Longarm 242: Red-light

Table of Contents

 

 

A bullet chewed splinters from the door next to Longarm's head, and a couple of the slivers sliced into his cheek and drew his attention back to that side. He opened up with the Winchester. His first shot drove into the chest of one of the outlaws and drove the man backward off his horse like a giant fist.

Longarm jacked the rifle's lever and fired again. He heard the dull boom of Pryor's shotgun and the sharper sound of George's pistol as the two men got into the fight. For a handful of seconds that seemed much longer, guns roared, bullets sang, and the draw was filled with noise and flame and the sharp tang of gun smoke.

Then, with an eerie suddenness like a curtain dropping in a play, the shooting stopped.

 

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

 

Jove edition / February 1999

 

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Copyright © 1999 by Jove Publications, Inc.

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eISBN : 978-1-101-17890-4

 

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The man stumbled along the main street of Galena City, Nevada, muttering to himself as he tried to stay upright. Seeing a drunk in such a condition wasn't anything unusual in these parts. Galena City was a boomtown, after all, having sprung up literally overnight from almost nothing after a rich lode of silver ore was discovered in the nearby mountains. There had been trouble earlier in the evening, but everyone had forgotten about it by now. The saloons that lined both sides of Greenwood Avenue were open twenty-four hours a day, and their business never really slacked off that much. There were always plenty of thirsty miners ready to belly up to the bar.

So no one on the boardwalks of the town paid much attention to the unsteady figure making its way along the muddy street. The man was tall and might have been an impressive physical specimen under other circumstances. He was fairly well dressed, wearing high-topped black boots that were now caked heavily with mud, denim trousers, and a sheepskin coat over a light blue work shirt. His broad-brimmed, flat-crowned, snuff-colored Stetson was pulled down so that it obscured his face. The bottom of a holster poked out from under the left side of his coat, and the way it was turned indicated that it was part of a cross-draw rig.

The man careened to the right and then to the left. Galena City's respectable citizens, a few of which were still out and about at this time of the evening, noted the man's staggering progress and clucked their tongues in disapproval. It was bad enough that the town was full of saloons; the least their patrons could do was keep their drunken antics out of sight.

A couple of blocks back up the street, several men came quickly around a corner. They stopped and looked around, their eyes narrow with suspicion and anger. Their hands hovered near the butts of the revolvers holstered on their hips. “Where the hell did he go?” one of them muttered.

“Down there!” another man said abruptly. He lifted his arm and pointed in the direction the tall man had taken.

“Let's get the son of a bitch!”

If the tall man knew he was being pursued, he gave no sign of it. One step after another. Just mastering that concept was enough of a challenge in the shape he was in. It was sheer luck that made him veer crazily toward the boardwalk on the right-hand side of the street. Almost losing his balance, he caught hold of the hitch rack in front of the boardwalk to hold himself up.

His head turned slowly to the side, and his blurry vision suddenly locked on the men hurrying toward him. “Shit!” he said, his voice thick and choked but the exclamation no less heartfelt. He pushed off from the hitch rack and started down the street again, moving a little faster now but still stumbling from side to side.

He couldn't let them catch him out here on the street and drag him into some shadow-laden alley. That would be the end of him. He had to get to someplace where there were plenty of people. Witnesses. His pursuers were less likely to do anything to him if there were a lot of people around to see it.

His numbed muscles would only work so fast, though. The men behind him were rapidly catching up. The tall man gritted his teeth and forced himself to increase his pace. His head swam wildly, and the world seemed to be turning backward around him. He felt as if he was running up a steep slope, but he knew that although Galena City was surrounded by mountains, the town itself was built on a flat bench between two peaks. The angle was just a trick of his muddled mind.

Suddenly, one of his boots slipped on a particularly slick stretch of mud, and he fell forward, instinctively thrusting out his hands to catch himself. His clothes were already splattered with mud, and now they were covered with the thick, sticky stuff as he sprawled on the ground. He tried to scramble to his feet again, but his boots kept slipping.

A strong hand closed around his arm, and for a second he thought that they had caught him, that it was all over for him. But then he was lifted, and the face of a stranger peered into his. The man who had come to his aid was tall and beefy. The light that fell into the street from a nearby building revealed rough-hewn features. “Let me give you a hand, my friend,” the rescuer said.

“Much ... much obliged,” rasped the tall man, barely able to force the words out through his dry throat. His muddy clothes clung to him uncomfortably, wet and cold.

“You've partaken of too many spirits, my friend,” the stranger went on. The tall man noticed now that he wore a black suit and a white collar under a heavier coat. “Let me take you back to the mission—”

“Not ... not drunk ...” the tall man managed to get out.

“I know, all you miners think you can hold your liquor. But the demon rum is a tool of the greatest trickster of all, and—”

The tall man glanced painfully over his shoulder and saw that his pursuers had momentarily paused. Clearly, they didn't want to jump him while this sky pilot was haranguing him. The tall man blinked, gave a little shake of his head, winced at the pain of the movement, and said, “Got to go, padre. Got to ... keep movin' ...”

“What you need is rest and plenty of black coffee,” the preacher said sternly. He tugged on the tall man's arm. “Come with me.”

It was tempting, but he couldn't do it. There were still things he had to do before he called it a night. Still work to do. He pulled away with surprising strength.

As he did so, his bleary gaze fastened on a building right in front of him, where Greenwood Avenue dead-ended into Comstock Street. It was the largest structure in Galena City, taking up an entire block and standing three stories tall. Gas-lights illuminated the long sign emblazoned over the entrance : The Silver Slipper. Even with the doors closed against the cold night air, the sounds of piano music and laughter could be heard coming from inside the saloon.

The tall man started toward the big saloon, drawn toward it for some reason like a moth to a flame. Behind him, the preacher watched him go with a mixture of pity and anger, and a moment later, the men who had been pursuing the tall man brushed roughly past the sky pilot. The preacher sighed. A boomtown such as Galena City was a prime place to do the Lord's work, but sometimes the preacher wondered why he bothered. Most of these sinners were beyond saving.

As he reached the boardwalk in front of the Silver Slipper, the tall man realized he might have set himself up for an insurmountable problem. He didn't think he could manage the steps leading up to the walk. Maybe there was a side door, he thought as he turned shakily to the right.

“Hold it!”

The shout came from less than a block away. No time to waste now. The tall man reached inside himself and drew on the last of his strength. He broke into a shambling run that carried him into the alley beside the Silver Slipper.

Behind him, the sound he had been waiting for—the sound he had been dreading—finally came.

Gunshots rapped out, startlingly loud even in the raucous atmosphere of the boomtown.

The tall man kept moving, expecting at any second to feel a bullet slam into him. The shadows in the alley were thick, however, and although he heard a couple of slugs whine past him too close for comfort, none of them struck him.

A line of light suddenly appeared in the darkness to his left. A door was opening in the side of the saloon building. The tall man threw himself toward it, even as a female voice called out in surprise, “What the hell—!”

His shoulder smacked into the door and threw it open. It hit someone inside, drawing a startled yelp of pain. The tall man reached out blindly, dazzled by the lamplight inside the room, and found the edge of the door. He slammed it shut behind him.

“Lock it! Bar it! Something!” he said hoarsely. His feet got tangled in a throw rug on the floor, and he struggled to maintain his balance. Vaguely, he heard a wooden bar dropping into prongs on each side of the door, barring the entrance. He saw a desk littered with papers. The light came from a lamp on the desk. Dizzily, he reached for the desk, intending to use it to hold himself up, but his hand slipped and he fell. Fortunately, there was a divan against the wall near the desk, and he sprawled on it instead of the floor. His hat fell off, revealing a thatch of dark brown hair, a lean face, and a longhorn mustache. He looked up at the room's other occupant.