Longarm 382, page 11
“Damn!” Longarm whispered, “Are you sure it was Fergus Horn and his bunch?”
“Oh, I’m sure all right. And there was little doubt that they were trying to make it look like an Indian raiding party. I buried the family and cleaned up things the best that I could. But anyone who doesn’t know how to read signs would swear that Navajo were the raiders.”
“So Horn really is trying to stir up trouble between the whites and the Navajo.”
“There is no doubt about it,” Ira said. “But when I left, I made sure that there were no false signs to be found. I even extracted the arrows from the livestock and burned them.”
“Good,” Longarm said. “I always knew that Fergus Horn was a hard man, but I never thought he’d go so wrong that he’d attack and murder women and children.”
“He did it, all right.”
“How many riders are with him?”
“As near as I can tell there are nine. One of them is probably the white woman you want to help.”
“Veronica.” Longarm shook his head. “I can’t even imagine the state of her mind if she had to sit on her horse and helplessly watch the wife being raped and the entire family being murdered.”
“It would have been very bad for anyone to watch,” Ira said. “Bad to bury them, too.” Ira waited a moment as if considering his next words. “Coyotes were there before me, and they were hungry.”
“I get the picture,” Longarm said bitterly. “Did you follow the trail they made after they murdered the homesteaders?”
“Still to the northeast and Colorado.”
“I wonder what they are after next,” Longarm mused aloud. “I’m sure they didn’t ride that far just to murder a poor family and steal their pitiful belongings.”
“Hell no, they didn’t!” It was Josie and she was wiggling into her skirt, naked breasts toned gold in the morning sunrise. “I think they have a boom town in mind to hit next.”
Both Longarm and Ira turned to her. “What makes you think that?” Longarm asked.
“I heard a name and some drunken talk the night before they left. Horn was on me when a man came into the room to watch us, and now I remember Horn saying something like, “Get out of here and get ready for Elk Creek.”
“It’s a Colorado mining town,” Ira said. “I’ve never been there, but I talked to a Ute friend of mine passing through Holbrook, and he told me that there was a big gold strike at Elk Creek.”
“I wonder if Horn intends to buy some mining claims there or . . . or simply attack and rob a prosperous mining town?” Longarm asked aloud. “With Fergus Horn leading eight experienced gunmen, and given his element of surprise, he could probably pull it off. Then again, he might just plan to rob a gold mine.”
“Only one way to answer the question,” Ira said. “But they got a pretty big lead on us.”
“All right,” Longarm said, “let’s do our best to cut the lead.”
“Isn’t going to happen pulling that old buckboard,” Josie told them. “But if we repacked everything we might manage to make it.”
“How would we do that?” Longarm asked.
Josie replied. “We have six ponies altogether. We women can ride four of them bareback and we’ll make blanket slings to strap rifles, ammunition and provisions on the other two ponies. You and Ira have good saddle horses, and there’s no reason we can’t move a whole lot faster than we’ve been moving.”
“I agree,” Longarm said. “That buckboard has really been slowing us down and it looks ready to fall apart. Wake up your friends, Josie.”
“They’re not going to be all that easy to wake,” she said, placing her fingers to both sides of her head. “We celebrated maybe a little too much last night.”
“I know how you feel,” Longarm answered. “But celebration time is over, and what we’ll be facing next is going to require clear thinking. I’m sure you just heard what Ira said he found up ahead.”
“I heard,” Josie answered. “And I’ll be sure to tell the other women about it, which will make them all the more determined to kill Horn.”
“Did you also hear that he has nine riders?”
“Yes, but one of them is the lady, so that means that each of us only has to kill one or two.”
Longarm almost smiled. “I like your attitude, Josie.”
She shook her lovely, bare breasts enticingly. “That isn’t all that you like about me, Marshal.”
“No,” he confessed, “it sure isn’t.”
Josie turned to Ira, who looked extremely uncomfortable. “Are you sure that you have a wife and a bunch of children?”
“I’m sure,” Ira said, turning away from the campfire and forgetting all about having breakfast.
Except for Juanita, the former slave women were good riders. Longarm tried to force the pace again and again, but each time the ponies began to trot, rifles, guns and other provisions would bounce out of the slings. So they had to pretty much keep to a steady walk, and that day Longarm guessed they might have traveled about twenty miles.
“I wish we could move along quicker,” he told Ira that night around their campfire. “We’re traveling faster than we could have with the buckboard, but not nearly as fast as I’d hoped.”
“You and I could ride on ahead,” Ira suggested. “The women could follow behind.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Longarm replied. “I sure am eager to get to Elk Creek, because I have a real strong feeling that something bad is going to happen when Fergus and his men arrive ahead of us.”
“Then let’s go on ahead,” Ira said. “The women are complaining about all the sores that they’re getting from riding bareback. They’re greasing themselves up tonight and they’re not in very good spirits.”
“They’re probably still a little hung over from the drinking they did last night.”
“How about you?” Ira asked. “Your eyes look like two burnt-out holes in a blanket. You didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“I’ll do better tonight,” he vowed.
“Don’t count on it,” Ira said. “That Josie woman is man-hungry.”
Longarm nodded. “Ordinarily, I’d think that was wonderful. But I’m completely whipped tonight and I need to get more sleep.”
“Then you’d better take your bedroll out into the brush and hide,” Ira advised. “That’s what I’m going to do.”
“Maybe we should just saddle up our horses again and ride a few miles up ahead to sleep.”
“Good idea.”
And that was what they did despite the howls of protest from the four women. And in the morning, before the slave women could repack and catch up with them, Longarm and Ira were back in the saddle and galloping toward Elk Creek.
At noon they topped a rocky pine-covered ridge to look out toward the bustling Colorado mining town.
“Looks like an ant colony that has been stirred up,” Ira observed. “Sure are a lot of white people.”
“I wonder if Fergus and his men have already done their damage,” Longarm mused aloud.
“Only one way to find out.”
“You’re right.” Longarm glanced back over his shoulder. He did not expect to see the four angry women whom he had abandoned the night before and he did not see them. But he knew without the slightest doubt that they were coming as fast as their sore and blistered butts could handle the pace. And Longarm also knew that, when they caught up with him in Elk Creek or further on down the road, they would be almost as ready to shoot him as they were Fergus Horn and his murdering gun hands.
Chapter 15
Longarm and Ira rode down from the pine-studded hills into Elk Creek, and it was immediately evident that the town was in a great turmoil. Four caskets draped with American flags were sitting under one of the only porches on the main street, and there wasn’t a smile or greeting to be found among the inhabitants. Some whores working out of the Red Dog Saloon were sitting on the sidewalk and two of them were crying.
“Hey!” Longarm called to an old, white-bearded fellow watching over the caskets with his head bowed as if in prayer. “What happened here?”
The old man’s head snapped up and his eyes were red and swollen as he glared at the two newcomers. “Ain’t you heard?”
“We just rode in from the Arizona Territory. But it looks like you folks have had some terrible trouble just recently.”
“You could call it trouble, I call it a gawdamn shit-storm!” the old man snapped. “You see these four caskets, don’t ya?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they were four of our best men who were gunned down in that cabin over yonder that used to be the town’s only bank. One was the banker himself, Mr. Ollie Peter-son; another was a bank guard and the last two fellas were just unlucky enough to be inside the bank when the holdup gang burst through the door with guns blazing.”
Longarm glanced sideways at Ira, then back at the old man who spat a thick stream of tobacco at his feet, then wiped his eyes with the back of his dirty sleeve. “Those murdering sonsabitches didn’t even give anyone inside the bank the chance to throw up their hands and surrender. No sir! Them dirty bastards just shot ’em down like rabid dogs.”
“Did they wear masks?”
“Oh, hell yeah! They were all masked. But before they could all mount up and ride off untouched, Mike O’Leary did manage to shoot one off his horse. Shot the sonofabitch right through the heart! But the others all rode away and left Elk Creek busted.”
“Did anyone in Elk Creek form a posse and ride after them?” Longarm asked.
“Sure! And that’s when the story gets even more awful, and that’s why, by gawd, we’re gonna have a full cemetery by tomorrow night. These four that died at the bank were just the start because they’re bringin’ in another three members of the posse that got shot dead.”
“Seven of the town’s men died?”
The old man spat again and his voice was bitter. “So, mister, you just showed me that you can count that high.”
“I’m sorry,” Longarm apologized. “I know this must be a terrible blow for Elk Creek, but I need to learn exactly what happened here.”
“Why do you need to know, dammit?” the old man demanded. “You gonna go after them murderin’ bank robbers and return all the hard-earned miner’s gold and cash they stole from our town?”
“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Longarm said.
The old man shook his head. “Are you loco or just light in the head? That gang will kill you just as quick as they killed the seven that will be buried in our new cemetery tomorrow.”
“That may be true, old-timer, but I’m a United States Marshal and I have killed a lot of men in my own time.”
The old man blinked with surprise and his eyes narrowed. “You’re a federal marshal?”
“I am.”
“Who the hell is the half-breed? Your reservation deputy?”
“He’s my friend and, yeah, he’s just become my deputy.” Longarm looked sideways at Ira. “If you agree to be deputized, in addition to my sorrel gelding you’ll be paid for your services, but it damn sure won’t make you rich.”
“I’ll take the job, Marshal.”
“Good.”
The old man was taking all of this in and getting angrier by the moment. “You got a badge to show, mister?”
Longarm found it in his pocket and showed it to the old man, who walked up to his horse and studied it for a moment before saying, “Looks like the real thing.”
“It is the real thing.”
“But you’re going to hire that dark-skinned fella on that pinto to be your half-breed deputy?”
“That’s right, and I’ve got a posse that will be riding into Elk Creek in an hour or two.”
The old man’s eyes filled with hope. “How many men comin’ in your posse?”
“Four.”
He shook his white-crowned head with disappointment, then looked up at Longarm and said, “Well, four added to you two fellas makes six. That ain’t enough, but it could work out, I suppose, if they’re all damned good with guns and rifles. You fellas had better be ready to shoot to kill, because the gang that came through this town is fast and accurate, and every one of them is a cold-blooded killer.”
“The four coming along to help me and Ira are all women,” Longarm told the old geezer, figuring he might as well get out the rest of the story. “They were former slave women kept as captives at a trading post on the Navajo Reservation.”
“Slave women! Jaysus, Marshal, have you been chewin’ peyote or somethin’ even worse! You can’t be serious, and I don’t think this is a damned bit funny!”
“Old-timer, these women are hard and they can all ride and shoot,” Ira said. “Even more important, they are filled with hatred for the very men that just murdered seven of your town’s citizens.”
“They’re women, you half-breed, half-brained nitwit!” the old man screeched.
Longarm could see that the old man was losing control of himself and might even have a heart stoppage, so Longarm tipped his hat, touched heels to his horse and rode on up the street saying, “Thanks for your time, old fella.”
“I don’t believe that you two are anything but loco!” the old man bellowed. “And this town ain’t in no damn mood for any more crazies right now. Tell that story to anyone else and they’ll shoot you dead!”
Ira trotted up beside Longarm and said in a low voice. “You really tipped the old man over the edge.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Longarm gravely replied. “Let’s ask that man sweeping the boardwalk in front of that saloon over there to tell us the rest of this story. Hey, mister! You got a minute?”
“Sure,” the fat little man in a bowler, white shirt and string tie said, glancing at them as he kept sweeping. “What do you want?”
“I understand that a gang of masked men robbed your bank and emptied out all of its gold and cash.”
“That’s right. And they killed seven of our bravest citizens. Four here in town during the holdup and three more that went racing off with a half-assed posse bent hell-for-leather.”
“And got themselves killed for their trouble.”
“That’s right. The posse was a collection of prospectors, townspeople and whoever else could find a horse and a gun real fast. Hell, some of them just had clubs . . . the poor, dumb bastards.”
“So what happened?” Longarm asked.
“What happened is that they were only about fifteen minutes behind the holdup gang when they all went barreling out of Elk Creek. They didn’t ride two miles before they charged into a massacre. The gang was hiding in some rocks just waiting for them to come, and when they opened fire . . . it was awful. We got shot-up people and three dead posse members. One of them was even the town’s preacher.”
“So the posse rode right into an ambush.”
“That’s right. And when the smoke cleared, what was left of the posse was runnin’ for their lives back here to town.”
Longarm shook his head. “And this happened when?”
“Two days ago about five o’clock in the afternoon, just as the mine shifts got off and the workers were coming into town to drink and eat.”
“Any idea how much gold and cash the gang got away with?”
“Nobody knows for certain, and we probably never will have an exact amount of the loss. The banker, who kept all of the money and the records, is dead, but people are saying that the gang probably got away with at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of gold and cash.”
Longarm whistled. “That’s a pretty big haul.”
“They were a well organized bunch, and they were devils! They shot and gunned down good, hard-working men when they could have just ordered them to drop their guns and surrender. I know that they’ll all fry in hell after they die, but for right now they’re alive, and that’s part of the hell that this mining town is living.”
Longarm nodded. “Thanks for your time and information.”
“You’re welcome. The funeral service for all seven of those brave men will be held at the north end of town at our new cemetery tomorrow morning. Our only man of the cloth is among the dead, but we have a few Holy Bibles, and words will be read and friends will speak in remembrance. You’re welcome to attend . . . You too,” the man said, looking at Ira. “God doesn’t show favoritism or care about skin color when he embraces the souls of the departed. Those good souls that come unto him will all find eternal salvation.”
“Amen,” Longarm said, tipping his hat in reverence. “But we didn’t come to bury the dead. We came here to find, kill and bury the guilty.”
The man stared up at Longarm and then at Ira. “You’re going after that gang?”
“Yep.”
“In that case,” the man said, removing his bowler and mopping his damp forehead, “I had better tell our mortician to have two more caskets made and ready for a second burial service.”
Longarm forced a tight smile. “Tell your mortician to have ready another nine caskets. And you can also tell your mortician to bill the federal government.”
The man started to speak, but Longarm and Ira rode on down the main street of Elk Creek, taking in the town’s sorrow.
“Where are we going now?” Ira asked.
“We’re going to find the dead gang member that was shot to death.”
“Why?”
“Because when the women arrive, I’m sure they’ll be able to identify his body.”
“And we don’t already know it was Fergus Horn and his gang?” Ira asked.
“We know. But I just want to have it on the record before the showdown,” Longarm said tightly.
Ira nodded with understanding.
Chapter 16
The dead gang member was laid out behind the mortician’s office on a dirty old horse blanket. Flies were exploring and buzzing around the man’s blood-caked body, and from the looks of the man’s battered face, some of the townspeople had lost control and kicked the hell out of the corpse.
