Longarm and the Arapaho Hellcats (4 page)

Seeing that the trouble aside from the fire was over, and that men were now scurrying toward a well up the street to the west, Longarm walked over to where McIntyre was just now rolling the fallen man before him onto his back. The fallen man was ­young—­maybe ­mid-­twenties. A handsome young man with sandy hair and a dark sandy mustache.

His pale blue eyes were half open. He was spiffily attired in a broadcloth suit with string tie, an empty holster on his hip. A Colt Peacemaker lay in the street nearby.

The man's ­paisley-­pattered vest under the dark suitcoat was blood matted. He'd taken at least two slugs
to his chest. A bullet hole marred his otherwise handsome face. A muddy pool of blood grew in the dirt beneath him.

“Ah, hell.” Longarm heard the words choke out of him. He knew without having to be told that the young man lying dead on the street before McIntyre was the old lawman's son, Ryan.

Thrum McIntyre's clawlike, brown hand shook as he lightly raked his fingers over his son's eyes, closing them.

Longarm felt sick, his legs weak, as he walked over and crouched down beside his old friend, Thrum McIntyre. The old lawman knelt beside his dead son, the new sheriff of Platte County. He stared down at the boy, his face a mask of confusion and disbelief.

Longarm placed a hand on McIntyre's arm. The ex-­sheriff jerked his gaze to Longarm as though startled, as though just now realizing that the federal lawman was here.

“They killed him, Custis. They killed my boy. He'd just taken over the job two weeks ago. I pinned that badge on his coat myself.” McIntyre turned his gaze back to the dead young man before him and ran a hand across his own, gray mustache. “Now, he's gone.”

“What happened, Thrum?”

In a steady, low, even voice, staring down at his son, McIntyre said, “They robbed the bank. Colt Drummond bunch. Musta just got out of the state pen. I put Drummond away for six years. Came back to rob the bank.”

McIntyre looked at the burning bank. The townsmen and cowboys had formed several bucket lines and were using water from the well to try to douse the flames. The situation looked hopeless. They could only get the fire under control and save the ones around it. Fortunately, the bank was on its own lot, separated by a good thirty yards from any other structure.

“They set the fire on their way out. Someone musta yelled for Ryan. He was walking along the street with the girl he was about to marry. I seen 'em from the café yonder. Ryan didn't have a chance. The gang cut him down right here as they rode out of town. Me and several of the other fellas here in town laid into the bunch.”

“There was more?”

“There was a good ­twenty-­five, includin' Drummond himself. Filled up the whole damn street.” McIntyre looked at the stocky gent sitting back against the front of the ladies' dress shop, looking dazed from the clubbing. “These five lost their horses during the shooting. We pinned 'em down in the shop.”

Longarm looked around. “You said your son was walking with his future wife. Where is she?”

McIntyre shuttled his now ­fiery-­eyed gaze from the stocky outlaw to Longarm. He hardened his jaws, grabbed the front of Longarm's coat in his fist, and clenched it. “They got her, Custis. They swept Miss Casey up out of the street when she was seein' to Ryan. Drummond himself threw her over his saddle and rode away with her. They was all howlin' like a pack of wild wolves!”

Longarm stared at the man in shock.

McIntyre looked at the stocky outlaw on the board­-
walk behind the federal lawman. The former sheriff rose, his knees creaking stiffly, and walked over to the outlaw. McIntyre slid his Smith & Wesson from the ­holster he wore high on his right hip and clicked the hammer back.

He held the gun straight down as he mounted the boardwalk and stood with his long shadow angling over the ­bleary-­eyed hard case. A large, purple goose egg was swelling on the man's forehead, where Longarm had brained him with his rifle.

“Where they headed?” McIntyre asked in a low, cold voice, his thumb caressing the cocked hammer of his pistol.

The hard case looked up at the tall, old man and raised one brow. “What's that?”

“You heard me. I seen 'em headin' south past the hotel, out toward Elk Creek. But I wanna know where he's headed
exactly
.”

“Hell, I don't . . .”

The hard case let his voice trail off as McIntyre raised his Smith & Wesson, aiming it straight out from his shoulder at the pudgy hard case's unshaven face.

“Where?”

Longarm stood by McIntyre's dead son. He had a feeling he knew where the ex-lawman was going with this, but he had no jurisdiction in the matter, even if he'd wanted any. Which right now at this moment, he did not.

“Where?” McIntyre said, louder.

“I don't know where they're headed,” the pudgy outlaw said tonelessly, staring up into the muzzle of the pistol aimed at his face.

“You got three seconds.”

“Please, goddamnit, I don't know!” The outlaw held his hands up high above his head in supplication.

“One.”

“I told ya, I don't know, ya crazy old coot!”

“Two.”

The outlaw was sobbing now as he turned his desperate gaze to Longarm. “You gotta stop this man. I'm in your custody. I'm
injured
!”

“Three.”

“The Never Summers! A cabin in the Never Summers!” The outlaw lowered his head and raised his hands higher, squeezing his eyes closed. “Old Ranch on Purgatory Creek! Now get that pistol out of my face, goddamn your old stringy hide!”

McIntyre said with chilling evenness and menace, “If you're lyin', you murdering bastard, it'll just get all the hotter where I'm about to send you.”

The outlaw jerked his shocked gaze back to the ex-lawman. “I done told you what you wanted to know!” he screamed. “Now, put ­that—”

Longarm tasted sour bile in the back of his throat as McIntyre's pistol thundered, blowing out the outlaw's right eye. The outlaw's head jerked backward and bounced off the wall behind him.

McIntyre's pistol blew out the killer's other eye, and the killer sagged onto one shoulder at the base of the ladies' clothing shop. Killing an unarmed prisoner in cold blood went against everything Longarm stood for as a lawman. But in this case, and for his friend who'd just lost his son on the young man's wedding day, Long­arm was willing to make an exception.

McIntyre lowered the smoking Smith & Wesson. As he turned to Longarm, his face was ashen. His knees seemed to weaken and he stumbled backward. Worried that his old friend was having another heart attack, Long­arm ran up onto the boardwalk and wrapped an arm around the older man's waist.

“Easy, Thrum. Take it easy. Best sit ­down—­you ain't lookin' too good.”

“Ain't feelin' too good.” McIntyre sat down at the edge of the boardwalk, his long legs curled in the street. He leaned back against an awning support post, dug a white handkerchief out of his pocket, and mopped his sweaty, pale brow. “Never done nothin' like what I just did.”

“I know you didn't. It's all right. As far as I'm concerned, anyone asks, he was pullin' a hideout.”

“Killed my . . . son.” McIntyre shifted his sickly gaze to where the young county sheriff lay did in the street. “Just like that, they killed him. Took his bride to be . . . on their weddin' day.”

“I'll get her back.”

“We will.”

“Thrum, you're in no condition. As soon as I get Miss Larimer and her aunt into town, and see to you, I'll get on the trail.”

McIntyre shook his head. He was still staring at his son. “I'm goin', too. Soon as that fire's out, I'll form a posse. Get Casey back, send that whole pack to hell on a greasy platter.” He paused, sighed. “Put somethin' over him, will you, Custis? Hate to see him layin' out there, so exposed.”

“Sure thing, Thrum.”

Longarm went inside the dress shop and came out with a length of dark muslin. He draped it over the young, dead lawmen, and then looked at the burning bank and the men scurrying around it like bees in a swarm. Just then, the roof caved in, and the flames grew, shooting out the top opening.

Longarm turned to his old friend. “I'm going to fetch the two women I accompanied here from Denver, Thrum. Then I'll help those men get that fire out. You stay there, all right? Don't go movin' around too much. You don't look well.”

Thrum McIntyre leaned back against the awning support post, flanked by the dead, eyeless killer, and merely shook his head as he stared at his dead son lying sprawled in the street.

Longarm started walking back in the direction from which he'd come. As he did, he pulled out a hand­kerchief and mopped his brow and mustache. The sun burned down on him, still intense in early September. He was sweating under his frock coat, but he hardly noticed.

He was still trying to work through all that had happened in such a short time. He dreaded informing Cynthia, but when he reached the carriage, he saw no reason to sugarcoat it. He could tell by the dark looks in both Cynthia's and her aunt's eyes that the women were expecting bad news.

And they got it.

Both sat back in the carriage's rear seat, flabbergasted, while Longarm climbed into the driver's seat and hoorawed the ­smart-­stepping Hanoverian back onto the trail and into the town. Most of the men were fighting the fire, so the dead men remained in the street, the dog that had been barking now sniffing around one of the bodies. Longarm stopped the carriage near where McIntyre still sat, looking sallow and jaundiced.

As he helped Cynthia down from the buggy, Longarm glanced at McIntyre and said, “Don't let him join that bucket brigade. He's had one heart attack, and he looks like he could have another one.”

“I won't,” Cynthia said, shaking her head. Her eyes were wide with disbelief as she looked at the dead men on the street and on the boardwalk around her. “Don't ­worry—­Aunt Beatrice and I will see to Mr. McIntyre, Custis.”

“I'm sorry about Casey,” Longarm said. “But I'll get her back.”

Cynthia's eyes filled with tears, but she put on as brave a face as possible and nodded.

“I'll be back soon,” Longarm told her, and then helped Mrs. Schimpelfinnig down from the buggy, the old woman looking around and shaking her head with incredulity.

“Oh, good Lord,” she kept saying half under her breath. “Oh, good ­Lord—­when will men quit behaving like barbarians?”

As Cynthia and Mrs. Schimpelfinnig went over to be with McIntyre, Longarm removed his frock coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and joined the effort to douse the fire. He soon discovered that, as he'd expected, about all that could be done was to keep the fire from spreading.

Two hours later, he and the other townsmen had managed to do just that.

The bank was a smoldering hulk, with occasional flames still leaping from the windows, but the fire was contained. The buildings around it were doused and men were posted on all sides of the bank to make sure that no cinders sparked another fire.

Longarm walked back to where he'd left the carriage though the carriage and the Hanoverian were gone. The bodies had been carried out of the street, as well. An old black man was sitting on a loafer's bench out front of the Silver Spur Saloon, on the opposite side of the street from the ladies' dress shop, near where Thrum McIntyre had been shooting from.

The old black man had one blind white eye. He wore a straw hat, a ­time-­worn chambray shirt, and suspenders. “I took the ladies' ­carriage—­and some carriage it is, ­too—­over to my livery barn on Wyoming Street yonder. Right across the street from the hotel the ladies got 'em a room at. Said to tell you where they was when you got done fightin' the fire, Mr. Lawman Suh.”

Longarm walked over to the ­old-­timer. “Name's Long. Custis Long, deputy U.S. marshal.”

“Yes, sir, I heard you was comin'. I'm Wendell Calhoun.” He shook his head, whistling under his breath. “That was some fine shootin'. Wish you woulda got here a little earlier. Sheriff McIntyre was a good lawdog in his time, but, just like the best of us, he done got old.”

Longarm set one boot on the boardwalk near Calhoun and looked sadly over his shoulder at where McIntyre's son had lain. “I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner, too.”

“Wouldn't have done the boy no good. He was dead as soon as them jaspers come runnin' out of the bank. Just happened to be walkin' by with his pretty girl.” Calhoun shook his head and adjusted his dentures. “Shore is sad. 'Bout the saddest thing I ever seen since the war.”

“You know how the sheriff is, Mr. Calhoun?”

“Feelin' poorly I'd say. I seen the doc headin' for his suite in the ­Arapaho—­the same hotel them ladies is roomin' at. Doc's prob'ly with him now. The doc was out at the Leaf Ranch all night, deliverin' a newborn. One dies, another's born. Ain't that how it is?”

“I reckon.”

“I hope you can save the girl, but I ain't holdin' out much hope. That Drummond ­bunch—­they're jaspers of the first water. ­Low-­down, dirty scum is what they is. Now that Colt is out of the pen, I just figured hell was gonna pop!”

“Well, you were right, Mr. Calhoun. Now, it's time for me to have a shot of whiskey and hit the trail. Where did you say that hotel was?”

Calhoun pointed east with the stem of a corncob pipe he held in his hand. “One block that way. You'll see the sign for Wyoming Street. Just south on that. Hotel's on the left, my barn's on the right.”

“Much obliged.”

Longarm started walking east along the street.

“You need a tracker, Marshal Long?”

Longarm stopped. The black man studied him ­wide-­eyed, eager. “I was General Custer's best tracker up until the time o' the Washita . . .” The black man gave a sour look then dipped his chin resolutely. “You let me know if you could use the best tracker in Wyomin' Territory scoutin' them killers' trail.”

“I'll do that, Mr. Calhoun.” Longarm pinched his hat brim to the man.

“Call me Wendell.”

“Longarm!” the federal badge toter returned as he jogged east along the street.

The hotel couldn't have been missed by a blind donkey. It was a large, ­three-­story, ­green-­and-­pink Victorian with a sprawling, white wraparound porch with several rocking chairs. Longarm had heard that Arapaho was growing, and that more wealthy ranchers were moving herds into Platte County from Texas and Oklahoma. If the hotel was any indication of prosperity, he'd heard right.

Intending to check on the women as well as McIntyre, Longarm took the broad porch steps three at a time. He stopped on the porch as Mrs. Schimpelfinnig came out, cheeks flushed crimson, eyes wide as saucers. Her big picture hat was nearly hanging down one side of her head, causing what appeared a landslide of hair, pins, and small barrettes.