Longarm - Longarm And The Double-Barrel Blowout Part 1

LONGARM AND THE DOUBLE-BARREL BLOWOUT.

By: Tabor Evans.

Synopsis:

It started off as an honest-to-goodness vacation. But the smell of evil is never far from Longarm's nostrils, and things got to stinking soon enough. One of his oldest friends is being hunted for a fortune in Spanish gold; a ravishing young woman has been kidnapped; and one of the most dishonest, disreputable, and disgusting outlaws in the West is responsible for it all. His name is Hank Ba.s.s. And his number is up. 223rd novel in the "Longarm" series, 1997.

DON'T MISS THESE ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him a the Gunsmith.

LONGARM by Tabor Evans The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Longa"his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

SLOc.u.m by Jake Logan Today's longest-running action Western. John Sloc.u.m rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan An all-new series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever a.s.sembleda"Quantrill's Raiders.

Chapter 1.

When the small and very rumpled package landed on his littered desk, United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long paid it no attention as he struggled to complete some detested federal paperwork. By four o'clock, however, Custis had finally cleared his desk enough to rediscover the messy brown package. It caught his attention among a number of other unopened packages precisely because it was battered and disreputable looking.

When Longarm held it up for a closer inspection, he began searching for a postmark but it had been partially smudged. As best he could tell, the brown, string-tied package had been mailed from somewhere in Arizona. Whoever had addressed it was d.a.m.n lucky because the package was inadequately addressed to LONGARM, U.S. GOVNMINT, DENVIR, COLORADOE. No department. No street address. "Watch out for that one," a pa.s.sing federal worker remarked. "Looks like it could hold a rattlesnake or some Indian curse."

Longarm shook his head and ma.s.saged the package. "Nope. Nothing moving. Nothing to worry about."

The man chuckled. "Then it might be some poison from one of your frontier women who discovered that you have a girlfriend in every town between St. Louis and San Francisco."

"Oh, bulls.h.i.t."

It was obvious that Marshal Slim Behan was at loose ends with nothing of his own to do. The man was bored and loitering beside Custis's desk waiting for him to open the package.

"Haven't you got something of your own to do?" Longarm finally asked.

Slim sauntered over to his own desk, yelling back over his shoulder, "Hope it's bad news, Longarm. You been having too d.a.m.n much fun the last couple of times you went out."

"Sure I have! If your idea of *fun' is getting shot in the shorts and almost beaten to death by a couple of murdering wh.o.r.es I had to deliver to the federal prison."

"Ha! I seen them wh.o.r.es! Was four of *em and they were all kissing you good-bye and trying to unbuckle your belt one last time! Some hardship a.s.signment, you lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"They weren't trying to get into my pants! They were trying to get into my pockets so they could remove their handcuffs!"

"Sure they were!"

The entire office began to laugh, and Custis could feel his cheeks warming so he decided to call it a day. s.n.a.t.c.hing up the little envelope and his snuff-brown and flat-crowned Stetson, Longarm barreled for the door, and his exit caused even more laughter.

Longarm felt better the minute he was outside. The spring weather was invigorating and the trees in the nearby park were bursting with pale green leaves and sweet-smelling blossoms. The air was like perfume and so clear that to Longarm even the most distant snow-capped peaks seemed magnified and almost touchable. The day was a tonic and, best of all, Longarm was about to go on vacation.

Vacation. Even the word sounded strange because he hadn't had one in so many years. Oh, sure, his friend and supervisor, Billy Vail, certainly wanted to give Custis a well deserved rest. It had been two years since Custis had taken any time off and he was mentally exhausted and physically exhausted. But their office was chronically shorthanded and Longarm, being the best and most experienced field marshal, was impossible to replace on the toughest cases. But this June, by d.a.m.ned, he was going on vacation. Maybe to New Orleans or St. Louis or even back to West Virginia where he still had a few relatives.

"Hey, Custis!" Ruben, the shoe shine man, called. "Need your boots worked on today?"

Ruben had been shining Longarm's boots for years. The old man claimed to be part Apache Indian, and probably was, for his skin was the color of leather. Ruben was a colorful character and liked to wear a red bandanna like Cochise or Geronimo. His hair was straight and black, streaked liberally with silver hair and always bound in a pair of thick braids. Ruben had a great fondness for turquoise and silver jewelry. He liked to talk while he worked and his favorite customers were the frontier marshals that moved in and out of Denver's federal building.

"My boots look pretty good, Ruben."

"I can make *em look even better."

"All right," Longarm said, knowing that Ruben would be hurt if Longarm failed to tell him that he was about to go on a month-long vacation.

"Longarm, you jest sit right down and take a load off these feet. Wanna read yesterday's newspaper?"

"No thanks," Longarm said, stepping up onto the chair and resting his boots on iron pegs. "I'm going on vacation next week. Thought I'd let you know so you didn't think someone out there plugged me this time."

"A vacation!" Ruben grinned, always an interesting sight because of his missing front teeth. "Where you goin?"

"Haven't decided for sure," Longarm admitted. "Maybe New Orleans. Think I'd like to take the train to St. Louis and then ride the riverboats all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico."

"Woo-wee! Now maybe you need old Ruben to come along and carry your bags and to keep these boots lookin' good!"

"I couldn't afford you," Longarm said as he gave Ruben the customary five-cent cheroot and stuck one in his own mouth. He lit both and the two men puffed in contentment for a moment before Ruben started dabbing on brown shoe polish, saying, "That sure is a sorry-lookin' little package you got there, Longarm. What's in it?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know. I guess I might as well find out."

Ruben nodded to indicate he also thought that was probably a good idea. "Where's it from?"

"Arizona, if I'm reading this smudged postmark correctly."

Longarm reached for his pocketknife. He was a big man, standing six four and weighing over two hundred pounds. He was still in his prime and cut an imposing figure with his deeply tanned face, broad shoulders, and handlebar mustache. He had a notorious reputation as a ladies' man, and not without good reason, although he never spoke of his times with women nor did he give them much thought when he was hot on some outlaw's trail.

Longarm cut the package string. "Ruben, this package is so beat-up it looks as if it's probably been stomped on by a bunch of your Apache."

"If it was from my Apache relatives, it'd be wrapped in a white man's scalp!"

Longarm chuckled and began to open the package. The outer brown paper peeled away to reveal a neatly folded newspaper.

"Yep," Longarm drawled. "It's from Arizona. Wickenburg Weekly Press. Exactly a month old to the day."

"Someone sent you a newspaper all the way from Arizona?"

Longarm spread the paper across his lap. He was surprised to find that there was nothing inside of it, but one of the articles was circled by a wavery pencil mark. Ruben forgot about the shoes and came around behind Longarm to stare at the paper.

"I been in Wickenburg. Hotter'n Flagstaff but not as bad as Tucson. There's a few Apache and Mojave people there, but none of *em belong to my family."

"Well, I sure don't know anyone from Wickenburg."

"Maybe you should read that paper," Ruben suggested. "Maybe someone you know died there a or got rich!"

"Maybe," Longarm said. "I suppose that Wickenburg is a mining town."

"Rough as they come."

Longarm refolded the paper and smoked in silence. Ruben's hands and shine rag always made his tired feet feel better and that alone was enough of a reason to pay the man even when his boots weren't scuffed or muddy.

"I lived in Arizona for twenty-six years," Ruben said. "My family worked in a silver mine near Tucson, then raised some sheep and we caught wild horses to sell to the same d.a.m.n army that put us on reservations."

"Some of you deserved it," Longarm said. "Although I'm sure that didn't include your family."

"Yeah, it did," Ruben admitted. "My family was bad. Real bad. Most of my uncles and my father were all either shot or hanged. I'd have been too, if I hadn't cleared out fast."

"But I thought you once told me you and a couple of brothers went all the way to Washington, D.C."

"We did. Went there to talk to the Great White Father. We were gonna tell him that the Apache deserved fair and honest treatment. We had been given a treaty, but it was broken by the white soldiers."

"And what did the President say?"

Ruben removed the cheroot and spat on the ground. "He wouldn't see us and so we got drunk. Raised h.e.l.l and killed a couple of people fighting in a saloon. I got away, my brothers didn't. One of *em, Charlie Big Thumbs, is still alive."

"And in prison after all these years?"

Ruben shook his head. "Charlie, he don't know nothin' no more. Some guard hit him once too often in the head. I brought him to Denver to see a specialist. They put him in the big hospital. He eats good. Always laughing. I tried to take him out and he started howlin' like a coyote. Wouldn't leave!"

Longarm had never heard Ruben open up so completely. Up until this very minute, the man had always been a supreme enigma. "And that's why you've stayed here in Denver?"

"That and the fact that I got a wife now and four kids. She's Ute, not Apache, but she can cook good and warms my bed. She won't go to Arizona and neither will my kids. If I go alone, maybe I get hanged. Arizona men are rough sons a b.i.t.c.hes and don't care if their boots look good or not, so maybe I starve. Right?"

"That's right," Longarm said, still marveling that Ruben had opened up so completely.

Ruben's shine rag began to pop like a farm boy's rabbit rifle. "You ain't going to ask me why I'd hang in Arizona, are you?"

"No."

"Good! I killed a few men, but they deserved it. There's some real b.a.s.t.a.r.ds livin' in Arizona; I put a few of the worst in their graves but never took a scalp."

"Ruben, I've always wondereda"how old are you?"

"Fifty a seven just last Tuesday."

Longarm tried to hide his surprise. He'd thought that Ruben was at least seventy. The man's weathered face and bent body were the best evidence that he had lived a very hard and dangerous life.

"Someday," Ruben was saying, "I'm gonna be shinin' your boots or someone else's, and the President will come by and see what a good job I do and want me to shine his shoes. And, when I do, I won't charge him nothin'. That's right!"

Ruben's voice had taken on an angry tremor and now his rag really began to pop. "That's right, Marshal Long, I won't take a penny, but I will roast his a.s.s over the broken treaties and them gawd.a.m.n reservations where all Indian people are treated worse'n stray dogs."

"Maybe he'll even make some changes," Longarm said, wanting to give Ruben hope.

"No, he won't. But I'll feel better for having given him a piece of my mind. And I'll tell my wife and kids and they'll tell all their friends and I'll be a big man a for a while."

"You sure will be," Longarm said, lapsing into a reverie.

"What does the Arizona paper say?"

"I don't know. Haven't read it yet."

"Can I have it after you're done? Maybe I'll read about someone I knew."

"Sure," Longarm said, deciding that he might as well read the article so he could just give the paper to Ruben.

It would be one less thing that he'd have to try to remember tomorrow.

The circled article began by saying that an old prospector named Jim c.o.x had been found shot out in the desert but that he was recovering from his wounds.

"Jimmy is a good friend of mine," Longarm explained. "He saved my life a few years ago. Never forget him."

Ruben glanced up from Longarm's now glistening boots. "How'd he do that?"

"I was tracking a murdering outlaw down near Tucson. Nothing in his past warned me that he carried a big buffalo rifle and knew how to use it. From a half mile away, he ambushed and winged me in the leg; the same bullet pa.s.sed through the belly of my horse. So there I was, about sixty miles from water with a leakin' leg and a dying horse."

"But a man as experienced as you would have been carrying plenty of water."

"Yeah, but that same d.a.m.ned slug went through my canteen. And I was pinned under the horse when it fell, and the outlaw decided it would be interesting to see if he could put another bullet through my horse into me. Follow?"

"I believe so." Ruben frowned. "So there you were, no water, dead horse lyin' on a leakin' leg, and this outlaw son of a b.i.t.c.h using you for target practice."

"That's about the way it was," Longarm said. "I was in a terrible fix."

"But then I suppose this Jim c.o.x showed up and killed the outlaw?"

"No," Longarm said, "but he ran him off and then he got me outta my sc.r.a.pe. I'd have died without Jimmy's help."

"What ever happened to the outlaw?"

"Apache caught and tortured him to death about a week later over by Casa Grande. They tied him to a big cactus and burned him alive after they'd cut off a bunch of his body parts. He was a murdering son of a b.i.t.c.h, but even he didn't deserve that bad a death."

"My people do know how to torture. But then, some whites are pretty good at it too."

"Agreed." Longarm turned his attention back to the newspaper. "Maybe I better read on and find out the rest of Jim's story."

Longarm read the remainder of the article out loud and it went on to say that Jim c.o.x, delirious with fever, had told a story of a lost Spanish treasure that he had been hunting for more than twenty years. No one had taken the story seriously. They'd considered it no more than the ranting of a fevered mind, until c.o.x had finally recovered, then paid all his bills with a handful of Spanish coins.