Longarm and the Ghost of Black Mesa by Tabor Evans

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

Chapter 10

Longarm offered up an uncomfortable nod. Orpheus Nightshade nodded back, but didn’t lower the .10-gauge blaster—not so much as a fraction of an inch.

The enormous creature tilted his head toward the woman and snarled, “You kill tother’n, Kate? That Hatchett maggot good and dead yet?”

Katarina Thorne stood, strode majestically to the knife on the floor, bent over, and snatched it up. She wiped the bloody, razor-sharp blade on her skirt and shoved it into a pressed-leather, metal-lined sheath hanging from the pistol belt beneath her coat. With a loud click, the weapon snapped into place and once again vanished amid the various folds and layers of her dark-colored clothing.

Hands fisted on shapely hips, she turned and faced Longarm and her oversized friend. “No, the good marshal here wouldn’t let me finish the skunk off, Night. ’Course I tried. Feel as though I gave it a pretty good effort. And I did put a nick or two in Hatchett’s more than worthless hide. He won’t be forgetting me anytime soon.”

Nightshade made a noise like he’d just come out of hibernation. “Where’s Hatchett now? We need him to tell us again that which we already suspect, don’t yew think?”

With the same sense of purpose and power that exuded from her every move, the Thorne woman quickly marched over to the corner where her carbine and pistol littered the dusty floor. Once re-armed, she reclaimed the chair directly in front of Longarm’s seat, laid the rifle across her lap, then leaned over so her face was within inches of the lawman’s. He could easily see the tense lines around her eyes.

“We’re pretty sure we know where Spook Lomax is headed from Trinidad, Marshal Long. We’ve chased him from the Cornudo Hills of New Mexico Territory, to Cheyenne Wells, Colorado—where his gang murdered five people—back down to the North Canadian near Seneca, and then, in a roundabout way to here. Talked with a lot of people he abused along the way. What we need now is confirmation. Henry Hatchett can give us that.”

Nightshade puffed up. “Con-fir-mation. That’s the word, by God. Con-fir-mation.”

Longarm let one corner of his mouth creak its way into a half smile. “Well, you’re welcome to try. He’s back yonder in the corner cell. Doubt you’ll get much out of him though, Mrs. Thorne. He’s tougher’n a hard-boiled boot heel.”

With Longarm locked in her frosty gaze, she tilted her ebony-haired head slightly and said, “Mr. Nightshade, do you think Henry Hatchett will tell us where Spook Lomax is headed?”

Chapped lips peeled away from Orpheus Nightshade’s pointed, canine teeth. An unclipped, droopy moustache brushed his tongue as he spoke. “Oh, you let me have ’im for just about two minutes, Kate. Garn-tee he’ll tell us anything you ever wanted to hear about ole Spook Lowmax. He’ll bawl like a baby, dance like a monkey on a string, and give up tales of all his own earthly sins against man-and womankind—along with anything else he ever knew. Sure as one of them Catholic folks a goin’ to confession.

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