LONGARM AND THE BRANDED BEAUTY
by Tabor Evans
DON’T MISS THESE ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith.
LONGARM by Tabor Evans The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.
SLOCUM by Jake Logan Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventure of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.
Chapter 1
“Marshal Long, are you sitting here in this first-class coach stone sober and telling me that you’re really a friend of Miss Stella Vacarro?” the Auburn, California, banker wanted to know as their train struggled over Donner Pass. He shook his head in amazement. “I … I just can’t believe it! That woman is-“
“I think you’d better not say any more,” Longarm warned, his voice taking on a hard edge. “I said that she was my friend and that the reason I’m on this train is to attend her wedding. I don’t figure I need to defend my reasons … or her name and reputation.”
The heavyset banker in his fifties, whose name was Ed Haley, expelled a deep sigh and replied, “Marshal Long, with all due respect, perhaps you don’t know Miss Vacarro very well. She has had an extremely colorful and sordid past. Did you know, for example, that she once worked on the Comstock Lode as a whore?”
Longarm glanced out the window at the peaks of the towering Sierras. They were almost to the long tunnel that ran under Donner Pass and that had cost so many Chinese lives less than a decade ago when the Central Pacific Railroad had blasted its way through this great range of mountains. “Yes,” Longarm replied. “I did know that.”
“All right,” Haley said. “Did you also know that she became a madam of one of the biggest whorehouses in Virginia City? An establishment so notorious that the Comstock Lode undertakers voted her their favorite citizen!”
“It was a very rough time,” Longarm declared. “They never did have a decent marshal up in Virginia City. I was there three or four times trying to help out, but … well, you have to have local support. Maybe you didn’t know that Stella also gave a tremendous amount of money to the orphanage, disabled miners, and their widows, as well as to St. Mary of the Mountains Catholic Church.”
“A real hypocrite, that woman. She was only trying to keep from having the decent folks of Virginia City run her and her whores out of town … if not worse.”
“Listen,” Longarm said, “I don’t mean to sound rough but I’ve heard about as much as I care to hear from you.”
“Just one more thing you should know,” the banker said, “and that’s that Stella Vacarro knifed a man to death on the Comstock with a silver stiletto. She also slashed another man’s face in Auburn about two years ago.”
“I know all about the killing,” Longarm said, “including that it was ruled self-defense.”
“Probably because Stella paid off the judge and jury,” the banker growled. “Marshal Long, this wedding is the talk of California. And for the life of me, I cannot imagine what kind of an evil spell that Vacarro woman has cast upon young Noah Huffington. Do you realize that he had been previously engaged to a fine young woman of good character and that Noah was even going to start his own ministry?”
“No,” Longarm admitted, “I did not.”
“Everyone in Auburn, including Noah’s father, was delighted. Miss Carole Clark came from a very well-respected, though not wealthy, family. She was a perfect match for Noah. When they walked down the street together they turned the heads of everyone in town. That couple just looked as if they were a marriage made in heaven.”
“But Noah Huffington broke the engagement and chose to marry Miss Vacarro instead?”
“That’s right! Who could figure it!” The banker turned livid. “Why would any young man in his right mind jilt a fine lady like Miss Clark in order to marry a …”
“Don’t say it,” Longarm warned, balling up his fists. “I don’t want to smash your face, but I will if you slander Miss Vacarro anymore.”
The banker jumped to his feet and began to shout, causing everyone in their passenger coach to stop talking and to stare. “Marshal, if you lay a hand on me, I’ll have your badge! And how you can defend that evil woman and support this wedding defies all logic and every moral code given to man by the Lord!”
Longarm had to struggle to keep from jumping up and attacking the sanctimonious banker. It took all his resolve to simply say, “Doesn’t the Bible say something about not judging one another lest we be judged?”
Haley, jowls quivering with self-righteousness, stomped away muttering imprecations. Longarm stood up, stretched to his full impressive height, and gave the other passengers his most benign smile. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “I apologize for this bit of unpleasantness.”
“That’s all fine for you to say,” a thin, nervous little woman across the aisle hissed, “but how can you defend someone like that awful Vacarro woman!”
“Because I was taught that God forgives the sinner.”
“But not the sin,” the woman said, “and Stella Vacarro is not only a murderess, but she has broken up a union that would have been holy.”
Longarm had had enough of this talk. This was not the only coach on the train. Maybe he could find one where the people were a whole lot more tolerant. Stella had saved Longarm’s life once, at no small personal risk. And she was an extremely generous person with both her time and her money. Longarm himself had listened to the priest in Virginia City relate how in times of crisis, whether it be sickness, a mine fire, or a cave-in, Stella was always one of the first to arrive to help and the last to leave. Not only was the woman smart, tough, and beautiful, she was a Good Samaritan. And that, Longarm was quite sure, was undoubtedly the reason why Noah Huffington had lost his heart to Stella and chosen to break his highly popular engagement with Miss Carole Clark.
Longarm started to reach down and grab his bag with the thought of leaving the coach when the train suddenly plunged into the Donner Tunnel. In preparation for this, the porters had already lighted the kerosene lamps at each end of the coach, but their glow was feeble and flickering, barely enough to keep the interior of the coach from turning inky black.
Longarm sat down, deciding that this was no time to be fumbling around in the coach. Maybe he’d just keep his seat and ask the porter for a newspaper. Perhaps the Reno Gazette or the Sacramento Bee. Either would be fine. And in a few more hours, the train would be rolling into Auburn and he wouldn’t need to put up with these judgmental people any longer. One thing this encounter had shown him, however, was that he had better not expect a happy wedding in Auburn.
The Donner Tunnel was long, and it would take almost five minutes for the laboring steam engines to pull the train through and then start on down the western slopes of the Sierras. Longarm closed his eyes and chewed his cheroot thoughtfully. It was too bad, he decided, that the people in Auburn were so offended by a wedding that he had come so far to attend. But given that Noah Huffington’s father was Abe Huffington, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in northern California, perhaps it was naive of Longarm not to have expected the public outrage that he was now hearing. After all, it was common knowledge that Abe Huffington was almost certain to win the next election and become California’s new governor. The man was said to be a vigorous campaigner as well as an exceptionally good public speaker. Given what Longarm had heard so far on this train, he could only imagine how much damage this marriage would cause to Abe’s promising political career.