Longarm had his shirt stripped off. He wadded it into a ball and then stuffed it down into the stovepipe. Within seconds, the cabin was going to fill up with smoke. He didn’t particularly care where the key was—he didn’t need the key. He could go in with a court order and get box 509 open. He began to creep toward the front of the cabin. If matters went right, he was soon going to have company.
The front door, he had made certain, was the only exit out of the cabin. Smoke would come boiling out of the stove and they were going to have to come outside. He was going to be sitting right above them when they did. As he crept along the length of the roof, he could hear a commotion beginning inside. He heard someone yell, “Where the hell is all that smoke coming from?” Then he heard muffled curses and swear words.
Somebody yelled, “It’s that damned stove! What’s the matter with that stove? Somebody open a window!”
He got to the edge and could look down on the ground right in front of the cabin. He put his ear down and heard somebody say, “We’re going to smother in here. Christ, somebody open that damn door!”
It was only a few seconds more and the door was suddenly flung open wide and three men came stumbling, one by one, out into the night, coughing and gasping for air. The first two were obviously the men that Judge Harding had referred to as federal court bailiffs. To Longarm’s eye, they were common gunmen. Harding was the last one out. They were all three bent over coughing. Longarm could not see a gun on Harding. He was wearing a waistcoat and he might have had a shoulder holster but Longarm didn’t think of Harding as the pistol type. He wondered what was happening to Earl Combs. Apparently, they had left him lying on the floor to suffocate. Longarm glanced back at the chimney. He could see his shirt was on fire and in another second it would burn away and the smoke would go up the flue again. He carefully drew his pistol and cocked it. He leaned down over the edge of the roof.
He said loudly, “You’re under arrest. Raise your hands.”
There was a shocked silence as all three men suddenly straightened up and looked around.
Longarm said, “You’re under arrest. Hands up.”
The gunman farthest from the door glanced up. Instinctively, his hand went to his revolver and he started to draw. Longarm shot him square in the upper chest, the bullet appearing to drive him downward before it knocked him flat over on his back.
The second gunman was just a half second behind his companion. Longarm let the man’s gun clear the leather of his holster and start upward before he shot the man. The bullet seemed to catch him just below the neck. He staggered and then fell backward. Longarm was already moving. Richard Harding was staring up. As he fumbled inside his coat, Longarm already had an idea what he was looking for. Without pause, he jumped. He didn’t want to kill Harding, he had other plans for him. He watched the man’s face come straight up at him as he plummeted downward. He landed a boot on each side of Harding’s shoulders. He felt something crunch under his right boot heel and then Harding was going down, crumpling beneath him. Longarm had a very soft landing. He rolled off the man and got quickly to his feet. Harding was lying on the ground, stunned. He looked up, his eyes suddenly fluttering open. Longarm could tell Harding wasn’t seeing straight just yet. Then he could see the man’s eyes clear as he stared into Longarm’s face. For a second, Harding just blinked his eyes, his mouth going slack. He said, “Why, you … you…”
Longarm finished it for him. “You son of a bitch. I’m here, Harding. I guess you didn’t expect that. Now you and I are going to have some real fun, Mister Brown.”
Chapter 11
Longarm’s shirt had burned away and the smoke had disappeared up the flue. Now he sat in a chair and Earl Combs was slumped on the floor near the door where he had been when Longarm had prodded Richard Harding back into the room. Harding was sitting on the floor, holding his left shoulder, moaning that his collarbone was broken. Longarm said, “Where’s my badge, Harding?”
Harding said, “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time. I think you’ve used those very words yourself, haven’t you, on Mr. Earl Combs here? I’m going to ask you one more time where my badge is.”
Harding looked at him. The man was still unrepentant. He still thought he was on top. He did not know what had transpired to bring about his downfall. He said, spitting out the words, “You’ve got nothing on me, nothing you can prove. As a matter of fact, I may have you up on charges; you’ve broken my collarbone. I don’t know anything about your badge.”
Longarm suddenly reached out and grasped Harding by the left wrist. He began to rotate the man’s arm so that he could see the two ends of the broken collarbone turn under the skin. Harding let out a loud scream and writhed on the floor. He couldn’t jerk his arm away because it only brought on more pain.
Longarm kept turning the arm as if it was a crank. He said, “Whenever you’re ready, I’ll stop.”
Harding screamed, “It’s in my valise! Please, stop!”
Longarm let the arm drop. There was a pigskin leather case against one wall. He said, “Is this it?”
Harding nodded dumbly. Longarm took two steps to the case and then set it up on the table. He opened it. It was full of clothes and papers. Toward the bottom, he found his badge. It was still intact. He was about to put it in his shirt pocket when he realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. Instead, he stuffed it in his right pants pocket along with the cartridges that he had taken out of his shirt pocket. He didn’t much want to go into town bare-chested so he found a white silk shirt of Harding’s and put it on.
“Damn, Richard. It seems as if I’m always borrowing your clothes. I had to wear an outfit of yours out at your ranch just before I killed most of your men.”
Harding gave him a hard look. “Go to hell, Longarm.”
“No, I believe you’re the one who’s got the seat reserved for that trip.”
Harding said, “You can’t do a damned thing to me.”
Longarm finished buttoning the shirt and smiled. He said, “You get yourself a good place on the front pew and watch me.”
“You don’t have a single witness that I had anything to do with you.”
Longarm smiled at him. He was not about to mention Sarah to the man. He had a little surprise cooked up for Harding where Sarah was concerned. He said, “Give me that key to those manacles you’ve got on Combs.”
Harding looked at him and said, “Make me.”
Longarm reached for the man’s left arm and the judge suddenly discovered the key in his waistcoat pocket. Longarm helped Combs to his feet. The man was still moaning and looked half dazed. Longarm unlocked one of the wrist irons and clamped it onto Harding’s left wrist.
He said to Combs, “The judge has a collarbone broke on that side. If you jerk on him, it’ll hurt him worse than ice water on an aching tooth.”
He forced the two out of the cabin ahead of him. They walked through the front door awkwardly, neither one willing to give way to the other. Finally, Longarm shoved Harding on ahead, then he shoved them both past the two dead men and around the corner of the cabin. He made them wait at the edge of the river by the corner of the corral while he put the harness on the two buckboard horses. After that, he led the two horses out and hitched them to the wagon tongue. He climbed up on the seat and bade Harding and Combs get in the back. They did so with many a groan and a cry and a moan. Longarm was enjoying it, especially Harding’s plight. He actually almost felt sorry for Combs; not quite, but almost. He did enjoy seeing Harding in pain. Occasionally, Combs would lose his balance as they struggled to get themselves arranged in the buckboard and would jerk on Harding’s left arm, which would cause the judge to scream in pain. Before they were quite settled, Longarm slapped the team with the reins and took off in such a way that the two men tumbled over on their sides. That brought more screams. They had broken three of Combs’s fingers and had made a bloody mess out of several of his toes. Longarm had thrown the man’s boots into the back of the buckboard, but he figured it would be a while before the man was going to be able to walk very far. He had left everything else in the cabin as it was. The judge had wanted his valise but Longarm had denied him the baggage.