Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds (32 page)

Longarm didn't answer until he'd finished scanning the neatly handwritten doctor's report. Then he sighed and said, "Poor old coot was cold sober when he died seventy-odd hours later, of internal injuries your own autopsy confirmed. So you're right, a man taking more than three painful days to die, with his kith and kin keeping him company, would have surely mentioned it if someone had pushed him in front of that dray. Running over a man with six draft horses and a load of beer seems an awkward means of assassination as well. But ain't it odd nobody seems to have wondered where all that money might have gone?"

The clerk agreed. "He sure as hell never got to spend it, seeing he drew it out of the bank the same day he got run over. Of course, he had time to spend at least some of it, and must have spent enough on brandy to get that drunk before sundown."

Longarm started to ask what time of the day the old man had been run over. Then he saw the town law had reported it as around six P.m., or about the right time for that brewery driver to be pushing for home after his last deliveries of the afternoon.

Longarm decided such details as whether the dray had been carrying full kegs or empties hardly mattered, since busted innards were busted innards and the dead man's missing withdrawal was more mysterious than what read as his fairly obvious cause of death.

Stuffing the new documentation in a hip pocket with those yellow telegram forms, Longarm thanked the helpful coroner's clerk and got on over to the county sheriff's office. He found Sheriff Tegner seated at his desk talking to a stranger dressed about the way they made Longarm and his fellow deputies dress around the Denver District Court. So it came as no great surprise when Sheriff Tegner said, "We were just talking about you, Longarm. Meet Deputy Marshal O'Brian out of your Saint Paul office."

As they shook, O'Brian allowed his friends called him Sean. He and Longarm were about the same age, with O'Brian about two inches shorter and a good bit broader, with big red fists that reminded Longarm of sugar-cured hams sticking out of black broadcloth sleeves. The man from Saint Paul wore his own.44-40 lower and side-draw under his somber frock coat. There was a lot to be said for that rig, if a lawman worked mostly afoot and wanted that extra edge a side-draw might give in an alley fight.

Longarm naturally assumed O'Brian was there about that recorded treasury note and the death of one known member of the gang who'd ridden out of Fort Collins with it.

O'Brian shook his head and replied, "Not exactly. Those stolen notes of noticeable denomination have been turning up all over this county, and I don't see how I could arrest an outlaw you've already put in the ground for us."

Longarm shot a thoughtful glance at Sheriff Tegner, who nodded and said, "Well, sure we let them bury the dead bastard. There was never any mystery about who he was, was there?"

Longarm allowed he was satisfied if the county was satisfied, and asked O'Brian what else they might be talking about.

The beefy O'Brian said, "You. They sent me to warn you and back your play should a rumor picked up by a reliable informer in Saint Paul pan out. You ever hear of an owlhoot rider called Laughing Larry Lucas, pard?"

Longarm started to say no. Then he nodded thoughtfully and asked, "Homicidal maniac from the copper country along the shores of Lake Superior? Sent away to a lunatic asylum instead of the gallows after he blew up his own kin with dynamite?"

O'Brian nodded grimly and said, "He escaped last fall. Blew a lock with homemade explosives he'd put together from playing-card shavings, matchheads, and such. There's some argument as to just how crazy the man might be. But there's no doubt he's out, and working of late as a paid killer. Cheap, the way I've heard it."

Longarm whistled softly, and seeing the older Sheriff Tegner seemed more confused, explained, "We're talking about a maniac known as Laughing Larry because he thinks he's so damned comical. He likes to leave droll notes when he blows a safe, which he's good at, and play what he calls practical jokes, which he's not so good at, in my view leastways, because his victims tend to wind up dead."

O'Brian volunteered, "He said at his sanity hearing he was only trying to teach some Canadian in-laws about our Fourth of July when he touched off all that sixty-percent Hercules under their outhouse. He said he hadn't expected his brother-in-law to be taking a crap when the dynamite went off."

Longarm grimaced and said, "They'd have hung him if he'd offered a less loco excuse for killing an in-law and business partner after a string of more sensible robberies. But be that as it may, whether he knows he's crazy or thinks he's fooling us, Laughing Larry can be injurious as hell to one's health."

O'Brian said, "We heard he was after you. Nothing personal. Somebody who knows you better must want you dead awfully bad to send for help as dangerous as Laughing Larry Lucas!"

Longarm sighed and said, "That's for damn sure. Did your informant say whether Laughing Larry was out to blow me out of my boots or shoot me down like a dog from behind, since he's been known to do both?"

O'Brian shook his head and said, "We're not even certain of the rumor. You know how they clam up on you as soon as you press them for details about word on the shady side of the street."

Longarm nodded and replied, "I seldom ask 'em how they learned a bank was about to be held up, if I put any trust in them at all. It makes more sense to watch the infernal bank."

O'Brian nodded grimly and said that was why he was there, adding his own office couldn't afford to tie up more deputies unless and until they had more proof Laughing Larry Lucas was anywhere in Minnesota. For as in the case of all that hot paper, tips about escaped lunatics seemed to come in from all over.

Longarm said he thought Lucas was a Scotch-Irish name, and asked if an Irishman named O'Brian might confirm his guess about Calvert Tyger's odd last name.

O'Brian nodded soberly and said, "It's Irish. Sometimes spelled Tiger, like the big striped pussycat itself. But I believe the family name derives from something like McTaggart to begin with. Why do you ask?"

Longarm said, "Tougher to see a first- or second-generation Swede or Santee sending for a killer of uncertain temperament and another breed entirely. Folks ought to know better, considering neither Judas nor Brutus were recent immigrants, but most of 'em still feel safer trusting secret plans to their own kind. Tyger and Flanders both tend to be Irish names, and whilst they did have at least one Indian riding with 'em, they sent a squirt named Morrison after me earlier."

O'Brian nodded thoughtfully and said flatly, "Morrison's another Scotch-Irish name, and I'm beginning to follow your drift!"

Sheriff Tegner, being of Swedish ancestry, said he didn't and that he wished they'd make up their minds whether this discussion was about Scotch or Irish outlaws, damn it.

Longarm smiled and nodded at O'Brian, who explained. "The true Scotch-Irish hail from the Protestant north of Ireland, where they tend to have names of Scotch, Irish, Welsh, or even English origin, since divide and conquer was the name of the game. But now we're all American, so what the hell."

Longarm volunteered, "Folks are funny about feeling less natural when they change their ancestry than when they only change their names. Billy the Kid, as they now call him, started out named McCarthy or McCarty. Then he said his last name was Antrim, and after that he decided he was William H. Bonney. Notice all three last names are Irish, and that H likely stands for Henry, the Kid's real first name."

O'Brian nodded and said, "One doubts Frank and Jesse have been using James as a last name since that narrow escape over at Northfield. But I'd bet money that when we finally do catch up with them neither will be calling himself Gonzalez, Morgenstern, or even Flannery!"

Sheriff Tegner got to his feet and went over to a filing cabinet to break out a tall bottle, muttering, "My breed calls this aquavit. You're not supposed to drink it neat on an empty stomach, and don't let the caraway flavoring fool you. But I just hate long dry conversations, and you two federal boys sure have a lot to talk about this afternoon!"

Longarm and O'Brian both laughed. As the older lawman rustled up some six-ounce tumblers and poured three heroic drinks, the man from Saint Paul suggested he might guess better if he knew just what the deputy from Denver had been up to in these parts.

Longarm brought them both up to date. It took them all more than one aquavit to make it as far as that old cuss being run over just after withdrawing all his savings from the bank. Longarm politely refused a third one, saying, "You were right about them caraway seeds. I'm starting to feel 'em in my legs now, even sitting down like so!"

O'Brian said he'd had enough for now as well, turning back to Longarm to ask, "How do you think the death of this Jake Thorsson ties in with the missing colored lady called the Bee Witch?"

Longarm stared soberly down at the two cheroots he'd apparently taken for three, or had it been five, as he said sort of thickly, "Might not be any connection at all. A mess of folks made withdrawals from the same bank about the same time. The only thing mysterious about that old drunk's death is where his money might have wound up, and I doubt that could be a federal matter."

Sheriff Tegner stared owlishly and demanded, "Don't you boys look at me! I recall old Jake getting run over last Christmas. But nobody never said nothing about any missing money, damn it."

Longarm said soothingly, "I know. I've sent wires about that beekeeper I suspect as a railroad spy to a couple of railroad pals in high and low places. A railroad dick I know, called Whispering Smith along the U.P. right-of-way, might have heard about such a sneaky old gal. I wired an even sneakier railroading man called Jay Gould about sneaky plans to run yet another railroad line through these parts. Old Jay owes me a favor, and the stock-manipulating rascal would have surely heard about anyone planning to lay one damn mile of track most any damn place in this land of opportunity."

O'Brian whistled softly and said, "My boss was right, Longarm. You do know your business, and I'd sure hate to be trying to hide anything as big as a railroad from you. But what on earth could some secret railroad plans have to do with the Tyger and Flanders gang or those missing treasury notes?"

Longarm figured he was seeing straight enough to hand out a pair of cheroots and light one for himself as he was explaining. "Might not be any connection at all. At the rate they've been turning up, those notes from the Fort Collins robbery might not all be missing much longer. I sure wish I knew how they spread so far and wide before being spotted. Meanwhile some local settlers, some of 'em Indians trying to go straight, seem to have been banking on that Bee Witch they admired sending them a railroad line to improve their fortunes. It's possible there was no connection at all betwixt the late Baptiste Youngwolf of the Ojibwa Nation and those Santee or whatever following me about for reasons of their own. Have you ever noticed, in real life, how complicated this job can get next to that of one of Mister Edgar Allan Poe's lawmen?"

The sheriff asked what in blue blazes Edgar Allan Poe had to do with all this flim-flammery.

Longarm said, "In them murders along the Rue Morgue, Mister Poe's lawmen had enough on their plate with this giant ape tear-assing over the rooftops of Paris, France, to kill ladies in a confusing way. But think how confusing it might have been if there'd been even one other monster, or mayhaps just a murderous asshole, killing others in a different way, although in the same part of Paris, France."

Sheriff Tegner snorted, "You think two lousy crooks acting up at the same time are confusing, old son? Shit, you ought to be here at roundup time when the cowhands are flush and the farm boys ain't been paid for the fall harvest yet!"

O'Brian ignored him too, and nodded at Longarm. "Two sets of crooks working at cross-purpose could confuse us all without really trying. I still think some members of that Tyger and Flanders gang had to be worried about you uncovering something about them here."

Longarm shrugged and said, "Hell, I did. His name was Baptiste Youngwolf and they just now buried him."

O'Brian nodded, but said, "Somebody else must be as worried about you catching them at something just as serious, pard. Why would known outlaws who've already tried for you directly send away for a hired killer more famous around here than out yonder where they robbed that payroll office and might still be hiding for all we really know?"

Sheriff Tegner objected, "Youngwolf wasn't hiding out in Colorado when he tried to back-shoot Longarm here. Them two who came after him at Widow Pedersson's place weren't local boys neither."

O'Brian insisted, "Doesn't matter exactly whom a particular gunslick might have been working for, once you see there could be more than one mastermind behind all these attacks. So 'fess up, Longarm, don't you have any ideas at all about someone right here in Brown County having something of their own to hide?"

Longarm blew a thoughtful smoke ring and morosely stated, "I have more possible things to suspect than I could shake a stick at. But I don't know a damn thing we could arrest anybody on! I told you I suspect, but only suspect, that old colored lady pretending to be a crazy beekeeper was really running a railroad survey. That wouldn't be a federal crime. Killing her to prevent or delay her work, then dumping her body in a federal waterway, might be. We'd have to know for certain someone had done that before we could arrest 'em, though."