Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Billy winked at him and bent over the thick, messy piles of papers on his desk again. Longarm got up and retrieved the signed writ Billy had pushed over to the edge of the desk. He headed for the doorway. He was halfway through it when Billy coughed and in a soft, serious voice said, “Take care, Custis.” Longarm paused, nodded, and pulled the door closed behind him.}

_{There was, in truth, no really good way to get from Denver to Snowshoe. At least none that Custis Long knew of. And while he had never been to that exact mining camp, he had certainly been to others just like it in the same neighborhood. There just wasn’t any direct rail connection, not yet, although the railroads were building as hard and fast as track could be laid from one place to another.}

_{Longarm went into a huddle with Henry about the various possibilities, then collected a fistful of expense vouchers.}

_{“Better take some travel vouchers too,” Henry advised. “Some of those new little rail and coach lines won’t accept a badge as a pass.”}

_{“The lines that don’t have mail contracts, I take it?” Henry grinned. “Don’t have and probably won’t have.” ‘i’ll take some travel slips too then, if you please.”}

_{“I can have everything ready for you in forty-five minutes, Longarm.”}

_{“While you’re doing that, I’ll go lay in a supply of smokes. Man never knows what he’ll run into in those mining camps. Might be champagne and oysters hauled in fresh in barrels of ice one place, or the cheapest alcohol and tobacco-juice rotgut in the next.”}

_{“And if 1 know you, Longarm, you'd rather the rotgut than the champagne.”}

_{Long gave Billy Vail’s clerk a look of wounded innocence. “Please.”}

_{“Sorry. Now go on and buy your emergency supplies. I have work to do to get you ready.”}

_{“I’ll be back in a half hour.”}

_{“Fine, but if you pester me I’ll give your home address to Miss May weather.”}

_{“You wouldn’t.”}

_{“Calling my bluff are you, Longarm?”}

_{“I’ll see you in an hour, Henry. Not a minute sooner.”}

_{Henry chuckled as Longarm scuttled out into the hallway on the double-quick.}

_{The stagecoach jolted to a stop, the passengers rocking back and forth with the motion as the heavy wagon body bounced and twisted on the leather straps that were all it had in the way of springs.}

_{“Whoa, dammit, whoa.” The driver’s voice reached in through the open window. A horse stamped a foot and there was the sound of bit chains rattling.}

_{Longarm yawned and sat upright on the thinly upholstered coach seat.}

_{“Are we there? Is this Telluride?” a querulous voice whined.}