Free Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) by Tabor Evans Page B

have been solved by reading old reports on paper, the treasury never would have come bleating to Justice for a helping hand.
    He asked about the Calico Kid and was told, “He got the name and the rep down near Los Angeles. Mining camp called Calico. Nobody knows who he was or where he came from before he started shooting folks as a hobby.”
    Longarm pursed his lips and said, “Hung out in mining country, did he? Now that’s right interesting. You got anything in the morgue about him robbing gold shipments?”
    The reporter shook his head and said, “Nope. The way they tell it, he was just a wild saddle tramp. Rode with some other young owlhoots of the same stripe. They’ve shot up a few towns for the hell of it, and been run out of twice as many. But the kid never had any robbery pinned on him.”
    â€œWhat
did
he do for a living, then? Folks can’t just ride around like something in a Ned Buntline novel with no visible means of support. Bullets cost a nickel apiece and drinks are three cents a shot!”
    The reporter shrugged and said, “He probably let folks grubstake him some. Lots of people sort of like to stay on friendly terms with a mean-eyed jasper with a rep.”
    The deputy pondered this for a moment, then said, “I don’t see him as a man who begged for handouts. If he didn’t work, he must have been stealing for a living.”
    â€œCould be,” the newspaperman agreed. “If he ever robbed anyone, they never saw fit to press charges, which isn’t hard to understand. They say he had about five sidekicks riding with him, all of them just as mean as he was.”
    Longarm saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere, and left. He found a café and had some chili and a beer. They both stayed down, so he figured he was getting over the set-to with Curly.
    By the time he got to the Wells Fargo office again, the stage was loading up for its run up the slope. The jehu holding the reins was a fierce-looking old man of about seventy. The shotgun rider at his side was a consumptive-looking hunchback with a bullet hole in the brim of his dusty Stetson. Longarm saw that two passengers were already aboard, so be climbed in.
    His fellow passengers were a tall man wearing a business suit and a blond mustache, seated across from a girl of about twenty-five. She wore black Spanish lace and her face was a dusky shade of rose. If she wasn’t at least half Indian, he’d never met one. Her dark eyes smoldered angrily in a way that led Longarm to believe that anger was a natural condition with her, so he just smiled and sat beside her, introducing himself to the man in the opposite seat.
    The man held out a hand and said, “I’m glad to know you, Deputy. I’m Kevin MacLeod.”
    Longarm blinked and asked, “The same Kevin MacLeod who owns the Lost Chinaman? I was beginning to think I’d never find you. This must be your pretty little wife I’ve heard so much about, right?”
    The girl gasped in dismay and MacLeod said, “Not hardly. Allow me to present Señorita Felicidad Vallejo. One of the Vallejos of Old California.”
    The girl looked away, trying to ignore them both. MacLeod shrugged and said, “She doesn’t like gringos very much.”
    Longarm refused to be snubbed, and he said, “It’s an honor, ma’am. I read about your kinsman, General Vallejo. He sort of chased our army through a few canyons before they called the war off, didn’t he?”
    She didn’t answer. So he shrugged and turned back to MacLeod as the jehu atop the stage cracked his whip and shouted, “
Move
, you oat-wastin’ sons of bitches!”
    The stage lurched into motion and took off in a cloud of dust, swaying on the rawhide thoroughbraces as if it were a small craft plunging through choppy water. MacLeod grinned and said, “It gets worse when we reach the high country. I think old Logan, up there, has been