Gray held out his glass. “Well, let’s wash down some of the dust and forget about it for a moment.”
They made a toast to luck and then knocked back their drinks.
Longarm said, “This is a hell of a mess, Lee. That Henderson kid missing scares me to death and I feel like it’s my fault. I should have come instead of letting Billy Vail send such an inexperienced young deputy.”
Lee Gray didn’t say anything. He picked up the bottle and poured himself and Longarm another glass of whiskey.
After they had sat for a moment, Lee pulled out the makings from his pocket and rolled a cigarette. When it was drawing good, he said, “This kid Henderson, was he old enough to be a deputy marshal?”
“Hell, yes, Lee. You know we’ve got requirements. He had previous law experience.”
“So, he was judged to be good enough to be a deputy U.S. marshal?”
“Yeah, what are you aiming at?”
Lee Gray shrugged. “Well, if you’ve hired a man to do the job and if he’s proven himself able to do the job, it’s my way of thinking that you ought to let him do the job.”
Longarm scowled. “Hell, Lee. You know there’s jobs and then there’s jobs. And you know there’s different levels of experience. He came in here like a bull with his eyes shut. He sent me a telegram that must have alerted the sheriff, and now he’s disappeared. I take it you haven’t picked up any sign of him while I’ve been on the way?”
Gray took a draw on his cigarette and shook his head. “Nope. Not hide nor hair. Nobody knows anything. Of course, I’ve been stepping around kind of light. It would be my guess that the sheriff knows, a man named Ralph Nevins. If there’s anybody in this town on the Nelsons’ payroll, it would be him.”
Longarm looked up quickly. “Have you found out anything about the Nelsons?”
Lee nodded slowly. “Yeah, but it don’t make a damned bit of sense.” He motioned around with his hand. “it makes about as much sense as putting in a hotel like this in a place like Santa Rosa. Ain’t this the damnedest-looking thing you’ve ever seen?”
“I keep expecting to go over to the window and see trolley cars running up and down the street.”
“Well, the only thing that would be running up and down the street at this time of night in this town would be a drunk or a runaway dog.”
Longarm said, “Well, tell me about the Nelsons. Are they real? This ain’t no joke about these posters?”
Lee shook his head slowly. “Now, I can’t tell you whether it is or not. These people around here are either damned closed-mouthed when it comes to those posters, or they don’t know a damned thing. I think the latter is the most likely. But I can guarantee you that Sheriff Nevins knows something, and maybe even his deputy. Maybe even the town marshal, named Joe Black.”
“Well quit fotching around and tell me about these folks who want me dead or alive, preferably alive.”
Lee Gray leaned back in his chair and stretched. With his lanky build, it seemed like it took five minutes to go all the way out and come back. He said, “They’re three brothers from somewhere up north, one of those states that you never hear much about like Massachusetts or New York or Vermont or Maine. Pennsylvania maybe, or maybe even South Dakota. Hell, I don’t know, big snow country. I know they’re supposed to have made a pile of money in some place in Africa gold mining. They’re supposed to have made a ton of money. They came back and they picked out a place that looked like where they made their fortune, and southeast New Mexico was it. The word I have is that they’ve built themselves a palace about fifteen miles south of here.”
“You ain’t seen it?”
Lee shook his head again and said, “Nope. Your instructions were to stay close and ask questions. I never had time for a thirty-mile ride. Besides, if you’ve seen one palace, you’ve seen them all. I understand that it’s one hell of a place, that it’s bigger than the hotel, if you can believe that. Anyway, they’re supposed to live out there and they don’t do much of anything except occasionally get some friends in—that’s what this top floor is for, and they even have a special train that they run them in here with—and they’ll play poker for about a week. They may even bring in a trainload of women, and then they go back out to the ranch. Nobody knows what it is that they do out there. They don’t raise cattle, they don’t raise horses. They don’t raise anything except a little bit of hell.”
“That’s it?”
Lee shrugged and said, “Hell, I knew you were going to say that, but without going over there and bracing the mayor or the banker or the sheriff or the marshal, I didn’t have any way to find out. The only thing I can tell you is that the people who ought to know say they’ve never seen this Henderson kid.”
“What about the telegrapher?” said Longarm.
“He says he doesn’t remember sending any such telegram.”
“They must have more than one telegrapher. They must have one that works days and one that works nights.”
“Well, the one that I talked to said there wasn’t a receipt logged in for it. He said there wasn’t a single telegram sent to Denver in at least a week.
“But they know this Henderson kid is a deputy marshal. Apparently, he made it clear right from the moment he hit town that he was a deputy marshal, a deputy United States marshal.”
Longarm said, “Oh, by the way, so are you. I’ve just sworn you in. You’re a special deputy United States marshal.”
Lee Gray pulled a face. “Is this some more of Billy Vail’s generosity?
That’s six dollars a day and all I can eat for fifty cents a day?”
“I’ll see that you make out a little better than that, Lee.”
Gray waved his hand as if to indicate that it didn’t matter. He said, “You got a plan?”
Longarm shook his head. “Not yet. All I can think to do right now is to get some of this trail dust off of me and get a few hours of sleep and then get busy.”
“How are you and me going to play it?”
“For right now, I think it’s best if we don’t know each other. What’s your room number?”
“I’m just down the hall in 201.”
“I think what you better do is watch my back. I don’t know to what extremes I’ve got to go. I think I’ve got to start looking for Ross Henderson right here in town, and I think I’m going to start with the sheriff.”
“Are you going to be just a friendly neighbor riding through or are you going to be Longarm, the marshal who has the price on his head?”
Longarm shook his head again. “I don’t know, Lee. Right now, I’m about as confused as I’ve ever been. I feel like a man in a five-dollar whorehouse with four dollars in his pocket. I don’t know if it would take me all the way. As soon as I come out of cover and declare who I am, then I become fair game for everybody in this town.”
Lee Gray smiled a slow, sleepy smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t exactly say fair game, Longarm. I think you can take care of yourself. I think it might be that anybody in town would be stupid to take you on. No, you’re not going to get me to shed any crocodile tears worrying about you.”
“And, of course, I will have you at my back.”
Gray smiled. “Yeah, that’s what you’ve got to worry about.”
Longarm laughed, drained his glass, and then stood up. “Well, get on out of here and let me get a bath and some sleep. I’m going to be in the dining room about seven o’clock eating breakfast. Why don’t you plan on being there close to the same time. You can generally walk in the same direction I walk. Don’t shoot anybody unless it’s clear they are fixing to shoot me.”
“You want me to let him actually pull the trigger before I shoot him?”
Longarm gave the man a wry smile. “Lee, you were always a comfort to a body. Always.”
Lee Gray left, and Longarm locked the door and then started running the tub full of hot water. He was tired and creaky and cramped from his long trip on the train. He sat down and began undressing, trying to figure out the perplexing question of how he went about finding a deputy marshal without acting like one himself. It was all very confusing.