Longarm and the Skull Mountain Gold by Tabor Evans

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

Chapter 9

Deep into the night, Lila and Longarm lay entwined in each other’s arms, listening to the crickets outside and the distant howl of a coyote.

“It’s been a hell of a homecoming,” Longarm said quietly. “I’m sorry for what happened to your parents.”

“Me, too. It helps a little that I’m sure Mother didn’t have much longer to live. But Father might have lasted another year or two. And I really wanted you to meet and get to know them.”

Lila turned to Longarm in the faint moonlight cast through their open window. There were fresh tears on her cheeks. “Custis, who on earth could have done this terrible thing to my folks? And why?”

He had been asking the same question to himself over and over. “I’m thinking that it could be someone who held an old grudge against your father. Someone Marshal Kenyon Chandler sent to prison or the gallows, or even the son or brother of that condemned man. Lila, when you’re a lawman for as long as your father was, there are probably dozens of people who hold a lifelong grudge against you. Men who will fester inside while waiting and scheming for years to get what they’ve come to believe is their just revenge.”

“Custis, are there such people right now waiting to get their revenge against you?”

“I’m sure that there are,” Longarm replied. “It’s something that always comes with our job as lawmen. I’ve never understood how evil, vile criminals manage to convince themselves that nothing they ever did was wrong or their own fault. They always create some powerful excuse to justify their cruel injustices. And when they go to prison, they meet other twisted and bitter men who feel exactly the same way and support them in their hatred and self-justified need for revenge.”

Lila was silent for a few minutes and then said, “Do you think that the person who did this has any connection to John Jacob?”

“You mean that fancy banker?”

“Yes. He wants this place so badly. And he wants me in the bargain.”

Longarm considered her blunt question. “It’s not impossible that there’s a connection between the murders and the banker. But why would banker Jacob have your parents murdered if all he had to do was just sit back and wait for his bank to foreclose?”

“Maybe he thought I was going to be successful getting help in Denver. And maybe he thinks that, with my parents murdered, I’ll emotionally fall apart and rush to the comfort of his arms.”

“Maybe,” Longarm said. “Or the killer simply could have been a drifter or one of those longtime enemies I spoke of earlier who was seeking his revenge. Lila, did you find anything missing in this house?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. My father had a beautiful Winchester rifle that was given to him by the former territorial governor. It had silver inlaid in the front and back of the stock.”

“Was the silver inscribed with your father’s name?”

“No. But it was very unusual and you’d recognize it in a minute if you saw it.

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