Longarm and the Stagecoach Robbers (5 page)

True to Longarm's expectations—if not to his stated intention—Tommy Bitterman took his sweet time about returning to duty. It was the middle of the afternoon before the deputy returned and relieved Longarm from desk duty.

“Anything happen while I was away?” Bitterman asked.

Longarm snorted. “You know damn good and well there was a dust-up over at some slop joint. I don't even know the name of it. Anyway, I'm sure you know all about that an' did before you asked. Fairplay ain't so big a town that you won't have heard.”

Bitterman's answer was a grin but not a single spoken word. Yes, he knew.

Longarm rose and reached for his hat.

“Did you make out a report about that fight over at Sanchez's place?” Bitterman asked.

“I don't do paperwork,” Longarm said on his way out the door.

“Hey!” Bitterman barked. When Longarm was halfway down the first flight of stairs, he heard the young deputy belatedly call, “Thanks.” Longarm ignored him.

Longarm had a light lunch, then spent the afternoon idling at the bar in one saloon or another, not really drinking but keeping his ears open for any mention of the stagecoach robberies. The miners, enjoying a day off from their underground labors, were much more interested in the prizefight that was scheduled for that evening. There was considerable talk about that.

He had supper at a café on the east side of town, close to the railroad depot. When he walked out of the café, the sun was disappearing behind the peaks to the west. Darkness was gathering and there was a chill in the high mountain air.

He noticed a circle of torches and oil lamps with flaming wicks and bright reflectors on the far side of the railroad tracks. Crowds of men were gathering there, and a series of posts, connected with rope, had been set within the lighted circle.

That, he realized, was where the fight would be held.

What were the terms? He remembered hearing something about it when he first got to town. Five dollars to step into the ring, if he remembered correctly, and a hundred if you could last—five minutes, was that it?—if you could last five minutes without leaving your feet.

The promoter must be pretty confident of his boy if he was willing to lay a hundred on the line because surely there wouldn't be more than a handful of men who would want to climb into that ring. Five or six maybe, which meant the promoter and the fighter stood to earn only twenty or thirty dollars.

Of course, that was in entry fees. Side bets would be something else entirely. Longarm supposed that was where the promoter expected to make his money.

Regardless of all that, it should be a good show, especially for a town full of well-paid men who had little to do with their leisure hours except drink and go with the whores.

Longarm lit a cheroot and sauntered along with the growing crowd that was headed toward the lit-up ring.

“Well, I'll be a son of a bitch,” Longarm muttered under his breath.

The fighter was sitting on a three-legged stool in one corner of the ring. And why did they call it a ring anyway when it was always built in a square?

The man was stripped to the waist, already covered with a sheen of sweat that gleamed in the lamplight. Sweat? Or oil intended to cause the other man's leather gloves to slip aside?

Just that edge, tiny though it was, might sometimes be enough to make the difference, Longarm knew.

That sort of thing was common enough and, in fighting, was fair enough. But the thing that made Longarm's hackles rise was that this fighter in the ring was the same big son of a bitch who had sucker punched him in the saloon some days ago. Sucker punched him and knocked him out cold. His jaw still was sore when he chewed on the left side of his mouth.

And wasn't that almighty interesting.

Longarm felt a tightness across the width of his shoulders, and his breath came shallow and quick.

Almost involuntarily he flexed his hands, forming them into fists and then relaxing them again.

Five dollars, the entry fee was?

He had that much in his pocket.

Longarm pushed his way through the gathering crowd until he found a place directly opposite Ox Lennox's corner. Then he stood, arms folded, and stared at the big son of a bitch who had knocked him cold with a sucker punch.

He wanted Lennox to see him, and inevitably Longarm's glare drew Ox's eyes to lock on with his.

It seemed odd, but if you stared at something, more often than not, that would draw the other's eyes to you. Hunters had long known this and avoided eye contact with their quarry. This time Longarm deliberately sent his anger across the twenty feet or so that separated him from Lennox. The bastard had knocked him cold when he was not expecting it and had in fact been trying to buy the man a drink to make up for the one he'd spilled.

Hunters had long known to avoid eye contact with their prey. Well, this time Lennox indeed was Custis Long's quarry.

Longarm just stood. And stared.

The crowd grew until it numbered several hundred men or thereabouts. Boys filtered through the noisy, boisterous crowd selling beer and peanuts. Men passed among the people taking bets. Whores flitted around the edges selling their own particular wares.

Eventually a small man in a tweed suit and yellow spats stepped into the ring and held up his hands for silence. Slowly the noise level abated as people became aware that things were about to commence.

“All right, everyone. My man here, Dexter Ox Lennox, will take on all comers. Five dollars to enter. If you can stay on your feet for five minutes, I will pay you a stack of lovely double eagles. Five of them. One hundred dollars, cash on the line. If you should happen to knock my man out cold, I will double that and pay two hundred. But I warn you. No one has ever managed to do that, and I don't expect to see it happen here tonight. Now tell me.” The little man raised his voice to a shout. “Are you having fun?”

The answer was a roar of approval. “Let's go,” someone shouted. “Get it going,” another voice injected.

“And so we shall,” the dapper little promoter said. “Now who will be the first to face Dexter?”

A burly fellow with bulging upper arms and practically no neck at all was the first to climb into the ring. He handed the announcer a coin and stripped off his coat and shirt. Likely he was an underground miner who swung a pick all day and could drive fence posts with his bare fists. At least he looked like that would be an ordinary feat for him.

“I'll go,” he roared and motioned Lennox forward.

Lennox yawned—Longarm guessed he was faking it but wanted to give that impression—and took his time about leaving his stool, flexing his muscles, and marching into the center of the ring.

The fight, if it could be called that, was over before most of the crowd realized it had started.

The miner put his fists up.

Lennox pummeled the man's gut.

The miner doubled over.

Lennox delivered an uppercut that looked powerful enough to separate the fellow's head from his shoulders.

And that was the end of it, the miner flat on his back and Lennox, fists waving, taking a victory lap around the ring.

Longarm watched two more so-called matches. None of them lasted more than a minute. Every one of Lennox's opponents ended up sprawled in the dirt.

Finally Longarm stepped forward and crawled through the ropes, a five-dollar half eagle clutched in his hand.

“I seen you before, little man,” Lennox growled. “Where?”

“Hey, no jawing with the customers,” his promoter put in, stepping between Longarm and Lennox with his palm up.

Longarm planted the five dollars into the man's hand and again glared at Lennox. But up close this time and with no doubt as to his feelings. “You cold-cocked me the other day. I want t' see how you handle it when a man is set an' ready.”

“Oh, yeah. Now I remember,” Lennox said.

“You'll remember even better after I whip your ass. I say you're yellow through an' through.”

“Why, you—” Lennox did exactly as Longarm expected him to. He started a sentence but finished it with a wicked right hand.

Except Longarm was not standing there waiting to be punched. Seemingly effortlessly he swayed backward and Lennox's thundering right whiffed harmlessly past, only inches from Longarm's head.

The force of the blow pulled Lennox slightly off balance. Longarm stepped to the side and delivered a knuckles-forward punch to Lennox's right kidney.

If nothing else, Longarm thought, Dexter Lennox would be pissing blood for a few days.

Lennox's face turned red and he tried to drive an underhand blow to Longarm's gut. Again Longarm leaned back, pulling away just far enough to take the sting out of Lennox's punch.

“Hey!” Lennox bawled.

“Not used to having someone actually fight you?” Longarm taunted. He deliberately wanted to get under Ox's skin so the big man's anger would cloud his thinking.

Longarm reached out and with his thumb and forefinger took hold of Lennox's nose. He twisted the tip of the nose, and Ox howled with fury.

The big man lashed out with a flurry of lefts and rights, which Longarm dodged, swaying back and forth in time to the onslaught. Lennox's blows found thin air. Very thin air at this high mountain elevation. He was already beginning to gasp for breath.

“Hold still, you bastard,” Lennox shrieked.

Longarm held still. Long enough to set his feet and deliver a right hand to the shelf of Lennox's jaw. The punch had his full weight behind it and should have been hard enough to drop an ox. This Ox indeed was jarred. Blood began to run from his mouth.

Longarm stepped in and gave the big man another shot with his right, this one on the point of Lennox's nose. Blood spurted into the air and began to drip onto Lennox's chest.

Lennox ripped a left hand low to Longarm's stomach and nearly doubled him over. Longarm, however, did not want to give Ox the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt him. Instead he stepped lightly to his right and threw a straight left into Lennox's breadbasket.

He heard the air whoosh out of Lennox's lungs. Moved right again and tattooed the other kidney.

Lennox straightened. He had gone pale and must have been in considerable pain. For a moment he seemed to forget where he was and what he was doing. He stood, back arched, jaw set.

It was a gift, and Longarm took it. He slid to the side a few inches to get the angle he wanted, braced his feet, and hit Dexter Lennox just as hard as Longarm had ever hit anything in his life.

Lennox's head snapped back and his eyes rolled up in his head until only the whites were showing.

The big man toppled face forward into the dirt, out before he ever hit the ground.

Longarm turned to the promoter and asked, “Do I have t' stand here long enough to finish out the five minutes, or will this be enough for the two o' you?”

It was only then that he became aware of the crowd noise. Men were screaming, cheering, some of them cussing.

Longarm grinned. It looked like somebody was going to be paying out big this evening—to him. He held his hand out to the promoter, palm upward. “Two hundred, I believe you said.”

Longarm turned to the crowd and shouted, “Drinks for everybody. Courtesy of Ox Lennox.”

“Here, let me help you,” a man standing next to him said.

“Thanks, but help me with what?”

“With that cut on your cheek,” the fellow said, holding up a none too clean bandanna and wiping at Longarm's face. The cloth came away with blood on it.

“Shit,” Longarm said, “I don't even remember being hit.”

“He tagged you pretty good,” the friendly fellow said, continuing to scrub at Longarm's cheek until he was satisfied that the blood had stopped seeping out.

That whole side of Longarm's face was numb and the side of his lips tingled as feeling returned.

Inside the ring Lennox was just beginning to come around. He looked confused. And thoroughly pissed off. The promoter helped him to his feet, where he remained upright but more than a little wobbly.

Lennox saw Longarm standing just outside the ring accepting congratulations from a good many of the crowd. Congratulations and thanks for the round of free drinks that the vendors were pouring as fast as they could.

The fighter made his way to that side of the ring and leaned on the top rope to steady himself. “You bastard,” he complained. “We ain't gonna make a dime on this trip. Might even go broke because o' you. Just don't turn your back on me, that's all I got to say.”

Longarm turned away from the well-wishers and told Lennox, loudly enough for those nearby to hear, “I know better'n to turn my back on you, mister, but if you come at me, I'll either shoot you down or haul you off to jail for assaulting an officer of the law. You got that?”

He did not have to say it twice. The promoter grabbed Lennox by the arm and dragged him away before he could get himself in any deeper.

Longarm returned to his conversations, making his way slowly over to the drink vendors so he could use some of his fight winnings to pay for all this pleasure.

And all the while he was keeping his ears open in the hope of overhearing something—anything—that would point to the identity of the mail thieves.

Promptly at six the next morning Longarm was at the Carver Express corrals waiting for Will to join him and start the business of the day. There were already three passengers waiting out front for Will to hitch the team and get going.

The passengers were ticketed to Hartsel, where they would change to a coach heading down to Manitou and Colorado City. They could have made rail connections from Fairplay to Denver and then south to Colorado Springs, but it was actually quicker to go in a stagecoach down by the more direct route, quicker but in truth not as comfortable. The stagecoach connection was also much cheaper, and that might have been a consideration, too.

For whatever reason, they wanted to take the stagecoach route, and that would add a little income for Carver.

Longarm waited behind the express company office, laying out harness and in general starting the day's preparations, until he became concerned about Will. Finally, at six forty-five, he went inside. Charlise was there along with the few pieces of luggage going with the passengers and three packages consigned to Bailey.

“Any idea where Will is?” he asked the blond owner of the express company.

“No, I don't, and I'm starting to get worried about him,” Charlie said.

“Doesn't he live with you?”

Charlie shook her head. “Will has his own place. He takes his meals with me, and he jokes about living with Mama but he's mostly on his own.” She wrung her hands and walked over to peer out the front window. “This isn't like him, Marshal. I've never known him to be this late before. I haven't seen him since supper last night. He said he was going to the fight.”

“I was at the fight but I didn't see Will. There was a big crowd, though. I could've missed him. If I knew where he lives—” Longarm began but was interrupted by the arrival of a scruffy little man in sleeve garters and an apron.

“Charlie!” the fellow said, out of breath and puffing from exertion. “Will insisted that I come tell you.”

“Tell me what, Doc?” she asked.

“He's over at my clinic. He was hurt last night,” the little man said.

“Hurt?”

“He doesn't want me to tell you, but . . . he was shot. Now don't get excited. He will be all right. But it will be a few days before he is up and around again.”

Longarm stepped closer. “What happened?”

The doctor gave him a wary look. “It's all right, Doc,” Charlie said. “He's a deputy United States marshal. You can tell him. And tell me, too.”

“It was before the prizefight last evening,” the doctor said. “Will was visiting, uh, he was visiting . . .”

“It's all right, Doc. I know all about Maybelle's and that Will likes to visit there sometimes.”

“Yes, well, Will was at Maybelle's just like you guessed, and he got into an argument. Not much of an argument the way I heard it. The other party pulled out a pistol and shot Will in the leg. He lost a lot of blood, but he will recover. It will be a few days before he can get out of bed, I think, and then he will be on crutches for a few weeks.”

“Oh, Lord,” Charlie said, turning pale. “Without Will . . .” She stood up straighter and braced herself. “I'll just have to do it all myself. But, oh, I don't know how to drive a team at all, much less a four-horse hitch.”

“I know the route,” Longarm said quickly. “I can drive until he gets upright again.”

She gave him the sort of look he imagined a drowning man might give to his rescuer. “It would mean the difference between us staying in business or going under,” she said.

“I want t' be on the coach anyway in order t' catch those mail robbers. After all, that's what I came up here for. This just puts me in a better position t' do my job. Now if you'll excuse me, I got to go make up that hitch an' bring the coach around to the front.”