Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

“What do you mean, Marshal?”

“Anything like a blanket roll or backpack. She’s dressed for hiking, like she expected to be hiding out in the mountains. I’d think she would have carried some supplies with her and probably some bedding.”

Blaisdell checked with the Arrabie guards who had brought the body down, but they all agreed that the only thing discarded on the tailings dump was Jessie’s body itself. There had been no pack or bedroll.

Longarm rubbed his eyes and tried to get his fatigue-fogged thoughts in order. “You can go ahead and lay her out,” he said. “Or have her buried, for that matter. I don’t expect I need to see anymore here.”

“You want us to show you where she was found?”

“No, I don’t think that will be necessary. I expect I know who killed her and why.”

Blaisdell and the other guards looked impressed, but Longarm was not in a mood to explain it to them. He would, of course, confirm his suspicions. He headed back up toward the whorehouse Jessie had operated.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Yes.” The girl’s accent made it come out sounding more like “Jess,” but Longarm couldn’t fault her for that. She had a good command of a language that was not her own, and that was more than he could say for himself with his few words and phrases of this or that tongue. “Miss Jessie and Sheriff Paul were here during the night,” Rosalie said. “We were afraid. We hid, but they did not look for us.”

“Do you know what they did when they were here? Where they went in the house?”

“Oh, yes. I show you?”

“Please.”

She led the way past the bloodstains where Walter had died and into the office. The carpet had been ripped loose in a back corner of the room, and a barrel safe set into the floor was standing open. Longarm had not spotted the floor safe when he was here before, although it stood to reason that the madam and whoremaster must have had a place to keep their profits from a business Markham was not able to publicly acknowledge owning. The discovery was no great surprise.

Jessie’s gown of the night before was discarded over a chair, along with her dainty shoes and flimsy, lace-trimmed underthings. There was no indication of what she would have taken for supplies and bedding, but Longarm was sure there would have been something.

So the two of them had grabbed the cash and fled. But Markham would have been figuring that a woman would slow him down, perhaps give him away in the mountains where he planned to hide. And of course the son of a bitch wouldn’t have wanted to share the profits with a woman who was now a distinct liability to Paul Markham’s future well-being.

So the shit would have killed her and kept the money all for himself. The man was a first-class prick. Longarm had to give him credit for that much anyway. When it came to making a son of a bitch of himself, Paul Markham didn’t go in for half measures.

“They won’t be back,” Longarm assured Rosalie. “You and the other girls don’t have anything to fear about that again.”

“You are sure?”

“Yes.”

“We don‘ know where to go now. Wha’ to do.”

“You can stay here, of course. Is there enough food in the place to last you a while?”

“Yes. Some food. Plenty whiskey.”

“Just stay here, then, until I know if I’ll need you to testify in court. After that I’ll see if the government can’t arrange to have you sent home.”

Rosalie blushed. “I cannot go home again. Not after

you know. After the t’ings I have done.” She had begun to cry, making no sound but with fat tears rolling down over her cheeks.

Longarm brushed them away with the ball of his thumb and lightly stroked her dusky cheek. “You didn’t do anything bad, Rosalie. Bad things were done to you, but that wasn’t your fault. Nobody back home ever has to know anything about those things. Not if you don’t tell them.” He smiled. “Besides, it isn’t anything you have to decide about right now anyway. Think about it. Talk it over with the other girls. For the time being just keep the front door locked and the men out. They don’t have to know anything either. If you need anything, come to me about it. Okay?”

It took a moment, but he got a smile and a nod out of her.

He left Rosalie and the other victims of Jessie and Markham and found Batson at the Arrabie offices. The man still had not gotten over the shock of Jack Thomas’s death, but he was in much better shape than he had been during the wee hours before dawn.

“I take it you’ve heard about that woman’s body being found on our tailings dump,” Batson said.

“Yes, and I have a job for you and a couple of your people if you’re up to it, Arnold.”

“If it will bring us any closer to finding those men who murdered Jack, I am.”

“Only indirectly,” Longarm admitted. “I need this other business off my back so I can concentrate on the White Hoods. The reason I want your help in particular is that I believe you mentioned having done some hiking and climbing in the area. As a hobby, I think you said.”

“That’s right.”

“Paul Markham is trying a run for it on foot, Batson.”

“No place for him to run to,” the security chief insisted.

“Apparently he thinks there is. Or at least thinks he can hide out long enough for things to cool off down here and allow him to slip out on a train eventually.”

Batson snorted his disbelief about that.

“Markham is the man who murdered that woman. He’s hiding somewhere up there with the money he was supposed to split with her from their slave trade. I expect wherever he’s gone to ground, he started out from the whorehouse and climbed up past your tailings dump on his way to it. He stopped to beat his partner to death rather than have her slow him down. By now I’d guess he’s found his hole and crawled into it.”

Batson thought about that for a moment. “From town past the tailings side of our operation and then on up

yeah, I can think of a couple trails he might’ve taken. And some prospect holes and a few natural caves where he might think he could hide out if he’s got supplies with him.”

“He does,” Longarm said.

Batson nodded. “I’ll find the son of a bitch for you, Marshal.”

“If you can take care of that, Arnold, I can handle the White Hoods and the recovery of the payroll money.”

“No problem with my end of it, Marshal. I’ll take a couple of boys with me, and we’ll have him down in two days. Less’n that, maybe.”

“Make sure your people are armed. Even a rabbit will fight if you corner it.”

“I know just who t‘ take with me.”

“Good.” Longarm smiled. “Before you leave you might wanta stop at the jail and pick up a set of Markham’s own handcuffs to haul him back in.”

Batson smiled. “I’ll do just that, Marshal.”

Longarm left the Arrabie and walked down to the train depot where he found a still irate trainmaster and a bored-looking telegrapher in the office shanty.

“No,” he told them, “I haven’t changed my mind about allowing your damn train to run, so don’t ask. But I do want to send a wire to my boss in Denver.”

That news did not arouse any noticeable amount of pleasure with the railroad employees, but Longarm ignored them and wrote out the message he wanted sent to Billy Vail.

Time was entirely on his side now that the robber gang was bottled up at the head of Thunderbird Canyon, and for a change he had the luxury of calling in reinforcements no matter how long that might take.

Chapter Thirty

Anxiety knotted Henry’s stomach like an acid-drenched fist as he paced the railroad platform at Meade Park.

He pulled his watch out and snapped the cover open once again. He had been doing it every two or three minutes since midmorning. Not that it did any good, of course. But he had to do something to alleviate the frustration he was feeling.

He wheeled and went back to the railroad office once again. He had been doing that every five or ten minutes, with no greater result than rechecking his watch.