“Their names!” Randy choked.
“You do not want t-“
Randy shouted, “Damnit, their names!”
“One was named Dean. The other was your brother.”
“Is the senora still alive?” Longarm asked.
“Se” Arturo said after a moment’s hesitation. “She lives!”
Joy sprang back into Randy’s eyes. “Thank God!” he cried. “Where is she? I want to see her!”
“No,” Arturo said. “She has gone away.”
“But where?”
“To California. To Sonora, Where there are many of our Mexican people. It is just over the mountains, and I have already gone to visit her twice. She is going to be well soon, but she will never return to Nevada.”
Randy bowed his head and Longarm thought the kid was crying again, until he realized that Randy was offering a prayer of thanks.
Before Longarm went to bed that night, Monica changed his bandages and cleaned his wound. “It’s not a very pretty thing for you to see,” he said in the way of an apology.
“You will soon heal, senor.”
“That’s good to hear,” Longarm said, speaking directly to Randy. “There’s a lot of work to be done in the next few days.”
“That’s right,” Randy said, his face set with determination. “There is.”
That was all that Longarm wanted to hear, and later that night he slept better than he had in months. It was almost nine o’clock the next morning when one of Arturo’s children finally forgot to be silent and awakened him with laughter.
Longarm smiled. He realized that to awaken to the laughter of a child was a blessing.
“Breakfast, Senor Long?” Monica asked.
“I apologize for sleeping so late,” Longarm said. “I expect the household has been up for hours, everyone creeping around and trying not to make a sound and wake me.”
“No,” she said, “everyone noisy, but you snore so loud you cannot hear us.”
Longarm chuckled at that, and took his place at Monica’s table. There were eggs, ham, and flapjacks, of which he ate piles. “I swear that if I had regular cooking like this, I’d be as big as a horse.”
Monica beamed, her face round and gentle as she went to see to her children.
Longarm finished his breakfast, and went outside to discover that Randy’s buckskin and his own ugly black gelding were saddled and bridled.
“We’re leaving now?” Longarm asked with surprise.
“I’ve got scores to settle.”
“Whoa up there,” Longarm said. “This is my kind of game and we’re playing by my rules.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that we’re going to bring your father’s gang to justice without a bunch of good men getting killed, us being among ‘em. Is that clear?”
“NO.”
“It will become so as we ride,” Longarm said, grunting with pain as he climbed stiffly into his saddle.
“Side hurts pretty bad, huh?” Randy asked.
“It’s more of a bother. How is your head today?”
“Clear and seeing things for the way they are, thank you,” Randy said with a smile.
“Good,” Longarm said, liking the spark and determination he was witnessing in the kid.
They said a hurried goodbye to the Sanchez family, and rode away with prayers for their safety ringing in their ears.
“Nice family,” Longarm said, looking back and waving.
“Arturo said that my father came here not too long ago.”
“He did?”
“That’s right,” Randy answered. He turned to look at Longarm. “And do you know what else Arturo said?”
“No.”
“My father threatened to kill the lot of them if Lupe ever testified or named him as the leader of that train robbery.”
“I see.”
Randy’s voice shook with anger. “Can you believe that! My father threatened to kill the children!”
“I imagine that Arturo is pretty scared.”
“Damn right,” Randy said. “Clyde and my father lashed him to a post in the barn and used a whip on him until he bled. When he still wouldn’t tell them where Lupe had gone, they nearly went after Monica and the kids, but he begged them to leave his family alone, and finally they did.”
“They could have a change of heart and return to Arturo’s homestead and carry out that threat.”
“I know that,” Randy said. “And that’s why I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that they never hurt anyone again.”
“We’re going to Reno,” Longarm told the kid. “We’re going to see the marshal there and tell him about that upcoming bank robbery.”
“But why can’t we just tell the authorities that we have evidence and let them take a ride into Helldorado? Hell, Custis, they could even drag the United States Army into it.”
“And a lot of good soldiers would be killed. No,” Longarm said, “we’ll catch them in the act of robbery so that there can be no doubt as to their guilt.”
“Whatever you say,” Randy replied.
“Which brings me to another question,” Longarm added. “Do you know where your father has stashed that Donner Pass train robbery money?”
“He’s spent a lot of it,” Randy said. “Those Helldorado girls and all that whiskey don’t come cheap.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“My father has a big floor safe in his office. I’ve never looked inside it, but I think Desiree knows the combination.”
“What makes you think so?”
“She knows everything,” Randy said. “After Lupe left, she just moved in and took over.”
“It’s not hard to see why,” Longarm said, remembering that body.
“Desiree is a witch,” Randy said. “She is poison.”
“Yeah,” Longarm agreed with a wink, “but we all have to die sometime.”
“She even tried to pull me into her web,” Randy confessed, missing Longarm’s poor attempt at humor. “Can you believe that? She tried to get me to hump her one day out in the hills.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t because of my irresistible good looks and philosophical bent of mind,” Randy said. “She’s screwing Clyde too. I think she’s doing it to use one of us against the other. That’s all that I can figure.”
“She does sound evil.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Randy said, lapsing into his own deep thoughts. Longarm guessed that the kid had a lot on his mind. Like the killing or arrest of his accursed father and brother and the suffering that they’d inflicted on Lupe Sanchez, Arturo, and his wonderful little family.
“You’re in all the way with me, aren’t you, Randy?”
“I’m in,” he vowed. “I’m in until we either get them or they get us.”
“Good,” Longarm said as he drummed his heels against the ugly black’s ribs and sent it galloping toward Reno with Randy’s buckskin matching him stride for stride.
Chapter 17
Marshal Gus Bell hadn’t said a word since Longarm and the kid from Helldorado had started to tell their story. But now, with the story finished, he leaned back in his office chair and said, “Friday morning, the Bank of Reno, huh?”
“That’s the plan,” Longarm said. “It might change, but that’s how it stood when we left early yesterday morning.”
Bell nodded, and then his gaze settled on Randy. “No double crosses?”
“No,” Randy vowed. “But Custis has promised me that there will be no slaughter. He said that my father, brother, and the gang will be given every opportunity to surrender.”
“You said that?” the marshal of Reno asked, head swiveling to regard Longarm.
“I did and meant it,” Longarm said. “My view is that we let them get into the bank and then we slam the door on them.”
“Why wait?” Bell demanded. “If we do that, innocent bank personnel could get hurt.”
“Replace them with local and federal lawmen,” Longarm suggested. “We need to actually catch the gang in the act of committing the robbery.”
“Why?” Gus asked. “You just said that Randy is willing to testify that the Killion gang was responsible for that train robbery on Donner Pass.”