Longarm 242: Red-light (8 page)

Longarm swiveled on the rough wooden stool where he was sitting. He reached out and put a hand on the man's arm. “I said I was sorry, old son. I didn't know you were friends with this fella Mallory—”

The man shook off Longarm's hand. “My friends are my business,” he growled. “And I never said Mallory was one of 'em. It's just that
I've
got some sense.”

Longarm stood up too and faced the man. “You've got no call to insult me,” he said. He wasn't really that offended, but now that he had finally gotten a rise out of somebody by mentioning Mallory's name, he didn't want to let go of a possible lead.

“Please, no trouble in here,” the Chinaman said quickly. He came out from behind the counter and tried to get between Longarm and the other man. “You want argue, go outside, please.”

The other man was almost as tall as Longarm and was broader through the body and shoulders than the lawman. He took hold of the Chinaman and easily moved him aside. “If you don't like what I've got to say,” he snapped at Longarm, “you can do something about it, mister.”

Longarm prodded back verbally, saying, “Why don't you just go tell your pard Mallory—”

That was as far as he got. The other man said loudly, “Mallory's not my pard! I hate the son of a bitch!”

Then he swung his big right fist straight at Longarm's head.

Longarm saw the punch coming and ducked to let it go over him. Thrown off balance by the missed blow, the man stumbled forward a step. That brought him close enough for Longarm to put a fist into his belly. The man grunted but was rocked only slightly by the punch. He roared and threw his arms around Longarm, catching the lawman in a bear hug.

With both of his arms trapped, Longarm had no choice but to bring his knee up into his opponent's groin. That brought a howl of pain from the man, and his grip loosened. Longarm tore free, threw a left and a right that landed on the man's jaw, jerking his head back and forth. The man staggered back and fell as the other patrons of the Chinaman's place scrambled to get out of his way. One of the tables went over with a crash, and the Chinaman let out an outraged screech. Longarm glanced around to make sure the Celestial wasn't coming after him with a cleaver. He had faced hatchet men before and had no desire to do so again.

The Chinaman was just jumping up and down and yelling, though, so Longarm didn't figure he was much of a threat. Longarm bent over, grabbed the coat of the man he had knocked down, and hauled him to his feet.

“Sorry that had to happen, friend,” Longarm said to the man, who was shaking his head groggily. “I didn't want any trouble.”

The man pulled away from Longarm. With a snarl, he reached down and picked up his hat, which had come off when he fell. “You're liable to get more than you can handle, you keep runnin' your mouth off like that,” he said. He clapped the hat on his head and said to the Chinaman, “You can take up the matter of damages with this fella here, Ling.” He pointed at Longarm, then turned on his heel and stalked out of the little restaurant.

Ling was still furious, though he was clearly glad that the fight was over. He pointed at the overturned table and said to Longarm, “You break table, spill food! Must pay!” He held up his hand with the fingers spread. “Five dolla'”

Longarm figured that no more than a dollar's worth of food had wound up on the floor, and as for the table, it would be just fine as soon as somebody set it upright again. But he didn't feel like arguing, so he dug in the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a five-dollar gold piece. He flipped it to Ling, who plucked it deftly from the air and bit into it, then nodded in satisfaction.

“Sorry,” Longarm said. He looked around at the other customers in the narrow room. “Sorry, folks. I didn't know I was touching a sore spot when I brought up that outlaw Mallory.”

Several of the men in the room looked down at the floor. Others shifted their feet. One man cleared his throat. “We don't know who you're talkin' about, mister,” he said. “There's nobody by that name around here.”

The hell there wasn't, thought Longarm. He was beginning to understand now. His guess about Galena City being without a lawman had proven to be correct, and that led to his next theory.

Ben Mallory had this town treed.

Longarm had seen situations like this before. A group of badmen moved in on a settlement, usually somewhat isolated and without anybody to keep the peace, and took over. In return for a safe haven where they could replenish their supplies and indulge their appetites for liquor and women of easy virtue, they left everybody in the town alone, at least for the most part. As long as they weren't crossed, that is. If somebody got brave enough to stand up to them, the owlhoots would slap him down ruthlessly, sometimes even killing him as a lesson to everybody else. So, for their own good, the townspeople went along with whatever the outlaws wanted.

That was Galena City.

So if he waited, thought Longarm, sooner or later Ben Mallory would come to him, especially if Longarm kept stirring up the townsfolk with his comments. Mallory was bound to hear about that. There was only one problem with that plan.

Longarm didn't feel like waiting. He wanted Mallory—
now.

He nodded to the customers in the Chinaman's place, who pointedly ignored him as he walked out. With his belly full, Longarm felt pretty good. He paused on the boardwalk to light a cheroot, then strolled along Greenwood Avenue toward the intersection where it hit the other main street.

He had only gone a block and was passing the mouth of an alley when he heard someone go, “Sssttt!”

Longarm frowned and glanced over at the alley. J. Emerson Dupree stood there motioning to him. The newspaper publisher had taken off his ink-stained apron and put on a dusty black coat and derby hat. He glanced around furtively as he called Longarm over to him, as if he was afraid that someone would see him.

The overcast sky was still thick with clouds, which meant the alley was shadowy, but Longarm could see well enough to be sure that no one was in there except Dupree. This certainly didn't look like an ambush, he told himself. He decided to see what the newspaperman wanted.

Longarm stepped into the alley and nodded to Dupree. “Howdy,” he said around the cheroot clenched between his teeth. “You were right about the Chinaman's place. The food was good.”

“Why didn't you just eat it and keep your mouth shut, then?” asked Dupree. Before Longarm could answer, the newspaperman went on. “I heard about what you just did in there. That's why I scrambled around here to talk to you. What are you trying to do, mister, get this town burned down around us?”

“Mallory's got you that scared, huh?” Longarm asked bluntly.

Dupree swallowed hard. “Who are you? Some kind of bounty hunter, maybe?”

Longarm glanced around. There were no windows nearby in the buildings, and even if there had been, they would have been closed to keep the chill out. He decided to take a chance and reveal who he really was to Dupree. He reached up, took the cheroot out of his mouth.

At the far end of the alley, a gun blasted. Something whined past Longarm's ear with a sound like an angry bee.

A .44-caliber bee, more than likely.

Longarm reacted instinctively. He dropped the cheroot and twisted around in the direction the shot had come from, and his hand flashed to the Colt in the cross-draw rig on his left hip. As the gun slid smoothly from its holster, another shot rang out. Longarm heard that whining sound again, followed by an ugly thud and a grunt of pain. He threw himself to the side, sprawling out flat on the ground next to one of the buildings, as he brought up the Colt and started triggering.

Three shots thundered out of the revolver, deafening in the close confines. The shadowy figure Longarm had spotted at the far end of the alley jerked back. As the echoes of Longarm's shots died away, he heard the sound of rapid footsteps on hard-packed dirt. The bushwhacker was getting away. Longarm thought he might have wounded the man—or maybe the ambusher had jerked because he was just getting out of the way of the lawman's bullets as fast as he could.

Someone moaned, and Longarm looked back over his shoulder to see J. Emerson Dupree lying in the alley. The newspaperman was on his back, and there was a large stain on his shirt that wasn't ink this time.

Longarm scrambled to his feet and then knelt beside Dupree. He pulled the man's coat and shirt back and saw the ugly, red-rimmed hole just below Dupree's left shoulder. There was probably a matching hole in Dupree's back, Longarm knew, where the bullet had come out. The wound was messy, but with any luck, it might not be fatal. From the looks of it, the slug had missed anything vital.

That knowledge didn't make Longarm feel any better. He knew the bullet had been meant for him. Dupree had been hit by accident. And Longarm was fairly confident that the ambush wouldn't have taken place if he hadn't ridden into town and started asking questions about Ben Mallory.

That was one more mark against the outlaw leader, Longarm told himself.

“Hang on, Dupree,” Longarm told the newspaperman. He looked up at the sound of more running footsteps. “Folks are on their way to see what happened. Somebody will be here in a minute to help you.”

Dupree couldn't hear him. He was only half-conscious, muttering and groaning in pain. Longarm glanced toward the far end of the alley where the bushwhacker had disappeared. The gunman didn't have a big lead on him, and if the man really was injured, that would slow him down even more. Besides, Longarm didn't much want to hang around here and have to answer questions about what had happened. He probably would have, if Galena City had had a real lawman, but under the circumstances, it might be better for him to get out of this alley while he had the chance.

He patted Dupree on the uninjured shoulder, muttered, “Sorry, old son,” and stood up. His long legs carried him quickly to the far end of the alley. The Colt was still in his hand, ready for instant use.

Nobody was lurking at the end of the alley, though. Longarm stepped out into a lane that ran behind the buildings along Greenwood Avenue. He looked to his left, and a couple of blocks away saw a man hurriedly climbing onto a horse that was tied behind a building. Longarm started in that direction at a run, yelling, “Hey! Hold it right there!”

The man thumped down awkwardly in the saddle and twisted toward Longarm. Longarm saw the rifle in the man's hands, saw the barrel swinging up to point toward him. He dove to the side, landing behind a rain barrel. The rifle cracked and a slug punched through the barrel. Water spurted out on both sides. Longarm felt the stream splashing on the back of his coat.

He poked the Colt around the barrel and fired twice. That emptied the cylinder, and he had to pull back behind the barrel to reload. There was a handful of fresh cartridges in his coat pocket. He pulled them out, dumped the empties from the cylinder, and thumbed the new bullets in. By that time, hoofbeats filled the cold air, coming closer with each passing second.

The bushwhacker was charging him on horseback. The man's rifle barked again, and the bullet smacked into the rain barrel. Longarm forced himself to wait—not an easy thing to do when some son of a bitch was trying to kill him. Then, when he judged the time was right, he rose up and put his left shoulder against the barrel, pushing hard as he surged to his feet. The barrel tipped over, the lid coming off as it fell so that the water inside splashed out into the lane. The sudden flood was enough by itself to spook the ambusher's mount, but when the now-empty barrel rolled into its path, the horse shied violently, rearing up on its hind legs. The bushwhacker yelled in alarm and grabbed for the saddle horn.

Longarm drew a bead and shot the man in the right shoulder.

At least, that was where he was aiming. The horse danced to the side at the same instant Longarm pressed the trigger, and the lawman's bullet tore into the bushwhacker's chest instead and threw him out of the saddle. He landed hard, limbs sprawling limply. The frightened horse bolted down the lane, forcing Longarm to spring aside to avoid being trampled.

He hurried to the side of the fallen gunman. The man's breathing was harsh and labored. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Longarm went to one knee beside him and said urgently, “You're hit bad, mister. Why don't you tell me why you were trying to kill me while you still can?”

The man looked up at Longarm with unfocused eyes. “B-bastard,” he gasped. “You ... you killed me!”

“Just returning the favor in advance,” said Longarm grimly. “Who are you? Why'd you try to ambush me?”

The dying man grated out another curse, then in a voice that was rapidly weakening said, “Mallory would've ... let me ride with him ... if I'd ki—”

Blood gushed from the man's mouth, choking off whatever else he had meant to say. His eyes went glassy in death, and his head dropped to the side.

He had said enough before he died, though. Judging by his clothes, he was a miner or some sort of laborer, but he had clearly aspired to be more. He had wanted to be an outlaw, a member of Ben Mallory's gang, and he had thought that killing a suspicious stranger would be his ticket into Mallory's bunch. Longarm grimaced. He had expected his blunt questions to make him a target, but he had hoped the attempt would come from Mallory himself, not some would-be desperado eager to make a mark.

Longarm stood and holstered his Colt. He heard shouting nearby and knew that some of the townspeople would arrive in a matter of seconds. It was time for him to fade out of this picture, at least for the time being. He stepped into another alley, walked swiftly along it, and emerged on Greenwood Avenue once more. He found himself on the boardwalk in front of a hardware store, so he stepped inside.