“Have a seat,” Longarm told him, motioning toward Pete’s old desk chair.
“Uh-uh,” Potts said. “I wouldn’t think of sitting in a dead man’s chair. Be terrible luck.”
“Then sit in Deputy Quaid’s. I guess you would consider that to also be bad luck.”
“Yep. You want to sit, fine. I’ll stand.”
“Fair enough,” Longarm said, taking the marshal’s chair. “Just begin at the beginning. Tell me everything you know about Claude Blanton.”
“I’ve known the ornery sonofabitch since he was a shaver. His father was gunned down about ten years ago trying to hold up a stagecoach. Claude was probably there, but no one could prove it. The kid was as bad as his pa and a crack shot, when he was sober.”
Longarm leaned forward intently in the office chair. “Mr. Potts, as far as you know, did Claude have any reason to hate Marshal Walker enough to kill him?”
“That’s real hard to say,” the old man replied, spitting on the floor and then opening a tin of chewing tobacco and stuffing it into the corner of his mouth where his beard was stained the most.
He chewed a minute, then continued. “You see, Pete had to throw Claude in jail a bunch of times. Why, he even had to pistol-whip him once or twice. There was no love lost between them.”
“But was there enough hate to ambush the man in broad daylight?”
Potts scowled. “When Claude was drinking, he got real crazy. So I’d have to say that, yes, he was the kind that might do such a thing no matter what the risks or the hour.”
“Was Blanton drinking with friends last night in the Rusty Bucket Saloon?”
“He had no friends. At least, not unless they were buying the drinks. But after their money was gone, so was he.”
“Did you see anybody buying him drinks last night?”
“Yep.”
“Who?”
“Another entirely ornery sonofabitch. A fella by the name of Art Mead.”
Longarm sat up straight. “And he’d be from Placerville. Right?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Well,” Longarm answered. “it’s just that a few pieces might finally be starting to fall together. Art Mead, as I understand it, is a good friend of Nick Huffington.”
“That’s right,” Potts said. The old man folded his arms across his skinny chest. “Are you thinking that Nick hired Art, who then got Claude drunk enough to ambush the marshal?”
“I think that is a fair possibility,” Longarm answered. “But I’ve no proof to back it up and I doubt that Mead is going to want to talk.”
“He’s a real sidewinder,” Potts cautioned. “You find him, you better be ready for anything. The man wears a hideout derringer up his sleeve, but he’s mighty fast with his six-gun. He and Nick used to spend weeks at a time practicing the draw-and-shoot down by the old lumber mill just east of town. We could hear them from morning to night. They’re each as good a gunny as you’ll likely ever come across.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Longarm said. “Have you got any idea where I can find Art Mead?”
“Nope. But I expect he won’t be hard to track down. Man has a big scar on a face that isn’t easy to forget.”
“Anything else you can tell me?” Longarm said, coming to his feet.
“Afraid not. I’m just damn glad that you plugged Blanton and we don’t have to worry about hanging the sonofabitch. He was a killer and a snake, that’s for certain. I don’t know how many men he might have back-shot in the past, but I’ll bet it was more than a few. You did the town a service by drilling him through the gizzard, Marshal.”
“I was hoping to just wound the man so that I could get some answers from him, but there wasn’t time to take a more careful aim.” Longarm stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Fred. I really appreciate your being the first man to have the guts to step forward.”
“You’re welcome. Maybe one of the others outside can give you something else to go on. But if you ask me, the blood trail will probably pass through Art Mead straight to Nick Huffington and his father. They all crawled out of the same rotten bed of worms.”
After Potts, Longarm carefully interviewed each of the other town members hoping to establish an even stronger link between Blanton, Mead, and Nick Huffington. And while several other witnesses confirmed seeing Mead buying Blanton drinks, no one saw or overheard anything that Longarm could use as evidence of a murder conspiracy. Still, their stories were consistent enough to make Longarm think that he was on the right track.
“Has anyone seen Mead in town today?” he asked the last man he interviewed.
“Art Mead rode out of town late last night. He was pretty drunk and heading back to Placerville.”
“Thanks.”
Longarm waited until Marshal Jones returned to the office after making funeral arrangements. When he told Jones of his plan to go to Placerville, the lawman said, “I should have sent Art Mead either to the undertaker or to prison years ago, but he’s slick and I just never thought that I had a solid case. Besides that, he’s Nick’s friend and I knew that the Huffingtons would hire a real good lawyer.”
“Well,” Longarm said, “we don’t have a case against the man either. But maybe I can rattle him into saying something that will tip his hand.”
“Don’t count on that,” the lawman solemnly warned. “And don’t turn your back on the man or you’ll wind up just as dead as poor old Pete.”
“So I hear.”
“Mead carries a derringer up his sleeve.”
“I know,” Longarm replied, “but I’ve got a few tricks of my own.
“What do you want me to do?” Jones asked.
“Just watch our prisoners and try to keep a lid on things.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Thanks,” Longarm said.
After going to the undertaker’s office to pay his last respects to Marshal Walker, Longarm saddled a horse and headed out for Stella’s cabin. It would be late before he arrived, but he needed to let the woman know what had transpired this morning and where he was going next. Stella would be upset, but then, so was everyone else in Auburn these dangerous days.
Chapter 14
Stella was waiting when Longarm finally rode his horse up to her cabin. It was almost dark and Longarm was dead tired. Furthermore, he wasn’t looking forward to telling Stella that Marshal Jones had been ambushed in the middle of Auburn’s main street.
“You look like you’ve been pulled through a knothole,” Stella said, holding a lantern and coming out to help him put away his horse. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you inside,” Longarm replied as he forked hay to his played-out mount. “You got any hot food ready? My belly is chewin’ on my backbone.”
“I have hot coffee, beans, bacon, and I’ve even managed to make an apple pie,” Stella said. “And after that, I’ll gladly warm your bed.”
He managed a smile. “You’re half the reason I’m so wrung out this evening, Stella. But there’s something else. Marshal Walker was ambushed and killed right before my eyes.”
“Oh, no!” Stella’s expression was stricken, and she had to take a deep breath. “Do you know who did it?”
“Yeah,” Longarm said. “I shot him dead. Didn’t mean to, though. Some of the townspeople, led by an old fella named Fred Potts, stepped forward and identified the killer as a hardcase named Claude Blanton.”
“I know him,” Stella said. “He’s one of Nick’s unsavory friends.”
“Another man named Art Mead was seen the night before priming Blanton with whiskey, probably to do the killing.” Longarm frowned. “Stella, it’s looking more and more likely that Nick is behind Noah’s death. And who knows, maybe even Abe.”
“Nothing would surprise me anymore,” she said. “So what are we going to do now?”