He entered the empty stall and pulled the solid and very heavy door closed behind him. Pete was not real big on cleanliness and the stall hadn’t been cleaned in weeks, if ever. The heavy ammonia of horse urine filled Longarm’s nostrils, and the stall was buzzing with flies.
“Damn,” he said to himself as he reached over the chest-high door of the stall and prepared to leave. “Maybe there’s a cleaner one that …”
He froze, hearing voices outside. The one that was familiar belonged to his former prisoner, Ford Oakley.
“Gawddammit, Pete,” Oakley was saying, “get your skinny old ass inside and let’s figure out a way to get these handcuffs the Hell off my wrists! And no excuses!”
Longarm ducked, but not before he saw the silhouettes of four men and the blacksmith slip through the back doorway. The big silhouette was definitely Oakley and he sounded extremely unhappy.
“Pete,” he said, “me and the boys tried like sons abitches to get these damn things off. We couldn’t even get the chain tying them together to break.”
“But you sure beat the Hell out of it,” Pete said as they stopped beside his forge. “It’s all flattened and mashed up where you been hammerin’.”
“The sonofabitch is made of hard steel,” one of the outlaws said. “Just our luck it’s probably the best pair of damned handcuffs in Nevada.”
“Can you get them off without breaking my wrists?” Oakley asked.
“I don’t know,” Pete said. “I can definitely break the chain so that your hands aren’t bound together anymore, but the handcuffs themselves are another matter.”
“Damn!” Oakley roared. “I’ll bet we’re just going to have to find that sonofabitchin’ marshal and get the keys to these things from him.”
“I’d expect so, Ford,” Pete said with ready agreement. “If I get to hammerin’on them cuffs, you ain’t going to like how it feels.”
“Just … just get rid of the chain,” Oakley said. “At least then I can use my hands to hold a gun or a rifle.”
“I’ll do it,” Pete said. “Ford, you just need to stop over here by the forge and stretch that chain across my anvil. Won’t take but a few good blows and I’ll have her cut in two.”
Ford did as he was told. “Cut the chain twice, both times right up next to my wrists. I don’t want to be swingin’ a damn chain around, so just cut it all the hell away.”
“I’ll do it, Ford. Yes, sir, I sure will do that.”
Longarm waited until he heard the first blow of Pete’s hammer. Then he stepped out of the stall and bellowed, “All right, hands up! You too, Ford!”
The outlaws whirled and every damned one of them stabbed for their guns. Longarm was left with no choice but to open fire as fast as he could aim and pull his trigger. His .44-40 Colt revolver spat death and he shot to kill. Each of his first three slugs found the chest of one of Ford’s friends. Longarm felt no remorse for any of them because they sure as the devil hadn’t shown any pity on him and Deputy Trout when they’d staged their ambush.
Ford grabbed Pete’s hammer. With a demented roar, he tried to attack, and Longarm, reluctant to kill his prisoner outright, grabbed a pitchfork and shouted, “Drop that hammer or I’ll drop you, Oakley! Do it now!”
Oakley’s face was corrupted by hatred. He glanced back over his shoulder at Pete and said, “You back-stabbin’old sonofabitch, you sold me out!”
“Ford, I don’t belong to the miners’ union,” Pete said, “and I’m sick and tired of you killing folks.”
Oakley cursed and lost control. Lunging at the blacksmith, he lost his balance and fell, his right elbow slamming down into the forge.
“Ahhhh!” he screamed as his sleeve ignited.
Longarm jumped forward and whacked Ford with the handle of the pitchfork. Ford dropped, and Longarm beat his head again and the outlaw collapsed. Then Longarm grabbed a horse blanket, dropped it over the killer’s shirt, and beat the smoke out of Ford’s shirtsleeve.
“Oh, my God!” Pete muttered, looking at Oakley, then at his friends. “What’s going to happen next!”
“Hitch up that medicine wagon and get it in here quick!” Longarm ordered. “We’ll throw Oakley inside and then I’ll drive it out the back way!”
“But what about these three dead men!”
Longarm ran his hand across his brow. “We’ll throw them inside too,” he decided. “I’ll figure out what to do with them after I get out of this damn town.”
Pete had the medicine wagon hitched in no time at all, and like Nelly, he practically tossed the bodies inside the medicine wagon.
“Maybe you should come with me,” Longarm said just before he was ready to leave.
“Then they’d know for sure that I was helpin’ you,” Pete said. “I can’t do that!”
Longarm stayed back from the front door to the livery barn. “Did anyone seem to be concerned with the shots that I had to fire?”
“Nope,” Pete assured him. “There are guns goin’ off all over town day and night. Mostly drunks shootin’holes in the sky. Nobody paid any notice.”
“Good,” Longarm said as he dragged himself up on the wagon and prepared to drive it into the back alley. “Wish me luck. When I get to Elko, I’ll get word back to you about the cash I promised, or else I’ll let you know where you can claim these horses and this wagon.”
But Pete shook his head. “If you can’t get the cash, better just forget the wagon and those horses. The last thing I need is for someone to recognize that wagon and horses and tie us together in all this killin’. No, sir, I better just let well enough alone.”
“Suit yourself,” Longarm said sawing on the lines, “but thanks for everything!”
“Get out of Nevada!” the old man warned. “You won’t be safe until you’ve crossed the border on that train!”
Longarm took the blacksmith at his word. And as he whipped the team down the alley and headed deeper into the Ruby Mountains, he realized full well that he was about the luckiest man alive.
Chapter 10
When Miss Molly Bean and Miss Sophie Flanigan, both pretty, strong-willed, and high-spirited young women, realized that Longarm had skipped town along with Deputy Rick Trout and the hated Ford Oakley, they were furious.
“Dammit!” Molly swore. “How could that sweetie Custis do this to us!”
“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “I thought I had him by the … well, I thought I had him figured.”
“Well,” Molly snapped, “it appears that he had us figured and then he just tricked everybody.”
“Where could he have gone?”
Molly put her mind to the question. “He had to reach Elko to get to a train so that he could deliver his prisoner to Denver. At least we know that much.”
“Yes,” Sophie agreed, trying to concentrate on the puzzle at hand instead of feeling betrayed, “at least we do know that much.”
“So he must have either looped around to Elko from the east or the west,” Molly said. “He couldn’t have gone but either of those two directions.”
“He’d have gone west,” Sophie decided, pressing a forefinger to her lips. “I’m just sure of that. He’s probably in the Pine Valley this very moment, going like Hell.”
But Molly shook her head. “I’m pretty sure that he’d have gone east into the Ruby Mountains and then turned north and circled around to Elko.”
“Because,” Molly said, “it’s much prettier.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Sophie agreed. “But there’s one way to make sure.”
“And that is?”
“We can find out from Marshal Wheeler. If his deputy went along to Elko with Custis, you can bet that Marshal Wheeler knows all about it. I just know that he wouldn’t let either of them leave unless he was damn sure he was still going to get his share of that reward.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Molly said.
And so they marched off to find Marshal Wheeler, who was having a very bad morning. “Good morning, Marshal,” Molly chimed. “Hi, handsome,” Sophie said with a bold smile.