Longarm

LONGARM

By Tabor Evans Copyright 1978

CHAPTER 1

One gray Monday morning it was trying to rain in Denver. A herd of wet Texas clouds had followed the Goodnight Trail north, tripped on the Arkansas Divide, and settled down to sweat itself away in the thin atmosphere of the mile-high capital of Colorado.

In the Union Yards a Burlington locomotive sobbed a long, lonesome whistle as Longarm awoke in his furnished room a quarter of a mile away.

For perhaps a full minute, Longarm stared up from the sagging brass stead at the smoke-begrimed plaster. Then he threw the cover off and swung bare feet to the threadbare gray carpet and rose, or, rather, loomed in the semidarkness of the little corner room. Longarm knew he was tall. He knew he moved well. He didn’t understand the effect his catlike motions had on others. His friends joshed about a man his size “spooking livestock and making most men thoughtful with them sudden moves of his.” But Longarm only thought it natural to get from where he’d been to where he was going by the most direct route. He was not a man who did things by halves. A man was either sleeping or a man was up, and right now he was up.

Longarm slid over to the dressing table and stared soberly at his reflection in the tarnished mirror. The naked figure staring back was that of a lean, muscular giant with the body of a young athlete and a lived-in face. Longarm was still on the comfortable side of forty, but the raw sun and cutting winds he’d ridden through coming west as a boy from West-by-Virginia had cured his rawboned features as saddle-leather brown as an Indian’s. Only the gunmetal blue of his wide-set eyes, and the tobacco-leaf color of his close-cropped hair and longhorn moustache gave evidence of Angloon birth. The stubble on his lantern jaw was too heavy for an Indian, too. Longarm ran a thumbnail along the angle of his jaw and decided he had time to stop for a professional shave on his way to the office. He was an early riser and the Federal Courthouse wouldn’t open until eight.

He rummaged through the clutter atop the dresser and swore when he remembered he was out of soap. Longarm was a reasonably clean guy who took a bath once a week whether he needed it or not, but the sociable weekend activities along Larimer Street’s Saloon Row had left him feeling filthy and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a birdcage. He picked up a half-filled bottle of Maryland rye and pulled the cork with his big ivory-colored teeth. Then he took a healthy slug, swished it around and between his fuzzy teeth and cotton tongue, and let it go down. That took care of dental hygiene this morning.

He poured tepid water from a pitcher into a cracked china basin on a nearby stand. Then he spiked the water with some more rye. He dipped a stringy washrag in the mixture and rubbed himself down from hairline to shins, hoping the alcohol would cut the grease enough to matter. The cold whore-bath stung the last cobwebs from his sleep-drugged mind and he felt ready to face another week working for Uncle Sam.

That is, he was ready, but willing was another matter. The new regulations of President Hayes’s Reform Administration were getting tedious as hell, and lately, Longarm had been thinking about turning in his badge.

He scowled at himself in the mirror as he put on a fresh flannel shirt of gunmetal gray and fumbled with the foolish-looking shoestring tie they had said he had to wear, these days. Back when U.S. Grant had been in the catbird seat, the justice Department had been so surprised to find a reasonably honest lawman that they’d been content to let him dress any old way he pleased. Now the department was filled with prissy pink dudes who looked like they sat down to piss, and they said a Deputy U.S. Marshal had to look “dignified.”

Longarm decided that the tie was as pretty as it was likely to get and sat his naked rump on the rumpled bed to wrestle On his britches. He pulled on a pair of tight, knit cotton longjohns before working his long legs into the brown tweed pants he’d bought one size too small.

like most experienced horsemen, Longarm wore neither belt nor suspenders to hold his pants up. He knew the dangers of a sweat-soaked fold of cloth or leather between a rider and his mount moving far or sudden. By the time he’d cursed the fly shut, the pants fit tight as a second skin around his upper thighs and lean hips.

He bent double and hauled on a pair of woolen socks before grunting and sliding his feet into his low-heeled cavalry stovepipes. Like the pants, the boots had been bought a size too small. Longarm had soaked them overnight and put them on wet to dry as they’d broken in, molding themselves to his feet. Like much of Longarm’s working gear, the low-heeled boots were a compromise. A lawman spent as much time afoot as he did in the saddle and he could run with surprising speed for a man his size in those too-tight boots.

In boots, pants, and shirt he rose once again to lift the gunbelt from the bedpost above his pillow. He slipped the supple cordovan leather belt around his waist, adjusting it to ride just above his hip. Like most men WhO might be called upon to draw either on foot or mounted with his legs apart, Longarm favored a cross-draw rig, worn high.

It hardly seemed likely that his gun had taken it upon itself to run low on ammunition overnight, but Longarm had attended too many funerals of careless men to take such things for granted. He reached across his buckle for the polished walnut grip and drew, hardly aware of the way his smooth, swift draw threw down lively on the blurred image in the mirror across the room.

He wasn’t aiming to shoot himself in the mirror. He wanted to inspect one of the tools of his trade. Longarm’s revolver was a double-action Colt Model T.44-40. The barrel was cut to five inches and the front sight had been filed off as useless scrap iron that could hang up in the open-toed holster of waxed and heat-hardened leather.

Swinging the gun over the rumpled bed, Longarm emptied the cylinder on the sheets, dry-fired a few times to test the action, and reloaded, holding each cartridge up to the gray window light before thumbing it home. Naturally, he only carried five rounds in the six chambers, allowing the firing pin to ride safely on an empty chamber. More than one old boy had been known to shoot his fool self in the foot jumping down off a bronc with a double-action gun packing one round too many.

Satisfied, Longarm put his sixgun to rest on his left hip and finished getting dressed. He put on a vest that matched his pants.

Those few who knew of his personal habits thought Longarm methodical to the point of fussiness. He considered it common sense to tally up each morning just what he was facing the day with. Before bedding down he’d spread the contents of his pockets across the top of the dresser. He made a mental note of each item as he started stuffing his pockets with a calculated place on his person for each and every one of them.

He counted out the loose change left from the night before, noting he’d spent damned near two whole dollars on dinner and drinks the night before. The depression of the ‘70s had bottomed out and business was starting to boom again. He was overdue for a raise and prices were getting outrageous. A full-course meal could run a man as much as seventy-five cents these days and some of the fancier saloons were charging as much as a nickel a shot for redeye!

He dropped the change in his pants pocket and picked up his wallet. He had two twenty-dollar silver certificates to last him till payday unless he ran into someone awfully pretty. His silver federal badge was Pinned inside the wallet. Longarm rubbed it once on his woolen vest and folded the wallet. Then he slipped on his brown frock coat and tucked the wallet away in an inside pocket. He wasn’t given to flashing his badge or his gun unless he was serious.

He dropped a handful of extra cartridges into the right side pocket of his coat. The matching left pocket took a bundle of waterproof kitchen matches and a pair of handcuffs. The key to the cuffs and his room went in his left pants pocket along with a jackknife.

The last item was the Ingersoll watch on a long, gold watch chain. The other end of the chain was soldered to the brass butt of a double-barrelled .44 derringer. The watch rode in the left breast pocket of the vest. The derringer occupied the matching pocket on the right, with the chain draped across the front of the vest between them.

Longarm tucked a clean linen handkerchief into the breast pocket of his frock coat and took his snuff-brown Stetson from its nail on the wall. He positioned it carefully on his head, dead center and tilted slightly forward, cavalry style. The hat’s crown was telescoped in the Colorado rider’s fashion, but the way he wore it was a legacy from his youth when he’d run away to ride in the war. Longarm “disremembered” whether he’d ridden for the blue or the gray, for the great civil war lay less than a generation in the past and memories of it were still bitter, even this far west. It didn’t pay a man to talk too much about things past, out Colorado way.

Ready to face the morning, Longarm let himself out silently, slipping a short length of wooden matchstick between the door and the jam as he locked up. His landlady was supposed to watch his digs, but the almost invisible sliver would warn him if anyone was waiting for him inside whenever he returned.

Longarm moved through the dark rooming house on silent, booted feet, aware that others might still be sleeping. Outside, he filled his lungs with the clean, but oddly-scented air of Denver, ignoring the slight drizzle that he knew would blow over by noon.

His furnished digs lay in the unfashionable quarter on the wrong side of Cherry Creek, so Longarm crunched along the damp cinder path to the Colfax Avenue Bridge. He noticed as he crossed it that Cherry Creek still ran low and peaceable within its adobe banks. He hadn’t thought the unusual summer rain was worth his yellow oilcloth slicker—it figured to last just long enough to lay the dust and maybe do something about that funny smell. Longarm prided himself on his senses and liked to know what he was smelling. He could sniff a Blue Norther fixing to sweep down on the Prairie long before the clouds shifted. He could tell an Indian from a white man in the dark and once he’d smelled lightning in the high country just before it hit the ridge he just vacated. But he’d never figured out whY, in winter, spring, summer, or fall, the town of Denver always smelled like someone was burning autumn leaves over on the next street. He’d seldom seen anyone burning leaves in Denver. Aside from a few planted cotton woods in the more fashionable neighborhoods there were hardly enough trees in the whole damn town to matter. Yet there it was, even now, in the soft summer air. That mysterious smell was sort of spooky when a man studied on it.

On the eastern side of Cherry creek the cinder pathways gave way to the new red sandstone sidewalk they were putting down along all the main streets these days. Colfax Avenue had gas illumination, too. The town was getting downright civilized, considering it had been another placer camp in the rush, less than twenty Years before. Longarm came to an open barber shop on a corner and went in for a shave and maybe some stink-prettY.

His superiors had taken to commenting on a deputy who reported to work smelling like Maryland rye, and the bay rum George Masters, the barber, splashed over a paying customer didn’t cost extra.

He saw that the barber already had a customer in the chair and sat down to wait his turn. A stack of magazines was piled next to him and, deciding against Frank Lesley’s Illustrated Weekly, he picked up a copy of Ned Buntline’s Wild West magazine. Longarm didn’t know what the people who put it out had in mind, but he considered it a humorous publication.

He saw that there was another yarn in this month’s issue about poor old Jim Hickock. Old Jim had died in Deadwood damned near five years ago, but they still had him tearassing around after folks with a sixgun in each hand. For some reason they kept calling Old Jim “Wild Bill.”

There was a comical article about crazy Jane Canary, too. The writers called her “Calamity Jane” and had her down as Jim Hickock’s lady love. Longarm chuckled aloud and wet his thumb to turn the page. The last time he’d seen Hickock alive he’d been a happily married man, and the last gal on earth Jim or any other sane man would mess with was Jane Canary. If anyone really called her “Calamity,” it was probably because they knew she’d been tossed out of Madame Moustache’s parlor house in Dodge for dosing at least a dozen paying customers with the clap!

Longarm saw that the barber was about finished with the first customer and he put the magazine aside. As the other man rose from the chair, George whipped the barber’s cloth aside and Longarm saw that the customer’s right hand was on the butt of the Walker-Colt riding his right hip.

Longarm crabbed to one side. His own gun appeared in front of him as if by magic, trained on the stranger’s bellybutton. Longarm said, “Freeze!” in a soft, no-nonsense tone.

George was already well to one side with a swiftness gained from cutting hair this close to the Larimer Street deadline. The man, half out of the barber’s chair, snatched his hand from the butt of his holstered revolver as if it had suddenly stung him and his face was chalky as he gasped, “Mister, I don’t even know you!”

“I ain’t sure as I’ve seen you before, either, old son. You got a reason for coming up out of that chair grabbing iron, or were you just born foolish?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was shifting Captain Walker, here, to ride more comfortable-like!”

“Well, that old hog leg’s a heavy gun and what YOU say’s almost reasonable, but hardly common sense. if you aim to wander through life with that oversized sixgun dragging alongside, you’d best learn not to make sudden moves toward it around grown men!”

The other, perhaps ten years younger than the deputy, licked his lips and said, “Mister, I have purely lernt it! I swear I never saw a gunslick draw so fast before! I don’t know who you are, but you must surely have one dangerous job!”

“My name is Custis Long and I’m a Deputy U.S. MarshaL which can leave a man thoughtful. Where’ve I seen you before, friend?”

The youth moved clear of the barber chair, keeping his hands well out to both sides as he smiled and answered, “I doubt as you’ve seen me at all, Marshal. My handle is Jack Robinson and I just came up from Texas. I’m riding for the Diamond K, just outside Of town, these days. And that sixgun trained on my middle is making me a mite skittish, dang it!”

Longarm nodded thoughtfully. Then he lowered the muzzle to his side as he asked the barber the price of the cheroots in the open cigar box on the marble counter. George said they were a nickel each, so Longarm said, “Have a smoke on me, then, Tex. I’ll allow we was both still half asleep, so lets part friendly and forget it, hear?”

The cowhand clumped over to the counter and helped himself to a cheroot, saying, “that’s right neighborly of you, Marshal. Am I free to mosey on?”

“Sure. You don’t aim to give me a shave, do you?”

They both laughed, and as Longarm took his place in the chair, the younger man left. Longarm stared after him thoughtfully until his booted footfalls faded up the walk outside. The barber brought a hot towel, but Longarm motioned it away and said, “Ain’t got much time, George. Just run your blade through this stubble and I’ll be on my way. Don’t want to report in late again and I ain’t had breakfast yet.”

The barber nodded and started to swivel the chair around to face the Mirror.

Longarm shook his head and said, “Leave her facing the doorway, George.”

“You still edgy about that young cowboy, Mister Long? He looked harmless enough to me.”

“Yeah. He said he was from Texas, too. I’ll take this shave sitting tall, if it’s all the same to you.”

The barber shrugged and went to work. He knew the deputy wasn’t a man for small talk in the morning, so he lathered Longarm silently, wondering what he’d missed in the exchange just now.

The barber was still stropping his razor when the open doorway suddenly darkened. The youth who’d apparently left for good was back, with the Walker-Colt gripped in both hands and his red face twisted with hate.

Longarm fired three times as he rose, pumping lead through the barber’s cloth from the short muzzle of the.44 he’d been holding in his lap, as the barber dove for cover. When George Masters raised his head, Longarm was standing in the doorway, the cloth still hanging from his neck and the smoking .44 in his big right fist as he stared morosely down at the figure sprawled on the wet sandstone paving in the soft summer rain. Masters joined the lawman to stare down in wonder at the death-glazed eyes of the stranger who’d left his Walker Colt inside on the tiles as he fell. Masters gasped, “How did YOu know, Mister Long?”

Longarm shrugged and said, “Didn’t, for certain. He’s changed a mite since I arrested him down in the Indian Nation four or five summers back. He shouldn’t have said he was from Texas. It came to me who he was as he was walking away. He was wearing high plains spurs. That’s how he come back so quiet. Most Texans favor spurs that jingle when they walk. His hat was wrong for Texas, too.”

“My God, then you was waiting for him all the time?”

“Nope. just careful. Like I said, it was a good five years back and I could have been wrong. A man in my line arrests a lot of folks in five years.”

Their discussion was broken off by the arrival of a uniformed roundsman of the Denver police department. He elbowed through the crowd Of People by now gathering around the body on the walk and sighed, “I hope somebody here has an explanation for all this.”

Longarm identified himself and explained what had happened, adding, “here’s what’s left of one Robert Jackson. He’d changed his name bass-akwards to Jack Robinson but he hadn’t learned much since I beat him to the draw a few years back. He’d gunned a Seminole down in the Indian Nation and was supposed to be doing twenty years at hard labor in Leavenworth. I don’t know what he was doing in Denver, but, as you see, he don’t figure to cause nobody much bother.”

“You’re going to have to come down to the station house and help us make out a report, Deputy Long. I hope you don’t take it personal. I’m just doing my job.”

“I know. I got a job to do myself, so let’s get cracking. The boss is going to cloud up and rain all over me if I come in late again this morning.”

The sky had cleared by the time Longarm left the police station and resumed his walk up Colfax Avenue. Up on Capitol Hill the gilded dome of the Colorado State House glinted in the rain-washed sunlight, but the civic center, like the rest of Denver’s business district, nestled in the hollow between Capitol Hill to the east and the Front Range of the Rockies, fifteen miles to the west.

Longarm came to the U.S. Mint at Cherokee and Colfax and swung around the corner to walk to the federal courthouse. He saw he was late as he elbowed his way through the halls filled with officious-looking dudes waving legal briefs and smelling of macassar hair oil. He climbed a marble staircase and made his way to a big oak door whose gold leaf lettering read, UNITED STATES MARSHAL, FIRST DISTRICT COURT OF COLORADO.

Longarm went inside, where he found a new face seated at a roll-top desk, pounding at the keys of a newfangled engine they called a typewriter. Longarm nodded down at the pink-faced young man and said, “You play that thing pretty good. Is the chief in the back?”

“Marshal Vail is in his office, sir. Whom shall I say is calling?”

“Hell, he knows who I am. I only asked was he in.”

Longarm moved over to an inner doorway, ignoring the clerk as he bleated, “You can’t go in unannounced, sir!”

Longarm opened the door without knocking and went in. He found his superior, Marshal Vail, seated behind a pile of papers on a flat-topped mahogany desk.

Vail looked up with a harassed expression and growled, “You’re late. Be with you in a minute. They’ve got me buried under a blizzard that just blowed in from Washington!”

Longarm sat on the arm of a morocco leather chair across the desk from his superior and chewed his unlit cheroot to wait him out. It seemed that all he ever did these days was wait. A banjo clock on the oak-paneled wall ticked away at his life while Longarm counted the stars in the flag pinned flat on the wall over Vail’s balding head. Longarm knew there were thirty-eight states in the Union these days, but his eyes like to keep busy and the marshal wasn’t much to look at.

In his day, Marshal Billy Vail had shot it out with Comanche, Owlhoots, and, to hear him tell it, half of Mexico. Right now he was running to lard and getting that baby-pink political look Longarm associated with the Courthouse Gang. There was something to be said for working in the field, after all. Vail wasn’t more than ten or fifteen years older than Longarm. It was sobering for Longarm to think that he might start looking like that by the turn of the century if he wasn’t careful about his personal habits.

Vail found the papers he was looking for and frowned up at Longarm, saying, “You’ve missed the morning train to Cheyenne, God damn your eyes! What’s your tall tale this time, or did you think this office opened at noon?”

“You know a feller called Bob Jackson supposed to be doing time in Leavenworth?”

“Oh, you heard about his escape, eh? He’s been reported as far west as here and I’ve got Cottin and Bryan looking for him on the street.”

“You can tell ‘em to quit looking. He’s bedded down peaceable in the Denver morgue. I shot him on the way to work.”

“You what? What happened? Where did you spot him?”

“I reckon it’s fair to say he spotted me. He must have taken it personal when I arrested him that time, but I can’t say his brains or gun hand had improved worth mentioning. The Denver P.D.’s doing the paper work for us. What’s this about a train to Cheyenne?”

“Slow down. You’re going to have to make a full report before you leave town on the escaped prisoner you just Caught up with.”

“All right, I’ll jaw with that jasper you have playing the typewriter out front before I leave. Who are we after in Wyoming Territory?”

Vail sighed and said, “I’m sending you to a place called Crooked Lance. Ever hear of it?”

“Cow town, a day’s ride north of the U.P. stop at Bitter Creek? I’ve seen it on the map. I worked out of Bitter Creek during the Shoshone uprising a few years back, remember?”

“That’s the place. Crooked Lance is an unincorporated township on federally owned range in West Wyoming Territory. They’re holding a man with a Federal want on him. His name’s Cotton Younger. Here’s his arrest record.”

Longarm took the sheet of yellow foolscap and scanned it, musing aloud, “Ornery pissant, ain’t he? Says here Queen Victoria has a claim on him for raping and gunning a Red River breed. What are we after him for, the postal clerk he gunned in Nebraska or this thing about deserting the Seventh Cav during Terry’s Rosebud Campaign against the Dakotas?”

“Both. More important, Cotton Younger is reputed to be related to Cole Younger, of the James-Younger Gang. Cole Younger’s salted away for life after the gang made a mess of that bank holdup in Minnesota a couple of years back. Frank and Jesse James are still at large, and wanted for everything but leprosy.”

Longarm hesitated before he nodded and said, “I can see why you’d like to have a talk with this Cotton Younger, Chief, but does picking up and transporting a prisoner rate a deputy with my seniority?”

“I didn’t think so, either, at first. You know Deputy Kincaid, used to work out of the Missouri office?”

“Know him to say howdy. He working this case with me?”

“Not exactly. Like you said, it seemed a simple enough chore for a new hand. So I sent Kincaid up there two weeks ago.”

“What happened?”

“That’s what I want you to find out. I can’t get through to Crooked Lance by wire. Western Union says the line is down in the mountains and both Kincaid and his prisoner are long overdue.”

Longarm consulted his watch and said, “I can catch the afternoon Burlington to Cheyenne, transfer to the transcontinental U.P. and maybe pick up a mount before I get off at Bitter Creek. Who do I report to in Crooked Lance?”

“Wyoming Territory was sort of vague about that. Like I said, the settlement’s in unincorporated territory. Apparently a local vigilance committee caught Cotton Younger riding through with a running iron in his saddle bags and ran him in as a cow thief. They were holding him in some sort of improvised jail when they asked the territorial government for a hanging permit. Wyoming wired us, and from there on you know as much as I do.”

“vigilantes picked him up, you say? He’s lucky he’s still breathing regular. I don’t care all that much for vigilantes. Not many left, these days.”

“I gathered the folks in Crooked Lance are leery of lynch law, too. I’d say their so-called committee is just an ad hoc bunch of local cowmen. The town itself is a handful of shacks around a post office and general store. I don’t know how in the hell Kincaid could have got lost up there.”

Longarm got to his feet and said, “Only one way to find out. If the wire’s up when I get there I’ll let you know what happened. If it ain’t, I won’t. Figure on me being back in about a week. I’ll need some expense vouchers and a railroad pass, too.”

“My secretary will take care of that before you leave. Would you like to take a couple of extra hands with you?”

“I work as well alone, Chief. No sense getting spooked till we find out what happened. Kincaid and his prisoner might well be on their way this very minute and I’d play the fool tearassing in at the head of a posse for no good reason.”

“You handle it as you’ve a mind to, but for God’s sake, be careful. I don’t aim to lose two deputies to… to whatever!”

As Longarm was leaving, Marshal Vail called after him, “Damn it, son, you might have offered me an educated guess to chew on while I’m waiting here!”

Longarm turned in the doorway to say, “If I knew any more than you I’d likely be able to save myself the trip, Chief. You ain’t paying me to guess. As I see it, I’m to go and fetch them two old boys.”

“I’m going to be sweating bullets anyway, until you come back with some reasonable explanation. You said a week, right? What am I to do if you don’t come back in a week?”

Longarm considered before he shrugged and said, “Don’t know, but it won’t be my problem, will it?”

“What do you mean, it won’t be your problem? Are you saying you’ll be back in a week unless you’re no longer alive?”

Longarm didn’t answer. That was the trouble with men who worked behind an office desk. Instead of thinking, they got into the habit of asking all sorts of foolish questions.

CHAPTER 2

Longarm sat alone on a green plush seat near the rear of the passenger car of the U.P. local-combine. Somewhere up ahead the Wyoming sun was going down. He smoked a cheroot and stared out the dirty window with one booted foot braced against the cast-iron frame of the empty seat facing him. The train was climbing the Rocky Mountains, but you couldn’t tell. The sunset-tented scene outside seemed gently rolling prairie, for the snow-clad spine of the Continental Divide dipped under a vast mountain meadow near South Pass. Some accident of geology had left an annex of the high plains cattle country stranded in the sky.

The Indians had found this easy way through the Shining Mountains long before they’d shown it to the mountain men, who’d mapped it for the covered wagon trains and, twenty years later, the transcontinental railroad.

Longarm wasn’t crossing the continent. He was about an hour and a half from the jerkwater stop at Bitter Creek, at the rate they were moving. He hoped there’d be a tolerable hotel in Bitter Creek; he planned on a good night’s sleep between clean sheets, and if possible, a bath, before he spurred a horse for Crooked Lance. He was hoping someone there might know where the fool town was; Longarm had a War Department survey map saying it was one place, while the map he’d asked the land office for had it in another. Either way, it was a good distance to ride on a fool’s errand.

A voice pitched high, with a slight lisp, asked, “Are you a cowboy, mister?” and Longarm swung his eyes from the window to stare morosely at what had climbed up on the seat facing him. It had long blond curls, but was wearing a velvet Little Lord Fauntleroy suit, so it was probably a boy. Longarm remembered seeing the child get on with a not-bad-looking gal in a feathered hat at Medicine Bow, so the sissy-looking kid was liable to be hers. Longarm decided the father had to be damned ugly, if that pretty little thing down at the other end of the car had given birth to anything so tedious to look at.

The prissy little boy repeated his question and Longarm, remembering his manner, smiled crookedly and answered, “I’m sorry, Sonny. But I ain’t a cowboy. Ain’t no Injun, either.”

“You look like a cowboy. We saw some cowboys riding horses back near that last town. My name is Cedric and I’m almost seven and when I grow up I’m going to be a cowboy!”

Longarm’s face softened, for he’d been seven once, so he nodded soberly and said, “You look like you have the makings of a top hand, Cedric. You ever ride a bronc?”

“Well, I used to have a pony, before my daddy had to go away with the angels of the Lord.”

“Oh? Well, I’m purely sorry about that, sonny. It’s been nice meeting up with you, but don’t you think you’d better go back and keep your mother company?”

Cedric pulled his tiny feet up on the green plush, stood on the seat, and shouted down the length of the car, “Mommy! Mommy! Can I stay here and talk to this cowboy?”

Heads turned and a rustling of soft laughter filled the car as Longarm wondered if crawling under the seat might seem too obvious a way to vanish. Only half the seats were filled, this far out on the local run, but everyone on earth seemed to be looking his way.

Before the brat could yell again, the woman seated near the front of the car got up and moved their way, her pretty face mortified under the bouncing feathers of her black-veiled hat. Longarm now noticed that she was wearing black widow’s weeds and that she moved nicely, edging around the potbellied stove in the center of the car. As she came nearer, the deputy rose from his seat, took the cheroot from his mouth and tipped his Stetson, murmuring, “Your servant, Ma’am.”

“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she replied, as Longarm tried to decide if she was blushing or just glowing prettily in the red light of evening.

She took Cedric by the shoulder and shook him gently, as she warned him in a low tone, “I’ve told you a hundred times it’s not refined to shout like that, darling!”

“Aw, hell, Mom, I was just talking to the cowboy!”

A few seats away a man tried not to laugh out loud and failed, and this time the woman seemed really flustered. Longarm pointed at the seat across from his and muttered, “Why don’t we all set? We’ll be stopping soon and your Cedric ain’t fretting me all that much.”

The woman hesitated, then took a seat by her noisy darling, not looking at Longarm as she murmured, “I’m not in the habit of speaking to strangers, sir, but… oh, Cedric, what am I to do with you?”

Privately, Longarm had considered a good sound birching as good a way to start as any. Aloud, he said, “I know I’m a stranger, ma’am, but if it’s any help to you, I’m a Deputy United States Marshal, so it ain’t like you’ve fallen in with thieves, should anyone ask.”

Cedric chortled, “Oh, boy, a sheriff!”

More to shut him up than with any idea that it might be of interest, Longarm corrected, “No, sonny, a marshal ain’t no sheriff. You’ll understand it better when you grow up.” He didn’t add, “if.” The poor young widow woman had enough on her plate as it was.

The lady pursed her lips as if coming to a brave decision before she said, “Allow me to introduce myself to you, Marshal. I am Mabel Hanks, widow to the late Ruben Hanks of Saint Louis. You’ve met my son, Cedric, to my considerable mortification.”

“Well, I’m Custis Long and pleased to meet you both and he’ll likely outgrow it, ma’am. Are you getting off at Bitter Creek?”

“Yes, my late husband has a sister there. Or, rather, she and her husband live just north of there, at a place called Crooked Lance.”

“Do tell? I hope somebody’s meeting you, then. Crooked Lance is more than a day’s ride from where we’re all getting off.”

Mabel Hanks looked stricken as she flustered, “Oh, dear, I had no idea! How on earth will we ever get there? You don’t suppose I’ll be able to hire a hansom cab in Bitter Creek, do you, Mister Long?”

“Not likely. Don’t your kinfolks know you’re comin’?”

“I’m not sure. My sister-in-law was very gracious to invite us to come and live with her, and frankly, we have little other choice right now. We, ummm, were not left in very gentle circumstances by my late husband’s unexpected passing.”

“My daddy made beer in Saint Louis,” Cedric offered in a piping voice, adding for the whole car to hear, “The angels of the Lord took him when a streetcar ran over him one morning.”

“Cedric, dear heart, will you please be still?”the mother gasped. She looked as if she were about to cry. Longarm quickly cut in with, “You say you’re coming out invited, ma’am. Can I take it you wrote your kin what train they could expect you to arrive on?”

“Of course. The railroad was a bit hazy on just when, but I sent them a telegram by Western Union when we boarded at Omaha.”

“You sent the wire to Crooked Lance, ma’am?”

“Of course. Western Union says there’s an office there. Is something wrong? Forgive me for presuming, but I seem to detect an odd look in your eye, sir.”

Longarm shrugged and said, “May as well come right out and say it, then. The telegraph line’s been down for some time, ma’am.”

“You mean they couldn’t have gotten my message? They won’t be waiting for us? Oh, dear! Oh, what are we to do? What’s to become of us?”

Longarm could see more heads turning as the widow matched her infernal brat’s damned noise with considerable attention-getting near-hysterics of her own. He quickly soothed, “Now simmer down, ma’am. It’s not all that big a shucks! Your kin will be there. Crooked Lance is only out of touch, not swallowed up by wolves!”

“Yes, but they won’t be waiting for us at the station in Bitter Creek, and you say there are no cabs, and… oh, Lord, I don’t know what we’re to do!”

“Well, now, let’s just eat the apple a bite at a time, ma’am. I’ll help you get your things from the station to the hotel once we arrive, which shouldn’t be all that long now. Once you’ve et and bedded down Cedric here, we can ask about Bitter Creek for friends of your kin or something. Shucks, there’s a chance someone from Crooked Lance will be there.”

“But what if…”

“Don’t cross your bridges before you come to ‘em, ma’am. At the very worst, you’ll arrive in Bitter Creek unexpected and have to spend a day or so at the hotel ‘til your kinfolks know you’re there and send a buckboard to fetch you. As to how they’ll know, I’ll tell ‘em. I’ll be riding to Crooked Lance come sunup, and if you give me a message for anyone in Crooked Lance, I’ll likely deliver it within a day or so.”

Cedric grinned and asked, “Can’t we go to see Aunt Polly with you, Mister?”

It was a fool question, but Longarm saw that the widow seemed to think the kid’s question made sense, so he shook his head and said, “Not hardly. The army mount I borrowed from Fort Laramie is alone with my saddle and trail gear in the freight section behind us. Don’t seem likely the three of us would fit comfortably in a McClellan saddle, and if we could, the old army bay couldn’t carry us far enough to matter.” To the widow he added, “I’ve already thought of a hired buckboard, ma’am, and I’d be proud to give you a lift, if I had any idea where the town was and how much trouble I’d have getting there.”

He saw the hope in her eyes as she insisted, “Forgive my boldness, but, as you see, I’m desperate. We’d be willing to take our possible discomforts with good grace, if only…”

“You might be, but I wouldn’t, ma’am,” Longarm, cut in explaining, “You see, I’m not paying a social call in Crooked Lance. I’m on U.S. Government business and, while I’ll be pleased to tell your kin where to find you, there’s no way I could see fit to expose you and the boy here to possible danger.”

“Danger?” she gasped, “I had no idea! Are you going to Crooked Lance to arrest someone?”

“Let’s say I’m just having a looksee, ma’am. I don’t mind talking about my self, but Uncle Sam’s business is sort of private. No offense intended, but we do have these fool regulations.”

“Oh, I understand, sir. Forgive my stupidity! I never meant to pry!”

The conductor saved Longarm from having to think up a gracious answer as he came through the car, calling out, “Next stop Bitter Creek, folks! We’ll be pulling in about ten minutes from now. Please have your selves ready to detrain sudden, as we ain’t stopping to jerk water on the downgrade!”

“We’d better go back to our seats,” the widow said, but she didn’t seem to be moving. She licked her lips and, not looking at him, asked, “Is, uh, this hotel in Bitter Creek liable to be expensive, sir?”

“Don’t know. Never stayed there before.”

“You don’t suppose they’d charge more than a dollar a night, do you?”

“Dollar a night’s pretty steep, for a trail town hotel much less. Can’t hardly be much more, ma’am.”

“Oh. You’re sure you’ll be able to reach Crooked Lance in two days at the most?”

“No, ma’am, I said I aimed to try.”

“Oh, dear.”

If she’d been leading up to it, she was pretty slick. He stared at her for a long hard minute, then he shrugged and said, “If you need a loan, just till I can get word to your kinfolks…”

“Sir!” she gasped. “Whatever are you suggesting?”

“Ain’t suggesting. Offering. Seems to me you and the boy, here, are in a pickle. I won’t insult no lady with numbers, but if you’ll let me put a few day’s room and board on my own tab…”

“That’s out of the question, sir! I can see you are a gentleman and I understand your offer was meant in kind innocence, but, really…!”

“Let’s say no more, then ma’am. It was a fool thing to say to a lady.”

For the first time she smiled at Longarm, lighting up the dusk-filled space between them a bit, as she said, “On the contrary, it was… well, I’d hardly call it gallant, but I understand, and I think you are a very sweet person, Mister Long.”

Longarm looked out the window, redfaced, and said, “I see some lights up ahead. We’re pulling in to Bitter Creek. Would you be likely to cloud up and rain all over me if I helped you with your things?”

This time she laughed, a pretty skylark laugh, and said, “I’d be honored if you escorted us to the hotel Mister Long.”

Longarm got to his feet to follow as she rose and moved back to her own seat for their luggage, with little Cedric in her wake between them. Longarm noticed that she had a nice, trim waistline too. If only she didn’t have that ugly little kid with her… Under his breath, he muttered to himself, “Now just you back off, old son! They didn’t send us up here to spark a widow woman, ugly kid or no! How are you going to get them, their luggage and your own mount and gear unloaded without losing more’n half of it? Damn that prissy kid. What’s he gotten you into, anyway? Don’t you know better than to talk to strangers on a train?”

CHAPTER 3

The hotel in Bitter Creek wasn’t much, but it was the only one they had. After checking the widow and her son into one room and himself into another, and ignoring the leer in the old desk-clerks eye, Longarm went out, leaving her and the boy at the hotel and his army bay in the livery stable next door.

It was still early evening and the streets of Bitter Creek were crowded, not because there were a lot of people in town but because the town was so small. Nobody around the hotel had ever heard of the Widow Hanks or her in-laws at Crooked Lance. It was hard enough to find someone who’d admit there might be a place called Crooked Lance, “a day or so up yonder.” That wasn’t much help.

Longarm strode down the plank walks until he came to the town marshal’s office and went in. The deputy he found seated at a packing-crate desk seemed impressed by his federal badge and willing to help. So Longarm hooked his rump over the corner of the improvised desk and asked where in thunder Crooked Lance might be, adding, “This place I’m looking for is downright spooky, Deputy! You tell me it’s been shifted again…”

“Hell, we got it on a map over on the wall, Deputy Long. You wouldn’t be the one they call Longarm, would you?”

“You can call me that. You can call me anything but late for breakfast if you’ll answer some questions.”

“I figured you was Longarm. That Jasper they’re holding up in Crooked Lance must be somebody important, huh?”

“You know about Cotton Younger up in the Crooked Lance jail?”

“Sure. All sorts of people have been coming through here looking for him. I’ve been showing ‘em the same map you see on yonder wall. Seems like a lot of fuss and feathers over a cow thief, if you ask me!”

“Did another Deputy U.S. Marshal pass this way, asking for directions to wherever?”

“Sure, couple of weeks back. You looking for him, too?”

“Maybe. Was his name Kincaid?”

“Yep, now that you mention it, that’s who I think he said he was.”

“All right. We know Kincaid got as far as here and was last seen headed up to Crooked Lance. Who were these others you say were interested in that old boy they have up there?”

The deputy considered before he replied, “Don’t remember the names. There was a feller from the Provost Marshal’s Office, War Department, I think he said he rode for. Then there was this lawman from Missouri, county sheriff I think. Oh, yeah, and there was one real funny lookin’ jasper in the damndest looking outfit you ever saw. Had on a red jacket. I mean blinding red! Ain’t that a bitch?”

“Northwest Mounted Police!”

“Don’t think so. He said he was from Canada. what in hell did that poor cow thief up there do?”

“Enough to get a lot of folks riled at him. Funny nobody seems to have gotten to him, though! Tell me what you know about Crooked Lance.”

The other lawman shrugged and said, “Ain’t much to tell. Just a two-bit crossroads. Ain’t hardly a proper town, like Bitter Creek.”

“It’s my understanding this Cotton Younger’s being held by a vigilance committee. How does your boss feel about vigilantes operating in his neck of the woods?”

“Don’t make no nevermind to us. Crooked Lance is a long, hard ride from here. Besides, they ain’t what you’d call mean vigilantes. Just some old boys who keep an eye out for road agents, cow thieves, and such. They’ve never given folks hereabouts no trouble.”

“Do you know who runs things up there?”

“Hell, nobody runs Crooked Lance. It’s just a wide spot in the road. There’s a post office and the storekeeper tends the wire for Western Union, when the line’s up. There’s no schoolhouse, no city hall or nothing. It’s just sort of where the stockmen shop a mite and get together to spit and whittle of a quiet afternoon.”

“How come it rates a telegraph office, then?”

“That’s easy. The stockmen have to keep in touch about the price of beef. They ship beef here at Bitter Creek, but they have to know when to herd it down out of the high country.”

“Makes sense. Got any ideas on why that wire’s down?”

“Ain’t got idea one. Some fellers from Western Union rode out a few days ago to fix it. Next night it went out again. Likely high winds. This whole country’s halfwaY to heaven, you know. Hardly a month goes by without at least some snow in the high parts hereabouts.”

“Been having summer blizzards this year?”

“No, not real blizzards. But, as you’ll likely see when YOu study yonder map, there’s some rough country between here and Crooked Lance. Wire could get blowed out a dozen ways in as many stretches of the trail. The valley Crooked Lance sets in is lower and warmer, half the year. But it’s sort of cut off when the weather turns ornery.”

“Telegraph office open here in Bitter Creek?”

“Should be. Doubt you’ll get through to Crooked Lance, though. Feller I know with Western Union says they’ve given up for now. Said they’d wait ‘til the company decides on a full reconstruction job. Figures they’re wasting money fixing a line strung on old poles through such wild country. Said they’d likely get around to it next year or so.”

“I’ll get Western Union’s story. later. You know any names to go with the folks up in Crooked Lance?”

“Let’s see, there’s the Lazy K, the Rocking H, the Seven Bar Seven…”

“Damn it, I ain’t going up there to talk to cows! Who in thunder owns them spreads up there?”

“Folks back east, mostly. The town’s hardly there to mention, but the outfits are big whopping spreads, mostly owned by cattle syndicates from Chicago, Omaha, New York City, and such. I understand the Lazy K belongs to some fellers in Scotland. Ain’t that a bitch?”

“I know about the cattle boom. Let’s try it another way. You say they ship the beef from here. Don’t somebody drive them herds to Bitter Creek?”

“Well, sure. Once, twice a year they run a consolidated herd over the passes to our railroad yards. The buyers from the eastern meat packers bid on ‘em as they’re sorted and tallied in the yards. Easier to cut a herd amongst corrals and loading chutes, so…”

“I know how to tally cows, damn it. Don’t any of the Crooked Lance riders have names?”

“Reckon so. Most folks do. Only one springs to mind is the one they call Timberline. He’s the tally boss. I disremember what the others are called. They mostly go by Billy, Jim, Tex and such.”

“Tally boss is usually a pretty big man in the neighborhood, since the others have to elect him. You know this Timberline’s last name?”

“Nope. But you’re right about him being big. Old Timberline’s nigh seven feet tall in his Justins. Seems to be a good-natured cuss, though. The others hoorah him about having snow on his peak, ask him how the weather is up yonder around his nose and stuff like that, but Timberline never gets testy.”

“But he’s in charge when the Crooked Lance hands are in town?”

“If anybody is, it’s him. He’s the ramrod of the Rocking H, now that I think on it. I think it was Rocking H hands who caught that cow thief of yours.” He paused to think, then nodded, and added, “Yep, it’s comin’ back to me now. They found him holed up in the timber with a running iron on him. Dragged him into town for a necktie party, only some of the folks up there said it wasn’t right to hang a stranger without a trial. From there on you know as much as myself.”

Longarm saw that they were tracking over the same ground again, so he got to his feet and said, “I’ll just have a look at your survey and be on my way, then.”

He strode over to the large, yellowed map nailed to the wall and studied it until he found a dot lettered “Crooked Lance.” It was nowhere near the locations given by the conflicting government surveys, but Longarm figured that the folks here in Bitter Creek had the best chance of being right. He ran a finger along the paper from Bitter Creek to Crooked Lance, noting forks in the trail and at least three mountain passes he’d have to remember. Then he stepped back for an overall view. The sudden movement saved his life.

The window to his right exploded in a cloud of broken glass as what sounded like an angry hornet hummed through the space he’d just occupied to slam into the far wall! As Longarm dropped to the floor, the deputy marshal rolled backwards, bentwood chair and all, and from where he lay on his back, shot out the overhead light as another bullet from outside buzzed in through the broken window. Meanwhile, Longarm had crabbed sideways across the floor to another window, gun in hand.

As he risked a cautious peek over the windowsill the other lawman crawled over to join him, whispering, “See anything?”

“Nope. Everyone outside’s dove for cover. There’s light in the saloon across the street, so they ain’t in there. You move pretty good, Deputy.”

“I’ve been shot at before. You reckon they’re after you or me?”

“I’d say it’s on me, this time. How do you feel about that narrow slit between the east end of the saloon and the blank wall over there?”

“That’s where I’d be, if I was shooting at folks hereabouts. I’ll scoot out the back way and circle in while you mind the store, savvy?”

Longarm considered it before he answered. He was the senior officer and it was his play. On the other hand the local lawman knew the lay of the land and it was pretty dark out there. Longarm said, “Go ahead. I’ll try to make up something interesting to keep ‘em looking this way.”

As the deputy crawled away in the dark and Longarm heard the creak of an invisible door hinge, he moved to one side and gingerly raised the sash of the other, unbroken window. Nothing happened, so he risked another peek. Then he swore.

The street was filled with people now, and a burly figure with a tin star pinned to his chest was clumping right toward him, gun in hand, and shouting, “Hey, Morg! You all right in there, son?”

Longarm got to his feet and stood in a shaft of light from outside, holstering his own gun as the door burst open. What was obviously the missing deputy’s superior officer froze, in the doorway, his gun pointed at Longarm, and asked, “You have a tale to tell me, Mister?”

“Deputy Morgan and me are friends, Marshal. He’s out trying to get behind somebody who just busted your window. He should be back directly.”

“I heard shots and come running. What’s it all about?”

“Don’t know. Them who did the shooting never said. By the way, your young sidekick’s pretty good. He had the light out before they’d fired twice. Sounded like they was after us with a.30-30.”

“Old Morg’s good enough, I reckon. How’d you get so good at reading gunshots, Mister? I disremember who you said you was.”

Longarm introduced himself and brought the town marshal up to date. By the time he’d finished, the marshal had put his gun away and Deputy Morgan had crossed the street to rejoin them.

Morgan nodded to his boss and said to Longarm, long gone, but you figured right about that alleyway. Way I read the signs, it was one feller with a rifle. Had on high-heel, maybe Mexican, boots.”

The deputy held out a palm with two spent cartridges as he added, “Looks like he packs a bolt-action.30-30. Funny thing to use in a gun fight, ain’t it?”

Longarm shrugged and said, “I’d say he was out for sniping, not fighting. The heel marks over there say much about the size and weight of anybody?”

“Wasn’t anybody very big or very small. I’d say, aside from the fancy boots and deer rifle, most any hand for miles around could be made to fit. Dirt in the alleyway was packed hard. Feller in army boots like yours wouldn’t have left any sign at all.”

The older Bitter Creek lawman said, “Whoever it was has likely packed it in for now. The whole town’s looking for him. Morg, you’d best start cleaning up this mess in here. I’ll mosey around town and see if anybody spied the cuss. They’d remember a stranger in Mexican heels.”

Longarm asked, “What if one of your local town men walked past in three-inch heels, maybe with a rifle in hand?”

“Don’t think so. Folks don’t take much notice of folks they know.”

“I’d say you’re right. How many men in town would you say could fit the bill?”

“Hell, at least a baker’s dozen. Lots of riders wear Mexican heels and half the men in town own deer rifles. But I’ll ask around, anyway. There’s always a chance, ain’t there?”

Longarm nodded, but he didn’t think the chances were good. By now, if anyone in Bitter Creek had any suspicion of who’d shot out their own town marshal’s window, they’d have come forward. Unless, of course, they knew, but didn’t aim to say.

CHAPTER 4

The clerk at the Western Union office gave Longarm much the same tale about the line to Crooked Lance as the deputy had. Longarm took advantage of the visit to wire a terse report to Marshal Vail in Denver. He brought his superior up to date and added that the big frog in the Crooked Lance puddle seemed to be a very tall rider called Timberline. It was the only information Vail might not have about the murky situation. They knew in Denver that Kincaid had gotten this far. At a nickel a word it was pointless to verify it.

Leaving the Western Union office, Longarm headed for the hotel the hard way. The sniper with the.30-30 could have been after the local law, but he doubted it. if someone was trying to keep him from getting to Crooked Lance, it meant they knew who he was. If they knew who he was, they might know he was staying at the hotel.

So Longarm followed the cinder path between the railroad tracks and the dark, deserted cattle pens until he was beyond the hotel entrance on Main Street. He found a dark side street aimed the right way and followed it, crossing Main Street beyond the last lamppost’s feeble puddle of kerosene light. He explored his way to the alley he remembered as running through the hotel’s block, then, gun drawn, moved along it to the hotel’s rear entrance.

The alley door was unlocked. Longarm took a deep breath and opened it, stepping in swiftly and sliding his back along the wall to avoid being outlined against the feeble skyglow of the alley. He eased the door shut and moved along the pantryway to the foot of the stairs. Beyond, the shabby lobby was deserted, bathed in the flickering orange glow of a night lamp. The room clerk was likely in his quarters, since there’d be little point in tending the desk before the next train stopped a few blocks away.

Longarm climbed the stairs silently on the balls of his feet and let himself into his rented room with the hotel key he’d insisted on holding on to. He struck a match with his thumbnail and lit the candle stub on the dressing table. There was no need to fret about the window shade. He’d chosen a side room facing the blank wall of the building next door and had pulled the shade before going out. But a man in his line of work had to consider everything, so he picked up the candlestick and placed it on the floor below the window. There was no chance, now, of its dim light casting his shadow on the shade, no matter how he moved about the room.

The room was tiny, even for a frontier hotel. The bed was one of those funny contraptions that folded up into the wall. Longarm opened the swinging doors and pulled the bed down, sitting on it to consider his next move.

His keen ears picked up the sound of voices from the head of the fold-down bed. The widow and little Cedric were in the next room and the partition between the folding beds was a single sheet of plywood. Be interesting, Longarm thought, to stay in this hotel when honeymooners were bedded down next door. The widow was talking low to her son, likely telling him a bedtime story. When one of them moved he could hear their bedsprings creak.

He remembered saying something about having a bite with the woman and her child. But it was later than he’d figured on and it didn’t make much sense to take a lady to dinner with a rifleman skulking around out there. It sounded like they were in bed, anyway. He had the names of her Crooked Lance kin written down on an envelope she’d given him, so there was no sense pestering her further.

Longarm looked at his pocket watch. It was getting on toward nine o’clock. He put himself in the boots of the rifleman and studied hard. If the sniper still meant business, he’d be likely to wait around until… midnight? Yeah, midnight was a long, lonesome stretch and it would be cold as hell out there by then, at this altitude. Sensible move for the sniper would be to hole up for a while and make another try at sunup. He’d told lots of folks he was riding out at dawn. The livery stable? It would make more sense for him to be waiting up the trail to Crooked Lance, where nobody in town would hear a gunshot. The sniper would want to be there first, so… yes, he knew what to do, now.

Longarm stood up and got undressed, spreading his clothes and belongings with care, to be ready to move out suddenly after a few hours of rest. He was down to nothing but his flannel shirt when someone rapped softly on his door.

Longarm hauled out his.44 and slid over to the doorway, standing well to one side as he asked, softly, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Mabel Hanks! I’ve been so worried! I heard there was a shooting, and…”

“Nobody hurt, ma’am. I’m purely sorry we couldn’t have dinner and all but having folks shooting at me goes with the job.”

“May I come in for a moment?”

“Ma’am, I ain’t decent. I just took off my britches.”

She laughed softly and asked, coyly, “Not even a shimmy shirt? I can’t sleep and, well…”

Longarm considered, then he decided, what the hell, he’d told her, hadn’t he, and unlocked the door.

Mabel Hanks slipped in and shut the door behind her, turning her eyes away from his long, naked legs as she murmured, “You must think me shameless.” He did, since she’d let her long, brown hair down and was wearing a long pink cotton nightgown and fluffy bedroom slippers, but he said, “I’ll snuff the candle so’s we can talk without fluster. You must have something pretty important on your mind.”

As he crossed the room to drop gingerly to one naked knee and pinch out the candle with his fingertips, he noticed that she’d taken a seat on the foot of his bed. it was getting pretty difficult to take this situation in any way but a pretty earthy one, but in country matters, as in all others, Longarm moved cautiously. There was always that one chance in a hundred that a gal was simply stupid about menfolks. She didn’t look like a loose woman.

He stood over her in the almost total darkness, putting his gun away as he asked, “What’s little Cedric up to at the moment, ma’am?”

“He’s fast asleep, the poor darling. I’m afraid the long trip tired him.”

“You ain’t tired all that much, eh?”

“I’m afraid I’m not. It’s difficult to fall asleep in a strange place … alone.” Then she blurted out, “Heavens, what am I saying? I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”

Longarm moved over to the door and locked it.

She gasped, “What are you doing, sir?”

“Just making sure we don’t get shot. The key’s in the lock, when you’re ready to leave, ma’am.”

“Oh, I thought…”

“What can I do for you, ma’am? You’re purely beating about the bush like you thought a wounded grizzly was holed up in it.”

“I’ve been thinking about your offer of… well, help. This is terribly embarrassing, but I just counted out our remaining funds and, and, oh, Lord, this is all so sordid!”

Longarm fumbled for his pants and fished out a pair of ten-dollar eagles. He handed them to her in the dark, noticing how smooth her fingers were, as she suddenly took his hand in both of hers and pressed a cheek to it, sobbing, “Oh, bless you! I simply didn’t know what we were going to do!”

“Heck, it ain’t like I’m sending little Cedric through college, Ma’am. You can pay me back whenever you’ve a mind to. I don’t reckon there’s anything else you need, huh?”

Her voice was blushful in the dark as she said, “There is one thing more, but I just can’t bring myself to ask this.”

“You just ask away, Mabel. It pleasures most gents to be of service to a pretty gal.”

“WelL you know I’m a recent widow and… this is just terribly embarrassing, but my late husband used to help me out of my, um, corset.”

“Oh? Didn’t know you had one on. Not that I looked too close before. I snuffed the candle.”

She got to her feet, her scented hair near Longarm’s nostrils as she murmured, “I can’t get at the laces without help. It’s a new model with steel stays instead of whalebone and it’s cutting me in two! Would you think me shameless if I asked you to unlace me from the back?”

“I could give it a try, but I ain’t had much experience with such things. I’ve never worn one, myself.” He hesitated, wondering why his mouth felt so dry as he added, “Uh, how do I git at it?”

Mabel Hanks slipped the nightgown off over her head and dropped it on the bed, saying, “Don’t worry, I’m wearing a shift under the corset so it’s not as if… isn’t this silly? We’ve hardly met and here you are undressing me! Whatever must you be thinking?”

Longarm didn’t think it would be polite to say, so he kept his mouth shut as he ran his suddenly too-thick fingers along her spine, feeling for the knot of her corset laces. He noticed that her breathing had become rapid and shallow. He found the slip and untied it. She reached behind herself to guide his wrists as he unlaced her. The tight corset suddenly snapped free and fell to the floor. She took a deep breath and gasped, “Oh, that feels so good!” A woman really needs a man if she intends to dress fashionably, don’t you think?”

Longarm ran his hands up to her bare shoulders, turned her around, and hauled her in for a blindly aimed kiss. He missed her mouth on the first try, but she swung her moist lips to his, and for a long moment they just stood there, trying to melt into one another in the dark.

Then he picked her up and put her gently across the mattress, dropping himself alongside her as, still kissing, he ran his free hand down the front of her thin silk shift to the warm moisture between her trembling thighs. She tried to mutter something between their pressed-together lips as Longarm parted her knees with his own. And then he was in her, his bare feet on the rug and her hips almost hanging over the edge of the mattress as he drove hard and deep. She gasped and moved her face to one side, sobbing, “Whatever are you doing to me?” as her legs belied her protest by rising to lock firmly around the big man’s bouncing buttocks.

He came fast, stayed inside her, and moved them both farther onto the bed for a more comfortable second encounter, taking his time now, as their heaving flesh got better acquainted. She suddenly moaned and raked her nails along his back, almost tearing his shirt as she sobbed, “Oh, God! Oh, Jesus Christ! It’s been so long!”

She’d dropped her expected modesty completely now and was responding like a she-cougar in heat, digging her nails in and raising her knees until her heels were crossed behind Longarm’s neck. He was hitting bottom with every stroke, and eased off a bit, aware that he could be hurting her, but she pumped hard to meet his thrusts and growled, “All of it! I want it all inside me! Oh, Jesus, it’s coming again!”

He didn’t know which of them she meant, but it didn’t seem important as, this time, they had a long, shuddering mutual orgasm and she suddenly went limp. Longarm knew he was heavy, so after lying there long enough to catch his breath, he shifted his weight to his elbows and eased off a trifle.

She sighed, “Don’t move. Just let it soak inside me till we can do it some more. You’re still nice and hard. My, there certainly is a lot of you, isn’t there?”

“It’s been a while for me, too, Mabel.”

“I’m so happy, darling. I know you think I’m an absolute hussy, but I don’t care. I don’t care if you think this is what I had in mind all the time!”

“Didn’t you?”

She hesitated, then answered roguishly, “You know damned well I did, dear heart. Women may not be supposed to want such things, but I was married for nearly eight years and, well, I don’t care if you think I’m bawdy!”

“Hell, gal, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We just done what’s natural.”

“Can we do it again? This time I want to do it naked with me on top!”

Longarm rolled off her, slipped out of his shirt, and lay back, spread-eagled, as she tore off her last shreds of silk, and giggling like a naughty schoolgirl, climbed above him, with a knee by each of Longarm’s hip bones. She toyed with his moist erection, guiding herself onto it with her hands. He sighed with pleasure as she suddenly dropped her pelvis hard, taking it deep with a breathless hiss of her own.

And then she was moving. Moving up and down with amazing vigor as she leaned forward, swinging her nipples across Longarm’s face as she almost shouted, “Suck me! Suck my titties!”

He did, but not before he softly warned, “Take it easy You’ll wake the kid! That partition between our rooms is paper-thin!”

“I don’t care. He’s too young to know what we’re doing and he’s a sound sleeper anyway. Oh, dear God, isn’t this lovely?”

Longarm allowed that it was, but as he lay there, holding a nipple between his lips as she went wild, he heard a soft plop above the louder creaking of the bed springs. Longarm’s keen ears were educated. So he knew what it was. The key he’d left in the door had just fallen on to a sheet of paper!

Longarm ran a big hand under each of Mabel’s thighs and heaved, catapulting her up over him to crash, screaming, against the plywood partition at the head of the fold-down bed. At the same time, Longarm rolled off the mattress, grabbed the bed frame, and lifted hard, folding the bed, with Mabel in it, up into the wall.

Stark naked, he moved toward the door, snatching his.44 as he passed his gunbelt hooked over a chair. He heard running footsteps from the other side of the door, so he opened it and leaped sideways into the hallway, facing the stairwell in a low crouch for a split second to see nothing there, then pivoting fast to train his gun down the other end of the hallway. He saw that the door to Mabel Hanks’s room was ajar, spilling candlelight across the shabby carpeting. Longarm made the door in two bounds, hit it with a free elbow, and landed in the center of the room, back to the wall and facing the other fold-down bed. The bed was empty. It figured. Longarm grabbed the metal footrail of the bed and slammed it up into the wall. Then he covered the small, froglike figure who’d been hiding under it with the muzzle of his sixgun and said, “All right, you little son of a bitch, on your feet and grab some sky!”

Little Cedric without his blond wig was even uglier, and his voice was deeper as he got to his little feet, saying, “Take it easy, Longarm. I’m a lawman, too!”

“Let’s talk about it in my room. Your… mama is standing on her head against the wall. She’s likely got something to tell me, too!”

He frog-marched the midget out to the hall as the hotel’s desk clerk appeared at the far end, asking, “What in hell’s going on up here?”

Then he saw a full-grown naked man holding a.44 on what looked like a little boy in a velvet suit and decided to go away.

Longarm herded the creature called Cedric inside and slammed the door. Covering his odd captive as he bent to retrieve the door key from where it had landed on a sheet of newspaper, he shook his head and said, “Serves me right. I should have known better. Anybody can fox a key out of the inside keyhole to land on a paper shoved under the door. What were you fixing to do once you pulled it through on the paper, Cedric? You don’t look big enough to whup me with your fists. No offense, of course.”

“How’d you get on to us, Longarm?”

“Let’s see what you’re packing in that sissy little suit before we talk. Unless that’s a cow I hear bellowing inside the wall, your partner’s likely anxious to rejoin us.”

He frisked the midget, relieving him of a man-sized S&W Detective Special .38 and saying, “Shame on you, sonny!” before he motioned the dwarf to a seat in a far corner and, still covering him, relit the room’s candle. Then he went over to where Mabel Hanks was yelling curses through the mattress and pulled down the folding bed.

The naked woman rolled out of the wall and sat up, staring wildly around through the hair hanging over her face as she gasped, “What in the hell’s happening?”

Then she spotted the midget in the corner and sighed, “Oh, shit!”

“Let’s talk about it,” Longarm suggested. He saw the girl moving as if to get to her discarded nightgown and said, flatly, “You just stay put, honey. It ain’t like we’re strangers and have to be formally dressed. Either one of you can tell me who the hell you are, as long as somebody says something sudden.”

The one called Cedric said, “We’re private detectives. Our badges are in the other room. You want to see them?”

“I’ll take your word for it. Why were you detecting me? I don’t remember being wanted anywhere. Last time I looked, I was toting my own badge for Uncle Sam.”

Cedric said, “Hell, we know that. We’re out here after the reward.”

“What reward would that be, friend?”

“The one on Frank and Jesse James, of course. Our agency works for the railroad and the James-Younger Gang has been playing hell with their timetables. We was on our way to Crooked Lance, same as you, to fetch that Cotton Younger back to Missouri.”

“Don’t you mean to make a deal with him? Maybe a deal to spring him loose in exchange for Jesse James’s new address?”

The midget detective shot a weary glance at his naked female partner and sighed, “I told you they said he was a smart one, Mabel. Look what your hungry old snatch has gotten us into, this time!”

“Oh shut up, you little pissant! It’s not my fault! I told you you were overplaying your part!” She smiled timidly at Longarm and added, “You might as well know the truth. I’ll admit I did try to find out what you might know about Cotton Younger and the odd situation up in Crooked Lance. You see, one of our agents came out here a week ago and…”

“Spare me the details. I know something in Crooked Lance seems to eat lawmen for breakfast. As to overplaying parts, I’m sort of interested in why Cedric, here, was trying to creep in on us just now.”

“I done no such thing!” the midget protested, adding, “I had my ear against the plywood when all hell busted loose out there! I can see someone was using the old paper trick, but, honest Injun, you are barking up the wrong tree.”

“Why were you hiding under the bed, then?”

“Hell, I was scared! I heard running in the hall, cracked open the door, and saw you bounce out stark naked with a full-grown gun in your fist! Before you could turn and blow my fool face off I dove for cover. You know the rest!”

“You’re likely full of shit, but saying you ain’t, did you get a look at anyone attached to them running footsteps?”

“No. Whoever it was made the stairwell before I got to the door. Ain’t you aiming to put that gun away?”

“Maybe. Tell me something a man with his head against that plywood might have heard.”

“What are you talking about? All I heard was you and Mabel—you know.”

“I don’t know. I know what she was saying as I heard the key hit paper. If your ear was next to that plywood, you must have heard it, too.”

The woman blushed, for real this time, and stammered, “Longarm, you’re being nasty!”

But Longarm insisted, “Cedric?” and with a malicious grin at the naked woman on the bed, the midget said, “She said what you were doing to her was just lovely.”

Longarm lowered the muzzle of his.44, nodded at the woman on the bed, and said, “You can get dressed now.”

Mabel Hanks leaned over, grabbed up her nightgown and put it on, gathering the other things in one hand. He saw she was looking at the two gold eagles lying on the rug near the foot of the bed and said, “Leave ‘em be, honey. I don’t know what I owe you, but twenty dollars seems a mite steep, considering.”

“You-you son of a bitch!”

“Will you settle for two bucks? I understand it’s the going price, these days. I don’t hold it against you that we never finished the last time.”

She swept grandly out, too mortified to answer. The midget dropped off the chair with a smirk and edged his way for the door, saying, “I’d be willing to split that reward, if you want to talk things over.”

“You talked just enough to save your ass, old son. And by the way, you need a shave. You and your Mama hit Crooked Lance with that stubble on your pretty little chin and there might be some who haven’t my refined sense of humor!”

Cedric hesitated in the doorway with a sly smile on his ugly little face as he asked, “You don’t aim to give our show away, Longarm?”

The big lawman laughed good-naturedly and asked, “Why should I? I’ve enjoyed the show immensely!”

CHAPTER 5

The sky was a starry black curtain fading to gray in the east as Longarm reined in on the Crooked Lance Trail and sat his mount for a time, considering the ink blots all around them. He’d slipped out of the hotel a little after three in the morning, gotten his borrowed army bay from the livery without being seen, and was now a distance from the town that he judged about right for a bushwhacking.

In the very dim light of the false dawn he could just make out a granite outcropping, covering the trail. Longarm clucked to the bay, eased him around to the far side, and tethered him to one of the aspens growing there. He slid the Winchester.44-40 from its boot under the saddle’s right fender and dismounted. He soothed the bay with a pat and left it to browse on aspen leaves as he climbed the far side of the outcropping. He knew the treetops behind him would hide his outline against the sky as the light improved. He lay atop the rock, levered a round into the Winchester’s chamber, and settled down to wait. If he’d timed it right, the sniper with that.30-30 deer rifle would be getting up here just about now, and if the rifleman knew the lay of the land along this trail he’d have a hard time picking a better place to set his own ambush. A million years went by, and the sky was only a little lighter. Longarm was used to waiting, but he’d never liked it much. The stars were going out one by one from east to west, but the sniper seemed to be taking his own good time. What was the matter with the fool? He wasn’t dumb enough to stake out the front of the damned hotel, was he?

He wondered if Kincaid or any of the other missing lawmen had run into this situation. It made more sense than a town where they shot strangers on sight. Kincaid or any of the other missing men could be buried anywhere for a full day’s ride or so. The folks in Crooked Lance, for all he knew, could be just as puzzled as everyone else. With the wire down, they were cut off, so nobody there would know who was coming or when.

He took a cheroot from his vest pocket and put it between his teeth, not lighting it, as he studied what he knew for sure. It wasn’t much, but he could assume the hands who’d captured Cotton Younger and locked him up were acting in good faith. If they’d been on the outlaw’s side, they never would have captured him. If they hadn’t wanted the law to know they had him, they’d have just killed him and kept still about it. Could it be an escape plot?

Maybe, but not on the part of the folks in Crooked Lance, for obvious reasons. The most likely candidates to plot an escape would be friends of Cotton Younger, and if it was true he was tied in with Frank and Jesse James … possible, but wild. None of the James-Younger Gang had ever operated this far west, and if it was them, they were acting differently than they’d ever acted before. He’d studied the working habits of the James-Younger Gang. They were given to moving in fast, hitting hard, and moving out even faster. Cotton Younger was being held in a log jail, probably loosely guarded by simple cowhands. If the James-Younger Gang had ridden out here to spring him, he’d have been long gone by now and there’d be no need for all this skullduggery.

On the other hand, the gang had been badly shot up in Minnesota and were scattered from hell to breakfast. If a lone member of the old clan was trying to help his kinsman… that might fit.

Behind him in the fluttering aspen leaves a redwing awoke to announce its undisputed ownership of the grove. It sounded more like a wagon wheel in need of grease than a bird, and it meant the sun was getting ready to roll up the eastern side of the pearling sky. Longarm could see the trail he was covering more clearly now. In less than an hour things would have color as well as form down there. His sniper was either a late riser or stupid. Or he’d given up for now.

Longarm decided to wait it out till full light. Half the secret of staking-out lay in waiting out that last five minutes. It was tedious as hell, but he’d made some good arrests by simply staying put a little longer than common sense seemed to call for. It was a trick he’d learned as a boy from a friendly Pawnee.

Another bird woke up to curse back at the redwing and a distant peak to the west was pink-tipped against the dark blue western horizon as it caught the sunrise from its greater altitude. Innocent travelers would be taking to the trail soon. Where in thunder was his sniper?

Longarm’s eyes suddenly narrowed and he stopped breathing as his ears picked up the distant scrape Of steel on rock. He saw two blurs moving into view up the trail. What he’d heard was a horseshoe on a lump of gravel.

He could see who it was, now. A lone rider on a big black plowhorse, with a teammate tagging along behind like an oversized hound. As the odd group came nearer Longarm saw that the man on the lead mount was carrying a rifle across his knees. He was riding bareback, his long legs hanging down to the end in big bare feet. The top of him was clad in patched, old-fashioned buckskins, a fur hat made of skunk skin with two feathers cocked out of one side, and a long, gray beard covering the upper third of his burly chest.

He was peculiar looking, but Longarm decided he was likely not his man, as he studied the weapon the rider was packing. It was an old Sharps.50. Single-shot and wrong caliber. The lack of high heels, or even boots, was comforting, too. Longarm flattened himself lower against the granite to let the stranger pass without needless conversation. The odd old man and his pets passed by the lawman’s hiding place without looking up and vanished on up the trail. Longarm stretched to ease his cramped muscles, then settled down to wait some more.

it was perhaps five minutes before he noticed something else, or, rather, noticed something missing. The birds had stopped singing.

Longarm rolled over and up to a sitting position, his rifle across his knees, as he faced away from the trail into the aspen grove his mount was tethered in. The old man in the feathered fur hat was stepping out from between two pale green aspen trunks, the battered Sharps pointing up the slope at Longarm.

Longarm nodded and said, “‘Morning.”

The other called out, “By gar, Wsieu, she must think she’s vairie clevaire, him! Myself, Chambrun du Val she has the eyes of the eagle!”

“I wasn’t laying for you, Mister du Val. My handle’s Long. I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal on government business and I’d take it kindly if you’d point that thing someplace else.”

“Mais non! You will throw down your weapon at once! Chambrun du Val she’s demand it, him!”

“Sorry, I don’t see things quite that way. You got the drop on me and I got the drop on you. If there’s any edge, it’s on my side. You got one round in that thing. I got fifteen in this Winchester.”

“Bah, if Chambrun du Val she shoot, it is all ovaire!”

“You fire, old son, and you’d best do me good with your one and only try, for I can get testy as all hell with a buffalo round in or about my person! But I don’t see this as a killing situation. I’d say our best play would be to talk things over before this gets any uglier.”

“What is Misieur’s explanation for making the ambush, eh?”

“I told you, I’m a lawman. I was staked out here for a bushwhacker who took a shot at me in Bitter Creek last night. What’s your tale?”

“Chambrun du Val she is going to Crooked Lance to kill a beast, he.”

“feller named Cotton Younger?”

“Exactement! How does Misieur’s know this thing?”

“Cotton Younger’s wanted in Canada, and if you ain’t a French Canuck you sure talk funny for Wyoming. Are you a lawman or is your business with Cotton Younger more personal?”

“The animal, she is murdaire mon petite Marie Claire! Chambrun du Val she swear on the grave revenge!”

“WelL you can stop aiming at me, then. We’re on the same side. My boss sent me up here to carry Cotton Younger in for a hanging. Along with what he did up Canada way, he’s killed a few of our folks, too.”

“Bah! Hanging, she is too good for this Cotton Younger! It is the intention of Chambrun du Val to kill him in the manner of les Cree!”

“You’ll likely have to settle for a hanging. One of your own Northwest Mounties is up in Crooked Lance ahead of us both. There’s a sheriff from Missouri and at least a brace of private detectives working for the railroads, too. At the rate it’s going, he’ll be long hung before either of us gets there, so do you reckon we should shoot each other or get on up to Crooked Lance some time soon?”

“Misieur’s knows the way?”

“More or less, don’t you?”

“Mais non, Chambrun du Val, she is, how you say, looking for Crooked Lance.”

“Well, I see the man I was laying up here on these rocks for don’t seem anxious to show his face, so I’ll be neighborly and carry you there if you’ll promise not to shoot me.”

The old voyageur lowered the muzzle of his buffalo gun, so Longarm swung his own muzzle politely to port arms and slid down the granite to join him. As they walked together to where their horses were munching aspen leaves, Longarm asked, “How well do you know Cotton Younger, Mister du Val?”

“Chambrun du Val, she’s nevaire see the beast, but she will know him. It is said the animal is big and very blond. They call him Cotton because his hair, she is almost white. Also, she is now in the jail at Crooked Lance, and, merde almost, how many such createures like this can there be in any one jail, ah?”

“They say he’s related to some who rode with the James-Younger gang a few years back. You hear anything about that, up Canada way?”

“Mais non, this createure rode alone through the Red River dimord Countries. Chambrun du Val was off on the traplines when he murdaire mon petite Marie Claire. Mon merde on what he do down here in les States. He shall die, most slowly, for what he do to Marie Claire!”

Longarm untethered his bay and swung up in the saddle, slipping the Winchester into its boot as he led off without comment. Behind him, the old man leaped as lightly as a young Indian aboard the broad back of his huge black gelding, calling its mate to heel with a low whistle.

The French Canadian waited until they were free of the trees and out on the trail before he called out, cheerfully, “Misieur’s has not considered Chambrun du Val just had the opportunity to shoot him in the back?”

Not turning his head, Longarm called back, “You don’t look stupid. You’ve got enough on your plate without gunning a U.S. lawman for no reason this far south of the border.”

“Misieur’s is a man who misses little, ah?”

Longarm didn’t answer. What the man had said was the simple truth. The oldtimer’s eyes were sharp as hell and, together, they stood a better chance of riding into Crooked Lance alive.

Once they got there, Chambrun du Val would be one more headache. He’d want to kill the prisoner. The other lawmen ahead of Longarm would doubtless argue over who had first claim on Cotton Younger, too. in fact, by now, it was a pure mystery what the owlhoot was doing in that jail up ahead. The Mountie, the Missouri sheriff, or some damned lawman must have gotten through by now. Anyone riding in would be packing extradition papers, so why wasn’t anyone riding out with Cotton Younger?

Longarm leaned forward and started to urge his mount to a faster pace. Then he eased off and shook his head, muttering, “Let’s not get lathered up, old son. We’ve a long ride ahead and farther along we’ll know more about it. Riding ourselves into the ground ain’t going to get us there, so easy does it. Whatever in thunder is going on has been going on for weeks. It’ll keep a few more hours.”

CHAPTER 6

The Crooked Lance Trail was longer and rougher than Longarm had anticipated. He and his fellow traveler rode through old burns where charred lodgepole trunks and fetlock-deep ashes obscured the trail. They crossed rolling meadowlands frosted with sweet-smelling columbine and climbed through steep passes where patches of dusty snow still lay unmelted and the air was thin, cold stuff that tasted like stardust. They forded whitewater streams and rode gingerly over vast stretches of frost-polished granite, keeping to the trail by reading sign. The seldom-used trail vanished for miles at a time under new growth or windblown forest duff, but a mummified cow pat or the bleached, silvery pole of the telegraph line led them to the next stretch of visible trail. Longarm noticed that the single line of copper wire was down in more than one place as they passed a telegraph pole rotted away at its base. He couldn’t really tell whether the wire had been torn up by the harsh winds of the high country or by someone intent on silencing Crooked Lance. You could read it either way.

The journey ended when they rode down into a flat-bottomed valley cradled among high, jagged peaks. Longarm reined in, and as the Canadian paused beside him, he studied the cluster of log buildings down the slope. He counted a dozen or so buildings surrounded by corrals, near an elbow of the sluggish stream draining the valley bottom. It looked peaceful. He saw some ponies hitched in front of some buildings and figures moving quietly along one unpaved street. Two of them appeared to be women in gathered print skirts and sun bonnets. A cluster of men were sitting on the boardwalk in front of a larger building, their boots stretched before them in the street, as they talked quietly or just sat there waiting for something to happen, as men tend to do in small towns.

Longarm said, “let’s ride in” and kicked the bay gently with a heel, loping slowly down the slope with du Val following.

He made for the building with the most people around it and reined in again. Nodding down at the quartet of cowhands in front of what he now saw was the general store, he said, “Howdy.”

Nobody moved, so Longarm said, “Name’s Long. U.S. Deputy Marshal. This other gent’s called du Val.”

One of the men looked up and stared soberly for a time before he asked, “Is that a McClellan saddle?”

“Yep. They tell me there’s a Federal prisoner being held here in Crooked Lance.”

“Maybe. How do you keep from bustin’ your balls on that fool saddle? You couldn’t give me one of them durned fool rigs to ride!”

There was a low snickering from the others as Longarm looked at the one who’d voiced the comment. Longarm said, “I ride a government saddle because I ride On government business and because a McClellan’s easy on a horse’s back. So, now that I’ve answered your question, friend, suppose you answer mine?”

The village jester turned to one of his cronies and asked, innocently, “Did you hear him ask a question, Jimbo?”

“Can’t say. He talks sort of funny. Probably on account of that ribbon-bow round his neck, don’t you reckon?”

The French Canadian swore, swinging his Sharps around as he roared, “Sacre God damn! You make the jest at Chambrun du Val?”

The one called Jimbo snickered and said, “Hell no, Pilgrim, we’re making fun of your funny-looking sidekick, here. Where’d you ever find him? He looks like a whisky drummer. Hey, do you sell whisky, boy?”

“What did you say?”

“I asked if you sold whisky, boy.”

Longarm dismounted, ominously, and strode over to the one called Jimbo as the latter got to his feet with a smirk. Longarm said, “Asking a man what he does for a living is reasonable. Calling him a boy can get him testy.”

“Do tell? What do you do when you gets testy, boy?”

Longarm’s sixgun appeared in his right hand as he kicked Jimbo in the kneecap, covering him and anyone else who wanted a piece of the action as Jimbo went down, howling in agony.

The first lout who’d spoken leaped to his own feet, gasping, “Are you crazy, mister?”

“I could be. But now that we’ve changed boy to mister, let’s see what else we can workout. As I remember, I was asking some fool question or other, wasn’t I?”

Jimbo rolled to a sitting position, grasping his injured knee as he moaned, “God damn it, fellers, take him! He’s busted my fucking Leg!”

One of the cooler heads among the Crooked Lance crowd sighed, “You take him if you’ve a mind to. This is gettin’ too serious for funnin’. The man you want is across the way in yonder log house, lawman.”

“Now that’s more neighborly. Who do I see about taking him off your hands?”

There was a moment of silence. Then the informative one shrugged and said, “You’d have to clear it with Timberline, I reckon. He ain’t here.”

“He’s the ramrod of the Rocking H, right?”

The other nodded and Longarm asked, “Who’s guarding the prisoner over there, right now?”

“I reckon it’s pop Wade. Yeah, it’s Pop’s turn over to the jail. pop won’t give him to you, though. Nobody does anything hereabouts ‘less Timberline says they can.”

Longarm saw that the Canadian had turned his big gelding around and was heading for the jailhouse. He trotted after du Val and called out, “Slow down, old son. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t try it.”

Du Val ignored him. The Canadian crossed the open stretch just ahead of Longarm and pounded on the plank door, shouting curses in French. Longarm took him by the elbow and swung him around, trying to disarm him as gently as possible. But gentleness wasn’t effective. The old man was redfaced with rage and Longarm’s English wasn’t making any impression on his hate-filled mind. So as the others ran across the street toward the jail, he tapped du Val with the barrel of his.44, hitting him just below the ear.

Du Val collapsed in the dust like a rag doll as the jailhouse door flew open and a worried, middle-aged man peered out. One of the hands from the general store looked soberly down at the unconscious man and opined, “You do be inclined to testiness, by God! Was you birthed this ornery, mister? Or is it something you et?”

Longarm handed the unconscious Canadian’s weapon to the jailer, saying, “You’d best put this away. This old boy rode all the way from the Red River of the North to gun your prisoner. I’d like a look at him myself.”

The jailer hesitated. One of the town loafers suggested, “You’d best let him, Pop. This one’s a purely ornery cuss!”

“Timberline ain’t going to like it,” the jailer said, as he stood aside to let Longarm enter.

The interior was divided into two rooms. The rearmost room was closed off by a door of latticed aspen poles and barbed-wire mesh. As Longarm’s eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw a tall, blond man standing just inside the improvised cell, staring at him with a mixture of hope and utter misery. As the jailer followed him across the room, Longarm nodded to the prisoner and said, “I’m from the Justice Department, Mister Younger.”

The prisoner shook his head and said, “that well may be, but I ain’t Cotton Younger! I keep telling everyone I ain’t, but will they listen?”

Pop Wade snorted, “Listen to the jaybird, will you? The son of a bitch was catched fair and square stealing Lazy K cows and he matches them reward posters to the T!”

“I never stole cow one! Where in hell would I go with a stolen cow?”

“You saying you never had that running iron in your possibles, Son?”

“all right, I did have a length of bar-iron I sort of picked up along the way. That don’t prove all that much!”

“It proves you had the tools of the cow thief’s trade, God damn your eyes!”

Longarm had heard this same discussion almost every time he’d talked to a man in jail and it was tedious every time. He said, “What you done hereabouts ain’t the question, Mister Younger. I’ll be taking you to Denver to talk to the judge about some other matter.”

“God damn it, I ain’t Cotton Younger! My name is Jones. Billy Jones from Cripple Creek!”

“Jesus H. Christ, son, can’t you do better than Jones?”

“Hel, somebody has to be named Jones, don’t they?”

“How about James? Ain’t the Younger and the James boys kin?”

“How should I know? I ain’t kin to nobody named James or Younger. I’m just Billy Jones, from Cripple Creek, and everybody hereabouts is crazy!”

“Well, then, you got nothing to worry about when I carry you back to Denver, have you?”

“Why in hell do I want to go to Denver? I was on my way to Oregon when these crazy folks hereabouts damn near killed me and started calling me an outlaw! I don’t want to go to Denver!”

“‘Fraid you’re bound there, just the same. You answer the description and I’m just the errand boy, not the judge.” He turned to the jailer and said, “I got his papers right here. You want me to sign for him, Mister Wade?”

Pop Wade said, “Can’t let you have him. It ain’t my say who goes in or out of here, mister.”

“What are you talking about, you can’t let me have him? I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal with a Federal Warrant on this cuss, God damn it!”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute, mister. There’s a Canadian mountie, a Missouri Sheriff, and a whole posse of other lawmen over at the hotel who say the same thing. The committee says it ain’t made up it’s mind yet.”

“What committee, what mind, and about what?”

“Vigilance Committee of Crooked Lance. This here Cotton Younger is their prisoner until they says different. Ain’t nobody taking him no where ‘til Timberline and the others say it’s fitting.”

Longarm considered. He could take Younger away from the elderly jailer easily enough, and the hands out front would likely crawfish back long enough for the two of them to ride out. On the other hand, it was a long ride to the nearest place he’d be able to hold him safely.

Longarm shrugged and said, “I’d better have a talk with those other lawmen and this big hoorah called Timberline.”

CHAPTER 7

The hotel in Crooked Lance wasn’t as fancy as the one in Bitter Creek. It wasn’t a hotel, in fact. The family who owned the general store and ran the post office and telegraph outlet had a livery shed and an extra lean-to partitioned into tiny, dirt-floored cubicles they rented to those few riders staying overnight in town. The family’s name was Stover and they were inclined to take a profit wherever one could be found. The hotel had a sort of veranda facing the muddy banks Of the valley stream on the far side from the one street. There, Longarm found another quartet of moody men, seated on barrels, or in one-case, pacing up and down. The man on his feet wore the scarlet tunic of the Northwest Mounted Police, trail-dusty and worn through at one elbow. The other three wore civilian clothes, but one had a star pinned to his lapel. As the storekeeper introduced Longarm to his fellow lawmen, the mountie asked, “Are you the person who just beat up a Canadian citizen?”

“‘Fraid so. Where’d they put old du Val? By the time I came out of the jailhouse they’d carried him off.”

“He’s inside, with a concussion. They told us you’d beaten him unconscious. I’d say you owe me an explanation, since I’m here on Her Majesty’s business and…”

One of the others said, “Oh, shut up and set down, damn it. you know he’s a U.S. Marshal!” To Longarm he added, “I’m Silas Weed, from Clay County, Missouri. This here’s Captain Walthers from the U.S. ArmY Provost Marshal’s office, and the gent with the big cigar is a railroad dick called Ryan.”

Longarm nodded and hooked a boot over the edge of the veranda as he said, “My outfit’s missing a deputy called Kincaid. Any of you met up with him?”

There was a general shaking of heads, which didn’t surprise Longarm. He turned to the one called Ryan and asked, “Are you from the same detective agency as a funny couple called Hanks, Mister Ryan? They said one of their agents was missing, too.”

Ryan grimaced around the stub of his cigar and growled, “Jesus. Are you talking about a female traveling with a dwarf?”

“Sounds like the same folks. You with their outfit or not?”

“God, no! Cedric Hanks and his wife work alone! They’re bounty hunters, not detectives! Where’d you run into them?”

“Bitter Creek, headed this way. You say the gal’s his wife?”

“Yeah, when he ain’t pretending to be her little kid. Ain’t that a bitch? They run con games when they’re not hunting down men with papers on ‘em. If you met up with that pair you’re lucky to have the fillings in your teeth!”

“They were Rely lying about having a partner up here, too, then. What’s the story on that prisoner over yonder, gents? I take it all of us rode up here on the same errand.”

The man from the provost office snapped, “The armY has first claim on him. He’s not only wanted on a hanging military offense, but I was here first!”

Sheriff Weed said, “The hell you say, Captain! Clay County’s papers on him have seniority. We’ve been after him a good six years!”

The Mountie wheeled around and challenged, “Not so fast! Your own State Department has honored Her Majesty’s warrant for the murder of a British subject!”

Longarm smiled crookedly at the railroad detective, who smiled back and said, “that’s half of the problem. The other half is the Crooked Lance Vigilance Committee. They say they’re holding Cotton Younger for the highest bidder.”

“They what? These cowpokes hereabouts holding a man for ransom with four—make that five—lawmen in town?”

“They don’t see it as ransom. It’s all the damn paper Cotton younger and his kin have out on ‘em. He’s worth five hundred to the railroad I work for. Clay County, there, says he’s worth about the same to Missouri. Queen Victoria ain’t been heard but she’d likely pay some damn thing, and Army, here, says the standing offer for deserters is three to five hundred, depending. I’d say Army was low bidder, up to now. How much is he worth to the Justice Department?”

“Don’t know. My boss never mentioned a reward.”

“there you go, old son. You just made last in line!” Longarm stuck a cheroot between his teeth and thumbnailed a match as he gathered his thoughts. Then he shook his head and said, “I don’t see it that way, gents. Justice Department outranks all others.”

“All but Her Majesty’s Government” the Mountie amended.

“No offense to your Queen, but her writ doesn’t carry much weight in U.S. Federal territory, which Wyoming happens to be. Before we fuss about it further amongst ourselves, what’s keeping the five of us from at least getting back to the rails and telegraph with the prisoner? Seems to me it’d make more sense to let our superiors fight it out, once we had him locked in a city jail.”

The Missouri sheriff asked, “the jail in Bitter Creek?”

“Why not? It’s got bars and a telegraph office we can get to.”

“Town marshal down there’s sure to want a split on the reward.”

Longarm snorted, “Oh, for God’s sake, this is the dumbest situation I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in some pissers! We’re talking about a shiftless thief with a lousy five hundred on him, and…”

“No, we ain’t,” the railroad dick cut in, “We’re talking about ten thousand dollars, no questions, cash on the barrelhead!”

Longarm frowned and snapped, “Ten thousand dollars, on that tall drink of water over yonder?”

“Hell, no, on his kinfolks, Frank and Jesse James! Between the state of Missouri, The Pinkertons, and a dozen small banks and such, either one of the James boys is worth at least that, dead or alive. Should any man nail both, he’d collect more like twenty!” He shrugged and added, “I ain’t that greedy, myself. I’d settle for either.”

“Yeah, but the prisoner here ain’t Frank or Jesse James. When I just talked to him, he denied even being Cotton Younger.”

“What else did you expect, Longarm? Once he’s getting fitted for that hemp necktie, he’ll talk, all right.”

Sheriff Weed chimed in, “That’s for damn sure. Our only problem seems to be just who gets him, and how to convince the locals who caught him that they’ll have a share in the reward.”

“Ain’t everyone counting unhatched chickens, gents?”

Weed nodded and said, “Sure they are. That’s what’s holding up the parade. Nobody here can promise a reward for a James boy still at large. Getting some of these dumb cowboys to see it that way can be a chore. All of us have tried, one time or another.”

Longarm muttered, “I don’t believe this! There’s five of us, damn it! If any two of you would back me, I’d be riding out of here with Cotton Younger within the hour!”

He waited to see if there were any volunteers. Then he asked Weed, “How about it, Sheriff?”

“Would you turn him over to me as soon as we rode free?”

“God damn it, you’re obstructing justice!”

“No, I ain’t. I came all the way out here from the County of Clay to arrest that boy and that’s my aim. That’s my only aim. I don’t pull chestnuts out of the fire for other lawmen.”

Longarm looked at the army agent, who shrugged and said, “I have my orders.”

“How about you, Mountie? You up to backing my play?”

“On the condition I take him back to Canada? Of course.”

Longarm knew better than to ask the railroad dick. He took a drag on his cheroot and said, “Somebody, here, has to start thinking instead of being greedy! How long do you all figure we can just sit here, stalemated, like big-ass birds?”

The railroad dick said, “I got time. I’ll allow it’s a Mexican standoff now, but sooner or later somebody has to cave In. I don’t mean for it to be me!”

Captain Walthers said, “I sent a telegram to the War Department. I’m waiting for further instructions.”

Sheriff Weed said, “I got some old Missouri boys riding out to back my play.”

The Mountie said nothing. His service was only a few years old, but Longarm had heard about their motto.

Turning to Weed, he said, “You’ve come from the owlhoot’s old stamping grounds, Sheriff. Before we get ourselves in any deeper, is there a chance that pissant over at the jail could be telling the truth? We’re gonna look silly as all hell if it turns out he’s not the Cotton Younger all of us are fighting over.”

Weed said, “It’s him, all right. How many tall, skinny owlhoots with a wispy white thatch like his can there be?”

The railroad dick nodded and said, “I’ve seen photographs of the kid, sitting next to his cousin Cole Younger, and Frank James. He’s older now, and his hair’s gone from almost white to pale yellow, but it’s him.”

The army man smiled a bit smugly and said, “At the risk of finding something to agree on with the rest of you, I have his army records and they fit him like a glove. He deserted from Terry’s column as a teenaged recruit. He’s no more than twenty-five now. He’s a few pounds heavier, but the height is right on the button. They let me measure him. It would be possible to make an error of half an inch, but his records don’t. He’s exactly six-foot, six and three-quarter inches. He tried to tell me he’d never been in the army, too.”

Longarm nodded, satisfied at least with the identification of the prisoner, if nothing else. Before he could go into it further, the door to the hotel banged open and Chambrun du Val came out loaded for bear. He scowled at Longarm and roared, “Salud! Por quoi you hit Chambrun du Val? Where is mon rifle? Sacre! I think she will kill you, me!”

As the burly older man lurched across the veranda at Longarm, the railroad dick put out a boot and tripped him, sending du Val sprawling on his hands and knees as Longarm stepped clear with a nod of thanks. Before du Val could rise, Longarm snapped, “Now listen, old son, and listen sharp! Your war is over. You ain’t going to harm a hair on Cotton Younger’s head. I ain’t asking you, I’m telling you.”

“I kill him, but first, by gar, I kill you!”

“Oh, shut up, I ain’t finished. You ain’t going to kill me because I don’t aim to let you. On the other hand, I can’t watch you around the clock and still get anything done, so I’m counting on your good sense about the prisoner over at the jail house. You gun that old boy and you can say goodbye to breathing. Forgetting me and these four other lawmen, he’s worth God knows what to a whole valleyful of vigilantes, and if they decide to string you up for murdering their prisoner, I for one wouldn’t stop ‘em!”

“Chambrun du Val, she fears nothing, him!”

“Maybe, but you think on it before You make anY more sudden moves.”

The Mountie came over to help the old man to his feet, saying, “I’ll take over, Longarm.”

He took the old man by the arm and walked him Off for a fatherly talk. Longarm noticed the Mountie was speaking French, but a few paces off the old trapper laughed and swore, “Merde alors! Misieur’s speaks like a paris pimp! The English of Chambrun du Val, she is more betaire than these strange noises Misieur’s regards as French!”

The laugh was a good sign. Longarm decided the old man would be all right for now and turned back to the other three on the veranda, saying, “It’s early yet. I’m going to have a talk with this Timberline everyone in Crooked Lance looks up to. Any of you know how I can find him?”

Sheriff weed said, “He’ll may be riding in later. He’s the foreman of the Rocking H, about six miles down the valley.”

“He comes to town every night? Don’t they have a bunkhouse at his spread?”

“Sure, but he’s interested in our stalemate, here.”

The railroad dick added, “Interested in Kim Stover, too. Her spread’s just outside of town, behind them trees to the north.”

“I’ll bite. Who’s Kim Stover? Any kin to the rascal who owns this hotel and everything else in town worth mention?”

“Old Stovers her father-in-law. Miss is the widow of his late son, Ben. They tell us he was run over by the trail herd, summer before last. Matter of fact, she don’t seem to get along good with her in-laws.”

Captain Walthers sniffed and chimed in, “who could blame the poor woman? You saw the unwashed lout who’s taking advantage of us at two bits a night. The Stovers are white trash!”

Longarm didn’t ask if the widow was good-looking. She had the la-di-da young officer defending her and the big froggy of the valley courting her. He blew a thoughtful smoke ring. “Like I said, it’s still early. I’ll mosey out to the Rocking H this afternoon and see what this Timberline gent has to say about the burr he’s put under my saddle.”

Longarm walked around the building to where he’d left his bay in the livery shed. As he was saddling up, the others drifted in and started untethering their own mounts.

The railroad dick said, “the boys and me will just tag along to sort of keep you company, all right?”

“You trust each other as much as you trust me?”

Sheriff Weed grinned and said, “Not hardly,” as the Mountie and du Val came in from their stroll. The older man’s two big black geldings were the only ones not in the livery shed. Du Val let them run free like old hounds, but Longarm knew they’d come when he whistled. He led his own mount out from under the low overhang and waited politely as the others saddled up. There was no sense trying to get a lead on them. Wherever he went, it seemed likely he’d have company.

CHAPTER 8

As it turned out, it wasn’t a long ride. The railroad dick had fallen in beside Longarm’s bay as the federal man led off. They were passing a windbreak of lodgepole pine and the detective had just said, “That cabin over there’s the Lazy K, Kim Stover’s place,” when they both spied two riders swinging out to the main trail from the modest spread.

One was a hatless woman with a halo of sunset-colored hair and buckskin riding togs. She rode astride, like a man. She sat her mount well, though.

The rider to her left was a man in a mustard Stetson and faded blue denim, on a gray gelding almost as big as one of du Val’s plow horses. The man needed a big mount. He was at least a head taller than any human being should have been. Longarm didn’t ask if he was Timberline. It would have been a foolish question.

The two parties slowed as they met on the trail. Since all of them except Longarm had been introduced, the railroad dick did the honors. Timberline smiled, friendly enough, and said, “Glad to know you, Deputy. Like I always say, the more the merrier!”

The girl was less enthusiastic. She nodded politely at Longarm, but sighed, “Oh, Lord, another lawman is all we need!”

The others had told him the big ramrod was sparking the widow, so Longarm swung in beside Timberline as the entire group headed back to Crooked Lance. He explained his mission as Timberline listened politely but stubborn-jawed. The leader of the local vigilantes was maybe thirty, with coal-black sideburns, and cleanshaven. He sat his gray with the relaxed strength of a man used to having horses, and men, do just about anything he wanted them to.

He heard Longarm out before he shook his head and said, “If it was up to me you could have the rascal, Deputy. Hell, I was for just stringing him up the afternoon we caught him skulking about this little lady’s spread.”

“Yeah, I heard you found him with a running iron on him.”

“Well, to tell the truth, I can’t take all the credit. Miss Kim here, spied him hunkered down near the creek in some brush as me and a couple of my hands rode up to her front porch. Had not ladies been present, that would have likely been the end of it. The skunk lit out when he saw us coming. Windy Dawson, one of my hands, made as nice an overhand community-loop as you’ve ever seen and hauled the thief off his pony at a dead run. Miss Kim, here, said not to kill him right off, so Windy dragged him into the settlement and we threw him in the jailhouse.”

He swung around in his saddle to say to the girl on his far side, “You see why we shoulda strung him up that first day, honey? I told you he was a mean-looking cuss, and now we even have a federal lawman up here pestering us for him!”

The widow said, “Nobody’s getting him until they do right by the folks up here!”

Longarm saw he’d been barking up the wrong tree. The lady might not be related by blood to the money-hungry Stover family, but she’d surely picked up some bad habits from her inlaws!

Speaking across Timberline, Longarm said, “What you’re doing here ain’t legal, ma’am.” Behind him, Sheriff Weed called out, “Save your breath, Longarm. I’ve laid down the law till I’m blue in the face and nobody hereabouts seems to know what law is!”

Longarm ignored him and explained to the determined-looking redhead, “You’re holding that Cotton Younger on a citizen’s arrest, which is only good till a legally appointed peace officer can take him off your hands.”

Kim Stover’s voice was sweetly firm as, not looking his way, she said, “The Crooked Lance Committee of Vigilance was elected fair and square, mister.”

“I hate to correct a lady, but, no, ma’am, it wasn’t. Crooked Lance ain’t an incorporated township. The open range hereabouts ain’t constituted as a county by Wyoming Teritory. So any elections you may have held are unofficial as well as unrecorded. I understand the position you folks are taking, but it’s likely to get you all in trouble.”

For the first time she swung her eyes to Longarm, and they were bitter as well as green when she snapped, “We’re already in trouble, mister! You see a schoolhouse hereabouts? You see a town hall or even a signpost telling folks we’re here? Folks in Crooked Lance are poor, mister! Poor hard-scrabble homesteaders and overworked, underpaid cowhands without two coins to rub together, let alone a real store to shop in!”

“I can see you’re sort of back in the nothing-much, ma’am, but I fail to see why you’re holding it against me and these other gents.”

“I never said it was your fault, mister. We know who’s fault it is that Crooked Lance gets the short end every time! It’s them damned big shots out in the country you all rode in from. The cattle buyers who short-change us when we drive our herds in to Bitter Creek. The politicians in Cheyenne, Washington, and such! They’ve been grinding us under since I was birthed in these mountains, and now we mean to have our own back!”

Timberline noted the puzzled look in Longarm’s eyes and cut in to explain, “When Miss Kim’s husband, Ben, was killed, them buyers over to the railroad tried to get her cows for next to nothin’! Luckily, me and some of her and Ben’s other friends made sure they didn’t rob her before Ben was in the ground. We drove her herd in with our others and all of us stuck together on the price of beef.”

Kim Stover added, bitterly, “A little enough herd it was, and a low enough price, after all the hard work my man put into them damned cows.”

Longarm nodded and said, “I used to ride for the Jingle Bob and a couple of smaller outfits, ma’am. So I know how them eastern packers can squeeze folks, dead or alive. But Uncle Sam never sent me here to bid on beef. I’m packing a federal warrant on that owlhoot you folks caught, and I mean to ride out with him, one way or another.”

“Not before we settle on the price,” Kim Stover snapped.

Timberline added, still smiling, “Or whup damn near every rider in this valley, fair and square!”

“There’s five of us, Timberline.”

“I know. I can likely scare up thirty or forty men if push comes to shove. But I don’t reckon it will. These other four gents and me have had more or less this same conversation before you got here. And, by the way, in case you ain’t asked, the five of you ain’t together. We figure you’ll be bidding against one another before Cotton Younger leaves this valley.”

Sheriff Weed called out, “I’ve told you I’ll split the reward with you all, Timberline. This federal man aims to carry him to Denver, where they’ll likely hang him without even asking about Frank and Jesse James!”

There was an angry muttering from the other lawmen and du Val spat, disgusted. The railroad dick laughed and told Longarm, “Ain’t this a caution? We get into this fix every time we talk to these folks. My own bid’s highest of all, but nobody listens. If you ask me, they’re just funning us. I’m getting to where I wouldn’t be surprised if that jaybird in the hoosegow wasn’t in on it with these valley folks!”

Longarm considered the idea seriously for a moment. It made as much sense as anything else he’d heard that afternoon. He asked Timberline and the girl, “Have you folks thought about the who as much as the how much?”

Kim Stover asked what he meant.

Longarm said, “The reward might have greeded you past clear thinking. I, for one, could promise all the tea in China, were I a promising sort. But, on the hoof, your prisoner’s worth two hundred and fifty to you, period, and assuming you can take the word of whoever among us you turn him over to.”

Timberline began, “The reward on the James Boy’s…”

Longarm cut in to insist, “Cotton Younger ain’t no James. He’s small fry. So the most he’s worth in any place is maybe five hundred, split with the arresting officer. That is, with some arresting Officers.”

Sheriff Weed said, “Damn it, Longarm!”

But Longarm ignored him to go on, “County officers are allowed to accept rewards. Federal officers ain’t. If either of you can count, you’ll see I’ve just eliminated one temptation.”

The army man, Captain Walthers, cried out, “Hold on there! I’m a federal officer, too!”

Longarm nodded and said, “I’ll get to you in a minute, Captain. I’m trying to cut the sheriff out of the tally at the moment!”

Weed yelled, “I told ‘em I’d let ‘em have the whole reward, God damn your eyes!”

“Well, sure, you told ‘em, Sheriff. Likely, if you was to double-cross these folks out here in Wyoming, the folks in Missouri would vote against you, next election, too.”

He saw the widow Stover’s eyes were going tick-tick-tick in her pretty but bitter-lipped face, so he dropped the attack on the sheriff to say, “The railroad dick, here, is a civilian who’s working for the reward and nothing else. If he double-crossed you… well, being in the cattle business, you must know how fair a shake you’ll get from the courts, against the railroads and such.”

The railroad dick sighed and said, “Next time that French Canuck tries for you…”

“It was ornery, but you just tried to outbid the rest of us. Like I was saying, a U.S. Deputy Marshal ain’t allowed to accept rewards. So if I agreed to forward such rewards as was due…”

“I can see what you’re trying to pull,” snapped Kim Stover. “It won’t work. We know better than to trust any of you to send us the money!”

Timberline laughed and said, “I keep telling you we’ve been over this same ground, Longarm. You’d best see if Uncle Sam’s ready to pay that ten thousand. We ain’t piggy. We’ll sell the owlhoot to you for half what both James Boys is worth, and if anybody gets the other ten…”

“Back up, Timberline. You’re starting to talk about the national debt again. Number one, we don’t know whether Cotton Younger knows where either Frank or Jesse James are hiding out. Number two, we don’t know whether he’ll be willing to tell us, if he does.”

Timberline shrugged and said, “I could get it out of him in five minutes if the little lady here would let me talk to him my own way!”

Kim Stover shook her head and said, “I said there’d be no hanging and no torture and I meant it. We’re poor but decent folks in Crooked Lance.” Then she spoiled it all by adding, “Besides, they’ll have ways of getting him to talk, once they pay us for him. I reckon once they’ve paid us the ten thousand, they’ll get him to say whether he knows or not!”

By now they were moving down the main street of the settlement and further argument was broken off as the railroad dick groaned, “Oh, no, that’s all we need!” A buckboard was parked in front of the general store. A woman in a canvas dust smock and feathered hat was being helped down from her seat by a midget dressed in dusty black. Little Cedric had abandoned his disguise and was puffing a two-bit cigar under his black porkpie hat.

Timberline choked and asked, “Jesus! What is it?”

Longarm said, “Meet Mister and Mrs. Hanks, but don’t play cards with them.”

As Mabel looked up at the party reining in around them, Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson and said, “Evening, ma’am. I see you got here after all. I asked around for your kin but nobody here seems to know ‘em.”

Cedric Hanks said, “Oh, stuff a sock in it, Longarm! We’re here fair and square with an honest business proposition.”

Before they could go further into it, the Northwest Mountie moved up beside Longarm and asked, “Did you see where du Val was heading, Deputy?”

Longarm twisted around in his saddle to count heads as he frowned and replied, “Never saw him drop out. Not that I was watching.”

The army agent said, “I was, but I didn’t think it was important when he dropped back. Who cares about the old drifter, anyway?”

“I do!” snapped Longarm, kicking his bay into a sudden lope as he tore over to the jail and slid from the saddle, drawing as he kicked in the door. The startled jailer, Wade, jumped up from his seat with a gasp, even as Longarm saw the jail was empty except for Pop Wade and the prisoner.

Longarm put his sidearm away with a puzzled frown, explaining, “That old Canuck is up to something. I thought he was heading for here.”

He stepped back to the doorway as the Mountie and Sheriff Weed came in, guns drawn. Longarm shook his head and said, “Nope. We were wrong. You think he’s in the hotel?”

Weed said, “Not hardly. His two geldings ain’t in sight neither. You reckon he’s lit out?”

Longarm said, “Maybe. But why?”

“He was a funny old cuss. Said he’d come to gun this jasper, here. Likely he saw there was no way he could, and…”

“After riding all the way from Canada, without even saying adios? I rode in with him. Du Val didn’t strike me as a man who makes sudden moves without a reason.”

The prisoner bleated, “You fellers got to protect me! I don’t like all this talk about my getting gunned!”

Ignoring him, the Mountie said, “The reason I was keeping an eye on him is that there’s something very odd about that man. For one thing, I don’t think he’s a Red River breed.”

“You waited till now to tell us? I took him for a Canuck.”

“No doubt, but then, you don’t speak Quebecois.”

“You mean when you and him were talking French and he said yours was sissy?”

“Yes, he said I spoke with a Parisian accent. My mother was named DeVerrier. My Quebecois is perfectly good.

“Why in thunder didn’t you say so?”

“Like you others, I’ve been playing my own hand for Her Majesty. I knew he was an imposter, but I didn’t know why. I still don’t know why, but, under the circomstances…”

The railroad dick came over to join them, saying, “He ain’t anywhere near the general store or hotel, gents. What do you reckon his play might be?”

Longarm said, “He’s either lit out for good, or he wants us to think he’s lit out for good.”

“Meaning another play for our prisoner, come dark?”

Longarm moved over to the cage and asked the prisoner, “You have a friend with a long gray beard and a passable Canuck accent?”

“I never saw the varmint! Pop, there, told me about him trying to bust in, but…”

“Or bust you out,” Longarm cut in, turning away. He didn’t expect the prisoner to confirm his suspicion, but it was worth thinking about.

Sheriff Weed said, “We’ll have to take turns tonight, keeping an eye peeled for the hombre.”

Longarm stared morosely at him for a moment before he shook his head and said, “That’s doing it the hard way. Why sweat him out when I can ask him what he’s up to?”

“Ask him? How do you figure to ask that old boy word one, Longarm? None of us knows where he is!”

“Not right now, we don’t. But there’s a good hour’s daylight left and I know where he turned off the trail.”

“Hot damn! You reckon you can track him down before sunset?”

“I aim to give it one good try.”

CHAPTER 9

Longarm rode his bay slowly through the crack-willow on the wrong side of the creek, snorting in annoyance as he spotted another big hoofprint in a patch of moist earth. The man calling himself du Val was wasting their time and getting himself brush-cut for nothing. There was little use taking to the tall timber to hide yourself when you traveled with two big geldings wearing oversized draft shoes. The sun was low and he was well clear of the settlement, now. The evening light made the occasional hoofprint easy to read in the orange, slanting rays. In fact, aside from the way du Val had vanished and the odd tale the Mountie told, the signs read as if the oldtimer was simply heading for Bitter Creek without taking too many precautions about his trail. Longarm considered that as he rode on. Was du Val setting him up for a bushwhacking, or had he simply given up?

Longarm ducked his head under a low branch and, as he rode out into a clearing, spied one of du Val’s pets, grazing quietly in the gauzy light. The other was outlined against pale aspen across the clearing. Neither mount had a rider. Longarm reined back into the shadows of the line, sweeping the far side cautiously with his eyes. He slid the Winchester from its boot as he dismounted.

He circled the clearing instead of crossing it, clucking to the gelding near the treeline as he approached it. Neither plowhorse paid much attention to him. They were tired and settled in for the evening. They were either stupid, even for farm animals, or nothing very exciting was about to happen.

Longarm saw a human knee sticking up out of the long grass near the grazing animal he was approaching. He froze in place to study it, then moved closer, his Winchester at port-arms. The man lying in the grass on his back groaned. Longarm dropped to one knee, raising the barrel of his rifle and feeling with one hand under the long beard as he said, “Evening, du Val. Where’d they hit you?”

“Lights and liver, I reckon,” the old man sighed, his French Canuck accent missing. Longarm’s hand came out wet and sticky as the dying man complained, “He didn’t have to do it. I’d never have told.”

Longarm wiped his fingertips on the matted beard, then lifted it away from the old man’s chest which was tatooed with a panoramic scene of a once-important sea battle. Someone had put a rifle bullet right between the Monitor and the Merrimac. Why he was still breathing was a mystery. He was one tough old man.

Longarm asked, “Who bushwhacked you, Sailor?”

“You figured out who I am, huh? You’re pretty sharp, Longarm.”

Longarm cursed himself for offering a digression and insisted, “Who did it? It ain’t like you owe him loyalty.”

“He must have thought I was on your side. We rode in…”

And then the old man was gone. Longarm cursed and got back to his feet, gazing about for sign. It was getting too dark to track, and the two tame geldings told him no strangers were about. They knew him as well as they had known their dead master. He’d noticed they were shy of others.

Longarm circled back to where he’d left his own mount. The body would keep for now in the chill night air and it might be sort of interesting to keep the others in the dark for now. Nobody but the one who’d killed the man who’d called himself du Val knew who he was, or where, right now.

Despite the roundabout path the old man had taken, it was only a short ride back to Crooked Lance. The sun was down by now but the sky was still lavender with one or two bright stars as Longarm rode in. The settlement was crowded with shadowy figures, mounted or afoot, and as Longarm passed a knot of horsemen he heard a voice mutter, “That’s the one who licked old Jimbo.”

Ignoring them, Longarm rode to the log jail, meaning to have a discussion about the bearded mystery man with the prisoner. But he didn’t. A quartet of cowhands stood or squatted by the doorway, and as Longarm dismounted, one of them waved his rifle barrel wildly and said, “No you don’t, stranger. Our orders are to hold Cotton Younger tight as a tick and that’s what we aim to do.”

“Hell, I wasn’t fixing to eat him. Just wanted to ask him some more questions.”

“You ask your questions of the Vigilance Committee, hear? Go along now, friend. Windy, here, was tellin’ us a funny story and you’re spoiling the ending.”

Longarm led his bay by the reins to the livery, peeled off the McClellan and bridle, and rubbed the horses brown hide dry with a handful of straw before bedding it for the night in a stall. He went around to the hotel where he found the others in the so-called dining room, pinned to the back of the general store. The table was crowded but Sheriff Weed made room for him on one of the bench seats, asking softly, “Find anything?”

“Read some sign. The old man’s gone,” Longarm replied. He counted noses, saw that the other lawmen and the Hankses were at the table, and asked, “Where’s Timberline and the gal?”

“Likely spooning. Saw Kim Stover talking to some hands around the jailhouse just before they rang the dinner bell. I hope you ain’t hungry. Considering we’re paying two bits a day for room and board, this grub is…”

Someone dropped a tin plate in front of Longarm. He glanced up and saw it was one of the storekeeper’s womenfolk. It was either his wife or his daughter. It hardly mattered. Both were silent little sparrows. The storekeeper himself wasn’t at the table. Longarm put a cautious spoonful of beans between his lips and saw why. He helped himself to some coffee from the community pot, to wash the beans down. With plenty of sugar and a generous lacing of Creamed milk it was just possible to drink the coffee.

The others were hungrier, or maybe didn’t have spare food in their bed rolls, so they ate silently, as people who live outdoors a lot tend to do. The only conversation at the table was Mabel Hanks, down at the far end. She was buttering up Captain Walthers. She’d likely sized him up, as Longarm had, as a man with an eye for the ladies. Her midget husband ignored her play, spooning his beans more directly to his mouth, since his head rode lower above the table. A picture of the two of them in bed rose unbidden to Longarm’s mind and he looked away, shocked a bit at his own dirty imagination.

One of the sparrowlike Stover women brought an apple pie in from the kitchen next door and when Longarm smiled at her she blushed and scooted out. He decided she was the daughter. They were both ugly, had heads shaped like onions, buck teeth, and mousy brown hair rolled up in tight buns. The best way to tell them apart was by their print dresses. The mother wore white polkadot on blue and her daughter’s print was white on green. The older mountain woman had likely given birth at sixteen or so, because there wasn’t a great gap in their ages. They both looked forty and driven into the ground.

Longarm gagged down half the beans and helped himself to a slice of pie, which turned out to be another mistake. He was glad he had packed some pemmican and baker’s chocolate. Glad he wasn’t a big eater, too.

He saw that the railroad dick was getting up from the table, either in disgust or to relieve himself outside. Longarm pushed himself away from the table to follow, catching up with the detective near the outhouse.

“Call of nature?” grinned the railroad dick, holding the door of the four-holer politely. Longarm said, “social call. Go ahead and do whatsoever. I want to talk to you.”

The detective stepped back outside, saying, “It’ll keep. What’s on your mind, Longarm?”

“Got a deal for you. You got any papers on a Missouri owlhoot called Sailor Brown?”

“Hell yes, I do! He rode with James and Younger when they robbed the Glendale train!”

“Good reward on him?”

“A thousand or more. You know where he is, Longarm?”

“Yep. The reward is dead or alive, ain’t it?”

“Of course. What’s the play?”

“I’m sending you into Bitter Creek with his body, which I’m giving you as a gift in exchange.”

“Exchange for what? You say his… body?”

“Yeah. That old man calling himself du Val was really Sailor Brown. He likely heard they had a friend of his here and rode in with that fool tale to see if he could bust the boy out. I got him on ice for you in a place we’ll discuss if you’re willing.”

“Willing to what?”

“Drop out of this game. You must know your chance of taking Cotton Younger away from the vigilantes and us other real lawmen ain’t so good. On the other hand, you’ve come a long way, so you’ve been waiting, hoping for a break. All right, I’m giving you one. You carry Sailor Brown to the U.P. line and telegraph at Bitter Creek and collect the bounty on him. How does that strike you?”

“Strikes me as damn neighborly. Naturally, you’re expecting a cut.”

“Nope. Can’t take any part of the reward. It’s all yours. I’m going to tell you where the body is and then I’ll expect you to be long gone.”

“Leaving you with one less rival to deal with, eh? All right I’m a man who knows enough to quit whilst he’s ahead. You got a deal. Who killed the Sailor, you?”

“Nope. Don’t know who bushwhacked him. That’s why, if I was you, I’d pick him up tonight and scoot. I’ll ride up the mountain with you to help you pack him on a horse, and to make sure you get away safe. The one who shot him might have other ideas on the subject.”

“Jesus. You reckon they’ll have the body staked out?”

“Doubt it. Looks like somebody shot him down like a dog and left him for the crows. You’d best take that piss now. I’d like to get the two of you off my hands before bedtime.”

The detective laughed and said, “I admire a man who thinks on his feet, and you do think sharp and sudden. How’d you know I wasn’t the killer?”

“You, Weed, and the Mountie are the only ones who couldn’t be.”

“And I’m the one without a real badge. All right, you’ve gotten rid of me. How do you figure to get rid of the others?”

“It ain’t your worry, now. I eat the apple one bite at a time. So take your piss and let’s get cracking.”

CHAPTER 10

By eight-thirty the railroad dick was packing the dead outlaw over the mountains to the transcontinental railroad and Longarm was getting off his bay in front of Kim Stover’s cabin. Light shone through the drawn curtains and somewhere inside a dog was yapping, so Longarm wasn’t surprised when the door opened before he’d had a chance to knock.

Kim Stover peered out at him, the lamplight making a red halo of her hair, as Longarm said, “Evening, ma’am. You folks rode off before I could get around to asking one or two more questions.”

“Mister Long, if you’ve come to make your bid for Cotton Younger…”

“Uncle Sam don’t work that way, ma’am, but let’s leave your odd notions aside for now. You see, there seems to be more’n one outlaw working this neck of the woods. He took a shot at me in Bitter Creek the other night, and tonight I learned he wasn’t funning. I thought we might talk about it.”

“Are you suggesting one of my friends took a shot at you?”

“No, ma’am. I think you and yours are just being surly. You see, somebody came up here to bust Cotton Younger out of your so-called jail. Somebody else gunned him. But that’s all been looked after. What I wanted to ask you about was new faces in the valley.”

“You mean since we captured Cotton Younger? You’ve met them all by now.”

“How about before your friends caught the boy skulking round? You have any new hands on the spreads, hereabouts?”

She shook her head and said, “No. Everyone I know in Crooked Lance has been here for some time.”

“How much time is some, ma’am?”

“Oh, at least five years. Wait a minute. Timberline did hire some new hands when they made him ramrod of the Rocking H. The cattle company that owns it has expanded in the last few years. There’s Windy Dawson, came to work two, maybe three years ago.”

“He’s that short, fat feller who throws good?”

“Yes, Windy’s one of the best ropers in the valley.”

“I took him for a top hand. I’d say he was a cowboy, not a train robber. Anyone else you can think of?”

“Not really. Windy’s the newest man in the valley. there’s Slim Wilson, but he was hired earlier and, like Windy, is considered a hand who knows his way around a cow. I’d be very surprised to learn that Slim wasn’t a man who started learning his skills early, and he’s no more than twenty, right now.”

“What about Timberline?”

“Are you trying to be funny? He’s cowboy to the core, and was one of the first men hired by the Rocking H.”

“Just asking. A man his size stands out in a crowd, too, and I don’t have anything like him on any recent flyers. You mustn’t think I’m just prying for fun, ma’am. It’s my job to put all the cards out on the table for a looksee. I’d say what we have here is a lone gunman who hides good on the ridge lines, or somebody playing two-faced.”

“Your killer has to be one of the men on your side, then. What was that you said about an attempted jailbreak?”

Longarm hesitated. Then he said, “I reckon it’s all right to level with you, ma’am. That old French Canuck I rode in with wasn’t. He made that fool play at the jailhouse door to get a look at the prisoner and maybe slip him a word or two. But he wasn’t out to kill Cotton Younger. He was sent, or came here on his own, to set a kinsman free.”

“And you saw through his scheme? You do know your job, don’t you?”

“Well, it was the Mountie that made him for a fake Canuck. Who gunned him, or why, is still pure mystery. From the few words I got out of him before he died, he seems to have had a misunderstanding with someone, and I know it wasn’t the man you have locked up; they never got to see each other.”

“Oh, that must mean there’s another member of his gang here in Crooked Lance. But why are you telling me all this? I thought you were cross with me and mine.”

“I am, a mite. You see, ma’am, this notion you have on holding our prisoner for some sort of fool auction is getting serious. You folks in Crooked Lance are playing cards for high stakes with professionals, and—no offense intended—some of your cowhands could get hurt.”

“You know our stand about the money, damn it.”

“Yep, and it’s getting tedious. You ain’t a stupid woman, Miss Kim. You must know time is running out on you. Any day now, the army will send in a troop of cavalry to back Captain Walthers, or a team of federal officers will be coming to see what’s keeping me. If I was you, I’d go with the Justice Department. One feller just made himself a modest bounty tonight, by cooperating with me.”

“Could you give me something in writing, saying we were due the reward on Younger and his gang, whenever they’re caught?”

“I could, ma’am, but it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on. You see, Cotton Younger has to stand trial before it’s legal to hang him, and there’s always that outside chance some fool jury might set him free. The reward’s for capture and conviction. As to Frank and Jesse James, us federals might make a deal with Younger and we might not. I could put in a good word for you if it was a federal man that caught them rascals, but there’s others looking. So the James boys might get caught by other folks. They might get turned in for the reward by anybody. They might never be caught at all, since nobody’s seen hide nor hair of either one for a good two years or more. You see how it is?”

She sighed and said, “At least you’re likely more honest than some of the others. Sheriff Weed’s promised us the moon, but he gets cagey every time I ask him to put it in writing.”

“You’re not likely to get anything on paper, and if you do, it won’t be worth all that much. The position you’ve taken just won’t wash, ma’am. The longer you hold that prisoner, the more riled at you his rightful owners are going to get.”

She hesitated. Then, with a firmer tilt to her head, she said, “I have to think about it. You’ve got me mixed up, as you doubtless intended.”

Longarm believed in riding with a gentle hand on the reins, so he tipped his hat and said, “I’ll just let you sleep on it, then. Good night, ma’am. It’s been nice talking to you.”

They were waiting in the shadows as Longarm rode out to the main trail. He saw they weren’t skulking, so he didn’t draw as Timberline and another tall man fell in on either side of him as he left the redhead’s property. Longarm nodded and said, “‘Evening, Timberline.”

“What was you pestering Miss Kim about, Longarm?”

“Wasn’t pestering. Wasn’t cutting in on you, either. As she’ll likely tell you, it’s no secret I was asking questions.”

He turned to the other rider and asked, “Would you be Slim Wilson?”

The youth didn’t answer. Timberline said, “A stranger could get hurt, messing about my intended, Mister.”

“I gathered as much, but like I said, that ain’t My play with the widow. I only want what’s mine. That owlhoot you and she are holding in defiance of the law.”

“Oh, hell, that pissant’s caused more trouble than he’s worth! If she’d just let us string the rascal up and have done with him, the valley could get back to its business, raising cows!”

“Why don’t you just let me take him off your hands, then? We’d all ride out and you could be free to pick posies for your gal, Timberline.”

“It’s tempting, but she’d never talk to me again. You may have noticed Kim Stover is a stubborn woman, Longarm.”

“I did. You really want to marry up with her?”

“Hell yes, but she’s stubborn about that, too. Says she has to know me better. Hell, I’ve known her half a dozen years already, but she’s skittish as a colt about a second try.” Timberline’s voice dropped lower as he confided, “That Ben Stover she was married to was a mean-hearted little runt, just like his father over to the general store.”

“I noticed his old woman and the gal look tuckered some. Haven’t had more’n two words with the storekeeper. Seems a moody cuss.”

“He is. Beats both his wife and the girl. Ben Stover used to whup Miss Kim when they first married up. That is, he did until me and him had a friendly discussion on his manners.”

“I take it you’ve always been right fond of Kim Stover.”

“You take it right, pilgrim. And don’t think I can’t see that you’re a good-looking man, neither. You see where this friendly talk is taking us?”

“Yep. We’re almost to the store, too. Look, Timberline, I said I ain’t sparking the widow and I don’t lie any more’n most gents. I got enough on my plate without fighting over women.”

“All right, I’ll let you off this time, boy.”

Longarm’s.44 was suddenly out and almost up Timberline’s nose as he reined in, blocking the bigger man’s mount with his own as he purred, “You did say mister, didn’t you?” He saw the one called Slim about to make a foolish move and quickly added, “Stay out of this, Slim. You make me blow his face off and you figure to be next, before you can clear leather!”

Timberline kept his free hand well clear of his holstered hogleg as he gasped, “You hold the cards, Longarm! What in thunder’s got into you?”

“I don’t take kindly to being bullied and I don’t like being talked down to. You may have taken the simple truth as crawfishing, but let’s get one thing straight. I ain’t been riding you, so I don’t mean to be rode. You got that loud and clear?”

“Mister, you have made your point, so point that thing somewheres else.”

Longarm said, “Mister is all I was after,” and lowered the Colt, holding it down at his side as he added, “I reckon this is where we say good night, don’t you?”

Timberline nodded and said, “Yep, and I’ll be parting friendly for now, since I suspicion we understand one another.”

Longarm sat his mount quietly as the other two swung around and rode back toward Kim Stover’s spread. He didn’t know if Timberline had been calling or just watching. It wasn’t really his business. The big ramrod and the stubborn redhead were welcome to one another.

But he couldn’t help wondering, as he rode to the hotel, what that sulky little spitfire would be like in bed.

CHAPTER 11

Longarm awoke in the pitch-black little room, aware that he was not alone. He pretended another snore as his right hand slid under the cornhusk pillow for his derringer. He’d left his room key there, too, this time. Wasn’t it safe to sleep anywhere in Crooked Lance?

He flinched as cool fingers brushed his naked shoulder and a soft whisper sighed, “Oh, pretty! So pretty!”

“Mabel?”

“Hush! Oh, do be still! He’ll hear us and he can be so cruel!”

Longarm felt the shabby blanket lift as a cool, nude body slid into bed with him. He moved over to make room on the narrow little cot as his mystery guest flattened small, firm breasts and a work-hardened, almost boyish body against his warmer flesh. As she buried his face in loose, fine hair and began to nibble his collar bone, Longarm folded her in his big arms and muttered, “Did you lock the door behind you, ma’am?”

She placed a palm over his mouth and hissed, “Yes! Oh, don’t make a sound! His ears are sharp and his temper’s not of this world!”

She waited until she saw he wasn’t going to say anything, then slid the hand, moist from his lips, down the front of his body. All the way.

Longarm lay there, as puzzled as he was aroused as she took his penis in her hand and began to play with it, whispering, “Oh, so pretty. I want! I need!”

And then she’d forked a thigh over and was on him, riding him as if in the saddle, astride a trotting pony.

Longarm tightened his buttocks and drove up to meet her as she ground her pubic bone against his, hissing like a pleasured cat with each movement. He ran his hands up and down her spine, noticing how the bones rode under her tight, smooth skin like those of a half-starved Arapahoe camp dog. Then, wider awake and getting more interested, he got a firm grip on each of her small, lean buttocks and started helping her on the downstrokes. She was good, damned good, whoever she was, and she pleasured him the first time fast. As he gasped in enjoyment she kept going, sliding and moaning her own pleasure as the wetness seemed to add to it.

Longarm was still able to serve her, but the first flush had cleared his mind enough to wonder what in hell was going on. The hellcat rutting with him wasn’t Mabel; she moved no way at all like this one. It couldn’t be Kim Stover, could it? Nope, there was more to the redhead than this skinny little bundle of pure lust. That left… hell, that hardly seemed likely!

And then she shuddered, stiffened, and fell forward, kissing him full on the lips as she ran her tongue between them. It was old Stover’s wife or daughter, sure enough. Both of them had buck teeth.

Longarm was a gentlemen of the old school, so he didn’t laugh. The poor, ugly little brute had done her best to please him, and in the dark, kissing her chinless little face wasn’t all that bad. She nestled into him like a lost kitten, kissing him over and over as Longarm felt warm wetness on his cheek and knew she was crying.

He rolled her over to his side and cuddled her, kissing the tears from her eyelids gently as he petted her trembling, nude flanks, as if he were calming a spooked pony or a kicked dog. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck and whispered, “Oh, you’re so nice. So very nice. I knowed it when first I seen you!”

Longarm frowned in the darkness, trying to see his way out of this mess. How was a gent supposed to deal with a lovesick critter like this? Good God! How was he going to explain it? He could already see the jeering looks of the others at the breakfast table. Both mother and daughter were ugly as sin, and come to think of it, which of the damn fool Stover women had he just laid?

Longarm started exploring her flesh gently with his free hand, looking for wrinkles, stretch marks, or some such sign. There wasn’t a fold of loose skin clinging to her thin, muscular body. Her skin was smooth and nice to feel. He tried to picture the two worn-out looking women who’d served dinner. Both had been skinny and scared-looking. Scared little sparrows that never looked a man in the eye. He was hoping like hell it was the older one. She moved like a gal who knew the facts of life, and Jesus H. Christ, if it was the unwed daughter…

The woman took his explorations to mean desire and responded with caresses of her own. She suddenly slid her hips from the cot and trailed her unbound hair down Longarm’s belly, grabbing him again and kissing his semi-erect penis teasingly. Longarm sighed and let her give him a French lesson, for he was in as much trouble already as he was likely to be.

She got him back in the mood amazingly fast, considering her buck teeth and all, so Longarm pulled her up from where she was kneeling and climbed aboard to do it right. Her legs locked around him and she started wagging her tail like a happy puppy. It was a funny way for a gal to move herself, but it was pure heaven, and in the dark it was easy to forget what she looked like in broad daylight.

They made love, wildly and as silently as church mice, for perhaps a full hour. Then she suddenly leaped up, unlocked the door, and was gone without a word.

Longarm made sure the door was locked again, then sank back on the cot, puzzled. It wasn’t as if he’d never had anything as good, but it hadn’t been bad, considering. You never could tell, just by looking at a woman, could you?

He stretched out on the moist blanket, suddenly grinning as the old trail song sprang to mind. “… I humped her standin’ and humped her lyin’… If she’d had wings I’d have humped her flyin’. Come a ti-yi-yippee all the way, all the way, Come a ti-yi-yippee all the way!”

Then he frowned and muttered, “It ain’t funny, you damn fool stud! How in God’s name are you ever gonna face that gal at breakfast, and more important, which of them Stover women was it?”

Breakfast came like death and taxes and there was no way to get out of biting the bullet. So, although he took his time getting dressed, Longarm finally went in to join the others around the plank table, braced for damned near anything.

All but the railroad detective were there ahead of him, of course. One of the Stover women came out of the kitchen and put a tin plate of buckwheat cakes in front of him without comment. Longarm watched her back, saw the gray in her tied-up hair, and decided it couldn’t have been the mother.

The midget, Cedric Hanks, called down the table, “Where’s that dick, working for the railroad? Anybody seen him this morning?”

Longarm broke into the puzzled murmurings to announce, “I sent him to Bitter Creek. Don’t seem likely he’ll be back.”

The Mountie smiled thinly and asked, “So you’ve eliminated one of us? How do you propose to get rid of me, Longarm?”

“Don’t know. Still thinking about it.”

Captain Walthers said, “I warn you, Deputy, you’ll have the War Department to answer to if you try to… whatever you did to that other man!”

“Don’t get spooked, Captain. I didn’t use nothing but sweet reason on him. It ain’t my way to threaten. Ain’t my way to brag, neither. Speaking of which, is there any chance some of your friends at the War Department might be sending in a squadron or so of cavalry? I just counted heads across the street. There’s a good two dozen cowhands and such loafing around the log jail. Don’t know if they’re fixing to lynch the prisoner, run us out of town, or both.”

Sheriff Weed said, “I moseyed over to jaw with that Timberline just now. They seem more cautious than unfriendly. Timberline says since you rode in, some of the vigilance committee’s getting anxious.”

“Could be. Timberline tried to crawfish me, last night.”

“Do tell? What happened?”

“I didn’t crawfish worth mention. He’s likely surprised to meet up with somebody who ain’t afraid of him.”

Weed laughed and agreed, “That’s the trouble with growing as big as a moose. Most fellers leave their brains behind once they top six feet. Get used to having their own way without the effort the rest of us have to put out. You been following that trouble they’ve been having down in New Mexico Territory, Longarm?”

“Lincoln County War? Last I heard, it was over. New governor cleaned out both factions’ friends in high places and appointed new lawmen. What’s Lincoln County to do with hereabouts?”

“Just thinking about a matter of size they got mixed up on down there. You ever hear of Kid Antrim?”

“Billy the Kid? Sure, he’s called Kid Am, Billy Donney, Henry McCarthy and God knows. There’s a federal warrant on him for killing an Indian agent, but other deputies are looking for him. I take it you don’t know where Kid Antrim’s hiding, these days?”

“No, I was talking about his size. Kid An can’t be more’n five foot four, and he’s killed more men than men like Timberline ever even have to punch. You see my point?”

“Saw it long before you took us all over the Southwest Territories to say it. When folks crowd me, I just crowd back. I didn’t have to spin no yarns to Timberline. I suspicion we’ve got it straight, about now.”

The daughter came in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee and placed it on the table, looking neither at Longarm nor at the others as she scooted out again. Weed said, “Ain’t they something? Act like they expected one of us to grab ‘em and run off to the South Seas or a Turkish harem with ‘em.”

“Mountain folks are bashful,” Longarm said, feeling much better.

The storekeeper, Stover, came in to glare down at everyone and ask, “Is everything to your pleasure, gents? Excuse me—lady and gents?”

Mabel Hanks dimpled prettily and said, “My husband and I were just admiring your cutlery. Wherever did you get such a splendid service? It’s so unusual.”

Stover said, “It’s odd stock from a bankrupt mail-order house, mostly, ma’am. I reckon some it’s all right. We don’t stint on guests in Crooked Lance.”

Stover saw there were no complaints forthcoming, so he went back to tend his other enterprises as Captain Walthers smiled at Mabel knowingly. The army man was wrapped about her finger, right enough. But how was a U.S. Deputy to use that? Longarm knew the woman could be bought, but the captain didn’t look like a man who would desert in the middle of a mission.

After breakfast they all met out back to walk by the creek or sit on the veranda, waiting for something, anything, to break the deadlock, as what promised to be another tedious day settled in.

Longarm managed to get the army man aside as the latter was checking out his own big walking horse in the livery. Longarm watched Walthers clean the walker’s frogs with a pointed stick for a time before he cleared his throat and asked, “Would you be willing to take a federal prisoner back to Bitter Creek for me, seeing as we’re both federal officers?”

“You mean Cotton Younger? Of course, but how are we to get him away from those crazy cowboys across the way?”

“Wasn’t talking about him. As I see it, were stuck in this bind with the vigilantes till somebody sends help or they come to their senses. I’d say that could take at least a week. Meanwhile, I’m figuring to make an arrest. I mean, another arrest.”

“Oh? You mean you’ve identified someone here in Crooked Lance as a wanted man?”

“Ain’t rightly sure just what he’s up to, but I got a charge that will stick, if I could get him before a judge.”

“I see. And you think I’d be fool enough to transport him back to civilization, leaving you with one less of us to contend with?”

“Hell, you’re not about to get Cotton Younger. Why not take in at least some damn prisoner and let me share the credit with you?”

“Longarm, you really should have gone into the snake oil business! Are you telling me any truth at all? I’ll bite. Who’s our suspect, and when are you going to arrest him?”

“Pretty soon. Are you aiming to help?”

“Help you arrest a man on a federal charge, certainly. Transport him out of here for you? Never!”

“Well, it was worth a try. Make sure you get that hind shoe. It looks like your walker’s picked up a stone.”

As he stepped outside, Walthers followed. “Not so fast. I’d like to know what you’re up to.”

“Since you ain’t helping, it ain’t your nevermind, Captain.”

“You intend to take him alone?”

“Generally do. We’ll talk about it after.”

Leaving the army man watching, bemused, Longarm hunted down the Mountie and repeated his request. The Canadian lawman’s response wasn’t much different. He was willing to back a fellow officer’s arrest, but he had no intention of leaving Crooked Lance without Cotton Younger. Longarm decided he’d never met such stubborn Men. He strolled back to the veranda and hunkered down, sitting on the edge, as he pondered his next move. He knew he didn’t intend to ride out with any prisoner but the one they’d sent him for. On the other hand, he couldn’t just let his intended victim run free much longer. The man was dangerous, and Longarm had no idea what his play was. You eat an apple a bite at a time, and the prisoner in the jail would likely keep for now.

He saw that the midget detective and his wife were over by the stream-side. Cedric, for some reason, was skipping rocks across the water. Likely it came from pretending to be a little boy most places they went.

Sheriff Weed was seated in a barrel chair down at the far end, smoking a cigar and digesting his cast-iron buckwheats. Longarm half turned, still seated, and said, “I’ve been going over what you said about Kid Antrim, Weed.”

“Do tell? Thought you said you wasn’t after him right now.”

“Ain’t. I’ve been counting strikes. I’d say knowing one of Billy the Kid’s less written-up handles makes it strike three. You mind telling me who the hell you are?”

Weed suddenly rose from the chair frowning through a cloud of tobacco smoke as he asked, “Strike what? What in tarnation’s got into you? I told you I was Sheriff Weed of Clay County, Missouri!”

“That was strike one. I didn’t see why a county sheriff would ride all the way out here in person, ‘stead of sending a deputy, in an election year. But, like I said, that was just strike one. You coulda been a dumb sheriff from Missouri.”

“I don’t like being called dumb, but have your full say, son.”

“All right. Last afternoon, over by the jailhouse, you called Chambrun du Val an hombre. That was strike two, Weed. Folks from Missouri don’t call men hombres. That’s Southwest talk. Maybe Texas or New Mexico. But, what the hell, you could have picked it up from Ned Buntline’s magazine or somebody you rode with one time, and anyway, you don’t call a man out on two strikes, so I waited till you let that slip about the Lincoln County War, down in the Southwest…”

The man calling himself Sheriff Weed went for the S&W at his side. He didn’t make it. Longarm fired, sitting, with the derringer he’d been holding in his lap, then dove headfirst and rolled across the grass, whipping out his sixgun as he bounded to his feet, dancing sideways as he trained it at the end of the veranda.

Then he stopped and lowered the unfired.44, knowing he didn’t have to use it now. The man called Weed was spread-eagled in the dust beyond the end of the planks, his heels up on the veranda with his hat between them. As Longarm moved over to stare soberly down at the glazed eyes staring sightlessly up at him, he was joined by the other two lawmen and the odd detective team.

Captain Walthers gasped, “My God! Did you have to kill him?” and the Mountie shouted, “You can’t be serious! I know that man! He’s the sheriff of Clay County, Missouri!”

Longarm shook his head and said, “Not hardly. Maybe something on him or in his possibles can tell us who he really was.”

As Longarm knelt to go through the dead man’s pockets, a bunch of local cowhands and Kim Stover ran around the corner of the building. The storekeeper, himself, came out cursing, but with neither his wife nor his daughter in evidence.

At the same time, Timberline rounded the cluster of buildings on the far side, gun in hand. He slowed down as he took in what had happened and approached the crowd around Longarm saying, “What did he do, Longarm? Call you a boy?”

Captain Walthers said, “Longarm, I hope you had a federal charge against that man. As the senior federal officer here…”

“Oh, don’t tell us all you’re dumb, Captain. Let us figure some things out for ourselves. Of course I had a charge. it’s a federal offense to impersonate an elected official, which a sheriff is. The badge he had pinned on his vest says ‘Sherriff,’ but it don’t say what county, Clay or otherwise. Man can pick a toy badge up in most any pawnshop. He’s got nothing with a name on it in his wallet. What’s this?”

Longarm unfolded a sheet of stiff paper he’d taken from the dead man’s breast pocket and spread it on Weed’s chest. Kim Stover gasped and said, “Oh, dear, it’s got blood on it.”

“Yes ma’am. Bullet went through it. It’s a telegram, federal flyer sent to every law office worth mention a week or more ago. This particular one’s addressed to the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe. Likely where this feller stole it.”

Walthers blustered, “Damn it, man, what does it say?”

“What we all know. That Cotton Younger’s been picked up as a cow thief, here in Crooked Lance.”

“But if he intercepted it in Santa Fe… what do you make of Weed, a bounty hunter?”

“That’s a likely guess. Since Lew Wallace cleaned up New Mexico the territory’s filled with unemployed guns. From the way he spoke at the breakfast table, I’d say he rode with one side or the other in the Lincoln County War and has been looking for a new job. He heard about the folks here holding Cotton Younger, heard about the herd of rewards it might lead to, and was playing Foxy Grandpa. He did make you the best offer for your prisoner, didn’t he, Miss Kim?”

The redhead grimaced, not looking at the body, as she nodded and turned away. Longarm decided to push her further off balance by observing, brutally, “Yep, no telling how many bounty hunters we’ll have riding up here before long. Might even have the James and Younger Gang paying us a visit, as word of your hospitality gets around. You folks might as well know, one of Cotton Younger’s old sidekicks has already come and gone.

Timberline blinked and said, “The hell you say. Who was the varmint?”

The midget, Cedric, chortled, “The railroad dick. I knew it!”

Longarm shook his head and continued searching the corpse. “Nope. He’s taking Sailor Brown in for me. The Mountie, here, gets credit for unmasking him. He was that oldtimer pretending to be a Canuck.”

Timberline asked, “Who shot him, you or the feller Working for the railroad?”

“Don’t know who shot him. I suspicion it was the same one that shot Deputy Kincaid, the man from my outfit who never got here. Kincaid was from Missouri, so he might have known members of the James-Younger Gang on sight. I suspicion that’s why he was kept from getting here. Though, now that I think on it, MY own reception in Bitter Creek wasn’t all that friendly.”

Timberline said, “Hot damn! I see it all, now! This feller you just gunned down was pretending to be a Missouri Sheriff! Don’t that mean…”

“Slow down. It don’t mean more than another cud to chew, Timberline. Weed, here, couldn’t have shot the old man. Anybody could have done whatever to my partner, Kincaid. This situation’s getting more wheels within wheels than an eight-day clock.”

He found a pocket watch with an inscription and read, “‘To Alexander McSween on his fifth wedding anniversary.’ Looks like real silver, too.”

“You reckon that was the jasper’s real name, Longarm?”

“Not hardly. Alexander McSween was on the losing side of the Lincoln County War. They gunned him down with his wife watching, a couple of summers ago. I’d say this bounty hunter was one of them that did the gunning. No wonder he was so interested in Kid Antrim. The Kid rode for McSween. He made a bad slip by calling Billy the Kid Antrim instead of Bonney. Nobody aside from a few federal officers knows that name, outside Lincoln County.”

Kim Stover’s face was pale as she asked, “Do you think there’s a chance Billy the Kid could be headed this way, Mister Long?”

Longarm considered nodding, but thought honesty was perhaps the best policy when a lie might sound foolish. He shook his head and said, “Doubt it. Kid Antrim’s likely in Mexico, if he’s got a lick of sense. He’s a gunslick, not a bounty hunter. No way a wanted man could collect a reward. Unless, like this jasper, he figured to dress up like a lawman.”

He saw her relieved look and quickly shot it down by repeating, “All we have to worry about is Frank and Jesse James and company.”

Someone asked about the disposal of the remains and Stover quickly said, “I’ll bury him right decent for ten dollars. I figure there’s at least ten dollars on him ain’t there, Deputy Long?”

Longarm made a wry face and got to his feet, brushing off his knee as he said, “You’ll likely want two bits from him for breakfast, too.”

Stover nodded, pleased to see the big lawman was so agreeable, and oblivious of the disgusted looks others were casting his way.

Longarm said, “I’d best see if he had anything in his room,” and walked to the doorway, leaving the others to work out the funeral details as they saw fit. He saw that the Mountie was right behind him, but didn’t comment on it until the two of them were alone in the dead man’s room. As Longarm spread the contents of “Weed’s” saddle bags on the bed, the Mountie said, “That was smoothly done, Longarm.”

“Oh, it only made sense to have the drop on him before I told him he was under arrest.”

“Come now, I’ve made a few arrests myself. You know you could have taken him alive.”

“You don’t say?”

“I do say. You tricked him into slapping leather because you had no intention of having to take him in, without the man you came for.”

“I heard you Mounties were tolerable good. You likely know this job calls for considering things from all sides before you move. It didn’t pleasure me to trick that fool out there into making things simple, but I couldn’t leave him running loose.”

“I know what you did and why you did it. I know you got rid of the railroad detective rather neatly, too. I think it’s time we got something straight between us, Longarm.”

“I’m listening.”

“My organization’s not as old as your Texas Rangers, but we operate in much the same way.”

“I know. You always get your man. I read that somewhere. Don’t you reckon that’s a mite boastful?”

“No, I don’t. I have every intention of taking that prisoner, Cotton Younger, before Her Majesty’s Bar of Justice, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me!”

“You talking about me or them vigilantes all around outside?”

“Both. I’ve had just about enough of their nonsense and I’m not too happy about the way you’ve been trying to whittle your opposition down to size. I warn you, if you make any attempt to run me out…”

“Hey, look here, he’s got a copy of this month’s Capon Billy’s Whiz-Bang. It’s pretty humorous. You oughta read it sometime. Do wonders for your disposition. Nobody’s aiming to run you out, old son. I didn’t run the old man or the railroad dick out of Crooked Lance, and I shot that other feller fair and square. What’s eating you? You are a real Mountie, ain’t you?”

“You want to see my credentials?”

“Nope. My boss told me to expect a Mountie here, and I doubt anyone else would want to wear that red coat.” Longarm’s eyes narrowed, thoughtfully.

The Mountie asked, “What’s wrong? You look like you just thought of something new.”

“I did. I’m starting to feel better about that feller I just shot. There was somebody from the Clay County Sheriff’s office coming out here. That bounty hunter must have waylaid him! Somewhere in the mountains there’s at least two lawmen buried!”

The Mountie put a hand in his tunic and took out a leather billfold, saying, “I insist you read my Sergeant’s Warrant. You’ll note it gives my description in addition to my name.”

Longarm scanned it and said, “You’re likely Sergeant Foster, right enough.”

“William DeVerrier Foster of the Royal Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, to be exact. May I see your identification?”

Longarm grinned and took out his own billfold, showing his badge and his official papers to the other. The Mountie nodded and asked, “Have you checked Captain Walthers’ credentials?”

“Didn’t have to. I asked him a few trick questions since we met. Besides, who but an army man would be after a deserter? You got a point. Maybe you do get your man, most times.”

“Do I have your assurance you’ll not try to get rid of me as you did the others?”

Longarm nodded and said, “You got my word I won’t shoot you or try to buy you off with reward money.”

He’d already decided there had to be some other way.

CHAPTER 12

Longarm didn’t ask Captain Walthers to show his i.d. He knew the Mountie would, and it was just as well they didn’t get to be friends.

By noon the dead man had been buried, amid considerable whooping and shooting off of cowpoke’s guns. One could get the impression that folks in Crooked Lance didn’t get many occasions for a celebration. Longarm didn’t attend the funeral. He was not a friend of the deceased and it seemed an opportunity to have a word with the prisoner.

It wasn’t. A pair of hard-looking men with rifles stood by the log jail and when Longarm said he wanted to talk to Cotton Younger they told him it would be over their dead bodies. He considered this for a moment, and decided it wasn’t his best move.

As he walked over to the general store the midget, Cedric, fell in step at his side, taking three strides to each of Longarm’s as he puffed his big cigar and piped, “We’re gonna have to make our play damned sudden, Longarm. Cotton Younger don’t figure to keep much longer.”

“How’d it get to be our play, and what are you talking about, Cedric?”

“There’s advantages to being a detective knee-high-to-a-grasshopper, big man. Us little fellers can get into places most folks don’t consider.”

“You been listening to folks from under your wet rock?”

“That’s close enough. Want to know what the talk in town is, now?”

“Maybe. What’s making you so friendly, all of a sudden?”

“I don’t like you, either. Never have liked you, even before you had your way with my woman, but I don’t play this game for likes or don’t likes. I’m in it for cash. You want to trade more insults, or do we work together?”

“Depends on what we’re talking about, Cedric. Suppose you start with something I don’t know.”

“They’re fixing to lynch Cotton Younger.”

“What? That don’t make a lick of sense, damn it!”

“You met anybody in this one-horse town with a degree from Harvard yet? I overheard some of Timberline’s hands talking about a necktie party. You see, the redhead, Kim Stover, is the brains behind the scheme to build up Crooked Lance with the proceeds of… whatever. When I say ‘brains,’ I ain’t saying much, for as me and Mabel see it, the game is as good as up. Ain’t nobody here in town fixing to get paid a thing but trouble.”

“That’s what we’ve all been telling’em.”

“I know, and everyone but that stubborn widow woman can see it.”

“Then why don’t Timberline turn the prisoner over and have done with the mess?”

“He can’t. He’s in love with the redhead and she’d never speak to him again if he double-crossed her like that.”

“All right, so how else does he figure to double-cross her?”

“Like I just told you, with a sudden necktie party! He won’t be taking part in it, of course. His plan is to be over at the redhead’s, trying to steal a kiss or better, when all of a sudden, out of the night…”

“I got you. ‘Some of the boys got drunk and riled up about that running iron, Miss Kim, and I’m pure sorry as all hell about the way his neck got all stretched out Of shape like that.’”

“That’s one thing they’re considering. Another is having him get shot trying to escape. Either way, it figures to happen soon.”

“They say anything about me and the other lawmen?”

“Sure. They don’t figure three big men and a dwarf can stop ‘em. I reckon you’re the one they’re calling a dwarf. Timberline told ‘em not to shoot none of us, ‘less we try to stop the fun.”

Longarm stopped at the store front and leaned against a post as the midget put a tiny boot up on the planks to wait for his next words.

Longarm mused, half-aloud, “The Mountie would fight for sure and go down shooting. Walthers might try, and get hurt…”

“You and me know better, right?”

“Against at least fifty armed drunks? You’re sure you got it right, though? Timberline’s got the odds right, but there ain’t much that can be said about his thinking. Hell, he doesn’t have to kill the prisoner. They could just let him go with an hour’s head start and you, me, the others would be hightailing it out of the valley after him. They’d never see any of us again and Timberline could go back to courting his widow woman. Maybe consoling her on their mutual misfortune.”

“I never said he was bright. I only told you what he planned.”

“You reckon he might see it, if it was pointed out to him?”

“He might. Then again, knowing his play was uncovered, he might make his move more sudden. There’s over fifty men in and around town this very moment.”

“I get the picture. When were they planning to murder the poor jasper?”

“Late tonight. The redhead’s gone home in a huff, saying the way everybody’s drinking and carrying on over the funeral is disgusting, which I’ll allow it is. Timberline figures to ride over to her spread, maybe playing his guitar or something as stupid, just so he’s not there when they string the boy up. Later, of course, nobody will remember just who done the stringing, the rest of us will likely ride off and…”

“All right, what’s your plan, Cedric?”

“We in this together? You’ll split us in?”

“Cedric, I’m tempted as hell to lie to you, considering the choices I got, but you’re too smart to think I can divide a reward I’m not allowed to accept.”

“Hell, who cares about the paper on that pissant, Cotton Younger? It’s Jesse James that me and Mabel’s out to collect on! He knows where the James boys are!”

“You figure I’d let you get it out of him, Apache style?”

“Don’t have to. Already made the deal. Like I said, us little folks can get into the damndest nooks and crannies.”

“You talked to the prisoner in the jail?”

“Sure. Got under the floor last night and we jawed a while through a knothole. He don’t like the idea of getting lynched all that much, so I convinced him his only way out of it was to make a deal. His life in exchange for the present address of Frank or Jesse. He says he don’t know where Frank is, but that he knows how to get to Jesse. Half a loaf is better than none, I always say.”

“Where’d he say Cousin Jesse was?”

“He didn’t. Said he’d tell us once he was clear of Crooked Lance and crazy cowboys with ropes. You think I’d bother to spring the rascal if I knew?”

Longarm took out a cheroot and lit it, running the conversation through his mind again to see where the yarn didn’t hold together. He knew the little bounty hunter would lie when it was in his favor, but what he said made sense. Longarm nodded and said, “All right, we get him out right after sundown and make a run for it. You’d better head out early With Mabel and your buckboard. I’ll join you at the first pass and we’ll hole up somewhere. You’ll get your talk with Cotton Younger and then we split up. They’ll probably come boiling up out of this valley like hornets when they find him gone, but you and your woman will be riding into Bitter Creek innocent, and I know my way around in the woods at night.”

“Was you born that stupid or did a cow step on your head, Longarm?”

“You know a better way?”

“Of course. I got a key to the jailhouse, damn it!”

“You stole Pop Wade’s key? How come he ain’t missed it yet?”

“Because I never stole it, big brain! I had Mabel jaw with the guards whilst I took a beeswax impression, standing damn near under Pop as he stared down the front of Mabel’s dress. I got some tools in my valise, and once I had the impression…”

“I know how you make a duplicate key, damn it. I’ll allow it makes it a mite easier, but not much. We still got to get you and your woman out safe while I bang the guards’ heads together some.”

“Mabel’s going to take care of the guards for us.”

“Both of ‘em at once?”

“Don’t be nasty, damn it. Part of their play is to keep the drinking and whooping going on all afternoon and long past sundown. Mabel’s gonna mosey over, sort of drunk-like, with a bottle. If you meet her and she offers you a drink, don’t take it. Mabel’s still pissed off at you for the way you spoke to her in Bitter Creek.”

“So she gives them knockout drops, we unlock the door and slip the prisoner out quiet, leaving the necktie party to discover things ain’t as they seem, long after the four of us are gone. Yep, it’s a good plan.”

“We’d best split up and meet later, then. Part of our plan is that you and me ain’t been all that friendly. I’ll give you the high sign after supper and we’ll move in around… when, nine o’clock?”

“Sounds about right. Summer sun’ll be down about eight. Gives us an hour of dark to spring the prisoner, maybe two, three ‘fore they come for him and all hell breaks loose. I’ll see you at supper, Cedric. My regards to the misses.”

“You fun like that in front of Mabel and it can cost you, Longarm. I’m used to being hoorahed. Used to having a woman with round heels, too. But she can be a caution when she’s riled at you, and you’ve riled her enough already, hear?”

Longarm looked down at the little man, catching the hurt in his eyes before he hid it behind his big cigar. Longarm said, “What I said was said without thinking and without double-meaning, Mister Hanks. Whatever you and your woman have between you ain’t my business and I’d take it neighborly if we could forget what happened the other night in Bitter Creek. What I done, I done because I was a man and a man takes what’s offered. Had I known she was your wife, I wouldn’t have. Now that I know she is, I never aim to again.”

“Jesus, Longarm, are you apologizing to me?”

“I am, if you think you got one coming.”

The midget suddenly seemed to choke on his cigar, grinned, and held out a little hand, saying, “By God, pardner! Put ‘er there!”

CHAPTER 13

Supper took what seemed a million years, complicated by the terrible cooking of the Stover women and the fact that one of them, at least, was probably planning to crawl into bed with him as soon as she dared. Longarm watched both the mother and daughter for some sign, but neither one met his gaze, and he felt less guilty about what had happened. He’d likely never know wich of them it had been, but whichever, she was not only a great lay but damned good at her little game. He wondered how many other times it had happened, and how, if it was the daughter, she kept from getting in a family way. He’d decided she must know about such matters. But, try as he would, he couldn’t puzzle out her identity. They both had the same lean figures and onion head. The one he’d been with had been experienced as hell, but that didn’t prove it was the mother. The daughter was no spring chicken, either, and if she’d done it before, she’d had more practice than most spinsters who looked like poor plain sparrows. He hoped she’d know how to take care of herself, though, because anything he’d fathered with either one figured to be one ugly little bastard!

There was little table conversation as outside, from time to time, a gun went off or some cowhands tore by at a dead run, whooping like Indians. Neither the midget nor his wife looked up when Captain Walthers sighed and asked, “How long do you imagine they’ll carry on like that? You’d think they’d never had a funeral here before!”

Longarm waited until Cedric excused himself from the table and made as if to go outside to answer a call of nature. Longarm followed at a discreet distance, and on the veranda, Cedric slipped him the key, saying, “Mind you wait for Mabel to get them ass-over-teakettle. I’ll move the buckboard out along the trail a mile or so and wait. Mabel gives ‘em the bottle and lights out to join me. Give ‘em fifteen minutes to pass out before you do anything dumb. You figure on running for it or riding him out?”

“I’ll play my tune by ear. Might be riding double, ‘less I can steal a mount for Younger.”

“All right. You won’t see us. We’ll be hid. I’ll watch the trail and whistle you in. See you… when? Nine-fifteen?”

“Give us till nine-thirty before you know I failed. If we don’t make it, you and the lady just come back from your ride as if nothing happened. I might need help or I might be dead. I’ll expect you to do what you have to, either way.”

“I told Mabel you apologized. She says she ain’t mad at you no more.”

Longarm left the midget and went to his room. He gathered his possessions and threw them out the window to the narrow space between the hotel and the livery shed. Then he locked the door from the inside, climbed out the window, and picked up his belongings before moving quietly to the horses.

His bay nickered a greeting and Longarm put a hand over its muzzle to quiet it. He saddled and bridled the bay and was about to lead it out when something whispering endearments plastered itself against him. He steadied the thin woman in his arms and whispered, “I’m going out for a little ride, honey. Meet me later in my room.”

“Just once! Just do it once right now. I want! I need!”

“Honey, the whole damn place is up and about! Have you gone crazy?”

“Yes, crazy for your pretty thing inside me! Please darling, I have to have it or I’ll scream!”

Longarm considered knocking her out, but it didn’t seem too gallant and, besides, he couldn’t see her tiny jaw to hit it. She was fumbling at his fly, now, whimpering like a bitch in heat. He could feel that she wore nothing under the cotton dress. He could tell she was going out of her fool head, too!

Muttering, he led her into a stall and pressed her against the rough boards, letting her fish his half-erect penis from his fly as he loved her up and kissed her to shut her fool mouth. He had to brace his hands against the planks, but she was equal to the occasion, raising her hem with one hand as she played with him with the other.

He was a tall man and she was short and standing up could be the hard way but she must have done it this way before, too, for she raised one leg, caught him around the waist with amazing skill, and literally lifted herself into position, throwing the other leg around him as he slid into her conveniently positioned hungry moistness.

“Keerist!” He marveled as she settled her lean thighs on his hip bones. She moaned with lust as she gyrated wildly with her tailbone against the rough planks. Longarm moved his feet back, swore when he felt he’d stepped on a horse turd, and started pounding as hard as he dared without knocking down the stall. He managed to satisfy both of them, for the moment, and as she slid to her knees to talk French, he managed to get her to her unsteady feet and moving in the right direction by soothing, “Later, in my room. We’ll do it undressed and I’ll lick you to death besides!”

She scampered away in the dark with a knowing chuckle as Longarm got his breath back and wondered how much time he’d lost.

He led the bay out, tethered it at a safe distance, and came back. He worked mostly by feel as he saddled the captain’s walking horse with Walthers’s own army saddle, bridled it with the headgear he found, and led it out behind him, soothing the nervous walker with honeyed words. He recovered his own mount and led both over to the creek, where he led them across and tethered them to a willow.

Then he splashed back, crossed the inky darkness of the Stover grounds, and after a long, cautious looksee, scooted across the road. He worked his way through the shadows to the back of the log jail. The chinked corner logs afforded an easy climb to the almost-flat roof. Longarm crept across the roof until he could peer over at the two guards by the front door. Then he settled down to listen.

It took forever before one of the guards asked, “Any sign of him?”

It’s too early, Slim. The gal said he’d be coming about nine.”

“We’re to be knocked out, ain’t we? What say we sort of scrootch down?”

“You scrootch down, damn it. We got more’n an hour to kill ‘fore he comes over from the hotel.”

“I wish we had a man inside. That big bastard’s faster’n spit on a stove with that.44 of his, and I ain’t never gunned nobody before.”

“Don’t worry, I have. He won’t have a chance. I’ll just blast him with both barrels of number-nine buck as he bends over to see if I’m sleepin’ sound.”

Longarm decided he’d heard as much as he needed to. So he gathered his legs under him, dropped off the roof, and materialized before their startled eyes, pistol-whipping the one with the shotgun into unconsciousness as he warned the other, quietly, “You say shit, and you’re dead.”

The frightened guard didn’t do anything but drop his Henry rifle to the earth without a word. Longarm knew that the key the midget had slipped him was probably worthless, so he said, “Open her up.”

“I don’t have a key, mister.”

“Are you funning with me, boy?”

“Honest to Gawd! Pop Wade has the key, not us!”

“Is Younger inside?”

“Yes, but…”

And that was all he had to say about it as Longarm knocked him out, slid him down the logs to rest by his partner, and went to work on the door.

One blade of Longarm’s jacknife would have gotten him arrested if he’d been searched by a lawman while not carrying a badge. The cheap, rusty lock was no trouble for his pick. He opened the door silently and went in, squinting in the darkness as he called out, quietly, “Younger, you just keep still and don’t say a word till I tell you to.”

“What’s going on?”

“That was three words, you son of a bitch. Say one more and I’ll feed your heart to the hawks!”

There was no further comment from the improvised cell as Longarm picked the lock. He told the prisoner to come out, locked his wrists behind him with handcuffs, and taking the youth by the elbow, said, “You come this way and make sure it’s silent as well as sudden.”

The prisoner tripped over one of the unconscious guards and gasped, “Who done that?”

“I did. Shut up and stand right there while I roll ‘em inside and lock the door. All that idle chatter of yours is making me testy as hell!”

It only took half a minute to shove the guards inside and lock the door a second time. He grabbed Younger’s elbow again and led him at a trot across the road, through the Stovers’ grounds, and across the creek. He boosted the prisoner up into his own saddle, knowing his own bay would be predictable on the lead. Then he climbed aboard Captain Walthers’s walker and led out at a brisk pace as the prisoner yelped, “Jesus! I can’t ride like this! There’s a big slit in this saddle an’ my balls is caught in it!”

“You just hush and do the best you can, boy. My orders are to bring you in dead or alive. You yell one more time and I don’t have to tell you which it’ll be.”

The prisoner fell silent, or tried to, as Longarm followed the trail he’d followed du Val-Brown along by memory. He managed to miss riding through a tree, but the branches whipped both of them in the dark as Longarm set as fast a pace as he dared to in the dark. Once the prisoner announced, apologetically, that he was about to fall off.