He smiled briefly. “We are primarily a training base. Most of my men are new recruits. We work them here and then move them on up the line to Fort Bliss in El Paso, and from there they go on into New Mexico and Arizona, where there are still some Indian fights going on. We’re a threat to no one, so I am as puzzled as anyone about this.”
Longarm shook his head. “Well, this gets thicker and thicker.”
Captain Montrose said, “What do you propose to do?”
“There ain’t a hell of a lot I can do, Captain. I’m gonna hang around and act like I am a big spender just in from the gold country. Try to stir some folks up and keep my ears open. Five soldiers killed?” Longarm shook his head. “That’s a pretty strong protest. Are you sure that it wasn’t personal?”
The captain shook his head. “I don’t see how. The men had absolutely nothing in common other than they were all U.S. soldiers. One of them was a corporal and the other four were privates. They were from different parts of the country. Two were immigrants, as many of our men are, you know. They were young, they were middle-aged. None were vicious. No common thread that I can think of.”
“What about the idea that the land that you are occupying could be used by citizens for grazing and other purposes?”
The captain said, “Hell, we don’t take up more than two hundred acres. You can’t graze much on two hundred acres around here. We do most of our training way out in the country. There’s no land around here that would be considered of any value. Unless you consider that the fort, being set as close to the town as it is, is a valuable piece of property. But surely there is ample room for town expansion without leveling the fort.”
Longarm got up and put his hat on. “Well, I’ll get on about my business. You and I, of course, don’t know each other, Captain. I will be giving you some information from time to time when I have something to report.”
“You can give me no idea how long this will take?”
Longarm shook his head. “Not the slightest, Captain.”
“Do you think any more of my men will be murdered?”
Longarm just gave him a look.
Captain Montrose laughed and said, “Yes, I guess that was a silly question.”
Longarm rode away from the garrison back toward the town, knowing no more than when he’d ridden out. He took his horse to the hotel stable to turn him over to the stable boy. Todd was just coming out, leading a sleek-looking quarter horse. Longarm said, “What’s that you got there, Todd?”
Todd’s face lit up. “Oh, this be Mr. Castle’s horse, sir.”
“Well, who is Mr. Castle?”
“He’s a member of one of the most prominent families around here, sir. There is a bunch of them. This one here belongs to Mr. James Castle. He is an uncle of the main branch of the family.” Longarm said, “Well, just remember our deal.” He turned his horse in to the stable and then walked back toward the hotel. He went back into the hotel dining room and had supper. They gave him what they considered roast beef, which he thought was better suited to making shoes out of, along with some stuff they called gravy—he figured that you could glue the shoes together with it—along with some canned tomatoes and some mashed potatoes. He figured that he was either going to have to find a better place to eat or get some grub out of the general mercantile and start eating in his room.
That evening, he walked a few doors down from the hotel to the Elite Saloon, which was considered the biggest and the best in town. Todd had reported to him that it was at the Elite that the biggest gamblers gathered. He stood at the bar watching the play at several tables until a seat came open at a game where the stakes were high enough to interest him. There were five other players. With the exception of one man, they seemed to be ordinary-looking local cattle ranchers or townspeople in some kind of trade or another. The exception was a huge bull-necked man with a heavy thick face and small eyes that seemed to flick back and forth out of their slits.
Longarm could see the man wasn’t fat, he was just big and solidly built. He judged the man to weigh pretty close to two hundred and fifty pounds. He wasn’t as tall as Longarm, but he was still a stretch over six feet.
No names were given and no introductions were made. The only introduction that you needed was your fifty-cent ante and the knowledge of how to deal when it came your turn. On the first hand that he played, which was five-card draw, Longarm won a thirty-five-dollar pot with three tens. On the second hand, he bought the pot with a twenty-dollar bill and a pair of jacks showing in a game of five card stud. He had made the bet on the last card up, and it had been only himself and the bull-necked man. The bull-necked man had looked at the twenty-dollar bill, and then looked at his hole card and folded. Longarm had pulled the pot in. He was playing contrary to his usual game.
He was being flamboyant, he was talking, and he was making jokes. Normally when he played, he showed no emotion and talked very little, if at all. But then, this was different. He was trying to draw attention to himself. He could see that the bull-necked man didn’t like him. On the third hand, which was also five card stud, he won it straight up with a pair of kings showing, a pair of tens showing, and a ten in the hole. He had won three straight. He calculated that he was up almost a hundred dollars.
On the fourth hand, which was draw and which he was dealing, he dealt himself a pair of queens and a pair of nines. Three players stayed after the first bet, which was made by the opener to his left. Longarm drew one card, as did the bull-necked man, and immediately bet twenty dollars. He bet it casually without looking to see what he had drawn, almost as if he were taunting them. Of course, the one card draw could mean that he was drawing to fill a flush, a full house, or a straight. Or he could have been holding three of a kind with a kicker and just being cute by drawing one card. The bull-necked man kept his eyes steadily fixed on Longarm, as he had ever since the second pot. Longarm could feel an enmity radiating from him. To help it along, he directed most of his bantering remarks to the heavyset man. As he did, he noticed that the other players glanced at him uneasily as if they thought he was making a foolish play.
With a twenty-dollar bet on the table, the man who had opened hesitated and then called it. The man next to him folded, and the heavyset man took a long time debating before he finally pitched his hand in. When the cards were spread, the opener had two pairs, jacks over fours, and Longarm had made a full house—three queens over his pair of nines.
As he raked in the money, he said, “Hell, if I had known that it was this easy around here, I would have gotten here yesterday, maybe even the week before. As it is, I figure that in a year I can buy this damn town, but what in God’s name I would want with it, I don’t know. Unless I was a soldier and was forced to live here, I can’t see no good reason for staying.”
A quiet came over the table. The big man said in a rumbling voice, looking dead at Longarm, “If I were you, mister, I’d make it awhile before I win another pot. That’s four pots in a row that you’ve won. You keep fooling around, I’m gonna mess you up good. Do you understand me? I’m gonna mess you up good. I’m gonna mess your face up.”
Chapter 4
Longarm stopped stacking his chips, leaning back easily in his chair. He looked at the man. “Is that a fact? Well, how do you know that I won’t appreciate it if you mess my face up? What makes you think that I like my face the way it is? It might turn out that I would be obliged to you for changing my face, ‘cause a lot of folks’ faces need changing. Like yours, for instance. You are nearly the ugliest thing that I ever saw. Why don’t you go run into a barn door or hit yourself in the face with the flat of a shovel. That would be an improvement.”