Longarm and the Train Robbers (10 page)

"I'm
listening."

"Blake knows all
about that train wreck."

"So?"

"So he was part of
it!"

"Nonsense.  Milly,
he probably just read the papers.  I saw the Cheyenne paper down
in the lobby.  It was all over the front page, and I'm sure that
some of the local citizenry have been up there gawking at the
wreckage."

"Oh, yeah?  Well
how many people knew that you were on that train with Eli
Wheat?"

"It was no
secret."

"And that Wheat
escaped?"

"Still no
secret."

"Well," Milly
said, her lips starting to nibble at Longarm's earlobe again even
as her fingers played with his big rod, "Blake Huntington was
staying at this hotel during the train wreck.  It would have been
very easy for him to have joined the robbers and then derailed
the train and returned that same evening."

"Yes, that would
have been possible.  How did you learn that Blake was staying
here then?"

"Clarence told me
that they had spent four days together out hunting elk in a tent
camp just before arriving in Laramie late last week."

"And there can be
no mistake about that?"

"No," Milly said,
spreading her legs and climbing onto Longarm as she worked his
swelling manhood into a stiff pole.  "Old Clarence might be out
of shape and a little piggish when it comes to satisfying women,
but there is nothing wrong with his memory.  The top end of that
old Englishman is still in fine working order."

Longarm grinned as
he felt Milly ease down on his swollen rod.  He laced his hands
behind his head and watched as she began to work over him in
slow, tight circles.  The way she moved caused her big breasts to
swing enticingly, and when Longarm could stand it no longer he
pulled them down to his mouth.

"Oh, yes," Milly
said, "with you I can make it, Longarm.  With the others, it's
just pretending."

"No pretending
now," he said, his own hips beginning to move in slick unison to
her motion.

Milly was a
well-lubricated lovemaking machine.  All you had to do was fire
her engine.  After that, she was capable of running forever. 
Longarm concentrated on the ceiling, and forced his mind to
detach from the building heat in his crotch.  Milly liked it to
go a long, long time.  Maybe even, he thought, glancing out at
the window and thinking he saw a hint of light, maybe even until
dawn.

"Oh, baby," she
purred, "you got what Mama needs!"

Longarm growled,
and soon he and Milly were lost in a swirling cloud of
passion.

Longarm slept
until nine o'clock, then left Milly sleeping and went downstairs
for breakfast feeling a little sore in the pants.  Milly could do
that to a man, and Longarm hoped that he wasn't walking
bowlegged.  He ate a big breakfast and bought a local newspaper. 
The Laramie Gazette wasn't much of a paper, but what news there
was focused on the train wreck.  Longarm read every column of
print and there wasn't a thing about him and his escaped
prisoner, Eli Wheat.

Longarm was on his
second cup of coffee when Clarence Huntington, along with a
younger man who fit the description of Blake Huntington, strolled
into the dining hall and were ushered to a table.  Unfortunately,
Longarm was not near enough to overhear their conversation, but
he could see that both men appeared listless and were probably
suffering the aftereffects of a night of drinking and
debauchery.

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.

"One thing for
sure," Longarm said.  "If he had money, he wouldn't be supping on
tinned goods.  The man is a fraud."

Longarm searched
through the clothes closet, the bathroom, the luggage, and even
riffled the pages of several books.  He found nothing that would
incriminate Blake Huntington or in any way tie him to the train
derailment.

"Damn!"

Longarm spied a
trash basket filled with more whiskey bottles, a crumpled,
week-old newspaper, and some more smelly food tins.  Marshal
Billy Vail had often preached that a lawman could find more
evidence in a trash basket than almost any other place.  Longarm
carefully went through the contents, and only when he decided
there was still nothing of interest and began to stuff everything
back did he notice that the Laramie newspaper contained an
advertisement for the Union Pacific, with a timetable for the
service across the Laramie Summit to Cheyenne.  The advertisement
was boldly circled, and beside it were the penciled words "ELI
AND DEPUTY."