Longarm and the Panamint Panic by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Guthrie went back upstairs with Longarm. When Longarm lit the lamp in his room, he carried it over by the doorway and let the light wash over the floor.

“Look there,” he said as he pointed to a couple of splashes of crimson on the planks.

“Is that blood?” Guthrie asked in a hollow voice.

“It sure is. Appears that I ventilated the son of a bitch.”

Guthrie sniffed the gunsmoke-laden air and looked around in the room in dismay. “You can’t stay here, Marshal,” he declared. “Let me get you the key to Room Fifteen. It’s just down the hall.”

Longarm nodded. “Much obliged.”

“I’d like to collect for the damages from the man who did this,” Guthrie said. “But at least he had to pay a little in blood.”

Once Guthrie had brought him the key to the other room, Longarm gathered up his clothes and went down the hall. Room Fifteen was almost a twin to Room Eleven, although the spread on the bed had a different pattern and the curtains over the window were a different color.

Longarm didn’t care about any of that. He pulled his clothes on and went downstairs after locking his door.

He wedged a tiny piece of broken matchstick between the door and the jamb. It was a favorite trick of his. If the matchstick was on the floor when he got back, he would know that someone had been in his room... and might still be in there.

Wounded or not, whoever wanted him dead might not give up after one try.

Guthrie looked up in surprise behind the desk as Longarm came down the stairs to the lobby. “Something else wrong, Marshal?” he asked.

Longarm shook his head. “Nope. Just before that varmint busted in and started burnin’ powder, I realized I didn’t have any supper. I was just gettin’ up to get dressed when the shootin’ started, which probably saved my life. Is there anyplace around here where I can get something to eat this late?”

Longarm knew the hour was after midnight by now.

Guthrie nodded. “Cletus Donnelly keeps his café open all night. The crews at the silver mill work around the clock, so there’s always someone who needs something to eat.”

Longarm had noticed the continuous rumble from the stamp mill at the far end of town. “Must be a lot of ore, if they’re pressin’ it into ingots twenty-four hours a day.”

“They don’t mold it into ingots,” Guthrie said with a smile. “When the mines first started up around here, there was a lot of trouble with shipments being held up. So somebody came up with the idea of molding the silver into giant balls.”

Longarm frowned. “Giant balls?” he repeated.

“That’s right. The sort of thing you’d fire from the biggest cannon that ever existed. They must weigh close to five hundred pounds each.”

Longarm thought about it and had to chuckle. “Not exactly something you could stick in your hip pocket and walk off with, is that the idea?”

“It takes a lot of men and equipment to load them up and sturdy wagons to carry them out of here and down to the railroad.

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