“You didn’t get as beat up as I thought,” Miranda said, taking his arm as they went inside.
“Marshal Long!” an older woman, wearing a pink shawl and with her silver hair pinned up around her pleasant face, cried. “It’s good to see you again!”
“Well, thank you, Mrs. Jackson,” he said. “And allow me to introduce my wife Miranda.”
“Congratulations!” She gave Miranda a big hug.
“Thank you,” Miranda said. “We’re on our honeymoon and heading for Mesa Verde.”
“Why go there when you can stay here?” the older woman asked. “I shouldn’t think you’d want to waste so much time riding in a stagecoach when you could be … enjoying yourselves right here in beautiful Pueblo.”
“Miranda has always wanted to see the Anasazi cliff dwellings,” Longarm explained.
“Just a bunch of old caves and buildings, or at least so I’m told,” Mrs. Jackson said. “Indian stuff, and spooky at that. We have two excellent museums right here in town, and you can see all the old bones, pots, and baskets right here.”
“I’d still like to see Mesa Verde,” Miranda said. “But I’m sure that we’ll enjoy our stay here. The train ride down was a little more eventful than expected.”
Mrs. Jackson clucked her tongue and put her hands on her skinny hips. “Who hit you, Custis? Wasn’t her, was it?”
“No,” he said with a silly grin. “But I’d appreciate a good bath and some Epsom salts. We had some trouble with a man who needed a lesson in civility and manners.”
“I hope he looks worse than you do,” Mrs. Jackson said.
“I expect that he does,” Longarm agreed. “I broke both his nose and his jaw, and he was already ugly.”
Mrs. Jackson laughed and said, “I’ll give you my best room for the same price I always charge you for a single. Ain’t exactly what anyone would call a ‘honeymoon suite,’ but it has pretty wallpaper and nicer furniture than you’re used to. Some of it was my grandmother’s, and I want you to be careful and not bust up the bed.”
Miranda blushed, but Longarm pretended not to notice as they followed the woman up the stairs to the second floor and then down to Room 214. The room was nice, with some beautiful old furniture and a real brass bed with a lace-covered canopy and real oil paintings on the walls.
“Hazel, this is perfect,” Longarm said to Mrs. Jackson.
“It really is,” Miranda agreed.
“I thought you’d be pleased,” the woman replied. “Now, I’ll have that bath and salts brought up at once along with a bottle of free champagne.”
“Hazel, you’ve a generous and romantic heart,” Longarm told her.
“Your bride is very pretty, Custis. Can’t imagine why she would have married a big ugly galoot like you. But I guess that’s her secret.”
Longarm liked to be teased, and he was smiling when Mrs. Jackson closed the door behind them.
“She really likes you,” Miranda said.
“The feeling is mutual.” Longarm kissed Miranda and they sat down on the bed, her head resting on his shoulder, both very content to wait for the bath and the champagne.
Chapter 4
“The stagecoach for Durango and Cortez always leaves at noon on Monday and Friday,” Longarm explained as he and Miranda enjoyed breakfast at a nearby cafe. “it comes in from Durango and stays only long enough to change horses and drivers, then turns around and heads back again.”
“Well, this is definitely Monday,” Miranda said, glancing over at a wall clock, “and we’ve got all morning to enjoy ourselves.”
Longarm yawned. “I wish we’d have slept a few more hours. We stayed up kind of late.”
“Well,” Miranda whispered across the table, “that’s because we made love three times. No wonder we’re both tired this morning. I’m even a little sore!”
Longarm stifled a smile. They had overindulged a bit last evening. “It must have been because we were in the honeymoon suite.”
Longarm finished his coffee, and resisted the urge to smoke one of his cigarillos because they were pretty smelly. So he just leaned back and waited until Miranda finished her own breakfast. Miranda was a slow eater. She was relaxed at almost everything except lovemaking, and then she turned into a spitfire.
“You look good to me this morning,” he said as she finished her toast.
“Does that mean that you want to go back to the hotel room and do it again?”
“Yeah, but I think we’d better go over to the stagecoach office after we leave here and buy our tickets. I just don’t want to run any risk of the coach being sold out. That isn’t very likely, but it never hurts to get your tickets before the last minute.”
“All right,” Miranda said, delicately wiping away a milk mustache. “Let’s go.”
Longarm paid the tab, and they headed up the street toward the stage station. When they arrived, it was deserted except for the stage-line owner, Bill Fieldman, an ex-cowpoke who had been thrown by way too many broncs and who walked with a pronounced limp.
“Well, howdy, Marshal Long,” Bill said, forking some oat hay into a corral full of stout horses. “Real good to see you again.”
“Nice to see you too, Bill. This is my wife Miranda.”
Bill grinned from ear to ear. He was a trim, muscular man in his fifties with a lined and weathered face. “My pleasure, ma’am!”
“How’s business?” Longarm asked.
“To be honest, it’s damn poor since last month when our stagecoach was robbed along with all the passengers.”
“Is that right?”
“y, sure. I thought you feds might even have heard the news up in Denver, but I guess not.”
“No,” Longarm told him. “What happened?”
“There’s a gang of thieves operating in this neck of the country. They’ve robbed us three times in the last three months, and they’ve robbed some other travelers as well.”
“How many are in the gang?”
“Four, and sometimes even five,” Bill said. “They wear bandannas, of course, so no one knows who they are. They hide along the road and then get the drop on our guard and driver real sudden-like. After that, they order ‘em to hand over all their valuables or get shot.”
“Has anyone been killed yet?”
“Last time they robbed my stage, they shot my guard. Didn’t kill him, but he’ll never have the use of his left arm again. I can’t get a replacement because everyone is so scared.”
“What about drivers?”
“I’ve got old Jessie driving the stage over from Durango that’s supposed to arrive today,” Bill said. “He ain’t afraid of no one, but I’m damned worried that he might get mad and pull a gun and get hisself shot.”
“Is there a stage going back to Durango today?”
“I think so. I’ve got a driver—but no shotgun, even though I’ve offered to pay double wages.”
“Who is the westbound driver?”
“A fella named Charley Blue. He’s another crusty old fella that’s been driving stages for too many years to know anything better. Charley is one hell of a reinsman, but he’s cantankerous and he says that he don’t need no shotgun guard.”
“How many passengers are on this trip west?”
“Well,” Bill drawled, looking pained, “that’s what I mean about business being so poor. I only got one other couple willing to ride the coach over to Durango. He’s a newspaperman just hired fresh out of college and his wife is a new schoolteacher. Both are going to jobs in Durango. If it weren’t for that, I doubt that they’d be so anxious to go over the mountains.”
Longarm turned and looked at Miranda. “It might be better if you stayed here. There’s no telling what could happen if this gang decides to hit again.”
“I’m going,” Miranda said, leaving little room for argument. “And I can handle a gun if necessary. Just give me one and I’ll show you.”
Longarm led her out behind the station, and then he handed her his pistol. Bill was with them when Miranda said, “Point me out a target.”