“The difference is,” the cheerful storekeeper said, “that both of them come out of a shipment of assorted surplus items. This fifty-cent hat, mister, is one the supplier back in Missouri claims to have treated against lice and other vermin. The dollar hat, on the other hand, is one that I personally fumigated over burning sulphur smoke. Feel free to pick and choose.”
“Ah, yes,” Longarm said with a nod. “Y’know, sir, it occurs to me that the dollar hat there is a particularly nice one. Very handsome.”
“Very,” the storekeeper agreed. “Shall I wrap it for you?”
“Don’t bother.”
“No extra charge.”
“Good of you, I’m sure.” Longarm untied the thongs that held the earflaps high, pulled off the useless muffler he’d wrapped around his head, then tugged the hat firmly on. He felt warmer already. “Thanks.” No sense in being wasteful; since the thing happened to be handy anyway, he took the muffler and wrapped it several times around his neck, and for good measure pulled the collar of his sheepskin coat as high as it would go.
“Before you go, is there anything else I can sell you?” the storekeeper asked. “Think hard, friend. You may be the only customer I get today, and I want to make the most of you whilst you’re here.” The grin flashed again.
“No, there isn’t, I … no, wait a minute there. Maybe there is something else after all. You know Clay Waring, of course. I seem to recall there was some hard candy stuff that he was fond of. Not horehound. It was, uh … oh, I can’t call it to mind at the moment.”
“Sour lemon drops,” the storekeeper offered.
“That was it. Sour lemon. Let me have a little poke of those to take along. It’s Clay I’m going to see today and …” Longarm frowned. “Did I say something wrong, mister? You look kind of …”
“Clay was a friend of yours, sir?”
“I would call him a friend, yes. But … did you say ‘was’?”
“That I did. I’m sorry to convey bad news, sir, but Clay Waring is dead.”
Chapter 3
“How?” Longarm demanded, his voice suddenly harsh. “And more to the point, what’s happened to the fellow that killed Clay?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” the storekeeper said. “It’s natural enough. A fine peace officer like Clay, you’re thinking of him going down upholding the law. Or saving some child’s life. Something noble and fine like that. The truth isn’t near so dramatic.”
Longarm raised an eyebrow and waited for the man to continue.
“About, oh, three weeks ago Clay’s wife … do you know her?”
Longarm nodded.
“Right, well, this was on a Saturday morning, it was, and Marjorie asked Clay to help her with some work in the yard. Clay was raking leaves and piling them and some rotted manure on top of Marjorie’s peony beds. He worked up a sweat doing it though it was a cold day, so he took his coat off and draped it over the fence. Later on some of the fellows walked by and stopped to chat, and Clay never thought to put the coat back on. He stood there all wet with sweat in his shirtsleeves and talked over the fence for a spell, and then went back to his yard work. That night he caught a grippe of some kind. Took on a bad chill, of course, and woke up the next morning burning with fever and not able to get out of the bed.
“Poor soul never did get off his bed again, though Marjorie and some of us neighbors did everything any of us could think of trying to help. Hot whiskey toddies, extra blankets, hot-coal foot warmers, just everything. It didn’t do Clay a lick of good. The grippe settled in his lungs and just purely filled them up. He lingered until the following Friday, and died just past dinnertime. Marjorie was with him when he went. They were holding hands. A fine couple. This community will miss Clay Waring something awful.”
“I can believe that,” Longarm agreed. “Helluva lousy way for a good man to go out.” He sighed. “Reckon I’ll have to go pay my respects to the widow.”
“No need,” the storekeeper told him.
“Pardon me?”
“I didn’t mean there was no need exactly, but that there is no point in you going all that way in weather like this. Marjorie took Clay’s body back home for burial.”
“They came from someplace in Michigan, wasn’t it?” Longarm asked.
“Uh, huh. Little place, to hear them tell it. Litchfield. I don’t know where it is exactly. Somewhere just barely short of heaven, which seems to be about where to find most everybody’s home place.”
Longarm had his own opinions about that, but kept them to himself. After all, there were those who looked back on their early days with fondness. Or so he’d been told.
“To tell you the truth,” the storekeeper volunteered, “I don’t expect Marjorie Waring to stay once she comes back to Kittstown. My sense of it is that she will return, but probably only to close out their affairs here. I would think she will go back to her own people once things here have been taken care of.”
“She came from the same little town, didn’t she?” Longarm said.
The bespectacled little man nodded. “They were childhood sweethearts. Pity they never had children.
“Yes, I’m sure.” Longarm had his own ideas about that too. And kept them carefully to himself. “Well, I reckon I won’t be needing those sour lemon candies. Might could use some more cheroots if you have a decent make. Let me see.”
“Sure thing, friend. By the way”—the fellow leaned across his counter with a hand extended—“I’m Ira Parminter. Mayor Parminter if you like.” He grinned. “As of two days ago.”
“Got the hang of it yet?” Longarm asked after shaking Parminter’s hand and introducing himself.
“Fortunately, the job of being mayor here is more honorary in nature than it is demanding. I fully expect a quiet and uncomplicated term in office.”
“And I hope for your sake that wish is fulfilled,” Longarm told him. “Say, now, that pale-leaf cigar right there. Is that a box of Tio Fulvio brand? How many you got left there? I’ll take ten of them, no, make that fifteen if you have enough.”
Longarm completed his purchases and made his way back to the Jennison Arms, grateful for the warmth of the fur hat even for that short distance outdoors. Damn, but between the wind and the cold, it was about enough to chase a man’s dauber clean out of sight. In weather like this even a stud horse would have to squat to pee.
Longarm felt considerably better once he was back in the coal-fired warmth of the hotel lobby. Now if this storm would just be nice enough to blow itself out …
Chapter 4
If there is one thing you can say about storms, it is that the damn things are boring. Mind-numbing. There just isn’t all that much for a man to do, especially if the hotel is crowded with dozens, maybe scores, of similarly stranded travelers, practically everyone of whom is competing for the few outdated newspapers available in one small lobby.
Longarm managed to amuse himself through lunch-time, but that was about all the indoor fun he could stand for one day.
Besides, United States Marshal Billy Vail and the rest of the bunch back in Denver were no doubt finding themselves unable to proceed with the business of law enforcement without the presence of Deputy Marshal Custis Long. Yeah, he didn’t doubt that for an instant. Better he should set their minds at ease and assure them he would be along as soon as God and the Union Pacific Railroad made further travel possible.