And damn near dead all over again by the time they reached McCarthy Falls, the seat of Ross County. That was at four-thirty in the morning, 4:22 to be precise about it, and a light snow had begun to fall. Light as to the number of flakes, that is. But the snowflakes themselves were unusually large, soft, and wet.
Except for one or two falls very early in the snow season, and one or two more very late, snow in the high country is normally very dry, the flakes exceptionally small and without substance. Powder, it is generally called, and powder is what it most resembles. Pick up a shovel full of high country snow and all you feel is the weight of the shovel.
This snow, however, was unusually moist and weighty. If a snow like this intensified or simply continued to fall for a long time, Longarm knew, it could create problems.
“Naw, don’t worry y’self none,” the jehu assured him when Longarm mentioned the weather. “We’ll be safe in Talking Water before anything short of a regular blizzard could bother us.”
Longarm accepted the driver’s judgment, local knowledge being more valuable than any amount of generality, and remained seated while the two whores and one of the lawyers got off in McCarthy Falls.
Normal practice really should have had Longarm leaving the stagecoach there too.
Custom calls for a federal peace officer to give local lawmen the courtesy of a howdy before attending to business within another man’s jurisdiction.
In this case, however, with Sheriff Dillmore balking at the arrest of Cy Berman, Longarm decided the best course of action would be for him to go straight on to Talking Water and take Berman into custody first. Then, but only then, he might consider dropping by to have a word with Dillmore.
A man wearing a bearskin coat—and smelling about as ripe as a bear fresh out of hibernation too—got in to take up the space that previously had been occupied by the whores. All in all, Longarm would have preferred the company of the whores. At least they hadn’t stunk. Still, it should only be a few more hours to Talking Water. Then he could look up this tipster who wrote to Billy, and finally put Cyrus Berman where the cocksucker most properly belonged. Either behind bars or underground. Far as Custis Long was concerned, one would be every bit as good as the other.
The wind-stiff driver and guard, both of them looking like they’d been sprinkled with salt now that the wet snowflakes were beginning to adhere to them, climbed back on top with groans of protest, and soon the coach rocked and jolted into motion once more, taking the road onto the south slopes of Mount Harwood.
Somewhere on the other side of a pass called Goshen there was supposed to be the gold camp of Talking Water. And whatever Longarm would find there.
Chapter 5
It was snowing like a sonuvabitch by the time they reached Talking Water. The big, wet flakes were floating down with virtually no wind to disturb their fall, and at least a foot and a half of the soft, mushy, barely frozen snow had accumulated. Someone had gone to the trouble to build snowsheds in those places where drifts were likely to develop, but with no wind the sheds were not really needed now.
The mules plodded doggedly through, their pace hampered but by no means halted, and Talking Water was reached shortly after eleven a.m., stretching the trip from its normal twenty hours to something approaching twenty-four.
The jehu and his guard looked like walking, talking snowmen by the time they climbed down off the box. Yet oddly, they moved and acted more comfortably now than they had before the storm struck. It took Longarm a few moments to figure out why. Despite the miserable-looking conditions, the temperature was actually higher now, and therefore easier to take, than when they’d pulled out of Bitter Creek the day before.
As for Talking Water, it was about what one would expect of a rough and ready mining camp. The buildings were mostly dugouts or aspen log cabins, which in itself was enough to proclaim the residents’ expectations for the future. Any man who builds with aspen expects a short stay because aspen wood is soft and deteriorates quickly. A man who expects to stay a while will go to the trouble to work with pine and ignore the more plentiful and easily cut aspen.
Even in February, Longarm noticed, there were some businesses with aspen walls and canvas tenting roofs here. It seemed no one expected Talking Water to last more than another few summers. At most.
When the gold disappeared so would all the people, and a few years after that it would be difficult to find any structure standing more than waist high, except possibly for the remnants of a chimney here and there. And even most of those were stick-and-mud affairs that would fall apart soon enough and disappear right along with the cabins they now warmed.
This, Longarm knew, was what passed for progress in the gold country.
As for the name of the town, that became obvious as soon as he stood on the long, narrow street that ran through the camp. Talking Water was situated along the banks of a very fast-moving creek that leaped and burbled its way through a steeply falling valley, a defile deep enough and narrow enough that in many places it would be called a gulch or cut or gully. Or in some places back East, a holler.
Whatever one wanted to term the declivity through which the stream passed, the swift-moving water bounced and bubbled its way over rocks and boulders, and the sounds of its passage left no doubt as to the source of the community’s name. The bright waters did indeed seem to “talk.” And in a most musical and pleasant voice at that. The sounds of the stream lay like a constant undertone all through the little valley.
Longarm suspected Talking Water had been pretty when the gold here was first discovered. Now, of course, it was drab and ugly, and would have been even worse to the eye had it not been for the clean, white blanket of snow that hid most of the frozen mud from view.
Since the coming of the mines and the miners, every stick of wood within sight had been cut down and used, whether for construction or tunnel shoring or simply for firewood. Now only dirt and stone and the leavings of careless humankind would be visible once the snow melted. It was a damned shame in a way, Longarm thought, but necessary. The price of progress. But a damned shame nonetheless.
Longarm accepted his things from the now-friendly shotgun guard, who had long since recovered from his hangover.
“Any suggestions on where a fellow could take a room?” Longarm asked.
“That one is easy to answer, mister. Only one place in town as rents rooms. There’s a boardinghouse upcreek a quarter mile or so. Four bits including two meals. But you got to share your bed, an’ everybody sleeps in the one big room sorta like a barracks.”
Longarm made a face. Apart from personally despising any such arrangement, he knew it would present a problem if—when—he had a prisoner to oversee through the night. Some measure of privacy was needed, or at least of control, if he was going to keep Cyrus Berman’s pals, if any, from posing a threat.
“There’s one other possibility,” the messenger added when he saw Longarm’s disappointment.
“Yes, friend?”
“Me and Jesse have cots in the tack room inside the stage line barn over there. If you can make do with a pallet laid on the floor, you’re welcome to stay with us. No charge.”
“That’s mighty nice o’ you.”
“Don’t think nothing of it.”
“Well, I do. And I thank you.”
The shotgun guard seemed shyly pleased that his invitation had been accepted. Longarm suspected the man would be even more pleased with the gift of a bottle this evening by way of a real thank-you. Longarm reminded himself to bring one along with him when he came to bed later.
“I’m going that way anyhow. Be glad to take your things with me,” the guard offered.
“Then that’s another thing I’ve to thank you for.”