When he had the two horses tied up at the hitch rack, he stepped up onto the boardwalk and crossed to the door of the sheriff’s office. Without knocking, he went inside and found a medium-sized man with dark hair standing beside a potbellied stove and pouring coffee from a battered old pot into a chipped china cup. The man finished his task, set the pot back on the stove, and laid aside the piece of leather he had used to grip the handle, then turned to Longarm with a nod. “Evening,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “You the law hereabouts?” asked Longarm.

  “That’s right. I’m Sheriff Holmes.”

  “Name’s Custis Long, U.S. deputy marshal out of Denver.”

  Holding his coffee cup in his left hand, Holmes stepped forward and extended his right. “Glad to meet you, Marshal,” he said as he shook hands with Longarm. “I take it your business has brought you here to Tucumcari?”

  “That’s right.” Longarm decided Holmes looked like an honest man, so he went on. “I’m looking for a young woman who disappeared from Denver. Have you seen her?” He took the photograph from his pocket and showed it to Holmes.

  The local lawman studied it, a frown creasing his forehead as he did so. “Something about her seems familiar,” he said, “but I can’t quite place her....”

  “Did you happen to see the stage from Raton come in a couple of days ago?”

  Holmes snapped his fingers. “That’s it! She was on the stage.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m certain,” Holmes said with a nod. “I make it my business to watch the stage come in every time I can, so I can keep track of any strangers getting off. Tucumcari can be a pretty rough place sometimes, so I try to stay one step ahead of trouble when I can.” Holmes sipped from the cup of coffee.

  Longarm noted the width of the sheriff’s shoulders and the easy grace with which he moved, and decided that the man’s mild appearance was deceiving. He imagined Holmes could be every bit as rough as anybody else in Tucumcari when he had to.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where this young lady went when she got off the stage, would you?” he asked.

  Holmes shook his head. “I didn’t say she got off the stage. Well, actually, she did, but only to go into the station for a few minutes. Then she got back on the coach, and she was in it when it rolled out of here a few minutes later.”

  Longarm’s jaw tightened, and he couldn’t stop himself from saying a clipped, “Damn.”

  Holmes studied him shrewdly. “I reckon you must’ve been hoping you’d catch up to her here.”

  “That would have been the easiest,” admitted Longarm. “Looks like I’ve still got some riding to do.”

  “You say this young woman disappeared from Denver. She must’ve done it on her own, because she sure didn’t look like anybody was forcing her to do anything.”

  Longarm shrugged. “Right now, I’m not over sure of anything where this case is concerned.”

  “Is she a criminal?”

  “Not that I know of,” Longarm answered honestly. “I just want to catch up to her and ask her some questions.”

  “I’ve got one for you, Marshal. How about a cup of coffee ? You look like you could use it.”

  Longarm grinned tiredly. “I reckon I could at that. Much obliged.”

  When Holmes had poured the coffee for him, Longarm sat down on an old divan with busted springs and sipped the strong, black brew. Holmes settled down behind the desk. He was obviously curious about Longarm’s assignment, but he was reluctant to pry into another star packer’s business.

  “Where does the stage road go from here?” Longarm asked.

  “Down along the border between New Mexico and Texas, past the Guadalupes, then into the Davis Mountains and on to the Big Bend.”

  “In other words, a whole heap of nothing.”

  Holmes chuckled. “Yep, that’s about right. But it connects with the Butterfield line there in West Texas, so folks can get just about anywhere from there.”

  In other words, Nora was still ahead of Longarm, and there was no way of knowing which direction she would go next.

  “Well, I’m obliged for the coffee and the information,” said Longarm after he had drained the last of the scalding liquid from the cup. “I’ll grab a bite to eat and then push on.”

  Holmes frowned. “No offense, Marshal, but you already look like you’ve been rode hard and put up wet. And you were limping a little when you came in here. You might ought to put up at the hotel and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Longarm shook his head. “Afraid I don’t have time for that, no matter how good it sounds. I’ve got to catch up to that stagecoach.”

  “Because that’s the job.”

  “Because that’s the job,” agreed Longarm.

  Holmes nodded, clearly understanding what Longarm meant. “All right then. Good luck to you.” He stood up and shook hands again.

  Longarm paused before leaving the office and asked, “Say, you haven’t seen a stranger in town today, have you? Tall, slender gent with a big hat and a long coat?”

  “Can’t say as I have.”

  “What about a gal about this tall?” Longarm held out a hand to approximate Emily Toplin’s height. “Young, brown hair, pretty in the sort of way you’d want a gal to be if you were taking her to meet your mama.” And damned cold-blooded to boot, he thought, but kept that to himself.

  Again Holmes shook his head. “Doesn’t sound like anybody I know right off hand. There aren’t that many pretty young girls in this town. You know how it is out here on the frontier.”

  Longarm nodded. Once you got out of the big cities, young, attractive women were always in short supply. That was why the soiled doves in small towns were usually long in the tooth—when they had any teeth left at all.

  He hadn’t really expected Emily Toplin to come after him, Longarm mused as he left the sheriff’s office. But he supposed it was possible. As for the bushwhacker who had tried for him in Ashcroft, that gent could be just about anywhere. And knowing that made Longarm a mite tense as he took his horses to a livery stable for food and water and a rub-down, then walked along Tucumcari’s main street in search of a hash house where he could grab a surrounding before riding out again.

  No gunfire came out of the shadows. Longarm had a steak fried up by a Chinaman in a narrow little cafe and topped off with a mound of fried potatoes. He reclaimed the horses from the stable, flipped a coin to the bandy-legged hostler who had cared for them, then rode out of Tucumcari, once again following the stage road by the light of the stars and the newly risen moon.

  He wasn’t sure how much of a lead the stagecoach still had on him, or how far Nora Canady intended to ride it, or why people had been trying to kill him. He wasn’t sure of much of anything except that he was tired and his balls still hurt some. But as he rode south that night, and the next day, and the night and day after that, he knew that he was getting farther and farther away from anywhere that a young woman such as Nora would normally want to be. Whatever had caused her to leave Denver must have been pretty urgent, especially since it had kept her running for such a long way.

  Longarm didn’t sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time, and then only when he was so tired he found himself dozing off in the saddle. He imagined the vast prairie over which he rode as a map on brown parchment, and he could see his progress marked on it as a dotted line, stretching ever southward toward Texas. Surely, the way he was pushing himself, sooner or later he would catch up to that stagecoach.

  He stopped at every way station and asked about Nora, just to make certain she hadn’t gotten off at one of them. The hostlers who ran the stations remembered her, all right—men stuck out in the middle of nowhere tended to remember the infrequent pretty girl they encountered—but all of them told Longarm that Nora had moved on with the stage, not doing any more than getting out of the coach for a few minutes to stretch her legs.

  A range of mountains began to loom to the west. Longarm recognized them as the Sacramentos. When those peaks petered out, they were soon replaced by the Guadalupes, which were dominated by Guadalupe Peak itself and a particularly rugged-looking mountain known as El Capitan that was almost as tall. When Longarm saw them off to his right, he knew he had crossed the border. He was in Texas now.

  But the plains around him didn’t change any. They were still flat, virtually treeless except for a few scrubby mesquites, and covered with short but hardy grass that grew from the sandy soil. This was poor country for ranching, but on the other hand, that was about all it was good for. It just took a lot of range to support very many cows.

  The sun was overhead, blazing down mercilessly at midday, when Longarm stopped at a way station and asked his usual questions about Nora and the coach that was carrying her.

  “Yes, sir, she was here,” the boy who was running the place told him. He was no more than seventeen, sunburned and carrot-topped. “A mighty pretty lady. She ate breakfast here, though I wished I’d had somethin’ better to offer her than beans.”

  Longarm was standing beside the horses while they drank from the station’s trough. “She ate breakfast, you say. Was that yesterday morning?”

  “Naw, this mornin’.”

  Longarm was stretching, trying to ease sore back muscles. He stiffened again in surprise at what the young hostler had said. “Are you sure of that?” Just the day before, he had still been more than twenty-four hours behind the coach.

  “Yep. The coach was way behind schedule. Busted an axle up north of here, the jehu said, and he like to never got it fixed good enough to drive. Had to limp on in here, and the passengers spent the night whilst the driver and me got that axle replaced. The one we put on there had a crack in it too, but it wasn’t busted clear through. Wrapped some tin around it, so it ought to hold up all right, as long as the driver don’t take it too fast.” The talkative youngster shook his head. “Sure goin’ to play hell with the schedule, though.”

  Longarm nodded. He had finally had some good luck. Impatiently, he waited for the water in the trough to settle after the horses got through drinking, then filled his canteens. “Much obliged for the water ... and the information.”

  “You bet. Come back any time, mister.”

  Not unless he had to, thought Longarm. This was mighty unappealing country.

  But for the first time in several days, he felt some excitement because he was closing in on his quarry, and that seemed to communicate itself to the dun. The horse stepped along lively, and so did the buckskin as Longarm led it. With any luck, he might come up on the stagecoach tomorrow, or possibly even today.

  The thought that he might have some answers before the sun went down made him lean forward a little in anticipation.

  The heat got worse—but what else could you expect from West Texas in the summertime? Longarm mopped sweat from his face, gave the horses a short rest whenever he could, and pushed on through the afternoon. He stopped at another way station and found that the stage, traveling slowly as the redheaded youngster had said that it would have to, was only about an hour ahead of him now. His horses were getting tired, but Longarm urged them on and they responded.

  The terrain took on a little more of a rolling nature. From the top of one of the little hills, Longarm spotted dust rising ahead of him. A thrill shot through him. More than likely, that dust was being kicked up by the hooves of the team and the wheels of the coach. He flapped the reins and clucked to the dun to prod it into a faster gait, and although the horse turned its head enough to give him a walleyed look, it broke into a run.

  Longarm kept an eye on the dust rising into the brassy blue sky ahead of him. The distance between him and it was steadily closing, when suddenly the dust cloud disappeared. The coach must have stopped moving. If that was the case, the hot Texas wind would quickly dissipate the dust. Maybe the stagecoach had reached another way station and halted for a change of teams.

  But that wasn’t the case, Longarm saw as he topped the crest of another small rise and looked out across a mesquite-dotted flat in front of him. He reined in and narrowed his eyes in a squint, wishing that he had a pair of field glasses. Even without such an aid, he could see that the stagecoach had stopped in the middle of nowhere. There was no way station, no settlement, no signs of civilization at all. Only the coach, sitting there in the road.

  And the men on horseback sitting around it, pointing guns at the driver, who had his hands in the air over his head.

  Longarm said, “Oh, hell!”

  The stagecoach carrying Nora Canady was being held up by outlaws.

  Chapter 9

  Even as that realization hit him, Longarm dropped the reins of the buckskin, jammed his heels into the flanks of the dun, and grabbed the stock of his Winchester as the horse lunged forward in a gallop.

  Chances were, the outlaws would just steal the mail pouch, rob the passengers of any valuables, and ride off. But you could never tell what might happen in such a tense situation. One of the passengers might foolishly decide to fight back, or the driver could try to make a play, or one of the owlhoots might start shooting just for the hell of it.... The important thing was, Nora could be in danger.

  He was too far away to have an effect on the outcome of the robbery, Longarm realized sickly. The outlaws’ horses were already milling around, as if the gang was getting ready to ride off. Longarm saw several figures standing beside the coach, one of them a woman. Suddenly, one of the outlaws spurred his horse closer to her and bent over. Longarm was too far away to hear the scream she must have let out as the desperado wrapped his arm around her and jerked her off her feet, but the terrified cry echoed in his imagination. The hat the woman was wearing came off as the outlaw swung her onto the horse in front of him. Late afternoon sunlight flashed on long, honey-blond hair as it spilled free.

  Longarm turned the air around his head blue with curses as he rode desperately toward the scene of the holdup. The outlaws were grabbing Nora, most likely to take her with them as a hostage. She was actually being kidnapped this time.

  Longarm yanked the dun to a stop and brought the Winchester to his shoulder. He fired, deliberately aiming wide of the stagecoach and the men on horseback around it. He couldn’t risk trying to shoot any of the outlaws, not while Nora was their prisoner and might get hit by a stray slug, but maybe he could spook the man who was holding her and give her a chance to slip away.

  That didn’t prove to be the case. The outlaws wheeled their horses and broke into a gallop that carried them away from the stage road to the east. Longarm slid the rifle back into its sheath. There was no point in throwing lead after them, not at this range. He heeled the dun into motion again.

  Instead of following the outlaws directly, he rode on to the stopped stagecoach instead. It had occurred to him that maybe the woman the owlhoots had snatched hadn’t been Nora. There could have been more than one woman on the coach, although he hadn’t heard anything about that at any of the stations where he had stopped. He had to be sure, though, before he took off after the outlaws.

  The middle-aged driver was waiting, along with three passengers, all men, when Longarm rode up. “Wish you’d happened along a mite sooner, mister,” the driver called up to him. “You might’ve spooked those bastards ’fore they cleaned us out.”

  Two of the passengers appeared to be salesmen, while the third had the look of a cattleman. Longarm said to them, “That woman who was carried off, do any of you know her name?”

  The question took them by surprise, but the rancher said, “I believe she told us her name was Cassidy.”

  “That’s right,” added one of the drummers. “Miss Nora Cassidy.”

  The other drummer said, “She told us she was going down to Fort Davis to meet her fiancé, a lieutenant who’s posted there.”

  “You goin’ after those boys, mister?” asked the driver.

  Longarm nodded grimly. “I intend to get that woman back.”

  “By God, I’ll go with you!” exclaimed the rancher. He nodded toward the buckskin, which had trotted up following Longarm and the dun. “That is, if you’ll loan me a horse.”

  Longarm hesitated. The cattleman was past his prime, as evidenced by his white hair and mustache and the thickness of his waist. But his eyes flashed with outrage at the idea of a woman being kidnapped or mistreated in any way, and his rough, big-knuckled hands showed the signs of a lifetime of hard work. If he had established a ranch anywhere out here in West Texas, chances were he still had a lot of bark on his hide despite his age.

  “All right,” Longarm said, coming to a decision. He might need someone to back his play when he caught up to the bandits. “I don’t have an extra saddle, though.”

  “Don’t matter. Mine’s in the boot.” The rancher started toward the rear of the coach, only to pause and extend a hand up to Longarm. “Name’s Walt Gibson.”

  “Custis Long,” Longarm told him as he shook hands. He didn’t take the time to explain that he was a United States marshal.

  While Gibson was getting his saddle from the coach’s boot, Longarm untied the two bags of supplies from each other, then tied one onto the horn of his saddle. Gibson would carry the other one on the buckskin.

  “What’s the nearest town?” Longarm asked the driver.

  “That’d be Monahans. It’s our next stop, in fact.”

  “Is there any law there?”

  “County sheriff.”

  Longarm nodded. “Good. Tell him what happened here, and that Gibson and I have gone after those outlaws. You happen to know who those fellas were?”

  “Couldn’t see their faces,” said the jehu. “They had bandannas pulled up over their mouths. But I’d be willing to bet it was the Heck Wallace gang.”

  “Sounds like a bunch that’s well known in these parts.” One of the drummers said, “You haven’t heard of the Wallace gang, mister?”

  “I ain’t from around here,” Longarm said dryly.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18