LONGARM AND THE GRAND SLAM HEIST
By Tabor Evans
Jove Books New York Copyright (C) 1996 by Jove Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 0-515-11861-3
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A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Printing history Jove edition / May 1996
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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Chapter 1
Lordy but this heat was awful, the worst Longarm could remember in … hell, it was just plain the worst he could remember. Period.
Looking down Colfax Avenue toward the gold-domed state capitol building he could actually see the shimmering rise of heat off the cobblestones of the paving.
There hadn’t been any rain in weeks, maybe months. He supposed there was someone who kept track of such things. The thing he knew for sure on the subject was that it had been a helluva long while.
Still and all, there was relief in sight.
The service of routine subpoenas is something anyone is capable of doing and usually is a chore to be avoided. It is dreary, uneventful, and entirely uninteresting work.
But right now it sounded mighty attractive to United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long.
And just as quick as he got to the office this morning he intended to exercise his privileges as the senior deputy—well, at least the most senior one in town at this particular moment in time—to nab the job of serving papers in the matter of the Department of Justice versus John J. Bidwell. Not that the case itself was all that interesting. Not hardly.
The United States v. Bidwell—according to what little Longarm knew of it—had to do with the alleged infringement of right and title to a mining claim. It was all technical as hell and about as dull as the law was capable of getting.
Which, in fact, was pretty damned dull.
The reason Longarm wanted the assignment had nothing to do with the case itself. It was the fact that all the witnesses and participants were in Leadville, up near the headwaters of the Arkansas River. And that meant those folks all lived at something like eleven thousand feet of elevation.
Down here in Denver, at a mere mile above sea level, the heat was unbearable. But up in the high country they hadn’t ever seen a hot summer day. Longarm’s own personal experience was that a fella could damn near freeze his nuts off if he forgot his coat on an August evening. He’d seen snow there the last week of July once and knew for a fact that the residents claimed it was impossible to get garden plants to bear because of the cold nights even through the summer months.
The highest temperature he’d heard of in the town was something in the upper 70s, and the high 60s or low 70s were common summer afternoon highs.
Yeah, Leadville sounded like just about the best place he could think of right now. And if some other deputy thought he was gonna pull that plum out of the pot and claim it for himself, well, Longarm would just jolly well pull rank. He’d had enough of this heat for one lifetime, thank you.
He reached the front steps of the granite-walled Federal Building and mounted them, grateful for the shade indoors and the resulting impression—not necessarily accurate—of coolness that accompanied the darker surroundings.
He passed a gaggle of twittering schoolgirls in the hallway. And couldn’t help but smile—carefully though so they couldn’t see—when after he’d passed he overheard one of them make a sound like she was fixing to swoon, that being quickly followed by a bunch of giggling and laughing. Well, he took it as a compliment anyway and walked just a little taller.
Not that he had any interest in a bunch of high school-age children. After all, little fish belong in the pond until they’re big enough to eat. But a fellow couldn’t help but be pleased when a total stranger offered a mite of admiration.
Longarm couldn’t see the attraction himself. Hell, he was just another male. A little taller than most, perhaps, with broad shoulders and a horseman’s narrow-hipped build. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and a large but tidy sweep of dark brown mustache.
He wore a flat-crowned brown Stetson hat, corduroy trousers tucked into black stovepipe cavalry boots, and, despite the weather, a lightweight coat. His customary vest had been discarded, however, until the damned weather broke, which meant he also had to leave behind his usual watch chain … the one that had a brass-framed derringer brazed in place where a fob would ordinarily be.
Not that he was weaponless. He carried a double action .45 Colt revolver in a cross-draw rig just to the left of his belt buckle. And a four-shot Sharps Gambler in .32 caliber was in the watch pocket of his britches to make up for the lack of his old reliable derringer.
He himself considered his facial features to be rather ordinary if weathered and wrinkled some. But there were a fair number of ladies who, like those school girls, found him more attractive than the average Joe. It was not a situation that he complained about overmuch.
The simple truth was that Custis Long was satisfied with his lot in life. There wasn’t a thing he really needed that he didn’t have … a fair amount that he wanted but lacked, perhaps, but nothing that he actually needed … and nothing that he really wanted to do that he wasn’t able to accomplish. Including, by damn, getting out of this miserable heat. The Bidwell subpoenas would see to that.
He entered the office of the United States Marshal, Denver District, Department of Justice, and draped his Stetson over a peg on the coatrack near Marshal William Vail’s private office.
“G’mornin’ Henry,” he said to the mild-looking but, in fact, bulldog-tenacious clerk who sat at a desk near that door, guarding it as effectively as any dragon could ever have managed.
“Good morning, Custis. You can go on in if you please. He said he has something for you today.”
Longarm nodded and marched into Billy Vail’s office without the formality of knocking.
Yessir, he’d already checked the train schedule and had his bag packed and ready to go. He could be on a westbound up the South Platte valley by eleven fifteen and into the cool high-country air just a little past lunch-time. Right at that moment Custis Long was about as happy as a pig in the sunshine.
Chapter 2
“You can’t do this to me,” Longarm moaned. “You know I been counting on going t’ Leadville this week.”
“Now how could I have known a thing like that, Custis?” the balding marshal asked in a soft, patient tone.
“You knew,” Longarm insisted, noticing after the words were out of his mouth that his own tone of voice sounded more than a mite petulant. Well, dammit, that was just too bad. Billy Vail did so know Longarm was counting on getting into the high country to escape this heat. They’d talked about it just yesterday afternoon, hadn’t they? Or was that somebody else Longarm mentioned the fact to? Not that it really mattered. If Billy Vail hadn’t known then he should’ve guessed. The point was that Longarm was entitled to the job of serving those papers in and around Leadville.