Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{He gave up looking for a room and decided to settle for the local law. There was an unwritten code that said one lawman helped another no matter what personal differences might exist between them. Longarm figured to capitalize on that now so he would have a place to sleep tonight that wouldn't involve cold breezes down the back of his neck and a mattress made of pea gravel.}

_{“Mind telling me where I can find your county sheriff or town marshal or, uh, police chief? Whoever’s in charge o’ the law here?” he asked the next man he saw on the street, a nicely dressed man in sleeve garters and a crisp collar who might have been a merchant or a banker or something similar.}

_{“That’d be Chief Bevvy,” the man said.}

_“Bevvy?”

_{“Ayuh. Chief of Police Robert Bevvy. Known as Boo to his friends.”}

_{“Boo Bevvy,” Longarm repeated.}

_{“Ayuh. But if you’re who I think you are, mister, you’d best call him Chief an’ tug your forelock when you do.”}

_{‘That sort o’ thing isn’t a habit o’ mine,” Longarm confessed.}

_{“Excellent,” the gentleman chortled. “I recommend you stand by your guns, sir. In fact, go right ahead and call our chief Boo. I could use the business.”}

_{Longarm raised an eyebrow.}

_{“Allow me to introduce myself, sir. Dr. Heygood Capwell, physician to the community of Snowshoe. Also entrepreneur, commodities speculator, mining shares investor, raconteur, hale fellow, bodacious wit, occasional imbiber, and, urn”— he grinned—“part-time mortician as well.”}

_{“It’s only fair t’ tell you that I don’t figure to give you no business,” Longarm said with a smile. “Not if I can help it, I won’t.”}

_{“We shall see, Marshal. We shall see. And your name}

_was?”

_{“Was an’ still is Custis Long. Known as Longarm to my friends.”}

_{“Very well, Marshal Long.” Capwell bowed formally. Longarm felt a momentary pang of disappointment. He’d hoped that at least this pleasant, happy-go-lucky doctor who knew who he was but smiled in spite of that would have departed from the local norm and accepted him as any other human being. But apparently that wasn’t to be. Capwell was honest enough to make that clear. Longarm supposed that was something.}

_{“You were gonna tell me where I could find Chief Bevvy, Doctor?”}

_{‘The police offices and town jail are in the basement of City Hall, Marshal Long. Two blocks down and one over. In that direction. It would be possible to miss it, I suppose, but difficult.”}

_{“Two down, one over. Thank you, Doctor.”}

_{“Good evening, Marshal.”}