Longarm on the Fever Coast (16 page)

So he was mighty tempted when she finally raised her head from his lap with a roguish grin, purring, "That was lovely. Would you like to take a nap with your head in Mamma's lap before we drive on? It's hot as hell out there right now, and you did say you hadn't had any sleep lately, didn't you?"

He reached for his boots, to take them off so he could put his jeans back on, saying, "Lord love you, Miss Ruby, I was already tired, and now I feel as if I could sleep for a month without getting up once to piss. But we'd best drive on anyways."

She sat straighter, stark naked above her garters, proud breasts heaving with emotion as she demanded, "Why? Don't you trust me not to betray you to the Philistines in your sleep?"

The thought had in fact occurred to him. He'd run into latter-day Delilahs before, and barely come out better than that other lawman, Samson, in the Good Book. But he just said he had to make sure his fellow deputy and their prisoner were all right before he lay his own head down for forty winks.

"You men are all alike!" she suddenly blazed. "I just took it in my mouth for you and you still think I'm a dirty bitch out to lift your wallet!"

When he said he thought no such thing, she demanded he prove it by laying his head right down in her lap or getting his ass right out of her private shay. So in the end, Longarm wound up walking the last couple of furlongs to that Coast Guard station to the north.

CHAPTER 10

He ran out of shade as the tree-lined wagon trace passed by the shell-paved cutoff leading across salt marsh and dune to the Coast Guard station they'd built on a finger of somewhat higher ground that pointed accusingly out to sea. As he approached the cluster of whitewashed frame buildings wrapped around a small parade ground, with a listless Revenue Service flag hanging high on its whitewashed staff, Longarm saw the place was smaller than he'd been expecting. It was about the size of a one-troop army outpost in Apacheria. There was nothing tied up to the one pier running out to deeper water in the coastal lagoon. So he wasn't surprised to see how quiet things were as he strode on to the gate in the four-strand bobwire perimeter. Aside from it being siesta time, a lot of the more important officers and men had to be out to sea aboard their steam cutter in the wake of that storm.

The U.S. Coast Guard was a branch of the Treasury Department instead of the Navy. But the sentry who challenged him at the gate wore a regular sailor suit of summer white with those leggings all sailors wore, for some reason, when they were ashore with rifles and cartridge belts. As Longarm showed the kid his badge and identification, he asked if those blamed leggings didn't itch in all this heat. The Coast Guardsman only sighed, and said he'd been told to expect someone from the Justice Department, adding Longarm would find the officer of the day at the headquarters building near the pier. Longarm didn't ask why they expected him to go there first.

It was considered polite as well as sensible to check in with the local law before you made any arrests in a strange town.

It felt like a day's forced march under that ferocious afternoon sun before he made it at last to the shady veranda running the full length of the freshly painted headquarters building. A junior grade lieutenant, equal to a first lieutenant in the army, came out of a doorway down the veranda in dress whites to tell Longarm they'd been starting to worry about him. As they shook hands, he introduced himself as a Lieutenant Junior Grade Devereaux, and said his boss, Lieutenant Flynn, was out chasing boys--or so it seemed to Longarm until he realized the young officer meant buoys, those floating markers they put out across the lagoon to show steamer pilots where to go.

As Devereaux led him inside Longarm remarked, "I can see how your C.O. would be anxious about channels and such after that storm along this coast, But that reminds me of something I was meaning to ask you all. Studying the map along my way up here from Brownsville, I noticed that big old Padre Island off to the east blocks this part of your big lagoon from the open gulf So vessels putting in from the high seas can only enter the long lagoon well north of here."

The officer of the day motioned Longarm to a wicker chair by the big oak desk he was holding down for his superior and dinged a bell on it as he agreed. "Corpus Christi Pass. What's your question?"

Longarm replied, "What you're doing down here instead of up yonder, where you might be able to guard this big lagoon better, no offense."

Devereaux said, "None taken. You're not the first landsman who's asked me about that. We're not the Navy. We're the Coast Guard. Our mission here is to maintain channel buoys through a stretch of shifting grounds and watch for shifty smaller vessels than the Navy might be worried about. You've no idea how many places there are for smugglers or even pirates to put in along an almost deserted coast facing a monstrous sheltered lagoon!"

Longarm didn't have to answer for the moment as an orderly the lieutenant had obviously sent for refreshments when Longarm had been crossing the parade ground came in with a tray. As he put it on the desk and popped to attention, Longarm saw he'd brought a fifth of Bombay gin, a soda-water syphon, and a couple of tall glasses packed to their brims with chopped ice. Longarm didn't notice the small pill box before Devereaux dismissed the orderly and picked it up, saying "The British Navy's found it pays to stick to gin and tonic in the tropics. But quinine seems an acquired taste, so..."

"I only take medicine when I'm feeling poorly," Longarm said. "I ain't so sure about that ice either, this close to Old Mexico and the bellyaches that go with unboiled water down this way."

Devereaux smiled as he poured tall drinks, with and without the tonic, saying, "We get our ice at cost from Pryce & Doyle in town. They've assured us they boil all the water they put in their ice machine. As a matter of fact they furnish shops and even homes in Escondrijo with the clean modern ice they manufacture as a sideline to their meat packing."

Longarm reached for his own glass as he said, "I've seen their imposing packing plant. I'll take your word they know what they're up to down this way. What I really came out here to talk about was U.S. Deputy Marshall Gilbert and our federal prisoner, Clay Baldwin. I understand you've got 'em both out here?"

Devereaux nodded. "Young Gilbert's in our sick bay, on orders of that federal germ chaser, Miss Richards. He seems to be feeling better, but Miss Richards says he's to stay in bed until she feels sure he won't run another fever, and she ought to know."

Longarm nodded, sipped the drink cautiously, tired as he already felt, and said, "I heard you've had some of that fever out this way as well. Where are you holding Baldwin, in your brig?"

Devereaux sounded reasonable as ever as he replied, "We've gotten off much lighter than they have in town. The skipper thinks it might be because of our more healthful location. Baldwin's being held in solitary confinement on bread and water, pending your arrival."

That didn't sound so reasonable to Longarm. The tall deputy put his barely tasted drink down and rose to his considerable height as he grimly asked, "After a bout of a killing fever? Who ordered a diet of piss and punk for my sick prisoner?"

Devereaux sighed. "Don't look at me. Lieutenant Flynn ordered him placed in solitary confinement after Baldwin called him a seagoing sissy who sat down to piss."

Longarm smiled thinly at the picture. "I'll have him in leg irons if he talks that way to me on the way back to Colorado. In the meanwhile, the man's been dangerously sick and I want him at least on a cot with some solid grub in him. I'm going to have to borrow a government mount off you, which I'll naturally sign for, and it's my understanding I'll find my own Winchester, saddle, and possibles out here, where Doc Richards had 'em brought from town."

Devereaux looked unhappy. "I'm afraid we can't let you into the quarters set aside for Miss Richards before she comes back from that fever ward she's set up in town. She usually has supper out here in the officers' mess just after retreat."

Longarm nodded. "I want her to look at both Gilbert and our prisoner before I carry either into town in any case. So let's get back to getting Baldwin out of that solitary cell and wrapping him around some solid rations!"

Devereaux almost pleaded, "I can't! Lieutenant Flynn left me here to see his standing orders were carried out, not to countermand them in his absence! He'd have me before the mast for mutiny! You have to understand that Lieutenant Flynn runs a taut ship here!"

The collections of whitewashed buildings in a glorified sandbox wasn't Longarm's notion of any ship, but he saw the position the kid was in. So he asked when the ferocious Lieutenant Flynn was expected back, and when Devereaux said likely by sundown, Longarm said, "Reckon Baldwin and my old McClellan can last that long without me. I'd like to see Deputy Gilbert now."

The lieutenant rang that bell on the desk some more, and that orderly came in looking taut as ever. Devereaux told the enlisted man to show their guest to the sick bay. So it only took a few minutes, and then Longarm was alone with the pale but cheerful enough Rod Gilbert from his own outfit.

Gilbert was barely out of his teens, but according to Billy Vail, a high school graduate as well as a good shot. The department had sure gotten fancy since President Hayes had started cleaning up the federal establishment old Free and Easy Grant had left all covered with cigar ash, informal hiring practices, and graft.

Longarm sat on the steel sprung cot next to Gilbert's, noting the two of them seemed to have the eight-cot sick bay all to themselves. So as soon as he asked Gilbert how he felt he said, "They told me at least a few old boys out here came down with the same mysterious fever, Rod. So what are you doing out here alone?"

Gilbert said, "That lady sawbones, Miss Norma, wanted to carry me in to her fever ward with the rest of 'em. I said I had to stay out here and guard our prisoner. So she allowed it might be all right, seeing she's been eating and sleeping out this way."

Longarm found himself fighting back a yawn as he growled, "You ain't been guarding Baldwin worth shit if you've let 'em put a sick man on piss and punk just for sassing a fool officer! Did you know about that by the way?"

Gilbert nodded soberly. "I told 'em they had no right to punish a civilian outlaw for busting their Coast Guard rules. But they said I'd placed Baldwin under Coast Guard discipline when I asked 'em to hold him in their brig for me, and damn it, I don't know where they've hid my boots and side arm!"

Longarm yawned wider and said, "I want Doc Richards to look at you before the three of us shoot our way out of here. Lord, I don't know why I feel so sleepy this afternoon. When you say they, are you jawing about they in general, or that Lieutenant Flynn they all seem so scared of for some reason?"

Gilbert said, "They got plenty of reason to be scared of Flynn. He don't yell like Billy Vail. One strike and you're out with that old boy. He's been polite enough to me, I got to say, but they do say he goes by the book and you'd best pay heed to every comma if you want to keep wearing your rating around here. They say he sends 'em to the brig if they forget to cross a T or dot an I."

Longarm let that go for the moment. In his own army days he'd had less trouble with officers who went by the book, as long as they always went by the book, than those assholes who cracked jokes with you one minute and expected you to fetch and carry for 'em the next. He repeated his question about the need for a Coast Guard brig to begin with, and Gilbert said, "Baldwin's crazy-mean and to tell the truth, I didn't think much of either the town lockup or the town law when I first arrived. They said Baldwin was sick. He looked more like a mad dog to me, and I got the feeling they were scared of him. I know I was scared of the half-ass cell they had him in. Brick wall betwixt him and the alley out back, for Christ's sake!"

Longarm said, "I noticed. Old Constable Purvis didn't seem too scared of anybody, albeit now that you mention it, it's sort of unusual for an arresting officer to be so disinterested in a prisoner. I know we had more exciting things to talk about, but looking back, it should have struck me odd that he never bragged at all about him or his boys catching an owlhoot rider on the run!"

Gilbert said, "I can answer that one. They never caught him. They bragged they had in that wire to Billy Vail. But if the truth be known, Clay Baldwin was in town over a month, drinking and whoring in plain view under his own given name. Nobody in town seemed to give a shit till I reckon old Clay run low on money and took to acting even worse."

As Longarm got out a couple of cheroots and his new Mexican matches, Gilbert explained. "It wasn't in that wire to us, but what they say really happened was that old Clay tried to sell some stolen stock to that meat-packing outfit in town. Reckon he figured a side of beef was a side of beef to anyone out to make a profit on it. But he figured wrong. Pryce & Doyle naturally have to be on good terms with the few big cattle spreads in these parts. So they naturally frowned upon Baldwin's business methods when they recognized those local brands on stock he said he'd just trailed down from San Antone!"

Longarm laughed as he lit both their smokes, saying, "I get the picture. I hear Pryce & Doyle use clean water in their ice machine as well. So they turned Baldwin in and... hold on, he trailed even a small herd of stolen cows any distance at all alone?"

Gilbert shook his head. "He won't tell us nothing. He's a total hardcase professional who don't give an inch. But I agree it's tough to cut and herd cows all alone. Why did you think I was so worried about that thin-walled lockup in town?"