Longarm #428: Longarm and the Death Cave by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-05-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Longarm watched from the porch as Slim Peak left the house and headed toward the big hay barn. The order had already been given that a team of horses should be hitched to a heavy wagon whose main purpose was to haul hay and timber. Now, known only to Fannie, Longarm, and Slim, it was going to carry the remains of seven men to a Cheyenne mortuary. And when those bodies were uncovered the town gossip and speculation would run rampant . . . after all, it wasn’t every day that someone brought in seven badly decomposed corpses.

Nick had been on a tear since getting the order to hitch up the heavy ranch wagon and load it with tarps and ropes.

“Is someone finally gonna tell me what the hell is going on here!” he raged at the cowboys and at anyone within hearing distance. “Last I heard I was still the gawdamn ranch foreman and no one is telling me anything!”

When Nick saw Slim crossing the yard he went after the young man with a vengeance. “All right!” he yelled in the smaller man’s face. “I’ve had about enough of this shit! You work for me and you’re going to tell me what the hell we’re hitching up that big wagon for with tarps and ropes.”

Slim Peak might have weighed in at one hundred and thirty pounds dressed and wearing his boots and spurs. Nick probably weighed in at least a hundred pounds heavier. Even so, Slim kept his head up and said to his cattle foreman, “I can’t tell you anything, Nick. If you want to know what’s up, you’ll have to speak to Mrs. Mayfield.”

Nick shoved Slim backward so hard the kid almost fell. Then he started for the ranch house, fists clenched. “By gawd, I’m getting to the bottom of this right now.”

Longarm had been sipping his second cup of coffee, but now he placed it on a table and climbed out of a rocking chair. He had no intention of allowing Nick to enter the house and start yelling and browbeating Fannie or Martha.

“Get out of my way,” Nick snarled, grabbing Longarm by the shoulder with the intent of tossing him aside.

But Longarm stood his ground. “You’re out of control, Nick. Mrs. Mayfield gave Slim and me the order to take a wagon out today.”

“Where to and why?”

“That isn’t any of your business.”

“I’m the foreman here which means that anything and everything that happens on this Star Ranch sure as hell is my business. Now step aside.”

Longarm didn’t want to brawl with this man. Nick was almost as tall as himself and a good twenty pounds heavier. Even so, Nick was out of control and Longarm didn’t want to leave the ranch and Fannie at Nick’s mercy.

“Back off,” Longarm said. “You have work to do, so go do it and leave this alone.”

“Like hell I will!”

Nick grabbed a fistful of Longarm’s shirt and that’s when Longarm drove a knee up into the big foreman’s crotch hard enough to lift him to his toes.

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