Tabor Evans - Longarm and The Branded Beauty

“Either way,” Longarm said, “you could hardly go wrong. Will you be starting a new ministry?”

“I’d like to.” Noah shook his head. “I just don’t know. So much has happened here that I think we both need some time to just relax and enjoy ourselves. I’ve even thought of getting a little farm down in the San Joaquin Valley. The soil is so rich down there that you can’t hardly help but prosper.”

Longarm could not imagine Stella Vacarro being a farmer’s wife, but he wisely chose not to voice his concerns.

Stella spoke instead. “Noah wonders if we need to move farther away in order to smooth his father’s feathers.”

“Now Stella, that’s not all of it.”

“But it’s a big part of it,” Stella argued. “You’re afraid that if we stay anywhere near Sacramento, you will ruin your father’s chances of being elected our next governor. But the truth is, you ought to be worrying about Nick—not us.”

“Stella, please,” Noah pleaded. “I’d rather not bore your friend with our family problems. All right?”

“All right,” she said, even managing a smile.

Longarm went right on with his dinner. He was ravenous, and had two helpings of stew and probably half the apple pie. And later, when they retired back to the parlor, the heavy meal and the long chase into the Sierras got the better of him and he became very sleepy.

“I’d better be getting to a hotel room,” he said, pushing himself to his feet with a yawn. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

“Good night,” Noah said, coming to his feet. “Actually, I should go too. I’ll walk back with you into town.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I have an early appointment,” Noah said.

He gave Stella a peck on the cheek and they both left Stella’s house a few minutes later. It was dark out, and Longarm figured it was around ten o’clock. He was dead on his feet as they strolled back toward the main part of town and its collection of hotels, saloons, and businesses.

“You think a great deal of Stella, don’t you,” Noah said, breaking a comfortable silence.

“I do,” Longarm admitted. “The woman has character and heart.”

“I think so too. I know that she has had a rather … sordid past. But that doesn’t matter to me. It’s what she is now that matters, not what she used to be.”

“No one ever gave Stella a thing in life,” Longarm said. “She’s got her tough side, but the miracle is that she didn’t become hard and cynical. She’s still one of the kindest, most generous women I’ve ever met. And she’s still one of the most beautiful.”

“She’s so beautiful that I worry about her,” Noah admitted. “I mean, I’m no Adonis. I’m just a real ordinary gent who will probably go bald and chubby in another ten years. I’m afraid that she might … might become ashamed of me.”

“No!”

“You don’t think so?”

“Of course not! Stella likes what you are inside. And that’s by far the most important thing.” Longarm clapped the much smaller man on his shoulder. “Noah, don’t you worry about Stella ever leaving you. Loyalty is one of her greatest qualities. She’s in love with you!”

“Thank you!” he said, looking very relieved. “I really can’t express how much better I feel having heard you say that. My father and brother and just about everyone else in Auburn have been saying that I’m crazy to marry Stella. But they don’t know her like we know her, do they.”

“No,” Longarm said, “they do not. Stella is the kind of woman that will make you an even better man. She wants a family and she wants to make the world a little better place than it would have been without her. I sense that you feel the same way.”

“And you as well, Marshal! Why, if I …”

Noah Huffington didn’t get to finish because his words were interrupted by a rolling volley of gunfire and then shouting.

Longarm grabbed his six-gun and started to run quickly leaving Noah Huffington behind. The shooting could only mean that a lynch mob had attacked the jail and Marshal Walker was in big, big trouble.

Chapter 7

As soon as Longarm rounded the corner, he saw at least fifty men with torches dragging Marshal Walker’s five prisoners up the street. Longarm didn’t know how they had gotten past Marshal Walker, but he knew that the mob must have used force.

“What happened!” he yelled to an old man that he overtook and spun around.

“We’re gonna lynch them bastards!” the old fella exclaimed as he hobbled after the raucous crowd. “Gonna take em up to the park and hang ‘em in the trees,”

“What about Marshal Walker?”

“They shot the fool!”

“Damn!” Longarm swore, running on down the street as fast as his long legs would carry him.

He didn’t stop until he burst into the marshal’s office and saw Walker lying on the floor in a pool of blood. He was surrounded by several of his friends, none of whom seemed to know what to do other than to appear stricken and confused.

“Marshal Long!” a middle-aged woman cried hysterically. “They’ve shot him!”

Longarm dropped down on his knees and grabbed Walker’s wrist. “He’s still alive. Has someone sent for a doctor?”

“Yes,” the woman answered. “He should be here any minute. But our marshal is bleeding to death!”

Longarm tore off his coat, then his shirt, which he proceeded to tear into strips. The marshal had been shot twice, once in the shoulder and once in the head. He’d lost a lot of blood and his color was pasty white. His pulse was faint, and Longarm thought the man could die at any minute and that the most critical need was to stop the bleeding.

The slug had gone completely through the shoulder so that the only thing that Longarm could do was to pack cloth into both the entry and exit wounds to staunch the bleeding. He’d done it more than once before and wasn’t a bit squeamish about the matter. Several of the marshal’s friends, however, vigorously protested the rough but necessary treatment.

“That isn’t going to do anything!” one man cried. “It’s the head wound that will kill him!”

“Shut up or go outside and wait for the doctor!” Longarm ordered as he used his longer strips to cinch down his crude plugs. Then he turned his attention to the more critical head wound.

“Is he going to live?” the woman asked. “Has he any chance at all!”

“I don’t know,” Longarm answered. “The head wound might not be as bad as I first thought. If that’s the case, our friend could survive.”

“It was awful the way they took those train robbers and rapists,” the woman said. “That lynch mob isn’t much better than the ones they took from this jail! They were drunk—real drunk, and howling for blood like a pack of winter-starved wolves. Poor Pete tried to stop them. He had a shotgun and threatened to use it. But someone—I can’t imagine who—shot him down right in front of this office! It was awful!”

“Yeah,” Longarm said, “I’ve seen it happen a time or two before. There’s something about a lynching that brings out the very devil in normally law-abiding men.”

The woman shook her head and tears slid down her cheeks. “When Pete fell, they trampled right over the top of him like he was nothing,” she said. “They found the cell keys and dragged those five prisoners out and started to beat them. I was outside and we could hear the prisoners screaming. Next thing I knew, they were dragging the prisoners out and then down the street. I think they were already half dead.”

“Where is that doctor!” Longarm swore as he wrapped strips of his shirt around Walker’s head until it looked as if the lawman was wearing a crimson turban.