Longarm and the Wyoming Woman (18 page)

Fang!

Longarm spun around just in time to see an enormous dark shadow leaping for his throat. Instinctively, he slashed at the beast with the barrel of his shotgun, and was fortunate enough to crack it across the skull. The animal fell, momentarily stunned as it crashed into a table and spilled an unlit and very ornate leaded glass lamp and shade.

Longarm froze. He was in a bad predicament. Fang wasn't going to stay down for more than a few seconds, and then Longarm had no doubt that the guard dog would renew his ferocious attack.

What was he to do now? Had the broken lamp awakened Stoneman? Longarm couldn't be sure of anything, so he charged into the rear hallway, grateful for a thick rug that silenced the pounding of his boots. When he blindly crashed into a door, Longarm found the knob, turned it, and burst into an immense bedroom faintly lit by more candles.

“Hey!” Stoneman cried, sitting up in a massive four-poster, still more asleep than awake. “What the . . .”

Longarm held the shotgun steady in his big hands. “Wade, you're under arrest!”

It took the former lawman a moment or two to collect his wits, probably because he'd been drinking heavily the evening before. But once Wade Stoneman understood what was happening, he was furious.

“Goddamn you, Custis!”

Longarm was about to say something when he heard a familiar growl. He twisted around and saw Fang launching himself from the doorway. Longarm instantly dropped and the beast flew right over the top of him and landed on Stoneman in a tangle of snarling confusion.

Before man or beast could recover, Longarm aimed just over their heads and pulled one of the shotgun's triggers. The blast was absolutely deafening, and Stoneman's fancy headboard exploded into wood splinters. Fang's ferocity was instantly replaced by terror, and the big dog dived off the bed and cowered under a bureau.

Wade Stoneman was as pale as his candle wax. His mouth worked, but could make no sound at first.

“Get up and get dressed,” Longarm ordered. “And I don't have to tell you that I have one more load in this gun and I damn sure won't hesitate to use it on you.”

The shotgun's explosion had completely unnerved Stoneman, and he did as Longarm ordered. He was dressed in minutes, and then Longarm herded him out into the front room.

“What are you going to do with me?” Stoneman demanded, finally regaining his composure.

“I'm taking you to Cheyenne where you'll be brought before a judge and charged with the murders of three city councilmen and a former mayor.”

Wade was regaining his bluster. “Dammit, Custis, you haven't got any evidence against me!”

“I've at least three witnesses in your barn ready to testify against you. And I expect that the boys in the bunkhouse, when they see the way the tide has turned, will sing like songbirds against you in Cheyenne. Your game is lost, Wade. I'm holding all the cards now.”

Stoneman licked his lips and said, “Listen, there's a lot of money involved. More money than you ever laid eyes upon, and it can be yours for the asking.”

“I thought we both understood that I won't be bought and have no ambition,” Longarm told his former mentor.

“That's true,” Stoneman readily agreed. “But you're not stupid. Custis, name your price. Name it!”

“You're going to hang,” Longarm told the man.

Stoneman blinked and his eyes drew down to slits. “You'll never get me to Cheyenne alive,” he vowed. “For that matter, you won't even get me off this ranch. Not while this storm is on top of us, and not even when it's passed.”

“We'll see about that. Outside.”

Stoneman paused. “Why don't you bring your friends into my house? It's a lot warmer and more comfortable than the barn.”

“Maybe so,” Longarm said. “But right now the barn will do for my purposes. Now move!”

“You're a fool,” Stoneman said, contempt dripping from his thin lips. “I always knew you were a fool and that I should have had my head examined for taking you under my wing back when we both wore badges.”

“We all make mistakes. Now move!”

Once again they were out in the storm, and Longarm stayed close behind Wade all the way to the barn. They bulled through the big door and fell to the barn floor.

“Custis!”

“I'm fine,” Longarm told Addie. “Wade isn't too happy, though.”

Stoneman surveyed the gathering, his eyes stopping on Addie. “I should have known you'd be in on this.”

“What choice did I have?”

“I made you and Jed Dodson fair offers for your ranches! All you had to do was say yes and none of this would have happened.”

“Maybe we're like Custis,” she said. “Maybe we couldn't be bought.”

Stoneman started to argue the point, but then his eyes found Ben, Shorty, and Joel Crawford partially hidden back in the shadows. He visibly stiffened and his face turned red with fury. “You men worked for
me
! All three of you took my wages. You owe me some goddamn loyalty!”

Ben and Shorty took a step back, clearly intimidated, but they didn't respond. Young Crawford, however, pushed himself up from the hay he was lying on and said, “You're gonna hang, Mr. Stoneman. You're no good and now I can see that as clear as day.”

“Kid, I always knew that I'd made a mistake hiring you,” Stoneman hissed. “I should have run you off months ago because you don't have any guts.”

Crawford wasn't intimidated. “Mr. Stoneman, I rode side by side with Casey and the other men you sent to kill the marshal. I had as much sand in my craw as any of 'em, but they're all dead now and somehow I'm alive. I didn't run in the face of the marshal's shotgun . . . so you're wrong because I had both guts and luck.”

“You won't think you're so lucky when I finish with you,” Stoneman warned, his voice shaking with anger. “And neither will you two!” he yelled, stabbing a forefinger at Ben and Shorty.

Longarm stepped up and said, “Shut up and sit down, Wade. Another word out of your mouth and I'll feed you the barrel of this gun and paint the barn wall with your brains.”

Wade Stoneman went over to a water bucket, which he turned upside down and sat upon. His eyes roved back and forth burning with hatred. “Custis, I'm not only going to take you down, but I'm going to make you suffer before you die.”

Longarm raised the shotgun and said, “Open your mouth just one more time.”

Stoneman clamped his mouth shut.

For a few moments, no one said a word, and then Shorty spoke. “Marshal, what happened to Fang?”

“Fang got timid real quick when I fired a round over his head,” Longarm said. “I doubt he'll ever be worth much again as a guard dog.”

“What about the men in the bunkhouse?” Ben asked. “In another hour or two they'll be up, and this barn is the first place they'll come to check up on and feed the ranch horses.”

“I know,” Longarm said. “And when they come in here, we'll disarm them one by one.”

Stoneman started to make a comment, but suddenly changed his mind when Longarm swung the shotgun in his direction.

“So what do we do now?” Addie asked.

“We wait for the ones in the bunkhouse to come to us,” Longarm told her. “We just sit tight for the next hour or two.”

“I hope this storm passes soon,” Addie told him. “I feel like, if the sun would shine again, the world and what we still have to do would seem a whole lot easier.”

“It will be,” Longarm assured her. “Have faith, Addie. Everything is going to work out fine.”

“I sure hope so,” she said, trying to sound confident. “But a lot could still go wrong.”

“You're a worrier, Addie. Worrying too much is bad for your health.”

“So is what we're doing here.”

Longarm smiled, and replaced the spent shotgun shell he'd fired in Stoneman's bedroom. He drew a cigar out of his pocket and lit a match with his thumbnail. The smoke tasted good and the deep cold was finally leaving the marrow of his bones. If he could have, he'd have liked to have a shot of whiskey to help speed the warming process. But Longarm figured that whiskey could wait until he had the last of Wade's gunmen disarmed and ready to sing to a judge in Cheyenne.

It was impossible to tell when dawn finally arrived that cold, bitter Wyoming morning. But little by little, the storm abated and a weak sun pushed through the torn gray clouds. Longarm yawned several times, then consulted his pocket watch and announced, “It's almost six o'clock. I'd expect the bunkhouse boys will be arriving soon.”

“They've already overslept,” Shorty informed him. “It's freezing in that lousy drafty bunkhouse even with the potbellied stove going, and nobody wants to get up in the night to feed the damn thing.”

“I did,” Ben argued with unconcealed bitterness. “I was always feeding it when the rest of you lazy assholes slept in your warm bedrolls.”

“Oh, shut up!” Stoneman groused, looking anxious and tired. “None of you are worth the powder to blow you to bits. Casey and I were the only ones . . .”

He stopped, realizing that he was putting a noose around his own neck with his own loose tongue. Glancing at Longarm, he said, “Casey and I were the only ones that had any balls in this outfit.”

“Casey is dead and buried along with three others you sent,” Longarm told him.

“How'd you do it?” Stoneman asked.

“Kill them?” Longarm stifled another yawn.

“That's right.”

“That shotgun I unleashed in your bedroom is my great equalizer,” Longarm told him. “And it sure played hell on your dog and fancy headboard.”

“Damn you! That four-poster was imported all the way from Italy! Cost me over a thousand dollars!”

“Well,” Longarm said, not even bothering to sound sympathetic, “you won't be using it anymore, so I wouldn't give it much thought.”

“We'll see. We'll just see.”

Longarm had been keeping a close eye on the barn doors, and now he saw them starting to be pulled open. “Addie, put your gun on Wade,” he whispered, jumping to his feet and hurrying over to stand next to the big double doors. “We've finally got visitors.”

Two cowboys struggled to pull open the door because of piled snow. When they had pried it open about a foot, they squeezed inside only to be grabbed and hurled to the dirt floor by Longarm. “Good morning. Don't move or I'll blow your heads off!”

The pair were in no mind to move when they saw Longarm and the size of the shotgun barrels. After disarming them, he tied them up and said, “How many more of you are there in the bunkhouse?”

“Don't tell him anything!” Wade roared.

“I'm the one with the scattergun and my finger on the triggers,” he told the two men. “Who do you think you should answer to? Me, or Wade?”

“You,” one of the men stammered. “There are two left in the bunkhouse. Art and Clem.”

“If you're lying, I'll kill them and then I'll come back here and kill you,” Longarm warned.

“Okay. Okay! There are three! Three men. Honest to God!”

“All right then,” Longarm said, satisfied. “Addie, I'm going to collect those three in the bunkhouse. Don't let any of these so much as scratch.”

“I won't.”

Longarm bulled outside to stare up at the pitiful sunrise. He followed boot tracks through two feet of fresh snow, and found the three remaining men sound asleep in the bunkhouse, which was freezing cold. It didn't take long before Longarm had them tied up and standing in the barn.

“Looks like quite a crowd,” Longarm said more to himself than to anyone else. “Boys, we'll make a grand procession when we all ride into Cheyenne and stop at the courthouse. I hope the marshal there has a big jail cell and food budget.”

“We'll need something to eat for the trip down,” Addie said. “It's going to be a cold and hard ride south.”

“I expect that Mr. Stoneman has a full larder,” Longarm told her. “Why don't you go to the house and see what you can find in his kitchen for our trip to Cheyenne.”

Addie nodded in agreement and left the barn. Longarm said, “Ben. I'm going to cut you and Shorty some slack. I want you to saddle up enough horses to get us all down to Cheyenne.”

“Yes, sir!”

“You'll never get me there,” Stoneman vowed.

“We'll see,” Longarm told his ex-partner. “We'll just see. And if anyone tries anything, I'll make them walk through the damn snow all the way into Cheyenne, and I don't care if they do freeze their feet and toes. Is that clearly understood?”

Everyone except Stoneman nodded.

“What about me?” Joel Crawford asked from his place on the pile of hay. “With all these wounds, I'm not sure I can ride that far.”

Longarm had already given that very same question a good deal of thought. “Joel,” he said, “you're the only one of the bunch we're leaving behind. You can stay at Wade's ranch house until you get strong enough to take a horse and ride away.”

The wounded young man stared. “You're just gonna set me free, Marshal?”

“That's about the size of it,” Longarm told him. “Go to Betsy and marry the girl. Take her to California and don't ever get crossways with the law again.”

“No, sir! Thank you, Marshal!” Joel Crawford was so happy that tears of gratitude filled his eyes. “Maybe . . . maybe I'll become a marshal just like you.”

“I'd not recommend it,” Longarm told the kid.