Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds by Tabor Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

obvious question, the war vet and experienced lawman volunteered, "He wound up on his side with his arms and legs drawn up the way most of us do when we're dying miserable. Used to see old boys like that in the hills of Tennessee. You could tell when a soldier boy had been killed instant or sobbing for his momma by the way he lay. Like I said, they should have let Tyger burn a mite longer and let the wind have his clean ashes. This way, his remains wound up the worst of a couple of ways. Halfway cremated and then left to molder in the wormy clay of Potter's Field. Ain't that a bitch?"
    Longarm grimaced and sipped some more Scotch liquor. It was almost as good as Maryland Rye, save for a smoky aftertaste that he didn't really need right now, picturing what likely lay in the pauper's grave of a stranger charred beyond recognition. "I was wondering how I meant to get an exhumation order without a heap of tedious explanations. I'll take your word a cuss checked into that roominghouse as Calvert Tyger and died in that fire as a result of that fire. But as long as we're on the subject of my need to report this side trip to Durango, I'd as soon not bother. I get to file enough in triplicate as it is."
    Gilchrist leaned forward to light the cigar for Longarm as he chuckled and allowed he knew the feeling. "I ain't about to write up this social visit for the Denver & Rio Grande Western, if that's what you were hinting at, old son."
    Longarm put down the empty shot glass and helped himself to a mouthful of less smoky-tasting smoke before he confessed he'd had such a shortcut in mind. Then he blew a thoughtful smoke ring and added, "I mean to ask around town, seeing I'm here, but might your company files hold anything on the other riders said to have been with Calvert Tyger when he somehow got the call to check into a mighty seedy roominghouse alone?"
    Gilchrist shook his head. "I'd have said so if we'd noticed. Nobody working for the railroad knew any of 'em were here in Durango till that fire broke out a couple of weeks back. Since we do such police work as need be, we naturally took some interest as soon as we saw what we took for a handful of part-time laborers and full-time drunks had gone up in smoke. We'd planted 'em all in Potter's Field, like I said, before anyone put the name of one victim together with that of a wanted outlaw."
    Longarm blew another thoughtful smoke ring. "My short and sweet notes on the case do mention other unfortunates who died in both mysterious fires, now that you mention it. So how come we know so much about that one particular screamer, seeing he was a stranger in town?"
    Gilchrist poured another shot in the glass at Longarm's elbow as he answered easily. "Because he was a stranger, of course. Most of the drifters who'd checked into that roominghouse naturally got out in time. At sunrise they and some townsmen who'd hired various old boys for a few hours' work now and again were able to identify all but the one cadaver. Nobody came forward for him. But the night clerk at the rooming house had saved their books, and like I said, once someone noticed Tyger was wanted so often in so many places ..."
    "Get back to the part about him screaming so much before they found him in that fetal position," Longarm urged. "Didn't anyone else object to being burnt alive in there?"
    Gilchrist shook his head. "The ones sober enough to yell got out sudden when the room clerk sounded the alarm. The same old clerk recalled Tyger as having paid two bits extra for a separate room, or cubicle, with a door you could bolt on the inside. All the others who failed to wake up in time were trapped further toward the back wall. The volunteers figured the bewildered cuss in that locked cubicle woke up in a strange place, blinded by smoke, and died trying to escape by way of the wardrobe against the back wall instead of the one real door at the other end. They found him in the ruins near what would have been the back of his bitty