Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

But once he'd put a good ten miles between himself and town, he began to feel better about the aspen and juniper clumps all about him on the open range that was now ungrazed. For despite more cover near the trail than he'd have tolerated had he been managing the Overland Line, the rolling country behind him was open enough for him to assume nobody was following him, and no matter how sore he'd made that whiskey-running bunch back yonder,

he'd only told one greenhorn, an outsider, where he might be headed.

There seemed no way on earth for anyone with a guilty conscience to be laying for the law by the trail ahead, and thus Longarm was as astonished as alarmed when he topped a rise to see a flash of sunlight on metal amid some aspen flutter ahead. He rolled out of his saddle, Winchester and all, just as a high-powered round beat the report of its express rifle through the shallow gap between the cantle and swells of an already battered army saddle.

That rifle round would have surely done more damage to Longarm's left hip than the sunbaked dirt did to his right one when he hit it with his carbine butt as well and rolled away into the shin-deep grass on the west side of the trail.

He did that because the son of a bitch who'd just tried to dry-gulch him was firing some more from those aspen over to the east of the trail.

As his paint turned tail and ran back toward town with its eyes rolling and reins dragging, Longarm saw his unseen enemy hadn't been trying to kill him. He'd simply spooked the pony for a better shot at his intended target. Longarm knew this for certain when that distant rifle spanged again and his poor hat, which he'd parted company with on the way down, soared skyward amid shattered straw and dirt clods to his left. He knew his real position had to be hidden better by the tall dry grass all around. He was already prone with his elbows spread and his Winchester cocked and aimed the right general direction. So he held on to his edge by not even breathing hard enough to stir the springy stems above him.

A million years crept by. Then a distant voice called out to him, "We see you there, stranger! Stand up with your hands polite and tell us what you're doing in these parts!"

Longarm did no such thing. Assholes who fired on anyone using a public right of way in broad day could hardly

be trusted not to gun another asshole who gave them such a swell chance.

The same voice called out, "I swear we'll open fire if you ain't on your feet by the time I counts to ten!"

So Longarm waited as the cuss in those trees to his east counted aloud, then fired again and again in the general direction his poor old hat had been headed. Longarm figured from the rate of fire that the rascal had a single-shot breech-loading .51 without a scope sight. He was firing too blind at the limit of his effective aim. Those awesome express rounds would kill at over a mile if they hit, but in practice an average shot was doing better than average if he could hit anything at three hundred yards.

Judging by the sun dazzle he'd spotted just in time, Longarm had the range figured at more like five hundred, which was another good reason to keep his own peace with the grass stems all around. He knew that even if he'd been able to see the son of a bitch, his Winchester's effective range was two hundred. So he had to get a good bit closer, or the asshole would have to get closer to him, before it would be a fair fight.

Another voice, a tad further south, bawled, "Cut wasting that expensive shot and ball, Pearly. I think he's already hit."

The high-powered rifle spanged again before the original rascal called back, "He'd better be, now that you've yelt my name to the four winds, you stupid kid!"

The stupid kid yelled back, "Aw, shit, I'll go look if you're too yeller-bellied. Pearly."

The one who seemed to be called Pearly called back, "Don't you dast! That ain't no ragged-ass sheepherder over yonder, kid. Pappy told us not to take no chances with this old boy, and he'd skin me alive if I was to get you kilt instead."

The one called Kid digested that, then called, "Well, we can't just wait here like sparrow birds on a telegraph wire till someone else comes riding along, can we?"

Longarm didn't see why not. But nobody was asking him. So he offered no suggestions as he lay there, dying for a smoke.

A grasshopper landed on the barrel of his Winchester and began to wash its front legs with tobacco juice spit, as if to tease a poor soul forced to do without as the sun rose ever higher. Longarm muttered, "Just you wait, Bug. We'll be having our first frost most any morning now at this altitude, and you know what the ant warned you grasshoppers about in that old tale by Mister Aesop."