And then there was the matter of Lee Gray and further word from him. Worse was the fact that they hadn’t heard from Ross Henderson since yesterday. He had been told to communicate daily.
Longarm did such a bad job of keeping his mind on the game that he managed to lose $60 to players who were vastly inferior to him and who had far less money. He normally won at poker, not with luck but with money management. Usually the best player with the most money would win in the long run. But he was playing in a fifty-cent, two-dollar game, and somehow still managed to lose a considerable sum. He finally left at about three in the afternoon and went back over to Billy’s office.
The poster had come. Billy had unfolded it and it was lying on his desk. He turned it around as Longarm came in. It was a normal-looking legal poster that could have been put out by any law enforcement agency. It was about eighteen inches by twelve inches, and there was a drawing of Longarm in the upper third. Below that it read:
REWARD
CUSTIS “LONGARM” LONG
$10, 000 ALIVE
$1,000 DEAD
CONTACT THE NELSONS
SANTA ROSA, NEW MEXICO
Billy Vail said, “Well, what do you make of that?”
Longarm studied it. “There’s no printer’s mark on it, so I’m not going to be able to track them down that way. They obviously didn’t have a photograph of me and it’s a bad drawing.”
“Yeah, but it looks a little bit like you, enough that somebody must have seen you or a photograph of you to work from.”
Longarm said, “They make it clear enough that they want me alive. Ten thousand alive, one thousand dead. That’s not much of a choice, is it?”
“But what in the hell can it mean? What are they going to do with you alive? Paint you up and put you in a circus? And that business about contacting the Nelsons in Santa Rosa. Hell, I’ve sent off five telegrams and I haven’t gotten one word back about the Nelsons. I don’t understand it, Longarm.”
Longarm looked at his boss. “Billy, do you think it’s bait?”
The chief marshal nodded slowly. “That’s all I can figure it is. Somebody is trying to draw you to New Mexico. I know it would get my interest if my name was where yours is, and they even used your nickname, which of course, being as famous as you are, is widely known.”
“But there’s that one thousand dollars dead. That worries me. You know, that’s still a lot of money. It just might be that somebody would be fool enough to shoot me in the back and then trundle me all the way to New Mexico and try to collect that money.”
Billy Vail shook his head. “No, I hate to hand you any bouquets, Longarm, but there ain’t too many people fool enough to try and collect that one thousand dollars. A few of them might try and get a lariat over you and try and take you down there alive, but they’d be damned fools also. No, I don’t think this reward poster is intended to have anybody fetch you to Santa Rosa. I think this is intended to get you down there on your own.”
Longarm sat down in the chair across from the desk and rubbed his jaw. “Damn it, Billy. Why the hell did we send Henderson down there?”
Billy Vail shook his head sadly. “I know. I feel worse about it than you do. I’m the one that did it.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one that said I didn’t want to go and I persuaded you. You knew I was tired and you took that into account.”
“It ain’t my job to be taking things like that into account. I should have never sent a young deputy like that. Damn, I feel awful about this.”
Longarm said, “Well, if we don’t get some word, I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“That might be a little too quick, Custis. Maybe you ought to let things cool down a little.”
Longarm gave him a direct look. “It might be Ross Henderson cooling down.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
Longarm got up. “I’m going back over to my boardinghouse. This whole matter is frazzling me out. It’s making me more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
He saw the yellow envelope as soon as he walked into the front hall of his boardinghouse. He rushed to it and grabbed it up, tearing it open eagerly. It was from Lee Gray, addressed to C. L. It said:
YOUR FRIEND HAS DISAPPEARED STOP NOT A HIDE NOR HAIR OF HIM STOP NO ONE CLAIMS TO KNOW ANYTHING OF HIS ARRIVAL OR DEPARTURE STOP HE DID SPEND ONE NIGHT AT WHIT’E”S HOTEL STOP THEY NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN STOP HAD HIS HORSE RESHOD AT RYAN’S SMITHY STOP DID NOT SAY HIS DESTINATION STOP AM STAYING AT WHITE’S HOTEL STOP WIRE ME SHOULD I STAY OR LEAVE
It was signed L. G.
It was a much more informative and less revealing telegram than Ross Henderson had sent. It showed the mark of an experienced man in unknown territory. It was also very disturbing news to Longarm. With the telegram in hand, he turned immediately and hurried back to the government building and up to Billy Vail’s office. Billy was just putting on his coat to go home. Longarm slapped the telegram down on the desk in front of him. He said, “Take a look at that. We’ve got to figure out something and quick.”
Billy took a moment to read the telegram, and then he looked up. His eyes were troubled. “Custis,” he said, “I’m afraid Deputy Henderson may have gotten himself into some trouble. I reckon you know what you gotta do.”
Longarm said, “I reckon I ought to get headed that way as quick as I can. I wonder if there is a train heading that way tonight.”
Billy Vail shook his head. “No, there is no evening westbound train tonight. The best you could do is to run south to Hobbs and then cut over, and that would cost more time. Your best bet would be to take the ten o’clock train in the morning.” Billy Vail, like many in the Marshal Service, was almost an encyclopedia of train schedules.
Longarm said, “I’m going to ask Lee Gray to stay in Santa Rosa until I get there. Do I have your authority to deputize him and put him on the payroll?”
Billy Vail nodded. “Yes, you can make him a Special Deputy at six dollars per day, him to furnish his horse and cartridges.”
“All right, and unless you hear from Henderson before that train pulls out in the morning, you can just consider me gone.”
Billy Vail scratched his thinning hair. “Longarm, if I told a man to be careful every time I sent him off on a job, all I’d do would be to spend my time telling men to be careful. But I’ll tell you, this time I really feel like you ought to be careful.”
Longarm picked up the telegram and the wanted poster. “I’m going to take this poster with me. I’ll be staying at White’s Hotel, so you can reach me there by telegram, but for heaven’s sake, don’t wire the sheriff or the marshal or any other of the law down there. I don’t even want them to know I’m there. I’m going to put the badge in my shirt pocket and button it, and I’ll just be some old boy riding through.”
“Good luck to you. I hope this works out. I’ll damned sure sleep a lot better.”
Longarm turned and walked out the door. Over his shoulder, he gave a half wave and said, “Adios, you old sonofabitch. I’ll see you a lot sooner than you want.”
Billy Vail yelled after him, “That’s for sure! Never would be too soon!”
Longarm chuckled as he went down the stairs, but by the time he hit the street he wasn’t laughing anymore. He felt in his bones that a very unusual job was before him. The first order of business on his mind was to get a telegram off to Lee Gray about when he should expect Longarm to arrive in Santa Rosa. But before that, he had to get some information from the ticket agent about the trip.
He walked to the train depot again even though it was a good long walk. It was still easier than getting out his horse.
The passenger agent said the best route out of Denver would be to run south through Colorado Springs and down through Pueblo, Colorado, to Raton, New Mexico, where he would have to change trains and pick up a line out of Raton down to Santa Fe. There, he would have to change lines again to catch the train that ran east-west between Albuquerque and Tucumcari. He would make his last switch in Tucumcari, which was only fifty or sixty miles from Santa Rosa. It wasn’t that far in miles, but it appeared to be about a fourteen-hour trip with a lot of switching in between. After he had bought his ticket using a government voucher, he went around to the telegraph office and wrote out his message on a blank to Lee Gray.