Many of the downtown businesses, however, were closed and boarded up, telling Longarm that Placerville was now in a period of slow economic decline. No doubt its rich deposits of ore were playing out, despite the evidence of hydraulic mining which had left the nearby western Sierra slopes as bare and bleeding as open ulcers.
The Big Pine Saloon was situated almost in the center of town, and so Longarm tied his horse to the nearest empty hitching rail and checked his six-gun. At times like this, he never gave his quarry advance warning by wearing his badge. Instead, he kept it out of sight until it was really needed. Longarm reminded himself that Mead had that derringer hidden up his sleeve and that the man had a reputation for being very quick and very deadly.
Well, he thought, I will take no unnecessary chances, but I do want a confession from this man and for that I need him alive.
The Big Pine Saloon looked like a thousand other watering holes in the West. It had bars across the front windows and bat-wing doors that were about to drop off their hinges. The building was poorly constructed with dirty, tobacco-stained sawdust spread across a floor that reeked of urine and vomit. The place was dim and the smoke was thick.
Longarm stood just inside the door for a few moments until his eyes adjusted. Then he began to survey the room, chiding himself for not having a much better physical description of Art Mead. All he knew was that the man had a big scar on his face and was a gunfighter, which therefore meant he would be wearing a fast-draw rig.
Three men at the bar, their backs turned to Longarm, fit Art Mead’s general description, but two of them were drinking together. Longarm decided that the loner was probably his man. Unbuttoning his coat, he pushed it back a little so that the butt of his gun was in easy reach. Longarm’s side arm was a double-action .44-40 Colt revolver which he wore on his left hip. Most men preferred to draw from their right side, but Longarm liked the cross-draw and it had served him well enough in the past so that he was not about to change.
As Longarm started across the room toward the loner, he noted that the Big Pine Saloon was packed, which was both good and bad. Good because the crowd obscured his arrival, but bad because there were just too many hard drinkers that might want to get involved in a gunfight. Normally, if bullets started to fly, intelligent and sober men would be smart enough to hit the floor or dive for cover. But in a tough saloon like the Big Pine, you could toss out that theory because there were always a few drunken fools willing to become dead heroes.
Longarm slipped in next to his suspect, but did not look directly at the man. “I’ll have a nickel beer,” he called to a hustling bartender.
“Be right with you!”
Then Longarm looked closer at his most likely suspect, and noted the terrible knife scar across his face. This was Art Mead, all right.
“How’s the beer here?” he asked Mead, trying to sound relaxed and cordial.
“What?”
“The beer? Is it good … or green?”
Mead shook his head, and Longarm could hear the meanness in his voice when he growled, “Stranger, if you ain’t man enough to drink what’s served, then you’d best get your picky ass outa here.”
“I was just askin’,” Longarm said in his most apologetic tone as he extracted a nickel from his pocket and placed it on the bar in front of him. He looked at Mead again and said, “Haven’t we met before?”
“No and we ain’t met now,” Mead hissed. “So shut up and leave me the hell alone.”
“I was just trying to make some social conversation,” Longarm said. “What’s the matter, having a bad day or something?”
The man on the other side of Longarm elbowed him sharply in the ribs. “You better just shut your mouth, mister. Art ain’t one to pester.”
“I’m not pestering him,” Longarm said. “I was just trying to be friendly.”
“Well, don’t,” the man said, looking nervous. “Otherwise, someone might get shot by accident and it might even be me.”
“Oh.”
The bartender brought Longarm his beer and took the nickel. Longarm picked up his mug and tasted his warm beer. He smacked his lips and made a sour face, saying, “It’s green as grass, dammit!”
Mead had a very short fuse and his patience was about to run out, which was just what Longarm intended. Playing the harmless fool, Longarm was attempting to prod Mead into stepping outside with him to fight. That way, he could hope to catch the man off guard and alone so he could be arrested and no one in the crowded saloon would be shot by accident.
“I said that the beer was green,” Longarm repeated to Mead. “If you’d have been helpful enough to warn me of the fact, I’d have tried whiskey instead.”
“You big, stupid bastard!” Mead growled low in his throat. “I’ve had all the lip from you I can stand!”
Longarm pretended to be surprised, hurt, and even a little offended. “Well, I was only …”
Mead didn’t let Longarm finish, but grabbed him by the arm and propelled him toward the bat-wing doors. It was easy enough to let himself be hustled through the crowd, and Longarm suspected that, once outside, Mead would try to beat him to a pulp in order to remind everyone of his toughness.
“Look,” Longarm protested as they both plowed across the saloon. “I don’t know what all this trouble is about. I really didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m going to teach you a lesson you should have learned a long, long time ago,” Mead swore as he balled his fists and shoved Longarm outside. “I’m going to feed you your gawddamn teeth!”
Longarm raised his hands as if to protect himself and then, when Mead threw a haymaker at his face, he ducked the powerful punch and drove an uppercut to Mead’s belly that raised him a good foot off the ground.
Mead’s eyes bugged with pain. He choked and his hand flashed for the fancy ivory-handled Colt at his side. Longarm batted it from his grasp, then unleashed a wicked right cross that snapped Mead’s head around and sent him backpedaling. Rather than give the gunfighter any opportunity to recover, Longarm waded in with both fists and punished Art Mead with one thundering blow after another. He pulped Mead’s nose like a stomped grape, then broke his lips and opened a huge gash over his left eye causing Mead to bleed heavily.
Longarm hit Mead until he slammed up against a storefront wall and tried to pull out the hideout derringer from under his sleeve.
Longarm jumped in and grabbed Mead’s right arm with both hands, then slammed it down across his rising knee. Mead howled. Yanking the gunfighter’s other sleeve up, Longarm disarmed him, then kicked his legs out from under him so that Mead toppled to the dirt.
He grabbed Mead by the shirtfront, dragged him erect, and shook him like a rag doll while yelling into his bloody face, “My name is Federal Deputy Marshal Custis Long and I’m putting you under arrest.”
“What for!”
“For the murder of Noah Huffington and Marshal Pete Walker of Auburn.”
“I didn’t kill them! I got witnesses that’ll say I was right here in Placerville when they both got theirs!”
“Sure,” Longarm growled, “but you got Claude Blanton drunk and talked him into doing your murdering, didn’t you!”
“You’re crazy!” Mead screeched. “Gawdammit, you near broke my arm! You can’t do this to innocent folks!”
“You’re about as innocent as Billy the Kid.” Longarm searched the man for any more weapons. He found a knife and tossed it away saying, “Where’s your horse?”
“What the hell do you want my horse for!”
“I’m taking you to Auburn, where you’ll be tried and almost sure to be found guilty. You might not get the gallows, but you’ll sure as hell grow old in prison for being an accomplice to murder.”