Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (28 page)

When he felt her beginning to respond once more, he asked, “You still want me to go on and not wait for you?”

“You can tell I don't. You're the damnedest man, Longarm. You've just about got me there again. Hold on for a little bit longer, if you can. I'm loving every minute of it!”

“Take your time, Ruthie. I'm not in a hurry. Not yet.”

Longarm prolonged the embrace until he felt her beginning to respond. Then he drove them both to a frenzy with short, quick lunges until their flesh could stand no more and melting spasms shook them, drained them. They drew apart, sighing, and almost at once, both of them fell asleep.

*   *   *

When Longarm woke, the sunlight was beating against the drawn shade of his room's lone window. He rubbed his face with his hands, the woman-scent of Ruthie recalling the night. Turning in bed, he took his watch out of his vest pocket. The hands showed eleven o'clock.

“She took if out of you right good,” he told himself, rolling to his feet. He remembered her leaving; when he'd locked the door behind her, the window shade had been translucent with a faint dawn-gray glow.

“First time I've been in bed this late for as long as I can recall,” he muttered. He tilted the bottle of bonded rye and swallowed the small amount of whiskey left in it. Moving swiftly without the appearance of speed, he went through his morning dressing routine, anxious to make up for the time he'd lost in getting the day under way.

Eating breakfast at noon wasn't a new experience for him, but it wasn't one Longarm especially enjoyed. With eggs and steak and three cups of coffee under his belt, he walked to the sheriff's office. The door wasn't padlocked this time; the lock lay on Grover's desk, but the sheriff was nowhere to be seen. Both cells of the cramped jail were empty too, so there was no one to ask when Grover might be back. Longarm weighed the possibility of finding the sheriff in one of the saloons or stores, and decided his best bet was to wait. The unlocked door was, he thought, a pretty good sign that Grover would be back sooner rather than later.

Longarm's hunch proved correct. He'd been waiting less than ten minutes when the sheriff sauntered in.

“Well, Marshal. What's on your mind today?”

“Just a little job of bushwhacking somebody tried to do last night. Nobody killed, but a man got nicked pretty good.”

“The hell you say! Where'd it happen, and how come I haven't heard about it before now?”

“Because you weren't around anyplace where I could find you last night. If it'd been a killing or something like that, I'd've waited to run you down before I went to bed, but I figured there wasn't much you could do that couldn't wait.”

“Who got shot?” Grover asked.

“One of the wheat farmers out from town to the north. Name's Petrovsky, Fedor Petrovsky.”

“Now, hold on! He's the foreign son of a bitch the Brethren are running against me in the election!”

“Sure. I know that. Didn't, though, until last night.”

“Too bad whoever shot him didn't aim better. It would've saved me wearing myself out campaigning.”

“That's one way to look at it, I guess, but a sort of cold-blooded one, it seems to me.”

“Shit, who'd miss anybody like him? We'd be better off if the whole kit and caboodle of them Russians moved out.”

Longarm had heard enough. He said coldly, “Look here, Grover, I already know how you feel about those farmers, after what you told me the other night. Which is just about what your boss said when I talked to him yesterday.”

“I've got no boss except the people who elected me!” Grover said angrily.

“Sure. That's what Clem Hawkins said, too.”

“I heard you'd paid him a visit. Let me give you some good advice, Long. Don't tangle with Clem. He's a bigger man than you are. He's good friends with congressmen and senators, and he can pull strings that just might get you yanked outa your job.”

“You let me worry about my job. You've got your own to take care of,” Longarm shot back.

Grover was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was calmer. He'd evidently decided that Longarm was right about his own position being none too secure. He said, “There's no use in us locking horns on this. You did me a favor when you corralled that drunk cowhand. I guess I owe you one now.”

“You don't owe me anything. All I want is for you to play out your hand the way it's dealt, cards faceup, like you said you were going to do the other night.”

“We never did finish our talk, did we?” Grover asked.

“Seems to me we were interrupted,” Longarm replied.

“Well, now's as good a time as any, if you feel like it.”

Longarm shook his head. “I'd just as soon put it off awhile. Until you get through looking into that shooting.”

“How bad's Petrovsky hurt?”

“Not bad. Slug went in high on his arm, clean wound. He'll be up and around in a day or so.”

“Well, you seem to've gotten pretty friendly with them nesters,” Grover said. “Suppose you tell him to come in, next time you see him, and after I've heard his story, I'll start my investigation.”

“Damn it, Grover, I'm telling you right now that there's been a murder attempted. You can't just sit there on your butt until you hear about it from the man who's been shot!”

“Who says I can't? You? This's a local shooting, mister federal marshal. Don't tell me you've got any jurisdiction over it.”

“Oh, I wouldn't do that. If I figured I had, I'd've begun looking into it before now. But in case you've disremembered, Grover, the fellow who got winged is up for office in an election I was sent here to watch. It wouldn't take too much of a stretch for me to say I'd
take
jurisdiction.”

“Don't threaten me, Long. My hands are clean. I've got nothing to be afraid of, where you're concerned.” Grover's anger was surfacing again.

“I didn't mean you had. Except it doesn't set too well with me to hear any officer sworn to uphold the law say he's going to drag his feet looking into a case of attempted murder just because the man who got shot's running against him for election.”

“I didn't say that!”

“You didn't miss it by much!” Longarm snapped.

“All right!” The sheriff's voice was calmer. “If it'll make you feel better, I'll go out and talk to Petrovsky. I don't guess he's going to die between now and tomorrow morning, is he?”

“I told you, he's not hurt bad.”

“I'll get out there first thing in the morning, then,” Grover said. “I've got work piled up that'll keep me busy the rest of today.”

“Suit yourself. I ain't trying to tell you how to run your business. But if you don't object, I'll check in with you after you get back. I've got a sort of personal interest in this case.”

“You mean you're going to take the nesters' side?” Grover said incredulously.

“I don't aim to take anybody's side. That's not my job. All I want is to see that election run fair and square. And that's what I aim to do.”

“As long, as you keep it that way, then there's nothing for you and me to quarrel about,” Grover said.

Leaving the sheriff's office, Longarm started to the livery stable for his horse, then thought better of it and turned back toward town. He stepped through the batwings at the Ace High. He told himself that he wasn't avoiding Ruthie, he just needed a spell of being by himself, where he could sit down and do some thinking.

At a table in one corner, with a bottle in front of him, he started taking stock.

Might be I made a mistake not telling Grover that slug could've been meant for me
, his thoughts ran.
If I'd told him, he'd maybe look closer at that bushwhacking than he will if he figures nobody but the Brethren are concerned.

It's too damned pat just to've happened by accident.
Longarm frowned, sipping his drink.
Wonder if it could be that cowhand, Fred? He'd feel like he owed me one for taming him down, making him look little in front of Ruthie. But hell, he's just a kid, and kids don't hold grudges the way grown men do. Most of the time, anyhow.

Couldn't be that Clem Hawkins set somebody on me. He's too smart an old he-coon to pull a stunt like that, at least not till he sees that I'm going to plow up his cabbage patch. Wouldn't put it past him to do most anything, though, if I stepped on his toes too hard.

Maybe a fence-cutter just riding past, who couldn't pass up the chance? Hawkins ain't the only rancher who tells his hands to carry wirecutters in their saddlebags, from what I hear.

Could be it was just a drunk cowhand larking around, who'd heard his boss cussing the Brethren day in, day out, and just took a potshot out of plumb damn meanness at anybody belong, to the Brethren, figuring they were fair game. But not likely, considering where the shot came from. Had to be somebody who took time and trouble enough to find a good place to shoot from.

Come to think about it, I never did see just exactly where the shot did come from. Muzzle flash was over, by the time I turned around to look.

Wouldn't do a bit of harm to ride out and nosy around a little bit. Not much I can do just johnnying here in town, or planting my butt in a chair in front of a bottle.

Inaction had always galled Longarm. He stood up, took the bottle back to the bar, and tossed the money for his drink onto the mahogany. Then he pushed through the batwings and turned up the street toward the livery to get his horse.

Chapter 7

You didn't have enough time to study this mess out proper last night, old son
, Longarm told himself as he rode toward the Danilovs' house, the afternoon sun warm on his shoulders.
Not that it would've done much good, what with everything happening in the dark the way it did. But it'd sure help to be on a hotter trail than the one you're likely to find out there, if you find any trail at all.

As the roan jogged along the road that paralleled the railroad spur, Longarm searched his memory, trying to recall the precise sound the rifle shot had made the night before. Unexpected as the gunfire had been, he'd registered it automatically in his mind for range, and was pretty sure the bushwhacker had fired from a distance of between a hundred and fifty and two hundred yards. That still left a lot of ground to be covered in trying to find the exact spot where the unknown gunman had stood.

Old Lady Luck better be riding on your shoulder today,
Longarm thought.
If she ain't, you're going to have one hell of a lot of hiking to do.

As the Danilov house faced north, Longarm rode on past the rutted land between wheatfields that led to its door. As he'd hoped, a similar passageway had been left between the two fields beyond the Danilov dwelling and the homestead beyond it. He turned up this one, and rode east until he was in line with the Danilov house. There, he began looking across the Glidden wire fence to the wheatfield on his right. When he found no sign of a trail, he went back to the road and turned north again to the lane that divided the next two fields.

This time his inspection of the grain south of the fence was more rewarding. From the fence to the center of the field, an irregular line of displaced stalks showed in the thigh-high grain. The line was faint, marked chiefly by an occasional sagging head and a broken stalk or two, but it was there, visible to anyone with trail-trained eyes.

As soon as he spotted the disturbed line in the wheatfield, Longarm pulled the roan up short. He didn't want to trample the area ahead; the night-shooter must have tethered his horse somewhere close to the spot where the path through the growing wheat began, and he didn't want his own mount to disturb any sign that might have been left. He didn't hope for much—the soil in the lane was stone-hard—but any tracks would be better than none at all.

Dismounting, Longarm looped the reins around the top strand of the fence enclosing the field, and walked to the point where the rifleman had entered the field. As he'd thought, the dirt in the lane was too hard to show a clean print, but a pile of still-moist dung showed that there'd been a horse left there for a while the night before.

“Hitched his horse to the fence here, all right. Too damn bad the ground's so hard I can't tell whether he followed me or that Petrovsky fellow over to Danilov's and got the idea of potshotting us when he seen us come outside,” Longarm muttered as he straddled the fence and went into the wheatfield.

Absorbed in searching the baked ground for footprints, kneeling now and then in the wheat when he discovered a trace of one, Longarm did not see or hear the plodding mule until its rider pulled up the animal at the fence. He looked back only when his name was called.

“Marshal Long!”

Looking around, Longarm saw the mule and its rider. He might not have recognized Fedor Petrovsky if the homesteader had not carried his left arm in a sling. “Petrovsky! What're you doing out here? You ought to be laying still, letting that arm heal up.”

“Nyet, eta ni nuzhna,”
Petrovsky replied cheerfully.
“Ya harasho.”
He saw Longarm's puzzled frown and said, “Excuse, please. Sometimes I forget to talk
Amirikanski
vords. I say is not needed I keep in bed, is all right my arm. Vas only little hurt.”

“I told the sheriff about the shooting,” Longarm said. “He'll be out to talk to you tomorrow morning, see if he can find out who did it.”

“Sheriff!” Petrovsky spat into the dust of the lane. “Vould make him happy, the sheriff, vas I hurt vorse or killed.”

“Now, that ain't quite right. I don't say he likes you, or your people, for that matter. But I got him to promise he'd do his job right, and see if he could turn up that bushwhacker.”

“If is so, then vhy do you come looking for yourself?”

“Well, I figure I've done a mite more tracking than the sheriff has, in a lot more places. Besides, I was standing right close to you last night, remember? That slug didn't miss me by very much.”

“Is true. So. If tracking it is you do, is maybe I can help,” Petrovsky said.

He slid off the mule, ducked nimbly between the top and center strands of the taut wire, and started into the field. Longarm noticed that the homesteader stayed to one side of the path that led into the center of the wheatfield, and wondered whether Petrovsky was avoiding the broken line intentionally or by accident.

As he approached, Petrovsky explained, “I see you vhen you go up path between here and Mordka's house. I think you come look for tracks. Is all right I am look too,
da
?”

By now, Longarm had learned what the monosyllable meant. He answered, “
Da
. But that's about the only word of your lingo I know, Petrovsky. All right, as long as you're here, come along while I take a look.”

Petrovsky indicated the broken wheatstalks. “He is go right here, to vhere he stop to shoot.” He pointed ahead to a place where the grain heads were leaning in all directions and some of the stalks had broken to form a small, ragged circle.

Longarm took a second look at his companion. “You act like you know how to read sign. I'd say you've done some tracking before.”

“Sign?” Petrovsky frowned. “
Ya nipaninayu
. Excuse. I do not understand ‘sign'.”

“Tracks. Footprints and suchlike.”

“
Da
. Tracks, I know. Is my family—how you vould say it?—animal-look-fors?”

“Gamekeepers?” Longarm guessed.

Petrovsky's face widened in a smile. “
Da
. My father, his father, his grandfather, is tell hunters to go vere they find
medved
. That is bear, and
los
, like you call elks. So from a little boy I am learn from my father to know how they look, all kinds tracks. Man-tracks too, like other kind.”

“Well, now. Maybe you'll see something I might miss.” Longarm didn't think so, but it didn't hurt to be polite. He went on, “So far, all I found is where that shooter tethered his horse last night.”

Petrovsky nodded. “
Da
. I see
navos
vhere horse stand. Now is to find from man,
nyet
?”

Together, they walked on into the wheatfield. Without a word of consultation, Longarm moved along one side of the trail of disturbed wheatstalks, Petrovsky on the other. They moved slowly, eyes on the broken grain, careful not to disturb any tracks that might be present. Longarm watched his companion as well; after a few moments he was satisfied that Petrovsky was indeed a skilled tracker.

It was an easy trail to follow, but a frustrating one. The field had been sown broadcast, the seed scattered by hand on earth tilled uniformly flat, rather than having been planted in rows. The ground under the stalks of still-green wheat was level, and, unlike the roads and lanes where the dirt had been baked hard, the growing grain had shielded the earth's surface from the blazing summer sun. The ground had a thick crust, but was soft underneath. It held footprints well.

Under the broken grain, though, there were no clear prints to be seen. In making his way through the field, the sniper had obviously kept his eyes straight ahead, watching the lighted door of Danilov's house. He had felt for a path with his feet, shuffling them along on the surface of the ground, depending on his toes to warn him of any obstacles that might be in his way. All that Longarm and Petrovsky could see as they followed the rifleman's trail was a series of long scuffmarks where his feet had pushed along the soil.

Petrovsky shook his head. “Is not good, the tracks. He is valk like old man who cannot his feet lift up.”

“Feeling along with his feet while he watched for a target,” Longarm said. He stretched out an arm, his fingers pointing at the Danilov house, in clear view across the intervening wheatfield. The door of the house was clearly outlined. “I'd say our best bet to find something's right up ahead, where he must've stood while he was waiting for a shot. Maybe there'll be some better prints there.”

“Is not big man, him,” Petrovsky said. His eyes were riveted on the scuffmarks. Longarm had already deduced as much. He nodded. The homesteader swept a hand to measure the unknown man's stride. “Is not so big as you. More big, a little bit, than me.”

“Looks that way,” Longarm agreed. “Weighs about the same as you do, though, wouldn't you guess?”

“
Da
. So much, maybe a little more.”

They reached the small, ragged circle in the grain. A glint of metal caught Longarm's eye at once. He leaned over, careful not to disturb the soil inside the circle, picked up a brass cartridge case, and looked at its butt end.

“Shoots a .32-20.” He held out the shell casing for Petrovsky to see. “Coyote gun. Most of us favor a heavier one. I'll bet he packs a Colt the same caliber. Our man's likely a range hand.”

A moment later, Petrovsky said, “A horseman's boots he vears.” He pointed to indentations in the circle, deep crescents made by cowboy boot heels. Then he frowned and knelt at one side of the area to inspect one of the prints more closely. “
Sapojnik
, shoemaker, he should go to. Look vhat I see.”

Longarm circled the beaten-down area to join his companion. He peered at the footprint to which the homesteader was pointing. A perfect print of the left sole of a cowboy boot showed a crack in the leather that ran from one edge of the sole to the other, across the spot where the ball of the wearer's foot rested.

“I'd say our man got careless, sometime or other a good while back,” Longarm commented. “Took his boots off while they were still wet, and didn't walk 'em dry like a sensible man would. Leather got stiff, and the first thing that happened when he put 'em on again, that sole cracked wide open.”

“Vas new, the boots, too. See, is no hole vhere crack is.”

Petrovsky had shifted his attention to the area where broken stems drooped among the otherwise high-standing stalks. He pointed to a round indentation in the earth. “Here he kneeled,
nyet
?”

“Yep. Getting himself a steady rest for his rifle.” Longarm indicated a pointed oval at one side of the dent. “He put his rifle butt there when he knelt down. And here's where the toe of his boot dug in. Pointy toe. Cowboy boots, like you said.”

Petrovsky spread his hands to measure the distance between the knee and toe marks. “Is like I say, too, not so tall as you, not so short as me.”

Longarm nodded with a satisfied exhalation. “Well, now. We know what he looks like, pretty much, and we know he's at one of the ranches hereabouts. A little bit of nosying around, and we'll have him safe in jail.”

“Nosying?” Petrovsky asked. “
Ya nipani
—Excuse again, please. I do not understand.”

“Nosying? Means I'll just go around to the ranches, starting out at Clem Hawkins's place, which is the likeliest one for him to be at. If he ain't there, I'll go on to the others till I dig him up.”

Petrovsky shook his head. “Is not maybe so easy.”

“It'll likely take some time,” Longarm admitted. “But whoever made those prints is sure as hell going to wind up in jail.”

“My father, he tell me a long time ago, ‘
Ne obival medved shkornley ne produal
,'” Petrovsky said. “Means in your language, ‘You do not sell his skin before you the bear have catched.'”

Longarm chuckled. “Takes a lot more words in our language than it does in yours, doesn't it? What we say is, ‘Don't count your chickens before the eggs are hatched.' I guess it means about the same thing.”

Petrovsky smiled. “
Da
.”

“Well, I know if I turn this fellow up on the first try, it'll just be dumb luck. But in my business a man needs some patience, and I've got plenty of that. Come on. We've seen all we're likely to, here. I'd best get moving before the day wears out.”

“Now you go vhere?” Petrovsky asked.

“Hawkins's place.” Longarm started back toward the fenceline. “Not much else I can do here. Be nice if our man had written down his name in the dirt back there, but I've got enough to go by when I start looking for him.”

“
Eta nilza
—” Petrovsky began; he stopped and started over. “Is it permitted that I go vith you?”

Longarm looked at him curiously. “Figuring to get in some practice in case you're elected sheriff?”

“
Nyet
. To be elected, I do not expect. Is enough ve show the ranchers and the people in Junction that ve of the Brethren have a part in living here. You understand vhat to say I am trying?”

Longarm nodded. “I think I do. You're citizens of the U.S.—most of you are, anyhow. And you want everybody to know you aim to be good ones. Is that about right?”

“
Eta pravlina
. This is vhat ve think. Is to get respect ve vant, to show that new
Amirikanits
good as one born here.”

“Well, I guess I don't blame you for trying. It's funny how folks forget things. There's an awful lot of men out here in this part of the country who emigrated from someplace in Europe. Why, hell, a big part of the Northern army was recruited out of young fellows who didn't speak English as good as you do. Still a lot of 'em in the service, too.”

“
Da
. This is vhat Carl Schmidt have tell us vhen he come to Russia to say the railroad land is to sell.”