Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) (12 page)

“It’s very nice,” Heidi said, “and even quite clean. But what, if I may ask, is
your
role here? Are you doubling up as your fiancé’s maid or…”

“Or whatever the traffic will bear and the guests require,” she interrupted, hurrying away.

When they were alone, Heidi tested the mattress and then joined Longarm in stretching out to relax. “Custis?”

“Yeah?”

“What is going on with that poor young woman?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that she has a black eye that she’s tried hard to cover with powder and that she just told us…if I
understood between the lines…that she is available to men at a high price.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t think she meant to say that to us just now, but that’s what I heard.”

“She’s very unhappy, and I think she is scared stiff of Frankie Virden and that other man, Seth.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“I know that I’m right,” Heidi said, sitting up and staring at the door. “And when I get the chance, I’m going to try to befriend her and see if there is something I can do to help the poor young woman.”

“Even if she has a shady past and is ‘available’ to the male guests of this hotel?”

“
Especially
if she is in that kind of position,” Heidi said with determination. “If she was happy with her choice and this situation, then I’d not interfere, but I think she is very unhappy and in desperate need of help and support.”

“If you go to her and Frankie Virden finds out…there will be consequences,” Longarm warned.

“That
you
, Marshal Long, will most certainly be capable of handling.”

“Right again,” Longarm told her, realizing that they had independently reached the same conclusions about Virden, Seth, and Carrie Blue. And they both knew that there was a very unsettling and dangerous undercurrent here at the beautiful south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Al Hunt was already sick and tired of sleeping on the ground, sweating in the bright northern Arizona sun and then at night freezing as the temperatures dropped. He hadn’t brought a bedroll and he had almost nothing to eat or drink and it was miserable being camped out on this high plateau. He was hot and dirty, and he stunk so bad that even his horse seemed not to want to be near him, and the animal was slowly starving.

“I
have
to get a room, a bath, a bottle, and a decent meal at the Rimrock Hotel,” he muttered as he tightened his cinch and prepared to ride down a hill toward Frankie Virden’s hotel.

Hunt had some money, and he knew that Frankie Virden, along with that woman, Carrie Blue, would recognize him the minute he showed up at the hotel, and they’d probably wonder what the hell he was doing way out here. They’d immediately be suspicious and maybe even ask him about the comings and goings of his newly departed cousin Carl, but at this point, tired, hot, and hungry, Al Hunt figured he could come up with the right
answers. He knew that Frankie was a ruthless and clever bastard, but Hunt figured he could hold his own and manage to avoid suspicion.

So with his stomach growling and his horse fractious for lack of anything to eat, Al Hunt rode over to the south rim and the Rimrock Hotel, just as the stagecoach was being hitched up for the return trip to Flagstaff.

John Wallace stood beside Carrie Blue, and when they spotted Al coming down to the hotel, they stopped talking and just watched his approach.

“Morning, John, Carrie,” Al said in greeting as he dismounted. “Any food or liquor left inside for me?”

Wallace made no pretense of being friendly. He’d never liked this man and saw no point in offering his hand in greeting. “What are you doin’ up this way?”

“I’m sort of lookin’ for work in these parts,” Hunt replied. “Thought maybe Mr. Virden could use another hand.”

“He can’t,” Carrie said shortly. “There is no work for you here.”

Al managed not to lose his temper. “Well, Miss Blue, I’d say that is something that Mr. Virden needs to say instead of you. I’ll be speaking to him directly, but for now, I think I’ll just go inside and see about a room, a bath, and some liquor and food.”

Carrie clamped her mouth shut, and when the dirty, smelly man tipped his hat and then entered the hotel, she turned to John Wallace. “He’s got a bad reputation and I wish he hadn’t shown up.”

“I’m sure that Frankie will send him packing unless Al has enough money to pay for a room and his food and liquor.”

Carrie nodded. “Frankie would put the Devil himself up if he had gold or greenbacks.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that he would,” Wallace agreed. He had finished hitching up his team and was already late in heading back, but he was procrastinating. “You know, you could come back on this stage with me,” he finally managed to say.

She looked closely at him. “And what would I do to pay for
my
room and board in Flagstaff?”

Wallace toed the ground, feeling uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” he managed to say. “But I do have a lot of friends in Flagstaff and some of them own businesses. Might be I could help you find honest work.”

“ ‘Might be’?” she asked. “But what if you couldn’t? What then?”

Wallace scowled. “Dammit, I just can’t say for certain.”

“Well,” Carrie said, “until you can say for certain that I won’t be standing on the street with a tin cup in my hand, then I’ll have to stay with Frankie.”

“I guess,” Wallace told her as he turned to leave. “But I sure don’t like that very much.”

Carrie’s expression softened. She looked over her shoulder at the hotel to make certain that no one was watching, then lifted up on her toes and gave John Wallace a quick kiss on the cheek.

He jumped back, eyes wide open with surprise. “Why did you do that?”

“You know why. John, please do look for some honest work for me when you get back to Flagstaff. And if you should find some, despite my…my reputation…then I’ll come back with you on your next run.”

“What about Frankie?”

“I’ll tell him that I’m leaving him,” she said, chin raised. “But I’d want you to be standing at my side when I do it. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise the son of a bitch would punch the other eye, eh?”

“Yes,” Carrie said, “he would. And worse.”

Wallace nodded with understanding. “I’ll be back in about a week, and when I am, I’ll have found some honest work for you and a place for you to live.”

“I hope so,” she said. “Good-bye.”

John Wallace was a big man, and he knew that he was not handsome. But there was something inside of him saying that he didn’t want to say good-bye to Carrie again and that…even if he had to sell his business and pack up everything he owned to get away from the gossip…he would do it for Miss Blue and then he’d make her an honest woman.

And so, with a look of grim determination, John Wallace climbed up onto his stagecoach and turned it south toward Flagstaff. In one week his life was going to change forever, and he just knew in his heart that it would for the better. Better for him and better for Miss Blue. Neither of them was too old to have a family, and that was really all he had ever wanted in this world.

Al Hunter got a room, a bottle, and a bath, paying up most of his cash. He told the man at the registration desk that he wanted some food delivered to his room along with the drink and hot water.

“I will tell our cook,” he said. “Would you also like those clothes to be washed?”

“Hell, yes.”

“And what about your horse?”

“How much to feed the mangy son of a bitch for a couple of nights? And I mean feed him and grain him good.”

“Fifty cents a night.”

Al Hunt gave the man another dollar. “See that he’s taken good care of…rubbed down and watered before he’s fed.”

The man nodded and held out his hand. Al swore under his breath and gave him the extra dollar he knew was required if his wishes were to be granted.

An hour later, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bar of soap in the other, Al was enjoying his bath very much when there was a knock at his door. “Who the hell is it!”

“Frankie.”

“Come on in, Mr. Hotel Owner!”

Frankie Virden didn’t say hello, and he entered with Seth right behind. Frankie shut the door behind him while Seth leaned up against it with his arms folded across his chest. The hotel owner and gambler grabbed the only chair in the room and pulled it up beside the man in the bathtub. “Enjoying yourself, Al?”

Al Hunt splashed a little water across his whiskery, sunburned face. “Sure am!”

“Like my whiskey?”

“It’s a helluva lot better than the firewater I’m used to.”

“I’ll bet it is,” Virden said.

“Want a swig?” Al offered his bottle to the man. “I paid for it, but you can have a pull. You too, Seth.”

“No, thanks.” Virden was not a man to beat around the bush, and so he came right to the point. “Carrie said that you wanted work.”

“I damn sure do.” Al had decided that this was the only excuse he could use while he waited for the opportunity to finish off the wounded federal marshal and grab the rich woman for a ransom and rutting.

“I never knew you to be much of a worker,” Frankie
drawled, glancing back at Seth. “Fact is, your cousin Carl claimed that you were the laziest man in his entire family…and also the most treacherous and cunning.”

“He did?”

“That’s right. Carl didn’t have much of anything good to say about you.”

“Huh.” Al Hunt took a swallow. “Well, Carl was the only one of us that ever amounted to anything, so I guess he’s got the right to say what he wants about me.”

“He also said you were a purely dangerous little bastard.”

Hunt blinked and tried to look offended. “Well I find that hard to believe, Mr. Virden. Was Carl drunk as a loon at the time he said those bad things about me?”

“He was cold sober.”

“Huh!”

The whiskey was already working in Al’s shrunken, starved belly, hitting him harder and faster than ever before, but this conversation was making him even more thirsty. He didn’t like the way it was going and tried to change the subject. “Sure a nice hotel you got here, Mr. Virden.”

“Yes it is, and I never thought I’d have the likes of you as a guest.”

“Aw, that’s a pretty awful thing to say!”

“You’re a pretty awful little man.” Virden took a cigar from his coat pocket and struck a match to it. “So why
are
you staying here?”

“What do you mean? I told you I was here looking for honest work.”

“No,” Virden countered. “You told
Carrie
that.”

“Same thing, I reckon.”

Frankie Virden blew a ring of smoke in Al Hunt’s pinched and burned face and smiled. “A man like you
doesn’t spend money unless he’s sure he’s going to be getting more of it right back.”

Hunt frowned, feeling his heart start to beat a little faster. “Truth of the matter is that I won some money in a card game.”

“In Flagstaff?”

“No…uh, at the Cameron Trading Post. There were some fellas passin’ through and they invited me into a card game and I won all their money.”

But Virden shook his head. “I’ve seen you play cards, Al. You’re a lousy player. Reckless as hell.”

“Sometimes a man’s luck can overcome his inadequacy,” Al replied, pleased at his explanation.

He started to take another swallow, but then Frankie glanced around behind him at Seth and gave a short nod. And before Al even realized it, the gunman was striding across the room, slamming his hand down on Al’s head, and pushing it underwater.

Al struggled and fought, but the tub was slick and Seth was strong. Al gasped and choked and swallowed bathwater. Finally, Seth released the downward pressure and Al came up gagging.

“What’d you have him do that for, Mr. Virden!”

“I want the truth out of you,” the gambler and hotelman said. “And I want it right now.”

“But I told you the truth! I won my money at the Cameron Trading Post and…”

Frankie nodded to his man, and Seth jumped forward and pushed Al’s head back underwater. This time, he held Al under even longer, and when Al’s lungs were ready to explode, Seth finally let go.

“Holy shit!” Al cried, coughing and gagging. “What the hell is wrong here! I paid honest money for this room and everything! I don’t deserve this kinda shit!”

“The truth,” Frankie Virden said, smiling coldly.

Al’s bloodshot eyes darted back and forth between the two men. His gun was out of reach and he was helpless. He also knew that Frankie Virden would have his man drown him if he didn’t come up with something good and fast.

“All right!” he gasped. “I…I didn’t win the money at cards.”

“Where
did
you get your money and why are you infecting my hotel with your filth?” Virden asked quietly.

Al Hunt swallowed hard and decided that only the truth would save him from being drowned in his own bath like a rat. “Me and Carl ambushed that federal marshal.”

Virden’s eyebrows arched in a question. “To rob him?”

“No. As you know, Mr. Virden, that marshal beat the living hell out of Carl, and he wanted to get even.”

“So you shot and only wounded him, but Carl was killed?”

“Yes, sir. That’s just the way it happened. We shot the federal marshal right where you found him when you rode in with the stagecoach. The marshal’s horse bolted and he ran off, but I saw the blood fly outa his coat and knew he was a goner.”

“Oh, but he
wasn’t
. The federal marshal is very much alive.”

“I know that now.”

“What did you do with your cousin’s body?”

“Well, after the marshal killed him, I took old Carl’s body out in the desert and found me a deep gully. I buried poor Carl and shot his horse.”

“So there wouldn’t be any connection between you and your cousin and the ambush.”

“Yes, sir.”

Al wasn’t about to tell this man about his plan to acquire Carl’s livery with a fake deed, or about his plan to kill the marshal for good this time and take his wife hostage. “I…I know you don’t like lawmen either, Mr. Virden. I didn’t think you’d mind if we killed him.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that at all,” Virden said. “Only you and that jackass cousin of yours
failed
.”