Tabor Evans - Longarm and The Branded Beauty

“But you wouldn’t have had any chance,” Longarm said. “No chance at all.”

“It will be dark in another two hours,” Stella said, glancing at a window.

“In two hours,” Longarm told her, “a lot of good things could happen.”

“Such as?” Stella asked.

Longarm frowned, trying but unable to come up with some encouragement.

“Yeah,” William said, “I have the same damned question, Marshal.”

“Me too,” Jack raged. “Marshal, if they get their hands on us again, we’re dead men!”

“You’re dead men either way,” Longarm said quietly. “And there’s nothing I can or even want to do to keep you from the gallows.”

Chapter 10

The sun was going down and the mob was heating up when Longarm heard a loud pounding on his office door. “Who is it!”

“It’s me! Marshal Walker! Open up!”

Longarm hardly recognized the voice because it was so weak. But it did sound like Marshal Walker, so he unbolted the door and peeked through the crack.

“Pete! For crying out loud! You should be in bed!”

“That’s what Doc Davis kept telling me,” Walker said as he pushed inside. “But you just can’t keep a good lawman down, can you.”

“Come on in and sit down!”

Pete staggered inside. He was weak, but a six-gun was strapped to his waist and when he collapsed on his bunk, he managed a smile. “I come to defend the fortress,” he told them. “And I come to find out what the hell happened to Noah Huffington.”

“I didn’t see him,” Longarm said. “I haven’t been able to leave my prisoners for even a minute. Stella?”

“I never saw him either,” she answered, “but several of my friends did. They also saw my stiletto in his back. He’d been stabbed to death in his bedroom.”

“Was there any evidence of a struggle or of theft?” Longarm asked.

“I don’t know,” Stella said, her voice nearly cracking. “I just heard the news and came rushing over here because I knew what awful conclusions people would immediately reach. I wanted to rush to Noah, but my friends told me that I’d be caught and maybe even hanged on the spot.”

“They might have been entirely right,” Longarm said. “You did the smart thing.”

“Doc Davis examined the body,” Walker said. “He told me that there were bruises all over Noah’s body and face. It appeared that he’d put up one helluva good fight.”

“Those bruises could also have been inflicted by the lynch mob last night,” Longarm said. “Noah was struck with a whiskey bottle squarely in the face and then he fell hard back into a wagon bed.”

“Yeah,” Walker said, “we knew that, but the doctor said it was clear that he’d been in a tough fight. His knuckles were scraped up and he’d taken quite a pounding.”

“That works in our favor,” Longarm said, “because Stella sure couldn’t have beaten him that way.”

Tears began to slide down Stella’s cheeks, and then she started to cry. Longarm went over to her side to comfort the poor woman. “Stella, I’m sorry, but we’re just trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle.”

“I know,” she whispered. “And there is nothing more in the world that I want than to find out who killed my poor Noah. But I shouldn’t have to be hiding in jail! I should be out there trying to do something.”

“There’s nothing that you can do right now,” Longarm told her. “Nothing except to stay alive and maybe help us solve this murder.”

“I’m afraid that I’m not going to be any help with this one,” Walker said. “But I can promise you that a couple of good lawmen are going to be arriving to help us put the clamp on that lynch mob. And when the dust settles, you can bet that I’m going to be making more than just a few arrests.”

“If you ask me,” Longarm said, “it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to start with your town’s mayor.”

“I agree,” Walker said with a yawn. “Now wake me when my friends from Placerville show up to help.”

“What are their names?”

“Marshal Ed Jones and his deputy, Frank Lane,” Walker answered. “They’re both damned fine lawmen.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Stella,” Walker said, “you need to have a doctor look at that bullet crease across your neck. You look like you’ve lost quite a lot of blood.”

“I’ve got plenty more,” Stella replied. “And anyway, he’d just want to sew it up and I’d just have to tell him no. So what’s the point?”

“If that’s the way you feel, then I guess you’re right,” Walker answered, closing his eyes.

The man fell asleep almost at once, but his arrival had a very positive effect on everyone in the room. Even the two train robbers looked much more hopeful than they had several minutes earlier.

“Maybe we do have a chance of living to see tomorrow morning,” William said to his companion.

“Maybe,” Jack said, “but only if more help arrives. Huffington ain’t going to let any grass grow between his toes. He left mad, and you can just bet that he and Nick are stirring up trouble out there in the street.”

Jack came over to stand near the front of the cell. He gripped the bars and said, “If Marshal Walker’s lawmen friends don’t arrive in time, and if the mob gets rough, you’d better give Stella to ‘em, Marshal Long. You do that, might be they’ll leave us be.”

“You’re just one hell of a conniving sonofabitch, aren’t you, Jack. Always looking for the quick and easy way out no matter who gets hurt.”

“Hell, yes, I am!” Jack angrily shouted. “And I suppose you wouldn’t be if you were looking to be hanged!”

Longarm didn’t even bother to answer. He divided up the basket of food that Lola had brought for them, and everyone ate in silence, listening to the noise out in the street. They heard both Abe and Nick Huffington’s strident voices, and knew that the pair were inciting the crowd to rush the marshal’s office and take the law into their own hands for the second night in a row. “I sure hope that Pete’s lawmen friends from Placerville get here soon,” Longarm said. “If we have enough bodies to make a good show of force, I believe we can bluff down that mob. But if it’s just the three of us … well, it might come down to blood and bullets.”

“Yeah,” Stella said, coming over to wrap her arms around his neck and hug him tightly. “This is turning into a nightmare! I’m sorry that I dragged you into it, Custis.”

“Don’t be sorry about that,” Longarm told her. “I’ve had an … an interesting time already, and the worst thing in the world for me is boredom. Believe me, I haven’t been bored since my train was robbed.”

Stella managed a smile. “Do you think that you can find out who really killed Noah?”

“I’m sure going to try,” he said, “but I need to examine the body and the room where he was killed. Then I need to start asking questions and poking around for clues. My hunch is that Noah might have been killed by some friend of Abe Huffington determined that Noah not marry you and create a scandal that could jeopardize Abe’s political future.”

“I was thinking that might be the motive,” Stella said. “But there are probably dozens of people who would stand to lose a great deal if Abe isn’t elected the new governor of California. So even if that were the motive, I still don’t see how you could narrow it down.”

“Well,” Longarm mused, “sometimes these things just have a way of working themselves out to a logical conclusion. But it all takes time to investigate. And time, Stella, is something that you might not have.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that if we get a hanging judge who just wants to get this whole business taken care of in a big hurry, it could be very bad for you, Stella.”