losing one son in the war, another to prairie lightning, and then his wife coming down with the cholera and dying on him so nasty."
She grimaced, made a brushing motion, and continued in a brighter tone. "Suffice it to say the old Bergen place is a lot more cheerful these days. The Bedfords are good neighbors, even if they didn't come from the same old country. I still do business in town, so I can tell you their credit is good. Captain Bedford pays all his bills when due."
"That's what I heard," said Longarm thoughtfully. He had no call to tell her what he meant to ask at the bank. But she'd said at the start he looked sort of travel-stained, and he'd scare most bankers by striding in with a Winchester as well as a strange face. So he told her, "I sure could use some place to store my saddle gun for a spell, and you say you still have that dry-goods store in town, ma'am?"
She shook her head. "You can leave that rifle here with me if you like. We never rebuilt the place the Indians burned out. Since the railroad crossed the river I've done better taking orders for barbed wire, patent windmills, and such from this very house."
He allowed in that case he'd be proud to bring her anything she might need from town when he came back for his Winchester. When she asked when that might be he told her truthfully, "Can't say yet. I got some wires to send, some other errands to tend, and some calls to make around Courthouse Square. Then I got to find me a place to stay, hire me a pony to ride, and-"
"I've more than one spare room and two horses out back," she told him. "One of them draws my sulky, and I ride the other when I have to make time cross-country. So I can tell you it's a pretty good jumper, with my weight at least."
Longarm started to protest, he didn't want to put her to that much trouble. Then he considered how tough it might be for a hired gun to find out which hotel a stranger in town had registered at if he was holed up in a private home a good quarter mile away instead. So he nodded soberly and said, "I can easily get away with putting down a dollar a day for room and board, and most liveries hire mounts at two bits a day plus deposit, ma'am."
She said she dealt in hardware, not room and board, and suggested they argue about it after he came home for supper. So, the day not getting any younger as they sat there staring thoughtfully at each other, he allowed that sounded fair, and they shook on it before he headed on into town on foot.
It only took Longarm a few minutes to cover the five or six city blocks to the area around the depot he was more familiar with. That Western Union was still where it had been the time he'd stopped here in New Ulm on his way to Northfield, where the James and Younger gang had robbed that bank. When he strode in and identified himself to the older gent behind the counter, he was told they'd been expecting him because more than one wire had been sent to him in care of the New Ulm Western Union.
One was from Billy Vail, informing him that yet another of those hundred-dollar treasury notes had turned up at a Cheyenne bank, but that he was to go on with his investigation at New Ulm in any case, that you didn't investigate by running in circles, and that nobody in Cheyenne could say who'd broken that big bill in a local saloon on a Saturday night to begin with.
Another wire was from Pagosa Junction in the South Ute reserve, in answer to the earlier wire he'd sent them while changing trains at K.C. The Indian Police said they'd dragged a few likely stretches of the San Juan in vain and relayed his request to the Navajo Agency downstream. So he knew he didn't have to wire the Navajo Police after all. They'd find the body of that murdering young jasper for him or they wouldn't, and in either case it wasn't too likely anyone out to assassinate federal lawmen would be packing identification papers made out to his true name. But aliases turned up on the yellow sheets as well, if an owlhoot
She grimaced, made a brushing motion, and continued in a brighter tone. "Suffice it to say the old Bergen place is a lot more cheerful these days. The Bedfords are good neighbors, even if they didn't come from the same old country. I still do business in town, so I can tell you their credit is good. Captain Bedford pays all his bills when due."
"That's what I heard," said Longarm thoughtfully. He had no call to tell her what he meant to ask at the bank. But she'd said at the start he looked sort of travel-stained, and he'd scare most bankers by striding in with a Winchester as well as a strange face. So he told her, "I sure could use some place to store my saddle gun for a spell, and you say you still have that dry-goods store in town, ma'am?"
She shook her head. "You can leave that rifle here with me if you like. We never rebuilt the place the Indians burned out. Since the railroad crossed the river I've done better taking orders for barbed wire, patent windmills, and such from this very house."
He allowed in that case he'd be proud to bring her anything she might need from town when he came back for his Winchester. When she asked when that might be he told her truthfully, "Can't say yet. I got some wires to send, some other errands to tend, and some calls to make around Courthouse Square. Then I got to find me a place to stay, hire me a pony to ride, and-"
"I've more than one spare room and two horses out back," she told him. "One of them draws my sulky, and I ride the other when I have to make time cross-country. So I can tell you it's a pretty good jumper, with my weight at least."
Longarm started to protest, he didn't want to put her to that much trouble. Then he considered how tough it might be for a hired gun to find out which hotel a stranger in town had registered at if he was holed up in a private home a good quarter mile away instead. So he nodded soberly and said, "I can easily get away with putting down a dollar a day for room and board, and most liveries hire mounts at two bits a day plus deposit, ma'am."
She said she dealt in hardware, not room and board, and suggested they argue about it after he came home for supper. So, the day not getting any younger as they sat there staring thoughtfully at each other, he allowed that sounded fair, and they shook on it before he headed on into town on foot.
It only took Longarm a few minutes to cover the five or six city blocks to the area around the depot he was more familiar with. That Western Union was still where it had been the time he'd stopped here in New Ulm on his way to Northfield, where the James and Younger gang had robbed that bank. When he strode in and identified himself to the older gent behind the counter, he was told they'd been expecting him because more than one wire had been sent to him in care of the New Ulm Western Union.
One was from Billy Vail, informing him that yet another of those hundred-dollar treasury notes had turned up at a Cheyenne bank, but that he was to go on with his investigation at New Ulm in any case, that you didn't investigate by running in circles, and that nobody in Cheyenne could say who'd broken that big bill in a local saloon on a Saturday night to begin with.
Another wire was from Pagosa Junction in the South Ute reserve, in answer to the earlier wire he'd sent them while changing trains at K.C. The Indian Police said they'd dragged a few likely stretches of the San Juan in vain and relayed his request to the Navajo Agency downstream. So he knew he didn't have to wire the Navajo Police after all. They'd find the body of that murdering young jasper for him or they wouldn't, and in either case it wasn't too likely anyone out to assassinate federal lawmen would be packing identification papers made out to his true name. But aliases turned up on the yellow sheets as well, if an owlhoot
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