Longarm and the Wyoming Wildwoman Page 5

  She asked him who he was calling Scotch. He told her he'd known a Scotchman named Gunn one time and added, "Came from a part of Scotland they call Sutherland because it's as far north as Scotland goes. I've yet to fathom why Scotchmen wear skirts and like oatmeal, either. How come you didn't know your name was Scotch? I've yet to meet anybody with a Scotch name who didn't know it was Scotch."

  She didn't answer as they entered the room he'd hired for her near the head of the back stairs. Before she could come up with a lie, Longarm told her, "I might of known today ain't the first occasion a runaway by any name might have had occasion to change her name. Don't confound me with any other names, true or false. Just remember you're the one and original D. G. Crawford until further notice."

  He opened the door to the bath her room shared with his own. He told her, "Both doors bolt on the inside lest two hotel guests who don't know each other meet buck-naked in here. I want you to keep your hall door bolted. I'll hang one of them don't-disturbs on it, and none of the hotel help have any call to come in here before we check out, official, in twenty-four hours."

  She looked unsettled as she asked him where he was going without her. So Longarm said, "I told you I had some chores to tend here in the territorial capital. I'll bring you back some more ladylike duds to wear as we wend our way on to Keller's Crossing. What are your favorite colors, Miss Daisy?"

  She said yellow and blue.

  He said he'd try to match the colors of her hair and eyes when he shopped for her. He added, "I'll bring us some warm grub whilst I'm at it. I dasn't take you out to supper because I don't want anybody to know we're together. Keep your door bolted and don't answer if anybody knocks, in spite of the don't-disturb. It won't be me because I'm booked in next door. I'll let my ownself in or out through the don't-disturb on my door with my key. I'll come back to you by way of this bath. So don't bolt that door after you finish scrubbing behind both ears."

  They both smiled at that picture. But then she allowed she felt scared as well as totally at sea about all this mysterious shit, as she put it.

  He took out his double derringer and unhooked it from his watch chain as he told her he'd explain the whole deal before he'd call on her to do anything but stay put. He asked if she knew how to use a gun. When she said she did, he wasn't surprised.

  He handed her the derringer and said, "Don't use this unless you have to. I'll be switched with snakes if I can see why you might have to, but, like Ben Franklin said about death and taxes, nothing else in this old world is certain. Just make certain it ain't a nosy maid or a drunk at the wrong room door before you let fly."

  As she gingerly took the bitty pistol, Longarm hauled out his wallet and produced a ten-dollar paper certificate. She stared at it goggle-eyed as he held it out to her, explaining, "If I ain't back by checkout time, you'll know I ain't coming back and you're on your own. I can't spare more. But a gal with a gun and a week's wages ought to get way farther than she might without 'em."

  The dirty-faced waif almost sobbed, "What are you talking about? Why do you say you might not be back? Who's after you? Who's after either one of us, Custis?"

  Longarm smiled down reassuringly and told her, "Nobody is after you, unless you've been hiding more than your real name from me. I don't know as anybody in particular is after me. But a man picks up enemies riding six or eight years for the Justice Department. You were there when that surly brake bull started up with me. I reckon there's something about my rep or the way I walk that inspires the mean and restless to start up with me. I've never liked them all that much, and I reckon they sense it some way. Like wild critters can tell when you're drawing a bead on 'em."

  He didn't have the time or inclination to go into the times a crook with something to hide had seen fit to set up an ambush for the lawman probing into his or her shady doings. If there was some master plan behind those Wyoming wildwomen, neither local, territorial, nor federal lawmen from the Cheyenne District Court had been able to detect it. Gunning the first outside lawmen sent to poke around would be sort of dumb for a mastermind.

  He had no call to tell a white gal how to run a bath or use the hotel soap and towels. So he just asked her to save one towel for him to use later, then let himself out the far door between the tub and commode.

  He picked up another don't-disturb in the room he'd signed himself into, ducked out in the hall, and locked up before he hung both the don't-disturbs on their adjoining hall knobs. He made certain nobody was anywhere about before he dropped to one knee and wedged a match stem in the crack of his locked door, under the bottom hinge, because an inside bolt was one thing, but a latch key was easy to duplicate.

  Then he eased down the back steps and out by way of the stable to the sunny street.

  He'd gone two city blocks before a hall porter on a landing he'd avoided asked an upstairs maid, "What's going on in two hundred eight and nine? They both have don't-disturbs out and it's barely afternoon."

  The maid smiled dirty and confided, "Nobody's asleep in either room. I was just coming from a checkout down the hall when that one who says he's a lawman snuck his pretty boy up the back stairs."

  The hall porter blinked and demanded, "Are you sure it was a boy? I've heard heaps of things about the famous Longarm, but this is the first I've ever heard of him queering young boys!"

  The maid, a plain woman who might have felt left out, shrugged and said, "Have your own way. It was a girl with dirty bare feet, ragged jeans, work shirt, and straw hat. Those trash whites down along Crow Creek have adopted a new fashion. They've taken to wearing men's duds to make themselves more tempting."

  The hall porter laughed, dirty, and decided, "Wait till I tell the boys the famous Longarm is a queer! I mean, I always had my doubts about Wild Bill's shoulder-length curly locks, but who'd have ever thought a gunslick with Longarm's rep as a lady's man would shack up with young boys for Gawd's sake!"

  The lady's man they were gossiping about made it to the Cheyenne Federal Building before they were done with him. Once inside he found that the cuss who'd declared virtue was its own reward had never had to argue Federal Jurisdiction with Billy Vail's thoroughly pissed-off opposite number in Wyoming Territory.

  The somewhat younger and leaner but just as crusty U.S. Marshal Winslow Morris, formerly of the Iowa Volunteers and mighty stuck up about that, too, told Longarm he was the victim of a cruel practical joke or riding for blathering assholes. Gritting his big yellow teeth on his own version of an expensive cigar in an oak-paneled office of his own, Marshal Morris insisted he's had his own deputies look into the rash of arrest warrants breaking out in Keller's Crossing. He said they'd gone over the township's voter registration and financial ledgers while they were at it.

  Longarm, seated in a guest chair made out of elk antlers in this case, nodded soberly and said, "I've read your own reports. More than once. Anyone can see nothing cruel or unusual seems to be going on up here in Wyoming Territory, sir. Those lovely young things your lady J.P. keeps arming with dead-or-alive warrants have been gunning men down in other parts. As far south as Texas and as far east as Missouri. We make it eight such men, so far. Shot down like dogs without even the pretence of due process."

  Marshal Morris grimaced and said, "I told Simp Glover it looked a mite neater when a deputy throwed a suspect's hat across an alley and ordered him to run and fetch it before he fired. But old Simp says-"

  "Simp?" Longarm cut in, demanding, "Might we be talking about the county he-sheriff up yonder, name of Glover, now that I think back to my own notes?"

  Marshal Morris nodded and replied, "We are. Simp's a good old boy with a herd of nigh two thousand head grazing alongside the North Platte. They elected him county sheriff because he scouted for the cav during Red Cloud's War north of Fort Laramie and kept his hair when all about him were losing their own. Like I said, I told Simp we were catching Ned from other parts when his shemale deputies got past three killings in one season. Simp says he never told nobody to shoot nobody, male
or shemale. I told you he had to be elected up yonder, and Keller's Crossing is named after old Dutch Keller, founder of the considerable Keller cattle clan in them parts."

  Longarm nodded soberly and said, "I was wondering how Edith Penn Keller of Keller's Crossing got appointed justice of the peace. What can you tell me about Rita Mae Reynolds, appointed undersheriff for her township by the doubtless grateful Sheriff Glover?"

  Marshal Morris shifted the stogie between his bared teeth and told Longarm, "A heap of Keller's Crossing residents who ain't named Keller seem to be named Reynolds. I know what you're thinking. It's still the way things work in tight-knit rural townships. Boss Tweed took care of his kith and kin in New York City, and Boss Buckley is still taking care of his kith and kin out Frisco way. Neither you, me, nor nobody can reform such setups until and unless somebody in the catbird seat really fucks up."

  "What do you call deputizing young gals and sending them clean out of the territory to shoot folk?" Longarm soberly demanded.

  Morris shrugged and replied in an easy tone, "Good riddance? We ain't talking about young gals shooting folk! Every man jack of them eight wants was an outlaw with a rep who'd made the mistake of armed robbery in or about Keller's Crossing!"

  "How come?" asked Longarm, mildly pointing out, "There's hardly anything up yonder but a bitty trail town surrounded by miles of open range. As far as I've been able to see from the onion skin reports I was issued, ain't one case of stock theft been reported. All eight of those dead outlaws were accused of taking cash and valuables at gunpoint."

  Morris nodded, saying, "I read the same crime statistics. Keller's Crossing sits at the junctions of east-west and north-south trails. It serves as both a handy river ford and the best layover for travelers switching betwixt stagecoach and rail."

  "Like a spider in the middle of its web?" asked Longarm dryly.

  Morris shrugged and answered simply, "I suspect Dutch Keller had more honest profits in mind when he staked out his claims along the North Platte just south of what was then pure Sioux Country. In any case, there the town sits, and outlaws will fly in and out of the web for fun and profit. Undersheriff Reynolds, being a gal, herself, may favor gal deputies more than you or me might. Our own judges already warned Justice Keller not to put down dead-or-alive on those arrest warrants anymore."

  "You mean she still gets to issue the dumb writs?" Longarm asked.

  Morris said, "Sure she does. We told her she only has the power to order a suspect arrested and hauled in to be remanded to higher county authorities. Said authorities agree things might have gotten a mite out of hand. But, meanwhile, Undersheriff Rita Mae had the same right as any other peace officer to deputize pro tem under the old common law of posse comitatus."

  Longarm grimaced and said, "Posse comitatus is one thing, and sweet young things executing criminals without a trial is another. Leaving aside the rights or wrongs under common law, what sort of paid-up peace officer would deputize an armed and dangerous young gal to... Son of a stupid cotton-picking bitch!"

  "I hope you ain't talking about me," Marshal Morris said quietly.

  Longarm sighed and said, "Nope. Talking about me! It's so easy to point out the mistakes of others until you catch your fool self in the very same mistakes!"

  Morris asked, "Are you saying you've been deputizing and arming young gals, old son?"

  To which Longarm was forced to reply, "Only one. So far. But a man can sure feel foolish when he looks in the mirror to see egg on his own face!"

  CHAPTER 7

  Longarm was grateful for his sensible denim jacket and open shirt collar as he trudged down Central Avenue with his brain chasing its own tail.

  It was a typical summer afternoon on the high plains, with the thin air conspiring with the naked sun in a cloudless cobalt blue sky to surprise folk. It felt like someone had just opened a furnace door whenever he crossed a sunlit patch of plank walk or mummy-dust side street, but it was pleasantly cool in any shade, thanks to the way a body got to sweat so dry at this altitude.

  His thoughts were in more of a whirl as he considered how easy, and how innocent, it might be for an undersheriff more sissy than his ownself to come up with the notion of recruiting a woman to aid and abet the law. It was easier for an innocent-looking gal to pussyfoot up to a suspect and ask questions, or pull triggers, than it might be for the least ferocious-looking boy. Since word had gone 'round about that harmless-looking Kid Antrim, Billy the Kid, or whatever the little shit was calling himself lately, a halfway-sober gunslick tended to think twice before he let down his guard in the company of a skinny little runt he didn't know right well. But gents who didn't grin like shit-eating dogs at pretty gals were seldom found along the Owlhoot Trail to begin with.

  He'd decided to just send Daisy on her way and proceed the usual way as he mounted the steps of the Western Union office near the depot.

  But as he was block-lettering the telegram form to Billy Vail, he pictured how she was going to take it when he just told her to go hop another freight train. He'd told her she had a job at four bits a day, however temporary. After that he still couldn't see how the hell farm girls or shop clerks in the full flush of youth as well as skirts went about tracking down experienced owlhoot riders.

  He explained about Daisy Gunn and his future plans for her as he lettered on. He had to send this already windy field report at nickel a word flat rates if he expected his home office to get it before it was too late in the day to matter. So he didn't waste nickels asking them to see if there were any wants out on little Daisy Gunn. He knew Henry would get cracking in the file room before Billy ordered him to scout her good.

  He told them where he'd be that afternoon and which train they meant to catch to Fort Laramie after dark. Then he told the telegraph clerk to reverse the charges, and he left Western Union with a less troubled mind, humming the words to that old church song he often recalled at such times. It went,

  "Farther along, we'll know more about it. Farther along, we'll understand why. Cheer up, my brothers, walk in the sunshine. We'll understand it, All by and by."

  "There's got to be some iron-fisted man behind that velvet glove handing out cheap badges and childish arrest warrants," he decided, in spite of the advice he'd just given himself. It was all right, if not downright smart, for a lawman to keep changing his mind as he stepped through the sunlight and shadow of a mysterious world. Men in any line who made up their minds before all the cards had been dealt were most likely to get up from the table broke.

  He came upon a lady's notions shop a block farther along and ducked inside to see about some decent duds for his raggedy recruit at the hotel. A little old lady with hair the color of a barbed-wire coil and an ass that wasn't half bad said she'd be proud to rustle him up a blue and yellow print frock if he'd tell her the size of his young lady.

  Longarm squinted thoughtfully down at the little old lady in a manner to bring some color to her dear old cheeks as he decided, "She's about your height, but not built quite as curvaceous, ma'am. I reckon any pretty frock you could fit your own fine figure in would be safe for her to slip into."

  The little old lady laughed in a surprisingly young tone and got some frocks to choose between from out back. Longarm could see at a glance how nice one print featuring yellow asters on a robin's-egg-blue background would offset Daisy's coloring. So he allowed he'd take it and added the gal might be able to use a travel duster to wear over her finery.

  Finding an ankle-length tan poplin duster in the right size was easier. The elderly but nicely put-together shop lady balked when he asked her to hoist her skirts and throw one foot up on the counter.

  She asked him what on earth he thought she was selling, and Longarm, almost blushed, his ownself, as he explained he had to pick out some shoes and socks for that other lady.

  The one he was talking to asked if he couldn't check the size of the shoes his young lady was already wearing.

  He didn't want to explain checking into the Pilgrim wit
h a raggedy barefoot waif, so he allowed it was supposed to be a birthday surprise.

  That worked. The little old lady lined up a whole mess of high-button shoes on the counter for him to make an educated guess. He squinted his eyes to picture bare feet on that hotel rug and decided, "I might be able to guess smarter if you were to show me riding boots, instead, ma'am. I'm used to taking army showers with bare feet of all shapes and sizes. But I picture the same in boots instead of fine footwear."

  The little old lady pursed her lips and declared, "Riding boots, with a calico print? Well, you did say you wanted to surprise her!"

  Longarm chuckled at the picture and replied, "Matter of fact, we may go riding, later. You'd best throw in a summer-weight riding habit. Split skirts, if you have 'em. I've never seen the lady ride, and some younger gals have taken to riding astride of late, out this way."

  The older woman sniffed, said she'd noticed, and Longarm wasn't sure whether she was feeling shocked or left out as she rummaged in the back some more to produce a whip-cord bolero jacket and split calf-length skirt she allowed would fit anyone who could get into that dress and duster.

  Longarm bought a frilly blouse and a silly gal's hat to go with the other purchases. He figured Daisy could wear that more mannish straw hat with her riding habit. When he paid off he was glad he'd told Billy Vail about hiring Daisy for four bits and found. Dressing her up civilized had used up some pocket jingle!

  As he thanked the nice old lady and stepped back outside it came to him that Daisy was waiting, in her bath or wrapped in a towel, with nothing in the way of underwear if he was any judge of a gal's hind end in raggedy jeans. But he was out to make her presentable in public, not to fill her damned hope chest, and he was fixing to catch holy hell as it was when he charged that silly summer hat to the U.S. government.