Longarm 001 - Longarm by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans [Longarm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

The Green River is born from countless streams in the Uinta Range, a cross-grained spur of the Rockies, rubbing its spine against the sky near where Wyoming, Utah and Colorado come together on the map. As Longarm had thought before, those lines were put there on the map by government men who'd never seen the country and wouldn't have liked it much if they had.

The Green makes a big bend into Colorado in its upper reaches, then turns toward the junction with the brawling Colorado River near the southern border of Utah. To get there, the Green runs through canyonlands unfit for most Indians to consider as a home. The Denver & Rio Grande's western division crossed the Green halfway to Arizona's Navajo lands at a small settlement called, naturally, Green River. The lack of imagination implied by the name was the simple result of not having to name any other towns to the north or south in Longarm's day.

They didn't follow the river when they reached it. For one thing, the cliffs came right down to the boiling rapids along many a stretch. For another, Longarm knew the men trailing him might expect him to try this. So he led his prisoner the shorter way, across the big bend. The shorter way was not any easier; the route took them through a maze of canyons where the floors were choked with brush and the steep, ugly slopes of eroded shale smelled like hot road tar where the sun beat down on it. They'd been riding for three full days by now and Longarm figured they were nearly a hundred miles from Crooked Lance. Anyone who was still trailing them wanted pretty badly to have the prisoner back.

It was a hot and dusty afternoon when they hauled over another pass, and looking back, spied dust in the saddle of a shale ridge they'd crossed several hours before.

Longarm tugged the lead and muttered, "That Mountie's damn good," as he started them down the far side. Captain Walthers's big walker had proven a disappointment to him on the trail. The army man had chosen it for show and comfort, not for serious riding over rough country, and while the bay he'd gotten from the remount section was still holding up, the walker under him was heaving badly and walking with its head down.

The prisoner called out, "I might have seen a dot of red back there. That'd be the Mountie's jacket, right?"

"Yeah. I saw it, too. Watch yourself, and if that bay starts to slide out from under you, try to fall on the high side. shale is treacherous as hell."

"Smells awful, too! What in thunder is it?"

"Oil shale. Whole country's made out of it. gets slippery when the heat boils the oil out of the rock."

As if to prove his point, the walker he was riding suddenly shot out from under him and forward, down the slope. Longarm cursed, tried to steady his mount with the reins, and seeing that it was no use, rolled out of the saddle as the screaming horse slid halfway down the mountain.

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