Longarm in devils river, p.14
Longarm In Devils River, page 14
“Go on ahead and sit, Quince,” Longarm whispered, “I’ll stand over by the wall. Get up against it good ’n tight. Watch our backs.”
Quincy jerked a chair away from the table, eased into the well-worn seat, then laid the shotgun across his left arm. When Longarm moved to the wall, the older Lasher glanced at him for a second, frowned, then turned his attention back to the local lawman.
Kermit reached for the bottle, pulled the cork, and held it above the empty glasses. “Can I pour you boys one?”
“Go ahead, Kermit,” Longarm said. “Quincy might not care for a nip, but I wouldn’t mind takin’ a whack at your bottle.”
Lasher smiled when the potent liquor overran both the tiny tumblers. “Enjoy,” he said, corked the bottle, and placed it on the table near his right hand.
Longarm grabbed the fragrant liquor, sniffed, threw it all back in a single gulp, then slapped the glass back onto the table. “Not bad. Would’ve preferred some a the Gold Label Maryland variety myself, but this’ll do.”
Quincy Bates let his drink sit. From behind an eyebrow that arched all the way into his hatband, he said, “We’re hearin’ rumors that the Clinch brothers have taken a local lady captive, Mr. Lasher. That true?”
Lasher tilted his head, grinned, then winked at Bates. “Sorry to admit it, but yes, the tale you heard is true.”
“That bein’ the case, I want Bell Harvey turned loose and right by-God quick,” Bates snapped.
“Well, now, Marshal Bates, there’s the ole horsefly in the buttermilk, so to speak. Ain’t a-gonna be no turnin’ Miss Harvey loose till you hand my falsely accused, wrongly jailed son Dolphus over to me.”
Bates leaned on the table with his free elbow. He jabbed a finger in the old man’s face and said, “You can just forget that. Dolphus is the prisoner of Marshal Long here. Your son’s looking forward to transfer back to Denver for trial on a charge of murder.”
“That’s horseshit,” Obie growled.
Kermit reached over and placed a hand on his son’s arm. “Now, let’s maintain our calm here, Obie. I’m absolutely certain these here gents ain’t lookin’ for a fight.”
Longarm’s fingernail clicked against the checkered stock of Quincy’s short-barreled blaster. “True enough, Kermit. If we can avoid a fight, that’s fine. But the Clinch boys are already in trouble for counts of assault, public drunkenness, escape, and now kidnapping. Sooner they turn themselves in, the better. Marshal Bates and I’ll see they get a fair trial and immediate execution of whatever verdict a jury can hand down on ’em.”
“Now, you see, Marshal Long, that’s the problem. Can’t get the Clinch boys to turn themselves in because they ain’t nowhere around these parts right this very minute. See, way it all shook out, them rosy-cheeked, church-goin’ lovers of mankind turned your friend Miss Harvey over to me, then skedaddled outta town faster’n a couple a six-legged jackrabbits. Figure they’re halfway to Del Rio by now. Be in Mexico by mornin’. Nothin’ but tequila and hot-blooded senoritas for them boys down at the Spider Web Lounge.”
A knowing look creaked across Longarm’s face and setteled around the twin muzzles of his blue-gray eyes. “Ardella. Bell’s with Ardella, ain’t she?”
Kermit Lasher poured himself a shot from the bottle, downed it in one gulp, then slapped the glass back onto the table. “And only me ’n Obie know exactly where that is. Couldn’t be any other way, when you think about it, Long. This here squirrelly fandango turned into a family matter the very second you boys locked Dolphus up like some kinda fuckin’ animal. Now, I want my son back, and I want ’im back damned quick. But I’m a fair and patient man. Give you till tomorrow mornin’ to make up your minds and get it done.”
As though he didn’t really want to hear the answer, Quincy Bates said, “And just what in the blue-eyed hell do you figure on doin’ with Bell if we refuse?”
The old man glared across the table at Devils River’s marshal, leaned forward for emphasis, then barked, “Kill ’er, that’s what. Deader’n a rusted pump handle. You don’t hand Dolphus over to me by nine o’clock tomorrow mornin’, your sweet-assed little blacksmithin’ twitch won’t live to see noon. Guaran-damn-tee it.”
In a voice so low everyone at the table had to turn a concentrated ear his direction to hear it, Longarm said, “You know, Kermit, I could put an end to this dance by just blastin’ the hell outta the both of you boys right here, right now. Turn this big popper on the pair of you and there won’t be enough of either one of ya left to fill up a dustpan.”
Obie slapped the poker table’s green felt top with a hand the size of an iron camp skillet and snarled, “You’d damn well die tryin’ it, lawdog.” His massive paw dropped toward the grips of the Remington pistol jammed behind a double-row cartridge belt that appeared to have every loop filled with a fresh shell.
Quincy Bates brought his double-barreled popper to bear on the moose-sized man. Longarm swung his weapon around on the monster’s father. “Could pull both a you sons a bitches up by the roots, easy as pickin’ daisies. Ardella’d have to show her face sooner or later and we’d have Bell back.”
Kermit Lasher grabbed his impetuous son’s wrist and forced the hand back up where everyone could see it. The murderous tension across the table jumped from damn near unbearable to thicker than a Kansan’s breakfast molasses in January.
Longarm grinned. “Come on now, Obie, you don’t really believe you can best four barrels of buckshot with pistols at no more than five feet. I’d have to reassess my entire opinion of you, my man, ’cause that’d make you dramatically stupider’n you look, and that’s sayin’ a mouthful.”
A nervous grimace etched its way onto Kermit Lasher’s flushed face as he labored to keep a grip on his slobbering son’s wrist. He held a trembling hand out toward Longarm, then said, “Now wait just a fuckin’ minute, Long. Either of you go’n do anything stupid and Ardella’s got my personal instructions to make sure the Harvey woman wakes up shoein’ horses in Satan’s personal stable.”
Longarm’s grin spread into a wide, toothy smile. “Hell, I believe you when you say that could happen, Kermit. But you and Obie’d still both be deader’n a couple a rotten telegraph poles. You let your idiot son get his hand above that table with a gun in it and I’ll splatter his big ass all over the wall behind him. Sure would be a shame to go and mess up the saloon’s fancy rendition of The Cowboy’s Dream with Obie’s brains.”
Of a sudden the old man slapped Obie Lasher hard enough to loosen a set of store-bought fillings in the brute’s teeth.
Obie’s gun hand darted up to the palm mark across his reddening cheek, then, like a chastised child, he whined, “Damn, Pap, you didn’t have to whack me so hard. Wouldna kilt ’em unless you said I could.”
“Sorry, boy, but you know as well as I do that when you go and get an idea in your rock-hard noggin, sometimes ain’t nothin’ short of bein’ hit with an ax handle can get it out.”
For a second Longarm thought Obie might burst into tears, but Kermit brought everyone’s focus back to the problem at hand when he leveled a knobby, ragged-nailed finger at the deputy U.S. marshal and said, “I want Dolphus right here, tomorrow mornin’. Bring ’im in before nine. Just you and him, Marshal Long. And come unarmed, or I swear you’ll regret it. Find out you’re heeled and it’ll be a sad, blood-soaked case of Katy bar the door. Be on your ass like ugly on an armadillo.”
Longarm shot a hot look back at the old man and snapped, “You know, Kermit, this ain’t much of a town. We could just search every building, one at a time, till we find the two women. Shouldn’t be all that hard a job. Bet we could do the whole dance in two, maybe three hours.”
The elder Lasher eyeballed Longarm like a strong-willed child. “Be my guest, Marshal, but trust me when I tell you, it won’t do you no good. She’s hid in a place where you’ll never find ’er.”
Longarm shook his head, then said, “We’ll see, ole man. We’ll see.”
As the lawdogs moved to leave, Kermit said, “Wait up fer a second, boys.” He bent over and reached under the table. Four barrels of heavy-gauge buckshot immediately swung the elder Lasher’s direction. One hand in the air in mock surrender, he came up holding Hamp Bodine’s missing leg. He tossed the crude appendage onto the table, then said, “Honas got a case of the Christian forgiveness, you know. Felt like he’d been a bit too harsh with your jailer. Wanted me to make sure the man got his leg back.”
Qunicy Bates grabbed the chunk of hand-carved wood, then quickly stepped away. “I’ll see he gets it, but if you should run into Honas again, by some wild chance, tell ’im he’d best hope I never come across his sorry ass again in this life. Any man who’d beat a one-legged cripple with his own artificial leg don’t deserve to walk amongst the livin’. Catch sight of the brutal skunk and I’m gonna punch his ticket for the great beyond first chance I get.”
Kermit Lasher reared back in his creaking chair. He glared up at the crimson-faced marshal as though staring into the face of a lunatic. “Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, Marshal.” He zeroed in on Longarm for a moment and snarled, “Remember, you bring so much as a toothpick with you tomorrow mornin’ and you’re dead on the spot. And nobody ’round here’ll ever see the woman again.”
A big grin flashed across Obie Lasher’s face. “Yeah. What Pap just said. Show up a-packin’, federal man, and I’ll personally squash you like the stinkin’-assed South Texas tumblebug.”
Longarm stopped in the entryway of the Ice House, the batwing doors pressed against his back. He held the shotgun out at arm’s length, pointed it at Obie Lasher, then said, “Best get your animal back on his leash, Kermit, or I swear he ain’t gonna live much longer.”
Chapter 16
Longarm and Quincy Bates backed their way out of the Ice House and onto the boardwalk and thence into the grimy street. Neither man let the saloon’s front entrance out of sight until they had made it well past Cobb’s Dry Goods Store and were almost in front of the Davis House.
The anxiety and tension of the situation finally began to drain away as the pair strolled up to the entrance of the Matador. Quincy Bates let out what sounded like a long sigh of relief. His shoulders sagged and the tension appeared to drain out of the man. “Damnation,” he said, “but I could sure ’nuff use a drink now, Long. Why don’t we step into the Matador and down one or two, or maybe a dozen, ’fore we head on over to the jail? Be my pleasure to stand for ’em.”
Longarm nodded. “My dear ole pappy always said that the finest kind of liquor’s the kind somebody else pays for. Little snort after our edgy dance with Kermit and Obie sounds mighty good to me. Let’s do ’er.”
The Matador’s gregarious bar dog hopped off his corner stool, hustled up to the counter, and wiped at an already squeaky clean spot in front of the two lawmen. “Glad to have both you gents stop by the Matador again. Hell, given the stunning lack of business around town these days, I’m glad to see anybody. What’s your pleasure?”
Longarm glanced around the grave-quiet dram shop and noted there was not a single other living soul in evidence. He propped his shotgun against the bar. “So quiet in here I bet you could hear a gnat scratchin’ his head,” he said, then pointed at a bottle of Gold Label Maryland rye. “Just had a shot of some genuinely marginal liquor down at the Ice House. Feel the need for a beaker of the good stuff.”
Quincy nodded. He sat his shotgun next to Longarm’s, then laid Hamp Bodine’s wooden leg across the end of the bar. “Sounds good to me, by God. Set ’em up and leave the bottle, Herb. You two fellers shake and howdy yesterday, Custis?”
“Nope. Didn’t have time. Seems I remember as how you appeared at the door, jumped inside, and went to slappin’ Dolphus upside the head ’fore we had a chance to get properly acquainted.”
As the bartender poured a pair of man-sized dollops in whiskey tumblers, he held out his free hand and said, “Herb Calloway, Marshal Long. Folks ’round here’ve pretty much spread all the gossip they could dredge up about you over the past day or so.”
Longarm shook the grinning man’s hand. “Hope some of it was good, Herb.”
Calloway slid the bottle across the bar. “Oh, hell yes. Fact is I ain’t heard nothin’ bad a’tall. Not a single word.”
Longarm saluted the man with his glass. “Well, you are one silver-tongued imp, aren’t you, Herb?”
“Nice of you to say so,” a grinning Calloway said, then took another swipe at the marble countertop with his rag. Once the spot appeared cleaned to his satisfaction, he turned to Quincy Bates. “Had a lot of stuff up here on my bar over the years, Quince. Whiskey, women, cards, dice, guns of every sort and type, knives, hats, boots, spurs, and one son of a bitch put his dog up on my bar. Bet me the mutt could yodel. Weren’t true, a course. Skillet-lickin’ biscuit eater’s still ’round here somewhere. Even held scorpion races on this here counter once. But hell, I cain’t for the life a me remember as how anybody ever brought a wooden leg in and threw ’er up on my bar. Never.”
“Belongs to Hamp.”
Calloway looked like he’d been slapped. “Figured that, but, damn, Quince, how’d he lose it?”
“It’s a long story, Herb. Tell you some other time.”
Calloway shook his head, threw the wet towel over his shoulder, and headed back to the stool in the corner. He grabbed up an already open copy of a week-old Austin newspaper and was soon deeply engrossed in its contents.
Longarm lifted his glass and turned to Quincy Bates. “Here’s to our friends,” he said. “They know the worst about us but refuse to believe it.”
“Damn right,” Bates said, then downed a deep hit from his drink. He set the glass back on the bar, then leaned against it on crossed arms. “What’re we gonna do, Long? I don’t think we can take Kermit’s threat to kill Bell lightly. But, Lord Almighty, turnin’ a skunk like Dolphus loose ain’t somethin’ I’d care to do one bit. Decision about puttin’ him on the street again is strictly up to you, bein’ as how he’s actually your prisoner and all. I’ll completely defer to your judgment on that ’un.”
Longarm stared at his own image in the mirror behind the bar. “Gotta figure some way to get a weapon smuggled into the Ice House, Quince. I don’t trust ole man Lasher any farther’n I could throw one a them big-footed St. Louis draft horses they use to pull beer wagons around town.”
Bates shook his head. “Gonna be a tough nut to crack, for damned sure. Cain’t imagine that the Lashers will just sit on their calloused rumps at that table in the Ice House until tomorrow mornin’. If we could get inside once they’ve vacated the premises, maybe we could plant a pistol somewhere.”
Longarm cocked his head to one side, held the glass of amber-colored liquid up, sniffed it, then downed the whole shot. Through gritted teeth he said, “How well do you know the drink wrangler workin’ at the Ice House?”
“Not well at all, but he’n Hamp are old drinkin’ buddies. Think they’ve been over to the Davis Mountains a time or two on huntin’ trips.”
Longarm set his glass on the bar and shoved it aside. “Then I think it’s best we get on down to the jail and hash this booger out as best we can.”
Bates pitched coins onto the bar, grabbed up his shotgun and Bodine’s wayward leg, then followed as Longarm pushed through the batwings and hoofed it for the jailhouse.
Longarm had difficulty containing his surprise at how quickly the crotchety jailor had managed to straighten up the mess the Clinch brothers left behind. Given that the one-legged deputy appeared barely able to hobble more than two or three steps at a time on his makeshift crutch, it amazed Longarm that the previous scene of broken furniture and riotous destruction could barely be detected now. The Beast had taken over the reassembled cot and flopped his hawser-sized tail in recognition when the two lawmen reentered the office.
As Longarm explained his plan to plant a pistol somewhere in the Ice House, a grinning Bodine struggled to attach his fake limb. “Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Soon’s I get this contraption strapped into place, gonna sneak on down that way, talk with Benjie Clay. Make sure the gun gets hid, then get myself on back here quick as I can.”
“That’s not all, not by a long shot,” Longarm said. “Tomorrow mornin’s gonna come a lot quicker’n any of us think. I’d like to walk in and out of the Ice House and still be in one piece. So, here’s what I’d like to propose.”
He gathered everyone around Marshal Bates’s desk, took a blank piece of paper, and quickly sketched a crude map of the town. Using the pencil stub as a pointer, he said, “Quince, there’s a clear view of the saloon’s front entrance and the entire westernmost wall from the loft opening of Bell’s stable. Want you to sneak down there, get set up with a rifle, and watch my back as I lead Dolphus inside.”
“Got the perfect weapon for just such an assignment,” Bates said, then reached into his gun rack and pulled out an absolutely pristine Winchester model 1876 hunting rifle. The magnificent weapon sported a twenty-eight-inch octagon barrel, a case-hardened receiver, a checkered grip and forearm, and fancy target sights mounted on the grip behind the hammer.
“Damned nice,” Emmit Callahan offered.
For a second Longarm gazed at the long shooter as Quincy Bates turned it over in his hands and held it out for admiring eyes to see. “Well, Emmit, maybe Quince has another one in that rack that’s just as impressive. Want you to guard the back. When me’n Quince went sneakin’ behind all those buildings on that side of the street, I noticed that there’s an abandoned jacal kinda catty-cornered to the place and no more’n a hundred feet from the back entrance of the Ice House.”
Bates reached into his weapons cache again and pulled out another rifle that could easily have been taken for the exact double of the model 1876. “Matched set,” he said. “Bought the pair of ’em off’n a poor feller what fell on some hard times.”
Callahan ran his fingers over the rifle’s checkered forearm. “With a shooter like this ’un, long as I’m livin’, Marshal Long, you’re as safe as if asleep in your mama’s arms. Pick the eye out’n a pismire at a hundred paces with this ole gal. Just might have to put the Intimidator aside for this beauty.”
