"Fought in the war, did you?"
"Yep, but don't ask me on which side, 'cause I tend to disremember."
A chuckle came from the brush, but it wasn't necessarily a friendly sound. "Me too. What's your business out here?"
"I'm looking for the Mcentire lumber camp. Got business with the boss there."
"Is that so?" There was a crackle of branches being parted, and the rifleman stepped out of his hiding place. He was in his thirties, Longarm judged, and his lace-up boots and checkered shirt marked him as a lumberjack, though at the moment he was wielding a Winchester instead of an ax. He gestured curtly with the barrel of the rifle and went on. "I work for Mcentire Timber. Best tell me what your business is."
Longarm shook his head. "Nope. I'll only talk to your boss."
The lumberjack's face purpled with anger. Given all the trouble the timber company had experienced recently, it made sense that they had posted guards. And the way Longarm was dressed, he wasn't surprised that this sentry had taken him for a cowboy, which made him a natural enemy so far as this lumberjack knew. What with all the tension between the two groups, it didn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see that this fella might just blast him out of the saddle and be done with it.
Reading the menace in the lumberjack's eyes, Longarm said quietly, "You might want to think twice about what you're considering, old son. Happens that I'm a lawman, a deputy United States marshal, and you don't want to go shooting federal officers."
The lumberjack frowned. "A marshal? You sure?"
"I can show you my badge, if you don't mind me reaching into my vest pocket."
"Make it slow and easy," the man warned.
Longarm was reaching for the wallet containing his identification when a wagon came around a bend in the trail up ahead. It was moving fairly fast, and the man sitting beside the driver, as well as the handful of men in the back of the wagon, were all well armed. Bristling with rifles, in fact. They were all timber-cutters, like the man who had confronted Longarm.
The sentry must have signaled somebody else when he spotted a stranger in range clothes, Longarm figured, probably by flashing a mirror at a guard post higher on the mountain. That had brought the whole wagon load of guards rushing down in case Longarm proved to be the vanguard of an attack. These lumberjacks really were worried about more trouble coming their way.
The man driving the wagon, though somewhat older than his companions, was dressed like them. His lined, weathered features and the iron-gray hair on his head set him apart from the younger men. Despite his age, his forearms were bulky with muscle under the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt, and his rangy build hinted at enough power and stamina to keep chopping down trees all day, and all night too if need be. He brought the vehicle to a halt about twenty feet away from Longarm and called out to the sentry, "Who's this, Andy?"
"Says he's a badge-toter, Mr. Flint," replied the guard. "A deputy United States marshal."
The man called Flint raised bushy gray eyebrows in surprise. "Is that so?"
Longarm finished sliding his identification out of his inside vest pocket. He opened the wallet and held it up so that the afternoon sunlight glinted off the badge pinned inside. "Name's Long, Custis Long," he said.
Flint dropped down from the wagon seat and stalked toward Longarm, squinting up at the badge as he came alongside the roan. He grunted. "Looks all right," he admitted. "I knew the government promised the boss some help. Looks like you're it."
"Reckon I am," said Longarm dryly.
Flint stuck up a hand. "Jared Flint. I'm the foreman of the Mcentire timber operation. I can take you up to the headquarters camp if you'd like."
"That's what I'm here for, Mr. Flint."
"I'll turn the wagon around and you can follow us up to the guard post. I can pick up a horse there and take you the rest of the way."
"Much obliged."
Flint grunted again. He wasn't the friendliest fella Longarm had ever run across, but the hostility Longarm had sensed initially seemed to have disappeared. All of the lumberjacks had relaxed since finding out he was a lawman and not some cowhand from the Diamond K bent on mischief.
It took only a few minutes to reach the shack that served as a guard post. Flint swung up onto the back of one of the saddle horses tied there and led Longarm up the twisting trail that writhed back and forth like a snake across the heavily timbered face of the mountain. Longarm judged that half an hour had gone by when they came in sight of the lumber camp.
It was like a small settlement, complete with a store, a mess hall, and a square little building with a cross on top of it that Longarm took to be a chapel. A good-sized creek ran past the camp, and perched on the near bank was a sawmill built of wood and tin. Next to the mill was an impressive-looking log cabin with a porch built onto the front of it. Beyond the mess hall were several long, low buildings that Longarm took to be barracks where the loggers slept.
Jared Flint pointed his mount toward the log cabin. Longarm followed, looking at the sawmill and seeing smoke rising from a tin stack on top of the roof. He could hear the chattering roar of a steam engine coming from inside the building, along with the high-pitched whine of a saw. No one was moving around the camp except a bald-headed, gray-aproned cook who was pouring out a bucket of dishwater next to the mess hall, but the sawmill was obviously in operation. The rest of the loggers were higher on the mountain, felling trees and hauling them to the creek so that they could be floated down to the mill.
As Longarm and Flint drew rein in front of the cabin, a woman stepped out onto the porch, taking Longarm by surprise. It wasn't unheard of to find a woman in a logging camp; some of them worked as cooks or washerwomen, and some camps even had schoolmarms to teach the children of married loggers who brought their families to the camp with them. That didn't appear to be the case here, since Longarm hadn't seen a schoolhouse or any smaller cabins where families could stay. The barracks seemed to indicate that all the Mcentire loggers were either single or temporarily batching it.
The woman on the porch was sure something to look at, though. Tall and in her early thirties, Longarm judged, with thick, lustrous dark hair gathered at the back of her head in a loose bun. She wore a simple, dark gray dress that tried but failed in its attempt to conceal the lushness of her figure. Her hazel eyes were alert and intelligent as they looked curiously at Longarm.
"Who is this, Mr. Flint?" she asked in a clear voice that reminded Longarm of those mountain streams such as the one behind the cabin.
Longarm didn't wait for the foreman to introduce him. He tugged on the brim of his snuff-brown Stetson and said, "Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long, ma'am."
She took a deep breath that lifted the proud thrust of her bosom even more. "We've been expecting you, Marshal," she said. "Are you alone?"
"Yes, ma'am."
A slight frown creased her forehead. "I wish you'd brought some more men with you. You're liable to need them."
"Well, I'll do what I can to help," Longarm said modestly. "And you'd be... ?"
"I'm Aurora Mcentire. This is my camp."
Now it was Longarm's turn to frown. The report he had read in Billy Vail's office had included complaints of trouble from the owner of the lumber operation, A. J. Mcentire. Longarm sure as hell hadn't expected that to turn out to be a woman.
Still, if that was the situation he had to deal with, so be it. He swung down from the saddle and flipped the horse's reins over a hitch rack in front of the cabin. As Longarm stepped up onto the porch, Jared Flint said, "I'll be getting back to work now, ma'am." Aurora Mcentire's voice was sharp as she said, "No, Mr. Flint, I want you to stay while I talk with Marshal Long. You know as much about the trouble we've been having as I do."
Flint shrugged and dismounted, following Longarm up onto the porch. Aurora turned and led them into the cabin.