Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (5 page)

“I'll be in your debt if you can, sir. That still leaves me with the high-graders, whoever they may be, and they say the late Calico Kid had lots of friends in the county.”

The older man growled, “Don't press me, son. Despite what they say about me, I don't have much truck with outlaws and roughnecks I don't have on my payroll. I'll tell the sheriff's department up there that it might not be advisable to gun you down like a dog. You'll be on your own as far as anyone else up there is concerned!”

*   *   *

The Sacramento boat left San Francisco after dark to arrive upstream at the capital in the morning. It was comfortable, but a slow way to travel, even that far west.

On the other hand, he'd promised Boss Buckley that he'd take his time getting back to Manzanita, so what the hell.

He'd wired Denver for expense money and bought himself some fresh duds before engaging a stateroom on the paddlewheel steamer. As the night boat puffed its way through the San Pablo narrows and headed for the tule marshes of the big inland delta, Longarm took a seat near a window in the dining salon and gave his order to an immaculate colored waiter who acted as important as Queen Victoria's head butler.

He was waiting for his steak and potatoes when a female voice at his side asked, “Forgive me, sir. Is anyone sitting at this table?”

Longarm smiled up at the expensive-looking brunette who'd spoken, and replied, “I'm sitting at it. You're welcome to that other chair across the table.”

The girl smiled back at him and sat down, explaining, “A woman traveling alone has to be careful. The purser tells me you're a U.S. marshal.”

“Only a deputy,” he corrected her. “My handle is Custis Long.”

“I'm Sylvia Baxter. Of the Boston Baxters, that is.”

Longarm studied her, wondering what a Boston Baxter was. She had a veil over her eyes, hanging from a perky little blue velvet hat, but he could see she was pretty, in a snooty sort of way. The hat had been chosen to match her wide-set eyes. A hat like that cost money, no matter what color it was. He said, “I was in Boston, once. Had to transport a prisoner back from there. I didn't get to see much of it, but the harbor was right pretty.”

“I'm afraid we lived on the Back Bay. You do know what the Back Bay is, don't you?”

Longarm found her approach a trifle offensive, so he nodded and said, “I can read, too. If we ever get served, you might be surprised to learn that I don't eat with my fingers.” He saw the uncertain look in her eyes and added, “Might use my bowie knife if the steak is tough, but I promise I won't shoot the waiter.”

She smiled uncertainly, and said, “Dear me, we are getting off to a bad start, aren't we?”

Longarm was beginning to enjoy needling her. “Don't know. Where are we supposed to be headed?” he asked with a blank expression.

She replied huffily, “I simply introduced myself in what I felt was a proper manner, sir.”

“Maybe. Folks out our way don't fret much about which side of the tracks a person comes from. I'll say right out I was born and brought up on a hard-scrabble West Virginia farm, and I'll take on any man who says that makes me less than he is.”

The woman blinked, apparently taken aback by the marshal's directness. “My word! I certainly never intended to start a fight with you! Are you always so sensitive about your background?”

Longarm's mouth smiled, but his eyes remained expressionless. “Honey, I never had any background. We were too poor. As to what coming from Back Bay Boston makes you, all I really want to know is whether you aim to pay for your own dinner or whether you're expecting me to.”

Sylvia Baxter flushed under her veil and snapped, “That's a churlish thing to say! Of course I had every intention of buying my own meal!”

He looked elaborately relieved and said, “In that case, let's just eat and say no more about it.”

He saw the snooty waiter passing, apparently with no intention of taking her order, so he snapped his fingers.

The waiter didn't look their way, but the girl said, “Please, it's not polite to snap one's fingers at the help.”

Longarm shrugged, drew his revolver, and aimed it at the ceiling. The girl gasped, “Oh, my God!” in a loud voice, and that did the trick. The waiter swung his head to see what was wrong and, noting the gun in Longarm's hand, hurried over with a nervous smile, saying, “May I be of service, sir?”

He'd obviously been working here long enough to understand the frontier breed better than he'd been letting on. Longarm put the gun away, saying, “This lady wants to eat. So do I. Where in thunder is the steak I ordered?”

“It's coming right up, sir. Would madame care to order, now?”

Sylvia looked undecided and stammered, “Dear me, I haven't read the menu.”

Longarm said, “Give her steak and potatoes, and tell them we ain't got all night.”

As the waiter scurried away to do as he was told, the girl asked Longarm, “How did you know I wanted steak and potatoes, sir?”

“Everybody wants steak and potatoes. I read the menu. By the time you found anything worth ordering, we'd have likely starved to death.”

The girl picked up the menu firmly and began to read it, trying to ignore Longarm. He tried in turn not to drum his fingers on the table. He was wondering what was wrong with him tonight. He was usually a friendly enough sort, and the girl was pretty, but he felt edgy, impatient, and out of sorts. Was he coming down with some ague? He didn't feel sick, just sort of raw-nerved about something. But what could it be? It wasn't the snooty little Boston gal. Any other time he'd simply have laughed her uppity notions off. They said ponies and other critters got like this when an earthquake was fixing to happen. Could he be sensing some disaster he couldn't see or smell?

The waiter returned with their orders, a nervous smile, and a bottle. He said, “We'd like you to accept a complimentary bottle of our California wine, Marshal. May I draw the cork for you?”

Longarm nodded and said, “Sure, you can draw it
and
quarter it.” Then he shook his head to clear it, wondering,
What in thunder is wrong with you, old son? You're acting like a schoolboy sniggering at a dirty joke!

He knew he wasn't given to rawhiding colored folks or playing big bad Westerner to schoolmarmish little snoots. But he was fighting a terrific urge to draw the gun again and shoot up the overhead coal-oil lamps. The infernal lamps were too bright. They hurt his eyes. It seemed pretty silly when he thought about it. A high-plains rider who'd squinted against a searing sun for many a summer shouldn't be blinded by a little coal-oil flame in a smoke-glass globe.

The waiter poured a small amount of red wine into a long-stemmed glass and handed it to Longarm. The deputy remembered the form and took a sip before nodding. The nod was a lie, for the wine, if that was what it was, tasted like red ink mixed with vinegar. The waiter filled both their glasses, put the bottle on the table between them, and left with a relieved expression.

Sylvia Baxter tasted her wine and said, “My, it is good, isn't it? I mean, it would hardly pass for Bordeaux '53, but it has an amusing bouquet.”

Longarm stared at the bottle as if it had played a dirty trick on him. The fancy label said it had been made in Riverside by some colony, but it didn't say what river the colony was beside. He remembered his manners and waited for her to start eating. But she kept dawdling with the godawful wine until he muttered, “Let's dig in,” and started cutting his steak. She probably had him figured for a savage anyway and, what the hell, he'd never see her again. He intended to catch the stage in Sacramento in the morning, and take his own sweet time getting back to Manzanita. He only hoped Boss Buckley's word would arrive there ahead of him. If the word didn't help, he'd cross that bridge when it shot at him.

The steak tasted as though it had been fried in iodine, and he was about to say so when the girl smiled and said, “My, this
is
good, isn't it? I've been making do with shipboard fare since leaving Boston. Fresh meat is such a relief to my poor, tortured taste buds.”

He didn't want to call the lady a liar, so he said, “Oh, you came around the Horn?”

She shook her head and explained, “No, I took the Vanderbilt line to Nicaragua, crossed to the Pacific by the Commodore's road, and arrived yesterday on the Matson clipper.”

“You didn't get to see much of Frisco, then?”

“Forgive me for correcting you, but they tell me it's simply not called Frisco by gentlefolk.”

He said, “Yeah,” and took another bite. It was no use. The food was as bad as the wine and he was feeling . . . seasick?

That was impossible. They were steaming through a big flat swamp he could see outside in the moonlight. The night was dead calm and the water all around was as flat as a millpond. He could feel the vibration of the big stern-mounted paddle and hear the hiss of the engine if he listened carefully, but they were moving as smoothly as silk up the winding, shallow Sacramento.

The girl was saying, “I am in a hurry to reach Manzanita, but I did a bit of sightseeing in San Francisco. I rode all the way to the top of Nob Hill on one of those new cable cars. I must say they're up-to-date out here. I'm afraid I expected California to be much more primitive.”

“Some of it still is. You say you're headed for Manzanita, up in Calaveras County?”

“Yes. That's the place Mark Twain wrote about in that amusing piece about the jumping frogs, wasn't it?”

“Yep. I read it, too. The last time I was up there, though, they weren't betting on frogs worth mention. Uh, do you have kin or something up in Calaveras County?”

“I'm joining my brother,” she told him. “He's a mining engineer interested in some properties near Manzanita.”

“Oh? Did he come out ahead of you, then?”

She looked down, avoiding his eyes as she murmured, “I hadn't planned to come at all. But Ralph is the only family I have now. You see, our parents are gone and . . . well, if you must know, I just divorced a man I never should have married. Ralph told me he was no good, but would I listen?”

Longarm nodded, understanding her snooty act better now. Divorces were legal enough, but still shocked a lot of people, despite the changes that had rocked the world since Victoria had been in the catbird seat of proper society. Sylvia Baxter was acting as if her armpits smelled of violets because she'd probably had a few snide remarks spit at her. To comfort her, he said, “I'd say divorcing a skunk is more civilized than shooting him or putting flypaper in his coffee.”

She looked startled and said, “Flypaper? In coffee?”

“Coffee, tea, or whatever. That sticky stuff on flypaper is a mix of honey and arsenic. You'd be surprised how many mean husbands have died young since flypaper was invented.”

She laughed, for once not stiffly, and said, “I should have met you sooner. The papers I paid for cost much more than those I could have bought in any general store.”

He laughed with her and said, “We live and learn. Maybe next time.”

She said, “I'm not sure there'll be a next time. I've had all of marriage I care for, thank you very much.”

“Don't thank me; I wasn't proposing. You'll be taking the Wells Fargo stage up to the Mother Lode, won't you?”

“I don't think so. My brother wrote that there's a narrow-gauge railway winding up from Valley Springs. I think I have to transfer from the main line at a place called Lodi, and—”

“It's the long way around, but likely more comfortable than the stage,” he cut in. He was disappointed in one way, but relieved in another. Ordinarily he had an eye out for a well-turned ankle, but there was something about this woman that made him as broody as an old hen on a cold glass egg. Besides, he hadn't come all the way out here to spark divorcees. He'd been on the case nearly a week and, up to now, hadn't even managed to get within hailing distance of the goddamned mine he'd been sent to investigate.

He took another sip of wine, gagged, and suddenly knew he was going to throw up!

Without a word, he got up from the table, moved off at a trot, and just made it out to the promenade deck in time. He leaned out over the rail and gave everything he'd eaten in the past couple of years to the croaking frogs protesting in the tule reeds they were passing through.

He heaved at least five times before a couple of dry retches told him he'd hit bottom. A male voice to his left said, “If you taste hair, swallow fast, or you'll be throwing up your asshole!”

Longarm turned to the amused deckhand and asked mildly, “Can you swim, sailor?”

“Don't take it personal, cowboy. I've been seasick myself. Though, come to think of it, it was out at sea. Ain't the waves in this delta a caution?”

Longarm wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand and said, “I ain't seasick. I suspicion I've been poisoned. You have a sawbones on this tub?”

The deckhand shook his head and said, “Not in the crew. If you're really sick, I can ask the purser if there's a doctor on board.”

Longarm shook his head and said, “I'll just go to my stateroom and flatten out. If I ain't dead by the time we make Sacramento, I likely threw up whatever it was.”

He brushed past the amused deckhand and staggered to his stateroom, where he stripped without lighting the lamp, tore open the bottom bunk, and flopped face down on it, feeling as though he'd been run over by a Conestoga wagon. He ached all over, and though the California nights were cooler than he'd expected, he was sweating like a pig shoveling coal.

How in thunder had they done it? He hadn't had a thing to eat or drink at the whorehouse. The Boston gal hadn't been wearing any rings big enough to play a Borgia trick on him. It hardly seemed likely that the steamboat company had poisoned him. Could it have been those oysters he'd eaten for breakfast at the hotel?