Longarm and the Diamondback Widow Read Free Page B

piñon pines studding the mountains all the way to Chugwater on the Wyoming-Dakota border.
    Rainey put the sorrel up under the roof overhang, so that the cascade of rainwater missed the mount’s hindquarters by a foot or two, and swung down from the leather.
    He flung the reins over the hitchrack and then walked up onto the long front porch built of unpeeled pine poles, where he gave the closed plank door a tap and then tripped the string latch and pushed inside.
    â€œEdgar, you here?” he called into the dingy shadows, his soaked clothes hanging on him.
    A gravelly voice rose on the sheriff’s left. “For cryin’ out loud, Des, you don’t have to scream at me! I’m sittin’ right here and I may be hard of hearin’ but I ain’t deaf!”
    Rainey turned to his left. Edgar Winthrop sat at one of the depot’s long, pine-log tables, smoking a cigarette, a steaming mug of coffee on the table before him. A liver-colored cat stood atop the table, near the coffee cup and an open newspaper. It arched its back owlishly at the stranger who’d burst into the building unannounced and likely disturbed its nap there atop the newspaper.
    â€œSorry, Edgar,” Rainey said, doffing his hat and wincing when a cupful of water sluiced off its crown and its brim to splash the scuffed pine floor at his soaked boots. “I’m just wonderin’ if you can send a message to Denver for me.”
    The gray-bearded old depot agent/telegrapher/postmaster shook his head as he drew on his hand-rolled quirley, the coal glowing in the room’s near-darkness. The rain hammered on the roof, punctuated by frequent thunder booms and the heels of lightning flashing in the windows.
    â€œWire’s down,” Winthrop said, blinking beneath his green eyeshade. “I’m thinkin’ lightning mighta struck up on Murphy Butte east of town and caused rocks to slide and mow down one of my poles. I’ll send someone to check on it as soon as the weather clears.”
    The older man studied the Diamondback sheriff closely. “Say, you not only look soaked to the gills, Des, you look like someone danced a two-step over your grave.”
    Rainey said, “I just rode out to the Bear-Runner place.”
    â€œI heard about that from Calvin. You was supposed to meet Dan Garvey. Who you suppose killed those poor people, Des?”
    It was no surprise to Rainey that word of the killings had already traveled around Diamondback. Garvey’s hired hand had most likely let the cat out of the bag in the Dragoon Saloon several hours earlier, and it had probably run around Diamondback twice since then.
    â€œI’ll tell you later,” Rainey said, glancing at the window over his right shoulder. The rain was still coming hard and fast, forming a long waterfall roaring over the depot building’s overhang, behind the tied, jittery sorrel. The sheriff cursed under his breath and turned back to Winthrop. “Fetch me when you get the line back up—will you, Edgar?”
    â€œSure. You wanna leave your message, and I’ll send it soon as I can start transmitting again?”
    Rainey thought it over. The fewer people who knew about his suspicions the better. He didn’t want the killer or killers to know he was on to him or them, and he didn’t want to get himself back-shot, either.
    On the other hand, he needed to get the message out as quickly as possible. He didn’t need to explain the whole nasty business, he just needed help.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œHere, scribble it on that,” Winthrop said, sliding an envelope down the table toward Rainey. He fished a pencil stub out of his pocket and set it atop the envelope.
    Rainey leaned down, touched the pencil to his tongue, and scribbled a short note.
    â€œThere ya go, Edgar. Send that out just as soon as you can, will you? I’ll be in my office.”
    Winthrop read the pencil-scrawled missive and raised an