Longarm on the Overland Trail Read Online Free PDF

Denver on the South Platte bottomlands he saw he'd made a good move for once. It would have been cooler up here, where the richer folk lived, even if the sandstone walks had not been shaded with elm and cottonwood.
    The houses to either side were mostly built with the same red sandstone they'd used for the walks. Rich people seldom got rich by wasting money. So the lawns, while well tended, had been left to turn summer-brown. Come late fall, they'd all get a dressing of manure from the packing houses down by the tracks and, come next spring, they would look nice and green for June weddings and such. But since summer-killed lawns were as delicate as they were ugly, all the neighborhood kids were required to play out on the dusty street and, school being out, they were. It wasn't true that kids who got to eat regular were sissies. The ones down the avenue just ahead were playing ball in the street as if it was a cooler day and they'd never heard about carriage ice. As he crossed an intersection, Longarm saw a ball coming his way. Since he'd been a kid once, too, he bent to stop it, lest it wind up somewhere in Cheyenne.
    As he caught the bounding ball a bullet grazed his bent-over spine, hit his hatbrim, and took his Stetson off for him. He dove headfirst, landed on the back of his neck, and somersaulted back to his boot heels to make some sudden moves. The kids had to come first. He threw the ball as hard as he could. It passed over them, catty-corner, to roll across a forbidden lawn as the kids, being kids, chased it out of the line of fire.
    By this time Longarm was behind the solid trunk of a good old elm and he was glad he was when he heard a second distant shot, a rooster laugh, and the bullet slamming into the far side of the trunk. It hit hard enough for a.45 round. He cursed and got his own.44-40 out to return the courtesy. But as he risked a peek he saw the only moving target back that way was a uniformed roundsman running his way with police whistle chirping and nightstick waving. Longarm cursed again, put his sidearm back in its cross-draw holster, and stepped into view, hands polite.
    The copper badge recognized him, slowed to a wary walk, and called out, "I just heard gunshots up this way, Longarm."
    "It wasn't me. You must have passed the son of a bitch just now. How come?" Longarm asked.
    The uniformed lawman said, "I didn't pass nobody, save for some kids running for home as their mothers was yelling at 'em to do this instant. Who was shooting at whom, and why?"
    Longarm looked the other way and, sure enough, the kids whose ball he'd stopped were out of sight, too. Rich folk were careful about their kids as well as their money, having got that way by being less casual about whatever they owned, most likely. He told the copper badge, "Some son of a bitch just pegged two shots at me. I'd say he was wearing hair chaps and a big black sombrero if I didn't respect a fellow lawman's vision so much. The man is little enough to pass for a running kid at a casual glance, if he was wearing a tamer outfit. You might not have spied him at all if he worked his way to wherever between two houses. Picket-fence lines and even hedges don't seem as fashionable up here along the avenue."
    The roundsman said, "I've noticed that. It makes life hard on me on Halloween. You'd think a man with the money for a sixty- or seventy-foot lot would want to fence it. But most don't, and the little shits run every which way after they kick over an ash can. How do you feel about the shootist firing on you from, say, any one of them houses, themselves?"
    "I'd feel surprised as hell. Both shots came my way fired level. Ain't a porch in sight that ain't well above the grade. Aside from that, I don't think the cuss who was shooting at me would be socially acceptable up here on Sherman Avenue. I know I ain't."
    The copper badge got out his notepad and asked Longarm to try for some names. Longarm said, "It works more ways than one. Working as long as