“Only on the surface o’ things, Billy. But then I expect you know that even better’n I do. If you know what I mean.”
The marshal grunted. And scowled. “There is an eastbound passenger train due out of Denver at 11:19 this morning, Long. I expect you to be on it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Longarm was halfway to the door before he remembered that he had a date at eight tonight. And no way to tell a lady whose name he did not know just why he would not be there to meet her. Damn it anyway. But this did not seem a good day to suggest to Marshal Billy Vail that duty should wait until Custis Long’s love life was satisfied. Not if he wanted to keep on carrying a deputy marshal’s badge.
He headed for Henry’s desk to pick up some travel-and-expense vouchers for the long and difficult journey down to Texas. Addington, Texas. Wherever the hell that was.
Chapter 3
Smack in the middle of the world’s ugliest damned cotton patch, that’s where Addington, Texas, was. Well, cotton and other stuff. Bits of row-crop bare ground scattered here and there amid thick, vine-strangled forest. Mostly cotton in the tiny fields but plenty of subsistence gardens too—folks growing a few stalks of corn here or a few hills of beans and squash and pumpkin there. It seemed the people in this area scratched out a hard living by looking to cotton for a little cash and to their gardens to eat out of.
This was definitely not the sort of country Longarm was used to. In the wide-open West, including most of Texas, a man could strain his eyes for trying to see to a far-off horizon. Here, with greenery crowding in on all sides, a man could pretty well throw a stone to the end of his vision.
And this was much older country than Longarm was used to as well.
Even as large a city as Denver was only a few years old, and many of the civic leaders had gotten their start as virtual pioneers. In Colorado, Wyoming—nearly all the states and territories further west—there was hardly a building that would have been old enough to vote if given the franchise.
From the window of the stagecoach carrying him west from the river steamer Barlow’s Maudie, Longarm saw elegant homes with broad verandahs and white, slender columns, the sort of house that hadn’t been built anywhere in the South since before the recent unpleasantness. There were business blocks built of brick and stone, with walls where generations of ivy clung. A statue in the public square had been in place long enough to be stained with age and crumbling in spots.
This was country that was settled many years back-at least by western standards—and not at all the raw and ready sort of place Longarm was accustomed to seeing.
He looked out at the cramped town lots and the tiny garden patches and the virtual wall of forest surrounding Addington and, if the truth be known, he felt more than a little closed in and overwhelmed. Claustrophobic, he had heard someone call that feeling. Fancy word, that. Penned in and damned uncomfortable played the same tune but on a simpler instrument. Whatever it was called, he didn’t much care for it. In country like this a man could find himself in an ambush with a step in any direction and be dead before he could blink his surprise over the fact.
Still, this was the country he was given to work with, and he supposed he would just have to get along as best he might manage. And hopefully not give any would-be ambushers reason to lay for him.
The coach deposited him in front of a three-story-tall hotel building. Three genuine stories at that. He walked down the alley and checked, amazed to discover that the top floor was the real article and not merely a false front.
Since he had no better idea of where to stay he figured this place should be as good as any other and went inside to register.
“And how long will you be staying, sir?” the desk clerk asked.
“I’m not for sure,” Longarm admitted. “Could be a couple days. Could be a couple weeks. Damn if I can tell you.” He shrugged. “Till the job is done, that’s all I know.”
“Yes the, um, job. Very good, sir. Shall we agree on the businessman’s rate in that event?”
“Meaning?”
“Two dollars a night, sir, and you receive a receipt for purpose of reimbursement. Two twenty-five nightly if you pay by voucher drawn against your employer.”
“And if it comes outa my own pocket?” Longarm asked, already suspecting the answer, at least in approximate terms.
The clerk smiled. “A dollar fifty in that event, sir. But, um, you receive certain, shall we say, advantages of comfort if you opt for the business rate.”
“Advantages?”
“In the bar, sir. And a, um, discount on the, well, the services of some of the, uh, female … entertainers … also in the bar.”
“I see.” Longarm smiled back at the slimy little son of a bitch. “I’ll pay the dollar fifty rate, friend. By voucher.”
“But …”
“The voucher is drawn on the Ewe Ess government.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out both his wallet and a sheaf of the payment vouchers Henry had prepared for him back in Denver. He made sure the cheating SOB on the other side of the counter had plenty of time to look at the badge pinned inside the wallet, then he handed over one of the vouchers. Unsigned. “I’ll sign this for you at the end o’ my stay, friend. Right after you an’ me go over the receipt line by line. That sound good enough t’ you, does it?”
“Well, um, yes. Oh my yes, quite acceptable, I’m sure.”
Longarm picked up his wallet and put it out of sight. “Reckon we’ll get along just fine, friend.”
“Yes, I, uh, I’m quite sure we will, mister … that is, uh, Marshal …” He watched, reading upside-down, as Longarm signed the guest register. “Long, is it? Marshal Long?”
“That’s right.” Longarm felt no inclination to invite this unpleasant pipsqueak to call him by his nickname.
“I’ll put you in room thirty-two, I think. Third floor rear, and …”
“I see on your board that room twenty-six is available. What’s it like?”
“Oh, I doubt you would like that one, Marshal. It looks out over the street. Very noisy.”
“I’ll take twenty-six, I think.” The little prick was trying to palm off the least desirable room in the place, Longarm was sure. Top floor, long climb to reach it each night and looking out onto a rooftop and a bunch of pigeon shit, most likely.
“Yes, sir. As you prefer.” The fellow handed over the key to 26. And made no offer to help Longarm with his carpetbag and saddle with the heavy Winchester hanging in its scabbard there.
It was a small and petty victory for the little shit, Longarm figured, and one the clerk was entitled to. Since he’d lost in all the other-equally petty-battles.
“G’day,” Longarm told him cheerfully and took his things up the stairs in search of room twenty-six.
Chapter 4
Longarm tugged at the gold chain that crossed the front of his vest, dragging a bulbous and somewhat battered but still entirely serviceable Ingersoll key-wind watch from the left-hand vest pocket. Instead of the customary ornate fob, the opposite pocket held a small and deadly brass-framed derringer pistol. All in all a satisfyingly useful pair of items were linked by the chain. At the moment the railroad-quality Ingersoll assured him that it was barely past three on a sunny afternoon. Plenty of time to find the local law and announce himself as a federal peace officer operating within the local’s Jurisdiction, a courtesy that he saw no reason to forgo here.
With a stifled yawn and a mild letdown into relaxation now that the difficulty of the journey from Denver was behind him, Longarm returned the watch to his vest pocket and carefully locked the hotel room door—Number 26 was every bit as pleasant a room as he’d hoped—behind him.