“Come to badger me some more about that woman, Long?” the prisoner asked.
Longarm hooked a stool with the toe of his boot and drew it over so that he could sit down in front of Rainey’s cell. “Nope,” he said as he took the cheroot out of his mouth. “It just so happens that I believe your story, Rainey.”
The outlaw frowned at him. “Really?”
Longarm nodded solemnly and said, “Yep.”
“Well, you’re the first law-dog that ever believed a word I said,” Rainey allowed with a shake of his head. “Even when I was telling the truth, no man wearing a badge ever took it as gospel.”
“And just how often were you really telling the truth, old son?”
A sly grin stretched across Rainey’s face. “Ever’ now and then.”
Longarm chuckled. He didn’t feel much beyond contempt for Rainey, but he could pretend otherwise if it might get him some answers. “I been thinking about that jewelry. Just where did you say you and Lloyd found it?”
“Don’t recall that I ever did say exactly … but it was a couple miles southeast of the place where we jumped you.”
Longarm nodded, thinking about what he knew of the geography of the area. “On the far side of the river?”
“Yeah.”
That would put the spot generally opposite the point where Matt Hardcastle’s savaged body had been found, Longarm decided. He said, “Was the stuff out in the open, or was it hid under a bush or something?”
“Well, there’s a game trail through there, and it was at the side of the trail, not in the middle, if that’s what you’re asking.
Longarm considered. He knew very little about Emmaline Thorp, had no idea how cool-headed she might be in the face of danger. But it was possible she could have dropped the necklace and bracelet on purpose, hoping that the jewelry would tell any searchers she had been there. In that case she could have tossed them to the side of the trail, hoping her captor wouldn’t notice. Which evidently had been what happened, or the jewelry wouldn’t have been there for the two outlaws to find.
Longarm hoped his line of reasoning was correct, because that would mean Mrs. Thorp hadn’t been killed outright, like Hardcastle and the Lavery boys. If whoever—or whatever—had grabbed her had had a reason for not killing her then, maybe she was still alive.
As for the existence of the creature known as the Brazos Devil, Longarm wasn’t ready to make up his mind on that question just yet. Maybe Lord Beechmuir, that big-game hunter from England, would be able to find and kill the beast. Longarm recalled that gorillas had been considered legends and myths—the mysterious ape-men of Africa, they had been called—until somebody had actually captured one and brought it back to civilization. Maybe this so-called Brazos Devil was an American cousin of the gorilla.
He stood up, dropped the butt of his cheroot on the floor, and crushed it out with his boot. “I sure as hell hope you’re telling the truth, Rainey,” he told the prisoner. “If you’re not, I don’t reckon I can help you much. If Thorp finds out you hurt his wife …” Longarm just shook his head and didn’t finish the sentence.
Rainey gulped. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. Jimmy and me never even saw that woman, let alone did anything to her.”
Before Longarm could say anything else, he heard the front door of the office open. “Hey!” Burley exclaimed a second later when he saw the open cellblock door.
“It’s all right, Marshal,” Longarm called to the local lawman. “I’m just back here talking to the prisoner.”
Burley appeared in the open door, a frown on his face. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you waltzing into my jail like that, Long.”
Longarm shrugged. “I didn’t figure you’d mind. Sorry if I stepped on your toes.”
“Well, it’s all right, I reckon,” Burley said grudgingly. “Rainey is your prisoner, after all, and if I’d been here I wouldn’t have minded letting you talk to him.”
“Marshal, why don’t you take me on to Denver, like you said you were going to?” Rainey demanded of Longarm. “I don’t have anything to do with this business here.”
Longarm shook his head, forestalling any protest Burley might make to the suggestion. “One bite at a time,” he told Rainey. “That’s the way we’re going to eat this apple.”
Burley and Longarm ate lunch together at the Red Rooster Cafe, just around the corner from the hotel. The breakfast Longarm had had in the hotel dining room had been all right, if nothing special, but the fried steak and potatoes served up at the Red Rooster made Longarm’s taste buds stand up and salute. So did the peach cobbler with which he concluded the meal.
“That was mighty fine,” he told Burley as they left the cafe. “Much obliged to you for recommending the place.”
“The chili’s even better,” Burley told him, “but I wouldn’t eat it if I was going to be in polite company any time in the next twenty-four hours.”
Longarm grinned, then changed the subject by saying, “I was thinking about taking a ride out to Thorp’s ranch. Reckon you could tell me how to find it?”
Burley had seemed almost human there for a minute—fried steak and peach cobbler had a way of doing that to a man—but his pleasant expression disappeared, only to be replaced by the usual sour frown. “What do you want to do that for?” he asked.
“Thought I’d see if he wants an extra hand along on that monster hunt he’s getting up.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Burley said dubiously.
“I can take that Englishman right to the spot where something spooked Rainey,” Longarm pointed out. “Maybe he could pick up the trail there.”
“Rainey claims he didn’t see anything. I thought you believed his story.”
“I believe he and his partner found that jewelry and didn’t have anything to do with Mrs. Thorp’s disappearance or Hardcastle’s murder. But I know damned good and well he saw something that scared the piss out of him. I was there. I never saw a man so shook-up in all my life.”
Burley nodded slowly. “Maybe you should go along with that Lord Beechmuir then. You ever have any dealings with English lords and ladies, Long?”
“A little, here and there,” Longarm said. “I reckon underneath all the airs they put on, they’re just folks like you and me.”
“Like you, maybe.” Burley shook his head. “Not like me.”
He went on to give Longarm directions to Thorp’s ranch, which wouldn’t be difficult to find. Longarm had stabled the Appaloosa and the chestnut at the only livery barn in Cottonwood Springs, so he headed over there to saddle up the Appaloosa.
The ride out to the Rocking T took about an hour, as Longarm expected it to. He followed the Fort Griffin road west out of Cottonwood Springs and turned to the north on a smaller road before reaching the river. The ranch house was about two miles up that road.
Also as Longarm expected, the house Benjamin Thorp had built for his bride from New Orleans was quite a place. It sat on a hilltop with a spectacular view of the entire Brazos River valley to the west. There was a one-story stone house in front that might have been Thorp’s original homestead and ranch house, but spreading out behind it with a wing to either side was a three-story, whitewashed frame structure with white-columned porches flanking the stone house. The arrangement gave the house a bizarre look, half Texas frontier and half antebellum plantation. Longarm found it attractive in a strange sort of way, although architecture was not one of his interests. Down the hill from the big house were barns and corrals and a long, narrow bunkhouse where the hands of the Rocking T undoubtedly lived. Longarm had seen quite a few cattle during his ride out to the ranch, and all of the animals had looked fat and healthy. Evidently, Benjamin Thorp had himself a prosperous spread here to go with that bank he owned in town.