Longarm on the Thunderbird Run

“By God, Longarm, it’s lucky for people like me that those idiots in Washington aren’t your kind of fair an‘ reasonable.” Fahnwell stood. “Let me refill these glasses an’ then we’ll go out to the porch for a smoke before dinner.”

It was after dinner. The meal was long on quantity but otherwise perfectly horrid; Eugenie had not been fibbing about her deficiencies in the kitchen.

The three of them were seated in caneback rockers on the porch enjoying the evening air, Longarm and Morey Fahnwell with drinks and cigars while Eugenie had a cup of tea.

“Longarm will be staying the night with us, dear,” Morey said.

“I’ll air out the guest room for him then.”

“You do that. Then come morning the two of us will be riding to town. We have some business there.” He winked at Longarm but did not explain. “Mind you, take a minute before we go up to bed. Make up a list of anything you need from town. Or come with us if you’d rather. I’m sure Longarm wouldn’t mind company other than mine.”

“It will be a pleasure,” Longarm said seriously. “I expect to have good company either way.”

Fahnwell threw his head back and laughed. Eugenie, though obviously uncertain about what all had gone on between these two men, smiled. She stood. “If you would excuse me then, I shall see to your room, Mr. Long.”

“And I’ll go inside an‘ fetch out that bottle. I think you and me could do some drinking together t’night, Longarm.”

“My pleasure, Morey,” Longarm said. He meant it.

Chapter Four

Henry swung down to the depot platform even before the chuffing, clanking freight came to a complete halt. He was feeling anxious, worried. The damned trip was moving so slowly. Typical when a man was in a great hurry, of course. But this was ridiculous.

In order to get west, out in Idaho, he had been required first to travel east. Out the branch line from Denver to Julesburg, then a seemingly interminable wait there for a westbound night freight, and now finally to Cheyenne on the Union Pacific main line.

He was beginning to feel like he would never be able to reach Thunderbird Canyon in time. And in truth, if he did get there in advance of the robbery deadline, he was still hoping with a powerful intensity that Longarm would receive the message and be there too. It was one thing to offer backup assistance to a deputy. It was quite something else to carry the weight of responsibility oneself for an entire case.

Henry had no delusions about himself. He believed in giving all he had to his responsibilities, but he did not fancy himself a hell-for-leather peace officer in clerk’s guise. He was a clerk, damnit. A good one. The very best clerk he could possibly be. But he had no secret ambitions to replace Longarm or Dutch or any of these boys. Not really.

Lordy, but he hoped Custis would get there before him.

He clutched his grip in a sweaty hand—the borrowed Colt revolver and a small, exceptionally heavy box of .45 caliber ammunition inside the bag were swaddled in his spare underclothing—and hurried to the end of the platform. The engine was still discharging its head of steam and the brakes were squealing their last protest against the inertia of the heavily laden freight cars.

It was not yet dawn, and the platform was empty. There were a few night lamps glowing inside the station, but no sign of people or movement save the crew of the train he had just been on and a single yawning workman.

Henry tried the door to the telegrapher’s office and found it locked. He peered through the grimy glass window into the small, cluttered office. The telegrapher’s desk was empty, his key silent.

“Damn,” Henry muttered aloud.

He looked inside the depot waiting room, but the ticket window and dispatcher’s station were dark and silent. Two lamps burned at either end of the long room, probably left for the convenience of would-be passengers waiting for morning connections. But there was no sign of life anywhere.

“Damn,” he murmured again.

He set his bag by the telegraph office door and hurried down the platform, shoes crunching over the soot and clinkers left by the coal-fired engines and years of rail traffic, and accosted the lone workman who seemed to belong here.

“You!” Henry snapped, his voice taking on a rare note of authority.

The man blinked and peered at him but did not otherwise respond.

“I’m looking for the telegraph operator,” Henry said. “Surely you have a night operator.”

The man nodded mutely.

“Well?”

The laborer scratched an unshaven chin, thought about the question for a moment, and finally said, “Well what, mister?”

“The telegrapher. Where is he?”

The workman shrugged, thought again and ventured, “Could be over t‘ the crapper. Mebe havin’ a cuppa coffee an‘ fresh cruller. Miz Jolene, she has her mornin’ baking done ‘bout now. Could be over there. I dunno, mister.”

“I need to see him. Immediately. I want you to find him and bring him here at once,” Henry ordered.

The workman looked Henry up and down and apparently was unimpressed by what he saw. The fellow was half a head taller and half again wider than clerkish Henry.

“Up yours, asshole. It ain’t my job t‘ run errands fer the customers.” He turned his attention back toward the engineer high in the cab of the huge locomotive.

Henry grabbed the insolent fellow by the elbow and spun him half around so that they were face to face. He pushed his nose directly under the workman’s, having to come onto his tiptoes to do it, and snarled, “I am a deputy United States marshal, buster, and you won’t have a job with this railroad past daybreak if you do not go immediately and fetch that telegraph operator to me. Right now!”

The man blinked again, rapidly, and pulled away.

Henry did not let it show, but his heart was beating at an unnatural pace. If this big son of a bitch refused

“Now!” Henry snapped again.

“Uh

yes

uh, sir.”

The burly workman actually knuckled his forehead before he turned and hurried away into the dark of the predawn.

Henry let out a sigh of considerable relief. He also straightened his shoulders and puffed out his chest just a bit—once the workman was out of sight, that is.

He had gone and done it. Faced the fellow right down and told him what to do. And he was doing it. Why, that was something. That was really something.

Feeling suddenly powerful and peacock-proud, Henry marched himself back to the closed and locked telegraph office and stood before the door with his arms folded and a truculent expression on his face.

These people would perform as he required, by Godfrey, or he would know the reason why. And he would be on the next available westbound. Complete with any information Marshal Vail might have forwarded or any new instructions.

Yessir, by Godfrey, he was on a case and he would get done whatever had to be done. Regardless.

He smiled a little to himself and waited for the night telegrapher to return to his proper post.

Chapter Five

Morey Fahnwell accepted the thin sheaf of large, gold-backed bills and counted them carefully before he thanked the teller at the tiny bank. Then the man turned and extended them to Longarm, giving the deputy a wry grin. “There, damn you. One hundred sixty dollars legal tender. Every damn thing I owe on four thousand head at four cents apiece for your stinking damn totally unfair grazing fee.”

Longarm laughed, but shook his head. “It isn’t me you owe that money to, Morey. I just came to see it paid, not to handle it.” The laughter turned into a grin. “Why, a poor, underpaid civil servant like me, seeing that kind of cash money in hand, I might get to thinking you were trying to bribe me, and have to arrest you for that. You know damn well where that money has to be paid, Morey.”

Fahnwell grumbled and groused. “Damnit, Longarm, d’you know how I’ll feel if I hafta walk into that office an‘ lay money in front of them? D’you know the kind of horselaugh I’ll get?”