebags.

A trap? Nah, not in Mrs. Fletcher's hotel. Not entirely out of the question, but he was more likely to get bushwhacked outside after dark.

His change of clothes consisted of an outfit identical to the one the chubby Indian girl had hauled away—frock coat, blue chambray shirt, string tie, fawn-gold vest, and skintight tweed trousers. The duds were a little wrinkled from riding folded up in his saddlebags, but the wrinkles would plane out the longer he walked around.

And walk was just what he intended to do tonight. Not only to kill time before knocking on the door of the mysterious room 19, but to get the general lay of the land. A man never knew what he could learn just by walking around a town.

He'd have supper, a few drinks, and then he'd walk around some more.

Besides, he'd deemed himself the local law in Des Rainey's stead, so it was more or less his job to keep an eye on things, maybe turn the jailhouse key on a few drunks. True, he was likely to attract trouble, but he wasn't going to learn anything about Rainey by hiding under his bed. And anyway, he had a pretty good sense about trouble.

He'd be keeping that cylinder under his gun hammer filled with brass even at the risk of shooting his pecker off. And he'd haul his Winchester around even at risk of looking like an asshole.

He brushed the trail dust from his hat and set it on his head, tipping it down over his right eye, cavalry style. He stuffed three cheroots into his shirt pocket, grabbed his rifle, and headed out.

Since over the last few hours his belly had been getting far too friendly with his backbone, he walked east along the street until he saw the two-story wood-frame building he'd seen on his way into town earlier. Half the place belonged to a saddle, harness, and gun shop while the other half wore a shingle over its front door announcing
ABIGAILE'S CAFÉ
.

The sun was not yet down, but smoke puffed from the tin chimney pipe poking up out of the café's roof, rife with the smell of roasting meat and burning pine. Three horses stood at the hitchrack fronting the place, and that was more than were now parked in front of any of the saloons.

That told Longarm that Abigaile's was likely a favorite local feed sack. The Diamondback Hotel had a restaurant, but Longarm wanted to check out another place by way of getting his boots wet in the mysterious little town obviously brimming with nasty secrets.

He went inside, and the three cowboys sitting at a table in the room's center looked at him and grew as quiet as church mice.

Longarm sat down at a table a little farther back of the three waddies, where he could keep an eye on them as well as the door. A penciled card on the table covered in red-and-white checked oilcloth gave him two choices—pork roast or roasted chicken. After the sullen-looking blond girl of about sixteen came out of the kitchen to take his order, looking him over skeptically—she'd obviously heard who and what he was, along with everyone else in town by now—she headed back toward the kitchen.

The cowboys hadn't said a word since Longarm walked into the café, but they all watched the girl's nice round ass behind her simple gray skirt as she sashayed past their table and pushed through the swing door to the kitchen. One snickered and another one pulled the hat down over the third one's eyes.

They said nothing before they finished their meal, belched, and left. Once outside, they discussed which saloon they were going to patronize that evening, and then swung up into their saddles and gave several revelrous whoops as they galloped west.

Longarm enjoyed the pork roast with all the trimmings—mashed potatoes bathed in rich, dark gravy, green beans, a sliced tomato, a fresh-from-the-oven bun, which he broke open and liberally applied butter to, and a small dessert of peaches sliced in sugar. He washed it all down with a glass of milk and piping hot black coffee, and then sat back in his chair, belched, and loosened his belts a notch.

When the girl came back out of the kitchen to stride lazily to Longarm's table, canting her head to one side, she said, “That'll be two bits, mister. The advice is free.”

Longarm reached into his pants pocket as he looked up at her. “Oh? What advice might that be?”

She set her hands on the table and leaned forward. She didn't seem to mind that her dress hung out away from her chest to give a man who was predisposed to peek a look at her creamy breasts jostling down inside her cotton chemise. “You best break a leg gettin' outta here,” she said in a syrupy thick Southern accent.

“Why would that be, sweetheart? Everyone here seems so nice.”

“You'll find out how nice they are.”

“Anything else you wanna tell me?”

The girl glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchen, where someone—Abigaile?—was banging pots and pans around.

“I'd tell you where you could find me later, after Aunt Abigaile goes to bed, but you might not be around long enough to take what I'd offer.” She straightened, letting her eyes flick across his shoulders and then down toward his crotch. “Shame, too. You're a long, tall drink of water, mister. I bet you could really stoke a lonely girl's firebox.”

With that, she shoved the money Longarm had given her down her dress, picked up his plate, glass, and cup, and, giving him a coolly coquettish parting glance, swung around to sashay back into the kitchen, her round hips looking like two dogs straining at their chains.

Longarm stared at the girl's ass. She wanted him to, after all, and he only felt it right to oblige her. Her youth and beauty reminded him of Connie. His interlude with the auburn-haired, green-eyed beauty seemed a long time ago now, but he still couldn't help wondering, in a vague sort of way, if it had really happened or if he'd merely been dreaming.

At the moment he had too much on his plate to worry about it. Bigger fish to fry.

Returning his focus to Sheriff Rainey, he scooped his rifle off the chair beside him and rose from the table. He reached into his shirt pocket for a cheroot and stuck it between his teeth. As he stepped outside, he paused on the narrow stoop to reach into his coat pocket for a match.

The sun had gone down and this broad basin was filled with velvety darkness. The Wind Rivers were jutting black silhouettes in the west, shouldering back against the fast-fading lilac that was all that remained of the day.

All was quiet. Diamondback had settled in for the evening.

Soon, though, Longarm knew, the hands from near ranches would be making their way to the town's saloons. Some already had, for several horses stood tied to each of the town's watering holes, lamps from the respective saloons flashing dully off bridle bits and saddle trimmings.

Longarm fired the match on his thumbnail and cupped it to the cigar. The flame expanded and contracted as smoke wafted around his head. When the cheroot was drawing to his satisfaction, he tossed the match into the dirt beyond the stoop and continued to pull the smoke into his lungs, watching the coal glow at the end of the cigar.

The glowing coal disappeared all too suddenly. Longarm felt the cigar jerk between his lips. At the same time, he saw a wicked flash of orange-blue light to his right, and a quarter second later the blast of the rifle reached his ears, echoing shrilly.

Longarm let the cigar slip from between his lips and he swung, raising his rifle in both hands as he levered a fresh cartridge into the chamber.

Boom!—Boom!—Boom!

His own rifle blasts sounded like ignited barrels of dynamite under the stoop's low roof. Inside the café, someone screamed and dropped a pan with a raucous clatter.

Longarm watched a shadow jostle east, away from where he'd seen the rifle flash. In the corner of his left eye he caught the movement of another shadow against a gray storefront. He threw himself over the porch rail on his left as a sharp pop sounded across the street, and more gun flames lapped toward him.

The slug hammered into a porch rail.

Longarm rolled off a shoulder and rose to his left hip, slamming the Winchester's stock against his side and cutting loose. The rifle leaped and roared four times. After the second shot, he'd heard a man's shrill curse and watched the second dry-gulcher's pistol fire into the street.

Longarm lowered the Winchester and saw the man-shaped shadow slumped in the street fronting the gray storefront. The shadow wasn't moving. Longarm was pretty sure he'd hit the bastard with all four rounds. He'd danced this jig before, so his instincts were keen.

He tossed the rifle down and ran around the front of the porch, crouching as he headed east. He saw the jostling shadow of the man who'd blown the coal off his cigar, heard the man's boots thudding on a boardwalk about fifty yards east of Abigaile's.

Longarm ground his low-heeled boots into the dirt, propelling himself forward in a full sprint.

He lost sight of the man, but then a flash and a shrill crack placed the bushwhacker. The slug curled the air about six inches left of Longarm's head. The lawman stopped running and triggered his .44 three times, hoping like hell no one was in the dark shop flanking the man he was shooting at.

He held fire, ran forward, and dropped to a knee, peering out from beneath a hitchrack toward the spot from which he'd been fired upon. He heard a raspy, strained breath, saw the bushwhacker's shadow rise, fall back against a white-painted frame building, and then twist and dash around the building's far corner.

Longarm had wounded the man.

He crouched through the hitchrack and ran along beside two more building fronts before he gained the low, white-frame building—a land office. He stole quietly up to the far end, doffed his hat, and peered around the corner.

A rifle thundered, stabbing orange flames.

Longarm jerked his head back as the slug thumped loudly into the side of the building just right of where his face had been a moment before.

The image of the shooter revealed by his gun's flash was still dancing across his retinas. Hearing the man running, Longarm quickly jerked his pistol around the corner again and saw the shooter's shadow shuffling, sort of crouching and dragging one foot, toward the rear of the next building.

“Stop or take it in the back, you son of a bitch! Your call!”

The man stopped, wheeled. Ambient light flashed off the rifle he was raising.

Longarm emptied his .44, and then, flicking the loading gate open and shaking out the six spent cartridge casings, he casually walked around the corner of the land office and into the break between that building and the next one. It was a fifteen-foot gap littered with old lumber, a rusty wagon wheel, newspapers, and airtight tins. His quarry lay on his back, brown hat beside him, both arms stretched out. The barrel of the rifle had squashed his hat crown.

The shooter was still breathing, flat belly rising and falling sharply. He was wheezing. Longarm recognized a death rattle when he heard one. Blood shone dark on his cream shirt and tan vest. The bullets that had torn into his back had ripped right through him.

Longarm recognized the attire and the blond, fair-skinned features of one of the three drovers he'd seen in Abigaile's. That meant that the other dead bushwhacker was from the same trio.

Why?

Longarm looked toward each end of the alley, wary of the third man. Neither spying nor hearing anyone else, he dropped to a knee beside the dying man and asked, “Who put you up to this?”

The kid—Longarm figured he wasn't much past twenty—was wincing and gritting his teeth against the pain of his imminent death.

“You . . . you kilt me, you son of a bitch . . . !” was all he said.

His belly stopped moving. He let out one last, long sigh, his life riding away on the plume of expelled air. Then he lay still. The whites in his eyes glistened in the light of the kindling stars.

Behind Longarm, in the direction of the street, voices rose. So did the sound of several sets of fast-moving footsteps. A light washed across the street. Men—quite a few men—were moving toward the lawman.

Longarm straightened, finished punching fresh shells into his Colt's cylinder, then slid the loading gate closed and spun the wheel. Holding the pistol straight out in front of him, he started walking toward the street, ready to meet the next storm gun barrel first.

“Hold your fire! Hold your goddamn fire!”

The angry voice had come from the street. It belonged to one of the group headed up by a man in a gunmetal-gray business suit carrying a railroad lantern by its wire handle.

The lantern cast a glow over the front of the group, which appeared to be comprised of between a half a dozen and ten men all sticking close to the heels of the bowler-hatted leader holding the lantern up even with his head.

“I will if you will,” Longarm said, holding his pistol straight out from his right side, aimed warningly at the group.

The man with the lantern stopped. He wore small round spectacles and a pewter mustache. Hair of the same color shone beneath his crisp, black bowler and in the sideburns dropping down the sides of his face. He was an elegant, dapper dude in a twenty-dollar suit no doubt tailor-made for his compact frame.

The others stopped close behind him. They reminded Longarm of a gaggle of ducklings following close on their mother's tail feathers.

“What in the name of God is going on?” barked the dapper gent, lifting his gaze from Longarm's pistol.

“You tell me.”

The man glared at Longarm from behind his glasses that reflected the lantern light and thus hid his eyes. “Ah,” he said. “You're the man I've been hearing so much about. Deputy Long, I take it?”

“Who're you?”

“Alexander Richmond, owner and president of the Diamondback Valley Bank and Trust. Also mayor and head of the town council.”

“Just the man I've been wanting to talk to,” Longarm said. “Figured maybe you could tell me why those two were fixin' to drill me with a third eye and a third ear hole, neither of which I'd be able to see or hear through.”

“They shot at you?”

“Indeed they did.”

“Who are they?”

“You tell me, Mr. Mayor.”

One of the men from the rear of the group piped up with “Giff Berkley's the dead one outside the feed store, Mr. Richmond.”

“And there's another down there?” Richmond asked Longarm, lifting his chin to indicate the alley behind the lawman.

“Yep.”

Richmond turned his regal head to one side. “Two of you men check it out.”

Two men separated from the group and jogged into the break behind Longarm. Longarm kept his head forward, making sure none of the nine men before him decided to try and finish the job the other two had started.

Shortly, one of the men behind him yelled, “Cletus Delphi!”

“Delphi and Berkley,” Richmond said, working the names around between his lips. “Aren't they on Tanner Webster's roll?”

“Sure are,” said one of the men behind Richmond. The group had fanned out a little. None were holding guns, but most were armed, and they regarded Longarm with expressions running the gamut between jeering and bald hatred.

“Who's Tanner Webster?” Longarm wanted to know.

“A big rancher in these parts, Deputy Long. He owns half the basin. He's not going to be at all happy to see two of his horses return to his ranch with empty saddles.”

“Maybe I should ride out and apologize.”

Since no one else appeared to be holding a weapon, Longarm lowered his six-shooter and walked up to within two feet of Richmond. The banker/mayor was in his mid-to-late fifties—an even-featured, shrewd, intelligent man who considered himself head and shoulders above all others. One who'd likely been born with an arrogant cast to his gaze and would die with same.

“Don't get smart with me, Deputy Long. I'm not afraid of you. Just because you wear the badge of deputy U.S. marshal doesn't mean—”

“It means I'm gonna get the answer to a few questions,” Longarm said through his teeth. “The first one is, where is Sheriff Rainey? The second one is, why every time I ask about him do the good citizens of Diamondback swallow their tongues? My guess is Rainey's dead. That leaves a third question. Who killed him?”

Richmond ground his jaws together. “You're just full of questions, aren't you?”

Longarm could only laugh.

That seemed to antagonize Richmond even more. With his free hand he jutted a bony finger at the federal lawman. “All that you need to know, mister, is this town takes care of its own problems. We don't need the interference of the federal government. This is a local matter, and we—all of the good citizens of Diamondback—will be very pleased to see you ride out of our town tomorrow morning at first light.”

“No.”

“What?” Richmond said through one half of his mouth, turning his head slightly askance.

“I'm the law in this town now, Richmond. Whether you like it or not. And I'll be here until I find out what happened to Rainey. If he's dead, I intend to bring his killer or killers to justice—and that goes for anyone else involved—such as the one who called the shots. I'll only be leavin' here when I've finished that task. Only then.”

“You think so, do you?” Richmond barked, glasses glinted furiously in the lantern light. “Well, you might just have another think comin', mister!”

Richmond wheeled and ordered several men to find any more of Tanner Webster's men in town, and to have them haul their dead back to the Flying W for burial. Then Richmond cast Longarm another glare over his shoulder and strode off down the street to the west.

“I'll be talkin' to you later, Richmond,” Longarm called after him. “And I'll be getting some answers if I have to beat them out of you.”

Richmond stopped abruptly, turned sideways, and looked back at Longarm in shock. Unaccustomed to being addressed in such a fashion, he apparently could think of no suitable retort to the threat. He merely smacked his jaws together and strode off down the street, the others flanking him and fanning out to whatever saloon they'd been drinking in when they'd seen the banker headed east with his lantern.

Longarm walked back to Abigaile's and picked up his rifle. Two men from Richmond's group were hauling the dead man from in front of the feed store east along the north side of the street, grunting under the weight of their burden. Longarm picked up his rifle, wiped dust and horseshit from the barrel, breech, and both stocks, and reloaded the weapon.

His heart was still racing—from the anxiety of the lead swap, which not even the most seasoned lawmen enjoyed getting into on a dark night, but also from rage and frustration. He didn't know when the last time was that he'd felt this confounded.

A whole town full of people who likely knew what had happened to their sheriff, but not one of them was willing to tell. None seemed to bat an eye's worth of respect for Longarm's position as deputy United States marshal. It made him feel impotent, useless, and discombobulated beyond imagining.

If there was a dog nearby, he'd probably kick it. And he'd never kicked a dog before in his life, had never even imagined feeling inclined to do so.

He set the loaded rifle on his shoulder, fished his old railroad turnip out of his vest pocket, and flipped the lid. Only nine-thirty. He still had nearly three hours before his appointment with whoever had slipped that note under his door.

He decided to take a swing around the town, to get the lay of the land. He was the new lawman of Diamondback, after all, and he should know how the buildings were laid out.

After he'd walked once around the town, which only took a half hour since it wasn't very large, he stopped by the Dragoon Saloon for a beer and a shot of tarantula juice. His presence seemed to stymie the watering hole's festive night atmosphere, and all the other people there, including the dark, pock-faced bartender, looked like they hadn't taken a decent shit in a month of Sundays.

It was the same with the other two saloons in town—the High Country Inn and the Ace-High. As soon as the dark, rangy lawman in the three-piece suit walked in, the hum of conversation dropped several notches, and it didn't pick up again until Longarm had passed through the batwings once more and walked out into the fresh air of the night-cloaked main street.

The town had quieted considerably after eleven o'clock, it being a weeknight. But Longarm took another turn around Diamondback, mostly in stubborn defiance of another ambush. Though he was spoiling for a fight, none came, and he couldn't say he was sorry it hadn't.

Frustration a hot fire burning at the base of his spine, the lawman returned to the hotel. He'd been so preoccupied with the town that he'd almost forgotten about his invitation to room 19.

He walked through the hotel lobby and past the front desk. Mrs. Fletcher wasn't there—the old biddy had probably gone to bed at nine. Longarm was glad she'd left the door unlocked. In his sour, frustrated mood, he'd likely have shot the glass out of the door's upper pane. That might have been overstepping his bounds slightly.

His rifle resting on his shoulder, he headed up the carpeted steps. He passed his own floor and headed up the last flight to the third floor. As he walked down the hall lit by a couple of smoky bracket-lamps, he freed the keeper thong from over the hammer of his .44.

The rifle was best for out in the open. The pistol was more effective at close quarters, and if he'd been led into another ambush, a hotel room would be close quarters indeed.

He stopped at room 19, which was at the far end of the third-floor hall, and lightly tapped his knuckles on the door. The latch clicked immediately. The door drew back until there was a one-inch gap between the door and the frame.

A pair of hazel eyes peered out at him. A feminine voice whispered, “Marshal Long?”

“That's right.”

Stepping back, she drew the door open. Longarm's knees nearly buckled at the delectable creature standing before him—a young, high-busted, classically featured young woman with honey-blond hair piled loosely atop her head. She wore what appeared a series of thin, lace-edged housecoats over a more rustic man's underwear top that was buttoned up to her fine, slender neck.

“Please come in,” she said, her voice trembling slightly.

Her wide hazel eyes owned an emotional sheen. She was pale, and she looked exhausted. In fact, she looked a little haggard, which somehow accentuated her natural, earthy beauty. She wore no face paint whatever, and her heart-shaped features, with short nose and wide-set, innocent eyes,. made her look even younger than he thought she was—mid-to-late twenties. And more fragile.

Longarm quickly glanced around the room behind her. Seeing no one else there, and nothing out of sorts, he stepped forward. She closed the door behind him and leaned into it as though she were too tired to stand without assistance.

Longarm turned to her, frowning, puzzled. “And you're . . . ?”

Still leaning against the door, the young woman turned to him, the light of a single lit lamp on a side table reflected in her eyes, which seemed to own a perpetual sheen of tears. “Mrs. Rainey. Mrs. Desmond Rainey.”

“Oh.”

She quirked her mouth corners, though no humor touched her sad eyes. “I know—I'm considerably younger than Des was.”

“Was.”

“Oh, he's dead. I thought maybe you'd figured that out by now. I'd heard from Mrs. Fletcher that you were a marshal.”

“Deputy marshal.”

“Whatever.” She turned from the door and leaned against it, sliding her shoulders back slightly. He couldn't help glancing at the full bosom jutting toward him, though a pang of guilt shot through him for noting it. The poor woman was obviously a wreck, and here he was admiring her tits.

If that wasn't just like him.

“I'm sorry . . . Mrs. Rainey.”

He knew he must have looked like he'd swallowed a horseshoe. Nothing could have surprised him more than finding out that the sheriff of Diamondback, who'd been nearly as old as Chief Marshal Billy Vail, was married to such a striking, young beauty.

Mentally he tried to shake off his confusion and get down to brass tacks.

“How?” he asked.