“How’d he get so much counterfeit money?” Jeb asked.
“Agent Blake didn’t tell you?”
“His kind never does,” Huff said. “That’s why I don’t tell them much of anything. But you’re going to level with me, aren’t you, Custis.”
Longarm liked and trusted this man enough to tell him what had happened in Denver. When the story was over, Huff just shook his head. “No wonder those federal agents were in such a lather! This could really turn out big, couldn’t it?”
“that’s right. Now that I’ve leveled with you, why don’t you tell us everything, especially what you didn’t tell Agent Blake and his happy friends.”
Jeb Huff went over everything, and it was pretty much as Longarm had heard from Blake and his friends in the saloon the night before. He heard again how Cox had laundered the counterfeit money and bought as well as sold a big cattle ranch.
“Which ranch was it?” Longarm asked.
“The Bar Z. Homesteaded sixty years ago by Emmett. Everyone expected him to leave it to his two sons, Clyde and Buck, but I knew that Emmett was too wise a man to do that. Those boys aren’t worth the powder it would take to blow their noses off. They’re trigger-happy troublemakers and have already set off after Nathan Cox. And if they find Cox, there’s little doubt that they’ll torture him to death and steal everything he’s got including the bogus money, which they’ll spend like a pair of drunken sailors in a foreign port of call.”
“Any idea where they went?” Longarm asked.
“They got drunk the night before they left and told everyone in the saloon that Cox had run southwest toward the Wasatch Mountains of Utah.”
“Big, rugged mountains,” Longarm said. “I’ve been in them a time or two. They could even get snow this early.”
“Damn right they can,” Jeb agreed. “If Buck, Clyde, and that counterfeiter get snowed under in those mountains, you might never find any of them.”
“Did they say how they knew that Nathan was heading in that direction?” Diana asked.
“No,” Huff said. “But I expect that someone reported seeing him and those blooded horses hightailing it that way. Custis might want to talk to the boys’ father. Old Emmett is in town, and lately he’s been pretty drunk most of the time.”
“He sounds difficult,” Longarm said.
“He’s meaner than a teased snake,” Jeb admitted. “But you might find a way to get him to talk if he understands that you want Nathan Cox as bad as he does.”
“Where can I find Emmett?”
“Probably drinking in the Maverick.”
“I know the place well,” Longarm said. “It’s got quite a reputation.”
“That’s right. I sure wouldn’t take a woman in there,” Jeb said. “The Maverick is rough.”
“I’m a lawman, remember?”
Jeb blinked and then looked embarrassed. “Yeah, Custis, for a moment I forgot that I am too. Let’s just go. The coffee and rolls can wait until we get back.”
Longarm glanced at Diana, who said, “With two lawmen to protect me, why should I be worried?”
“No reason,” Longarm said. “No reason at all.”
Cigarette and cigar smoke wafted over the swinging doors to the Maverick. Longarm could hear the arguing and cussing a good fifty strides before they entered the place. The Maverick was where Cheyenne’s worst element went to drink, gamble, and use women in the cribs tucked away back in the saloon’s former storerooms. Shootings and knifings were a common occurrence there, and for as long as Custis could recall, the saloon was the kind of place where men entered at their own peril.
“I pass through this shit-house once a day,” Jeb said, sounding apologetic. “But the minute I’m gone, things go to bad again.”
“Why don’t you just shut the place down?”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about doing that for years,” Jeb said. “But every town has a place where the worst element goes. It keeps them separated from the decent people. If I shut this saloon down, the criminal element would spill over and there’d be more killing of the innocent. Besides that, the saloon pays a penalty to the city, which needs their money.”
“Makes no sense to me,” Longarm said, “but Cheyenne is your town.”
“Yep,” Jeb said. “And I like to keep the rotten apples in the same dirty barrel. Miss Frank, I really-“
“I can handle this,” she said, cutting him off. “I’ve worked in some rough saloons.”
They went inside and all heads turned. One huge, bearded man, upon seeing Diana, guffawed and came hollering and striding across the room. Longarm wasn’t sure of the giant’s intentions, so he just drew his gun and pistol-whipped the man before he could do any damage.
“Hey!” one of the patrons exclaimed. “You can’t just walk in here and do that to Ernie!”
“Sure he can,” Marshal Huff shouted. “And if you don’t mind your own business, the same will happen to you. Emmett! We need to talk.”
The rancher twisted around, his eyes bloodshot and his face stubbled with a gray beard. “Got nothin’ to say to you, Jeb. Not a single gawddamn word.”
“Damn,” Longarm muttered, “why don’t I ever come across an easy one.”
“Let me handle him,” Diana said, surprising everyone by marching across the room and sidling up to the rancher.
Emmett Zolliver wasn’t a big or physically imposing man anymore, but he had been before the years, the hard Wyoming weather, and the whiskey had all combined to take their toll on his once-powerful body. Now he glared at Diana, probably expecting her to cringe, but she didn’t.
“Mind if I have a drink?” she asked, her eyes darting to his bottle.
“You want to drink this panther piss?”
“Sure! It says on the bottle that it’s whiskey.”
He squinted at her, and when she met his eyes without flinching, he grabbed his half-empty bottle by the neck and upended it, gulping several big slugs.
“You want to drink, do it,” he challenged Diana, shoving the bottle in her direction.
“Oh, kee-rist,” Jeb whispered, starting forward.
But Longarm grabbed his arm. “Hold up, she knows what she’s doing.”
The whole saloon was staring as Diana wrenched the bottle from the embittered old man, upended it, then drank its entire contents. Longarm saw her shudder a little, but then she smiled and slammed the bottle down on the bar and demanded, “Now, why don’t you tell me where the hell I can find Nathan Cox!”
Everyone, even Emmett Zolliver, grinned after they’d recovered from shock. Longarm went over to join them and heard the old man say, “Well now, miss, you are my kind of woman. Bartender, bring us another bottle.”
Longarm guessed that Diana was going to learn about everything she wanted to know in the next few hours. The question then was whether they were going to be able to walk out of the Maverick, or would they have to be carried out.
Chapter 6
Nathan Cox had driven his half-dozen blooded Thoroughbred horses over the Laramie Mountains and then skirted around the north slope of Bridger Peak before dropping south toward the Yampa River in the northwest corner of Colorado. It had been his intention to roughly parallel the Union Pacific Railroad line, but then he’d decided that would be far too risky. No doubt, there were feds riding the rails, seeking him, that very minute.
Nathan wasn’t worried. He had fast horses and plenty of cash whose serial numbers couldn’t be tracked. Furthermore, he was quite sure that the pursuit would lead south into Arizona and that the federal agents would be waiting for him in the vicinity of Prescott and Flagstaff. Let them wait. The first half of his journey would be in the direction of Arizona, but then he’d veer north, cross the hard, high-desert country of central Nevada, and then follow the Sierras south a little into California, where he understood there was some prime ranching country to be had at very attractive prices.
California’s eastern Sierra slope was the last place anyone in the world would expect him to run. Other than a few mining towns like Bodie, all reputed to be in serious decline, there was no reason to expect a rich fugitive to settle in that country, where there just wasn’t much for a man to spend his fortune on.