That wasn't exactly what the man was there for. The barkeep asked if he'd been following all that war talk. The hired gun nodded casually and said, "I'm paid to notice trouble. Didn't sound like trouble for anyone we know, though."

The barkeep said, "Boss lady says she likes to hear everybody's troubles hereabouts. You'd best go tell her what just blew into town."

The hired gun protested, "s.h.i.t, that federal deputy they want us to watch out for wears a dark brown outfit, not no pink shirt."

The barkeep said, "Tell her anyways. They say Longarm's been known to act sort of sneaky."

Chapter 11.

Longarm arose around five that afternoon feeling way better. He flung open the jalousies so he could see what he was doing as he gave himself a wh.o.r.e-bath and shaved at the corner washstand. He had to put on the same rosy shirt, but it smelled all right. Then he went down to see what they might be serving for supper, having slept clean by his usual noon dinner.

He found there was n.o.body else having supper at that hour, if anyone living in town ate supper out to begin with. When he commented on this to the same waitress, the dishwater blonde said they had to stay open lest travelers stopping at the hotel go hungry. But there didn't seem to be all that many since all that talk about Apache trouble had started up again.

Longarm was tempted to a.s.sure her the Jicarilla seemed resigned to their unfair fate. But he never did. What Billy Vail had sent him to look into was no beeswax of anyone else. So he allowed that roast beef with mashed potatoes and string beans sounded fine, if they'd leave out the string beans and serve him some of the tamales mentioned on the blackboard instead. When she said they could, but it would cost him extra, he said to deal him that hand anyway.

So they did, and he was right about hot tamales tasting far more interesting than string beans. A couple of townsmen in frock coats came in, but only had coffee, and left as Longarm was ordering dessert. He noticed that as Trisha was clearing away his dinner dishes, she was singing soft and low that old Scotch song about rye whiskey. He'd have never followed her words if he hadn't already known them. But seeing he did, he had to grin as their possible double meaning sank in. She'd said that she didn't have anybody here in Camino Viejo, but she still seemed to be singing:

"Among the train, there is a swain I dearly love myself. But what's his name and where's his hame, I dinna choose to tell!"

It was a shame he had all that riding ahead of him around the time she'd be getting off, but that was the way things went some nights. So he had apple pie with cheddar cheese, put away another strong cup of coffee, and told her he might or might not see her again at breakfast time.

She really seemed to care as she asked whether he'd be staying on at the hotel or not. So he said, "We live in an uncertain world, Miss Trisha.

I got some calls to make this evening. Ain't sure how many or how long."

She asked, "Are you some sort of cattle buyer or traveling salesman, Henry? They were wondering about that this afternoon."

He said, "You might say I'm interested in horse-trading. Who did you say wanted to know?"

She shrugged. "Queen Kirby, I imagine. It was some of her help, not Queen Kirby herself, of course. You saw two more of them just now.

Having coffee at that table near the door?"

Longarm nodded and said, "Figured they were looking me over. I take it this Queen Kirby is the biggest frog in this little puddle, no offense?"

Trisha made a wry face and replied, "None taken. I don't think much of Camino Viejo, either, but a girl needs a job. Queen Kirby's all right, I reckon. She owns most everything and everybody in town, but she's never done me dirty and I was brung up to live and let live."

Longarm said, "I thought you sounded like a decent country gal. I take it this Queen Kirby don't own this dining room, though?"

Trisha said, "Nor the hotel, the two churches, or mayhaps a few of the shops down the street. Once you own the saloon, the card house, the, ah, houses of ill repute, and the munic.i.p.al corral, you've got a pretty firm hold on things, though."

He nodded. "I follow your drift. There seems to be some such big frog in every puddle this size. Not too many of 'em seem to be gals called queens, though. Is that her first name or an honorary t.i.tle, Miss Trisha?"

The blonde said she didn't know, explaining, "I've only seen her out front in pa.s.sing. She never eats here. I understand she has a Chinese cook and dines on frog legs, fish eggs, and peasant-birds at her fancy mansion just outside of town."

Longarm smiled gently and said, "I think pheasant was the bird you had in mind. But you were right about such vittles sounding a mite fancy.

I've known rich folks who ate natural as the rest of us. So it's likely this Queen Kirby ain't been rich as long. I reckon I could use another coffee, ma'am. Seeing others seem so interested in me, it might be interesting to hang around a spell."

She said that he could have all the coffee he wanted, but that she'd thought he had to go somewhere.

He didn't want to tell anyone he planned to explore some canyons officially said to be deserted. So he just said he'd ride out soon enough, and lit a cheroot as she went to fetch the pot.

n.o.body else came in as it started to get darker out front. By then he'd gotten about all Trisha knew out of her, and she'd started to ask more about him, or about the Henry she now thought she remembered from an earlier trail drive. So he quit while he was ahead and ambled off to see what that saloon might be like.

As Trisha had told him, they did their serious gambling in the card house between the saloon and a ramshackle row of wh.o.r.ehouses around a corner and up a cinder-paved lane. The saloon was the usual twenty-by-forty-foot establishment meant for drinking, conversation, and penny-ante poker. The bar ran back most of the length of the smoke-filled s.p.a.ce. There was no piano, and a sign warned everyone to stay out of the back rooms unless they worked there.

n.o.body was seated at any of the four tables. At that hour there were only a half dozen cowhands and a jasper in a rusty black suit at the bar. Longarm figured that one for the most nosy. So he bellied up handy to the cuss, but ignored him as he ordered a draft for himself.

The barkeep was usually the one who casually asked a stranger if he was new in town. But this one just poured and didn't seem interested in the change Longarm left on the zinc-topped bar. So Longarm nursed his beer scuttle a third of the way down and lit his second cheroot before he casually said, "Heard some talk about Apache trouble as I was having supper just now."

The rusty suit took him up on it to observe in an agreeable tone, "Noticed the cavalry way you wear your hat. You interested in scouting Apache, Mister ...?"

"Crawford, Henry Crawford," Longarm replied easily enough, seeing as Crawford Long had invented painless surgery just in time for the war, and there was that reporter Crawford of the Post who kept writing all that Wild West bulls.h.i.t about Longarm.

The man in black said he answered to Wesley Jones, and repeated his question about scouting.

Longarm said, "Not hardly. To begin with, the army seems to be out after Victorio along the border way to the south. After that, I'd as soon kiss a sidewinder on the lips as scout Apache. I asked my doubtless foolish question with a view to avoiding Apache. I heard something about some having jumped the Jicarilla reserve, is all. Heard some were hiding out in them canyonlands to the east."

The man in black exchanged glances with the barkeep before he quietly asked, "You know your way around La Mesa de los Viejos, you say?"

Longarm replied, "No, I don't. I've never been over yonder, and I ain't sure I'd want to go up one of them canyons with a picnic basket and a pretty gal. Somebody said something about them being haunted, and I try to avoid haunts as well as hostile Indians. When I asked about Apache hiding out over yonder, it was only because I got to ride north betwixt the uncertainties of that haunted mesa and the sure-enough Apache reserve to the west."

Wesley Jones said, "So you do. You say you have business up in Loma Bianca or Vado Seguro, Henry?"

Longarm shook his head casually and replied, "I'm bound for Chama. The railroad stop called Chama, not that river out front. Got to meet a business a.s.sociate there. Just want to make sure I won't run into any other gunplay along the way."

"You say you're headed up to Chama with some gunplay in mind?" the barkeep suddenly blurted out despite himself.

Longarm smiled innocently and said, "Is that how what I said came out?

Well, that's one on me. I only meant I had to meet somebody in Chama.

A man would have to be a fool to say he was on his way to a gunfight if he was really on his way to a gunfight, wouldn't he?"

The man in black nodded at the barkeep and said, "Don't take my invite wrong, Henry, but there's somebody we'd like you to meet and this saloon ain't where the real action transpires here in town. It's only here on the coach road to serve folks just pa.s.sing through."

Longarm sipped more suds before he asked with the caution one had to expect from a knock-around rider, "Just what sort of action might you have in mind for this child, Wes?"

Jones, if that was his name, said, "You name it, from faro to fornication, and we'll likely be able to satisfy your cautious nature.

Old Mel here can testify to my being a respectable cuss who ain't out to rob you or cornhole you, Henry."

The barkeep nodded soberly and said, "We got our business rep to consider. Old Wes is a gambling man. I'm sorry, Wes, but I got to say it. After that, Mister Crawford, he ain't a crooked gambling man. The place of which he speaks is owned by the same respectable lady who owns this saloon and the hardware across the street."

Longarm said that in that case he'd try anything once. So Wesley Jones led him out the back way, past the sign warning them not to pa.s.s, and through a maze of back alleyways in the gathering dusk. Then they were in a dimly lit hallway, leading into what looked like the main salon of a steamboat, or the front parlor of a wh.o.r.ehouse.

Then Longarm noticed most of the hired help seemed to be men in suits instead of gals in kimonos, with a rougher-dressed crowd at the bar or around the gaming tables. Jones had been right about the faro. They had c.r.a.p tables and one of those fancy French wheels of fortune as well.

Jones led Longarm over to a red plush sofa and sat him down, saying, "I'll see about our drinks. Don't go away."

Longarm leaned back and lit a cheroot. Jones didn't seem to be coming back. But after a tedious time another cuss in a black frock coat came over with two gin-and-tonics to ask where Jones was. Seeing as "Henry Crawford" didn't know, he handed him both stiff drinks.

They let him work on them awhile. Longarm set one aside and nursed the other so long that the same cuss came back to sit down beside him and sadly declare, "You're getting to where you need gla.s.ses, or else I need to lose some weight and shave off this mustache. You really don't recognize me, do you?"