Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (16 page)

He went to the Western Union office. He was aware that the telegraphers were not allowed to divulge the contents of wired messages, but he knew that the pimply-faced kid who ran the office probably drank with Sheriff Marvin and everyone else in town. So, while it meant more time and trouble, he wrote his messages in code.

He sent one to an old friend in the War Department, telling him not to pay too much attention to any rumors he might hear about the bloodthirsty Digger Indians boiling down from the rimrock to rape the livestock and drive off the women.

The young telegrapher stared at the sheet of yellow flimsy and said, “I can't make head or tail of this, mister. This message looks like it was written in Greek, or maybe Chinese!”

Longarm said, “You just send it the way I wrote it, boy. I ain't paying you to understand it.”

The youth looked at the address and said, “Oh, War Department stuff, huh? I'll bet you're telling them about the Miwok, right?”

“That's close enough,” Longarm said. He'd been told that, to date, the U.S. army had spent over a thousand dollars for each and every Indian, friendly or otherwise, west of the Mississippi. Sooner or later he was going to have to explain his actions to Uncle Sam, and his expense account would hardly cover a fruitless military expedition.

He wet the tip of a pencil stub and composed a longer message to Marshal Billy Vail in the Denver office while the telegrapher sent his coded message to the War Department.

Longarm knew his boss wouldn't go along with half the notions he had in mind, but Vail had warned him not to go crazy anymore without a word of warning or at least some slight explanation. So Longarm brought his superiors up to date. He explained that he was pretending to back off, and then outlined what he intended to do next. He may have skimmed over some details, for he knew Vail was a worrier. That was the trouble with a lawman who worked behind a desk. Out in the field, a man did what he had to. Sitting in an office filled with books of rules and regulations, a man could lose sight of objectives. Longarm wasn't on this side of the High Sierra to enforce pettifogging regulations dreamed up by some idiot in Washington. He was here to find out who was high-grading Uncle Sam's gold, and to make the bastards stop.

It was that one word,
stop
, that caused Vail so much needless worry. The big shots in the Justice Department seemed to think Longarm's job was to build up watertight cases that would hold up in court. But Longarm was not a lawyer. He knew his law well enough, he supposed. He knew how often some son of a bitch got off on a technicality, too. So he tended to settle his cases with more dispatch and permanency than Marshal Vail thought was decent.

He knew it would take his office time to receive and decode his message. So, after paying the confused Western Union clerk, he said he'd be back in the afternoon to see if there was an answer waiting for him. He didn't add that he had no intention of ever letting on he'd received one, if Vail told him not to overstep his authority again.

Longarm looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon. So he moseyed over to the library to catch up on his reading—and whatever.

The same librarian was on duty, so he sent her up the ladder after some more chemistry books. He noticed that her ankles were still as pretty as they had been before, so he sent her up again after a tome on ore recovery. The mining book was heavy and she lost her balance on the way down. Longarm caught her and said, “Steady on, ma'am.”

The girl flushed as she turned her head away and said, “Oh, I'm so clumsy.”

Longarm tended to agree, but it was nice to know she trusted him to catch her.

He said, “My name is Custis Long and, like I said the other day, I work for the Justice Department as a field deputy.”

She handed him the book and smiled shyly, saying, “I'm Pru Sawyer, and I wish I worked just about anywhere else.”

“Don't you like books, ma'am?”

She brushed a stray tendril of hair away from her face. “There's a limit to what you can get from books, and they start smelling musty, after a time.”

She shot him an arch look as she added, “I notice you've put on some cologne since the last time.”

“Had to,” he said. “I was all stunk up with chemicals and water lilies.”

They stood there smiling awkwardly for a few moments. Finally, her hands moved spasmodically, as if she didn't know where to put them, and she went back to her desk.

Longarm sat down too, and began to skim through the books while he felt her eyes burning holes in the back of his neck. Few people seemed to come in here. Her days here were undoubtedly boring for her.

He wondered idly why so many men were put off by educated women. He supposed it was because education gives a person a certain amount of independence, and most men didn't care much for that in women. He smiled at the idea that most men couldn't feel strong and smart except when they could measure themselves against someone weaker and stupider. Longarm was not a man in need of such reassurance. He thought of Nellie Bly, the young lady reporter he had met in the Indian Nation a while back, and remembered with a concealed grin that her intelligence, independence, and strength of will hadn't diminished one whit their enjoyment of each other.

With an effort, he turned his attention to the books before him. There wasn't a thing in them he hadn't already read or been told about. But he had time to kill. None of the professors who wrote about gold recovery had considered high-grading.

Most high-graders tended to be petty thieves who either took a job in a mine or trespassed in the diggings when folks weren't looking. Nine out of ten lumps of ore looked like nothing much before they were crushed and refined. If there was a glitter of color showing, the lump was worth stealing, even a rock at a time. The average high-grader simply filled his pockets with rich ore, carried it off, and did his own refining with a nine-pound sledge and a prospector's pan. A man could wash a few hundred dollars a day from stuff with visible color.

But the Lost Chinaman's missing ore wasn't rich enough to refine by such methods. A thief down in some canyon could work for a month of Sundays with running water and not pan out enough to make it pay much more than if he'd been washing dishes for money instead.

He looked up cyanide. The entry didn't tell him much. Cyanide melted or dissolved the metal from the quartz too, a bit better, although somewhat more slowly, than acid. He knew the high-graders had cyanide; he'd smelled it on the dead men's breath and in the wine they'd been tricked with. But every mine in the county undoubtedly had some cyanide handy, and half the local Mexicans made their own wine. That line of inquiry was too fuzzy to bother following up on.

Pru Sawyer came over from her desk and sat down beside him. They were alone in the place, so he wondered why she whispered as she said, “It's almost siesta time, Marshal. I'm afraid we have to close the library until three this afternoon.”

He stretched and said, “I'm about done here, in any case. You folks hereabouts follow Mexican notions?”

“You mean about the siesta hours? I'm afraid we do. Nobody will be stirring in town until later this afternoon, when it starts to cool off.” She looked down at her hands, which were tangled together in her lap, and added, “Most of us eat and then go home to take a little nap during the hotter part of the afternoon.”

He said, “I know how siestas work. I ain't never been one for snoozing in broad daylight, but I'll find something to do. I have to wait for a telegram before I can ride out, anyway.”

“Oh, you're leaving San Andreas? I mean, for good?” she asked with what Longarm was sure was a definite hint of disappointment.

He nodded soberly, and said, “I was starting to like it here, too. I'd, uh, offer to buy you a meal, but I reckon you'll have to go home to your folks, eh? I mean, I notice you ain't wearing a wedding band.”

She didn't look up at him as she murmured, “I live alone. I'm not from this part of the country, Marshal.”

He grinned and said, “You don't have to keep calling me Marshal; I ain't talking official business with you. Most people I'm friendly with call me Longarm.”

She looked a little confused, then brightened and said, “Oh, I see. ‘Long arm of the law,' and all that.”

“Well,” he continued, “seeing as we're both strangers in these parts, with nobody expecting us home for the siesta and all, I'd take it kindly if you'd have a bite with me, uh, before your nap or whatever.” Before she could take that the wrong way, he quickly added, “If you know a restaurant that won't poison us too bad, I'm on an expense account and you can eat anything you've a mind to.”

She hesitated, her hairline going pink like sunset along a high ridge before she said, “The only café near here serves dreadful food.”

He closed the book he'd been reading with a snap of finality and said, “Well, you can't say I never offered, ma'am.”

She looked up at him, her eyes moist and thoughtful as she asked, “Will you be by later, Longarm?”

“Doubt it. You're right about books. You can only get so much out of any book. After that, you have to go out in the real world for whatever you're after.”

She said, “I know. Uh, we could sort of eat at my house, if you're not in too much of a hurry. I mean, I live just down the street, and—”

Longarm nodded and said, “That's right neighborly of you, ma'am.”

Chapter 8

Somewhere a clock chime was tolling two o'clock. Longarm propped himself up on one elbow and muttered, “Got to get on over to the telegraph office.” But the girl at his side on the rumpled bedding pleaded, “Don't go yet, darling. We have until three before I have to go back to that dusty old library!”

He smiled at her fondly and said, “I never said I wasn't coming back.”

Pru Sawyer was a funny little gal. She'd refused to take her chemise off even after he'd gotten them in bed and down to serious loving after a bit of sparring about across her kitchen table. She made tolerable coffee and awful flapjacks, but he'd eaten four of the damned things. The scattered sunlight through the drawn lace curtains of her bedroom dappled her pale, nude rump and legs with golden spangles as she lay beside him on her belly, one arm across his waist. She said, “You told me about expecting a telegram from Denver, but can't it wait?”

He ran his free hand down her spine and fondled her firm little bottom, explaining, “If I get the authorization I need, I may have to ride into Sacramento. I want to get there before the banks and such close.”

“Pooh, the banks close at three. You'd never make it even if you left right now.”

“I don't aim to make any deposits or withdrawals, honey. The bankers won't be out of the building before six and I knock plenty loud.”

“Are you staying there tonight? I wish you'd take me with you.”

He ran his fingers between her buttocks absently and shook his head, saying, “No. I figure on a fast round trip. If you want, you can put a light in your window for me. I'll be back before too late for more of your cooking.”

She giggled and said, “You knew from the first I was wild, didn't you?”

He said, “I was hoping so. You must get tired of reading all the time.”

“I get tired of the sort of men I usually meet in that, place, too.”

Longarm thought it was ironic that mousy little gals who looked like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths were usually wilder than all hell in bed. Probably thinking about it all the time was what made them blush so much.

She arched her back and wriggled her bottom as he explored it, saying, “You're getting me all hot and bothered doing that.”

He said, “Just getting to know you better. How come you keep that shimmy shirt on like that? It ain't civilized to make love with half your clothes on.”

“I just couldn't let you see me naked in broad daylight,” she told him.

“How come? It ain't like we were strangers.”

“I know, dearest, but I just feel funny about it.” Abruptly she turned over, spreading her legs and pulling him on top of her. She wrapped her naked arms and legs around him as he quickly entered her. The chemise annoyed him and he bent his head down to grab the cotton over one breast between his teeth. She giggled and gyrated as he started pulling it up between their bellies, a mouthful at a time. As their moist, bare bellies rubbed together, she suddenly reached down to grab the hem and pull the shift up over her breasts and beyond, gasping, “Oh, yes, it does feel ever so much nicer naked!”

Still moving inside her, he helped her get it all the way off and she threw it across the room.

By the time they were through, they were halfway on the floor. Her hair was brushing the carpet as she bounced her hips all over the bed. Longarm braced a foot against the wall, and put a palm on the floor to keep from diving out on his head. She was still talking about how good it had been while he pulled on his boots.

As he was buttoning his vest, Pru tried to unbutton his fly. He laughed and shoved her hand away, promising, “I'll be back before you cool off enough to mention, honey. But I've really got to git.”

“Are you sure you're not just trifling with my emotions? I've heard about you love-'em-and-leave-'em cowboys!”

Longarm had little doubt that she had. She'd probably worn a few down to a nub, too. But he knew the rules of the game, so he said, “I ain't a cowboy, I'm a public servant. When I ride back this way, I aim to trifle hell put of your emotions and anything else I can get my hands on.”

Then he strapped on his six-gun, donned his frock coat, and put his Stetson on, insisting, “Got to get cracking, honey. Leave that light in your window and, like the poet says, ‘I'll come to thee at midnight, though hell should bar the way.'”

As he kissed her goodbye and left, she sighed, “Oh, you're so romantic . . . sort of.”

Longarm let himself out the side door, but strode boldly out to the plank walk, for skulking out of a lady's home in broad daylight or any other time draws more attention than walking tall, as if he were perhaps a visiting minister, a door-to-door drummer, or whatever.

An older woman in a sun bonnet was coming up the walk as Longarm left Pru's gate. Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson with a friendly smile and said, “Howdy, ma'am. Nice day, ain't it?”

The old biddy sniffed and said, “Well! I never!”

Longarm hadn't asked her if she ever, for she was a bit long in the tooth and as homely as a chicken's ass. He and Pru had probably made her day for her. But it was no concern of his what the backyard gossips said about the new gal at the library. He'd been invited fair and square, and it was up to Pru to consider what her neighbors thought.

At the telegraph office he found Billy Vail's message waiting for him:

HAVE YOU BEEN DRINKING
STOP
US GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE PARTY TO YOUR LATEST INSANITY
STOP
YOU ARE OUT THERE TO CATCH CROOKS NOT TO DRIVE WHOLE STATE OF CALIFORNIA CRAZY
STOP
SUGGEST YOU STICK TO BOOK AND CONDUCT PROPER INVESTIGATION
STOP
VAIL US MARSHAL DISTRICT COURT OF DENVER

Longarm swore softly, balled the telegram up, and threw it in the tin wastebasket. The adenoidal operator opined, “Whatever that coded message you sent him was, he didn't like it much, did he?”

Longarm didn't answer. He walked outside, went to the livery, and retrieved his mount. Then he lit out for Sacramento, riding fast.

*   *   *

The manager at the Crocker bank in Sacramento was an old-timer who'd panned for color without much luck in the rush of '49. So he knew about high-grading, claim jumping, and the other crooked notions gold brought out in people. He was bored with paperwork, too, so he was more than willing to converse with a deputy U.S. marshal on almost any subject.

They chewed on the high-grading of the Lost Chinaman until they had most of the juice out of it and the banker said he would go along with Longarm as far as the law allowed. He said some of what the lawman suggested was slightly unethical, but when Longarm pointed out that high-grading was unethical too, the banker laughed and sent a clerk for the account records.

Longarm spread the account books out on the banker's desk and pored over them. As he ran a finger down a line of figures, the banker said, “I didn't know you rootin', tootin' riders for Uncle Sam were interested in bookkeeping.”

Longarm sighed and answered, “We don't get to root and toot all the time. Two-thirds of this fool job is just boring routine. Before we get to arrest most folks, we have to ask the same fool questions over and over, and most of the leads we follow wind up nowhere much.”

“Ain't life a humdrum bitch? What are you looking for there, Longarm?”

“Lies, mostly. Everyone I've met so far out here has a plausible tale and an innocent reason for being wheresoever and doing whatsoever. At least one of them has to be a crook.”

He found the last entry he was looking for, closed the book, and sat back, muttering, “Shit.”

Then he took out a cheroot and put it between his teeth, neglecting to light it.

The banker asked what was wrong and Longarm explained, “Everyone's told the goddamned truth about their finances. Lucky for me you run the biggest bank in these parts, so everyone who has enough money to mention banks the same place. The Baxters have the credit rating they told me they have. Kevin MacLeod and his wife are almost as broke as they say they are, since their account is running thin. I see the Vallejo family has the wherewithal to lay out the thousand they offered for the land the mine is sitting on, and Constable Lovejoy has no more in his account than modest graft would call for. I notice you didn't show me the records of the mining company at Sheep Ranch.”

The banker nodded firmly and said, “I don't intend to show you, either. Folks like the Hearsts, Stanfords, Ralstons, Hopkinses, and such don't take kindly to having their finances bruited about.”

“I could likely get a court order.”

“From Justice Stephen Field? That's funny as hell. Look, you're a nice young fellow and I like you. But take my advice and back off asking about the big shots who own this state. You'll never in a million years hang a stolen nickel on old George Hearst or his friends.”

“Even if I catch them stealing from the U.S. Mint?”

“Shit, Longarm, who do you think
owns
the U.S. Mint?”

“The taxpaying public, according to the U.S. Constitution.”

“Son, the Constitution doesn't apply to folks as rich and powerful as those old boys. But aside from the danger to your job if you piss them off, I'd say you were way off base. No big outfit like the Sheep Ranch mine would be interested in stealing ore. They've
got
ore! I'll tell you—off the record—Hearst and Ralston own half of the Big Bonanza over in Virginia City. They've staked claims to the Black Hills ore that Custer got killed over. George Hearst has an interest in that new Anaconda outfit up in Butte, Montana. Hell, all the gold the high-graders have stolen from Kevin MacLeod wouldn't pay the salaries of old George's house niggers!”

Longarm said, “I never suggested that anyone as big as an owner might be high-grading. I don't suspect Huntington or Stanford of playing games with railroad switches, either. But you're right about lots of folks
working
for those big shots. Many a hardworking cuss has plenty of reasons for wanting a bigger slice of the pie. Don't the branch managers of mining properties work on commission?”

The banker frowned and said, “Now that you mention it, they might. You ain't as dumb as you look. Have you studied the men who run the refinery south of town? They get a bonus on the bullion they extract from ore, too!”

Longarm nodded and said, “I mean to have a talk with them later. I don't think they lied to MacLeod about the ore he's been delivering.”

The banker narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as he muttered, “I know this sounds pretty raw and obvious, but have you considered how easy it would be to give MacLeod a false assay? I mean, we don't know the so-called worthless rock never went through the stamping mill
later
, say around midnight.”

Longarm grinned and said, “That was one of the first things I came up with, but it won't wash. I was there when they ran the assay. Later on, I sort of snooped around the rock piles down the track. You see, I took the liberty of marking a few lumps of MacLeod's ore when they told him it was worthless. It's still just lying there. Besides that, they've got too many workers at the refinery to play so rough a game on folks. I've added up such refined-out bullion as there could be in ore twice as rich, and I arrived at a figure for the gang.”

“You know how many high-graders there are?” the banker asked.

“Nope. I know how many there might possibly be, though. We're dealing with sophisticated professional thieves, or they'd have been caught by the first lawmen who looked for them. Professionals don't steal pennies. Allowing each possible member of the outfit at least a few hundred dollars each time a shipment's diverted, there can't be more than two dozen or so in on it, counting payoffs to folks who just look the other way. There're just too many folks to pay off down here at the Sacramento end. The ones I want are operating out of Calaveras County.”

“That still takes in a mess of folks, son.”

Longarm rose from his chair as he said, “I know. And since I don't aim to arrest you, I'd best be on my way. I thank you kindly for cooperating with me as far as your regulations allow.”

Leaving the Crocker bank, Longarm walked over to the land office for another visit.

The man who remembered Mark Twain, although not the celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, was not on duty that afternoon. This did not make the tall deputy at all unhappy, for he wanted to see if they always gave out the same tale to visiting lawmen.

They did. Longarm talked to an almost-pretty girl named Justine. She said she was a miner's widow and that she'd gotten the job on merit. It was amazing how many women were holding down men's jobs, these days. Likely it had something to do with Queen Victoria, Longarm thought. Back when he was a kid, before the War, he never saw women in offices with pencils stuck in their hair. Ever since the English had allowed a woman to be ruler of the British Empire, it was getting harder and harder to say no to a female applicant. Which was the way things should be, he supposed, but he found it difficult to do real business without cussing.

Justine took him back to her cubbyhole and told him she knew all about the Spanish land grants he was interested in. As he sat down across from her, she started by correcting him. “Actually, the so-called old Spanish grants you hear about in California were never granted by the Spanish crown. When Mexico declared its independence in 1821, California was sparsely settled. Aside from the missions, they had a few military garrisons: the San Francisco Presidio, Monterey, and so forth.”

Longarm smiled at her, wondering if she wore her hair in that tight little bun to look more down-to-business, or if she really had no notion of fashion. He asked, “Are you saying folks like the Vallejos are full of bull when they brag about all the wild mustard they used to own?”