Longarm allowed he was hardly against a fellow lawman as he tore out through the swinging doors after Rothstein, drawing his own side arm on the run.
As they ran, Longarm saw a long rectangle of lamp light spilling out across the plank walk and dusty street from the gaping door of the town constable’s office and jailhouse. So he wasn’t surprised to see Rothstein dash inside. But as he joined him near the rear of the front office, he was Surprised as hell to see Constable Amos Payne facedown on the floor, his own gun in hand, with a neat little hole in the back of his vest and a big puddle of blood still spreading from under his mighty still form.
As Rothstein dropped to one knee by his boss, Longarm quietly told him “He’s dead. You get so’s you can tell. Who’s that other cuss I see still twitching yonder?”
Rothstein glanced at the other downed man, sprawled on his side on the far side of the doorway to the cell block, and replied, “That’s Tim Keen, our night man here. You say they got him too?”
Longarm muttered, “Not quite,” as he strode around the fallen Payne and hunkered down by the twitching and gasping kid called Tim Keen. As he did so, Longarm could see into the patent cells, and there lay Bunny McNee, spread eagled on the cement as she stared up wide-eyed at nothing much.
Longarm marveled, “Jesus H. Christ, somebody just staged the last act of Hamlet here with real bullets! Keep an eye on the front door, pard. I suspect they got what they came for. But you never know!”
Gently shaking the junior deputy on the floor by one shoulder, the confounded Longarm asked, “How many of lem were there, Tim?”
Young Keen blew bloody bubbles as he mouthed what might have been: “One dirty son … drop on me … never hadda …” Then he just blew silently popping bubbles and stopped breathing forever.
Longarm told Rothstein, “Looks like somebody you all know came in. Our female prisoner was the target, unless she got hit in the cross fire as the killer was trying to free her.”
They both rose to move closer to the cell as Longarm continued. “Whatever his intent, the killer got Keen to let him come back here to visit Miss Bunny. He wasn’t expecting old Amos to step in on ‘em as he was doing his dirty. Like ourselves, Amos might have heard the gunfire from outside and … Nope, that won’t work. It was all over too sudden. So what if he had the drop on Tim Keen, Amos came in, and all hell busted loose when the killer got excited?”
By this time Rothstein had unlocked the door of Bunny McNee’s cell. So they stepped inside to hunker down for a better look at her body. Longarm gingerly opened the front of her gunsmoke-stained male workshirt, whistled at the small blue hole between her cupcake tits, and decided, “Dead aim. Point-blank. Looks like the deed was done with a .45 short with intentions of silencing her. Tim Keen yon der was shot by the same sort of weapon. Unfortunately it’s as common as clay. There ought to be a way to tell which sort of gun fired which brand of slug, but as yet there ain’t, so we’re looking for a sneaky son of a bitch of any description packing a .45-28 made by Colt, Remington, S&W, or hell, Starr.”
By this time others were crowding in out front. Longarm yelled for everyone to stay back, and muttered to Rothstein, “The bastard could be anyone in town. Including one of this bunch.”
That inspired Rothstein to chase everyone but some town officials clear outside as Longarm knelt to gingerly turn the dead constable on one side. He could see at a glance old Amos had been shot in the back. Unlike the other two bodies, Payne’s had been hit by a more Powerful round that had blown out the front of his chest.
As that dentist who rode herd for the county coroner joined him over Payne, Longarm said, “Looks as if there might have been two Of lem. I got a dying statement from Tim Keen yonder, and he said he saw only one. How do you like one of ‘em acting as a sneaky partner for the one these two dead lawmen likely knew? Say that the visible visitor threw down on the prisoner and young Keen, but old Amos got his own gun out before the confederate blasted him from behind.”
The dentist paced the floor with his eyes closed and decided, “Works as well that way for me. Amos was a tough old cuss. Shot in the back, he still managed to turn and head for the front door as both rascals ran out without closing it.”
A townsman in the crowd who’d been listening called out, “There’s what looks like a bullet gouge high over this door latch, Doc!”
So Longarm and the dentist strode over to have a look. The dentist decided, “Fresh splinters and a streak of lead add up to a bullet to me. I told you old Amos was tough! He got off a round from his own gun with his very last breath!”
Rothstein, joining them, said, “They both did. I just looked at Tim’s drawn gun too. Must have been one hell of a shootout while it lasted. Do you suppose one or more of the bastards could have been wounded in the fray?”
Longarm replied, “Can’t say. Let’s hope so. We could use such a break. If they got away without a scratch they could volunteer to posse up with you and go chase themselves!”
Rothstein looked blank and asked when Longarm meant to form a posse.
Longarm said, “I ain’t. But if I was you, I’d surely consider it. Of course, I’d count noses and scout about for blood-stains by the dawn’s early light before I led one about in circles.”
Rothstein stammered, “I don’t understand. I’m only a deputy constable. With poor old Amos lying there dead, wouldn’t that make you the senior lawman in these parts?”
Longarm shook his head. “It’s up to your own mayor and board of aldermen whether they want to hire someone with less seniority and put him over you. If they did that to me I’d quit. It’s your own local law force that just got massacred, and that dead gal in the back was still your prisoner up until such time as your late Constable Payne could have signed her over to me. I just got here. You know the surrounding folks and country better than me. So let’s not argue about jurisdiction. I got me a mess of wires to send if your Western Union is open at night!”
Chapter 12
Knowing his own office in the Denver Federal Building wouldn’t be open this late, and seeing that Marshal Billy Vail would still be out of town with any luck at all, Longarm wired Henry at his home address in hopes of saving a low deputy and a federal matron a fool’s errand. The late Bunny McNee would keep a spell in that root cellar, with neither of those male cadavers likely to make her yell for a chaperone. He sent more questions about the three of them to all the law outfits at night-letter rates, seeing he could hardly send them collect and knowing how Billy Vail felt spending one whole nickel a word. Night letters were sent slower and cheaper by the telegraph company during slow spells in the wee small hours when there was nothing better to send. The messages sent at night-letter rates would be delivered when Western Union got damned well ready to do so, long after old Henry was told at a nickel a word not to send anybody to John Bull after all.
By the time Longarm left the telegraph office, he saw the street lit up like a Christmas tree around the jailhouse. The shootout had been held just before country folks’ bed time, and it wasn’t as if the dinky town had an opera house or one of those new roller-skating rinks. Longarm wasn’t all that exhausted. But he didn’t feel up to any more free lectures on basic law enforcement. So he headed back to his hotel, knowing he might face a long day in the saddle if anybody cut any sign in the morning. The annoying thing about the doctrine of posse comitatus was that every able-bodied rider was required by common law to saddle up and ride along, jurisdiction be damned. He’d left his McClellan saddle back in Denver, and he naturally didn’t have a pony up this way. But he somehow felt sure Rothstein was likely to fix him up just fine. Green lawmen could be like that when they felt they could use some advice with their first big chore.