Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) Page 5

  “I’ll have to ride in a stagecoach for two or three days?”

  “It will be an adventure,” Longarm told her. “Remember how you told me that you love adventures?”

  “Yes, but not alone.”

  “You won’t be alone,” he told her. “There will be other passengers on the stagecoach. You’ll probably meet some nice and interesting people.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Heidi, try to be reasonable. This is the best way.”

  “Custis,” she whispered, “my heart tells me to get on a horse and ride a hundred and forty miles…but my head says otherwise.”

  “I want those lovely silken thighs to stay lovely and silken,” he told her as he slipped his hand between her legs and kissed her lips.

  “All right,” she finally agreed. “I’ll wait. But what am I supposed to do for the next three days in this lumber town?”

  “You’ll think of something.”

  She wasn’t pleased, but she was resigned. “Let’s get into the bathtub while it’s still hot.”

  “I’d like that,” he said. “Nice things can happen when a man and a woman get in a bathtub.”

  “You’d probably drown me if you got excited.”

  “You could be on top,” he said, chuckling.

  “Then I might drown you!”

  Longarm scooted her off his lap and began to undress. He figured that this bath was going to be just the thing to take their mind off the difficult days that most surely awaited them both.

  “When are the drinks coming up to our room?”

  “Any minute now.”

  “Then maybe we ought to wait a few minutes so we don’t shock the nice Chinaman like we did that poor fella on the train when he stuck his head into our compartment.”

  Heidi, remembering, burst into wild laughter and started undressing anyway.

  Chapter 7

  Longarm left their hotel room early the next morning while Heidi was still sleeping. He had a slight hangover and was tired from lack of sleep, but he figured that a good breakfast, a few cups of strong coffee, and he’d be up to snuff again. He had his rifle and personals and was ready to get started on his journey up to Lees Ferry.

  The Pine Cone Café was just opening when Longarm entered, and he finished a hearty breakfast as the sun came up over the eastern horizon. By seven, he had gone to the livery to meet John Wallace.

  “My wife won’t be coming along on horseback,” he explained. “She’s never really ridden before, and I convinced her to take your stagecoach up to the Grand Canyon along with your other passengers.”

  “That’s probably a smart idea,” the liveryman grudgingly admitted, “but I would have made more money if you’d have rented two horses.”

  “How many passengers have you got booked on the stagecoach coming up on Wednesday?”

  “Three, and now your wife makes four.” Wallace smiled. “There are always a couple more that buy tickets at the last minute, and a full coach is six.”

  “Save a seat for my wife, who will be by today or tomorrow for her ticket,” Longarm told the man as they went to get the horses.

  “The truth is,” Wallace said, “if the word got out that a man could sit close to your lovely wife for three days in a stagecoach, I’d have a line of ticket takers stretching out into the street.”

  Longarm chuckled. “Heidi is a looker, all right.”

  “Prettiest woman I’ve seen in years,” the liveryman said, “maybe ever.”

  Longarm couldn’t argue the point.

  “You sure are a lucky man to have a wife that beautiful.”

  Longarm felt guilty about the deception, but he and Heidi had just decided it would be easier all the way around for them both if people thought they were married. So he nodded and said, “Let’s get the horses saddled. I want to get a good start on the day.”

  “It’s going to be warm,” Wallace told him. “But not too hot. You should make good time.”

  “Think I can be up to Lees Ferry by tomorrow night?”

  “You might be able to do that, but you’d have to really put the move on.”

  “Tell you what,” Longarm said. “How about I forget the pack animal and just take one fast horse? I can probably buy any supplies along the way that I can’t stuff into a saddlebag.”

  John Wallace shook his head. “Every time you open your mouth I’m losin’ more money.”

  “Sorry about that,” Longarm told him. “But just remember that you’re going to sell out every seat on your stagecoach after my wife buys a ticket.”

  “Yeah, there is that, I reckon.”

  Thirty minutes later, Longarm was in the saddle and galloping north out of Flagstaff. He reckoned it was still before nine o’clock, and the horse that he and Wallace had decided was best was a fine-looking buckskin mare. She had long legs and a pretty black tail and mane.

  “Her name is Sassy and she’s the best horse I own,” Wallace had told him. “If you lame her or lose her, it’ll cost you an even hundred dollars.”

  “I don’t intend to do either. I’ll push the mare, but I won’t ruin good horseflesh.”

  “I knew you’d promise me that. Otherwise, I’d have given you a far lesser animal.”

  Now, with the mare set at a steady jog that would carry him farther and faster, Longarm climbed over a high rise and then rode down toward the vast Coconino Plateau country. By midday he’d reached what was called the Little Grand Canyon but was in fact a mostly dry canyon, where an old Navajo trading post stood on the edge of the south cliff. The trading post looked to be prosperous, and there were quite a few Indian ponies and supply wagons tied in front of the post.

  Longarm dismounted and tied the buckskin mare off a ways by herself. He knew that the locals would take note of Sassy’s exceptional looks, and he was a little worried that some young Navajo just might untie the mare, leap into the saddle, and ride like hell for parts unknown.

  Still, he had a need to buy a few basic supplies along with cigars and a box of ammunition for his rifle…maybe a warm Navajo blanket in case the nights got chilly and some jerky and coffee.

  When he entered the trading post, all conversation stopped. The room was filled with Navajo families; cute little kids with big black eyes and women who wore long and colorful velvet skirts and turquoise and silver jewelry.

  Longarm nodded to everyone and they finally nodded back. Like most Indian trading posts he’d visited, this one was packed with all sorts of interesting goods. Mostly it had big rolls of sheep wool and pelts along with barrels of pickles, crackers, and pigs’ feet.

  “Howdy,” a white man said in greeting, from behind the glass counter filled with silver and turquoise. “What can I get for you today?”

  Longarm gave the clerk his short order. “I carry everything you need, but I’m sorry that I can’t sell you any whiskey on the reservation.”

  “I didn’t ask to buy any,” Longarm replied. “But I could use some chili peppers and two pounds of salted pork along with the other things I’ve already mentioned.”

  “Won’t take but a few minutes to fill your order. In the meantime, you can mosey around and see if there’s anything else that catches your eye.”

  “Oh, there are probably plenty of things that I’d like to buy…but I’m on a tight budget.”

  “We’ve got some real fine Navajo jewelry on sale,” the clerk told him, tapping the top of the glass and looking down at the assortment of jewelry. “I’ve been told that Navajo jewelry brings quite a price back east.”

  “I’m from Denver and I don’t need any jewelry.”

  “Suit yourself,” the clerk said with a curt smile as he hurried off to fill the order.

  For the next twenty minutes, Longarm wandered around in the trading post looking at the amazing variety of goods. Horseshoes, bows and arrows, old cap-and-ball pistols, knives with beautiful handles of silver inlay and blades long enough to qualify as sabers, foods that looked as though they might be highly toxic to a w
hite man’s stomach, and leather goods—shirts, moccasins, and many other items, all intricately beaded in many designs—rocks with crystals and turquoise in them, petrified wood, even seashell necklaces. But it was the withered mummy in a pine coffin with a glass top that really caught Longarm’s full attention.

  The mummy was small, perhaps only five feet long, and his skin stretched over his prominent facial and skeletal bones like old parchment paper. His hair was black and adorned with two eagle feathers, giving Custis the impression that the ancient Indian had died young. There was a death grin on his thin lips, and most of the mummy’s teeth were missing. He wore a faded old animal skin, but someone had obviously slipped a few turquoise rings on his bony fingers and a silver bracelet on his left wrist to dress up his appearance.

  Longarm stared at the mummy for several minutes. So this was what a body looked like after it had lain untouched in some arid and ancient cliff dwelling for hundreds and hundreds of years.

  “His name is Indian Joe,” the clerk said, coming up behind Longarm. “I call all the ones that look like warriors Indian Joe.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “Beats the hell out of me. Could be anywhere around here or up in Colorado. People…mostly white prospectors and trappers…bring them in here to sell or trade. I don’t like to keep more than a few of ’em on display at the same time.”

  Longarm couldn’t hide his astonishment. “People actually buy these things?”

  “Oh, yes!” The clerk snapped his suspenders. “And you won’t believe the price they pay.”

  “How much for this poor Indian Joe?” Longarm had to ask out of curiosity.

  “Two hundred and fifty dollars, which includes the jewelry, his clothes, and the pine box…but not any money for transporting him down to Flagstaff to be put on a train.”

  Longarm whistled. “Why on earth would anyone pay that kind of money for a mummy?”

  “Because if they can get Indian Joe back to the East Coast museums of natural history, he will easily bring a thousand dollars. Trouble is…and I tell all my buyers this right up front…these mummies are extremely fragile. You bump one and an arm might fall off, or the foot. I’ve heard that some of these mummies have arrived by train in places like Boston or New York looking like piles of dust and leather. Of course, then they are worthless except for the value of the skulls.”

  “Of course.” Longarm shook his head. “I’d have thought that the local Navajo might have taken exception to their ancestors being carted off to some museum.”

  “Oh, some of them do…some don’t. It’s really about the money. To keep down the objections from the locals, I do promise them twenty percent of every dollar I make selling their mummified ancestors.”

  “That’s real white of you, mister.” Longarm had seen enough of the mummy for one lifetime and marched back to the counter, where his supplies were bagged and waiting.

  “Be five dollars and eighty-six cents. I saw you are riding a fine buckskin. How about a few pounds of oats and maybe even some sugar cubes for the animal?”

  Longarm had forgotten to get oats from John Wallace. “That would be a good idea.”

  “Horse need shoein’?” the man asked. “We do that for six dollars.”

  “That’s pretty high, isn’t it?”

  “Not for a good job. If you’re taking the road up to the Grand Canyon, you’ll find it’s damned rocky. Indian ponies, of course, have feet like iron and they get by…but a fine buckskin like that could go lame if she is unshod or even poorly shod.”

  “She’s okay,” Longarm said, picking up his packages and heading for the door.

  “Come back again! I’ll most likely have a better selection of mummies next time.” He laughed and then he winked. “Maybe even a girl or two.”

  Longarm was so disgusted by the idea of stealing bodies and selling them off as curiosity pieces that he didn’t even reply.

  When he left the trading post, two Navajo dressed in denim work shirts, buckskin breeches, and moccasins were studying the mare from every angle.

  “Hello,” Longarm said, approaching the pair. “Nice day.”

  The larger and younger of the two pointed to the mare and grunted. “Sell for ten dollars.”

  “No, thanks.”

  The Indians went into a serious conversation in the Navajo language while Longarm stuffed his new purchases into his saddlebags and then untied the buckskin and prepared to mount up and ride away.

  But the older of the Navajo grabbed the mare’s reins and held her still for a moment, grunting, “Thirteen dollars and a good wool blanket.”

  “No, thanks.” Longarm smiled. “Now you need to let go of my horse’s reins because I’m riding on.”

  The pair stepped back, and the younger one said, “Twenty dollars. No more.”

  “Not for sale.”

  The Indians shook their heads and looked at Longarm as if he was crazy, then they turned and went into the trading post, heads down and looking dejected.

  “You ought to thank me for not selling you,” Longarm told the mare as he used a winding and well-used trail that led down into the deep and wide gorge. “From the looks of the Navajo Indian ponies I’ve seen on this reservation, you’d have pretty much had to live off the land and fend for yourself.”

  The mare tossed her pretty head and moved smartly toward the trail that led down into the Little Colorado Gorge.

  Chapter 8

  Carl Whitfield and his cousin Al Hunt were lying flat on the red earth, and each had a pair of binoculars glued to their faces.

  “He’s coming up the north side of the Little Colorado Gorge,” Hunt said. “I didn’t think he’d take the long way around this gorge like the wagons. We could kill him when he crests the top.”

  But Whitfield shook his head. “Might be someone over at the trading post watching him until he passes over the rim and rides north a few miles. We’ll take him up in the hills.”

  “Got to be careful not to let him see our tracks.”

  “We’ll stay a mile west of him. I know a place that the road passes through a cut in the hills and it’ll be perfect for an ambush.”

  “Hope it isn’t too far,” Hunt whined. “I’d like to get back to Flagstaff by tonight.”

  “Might not be possible. We have to bury that federal marshal so deep that he’ll never be found.”

  “If we’re going to do that, then why didn’t we bring a pick and a shovel?”

  Whitfield curbed his anger. “Because I forgot. I had a lot on my mind before we left town.”

  “Yeah,” Hunt said, unable to conceal a smirk. “And from the looks of your face, I’d say maybe the marshal rearranged some of your brain.”

  “Shut up! We’ll just have to find a low place maybe in some arroyo and cover him with dirt and rocks even if we do it with our bare hands.”

  “To hell with that plan. I say we just drag his body out in those dry hills and let the coyotes and vultures do the rest of the work. And what about that buckskin mare he’s riding?”

  Carl Whitfield had been thinking a lot about the mare. “She’s too good to shoot, but we dare not take her back to Flagstaff, because everyone there knows the buckskin belongs to John Wallace. If we showed up with that animal, we’d be puttin’ a noose around our necks.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Al agreed, “but it seems mighty sad to just drop a fine horse like that. Hey, maybe we should sell her at that trading post.”

  Whitfield thought about that for several minutes. “Too risky. People will remember that horse and its rider. What are we gonna tell ’em when we show up with the buckskin? That the rider fell off and broke his fool neck not long after he left the post?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Well,” Whitfield groused, “it wouldn’t wash! But we could take the mare and the saddle over to the Hopi Reservation. I hear that there’s a big trading post at a place called Keams Canyon.”

  “How far out of our way would that be
?”

  “Fifty, maybe sixty miles. An extra two days at most.”

  “You think the mare is worth it?”

  Whitfield nodded. “I sure as hell do. I’m certain we can get seventy or eighty dollars for her. Maybe even stir up a race. Those Hopi love betting on horse races, and I’ve seen the buckskin mare run before and she’s damn near unbeatable.”

  “We got any money to put up on her?”

  “I got thirty dollars cash. How much do you have?” Whitfield asked.

  “Maybe twelve dollars.”

  “That’s not a lot,” Whitfield said. “But we could put up our own horses and saddles as part of the betting.”

  “And if we lost the race, what the hell would happen to us?” Hunt snapped. “We’d be up shit creek with no paddle. You reckon we could walk all the way back to Flagstaff?”

  Whitfield shook his head. “Your problem is that you always worry too damn much about everything and are afraid to take a risk. I’m telling you, that buckskin mare is the fastest thing on four legs for a thousand damn miles. And you weigh no more than one hundred forty pounds soaking wet, so you could ride the mare. Al, for a little extra work and time, we can come out of this with five or six hundred dollars!”

  “And kill the federal marshal.”

  “That’s right,” Whitfield said, rubbing a hand over his battered and swollen face. “And there’s even more.”

  “Keep talkin’.”

  “The marshal’s wife is going to be going up to Lees Ferry…alone.”

  “But she’ll be on the stagecoach.”

  “Not all the time,” Whitfield said. “The stage holds over one night to rest the horses and passengers. We might be able to snatch her there.”

  Hunt broke into a big smile. “And have our dirty ways with her before we kill her?”

  “Yep. Or else figure out a way to ransom the beautiful bitch. It’s clear that she’s loaded with money. What’s to lose?”

  Al Hunt chuckled obscenely. “I seen her when she got off the train and went into the hotel. Best-looking woman I’ve laid eyes on in years. Sure would like to ride her to a standstill.”