Longarm and the Apache War by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Chapter 11

Even in a town as wild and lawless as Canyon City the word spread rapidly about the tall stranger who had gunned down Diamondback and another fella over the disputed ownership of an ugly mule. The few people with idle time on their hands went to see the bodies and several of them even hiked up to the cemetery hoping that they could learn more details about the shootings and the tall man with the gun on his left hip turned butt forward.

Unlike Gassy, who held forth and enjoyed his notoriety in the saloons for the next few days after the quick but much talked about burial of Diamondback and his sidekick, Longarm wasn’t happy about becoming an instant celebrity. So he decided that the best thing he could do was to buy a real horse and ride on down to the San Carlos Indian Reservation. He would follow Canyon Creek and therefore have a firsthand look at the prospecting activity and what was going on among the angry Apache.

“Marshal, maybe you’d like me to go with you,” Gassy said the last evening that Longarm was staying in Canyon City. “After all, we make a pretty deadly team.”

“I’m not looking to kill anyone down there,” Longarm told the old prospector. “And besides, we both know that the Apache love to eat mule meat.”

“Yeah,” Gassy said with a nervous gulp. “You’re right. I just couldn’t take the chance that they might want to shoot and eat Moses or Ugly.”

“What you need to do,” Longarm said, “is what you came to do and that is to prospect.”

“Well,” Gassy said, cutting a quiet one that he hoped would sort of float past Longarm undetected, “I been askin’ around, but all the good claims are taken clear down to the reservation. From what I hear there are twenty or thirty prospectors working at the north end of the reservation and doin’ pretty good. But I figured . . . what with you being sympathetic to the Apache and a lawman besides . . . that you wouldn’t like it much if I started to prospecting on Indian lands.”

“You’ve got that much right. And, when I see those prospectors, I’ll tell them to get off the reservation. That’s just the kind of thing that is going to cause big trouble.”

Longarm and Gassy were standing in the shadows just outside of the saloon when a woman appeared from between the buildings. She was tall, dressed in a dark dress with a long scarf tied tight under her chin. “Mister,” she said, to Longarm, “I need to speak to you alone.”

The light was poor, but even so Longarm could see that the woman was most likely either a Mexican or a half-breed and really quite beautiful with high cheek-bones, raven-black hair and a fine figure. She was somewhat mysterious and his interest was piqued even though his first impression was that she was a prostitute hoping to take his money.

“Miss,” he said, “although you are quite beautiful, I’m not interested in what you have to sell tonight.

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