He shook his head and said, “Don’t ask for promises, honey. Many a gal has chased a man out of her corral by trying to brand him with promises just as he was starting to eat out of her hand. I said I’ll be back if I can make it. Let’s leave it at that.”

  He made love to her one last time, a bit annoyed that she didn’t seem as pleasured this time, then he sat up and pulled on his clothes. As he stood in her doorway, she stood up, naked, and came over to kiss him goodbye. She was well worth remembering as she stood before him in the rosy light. He kissed her deeply and with meaning, then he turned away and walked off quickly, not looking back.

  He saddled his gelding in the barn and rode out, cutting across the rolling fields of wild mustard in the mountain sunlight. The air was cool and the gelding was frisky, so he rode northwest at a lope, jumping rail fences and feeling sort of good.

  He told himself, You really are a shameless skunk with women. But he was grinning like a kid stealing apples just the same.

  * * *

  He rode the forty-odd miles to Sacramento, taking most of the morning and leaving the horse lathered and not so sassy at the army remount station just outside of town.

  The remount officer started to give him hell for treating government property that way with an Indian uprising brewing, so Longarm said, “You must not have gotten word from headquarters yet. There ain’t any Indian uprising. Old Bitter Water is a friend of mine. We used to bust out of jail together all the time.”

  “What are you talking about? The boys up in Calaveras County report smoke talk from a hundred hills. Some livestock is missing, and—”

  Longarm interrupted him. “Now don’t get your balls in an uproar. There was only one fire. I was there. As for missing stock, there’s always missing stock. Cows don’t have a lick of sense.”

  The officer blinked and asked, “You were with the Miwok when they started sending those smoke signals?”

  Longarm didn’t know just what the army regulations had to say about white men sending Indian smoke signals, so he hedged a little and said, “I just told you Bitter Water is a friend of mine. He was signaling his band to gather for the acorn harvest or something. They’re sort of like squirrels when it comes to gathering nuts for the winter. But like I said, it never meant anything.”

  “Damn it! They have half the county holed up with loaded rifles! They had no right to scare folks so!”

  “I know,” Longarm soothed him, adding, “I told them they should put on overalls and start looking for steady jobs. Bitter Water says he won’t send up any more smoke signals. Meanwhile, if you’d see about shipping my saddle and possibles back to Denver, and tell me how I’m to get into town without a mount . . .”

  “I think the mess officer has a buckboard going into Sacramento for supplies. If you leg it over to the gate in time, you’ll be able to hitch a ride. I sure don’t want to issue you another horse! You ride like a goddamned Sioux on the warpath!”

  Longarm suppressed the desire to observe that this attitude might be the reason the army had so much trouble chasing Indians. He simply waved and started dogtrotting away from the corral, holding his holster in place with his left palm to keep it from slapping.

  He reached the gate as the chuckwagon was pulling out. He yelled, ran after it, and jumped aboard.

  They rode him in to the crowded streets of the city and he dropped off near the federal building, dodging a clanging streetcar as he crossed the street.

  He went upstairs to a frosted glass door and introduced himself to a morose assistant marshal from the Sacramento district. He didn’t know if this was the son of a bitch who’d gotten him thrown in Lovejoy’s jail by disputing his jurisdiction, but it was water under the bridge now. The older federal man had doubtless gotten the word that Longarm was being backed by Boss Buckley, so he was trying to be friendly.

  He said, “We have a flier out on the MacLeods, and the Sacramento P.D. is cooperating. But so far, nobody’s seen a trace of them.”

  Longarm brought his fellow employee up to date and the man sighed, “I don’t know why you’ve been playing chess when the game is checkers, Longarm. I mean, you had Kevin MacLeod up there at the Lost Chinaman, but you simply sat there like a big-assed bird and let him get away!”

  Longarm took out a cheroot, thumbed a matchhead, and lit up before he explained, “Lottie MacLeod took off after trapping us all in the mine. I figured if I arrested her husband on the spot, we might never see her again.”

  “Good riddance, I’d say. The husband is the one we want.”

  Longarm shook his head and said, “Nope. He’s pretty slick, as we learned the hard way. But Lottie kills folks. She’s a bitty little woman who looks helpless and harmless. A gal can change her dress and dye her hair to where a man who’s bedded her might miss her in a crowd, too. I figure her husband has a better chance of catching up with her than anyone working on our side.”

  The older man fumbled with a pencil and growled, “Maybe. She ain’t been to the bank to cash that check she stole.”

  Longarm said, “Hell, the news that we were rescued was in this morning’s issue of the Sacramento Bee. She’d be a fool to try and cash it now. He’ll know better than to try and spend the two million they paid him after all the trouble the two of them went to. He must be mad as hell.”

  For the first time, the older lawman grinned sincerely as he nodded and said, “I’ll allow that you really messed them up by getting the bank and the refinery to play along with you like that. But the two of them have a good twelve hours’ start and there’s no telling where in God’s name either one of them has lit out for. We ran MacLeod through the wanted files; he has no paper on him at all.”

  Longarm nodded and said, “Meaning they were using a fictitious name. Everybody leaves a trail of paper behind as he passes through this wicked world.”

  “I know. But there’s no army record. Nothing to point to a hometown back East that they might be running for.”

  “Hell, no slick owlhoot runs for home after the first time. MacLeod may be somebody else, but he’s been on the dodge before. If we could find out who he was or where he came from, he knows we’d be looking for him there. After we find Lottie, I’ll catch the steamer down to Frisco Bay. He’ll figure on hopping a boat out, sure as hell.”

  “Are you crazy? There must be a dozen clippers putting out through the Golden Gate with every tide!”

  Longarm nodded and said, “Yep. But like I said, the jasper is slick as well as ornery. He won’t catch just any boat. He’ll want one headed for some port that has no extradition treaty with Uncle Sam.”

  The other lawman looked sheepish as he admitted, “I, uh, have some fellows covering the Mexican and Canadian borders, Longarm.”

  Longarm shook his head and said, “Queen Victoria’s Mounties are nosy as hell about strangers up their way. As for Mexico, they might wink at a cow thief or two. But murder is serious on either side of the border. MacLeod would stand out down in the Baja like a sore thumb, and the rurales would nail him pronto.”

  The older man studied his pencil before he sighed and said, “You’re likely right. I understand the Vallejo family is offering a reward for the murderers of their kinsman.”

  Longarm nodded, adding, “The Vallejos are sort of important folks, too. I know one who figures they’ll be able to get back some of their old lands now, since the mine was a bust. But getting back to the wheresoevers —I don’t figure MacLeod will try a run for it over the Sierra, since there ain’t too many railroads for us to watch. So we’re back to an escape by sea. We ought to be able to whittle the ships leaving for an owlhoot’s likely ports of call down to a tolerable list.”

  “Shouldn’t we get cracking, then? What’s to stop MacLeod and his woman from being there right now, about to leave?”

  Longarm said, “A couple of things. For one, a man traveling alone has a better chance. For another, she tried to kill him. She’s a tolerable-looking gal with a nice figure, but he’s likely feeling testy. She knows too much, too. If he was to get rid of her and make it out of the country . . .”

  “I agree he has the motive to kill her twice over, damn it. But while we’re sitting here, jawing about it, the two of them are out there someplace and you still haven’t told me where.”

  Longarm blew a smoke ring and explained, “Hell, if I knew where she was, I’d have arrested her already.”

  “Agreed, but what if MacLeod can’t find her either?”

  “We’ll be in a hell of a fix, won’t we?”

  The Sacramento marshal drummed his pencil on the desk blotter and mused, “On the other hand, they’ve traveled and plotted together all this time. MacLeod should know his wife’s habits—the sort of places she’d be apt to stay, the sort of stores she shops in. If she’s in the habit of changing her appearance, he’d know that too, and what to look for.”

  Longarm said, “There you go. My plan ain’t as dumb as it looks, once a person takes the time to study on it some.”

  As he rose to leave, the other lawman asked, “What if she nails him? We know she’s tried once, and what you said about their knowing one another better than we do applies in her case as well, doesn’t it?”

  Longarm nodded. “Yeah. But I purely hope she doesn’t get lucky. I know I can likely catch him. But I ain’t ever been one for trailing after womenfolks.”

  The older man, who’d heard a lot about Longarm, grinned slyly and said, “Oh, I don’t know. The way I hear tell, you sort of like to go after gals. You figure, after you catch her, she’ll be in shape to stand trial?”

  Longarm replied morosely, “I ain’t ever loved a gal to death yet, and besides, Lottie is a mite more passionate than I care for. I’d be willing to let her try and screw me to death, but she doesn’t fight fair and I’ve had all the chemistry lessons I need.”

  * * *

  Longarm went to the bank, but his hopes failed to pan out. The bank manager gave him a cigar and explained his plans in case either of the missing MacLeods tried to cash their worthless checks. He sounded like he was enjoying the change from his usually somewhat dull routine. But while the armed guards out front in plain clothes were dramatic, it didn’t seem likely that either of the MacLeods would turn up.

  The banker mentioned that Herc Romero had been promoted by his boss, the enthusiastic tycoon George Hearst. The Hearst holdings had offered a substantial reward for the capture of the murderers, perhaps to butter up the local Mexicans.

  Longarm said, “I got to wondering about the other mines shortly after I got to Calaveras County. Old Hearst is unpopular with the local folks, likely for being so rich. But I looked into it and saw that the Hearst holdings weren’t robbed. That sort of struck me as strange, since robbing an unpopular absentee owner with a richer ore body looked a damned sight easier than whatever was going on.”

  The banker nodded and said, “Now that you’ve explained it, we should all be ashamed of ourselves for not seeing it right off. I mean, damn it, there wasn’t any way to steal ore from a guarded moving train, was there?”

  Longarm puffed on the banker’s fine Havana tobacco, and said, “Don’t fret about it. I thought they’d done it too, the first time it happened. I’ll admit I wasted time thinking up all sorts of tricks, and I’ll allow I had some thoughts on the late Joaquin Murietta’s ghost. But it slowly sank into my thick skull that I didn’t believe in spooks and that I’m likely as smart as any other old boy when it comes to stealing. In my line, you get to meet a mess of thieves, and in my time, I’ve probably heard of every way it can be done.”

  “In other words, if you simply couldn’t see how they were stealing the ore, they simply couldn’t be stealing it?”

  “That’s about the size of it. Modesty doesn’t pay off worth mention.”

  “So now all you have to do is figure their next move?”

  “Nope. I know MacLeod’s next couple of moves. I just wish the son of a bitch would get cracking and figure it out himself!”

  Chapter 10

  At Sacramento police headquarters, Longarm introduced himself to the desk sergeant. He was led to a squad room where he sat down to converse with two plainclothesmen. The one who did all the talking was named Flynn. Longarm never caught the name of his small, skinny partner. The man was too busy chewing and spitting to have much to say.

  Flynn explained that they’d searched high and low for both MacLeods or the remains of either. Then he added his considered opinion that they were not in Sacramento. He said, “If I were one of them, I’d be on a clipper headed for China about now.”

  Longarm said, “It’s good to see that you agree with me about his wanting to get clear out of our jurisdiction. But he won’t want to leave his woman behind for us to pick up. To us, he’s just a nondescript cuss in worn pants and miner’s boots, but she knows his real name and such. And it ain’t like they’re friends anymore.”

  “All right,” Flynn said. “Let’s try it this way. Say he’s already found her, killed her, and lit out. There are a thousand places you could hide a body in these parts.”

  “Maybe,” Longarm conceded, “but we know she had a good lead on him. So if and when he caught up with her, it’d be daybreak, or too close to matter. They don’t own property here in town. So he has no basement at his disposal to plant her in. Someone would have noticed, had he gunned her down on the streets. That means they have to be someplace private for whatever. And that means a rented someplace private.”

  Flynn nodded. “We have men out checking the shabbier parts of town. There are lots of nasty alleyways down near the tracks, and if he caught up with her in some whorehouse—”

  “Back up,” Longarm cut in. “Lottie MacLeod is too high-toned to hide out in the tenderloin. Not because she might not screw as well as poison, but because she’d stand out. I’d say she’d aim for a more respectable part of town—a medium-priced hotel or a respectable rooming house.”

  “I read your drift. She ain’t such a needle in a haystack after all.”

  “Her husband would know that, too. There’s no telling how much money they still have between them, but she likely has some left over from their last flimflam. She wouldn’t rent a place by the month, but she might pay a week in advance. She’d avoid the kind of hotel frequented by whiskey drummers with an eye for an ankle on a woman alone, too. Most towns I know of have respectable boarding houses catering to women only. That’s where I’d start looking for her.”

  Flynn made a notation on a slip of paper. He rang a bell on his table and a uniformed patrolman came in to take the note. As he read it, the policeman said, “That’s funny, Sarge. A couple of the boys just answered a call at an all-female rooming house out on the north side.”

  Flynn asked, “What kind of a call?” The patrolman replied, “Dead woman. Found by her landlady just a few minutes ago. The woman came in to change the linens and—”

  But Flynn was on his feet and moving, with Longarm and Flynn’s silent partner right behind.

  They ran out a side entrance and piled into a waiting police van. The uniformed driver clucked the team forward and they boiled out of the alley, with the van’s bell clanging.

  It only took them a few minutes to reach the scene. It was a mustard-yellow frame building with a mansard roof. The whole neighborhood had gathered out front, where a patrolman was comforting an hysterical fat lady on the postage stamp-sized lawn.

  Flynn asked the cop where his partner was and was told, “Upstairs in the back, Sarge. This lady here says she’s sure no men have been on the premises since she locked up last night.”

  The three of them edged past the fat lady as she protested loudly that she didn’t run that sort of a rooming house.

  They climbed the stairs as women peered out through slitted doors with worried looks.

  He knew they were in the right place as soon as they got to the open doorway of Lottie MacLeod’s rented room. A patrolman stood near the bed, taking notes and trying not to look as sick as he must have felt.

  In life, Lottie had been pretty. Her death had been ugly. Uglier than Longarm had counted on, and he felt a twinge of guilt as he swallowed the bilious taste in his mouth. He stared down at the figure sprawled on the blood-soaked mattress, and said, “I’m purely sorry it had to end this way, ma’am, but you did have some ornery notions about killing folks.”

  Lottie MacLeod lay stark naked in a thickening, glutinous mass of blood and her own innards. She stared at the ceiling, smiling widely up at the gray, cracked plaster as if it had said something amusing. Her throat had been slit from ear to ear. Then her killer had run the knife down from her neck to her pubic bone, slicing her open like an overripe watermelon. Her still-shapely thighs were spread wide, as if her smile were meant as an invitation to a lusty lover. But while she lay spread-eagled and naked, there was little in the way of obscene exposure. Her blood-smeared breasts were visible, but her torn-out guts covered her private parts like some gory apron of tangled wet coils.

  Flynn’s partner went to the window, opened it, and spit a stream of tobacco juice out into the sunlight. Flynn said, “They don’t grin like that until they’ve been dead about three hours, right?”

  Longarm nodded and said, “Found an old boy the Apache had left on an ant pile once. He was grinning like he enjoyed it, too.”

  Longarm spotted a slip of paper on the rug and bent to pick it up as the detective said, “Of course, we can’t prove it was MacLeod without witnesses.”

  Longarm held out the paper and said, “This was part of the rubber check I had the refinery pay him for his worthless gold. They likely had words, with her taunting him some, before he went sort of crazy.”

  Flynn frowned and said, “I thought she had a worthless check.”