Longarm and the Train Robbers Read Free

glanced
around.  "I haven't seen him for quite some time."
    "I'll go look for
him," the banker said, loud enough for everyone to hear.  "I'm
not about to let these good people, many of whom are undoubtedly
faithful depositors at the Bank of Wyoming, suffer because of a
dereliction of duty."
    "Good idea,"
Longarm said, noting how the storm and the train had finally met
so that visibility outside was reduced to nothing.
    Eli stared at the
window, the muscles of his jaw distended.  In a quiet voice he
said, "I'm not going to hang."
    "That's not my
business," Longarm said.  "All I'm sworn to do is bring you to
trial."
    "Yeah, but you
don't know what happened back there at that
homestead."
    Longarm's voice
dropped to a hard whisper.  "Oh, yes I do!  I can read signs and
I know you slaughtered that entire family."
    "They weren't
neighborly to me," Eli said between clenched teeth.  "The
sodbuster, he wouldn't give me a fair trade for two lame horses. 
All I wanted was a fair trade!"
    "So you blew his
face off?  Tell it to the judge after I tell him about the wife
and the sons."
    "They were mean to
me!" Eli hissed.  "Didn't even ask me in for supper after I said
I was hungry."
    "That's no reason
to kill them."
    "They asked for
it!"
    "Shut up," Longarm
breathed.  "If I wasn't a deputy of the federal court in Denver,
I'd have gut-shot you up in the Unitas and been done with it. 
You deserve to die hard, Eli.  A bullet in your brain would be
too kind."
    Eli glanced
sideways at Longarm.  "You're no different than me," he said.
"You just hide behind a badge so you can do your killing
legal."
    Longarm's eyes
shifted to the man, then past him to the window.  Even over the
pounding of the iron wheels he could hear the sound of the wind
howling off the Laramie Mountains.  This storm was coming all the
way down from Canada.  Longarm could only imagine what kind of a
white, frozen hell the locomotive engineer must be fighting as he
peered vainly ahead into the freezing maelstrom, trying to gauge
where each of the many switchbacks would be and hoping that the
snow did not stick on the ground to block the rails. "I never
liked snow until now," Eli said with a smirk.  "I always said
that I was going to California.  That's where I was headed when
you caught me.  I'd never have killed again."
    "That's a lie.
 You've killed so often that it means nothing to you anymore. 
That woman whose throat you cut in Denver was-"
    "Was just another
tired-out old whore!" Eli choked out.  "She tried to get me drunk
so that her boyfriend could steal the money from my pants.  But I
was wise to 'em!  If he hadn't jumped out of that hotel window,
I'd have killed him too."
    Longarm didn't
know if Miss Martha Noble had overheard this confession, but he
suspected that she had and was probably starting to realize that
she'd made a fool of herself defending such a cold-blooded
killer.
    A few minutes
later, the conductor and the banker returned.  The banker looked
angry and the conductor began to pitch wood into the small stove
at the rear of the car.
    "I'd never hire
him," the banker said loudly.  "A man like that wouldn't last a
day at our Bank of Wyoming but he'll last forever on this
railroad.  I tell you, the Union Pacific will hire
anyone!"
    Longarm smiled to
himself.  The banker was putting on a show of authority for the
other passengers and was making sure that everyone knew about his
bank.  Loud, boastful people were imitating to Longarm, who
preferred to go about his work with a quiet efficiency.  He never
bragged or told stories of the men he tracked down and brought to
justice.
    Longarm and other
passengers seemed to hold their breath as the train inched its
way up the summit.  Time lost all meaning.  It was as if they
were traveling in a tunnel of ice.  There was nothing to see
outside and the storm kept screeching like a tormented witch. 
But finally, the train seemed to level out and pause, then
slightly pick up