Longarm and the Sins of Laughing Lyle (9781101612101) Read Online Free Page B

the route into the hollow where he’d left Case Morgan. The rock- and brush-rimmed depression was a little more difficult to find in the growing darkness, but then he heard the whinny of Case’s mount and veered toward it. When he saw Case sitting where he’d left him, Longarm stopped the gray, swung down from the saddle, and dropped the reins.
    â€œWell, I got three of ’em, anyway.” He walked toward where Case slumped against the rock. “I’ll go after Laughing Lyle first thing . . .” He stopped and looked down at his partner, who sat with his head tipped back against the rock.
    Case wasn’t moving. His hat lay crown-down beside him. His pewter-streaked, dark brown hair lay matted against his head.
    Longarm felt his throat go dry. He crouched beside the older man. Dread thickened his voice. “Case?”
    No response.
    Longarm placed a hand on the man’s chest, but even before he’d detected no heartbeat he’d seen Morgan’s deathly pallor and the opaque stare in the half-open eyes. Longarm laced his hands together, elbows on his knees, and lowered his head.
    â€œGoddamnit, Case.”
    Sorrow racked him. A knot formed in his dry throat, and he felt a wetness in the corners of his eyes. He gritted his teeth, choking back the sudden swell of emotion. Longarm wasn’t accustomed to the feeling. He’d lost partners before. What lawman hadn’t? He’d grown a thick hide. But losing Case was a particularly hard bone to swallow.
    He crouched there beside his dead friend, guilt climbing into his mix of emotions—guilt over not getting Case to a doctor in Albuquerque when he should have. But none of those feelings was going to change the sad, eminently frustrating fact of Case sitting dead before him now.
    Morgan had a folding shovel among his gear. Longarm retrieved it from his horse. He also retrieved the lawman’s bedroll. The times they’d tracked together over the years, they’d always agreed that if one of them cashed in his chips the other would bury him in his bedroll wherever it was they happened to be. Neither man was married or had any family to speak of, so this way made things simple for both of them.
    Longarm unpinned Case’s moon-and-star badge from the man’s vest and slipped it into his own pocket. When he returned to Denver, he’d send the piece back to Judge Bean in Fort Smith. He eased Case’s body out from the rock, lay it flat, and crossed the man’s cold hands on his belly. Then he carefully wrapped him in his bedroll and, with a weary sigh, started digging a hole in the sandy soil beside him. When the dog in his arm started barking, he had to pause and tighten the bandage over the wound, then resume digging.
    He knew that a shallow grave would suffice. Case wouldn’t want him to linger over the burying, especially when he had a bullet-burned arm and a laughing killer running free.
    *   *   *
    Longarm buried his friend and erected a crude cross made of mesquite branches and rawhide strips from his saddlebags. He pinched his hat brim at the low mound upon which he’d piled rocks to keep predators away for at least a few days, then stepped into his saddle. Trailing Case’s copper bottom bay, he rode back into the roadhouse yard.
    The windows of the two-story structure with a wooden false façade were lit for the evening. Stars glittered in the sky. Coyotes howled mournfully as though in tune with Longarm’s own wretched mood.
    The cowpunchers’ two remaining horses were gone from the hitch rack. They’d likely headed on back to whatever ranch they worked on, two riding double. The stocky half-breed barman was standing on the porch. Longarm saw by the light from the doors and window flanking the man that he’d dragged the three dead cutthroats out and lined them up on the porch.
    â€œWhose horse?” the half-breed asked, blowing