“I know that I don’t want to go to San Angelo and find out who’s murdering soldiers.”
“Well, you’re going and that’s that.”
Longarm got a grieved look on his face. “Why me? Tommy Wharton hasn’t left Colorado in six months that I know of. He’s been lapping it up in every saloon from Denver to Colorado Springs. How about Wesley Coker? Now, there’s a man who oughta go to San Angelo. Hell, yes, Wesley Coker. If anybody deserves to go to San Angelo, it’s Coker, and they deserve him too.”
Billy Vail shook his head warily. He had expected this reaction. Truthfully, Longarm had been catching the hard assignments of late, and Vail had hoped to give the man some time off, but the request from the War Department was not to be ignored.
“Custis, I am sending you because you’re the best man for the job. There is no other reason and nothing you say is going to change my mind.”
Longarm looked decidedly agitated by the statement. He couldn’t really tell Billy Vail why he very much did not want to go at this particular time. As far as that went, he would not have wanted to go at any time, but it was inconvenient in the here and now, and especially detrimental to a situation he had invested a good two weeks in. There was a young widow who had recently come to town. A comely young lady named Shirley Dunn whom he had been carefully cultivating since he had returned to Denver from a hard trip into the Oklahoma Territory.
This Mrs. Dunn had been coming along nicely, and he had great hopes that their friendship was about to burst into passion, but he didn’t think that the iron was quite hot enough to strike yet. It wasn’t anything that he was going to tell Billy Vail, however. So all he could do was carry on about the injustice of sending him out so soon on what sounded like a long and dreary and probably fruitless assignment in a part of the country that Longarm found distasteful.
He said, “Billy, you can’t even get a decent drink of whiskey in west Texas. You’re a drinking man. You know how that can affect a lawman’s performance, his all-round general frame of mind.”
Billy gave him a dry look. “Take a good supply of the Maryland whiskey that you value so much.”
Longarm looked disgusted. “Why can’t the army handle this for themselves? Hell, they’re in the killing business. If they’ve lost five of them, their own soldiers, that’s damn careless.”
Billy Vail said, “They’ve asked for our help, Longarm. Now I want you to get yourself ready to go.”
“Well, it just looks to me that the government ought to have some branch or body that could tend to that sort of thing.”
Billy said dryly, “They do. Us. Now you can wiggle all you want to, Custis, but you’re not going to get loose from this job. I’ll give you a few days to get ready, but I want you gone before the end of the week. I want you in San Angelo next Monday.”
Longarm sighed, his mind on the Widow Dunn, wondering if the affair could be pushed into a gallop from a sedate trot. He said, “Well, how have these so-called murders been occurring? Have we got any details?”
Billy Vail pushed a piece of paper across the desk at him. “Read that. It’s the official report requesting our assistance.”
Longarm took the paper, headed by the insignia of the War Department, Department of the Army, and when he was through he said, “Well, it’s kind of a mixed bag. Four were shot and one was knifed. All of them occurred off post, and it appears that all of them were either on their way into town for some fun and frolic or else coming back.”
Billy Vail said, “The one that was knifed in the back alley behind the whorehouse might not be connected to the others. There’s no way to tell. But as to the four men that were shot, each one of them was alone, each one of them was between the fort and the town, and each one of them was killed at night. There’s no doubt that they were bushwhacked.”
Longarm said, “I can see that. Billy, this doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. I mean, what are all these soldiers doing that the town folks would be so interested in them getting on out of there? Are they a rowdy bunch? Are they going around raping the pastor’s daughter? Are they singing too loud in church?”
Vail said, “That’s the puzzle. That’s why I want you to go down there. I don’t know any more than what’s in that report. I cannot imagine the soldiers being a nuisance or a threat to the town, since that’s never been a part of the town’s complaint. The only complaint that has been made officially from the town’s officials, and that’s the mayor and the city council, is that the soldiers are no longer necessary and are taking up space that could be used for grazing and ranching. Of course, that doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense either because the army reservation is not that big.”
Longarm sighed. It was a bitter pill to see the long rest that he had anticipated in the company of the lovely Shirley Dunn coming to such an abrupt and unwelcome end.
He asked, “Well, just what am I supposed to do? Go in there as a deputy U.S. marshal and start nosing around?”
Billy Vail gave him a disgusted look and said, “Yes, why don’t you do that, Custis. And while you are at it, why don’t you run a notice in the newspaper asking the party or parties who are murdering those soldiers to please turn themselves in to you.”
Longarm said mildly, “Billy, you ought not to upset yourself like that. A man of your age …”
“You never mind my age. I halfway thought of maybe sending you in there as a soldier.”
“As a soldier? Billy, I forgot all I knew about being a soldier.”
Billy said, “I was thinking about sending you in as a buck recruit, brand-new to the army.”
Longarm gave him a look. “That would probably make me the oldest recruit in the history of the cavalry.”
Vail said, “One of these days we are going to track down your real age. I’ve looked through your records and you may not be old enough for this job, some of the things that you put down. No … I want you to go in there without your badge.”
“Just go in as a private citizen? What’s my story?”
“I don’t care.” Vail shrugged. “Go in as a horse trader, go in as a gambler, go in as somebody just passing through. Go in as somebody prospecting for gold. Hell, think of something, Longarm. Do I have to do all of your thinking for you?”
Longarm said, “One thing’s for damn sure—I am taking my own horse. Maybe I’ll take two horses with me. I’m sure as hell not gonna ride any of those rawboned hides that the army furnishes.”
“Then you’ll buy their tickets on the train. The marshal service is not paying for any more of your horse-trading deals. Every time you leave with one bunch, you come back with a larger bunch. If you don’t want to use what the army will furnish you there, then you can damn well pay to transport your own animal or animals, however many you care to take.”
Longarm shrugged. “That is uncommonly unfair of you, Billy. Now you are going to make me work to figure out some way to make up the difference on some other part of my expense report.”
Billy Vail looked disgusted. “Get out of here, you big thief. Sometimes I don’t know which side of that damn badge you are on.”
Longarm said, “I knew that you were fond of me, Billy, but I didn’t know just how fond.”
“You can have yourself a little fling with that dressmaker, but you check in with me before you leave.”
Longarm looked startled. “How do you know about Mrs. Shirley Dunn?”
Billy Vail said, “I am in the law-enforcement business, remember? I am supposed to know what is going on. You ain’t the hardest lothario in the county to keep up with. I would have bet long odds that you’d be the first one in line the minute that woman stepped off the train. Now why don’t you get on out of here and tend to your fun and frolicking and get it all out of your system in time to go to work.”