“That’s the plan.”
“Well,” Kirkwood said, spitting a stream of tobacco into the dirt and then wiping his lips with the back of his sleeve, “all I got to say is that you better be both good and lucky.”
“I am pretty good at what I do,” Longarm said. “But I try not to count on luck.”
“You’re going to have to have a lot of luck to pull this one off,” Kirkwood opinioned. “‘Cause, even if you do somehow manage to get Leach out of his house, they’ll come swarmin’ after you like a cloud of hornets. Ain’t no wagon gonna get you far enough ahead of ‘em.”
Longarm frowned. “Maybe I can lose them,” he said. “There’s a lot of wagon tracks on the road to Carson.”
“Yeah,” Kirkwood agreed. “There is. But everyone they meet comin’ south will have seen you. Marshal, you can be damn sure that Leach’s boys and them others that are all tied up together under the saloon owners and union and such are going to be asking a lot of questions of passer-bys. They’ll know how far a lead you got on ‘em and they’ll make it up.”
“You’re saying I’ll definitely be overtaken?”
“Hell, yes! It’s well over a hundred miles to Carson City. Ain’t no way you can get a big enough jump on them boys to reach the capital without being run down and killed.”
Longarm was plenty willing to fend for himself, but the idea of having Megan also overtaken and killed was more than he could bear to think about.
“I got a suggestion,” Kirkwood said.
Longarm’s head snapped up. “I’m all ears.”
“Give me them sorrels that you rode into town on and I’ll hide you, Miss Riley, and old Horace Leach hisself in a supply wagon and deliver you safely to Carson City.”
Hope sprang up in Longarm. “You could do that?”
“I take horses, hay, and supplies to Carson City quite regularly,” the liveryman said. “Wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. And I always carry a big double-barreled shotgun for protection. I had to kill a couple highwaymen about two years ago and it wasn’t pretty. People don’t fart around with me when I’m on that wagon with my shotgun.”
“It just might work,” Longarm agreed.
“It will work, Marshal Long. ‘Cause, if it don’t, I’ll be as dead as you and Miss Riley, and I don’t much cotton to that notion.”
“Okay,” Longarm said, “we’ll give it a try.”
“But I want her matched sorrels,” Kirkwood repeated.
“I’m sure that, given the circumstances, Miss Riley will agree to that.”
“You better ask her first.”
“I will,” Longarm said vaguely. He wasn’t about to get into an argument with Megan over the sorrels. She’d be adamantly opposed to giving them over, of course. But they were fair compensation for the price of their lives.
“Then we got a deal. Bring Leach and the girl around tonight and I’ll have everything ready.”
“Won’t they think it odd that you left in the middle of the night?”
“Nope,” Kirkwood said, “‘cause I do it sometimes to escape the heat and all the road traffic. Anyway, I do sell hay and such things as I can peddle along the road, and I can always say that I left this evening in order to make a sale.”
“You’ve got all the answers, haven’t you, Mr. Kirkwood.”
“Not all of ‘em,” the livery man said. “But I damn sure better have ‘em come tomorrow when them Leach gunnies and the others catch up with me. Otherwise …”
Kirkwood did not finish his sentence, but instead drew a long, dirty forefinger across his gullet, and that made his meaning plenty clear enough.
Shortly before midnight, Longarm tied his horse in an arroyo just a quarter of a mile north of the Savior Mine and its many large outbuildings. He briefly considered bringing a rifle with him, but then discarded the idea because he wasn’t going to be able to carry an unconscious Horace Leach and a rifle. No, he’d have to rely on his side arms.
“Just don’t start to whinnying,” he warned the sorrel gelding. “I’ll be back within an hour, I hope.”
Longarm’s single advantage was that the moon was only a thin wedge of light and the night was very dark.
There were even clouds in the sky to hide an otherwise brilliant field of stars. The Savior Mine was shut down for the night, and almost all the lights were extinguished.
Giving the sorrel one last friendly pat, Longarm struck across the sage-covered ground moving low but as fast as possible. His only immediate fear was dogs, but he doubted they would sound any alarm or warning since there were so many men coming and going on these premises. Longarm used one of the mansion’s lit upstairs windows as his beacon. Longarm figured that the upstairs room might well be where Horace Leach slept or fornicated with the prostitutes for which he apparently had such a large appetite.
Fifteen minutes later, Longarm was gliding across the mansion’s wide front porch and slipping through the front door. It didn’t even have a lock since Leach had three guards living in the mansion for protection. And Longarm, remembering that one of them was always supposed to be on alert, moved very quietly. His thinking was that, if he could find that single waking guard and put him out of commission until morning, he would have an excellent chance of abducting Horace Leach without any fuss or interference.
The night guard was sitting at a small table in the kitchen with a cup of coffee. His back was to Longarm as he read the Standard, Bodie’s thrice-weekly newspaper. Tiptoeing forward, Longarm silently drew his pistol, then laid a deep crease in the guard’s scalp.
The man pitched forward, striking his forehead on the edge of the table. His coffee cup spilled from his hand and shattered on the floor, raising quite a racket.
Longarm grabbed the unconscious guard’s collar. He thought he heard someone call from upstairs as he dragged the guard into a pantry and shut the door behind him. Longarm paused, listening. When he was sure that no one was coming, Longarm cleaned up the mess, disposed of it so no one would be suspicious for a while, and then headed upstairs to retrieve Horace Leach. Time, Longarm knew, was of the essence. Every minute’s head start that he could gain on Leach’s gunnies and anyone else who would be following would be to his great advantage.
“All right,” Longarm whispered as he mounted the stairs hearing a woman giggling and then a man’s raw laughter. “Here we go.”
Chapter 17
When Longarm pushed Horace Leach’s bedroom door open, he was not prepared for the scene that he saw. Leach was vigorously riding one prostitute while his face was buried in the crotch of a second who was standing straddle-legged on top of his bed. They were in such a frenzy of passion that none of them even noticed Longarm until he walked right up to the bed and jammed the barrel of his six-gun into Leach’s bony ribs.
“Party is over for tonight,” Longarm said, cocking his gun so there could be no doubt about his intentions. “So get your face out of her bush and all three of you climb off the bed.”
Leach was a man in his early sixties, tall, thin, and with a little potbelly. He wasn’t much of a figure of manhood either as he twisted around to gape at Longarm.
“Who …”
Longarm jolted Leach with a short but powerful left cross. The mine owner toppled over sideways and one of the prostitutes started to scream, but Longarm poked her in the fanny with the barrel of his Colt, saying, “You don’t want to make a sound or it could be fatal for all of us. Do you understand?”
The woman, a fat, buxom blonde, nodded her double chins. She was well past her prime. The other was dark-complected and coarse-looking, with several missing teeth. Leach had a lot more money than taste, Longarm decided.
“You women just get dressed. if you keep your mouths shut, we might all survive this evening.”
“Who are you?” the dark one demanded.
“I’m the one doing all the talking here, remember?”