“She did. You ain’t listening. If both checks were here in this room when she died so messy, this scrap of paper puts him in here with her. Let’s see what else we can find.”

  As Longarm found a woman’s carpetbag and began to go through it, Flynn said, “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. But what’s this you say about her taunting him? How do you know he didn’t just bust in and go for her with that knife?”

  Longarm pointed with his chin at a nightgown draped over a chair in one corner of the room. He said, “Not many gals sleep naked when they’re alone. The landlady said she didn’t hear anything, and the door wasn’t forced. She let him in.”

  Flynn gulped. “Jesus! Knowing he was going to kill her?”

  “Not hardly. I’d say that part came as a surprise. Most women feel they have certain powers over a man, spread out naked. If they didn’t meet outside, he likely came here and signaled. They were good at signals other folks weren’t supposed to know about. I’ll let him fill in the blank spaces after I catch him.”

  Flynn stared down at the grotesquely mutilated body and said, “Yeah. She must have thought he wanted to screw her, and for all we know, she let him. But what was that about her taunting him?”

  Longarm took a glass vial from Lottie’s bag, sniffed it, and said, “Cyanide. Gals are funny that way. You’d think they’d learn that the last thing a man wants to hear right after some good loving is how dumb he is. But it does seem that they always pick just that time to let us have it.”

  Flynn smiled wryly and said, “Say no more. I’m a married man myself. I can see how it must have happened. They got back together and started to make up. But she was still sore at him and—”

  “She was buying time, hoping for a chance to poison him. Only she said the wrong thing, or maybe he was just smarter than she’d counted on. Anyhow, she’s out of the way, so we don’t have to worry about some fool jury letting her off just for being so pretty and helpless.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’d best get cracking after MacLeod. I was worried some about presenting my case to a judge and jury, seeing how complicated it was and how little I could really prove.”

  He stared thoughtfully down at the mangled cadaver before he suggested, “It might be a good idea to get a photographer up here to take some pictures. He may try to brazen through his story about his high-grading confidence scheme, but no lawyer born of mortal woman is going to get him off for doing this!”

  Flynn observed, “You sound pretty confident, considering the lead he has on you, Longarm.”

  Longarm put a cheroot in his mouth, chewed it, and said, “Hell, he can’t have gone that far, poor bastard.”

  * * *

  A foghorn moaned through the morning fog of San Francisco as Longarm lounged between two stacks of redwood lumber. The tall three-master moored to the end of the quay had finished loading and would be leaving with the next tide, bound for Australia. The gangplank was still down and he could hear the sounds of crewmen as they went about their chores on the ship’s deck. He couldn’t see them at this distance in the fog.

  Longarm stiffened, gun in hand, as he heard the grating of shoe leather on wet cobblestones. He peered out between the stacks of lumber and saw a seaman moving toward the gangplank with a duffle bag on his shoulder. The man didn’t look his way. It was just as well. Longarm didn’t want to have to explain why he was skulking about with a .44 in his fist at this hour.

  He took out his watch and consulted it by the dim gray light. The clipper would be leaving soon. He was probably wrong. He’d been wrong about the last two ships he’d come down to see off. Could the idiot be dumb enough to make a run back East with only three railroads to choose from and U.S. deputies watching every one?

  The trouble with being a tricky knave was that it narrowed a man’s options. Longarm wouldn’t have known where to start looking for a wilder sort who simply cut and run. But MacLeod was shifty as hell and seven times smarter than he ought to be, so he could be counted on to do the smartest thing. He’d undoubtedly fooled a lot of people in his day. By now he might have figured out how he’d been flustered. He was probably pretty angry about it, too.

  The sound of footsteps was coming down the quay again. Longarm glanced out, saw another dim figure toting a sailor’s duffle, and began to back off. Then he noticed that the man was wearing miner’s boots.

  Longarm cocked his .44 and stepped out, calling, “Just freeze right where you are, MacLeod. I won’t say it twice!”

  The figure stopped and slowly turned. Then he suddenly dropped the bulky bag and fell behind it on the cobbles! A flash of orange winked at Longarm, and the lawman fired. A piece of redwood slapped the side of Longarm’s cheek and his own bullet exploded socks and underwear out of the ripped-open duffle. Longarm dropped and crabbed sideways as MacLeod put another round where his head had just been. He knew he was invisible in his space between the lumber, so he fired once for effect, then turned and ran back. He grunted himself through a slit at the rear of the piled lumber, moved down two stacks, then holstered the gun and climbed to the top.

  He crawled across the damp boards to the forward edge, drew his gun again, and peered over. From his new vantage point, he had a bird’s-eye view of MacLeod behind his improvised cover.

  He called out, “Give it up, old son. I’ve got you cold.”

  MacLeod rolled wildly and fired up at him. The bullet hit the wood just under Longarm’s gun hand, driving a big splinter into the heel of his palm and knocking the Colt from his grasp!

  “Aw, shit,” he muttered, as the gun clattered to the paving below. Then MacLeod was up and running as Longarm rolled off his gut and fumbled the derringer from his vest pocket. He aimed the little brass pistol in his blood-slicked hand and got off a shot as MacLeod was running up the gangplank. Naturally, the shot missed at that range.

  Longarm got down off the lumber and picked up his Colt with his left hand as he put the derringer away and sucked at his injured right hand. He took out a kerchief, bound it around his injury, and shifted the .44 back to his right hand as he walked slowly toward the gangplank.

  A crewman up in the rigging called down, “What’s going on down there?”

  Longarm called back, “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal chasing a murderer. Did you see where he went?”

  “Everyone on deck’s took cover, Marshal. I don’t see nobody down there.”

  There was the sound of a shot and the crew member yelped, swinging himself behind the thick pine mast as he yelled, “He just took a shot at me from the poop deck! He’s down behind the skylight, for’d the wheelhouse!”

  Longarm ran to the gangplank and moved up it, ducking his head as he reached the well deck. He dropped behind a pair of lifeboats on a hatch cover before risking a cautious peek aft.

  There was nothing much to see. The railing of the higher poop deck was silhouetted against the skyline of San Francisco. MacLeod was too slick to have his head in view there.

  There was a ladder leading up on either side, near the rails. Longarm figured MacLeod would have them both covered. So he decided not even to consider getting there that way.

  He called out, “Damn it, MacLeod, you’re just making things complicated for no good reason! This ship ain’t about to carry you to Australia or anywhere else!”

  A voice called back, “I’ll stand pat, you son of a bitch! How’d you know where to find me?”

  “I figured you’d want to get someplace out of my jurisdiction. You’re too smart to book passage on just any ship. So I had a talk with the harbormaster. This clipper stops at Valparaiso on its way to down under, and we don’t have an extradition treaty with Chile, so— Hey, why don’t you pack it in, and I’ll explain it all as I take you to the federal building.”

  “You’ll never take me alive, you bastard! What did you do to turn Lottie against me?”

  “You did that yourself by being too greedy. Did you really think you’d somehow bought a real gold mine?”

  “I’ve figured out how you tricked me with that false assay, God damn your eyes. You want me, come and take me!”

  Longarm noticed that a member of the crew was staring out at him through a doorway leading to the quarters under the poop deck. He motioned the man back, even though MacLeod couldn’t see him from up on top.

  He knew MacLeod had no line of sight on his position either, so he broke cover and ran to the doorway, shoving the crewman inside.

  He found that they were in a low-beamed corridor, running toward the stern. He whispered to the crewman, “Show me where the helm is, quick!”

  The sailor led him back, muttering, “No way you can get at him without getting your head blown off, friend. There’s a couple of hatches leading topside, but he’s got everything for’d the wheelhouse under his gun!”

  They moved back to a wardroom and Longarm saw the skylight overhead. He moved along the shadows of the port bulkhead as he kept his muzzle trained on the glass. There was nothing staring back at him but gray sky and, way up, a gliding seagull.

  The wardroom ended, aft, in two more doorways on either side of what looked like a big wooden chimney. He pointed at it with his chin and asked, “Is that where the chains from your wheel run down to the rudder?”

  The crewman nodded, but said, “You can’t get inside. Wouldn’t do no good if you could. The wheelhouse sits smack-dab on top.”

  Longarm thumbed the spent shells from his .44 and reached into his coat pocket for spare ammunition. The crewman whispered, “You’re bleeding.”

  Longarm muttered, “I know I’m bleeding. Keep your voice down and get back out of my way.”

  He reloaded his revolver as, overhead, MacLeod called out, “God damn you, Longarm! Come out and fight like a man!”

  Longarm raised the muzzle of his .44 above the level of his own head, aiming at the ceiling.

  He waited until MacLeod called out again and he heard an overhead board creak. Then Longarm fired four times in rapid succession.

  The sound was deafening in the low-ceilinged wardroom, but he could hear MacLeod yelp like a coyote being run over by a train, so he fired once more, directly up at the sound.

  Up on deck, propelled by flying splinters and a .44 slug directly up his rectum, Kevin MacLeod took off for the sky!

  He didn’t get there. His froglike leap shot him out over the skylight, screaming in agony. Then he belly flopped down on the panes of glass and just kept coming as Longarm and the startled sailor moved back out of the way.

  MacLeod landed face down on the wardroom floor in a windfall of shattered glass. He rolled on his side in agony and drew his knees to his chest, his gun hand pinned to the blood-spattered flooring as he glared with hate-filled eyes at the tall figure looming above him in the blue haze of gunsmoke filling the room.

  Longarm muttered, “Aw, shit,” and stepped forward to kick the gun out of MacLeod’s hand. It banged against the far bulkhead, out of reach, so Longarm knelt beside the gutshot killer and said, “I’ll bet that smarts. I’ll send for a doc, old son.”

  MacLeod coughed blood, licked his lips, and said, “You’ve killed me, you son of a bitch! I might have known you’d pull another of your dumb tricks!”

  Longarm said, “For a man with a bullet up his ass you sure have a poor opinion of everyone else. I’d say you were right about one thing, though. You’re dying, sure as hell.”

  He started, reloading his .44 as he added, “Before you go, would you mind confessing a few things in front of me and this witness?”

  “You can go to hell.”

  “Thanks just the same, but I had Denver in mind. With you and Lottie both dead, a few loose ends hardly matter, seeing as how neither of you has to stand trial.”

  Other crewmen were coming out of the woodwork to admire Longarm’s handiwork. A man with the four stripes of a captain on his sleeve asked, “What’s this all about, Marshal?”

  Longarm said, “I ain’t a marshal, just a deputy. And my tale is too long to be told before I have to catch the ferry back to Oakland and hop the C.P. back to Denver. Let’s just say this poor cuss here was too smart for his own good.”

  He looked down at the dying man as he said, “You and Lottie should have ridden out your pat hand, MacLeod. You know I never could have proven my notions in any court of law, don’t you?”

  “The bitch tried to kill me. So I paid her back good. That was your doing too, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep. It’s called ‘divide and conquer.’”

  He looked up at the captain and asked, “Do you mind sending one of your men for a doctor and the local P.D.?”

  The captain said, “I already did, as soon as it was safe to move. They’ll be here any minute.”

  Longarm nodded and told MacLeod, “There you go, old son. Just rest easy and we’ll see how bad you’re hurt.”

  MacLeod didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Longarm felt the side of his neck as a crewman said, “Jesus, I think he’s dead!”

  Longarm said, “You’re right. He did say something about me killing him. First time the bastard’s told me the truth since I met up with him.”

  * * *

  The San Francisco police asked a lot of tedious questions, considering how simple it all was. But in the end they said it was all right for a federal marshal to shoot wanted killers on the waterfront, so Longarm went down Market Street and caught the ferry across the bay to Oakland.

  He thought he’d probably missed the train to Cheyenne, and he’d already seen what there was of Oakland. So he hurried to the depot, hoping he was wrong.

  As he stepped through the glass doors, he thanked his lucky stars for blessing him with good eyesight.

  Felicidad Vallejo was standing by the ticket counter, as if she were expecting to meet someone.

  A few feet farther on, standing with her arms crossed and tapping her pretty little foot on the cement, he noticed Pru Sawyer.

  Neither woman knew the other, and Longarm surmised that it might be a good idea to keep it that way. So he crawfished backward out the door before either girl could spot him. He didn’t consider himself a coward, but there is such a thing as pure common sense, and he’d rather have faced an armed band of Apache than get into a hair-pulling contest between two jealous females!”

  He circled the big brick depot and found a board fence separating the yards from the carriage road. He put his hands up and hauled himself over the top.

  He landed inside on the gritty cinders and started legging it across the yards. The dusty maroon sides of the eastbound express were just starting to pull away from the platform, so Longarm started running.

  A yard bull saw him and yelled out, “Hey, you ain’t supposed to be in here, cowboy!”

  But Longarm paid the bull no heed as he chased the train. He ran down the tracks after it, slowly gaining on the rear platform as the train moved out through the yards. A girl in a big hat and a pinch-waisted dress was staring at him from the platform as he slowly caught up with her and the express.

  Longarm reached forward, grabbed the brass railing, and was almost dragged before he could get an instep on the rear coupler and haul himself aboard, saying, “Howdy, ma’am.”

  The girl said, “Well, hello! Do you always board trains that way?”

  He climbed over the rail, grinning sheepishly, and answered, “Only when they try to leave without me, ma’am. My name is Custis Long and I work for Uncle Sam.”

  She laughed a pretty skylark laugh and said, “I’m Melony Evans and I don’t. Are you going all the way? To Cheyenne, I mean.”

  He said, “Cheyenne and then some. I’ve got to get back to Denver before payday.”

  “How interesting. I’m on my way to Denver myself. We live on Sherman Avenue.”

  “We, ma’am? You don’t seem to be wearing a ring”

  “I’m not married. I live with my aunt and uncle in Denver.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, I’d best go in and see if the conductor has a compartment he’ll rent me. I purely hate trying to sleep sitting up in a day coach, and I figure at least two nights aboard this fool train.”

  As he eased past her, Melony said, “Perhaps we’ll meet later, in the club car. You can let me know if they have a sleeping compartment for you.”

  He started to ask if she had one, but considered it a mite early to be so forward, so he just grinned and said, “I’ll do that, ma’am. I’m sure I’ll find someplace, or other to spend the next couple of nights.”

  NOVEL 8

  Longarm and the Nesters

  Chapter 1

  Longarm didn’t wait to see where the shot had come from. He knew the sound of a rifle from its whiplash crack, and his reflexes sent him rolling out of his saddle before whoever had triggered it could pump a second cartridge into the chamber. The yellow dust raised by the slug that had plowed into the ground between his horse’s hooves was still settling when Longarm landed on his feet and crouched in back of the animal. He stood at the roan’s hindquarters, where its hind legs and haunches would give him the greatest protection, and bent forward to keep his head from becoming a target while he waited for a second shot to follow the first.

  Enough seconds ticked by to give Longarm time to think about trying to grab for his own rifle, but the .44-40 Winchester was resting snugly in its boot on the wrong side of the horse. There was no way he could reach it without exposing his head, arm, and shoulder.

  Seconds dragged into minutes, but the shot he was waiting for still didn’t come. Longarm credited the bushwhacker with enough intelligence not to waste ammunition on an invisible target. He wondered how long it would take the shooter to think of the obvious next step. He got ready to drop to the ground in case the bushwhacker brought down his horse and stripped him of his protective cover.