Free Longarm and the Deadwood Shoot-out (9781101619209) by Tabor Evans Page B

“Bix and Miz Dooley are back there with Tom,” the customer said. “The other fellas that was in the shop waiting for the chair took off when she came in. Me, I was already halfway through my shave or I would’ve took off out of here, too.”
    Longarm nodded his thanks and went through the doorway into the back room where Tom Bowen’s bodylay on a long table. Bowen was naked. The table was surrounded by a rat’s nest of bottles and tubes, things Longarm recognized as embalming tools without having any understanding whatsoever of how they were employed. Nor did he really want to know. It was one thing to shoot them but quite another to go through this part of the process.
    Bowen’s widow was a careworn little wisp of a woman with gray hair pulled back in a severe bun. She was wearing a colorless, shapeless dress. Longarm could not decide if this was her idea of a widow’s weeds or if she simply dressed this way all the time for lack of anything else to wear to town.
    “Ma’am,” he said, taking his hat off and holding it in both hands, “I’m awful sorry for your loss. Is there anything…?”
    “You are the man who killed him, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Her face screwed up as if she wanted to cry but did not have enough moisture in her tissues to squeeze any water out. “I cannot blame you, sir. You did what you had to do.”
    “Yes, ma’am. But that don’t make the hurting any th’ less. I mean it, ma’am. Is there anything I can do?”
    “No. Thank you, but no.”
    “You should know, Marshal, that the county won’t be paying for the burial,” Dooley said. “I talked to Ed Hochavar this morning. The county supervisors say it isn’t their doing, so they won’t pay. Miz Bowen will have to.”
    Longarm took Bix Dooley by the shirtsleeve and pulled him aside. “How much d’you charge for a buryin’?”
    “Normally, it is five dollars, but…”
    “But nothin’. This buryin’ will be two fifty. I’ll pay it my own self. Do you understand me, mister?”
    Dooley looked at Longarm’s stern expression for only a moment. Then the man nodded. “Two fifty it is, Marshal.”
    “Thank you.” Longarm returned to the widow and nodded to her. “Like I said, ma’am, I just wanted t’ express my condolences. I am truly sorry. Where will you…will you try an’ stay on where you are?”
    “No, I don’t think so. I will take my children and go back home to Indiana. We have people there. They will take us in.” Her voice broke a little but the woman had her pride. She would do what she had to do.
    “Yes, ma’am.” Longarm bowed his way backward as far as the door, then spun around and got the hell out of there, the stink of the chemicals closing in around him. The chemicals…or something.
    The barber chair was empty when he returned to the front of the shop. The customer was gone, the apron sheet lying rumpled in the chair.

Chapter 27
    Longarm had a light lunch, then ambled over to the same saloon he had patronized the evening before. Other than the bartender the only man in the place was an out-of-work teamster named Gary McCarthy who liked to play draw poker…and was so bad a player that even at low stakes Longarm ended the afternoon more than seven dollars to the good.
    He was almost ashamed of himself for taking advantage of McCarthy. Almost, not quite. If the man was going to play he should accept the result and did without complaint.
    Eventually, his stomach rumbling in search of a meal, Longarm stood up, stretched, and excused himself. “Time t’ go have some supper,” he said.
    McCarthy nodded and began shuffling the cards again, ready for whoever else came in.
    Longarm thought about Angela Morris. He smiled. He could not think of a better thing to do with his winnings than to buy her a supper. Then whatever happened afterward, well, that would be good, too.
    He walked over to her store and once inside put the closed sign in the window.
    “Angela?” She was not in the