For the next half hour, Longarm watched the pair. When that grew wearisome, he decided to leave. Suddenly Ned Rowe rushed in, out of breath.
"Deputy Long!" he called as he crossed the dining room leaving the odor of manure in his wake. "I found that horse with the broken shoe used in the train wreck!"
Longarm swore in silent fury. Blake Huntington as well as the entire roomful of diners had stopped talking and riveted their attention on the excited blacksmith.
"Yes, sir!" Rowe said, dropping into a chair across from Longarm. "I found that horseshoe, all right!"
"Keep your damned voice down!" Longarm hissed across the table. "This isn't supposed to be told to the entire town!"
Ned's face fell. "Oh," he said, looking around and realizing that everyone was waiting to hear more. "Well, dammit, how was I supposed to know? Anyway, I found the horse!"
"Let's get out of here," Longarm said, feeling thoroughly disgusted. "We can talk about it outside."
"Talk about it, hell! You can see the horse for yourself!"
Once they were outside, Longarm said, "Show me the horse."
"Sure. Follow me!"
As they hurried down the boardwalk, Longarm tried to assess the damage that might have occurred in the dining room of the Outpost Hotel. If Blake Huntington was a member of the outlaw gang that had derailed the Union Pacific Railroad train and then robbed its mail car safe, he would now be warned and therefore all the more wary. If he was not, then Ned Rowe's excited announcement would have little effect.
"The fella that brought this horse in is a tough-looking hombre, I'll say that. He told me to shoe the horse and that he'd be back for it in an hour."
"In an hour?"
"That's right. But I'm not sure what I'm going to tell him when he returns and his horse isn't shod."
"That won't be your worry," Longarm said. "It'll be mine."
"Well, there the horse is," Ned told him, pointing to a thin roan gelding. "He looks damned hard-used, don't he?"
"He sure does."
Longarm went over and picked up the roan's right front foot. He inspected the broken shoe and said, "This is the horse, all right."
"What are we going to do?"
"Shoe the animal," Longarm said after a moment.
"You mean you're not going to arrest the man?"
"I'd rather follow him awhile and see what he's up to," Longarm said, realizing that he had little choice but to explain. "Most likely, he'll lead me to other members of the gang."
"Yeah!" Ned chuckled. "That sure makes good sense. Maybe we can scoop up the whole bunch!"
"There's no we in this," Longarm said. "You just shoe the horse quick and then act natural when its owner returns. I'll follow him."
"But I want to help!"
"Stay out of it!" Longarm snapped. "This isn't your line of work. If there's a capture and reward, I promise it will come to you. But don't mess me up, Ned."
"I know how to take care of myself," Ned told him in an injured voice.
"I'm sure that you do," Longarm said. "But it would just be better if you played your part and left me to handle the rest of it."
Ned didn't act pleased to be excluded, but after more persuasion he agreed to do as Longarm insisted.
"I better get to work," Ned stated. "That fella could be back any time and he's expecting me to be finished with his horse."
"I'll be watching," Longarm promised. "I'll be hiding back in your shop. Everything will turn out just fine."
"I hope this one is a murderer and that there is a big reward on his head."
"Yeah," Longarm said, moving into the dim recesses of the blacksmith's shop.
Longarm waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, he struck a match and saw that it was almost noon and that Milly and Blake Huntington would be meeting for lunch.
"Pssst!" Longarm hissed. "Ned!"
The blacksmith had long since finished a hurried shoeing job on the roan, and was once again looking up the street for its owner.
"Pssst! Ned!"
"What?" the blacksmith snapped.
"Come in here for a minute."
Ned took one last look around and marched inside. He was angry and disappointed that the roan's owner had failed to appear as promised. "Deputy, just what the hell do you suppose happened to that guy?"
"I don't know," Longarm said, "but I've got to be somewhere else for the next fifteen or twenty minutes."
"You're leaving?"
"I have to go," Longarm said, realizing that an explanation was warranted but unwilling to offer one to the blacksmith. "If our man returns, stall him awhile. I'll return as soon as I can."
"What if he won't be stalled?"
"Then follow him!"
Ned swore in anger. "You said you wanted to follow him alone."
"Look, Ned," Longarm said, "I have to go for a few minutes. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He rushed outside and almost collided with a man.
"Deputy Long!" the man shouted, stabbing for his sixgun.
Longarm's own hand made a hurried cross draw for his Colt. He dragged his gun out and fired twice. Then he rolled and fired once more.
The man emptied his gun into the dirt, then pitched forward and was dead before he struck the ground.
"Dammit, that's not what I wanted!" Longarm swore, kneeling beside the dead man and quickly rifling his pockets for clues. All he found was money--about a hundred dollars, which he stuffed in his coat pocket.
"Hey!" Ned Rowe exclaimed. "If you're keeping that fella's money, what in the hell am I going to get out of this?"
"Is this the man we were waiting for?"
"Damn right."
"Then you get the roan horse and saddle," Longarm said, furious with the way things had turned out. "That is, if you keep your mouth shut."
"But what about all that money?"
"It belongs to the Union Pacific."
Longarm reloaded his Colt. He pulled out his pocket watch and noted that it was ten minutes after twelve. There was still time, if Milly kept Blake Huntington occupied over lunch, to search the suspect's room for clues that would link him to the train robbery.
But he had to move fast.
"Hey!" Ned Rowe shouted. "Where are you going? We got a dead man here!"
"I'll be back!" Longarm called, hurrying away before the shots brought a curious crowd.
CHAPTER 8
"Morning, sir!" the hotel desk clerk sang out as Longarm shot past on his way to the stairs.
"Morning!" Longarm called out as he took the steps two at a time.
He skidded to a halt in the upstairs hallway, and then walked slowly to Blake Huntington's room. First he knocked on the door, and got no answer. Then he tried his own key in the door just in case. When it got him nowhere, he produced a small wire device that had served him well in the past. Sticking it into the door's lock, he took only moments to get the door open. Then he stepped inside, gently closed the door behind him, and moved swiftly to inspect the room.
Longarm was still furious about having to kill the outlaw with the roan horse. If the man had not recognized him and called out his name, things might have worked out fine. But the dead outlaw had recognized him, while Longarm could not put a name on the man he'd killed. Even so, he was sure he'd seen the owner of the roan horse someplace.
"Put your mind on the business at hand and stop fuming about what you can't change," Longarm said, forcing himself to concentrate on searching the room.
One thing that was obvious was that, while Blake Huntington might be a gentleman, he was also slovenly. There was a dirty pile of underwear wadded up and pitched in the corner, several empty whiskey bottles on the floor, and an overflowing tray of Royal Crown cigarette butts spilled across his night table.
Longarm went through the dresser first, hunting for some tie-in to the railroad robbery. He found nothing. The top of the dresser was littered with small change, matches, several empty sardine cans, and the tins of other meals quickly consumed.