Cora agreed a cheating wife or more had been known to lie to save a lover. But after that she pointed out, "That swaggering lothario I only saw in passing, but more than once, didn't strike me as the sort of man who'd treat a girl to a ride to the next town, let alone more than a few nights' food and lodging. If she was dumb enough to run off with him, she'd have been home with her tail between her legs by the time her husband returned from that union gathering."
Longarm stared back up the receding tracks, noting you could no longer make out the point they came together on the horizon in this tricky twilight. He said, "Maybe she did. I sure wish I had time to nose about on Bohunk Hill and find out exactly where she is and exactly what she has to say about this mysterious cuss her husband has down as a federal deputy. But the night train I'll be riding east won't give me a full half hour in Trinidad."
She said, "I could find out anything you could, seeing I live just on the edge of town and know most of the tradeswomen. Why don't you give me a list of questions to ask? Then I could post them to your Denver office and you'd find them waiting for you there when you got back from your mission to Fort Sill."
Then she spoiled it all by adding, "You never did get around to telling me why they're sending you to Fort Sill, Deputy Crawford."
He muttered. "Just delivering some instructions."
Knowing that any nosey lady trying to write to a Deputy Crawford in care of Fort Sill would eventually have her letter returned unopened, he said, "They're sending some others from my home office down to nose about the scene of whatever transpired. I'm more interested in the other man than a wayward wife who'll either be at home or somewhere else. There's no telling which way he went after he turned the head of old Attila's wife. But he must have left town, or that jealous Bohunk wouldn't be searching high and low for him in Denver."
Cora must have spotted a familiar landmark in the passing softly lit scenery. For she bent forward to pick up the carpetbag she'd had resting on the decking near her high-button shoes as she asked how Longarm knew that other Longarm hadn't just been hiding out in some other part of Denver.
It was a good question. Longarm replied, "I just said he could be most anywhere. Tall drinks of water who look like Americans of the Western persuasion ain't all that rare. But him being some sort of furriner might make it easier to pick him out of a crowd."
She said they were almost there, and rose to her feet with her modest baggage as she added, "A lot of hardcase wanderers of our West seem to be foreign born. I mean, aside from the Canadian Masterson brothers, we have the Italian Renos, the Alteri boys, and the much nicer but probably more dangerous Charlie Siringo. Then there's Johnny Ringo, born a German Jew as Rhinegold, and isn't that fast-drawing Chris Madsen supposed to be a Swede?"
By this time Longarm had risen to take her carpetbag from her as he replied with a bemused smile, "Deputy Madsen's from Denmark, ma'am. But you were right about his famous quick draw. Where did a boss milkmaid, no offense, learn so much about our current crop of Western gunslicks?"
She said collecting newspaper accounts of wilder Western folks had been her husband's hobby, and that he'd often said someday a lot of folks would likely pay good money for the true facts behind all those wild tales. She said she'd helped her husband keep that scrapbook up to date, and that she still sometimes leafed through it, thinking back to when she'd pasted something in.
Longarm said, "This jasper sparking the Bohunk gals of Trinidad spoke neither Eye-talian, Yiddish, nor Danish to the immigrant gals he was pestering. So that narrows it down a heap."
Then something else she'd just said sank in and he demanded with a puzzled look, "Did you say your man used to keep up with such hombres, meaning he ain't around to do so anymore? It's no beeswax of mine, but that ain't a black dress you have on this evening, Miss Cora."
The train was slowing to a stop as the sun was setting. So it was hard to read her eyes as she quietly replied, "I put my widow's weeds away two years ago. Jim was killed over a year before that. A Jersey bull Jim was trying to medicate tossed him and then trampled what was left of him."
Longarm didn't answer. It might have sounded smug to observe that the milking breeds were thrice as dangerous as any beef critter. As the train braked to a steamy stop, they saw their observation platform was just even with the north end of the plank loading platform. Longarm gripped his own envelope with the same arm holding her carpetbag, and opened the side gate of the platform with his free hand. They both knew he wasn't supposed to do that. So maybe that was why she was grinning like an apple-swiping kid as he helped her off their train. He asked if she'd have anyone picking her up, and if she did, where.
She said she'd left her trotter and shay at the livery across the way, and quietly added, "I could drive you over to Bohunk Hill and introduce you to some of the more respectable miners' wives, if you have the time."
He asked how far from the center of town they were talking about. When she said about halfway to the coal seams up the river a few miles, he sighed and said he didn't.
When he added the eastbound he meant to transfer to would be pulling out within half an hour, she softly replied, "There will always be another train on that same track, and I'd be proud to put you up for the night out at our place later."
He was so tempted it hurt. But he somehow managed to decline her tempting offer, and so they shook hands and parted friendly on the walk out front. As he turned back inside Longarm grumbled, "Next time Billy Vail accuses me of placing pleasure before duty, I'll have a wistful answer for him indeed. But of course, nobody would ever believe I just spoiled such a lovely evening for all concerned without anyone holding a gun to my head!"
CHAPTER 5
Old Billy Vail had known what he was picking when he'd picked Fort Sill as an out-of-the-way place to send a rider. It was after midnight when Longarm had to get off the one train and board another running closer to due east along the Saint Lou line. He had enough time between trains to send a wire to his home office at night rates. So he did, knowing Billy Vail was still going to have a fit, but that as soon as he calmed down to take a breath, he'd see the deputy who'd disregarded his orders to avoid Trinidad had made it on to Amarillo without incident and would have made it to Fort Sill, his own way, by the time Western Union got around to delivering a night letter.
Only the fancier varnish express trains passing through the Texas Panhandle sported those new Pullman dining cars, and no such on-board facilities would be open after midnight in any case. But Mister Fred Harvey, Lord love him, had opened one of his round-the-clock depot restaurants at Amarillo. So after Longarm had sent his night letter, he saw he had just enough time for a hasty but warm and rib-sticking late-night snack.
He sat at the counter, along with the few others grabbing a bite at that hour. The fellow traveler to his left was a trim-waisted gal in a tan whipcord travel duster and big veiled summer boater. It was tougher to judge a woman's age under a travel-dusted veil. But she had a handsome profile for a gal of any age. The Harvey gal who came to take orders down at their end was more certainly around eighteen.
She was pleasantly plain, with her chestnut hair pulled up in a neat bun and the white linen apron over her coffee-brown uniform as starched as if she'd been on the day shift.
Longarm naturally waited till the lady to his left ordered herself a Spanish omelet with a mug of hot chocolate. Longarm asked for chili con carne with black coffee. You didn't have to say you wanted your black coffee strong at a Harvey. He knew they made their chili right too. The Harvey gal was back in no time with everything piping hot.
Too hot, Longarm feared, if he was supposed to catch that other train at the top of the hour. He mushed more oyster crackers into his chili than he'd really wanted. He resisted the temptation to pour coffee into the saucer and blow on it, knowing how country the gal seated next to him might consider that.
As he was stirring like hell and she was pouring extra cream from the counter into her hot chocolate, a somewhat more country boy under a dove-gray Texas hat took the last seat at their end of the counter, to the left of the gal in the tan duster. It was none of Longarm's business until the rustic asked the lady if she'd like him to saucer and blow her hot chocolate.
The lady naturally didn't answer. Longarm put away some warm grub and washed it down with scalding java before the pest asked her how come she was so stuck up. The lady had already paid for her order on delivery, that being the Harvey way in a world where folks had a heap of trains to catch. So she only had to rise from the counter, pick up her overnight bag, and head for the door without even looking at the fool kid.
Longarm still didn't care. But then the pest jumped up to follow after her, asking if she needed help with her bag. It wasn't until he made a grab for it, causing the lady to trip and almost fall, that Longarm swung off his own stool to his considerable height and firmly announced, "That's enough, cowboy. You've rode past flirty into scary, and I want you to leave that lady be."
The Harvey gal behind him moaned, "Oh, Lordy!" and went to get someone bigger from the kitchen as the lout in the big hat kept clinging to the traveling gal's baggage, growling, "If I was you I'd be down on my knees in my sissy suit, praying for my life right now. For they call me Pronto, and the name is well deserved. You see what I'm packing in this tie-down holster, hero?"
Longarm regarded the other man's six-gun with detachment as he quietly replied, "Looks like a single-action John Adams. I've always admired well-preserved antiques."
Then he nodded at the lady in the tan travel duster and added, "You just go on and catch your train, ma'am. Ain't nothing but some schoolyard bluster likely to take place around here. Let go her bag, cowboy. I mean it."
The well-armed cuss let go of the overnight bag, but not as if it was because he'd been asked to. He dropped into a gunfighter's crouch as the lady lugged her baggage for the door. She was unable to keep from asking in a jeering tone, "Do you boys stage this scene for all the girls, or just the ones from out of town?"
Then she was sweeping out the doorway, nose in the air, and only Longarm laughed. The would-be Texas badman who still seemed willing to fight over her asked uncertainly, "What's she jawing about? Are we supposed to be up to something I never knew we were up to?"
Longarm nodded and said, "Yep. She thought we took turns insulting gals in railroad depots so's we could take turns rescuing 'em. I can see how that might be a good way to meet women, once you study on it."
The younger and obviously less -experienced cuss scowled at Longarm and insisted, "Hold on! I never agreed to let you rescue her from me. I don't even know you. I thought I was out to rescue her from you!"
Longarm shrugged and said, "Either way, she's gone and I got my own train to catch. So it's been nice talking to you, but like I said..."
"What about our showdown?" the depot desperado asked in a plaintive tone.
Longarm said, "I'm sure you could find plenty of other young gents willing to shoot it out with you at this hour for no good reason. But the only quarrel betwixt us just dismissed us both as a pair of unskilled country boys, if we ever had a quarrel to begin with. Fighting over a woman is sort of dumb. Fighting over a woman who doesn't like you is just plain stupid."
Longarm didn't wait to hear any counterargument. The depot loiterer wasn't crouched as tensely now, and while Longarm kept an eye on everyone as he circled for that same doorway, he was really more worried about the older-looking cuss who'd come from the kitchen in a cook's apron carrying a foot of carving knife.
Nobody drew or threw as he got out of range in the steamy light of the big depot. He'd only polished off a third of his chili and maybe half his coffee. But sure enough, his Saint Lou night train was fixing to pull out as he hurried along Track Number Four in the tricky light. Way down the platform, he saw that pretty but sort of snotty gal in the tan duster boarding one of the Pullman sleeping cars and staring his way, as if worried he was fixing to lope after her all the way to Saint Lou. He had no call to go on down and assure her he'd be getting off in the wee small hours. So he never did. He boarded a coach car carrying no more than that bulky manila envelope, and took a seat under an oil lamp to catch up on all those onionskins Henry had typed up for him not a full twelve hours earlier. Time sure could drag when you weren't having any fun.
As his train pulled out of the depot the Harvey night manager, who'd been watching through a door crack, came out from the back and said, "That was close. I thought we had your word you'd start no more trouble if we let you have free coffee, Pronto."
The kid with a hat and gun a mite big for him returned to the counter with a smirk, saying, "I wasn't looking for trouble. I was courting a lady fair when that jasper in the sissy suit horned in."
The night manager said, "That was no jasper in a sissy suit, you romantic young cuss. He's passed this way before. So I'm sure it was that deputy marshal they call Longarm!"
Pronto grinned and said, "I backed him down, no matter who he thought he was. Polly here heard him say he didn't want to fight me and saw him go around me!"