“I’ll see your orders are delivered no later than noon tomorrow,” the mayor told them.
“Very well. Good day, sir.”
“Good-bye.”
Longarm touched the front of his hat and hurried to hold the door open for them. When he got back to the counter he had to wait in line while a couple of gents made minor purchases of woolen stockings and the like. When the store finally cleared, Longarm observed, “Funny thing about those women that were in here.”
“How’s that?”
“It’s the one that asked for credit that I would’ve taken for the better off of the two, seeing how they were dressed and everything.”
Parminter grunted. “You weren’t wrong. Ben Corbett is one of the wealthiest men in this county. Likely in this end of Wyoming, for that matter.”
Longarm shook his head. “Then why’d his missus want credit while the poorer one paid cash?”
“Didn’t you know? The rich don’t need cash. Handling it is a nuisance. It’s only us poor folks that have to worry about paying up on time.”
Longarm chuckled a bit, and would have said something more, but the street door pushed open and four snow-covered figures came tumbling in, bringing a flurry of laughter along with them. Longarm recognized the friendly young cowboys he’d played poker with earlier. “Hello, Billy. Jason. Carl.” It took him a moment to remember the fourth one’s name. “Ronnie.”
“Hello, Marshal. Mr. Mayor.” The young men stamped snow off their boots and whipped it from their clothes using the brims of their hats, and in general filled the store with their clatter. “We’re needing tobacco, Mr. Parminter.”
“Matches too,” one of them put in. “And some groceries. We need bacon, lard, flour, coffee.”
“And salt. Don’t forget we’re about out of salt.”
“Sorry, boys, but I’m almost cleaned out.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything.”
“But you have to have some of the stuff we need. Surely you can’t be out of it all.”
“Sorry. No, wait. I have salt. And let me see what else you might be able to use.” Parminter went through his list, and the boys decided on an order that was fairly extensive considering that they likely wouldn’t know what to do with most of it.
“We’ll take the stuff with us, Mr. Parminter. On tick like usual.”
“You’re running up a pretty good-sized bill, fellows. Especially for so early in the season. I don’t think …”
“You know we’re good for it, Mr. Parminter.”
“Soon as the spring gather starts we’ll be drawing pay again.”
“We never let you down before.”
“I know that, but you’ve never spent this heavy before either.”
“We had a run of bad luck, that’s all.”
“Some damn sharpies like to cleaned us out a couple weeks ago. A pair of them acting like they didn’t know each other.”
“They seen us coming and they whipsawed us before we knew what they was up to.”
“They left us short for the year.”
“But smarter. We won’t be taken like that again, Mr. Parminter.”
“And you know we wouldn’t leave you holding the bag for us, sir. We’ve always been straight with you before now, haven’t we?”
Parminter frowned and pulled at his lip some, but after a few moments he sighed and brought out his accounts book. “I’ll mark this down along with the rest. But mind you, don’t abuse the privilege.”
“Yes, sir.”
“No, sir, we won’t.”
“We’ll take care, sir, honest.”
“Wait here while I get some sacks for you to carry your things in.”
When the mayor turned his back and stepped into the storeroom, Billy Madlock winked at Longarm and grinned. “Gonna come over to the saloon later and give us some lessons in poker, Marshal?”
“You’ll be playing tonight?”
“Hey, we got to make some money somehow. It might as well be yours.”
Longarm smiled. “If I can, boys, I might sit in for a few hands.”
“You’re always welcome. You know that.”
The mayor returned and assembled the purchases into four packages. “Mind what I said now,” he warned.
“Yes, sir, we will.” The boys, grinning and poking at one another, took their things out into the gathering dusk.
“Where were we?” Parminter asked. “Oh, yes. I was going to ask you about the arsonist. You said earlier that you had a line on him. May I assume that you’ve arrested him by now?”
“Yeah, well, um …”
Chapter 32
There was something terribly wrong, and it took Longarm half a dozen strides down the middle of the street before he realized just what it was that was so odd here. It was silent.
For the first time in days, for the first time since they’d all stumbled off that Union Pacific coach and made their way to the Jennison Arms, there was no wind blowing.
None. The air was still and silent.
Oh, the cold was as bad as ever. The snow squeaked beneath his boots with every step he took, and that meant the temperature was either below zero or very near to it.
But without the wind to drive the cold through cloth and deep inside the flesh, even a zero-degree temperature reading felt damn near toasty.
And he could hear what was going on around him. Up the street, in the direction of the Old Heidelberg, Longarm could hear the rattly jangle of a badly played piano. Somewhere inside the narrow alley separating two nearby store buildings he could hear the scratching and whining of a stray dog trying to paw a meal out of the refuse it found there. And from somewhere else, Longarm had no idea where, he heard a child’s laughter.
The moan and shriek of a vicious wind were the only sounds of Kittstown he’d had until now. This change was mighty pleasant indeed.
Longarm felt positively jaunty as he tilted the fur hat onto the back of his head—next time he came out he could go back to wearing his favorite Stetson if he liked and the hell with this second-hand soldier-boy affair—and tried to whistle his way along to the railroad depot. But it was simply too damn cold to manage a proper pucker, and his attempts to whistle came off as more of a hiss than a tune. Kind of like blowing out birthday candles in rhythm.
Still, it was almighty comfortable outdoors for a change, and that was enough to boost Longarm’s spirits.
He ambled down the middle of the street. The wind had piled deep drifts most everywhere else, so that unless the shopkeepers had already begun digging paths to their doorways, it was a helluva lot easier to stay far away from walls and buildings, to stay out where the earth had been swept free of snow while the wind was so harsh. Soon he reached the railroad station, hoping by now he might have answers to some of the telegraph messages he’d sent earlier.
No such luck. The telegraph operator was gone again, this time leaving a note saying he would be back at seven in the morning.
Longarm scowled but didn’t bother to snarl. After all, there was nothing he could do about it, and complaining would not bring the man back. Nor was there any real emergency that would justify Longarm going off to drag the fellow back to his key. Best just to accept things the way they were and check again in the morning. In the meantime Longarm celebrated the improvement in the weather by bringing out a cheroot and lighting it. Why, he didn’t even have to cup his hands around the match to keep the flame alive. There was no breeze whatsoever.
All day long he’d been hoarding his smokes, holding back whenever he felt the desire to light up because there was no telling how long it might be before fresh supplies began to reach Kittstown.
Now, if the wind remained calm, it looked like the rails should be open again in … what? A day or two? Likely, Longarm thought.
The railroad would be more anxious than anyone else to get the line clear and functioning once more. After all, their profits came from what they hauled from one place to another, not from what they had loaded onto idle cars.