Longarm #396 : Longarm and the Castle of the Damned (9781101545249) by Evans Tabor

Author:Evans, Tabor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2011-08-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Half an hour later, with his belly warmed on the inside and a fresh cheroot between his teeth, Longarm walked out onto the main street of Baggs once again.

He found a small barn that sold feed and hay and purchased a gallon of mixed grain for the dun. He tied the sack of grain to his saddle for use later and led the horse to a public trough. Longarm pumped fresh water into the trough while the horse drank, and when it was done, he tightened his cinch and again swung into the saddle.

He reined the dun east.

He was about three miles out when he caught a glimpse of the slanting late afternoon sunlight glinting off polished metal at the base of a large, black gray boulder.

Longarm dropped off the saddle, putting his full weight onto his left stirrup and clinging to the saddle horn with his right hand. Ducked down low like that, he could not be seen by whoever was observing him from two hundred or so yards distant.

It was not that he knew with certainty that the ambusher he’d encountered up at Medicine Bow had followed him down here. But he was damn sure not going to bet his life against it.

“Hiyyup, horse,” he clucked. As soon as the dun quickened its pace into a run, Longarm swung back into the saddle. He leaned low against the horse’s neck and got the hell away from there.

A few rather cautious hours later Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long found the Crowne homestead.

He was guided to it by a plume of dark smoke.

Of the house there remained only blackened timber and smoldering, still hot embers.

The other buildings on the place, including a small barn and a large chicken house, were unscathed.

Longarm tied the dun well away from the stench of fireblackened timbers, then looked in and around what remained of the place.

There was no sign of Henrietta or of Henry Crowne, although a hint of a scent like that of roasted meat suggested where he could find the couple.

The ashes of the freshly burned house would have to cool before Longarm could confirm his suspicions though.

The same man who’d tried to ambush him had done this? Or an associate?

Longarm scowled at the thought.

His actions, though, were outwardly calm as he unsaddled the dun and put it in a stall in Crowne’s otherwise empty barn. He poured the grain into a corner trough in the stall, added a large armload of hay that he found in the loft, and carried a bucket of water from Crowne’s well.

Longarm tossed more hay down and piled it into another of the four stalls to make a rudimentary bed for himself. He would not be able to poke through the burned remains of the house until morning at the very least, and he wanted to do that before he decided on his next move.

It was, he thought, a very good thing that he ate before he rode out of Baggs, because it looked like supper and then breakfast to follow would consist of cold water from Crowne’s pump.

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