LONGARM AND THE LUSTY LADY
By Tabor Evans
Synopsis:
Mexican cattle are being smuggled across the border into Texas without spending their full ninety days in quarantine. Some of these cattle are sick and are spreading diseases among the south-Texas herds. U.S. Deputy Marshal Custis Long is in Laredo at the request of a fellow deputy marshall to help put a stop to the problem. But the U.S. Customs agent who is releasing the cattle early in exchange for a cash bribe is smart and crafty and catching him isn’t as easy as it first appears. 16th novel in the “Longarm Giant” series, 1996.
Jove Books New York Copyright (C) 1996 by Jove Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 0-515-11923-7
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A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Printing history Jove edition / August 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
“Like hell I will!” Longarm said with feeling.
His boss, Billy Vail, Chief Marshal of the Southwestern District, stared out washed-out blue eyes for a second as if he were trying to see through a foggy window. Then he put his hand up and smoothed down his sparse gray hair, put the hand behind his ear and leaned forward across his desk. “Say what? Guess I’m getting’ hard of hearing. I thought you said something that sounded like you wasn’t going to do what I told you.”
U.S. Deputy Marshal Custis Long looked back at his boss in disgust. “Now don’t start playing that silly old game again, Billy,” he said. “You’re about as hard of hearing as a she-wolf with cubs and got about the same disposition. But no, I ain’t got the slightest intention of having anything to do with any such plan. And you knew that before you brought it up.”
“Let me see something here,” Billy said, getting out of his swivel chair and coming around the desk to stand behind Longarm. Billy Vail was deceptively small and innocent-looking. Time spent living behind a desk had finally sanded away at the rough, weathered face and left him looking a little sleek and a little soft. But even though he now gave orders to other men to carry out jobs he’d have liked to handle himself, he was still the Billy Vail of whom an outlaw had once said, “Shoot, I ain’t scairt of Billy Vail. I very nearly come close to makin’ him tell me twice to drop my gun.”
And Longarm knew it. He also knew what Billy was up to as he stood behind his deputy and put his head down on Longarm’s left shoulder. “Just want to get round here,” he said, “and get your perspective on the matter.”
Longarm gave him a disgusted look even if he couldn’t see it. “Damnit, Billy, this ain’t necessary.”
“Aw, yeah it is,” the chief marshal insisted. “I figured, judging by what you said, that we had different views on the matter. So I come around here to see what you see. Wait!” Billy pointed to something with his finger. “What is that on that desk? That little board-like thing. See it there?”
Longarm grimaced. “I see it, Billy. Will you just go to hell once and for all?”
“Look what that sign says. What does it say?”
“You know damn good and well what it says. Damnit, Billy, you may be the orneriest old sonofabitch ever walked the face of the earth, and I think you’re getting worse.”
“Wait!” Billy Vail said again. He squinted. “These old eyes of mine ain’t so good no more, but it appears I can make out what that little piece of wood says. Says ‘Chief Marshal’ on it. What do you think about that? Chief Marshal! That’s the boss, ain’t it?”
Longarm said tiredly, “You will do this, won’t you, Billy? Ain’t no way you’re going to stop, is there?”
Billy Vail straightened up. “There’s just the one more thing,” he said. “As I recollect, you are a deputy U.S. marshal. That’s not as high up as a chief marshal, is it?”
Longarm set his mouth, folded his arms, and stared straight ahead. Billy Vail went back behind his desk and sat in his wooden swivel chair with the big leather pad on the seat. “Now,” he said, “as near as I can figure from all this, I am the one who gives the orders and you are the one who takes them. Is that about the way it falls out?”
“Go to hell, Billy,” Longarm replied. “I ain’t working with him and that is my last word.”
Billy Vail’s pale blue eyes suddenly sharpened. “Oh? You handing in your resignation, are you?”
Longarm raised both arms over his head in frustration. “Damnit,” he said, “you don’t know Austin Davis. He’s a damn smart aleck is what he is and he irritates the hell out of me. He’s got such an opinion of himself I’d like to buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he’s worth. I’d get rich. Billy, just let me go down to Texas and handle that job by myself. I don’t want to work with Austin Davis! Hell, he ain’t been a deputy marshal much over six months.”
Billy Vail sat and studied his deputy. Where Billy was small and rounded, Longarm was tall and heavy in the shoulders and arms and hands. His face said he could have been pushing past 40, but the easy, powerful grace of his body suggested a younger age. All of him said hard and determined and resourceful. He had gotten the nickname Longarm some years past, partly because his last name was Long, but mainly because it was known among those on the other side of the law that you couldn’t run far enough to escape Custis Long. An outlaw once said, “I was buried so deep in the badlands of New Mexico that I swear my Maker couldn’t have found me and, first thing I knowed, here come Custis Long sticking that long arm of the law of his in there and plucking me out of the back of a cave.”
Longarm worked with other men, sometimes willingly, but more often with no enthusiasm. He was a loner who did not like to consult with others about his plans and his decisions. But now, worse than just working with anybody, Billy Vail wanted him to work with that tall talker from Texas, Austin Davis. He said again, “Let me do the job on my own, Billy. Or give me somebody else.”
Billy Vail turned and looked out the window of his office in downtown Denver. “Hell, Custis,” he said, “you worked with the man before. You deputized him your ownself. And it was you recommended he apply to the U.S. Marshal Service.” He wheeled back around in his chair. “Ain’t that a fact?”
Longarm looked away. “Yes, but-“
“Ain’t no buts about it. In the first place, it’s Davis who brought this matter to my attention. He’s done some good work getting depositions from Texas cattlemen who have been affected by them Mexican herds. He’s done most of the spadework already. And, besides, he knows the Tex-Mex border better than anybody else I got.” Longarm said very softly, “So he claims.”