001 - Longarm

Longarm said, “You fall and I’ll kill you,” and his horsemanship seemed to improve miraculously.

Longarm led his charge to the clearing he remembered and beyond, guiding himself by the stars as he glimpsed them through the overhead branches. They weren’t on any trail he knew of. The riders from the valley would know every trail for a good two day’s ride from Crooked Lance.

They rode through timber and they rode through brush. A couple of times they almost rode over cliffs but Longarm trusted his mount to see well enough to avoid obvious suicide, given a gentle hand on the reins and not going faster than its night vision could cope with.

As they topped a rise high above the valley, Longarm reined in and looked back and down. They were tOo far away to hear more than an occasional rallying shot, but little lights were moving back and forth on the valley floor. Longarm chuckled and said, “They’ve missed us. But there’s no way to try to read our sign before sunup, so we’ll rest the critters here for a minute and be on our waY.”

The prisoner decided it was safe to speak and asked, “What in thunder is going on?”

“I’m not sure. Couple of folk was setting me up to get killed. Before that, they told me plans were afoot to do the same for you. Could have been true. Could have been another lie. As you see, it don’t make no nevermind, now.”

“You’re the federal man called Longarm, ain’t YOU? Am I ever glad to see you! You see, it’s all a misunderstanding, so you can take these irons off me, now.”

“That’ll be the day, boy. You’re wearing them cuffs till I have you safe in federal custody, which just might take a while. I’ll help you when you have to eat or take a leak. You ain’t the first man I’ve rode like this with, Younger.”

“God damn it, my name is Jones!”

“Whatever. Like I said, that ain’t my job. I was sent to transport you back to Denver, and since both of our critters are still breathing, we’d best be on our way. Hold onto the cantle with your fingers if that McClellan’s not your style. Didn’t you ride a McClellan when you were with Terry on the Rosebud, a few years back?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never deserted from no army!”

“Now, did I say anything about desertion? You stick to any yarn you aim to.”

“It ain’t no yarn, God damn it! You got the wrong man!”

“Well, if I find out I have, once we get you before a judge in Denver, I’ll apologize like a gent to you. Meanwhile, Jones, James, Younger, or whomsoever, that’s where you and me are headed, come hell, high water, or a full Sioux uprising!”

CHAPTER 14

Longarm was tough. Ten times tougher than the good Lord made most men, but his prisoner was only human, and the horses were only horses. By sunup, he could see he was running all into the ground and reined to a halt in a tangle of bigleaf maple. He helped his prisoner down and Cotton Younger simply fell to the damp leves and closed his eyes, falling asleep on his side with his raw, chained wrists behind him. Longarm removed the bits from the animals’ pink-foamed mouths after hobbling each with a length of latigo leather. He didn’t think either one was in condition to walk away, let alone run, but a front hoof lashed to a hind would discourage them from bolting, should they get their wind back before he was ready to move on.

He’d watered both mounts an hour before dawn at a chance run of snow-melt, so they were happy to drop their heads and graze the hurt from their muzzles in the sweet-scented orchard grass and wild onion growing in the dappled shade. He unsaddled both, spread the saddle blankets over tree limbs for the wind to dry, then found a patch of sunlight where he placed the saddles bottoms-up. Some said it wasn’t good for the sweat-soaked leather, but Longarm had heard that those little bugs Professor Pasteur was writing about over in France, weren’t partial to sun baths. He’d risk a cracked saddle skirt against a festered saddle sore any day. He’d started this play by riding out with the two best mounts he knew of in Crooked Lance. He was depending on keeping them that way.

Captain Walthers’s tall mount, after eating a few bites of greenery, was already leaning against a tree trunk, head down and eyes closed. The army man hadn’t fed it enough oats for its size, most likely. The older army bay he’d borrowed from the remount section he had picked because he looked like a tough one, and he seemed to be living up to Longarm’s hopes. He was nearly worn out, but still stuffing his gut like the wise old cuss he was. there was no telling when they’d be taking a break in such good grazery again.

Longarm considered the wild onion and other herbage as he rubbed both mounts down with Captain Walthers’s spare cotton drawers from the saddle bags the fool had left attached. Here in the shade it was choice and green, but hardly touched, except for an occasional rabbit-nibble. Longarm saw the healed-over trunk scars where a long-dead elk had rubbed the velvet from his antlers on a good day to fight for love. Once, a grizzly had sharpened his claws on a tree beyond. The sign was fresher. Maybe from early that spring. Longarm patted his mount’s rump and said, “Yep, we’re on virgin range, oldtimer. Don’t know just where in hell it is, but nobody’s run cows through here in living memory.”

Leaving all three of his charges for the moment, Longarm circled through the shapeless mass of timber, fixing its layout in his mind for possible emergencies. He came to an outcropping of granite, studied it, and decided it would be a waste of time to climb up for a looksee. Even if the top rose above the surrounding treetops, which it didn’t, there’d be nothing to see worth mentioning. The land was flattening out as they approached the south-pass country. If a posse from Crooked Lance had found their trail yet, it would be too far back to be visible on gently rolling timberland. Longarm went back to the sleeping prisoner, grabbed him by the heels, and dragged him over to the outcropping, as he half-awoke, complaining, “What the hell?”

“Ain’t smart to bed down next to the critters.” Longarm explained, adding, “Horses nicker to one another at a distance. I figure that if ours get to calling back and forth with others skulking in on us… never mind. If you knew a damn thing about camping in unfriendly country you’d have never got caught by folks who weren’t even looking for you.”

He placed the prisoner on dry forest duff, strode over to the granite outcropping, and hunkered down with his back against its gray wall, bracing the Winchester across his lap with his knees up, folding his arms across them, and lowering his head for forty winks, Mexican style. He’d almost dozed off when the prisoner called out, “I can’t sleep with my hands behind me like this, damn it!”

“You can sleep standing on your head if you’re really tired, boy. Now put a sock in it and leave me be. I’m a mite tuckered myself, and by the way, I’m a light sleeper. You move from there in the next half hour or so and you’ll be buried a yard from wherever I find YOU.”

“Listen, lawman, you’re treating an innocent man cruel and unusual!”

“Shut up. I don’t aim to say that twice.”

Longarm dozed off. He might just have rested his mind a few minutes. It wasn’t important, as long as it worked. In about an hour he lifted his head, saw the prisoner was where he’d last seen him, and felt ready to face the world again.

But he was not an unreasonable taskmaster. Longarm knew others might still be tuckered while he was feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so he let the prisoner snore as he smoked a cheroot all the way down, chewing on his own thoughts. He had no way of knowing some things, but when in doubt, it paid a man to consider the worst, so he tried to decide just how bad things could possibly be. The idea that the others had simply given up never crossed his mind.

The midget and his woman had sold them out. The reason could wait for now. Timberline and the Crooked Lance riders would be following, if only because Kim Stover insisted. Certainly the Mountie, and probably Captain Walthers, would be tracking them, too. Either with the posse or riding alone. Whoever was tracking would have picked up the sign at sunup, not that long ago. At best they’d just be over the first rise outside of Crooked Lance, a good eight to ten hours behind him, even riding at a breakneck pace. They would have to ride more slowly than he had, because they’d have to watch the ground for sign. They’d have to scout each rise before they tore over it too; they knew he had guns and could have dug in almost anywhere. Yes, he and the prisoner were in fair shape for a cross-country run. Anyone following would have some trouble on catching up.

Longarm started field stripping and cleaning the Winchester in his lap as he considered what he’d be doing if he was riding with the vigilantes instead of running from them. He decided to appoint the Mountie, Foster, as the most dangerous head of a combined posse, which was the worse thing he could picture tracking him. An experienced lawman wouldn’t just follow hoofprint by hoofprint. Sergeant Foster would know he and the prisoner were well-mounted with a good lead. The Mountie would try to figure out where they were headed and ride hard to cut them off.

All right, if he was Sergeant Foster, where would he guess that a U.S. Deputy Marshal and his prisoner would be headed?

Bitter Creek, of course. There was a jail in Bitter Creek to hold Cotton Younger till a train came by. If the Mountie had gone in with the vigilantes and told them that, Timberline’s boys, or maybe a third of them, would be riding directly for Bitter Creek, planning to keep him from boarding the eastbound U.P. with a prisoner he hadn’t paid for.

The next best bet? A run for the railroad right-of-way, well clear of Bitter Creek, with hopes of flagging down a locomotive. He’d be set up nicely for an ambush anywhere along the line if he did that. So the Union Pacific was out. Too many unfriendly folks were expecting him to take Cotton Younger in that way.

As if he’d heard Longarm call out his name aloud, the prisoner rolled over and sat up, muttering, “I got to take a leak. You’ll have to take these irons off me, Longarm.”

Longarm placed the dismantled Winchester and its parts carefully on a clean, flat rock before he got to his feet. He walked over and hauled the prisoner to his feet. Then he unbuttoned the man’s pants, pulled them halfway down his thighs, and said, “Leak away. I gotta put my rifle back together.”

“Gawd! I can’t just go like this! I’ll wet my britches!”

“You do as best you can. I don’t aim to hold it for you.”

The cow thief turned away, redfaced, as Longarm squatted down to reassemble his rifle, whistling softly as he used his pocketknife screw driver.

The prisoner asked, “What if I have to take a crap?”

“I’d say your best bet would be to squat.”

“Gawd! With my hands behind me like this?”

“Yep. It ain’t the neatest way to travel, but I’ve learned not to take foolish chances when I’m transporting. You’ll get the hang of living with your hands like that, in a day or so.”

“You’re one mean son of a bitch, you know that?”

“Some folks have said as much. I got my rifle in one piece. You want me to button you back up?”

“I dribbled some on my britches, damn it!”

“That ain’t what I asked.”

Longarm crooked the rifle through his bent elbow and went back over to pull the prisoner’s pants up, buttoning just the top button. “Since there’s no ladies present, this’ll save us time, when next you get the call of nature. It’ll also probably drop your pants around your knees if you get to running without my permission.”

“You’re mean, pure mean. As soon as I can talk to a lawyer I’m gonna file me a complaint. You got no right to torture me like this.”

“You’ll never know what torture is, until you try to make a break for it. I got some jerky and biscuit dough in my saddle bags. As long as we’re resting the mounts, we may as well eat.”

He took the prisoner to another flat rock near the hobbled army mounts, sat him down on it, and rummaged for previsions. He cut a chunk of jerked venison from the slab, wrapped it in soft sourdough, and said, “Open wide. I’ll be the mama bird and you’ll be the baby bird.”

“Jehosaphat! Don’t you aim to cook it?”

“Nope. Somebody might be sitting on a far ridge, looking for smoke against the sky. Besides, it’ll cook inside you. One thing I admire about sourdough. You just have to get a bite or two down and it sort of swells inside you. Saves a lot of chewing.”

He shoved a mouthful into Cotton Younger and took the edge from his own hunger with a portion for himself. After some effort, the prisoner gulped and asked, “Don’t I get no coffee? They gave me coffee three times a day in that log jail.”

“I’ll give you a swallow from the canteens before we mount up again. Tastes better and lasts you longer if you’re a bit thirsty when you drink.”

He took his Ingersoll out and consulted it for the time. “I’ll give the brutes a few more minutes, ‘fore I saddle and bridle ‘em. I’ve been meaning to ask: do you reckon they was really fixing to hang you, last night?”

“They never said they was. Pop Wade was sort of a friendly old cuss.”

“Somebody told me Timberline was tired of having you on his hands. How’d you get along with him?”

“Not too well. He’d have hanged me that first day, if the redheaded lady and Pop hadn’t talked him out of it.”

“Hmm, that midgets game gets funnier and funnier. Did he really offer you a deal to spring you from the jail in exchange for Jesse James?”

“I told him I’d put him onto Jesse James, but I was only trying to get out of that place. I got no more idea than anyone else where that rascal’s hid out.”

“Let’s see, now. He sends me to get killed. Then, amid the general congratulations, him or Mabel slips you out, they put a barlow knife against your eyelid to gain your undivided attention. It figures. It ain’t like they had to transport you out of the valley. They just wanted a few minutes of Apache conversation with you. Once they knew where to pick up Jesse James, you’d be useless baggage to dispose of. Hell, they might even have let you live till the vigilantes found you.”

“Damn it, I don’t know where Jesse James is hiding!”

“Lucky for you I come along, then. I suspicion you’d have told ‘em, whether you knew or not. That Cedric Hanks is a mean little bastard, ain’t he?”

“You still think I’m Cotton Younger, don’t you?”

“Don’t matter what I think. You could be Queen Victoria and I’d still transport you to Denver to stand trial as Cotton Younger.”

The owlhoot’s expression was sly as he asked, cautiously, “Is cattle rustling a federal charge, Longarm?”

“No. It’s a fool thing to say. You rustle up some grub or you rustle apples as a kid. You don’t rustle cows, boy. You steal ‘em! If you ride with a running iron in your saddle bags, it’s best to be honest with yourself and call it what it is. Cow theft is a serious matter. Don’t shilly-shally with kid names for a dangerous, dead-serious profession!”

“If I was to admit I was a rustler—all right, a cow thief—named Jones, would you believe me?”

“Nope. I ain’t in a believing business. You don’t know what fibbing is until you’ve packed a badge six or eight years. You owlhoots only lie to decent folks, so you seldom get the hang of it. In my line, I get lied to every day by experts. I’ve been lied to by old boys who gunned down their own mothers. I’ve taken in men who rape their own daughters. I’ve arrested men for the sodomy-rape of runaway boys, for torturing old misers for their gold, for burning a colored man to death just for the hell of it, and you want to know something? Not one of them sons of bitches ever told me he was guilty!”

“Longarm, I know I’ve done wrong, now and again, but you’ve got to believe me, I’m only…”

“A professional thief who’s done more than one stretch at hard labor. You think I don’t recognize the breed on sight? No man has ever come out of a prison without that whining, self-serving look of injured innocence. So save me the details of your misspent youth. I’ve heard how you were just a poor little war orphan, trying as best he could to make his way in this cruel, old world he never made. I know how the Missouri Pacific stole your widowed mother’s farm. You’ve told me about the way they framed you for borrowing that first pony to fetch the doctor to your dying little sister’s side. You’ve told me every time I’ve run you in.”

“That’s crazy. You never seen me before!”

“Oh, yes, I have. I’ve seen you come whining and I’ve had it out with you in many a dark alley. The other day I killed you in a barber shop. Sometimes you’re tall, sometimes you’re short, and the features may shift some from time to time. But I always know you when we meet. You always have that innocent, wide-eyed look and that same self-pity in your bullshit. I know you good, old son. Likely better than you know yourself!”

“You sure talk funny, mister.”

“I’m a barrel of laughs. You just set while I saddle up the mounts. We’re almost to the high prairies near the south pass and we have to ride a full day out in the open. You reckon you know how to sit a McClellan with your hands behind you, now? Or do I have to tie you to the swells?”

“I don’t want to be tied on. Listen, wouldn’t it make more sense to wait for dark before we hit open ground?”

“Nope. We have them others coming at us through the trees right now. I figure we can get maybe ten, twelve miles out before they break free of the trees. I’d say they’ll be here this afternoon. By then we’ll be two bitty dots against the low sun. The course I’m setting ain’t the one they’ll be expecting, but there’s no way to hide our trail by daylight. If we make the railroad tracks sometime after dark, they’ll cut around the short way, figuring to stop any train I can flag down.”

“What’s the point of lighting out for the tracks then, if they’ll know right off what your plan is?”

“You mean what they’ll think my plan is, don’t you?”

CHAPTER 15

The moon was high, washing the surrounding grasslands in Pale silver as the prisoner sat his mount, watching Longarm’s dark outline climb the last few feet to the Crossbar of the telegraph pole beside the tracks. He called up, “See anything?”

Longarm called back, “Yeah. Campfire, maybe fifteen miles off. Big fire. Likely a big bunch after us. Leastways, that’s what they want me to think. You just hush, now. I got work to do.”

Longarm took the small skeletonized telegraph key he’d had in his kit and rested it on the crossbar as he went to work with his jackknife. He SPliced a length of his own thin wire to the Western Union line, and spliced in the Union Pacific’s operating line, next to it.

He attached a last wire and the key started to buzz like a bee, its coils confused by conflicting messages on the two lines he’d spliced into. Longarm waited until the operators up and down the transcontinental line stopped sending. They were no doubt confused by the short circuit. Then he put a finger on his own key and tapped out a rapid message in Morse code. He got most Of it off before the electromagnet went mad again as some idiot tried to ask what the hell was going on.

Longarm slid down the pole, mounted his own stolen horse, and said, “Let’s go.” He led them west along the right-of-way. He rode them on the ties and ballast between the rails. The horses found it rough going and stumbled from time to time. As the bay lurched under the prisoner, he protested, “Wouldn’t it be easier on the grass all about?”

Longarm said, “Yep. Leave more hoofprints, too. Reading sign on railroad ballast is a bitch. That halo forming around the moon promises rain by sunup. Wet railroad ballast is even tougher to read.”

“What was that message you sent on the telegraph wire?”

“Sent word to my boss I was still breathing and had you tagging along. Told him I wasn’t able to transport you by rail and where I was hoping to meet up with such help as he might see fit to send me.”

“We’re headed for Thayer Junction, right?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, hell, we’re at least ten miles northwest of Bitter Creek and headed the wrong way. You reckon we’ll make Thayer Junction ‘fore the rain hits?”

“For a man who says he don’t know many train robbers, you’ve got a right smart railroad map in your head. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: where did you figure to run a cow you stole in Crooked Lance? It’s a far piece to herd stolen cows alone, ain’t it?”

“I keep telling everybody, I was only passing through! I had no intentions on the redheaded widow’s cows.”

“But you had a running iron for changing brands. A thing no cow thief with a brain would carry a full day on him if it could be avoided. So tell me, were you just stupid, or did you maybe have one or two sidekicks with you? If there were sidekicks who didn’t get caught by the vigilantes it would answer some questions I’ve been mulling over.”

“I was riding alone. If I had any friends worth mention in that damned valley I’d have been long gone before you got there!”

“That sounds reasonable. I sprung you solo. A friend of yours with the hair on his chest to snipe at folks would likely be able to take out Pop Wade, or even the two I whopped some civilization into. That wasn’t much of a jail they had you in, Younger. How come you didn’t bust out on your own?”

“I studied on it. We’re doing what stopped me. I figured a couple of ways to bust out, but knew I’d have Timberline and all them others chasing me. Knew if they caught me more’n a mile from the Widow Stover and some of the older folks in Crooked Lance they’d gun me down like a dog. Timberline wanted to kill me when they drug me from the brush that first day.”

“He does seem a testy cuss, for a big man. Most big fellers tend to be more easy-going. What do you reckon made him so down on you, aside from that running iron in your possibles?”

“That’s easy. He thought I was Cotton Younger, too. Lucky for me he blurted the same out to the widow as she was standing there. When he said I was a wanted owlhoot who deserved a good hanging, she asked was the reward worth mention, and the rest you know.”

“Timberline’s been up here in the high country for half a dozen years or more. How’d he figure you to be a member of the James-Younger gang?”

“The vigilance committee has all these damned reward posters stuck up where they meet, out to the widow’s barn. That’s their lodge hall. Understand they hold a meeting there once a week.”

“Sure seems odd to take the vigilante business so serious in a town where a funeral’s a rare occasion for an all-day hootenanny. While you was locked up all them weeks did you hear tell how many other owlhoots they’ve run in?”

“Pop Wade says they ain’t had much trouble since the Shoshone Rising a few years back. Shoshone never rode into that particular valley, but that’s when they formed the vigilantes. They likely kept it formed ‘cause the widow serves coffee and cakes at the meetings and, what the hell, it ain’t like they had a opera house.”

“Kim Stovers more or less the head of it, eh?”

“Yep, she inherited the chairmanship from her husband when the herd run him down, a year or so ago. Pop Wade’s the jailer and keeps the minutes ‘cause he was in the army, one time.”

“And Timberline’s the muscle, along with the hired hands at his and other spreads up and down the valley. You hear talk about him tracking anyone else down since he took the job?”

“No. Like I said, things have been peaceable in Crooked Lance of late. Reckon they’re taking this thing so serious ‘cause it beats whittling as a way to pass the time. You figure it should be easy to throw them part-time posse men off our trail, huh?”

“They’d have lost us long ago if we only had to worry about cowhands. I’m hoping that Mountie joined up with ‘em, along with Captain Walthers and the bounty-hunting Hanks family. Mountie’d be able to follow less sign than we’ve been leaving.”

“Jesus! You reckon this rough ride down these damn tracks will throw him off?”

“Slow him, some. Hang on, we’re getting off to one side. I see a headlamp coming up the grade.”

Longarm led his mounted prisoner away from the track at a jogging trot until they were well away from the right-of-way. Then, as the sound of a chuffing locomotive climbed toward them on the far side of a cut, he reined them to a halt and said, “Rest easy a minute. Soon as the eastbound passes I’ll unroll my slicker and a poncho for you. I can smell the rain, following that train at a mile or so down the tracks.”

“We’re right out in the open, here!”

“That’s all right. The cabin crew’s watching the headlamp beam down the tracks ahead of ‘em. Folks inside can’t see out worth mention through the glass lit from inside. Didn’t your cousin Jesse ever tell you that?”

Before the prisoner could protest his innocence again the noisy Baldwin six-wheeler charged out of the cut and passed them in a haze of wet smoke and stirred-up ballast dust. Longarm waited until the two red lamps of the rear platform were fading away to the east before he put Captain Walthers’s poncho over the prisoner and started struggling into the evil-smelling stickiness of his own tightly rolled, oilcloth slicker. He smoothed it down over his legs, covering himself from the shoulders to ankle but didn’t snap the fasteners below a single one at the collar. He’d almost been killed once, trying to draw his gun inside a wet slicker he’d been fool enough to button down the front.

In the distance, the locomotive sounded its whistle. Longarm nodded and said, “They’ve stopped the train to search for us. Means one of ‘em flashed a badge or such at the engineer. Means at least five minutes for them to make certain we didn’t flag her down for a ride. I’d say the searching’s going on about six or eight miles from here. Must be the Mountie leading.”

He heard a soft tap on his hat brim and smiled saying, “Here comes the rain. Hang on.”

He led off, south-southwest, away from the track and up a gentle grade in the growing darkness of the rain-drowned moonlight. The prisoner called out, “Where in thunder do you think you’re going? The railroad hugs the south edge of the gap through the Great Divide!”

“We’re on the west side of the divide, now. All this rain coming down is headed into the Pacific save what gets stuck in the Great Basin twixt here and the Sierra Navadas.”

“Jehosaphat, are we bound for California?”

“Nope, Green River country, once we cross some higher ground.”

“Have you gone plumb out of your head? There’s no way to get from here to the headwaters of the Green, and if there was, there’s nothing there! The Green River’s birthed in wild canyon lands unfit for man or beast!”

“You been there, Younger?”

“No, but I heard about it. It’s the wildest, rough most tore-up stretch of the Rocky Mountains!”

“Not quite. We got to ride over that part before we get to Green River country.”

CHAPTER 16

Longarm took advantage of the remaining darkness to cover most of the gently rolling Aspen Range between the U.P. tracks and the mighty ramparts of the Green River Divide. Morning caught them winding up a trail fetlock-deep in running rainwater. They were above the hardwoods, now, and rode through gloomy corridors of somber, dripping spruce. Longarm took a deep breath, and while the smell of the rain-washed timber was pleasant, the air was a mite thin for breathing. He knew he was good for a run up Pike’s Peak to even thinner air, but he had to consider the horses. He led slowly on the upgrades and resisted the temptation to trot when the trail, from time to time, ran downhill a few yards.

Even covered with waterproof canvas and oilcloth, they were both damp and chilled to the bone by now. Somewhere above them the sun was trying to break through, but the sky was a fuzzy gray blanket of wet, dripping wool. Off through clearings in the timber, silver veils of rain whipped back and forth in the morning breezes like the cobwebs of a haunted pagan temple. From time to time one of the mountain gods roared majestically in the sky and another spruce died in a blinding lightning flash. More than once that morning lightning whip-cracked down too closely for comfort, but Longarm took little notice of things he couldn’t do anything about. Folks who were afraid of lightning had no business riding in the high country. Electrical storms went with the territory.

Somewhere in the dripping tanglewood they crossed the Utah line. There was no signpost, no natural feature. Someone back in Washington had drawn a line with a ruler on the map. Half of the jumbled peaks and ridges had never been properly surveyed by a white man. The way the Rockies had been thrown together here made little sense to the Indians, who said Lord Grizzly and the Great Spirit had wrestled in the Days of Creation and left the Shining Mountains as their trampled footprints in the torn-up earth of their Great Buffalo Grounds.

Longarm reined in near a giant potato of lichen-covered granite that leaned toward the trail, and helped the prisoner down, saying, “We got to spell the mounts on foot for a while. I’m going to build a fire and dry our bones a mite.”

“Could I have these cuffs in front of me for a change? My shoulder sockets are sore as hell.”

“I’ll study on it. Just stand against the rock and dry off some while I find something dry enough to light.”

He did think about the prisoner’s discomfort as he peeled damp bark from spruce branches and dug dry punk from under the soaked forest duff at the base of the rock. Unless the prisoner was a superb actor, he was neither bright nor given to sudden courage. He’d let them hold him for nearly a month in a ramshackle log jail guarded by old Pop and unskilled cowboy jail pards. Longarm took a spare cartridge, pulled the slug with his teeth, and sprinkled loose powder into the dry punk between his whittled stick kindling and stuck a match to it. There was a warm, smoky whoosh and Longarm put his face near the ground to blow into the smoldering beginnings before he leaned back, squatting on his boot heels almost atop the little Indian handwarmer and suggested, “Put your hands in front of you, if you want.”

“Don’t you have to unlock these blamed cuffs, first?”

“‘Course not. Ain’t you ever worn irons before?”

“Not often enough to know how to unlock ‘em with no key.”

“Hell, scrootch down on your heels till your hands are on the ground. Then just haul your ass and feet over the chain between your wrists. That’ll leave your hands in front of you when you stand up.”

The prisoner looked puzzled, but slid down the rock, fumbling about under the poncho and grunting as he got his knees up against his chin and struggled. Then he suddenly grinned and said, “I done it! My hands is in front of me! Why’d you have me chained like this SO long when you must have knowed all the time a man could work his hands to a more comforting place?”

“Wanted to see how educated you were. You got a lot to learn if you intend to follow Your chosen trade serious.”

The prisoner moved closer to the fire, putting his numb, linked hands out from under the poncho to warm them as he grinned and asked, “Are you starting to believe I ain’t one of the James-Younger gang?”

“Don’t matter what I believe. My job’s to take you in. Save the tales for the judge.”

“Wouldn’t you let me go if I could get YoU to believe MY real names Jones?”

“Nope. They never sent me to find out who YOU were. Like I said, you could be named Victoria Regina and I’d still deliver you to Denver, Lord willing that we ever get there.”

“You’re a hard man, Longarm.”

“Hell, you don’t know what hard can get to or you’d know better than to wander about with a running iron and a name like Jones. I know a dozen deputies who would have gunned you by now just ‘cause it’s easier and safer to transport a dead man. The papers on you say ‘dead or alive,’ as I remember.”

“Jesus, meeting up with you has given me second thoughts on stealing cows for a living. When they find out I’m not Cotton Younger and cut me loose, I reckon I’ll go back to washing dishes!”

Longarm didn’t answer. The boy was a born thief, whether he was Cotton Younger or some other reprobate. There was maybe one chance in a hundred that he was telling the truth and that this had all been a fool’s errand. The odds of the prisoner living to a ripe old age hadn’t changed worth mentioning. If they didn’t hang him this year for being Cotton Younger, they’d hang him sooner or later anyway. He was a shifty-eyed and probably vicious thief, no matter how it turned out in Denver.

The prisoner glanced up and said, “Smoke’s rising over the top of this rock shelter. You reckon anyone can see it?”

“Not unless they’re close enough to smell it. The whole sky is filled with drifting gray.”

“How much of a lead do you reckon we have, Longarm?”

“Can’t say. We took the two best mounts I knew Of and they’re bound to be held back by the slowest pony in the posse, ‘less they like to ride after an armed man all strung out. I suspicion we’re a good fifteen miles or more out front. We’d be farther if somebody wasn’t leading who knows his business.”

“Yeah. They’d have had to be cat-eyed and hound-nosed to follow us along the railroad tracks like they done.”

“Hell, they didn’t follow us by reading sign. They followed us by knowing. I’d say they sent a party in to Bitter Creek and another down the track, covering all bets. They got more riders than they need, so they ain’t riding bunched together. They’ll be split into half a dozen patrols, sweeping everywhere we’d be likely to head.”

“Jesus, how you figure to shake ‘em, then?”

“Don’t. Not all of ‘em. No matter which fork we take, at least half of ‘em will be following us up the right one. Ought to whittle ‘em down some if we keep offering choices.”

“I see what you mean. How many men you reckon you can hold off if any of ‘em catch up?”

“Not one, if he’s better than me. Any number if they don’t know how to fight. I doubt if they’ll dare split up into parties of less than a dozen. I’m hoping the Mountie won’t make me shoot him. Man could get in trouble with the State Department, shooting guests.”

“He’s as likely to be riding off with someone in the wrong direction as on our trail, won’t he?”

“Nope. The only ones likely to follow the right trail are the good trackers.”

He threw another faggot on the fire, watching it steam dry enough to burn as he mused, half to himself, “The cooler heads among the party will likely stay attached to Sergeant Foster. So if push comes to shove we’ll be up against Timberline, the Hankses, maybe even Captain Walthers. He’s likely riled about me stealing his walker and would know the Mountie knows his business.”

“If we get cornered, you could give me a gun and I’d be proud to side you, Longarm.”

“Not hardly. I never sprung you from that jail to shoot U.S. or Canadian peace officers. I don’t like getting shot all that much myself.”

“Hell, you don’t think I’d be dumb enough to try to gun you, do you?”

“You’ll never get the chance from me, so we’ll most likely never know.”

“Listen, you can’t let ‘em take me, handcuffed like this! You’d have to give me a chance for my life!”

“Son, you had that chance, before you took to stealing from folks.”

“gawd! You mean you’d let ‘em kill me, if it comes down to you or me?”

“If it comes down to you or me? That’s a fool question. I’d boil you in oil to save myself a hangnail, but don’t fret about it. We’re both a long way from caught up with.”

It didn’t stop raining. They rode out of the storm that afternoon by getting above the clouds. The slanting rays of the sun warmed and dried them as they rode over the frost-shattered rocks where stunted junipers grew like contorted green gnomes on either side. Cushion flowers peeked at them between boulders, not daring to raise a twig high enough for the cruel, thin winds to bite them off. Surprised, invisible ground squirrels chattered at them from either side of the trail, which now was little more than a meandering flatness between patches of treacherous scree or dusty snow patches. The air was still, and drier than a mummy’s arm pit, but only warm where the sun shone through it. Each juniper’s shadow they rode through held the chill of the void between the planets. They passed a last wind-crippled little tree and knew they’d reached the timberline. It wasn’t a real line painted over the shattered scree, it was simply that after you got high enough on a mountain, nothing grew tall enough to matter.

Longarm led them to a saddle between higher, snow-covered peaks to the east and west, and at the summit of the pass, reined in for a moment.

There was nothing to see back the way they’d ridden but the carpet of pink-tinged clouds, spread clear to the far horizon with an occasional peak rising like an island above the storm below them.

The prisoner asked, “See anybody?”

Longarm snorted, “We’d be in a hell of a fix if I did. Let’s ride.”

The other side of the pass was a mirror image of the one they’d just ridden up. The prisoner looked down into the carpet of cloud spread out ahead of them and groaned, “Hell, I was just getting comfortable.”

“We ain’t riding for comfort. We’re riding for your life, and Denver. How long you figure to live once we get there ain’t my worry.”

“How far do you reckon Denver is, Longarm?”

“About four hundred miles, as the crow flies. We ain’t riding crows, so it’s likely a mite farther.”

“Four hundred miles across the top of the world with half of it chasing us? Jehosaphat, I wish I was back in that fool jail!”

“No, you don’t. They would have buried you by now. By the way, you made a deal with that midget to save yourself from a necktie party. You mind telling me what it was?”

“I told you. He said he’d get me out if I’d tell him where Jesse James was hiding.”

“I remember. Whereabouts did you say that was?”

“Hell, I don’t know! I’d’a said most anything to get my ass out of there!”

“Well, your ass is out. What did you aim to tell Cedric?”

“I told you. He said he’d get me out if I’d tell him some yarn.”

“Spin her my way, then. I listen as good as anyone.”

“Oh, hell, I dunno. I’d’a likely told him the stuff as is going around the bar rooms. You ask any two men where the James boys went after that big shootout in Minnesota and you get three answers.”

“Which one do you reckon makes most sense?”

“You heard about them lighting out to Mexico?”

“Sure, and I don’t like it much. The James boys has gotten by all these years by hiding out amid friends and kinfolks they grew up with. They have to be somewhere in or damn near Missouri. Surprise me if they was even far from Kansas City. Clay County’s been pretty well searched over, but they’ll be somewhere in the Missouri River drainage when we catch up with ‘em. That fool raid they made up into Minnesota likely taught ‘em the value of hiding out with folks they can trust to keep a secret.”

“I did hear one story about Saint Joe. Where is that from Kansas City?”

“Up the river a few hours by steamboat. I heard it, too. Sheriff of Buchanan County wires that nobody’s held up anybody in or about Saint Joe.”

“Well, I hear tell Jesse and Frank is trying to go straight. You see, Cole Younger was the real brains behind the gang, and with him in prison…”

“You just lost me, boy. Why do you fellers always spin that same old yarn about being led astray by wicked companions? Goddamn James boys has been robbing and gunning folks before they knew why boys and gals were different. If you’d told that midget that Jesse James is reformed after fifteen years of shooting at everybody but his mother, he’d have laughed before he killed you. though, come to think of it, the Hankses were figuring to kill you anyway.”

The light began to fade again as they rode down into the clouds beyond the pass. The top of the storm was only cold and damp, but they were back in rain before they rode under man-sized timber again. The prisoner asked, “When are we going to make camp?” and Longarm shot back, “We made it, over on the other side.”

“You aim to just keep riding, into the night as she falls?”

“Nope. We’ll rest the critters, along about midnight. If it’s still raining, we’ll build a fire. If it ain’t, we won’t.”

“Gawd, you’re going to kill me and the horses the way you’re pushing us!”

“Ain’t worried about you. The critters and me know how hard we can push.”

“Listen, you said by now we don’t have more’n a third or so of the bunch from Crooked Lance trailing us.”

“Maybe less. Day or so on a cold, wet trail can take the first flush off the enthusiasm. More’n one will have given up by now, I suspicion.”

“We’ve passed a dozen good places to make a stand. I mean, that Winchester of yours might discourage anybody.”

“You want me to bushwhack fellow peace officers?”

“Why not? They’re out to kill us, ain’t they?”

“That’s their worry. It wouldn’t be neighborly of me to blow holes in anybody wearing a badge. And I don’t want to hurt any of them fool cowhands either, if it can be helped.”

“Longarm, these fool horses ain’t about to carry us no four hundred miles in country like this!”

“I know. It gets even rougher where we’re headed.”

CHAPTER 17

The Green River is born from countless streams in the Uinta Range, a cross-grained spur of the Rockies, rubbing its spine against the sky near where Wyoming, Utah and Colorado come together on the map. As Longarm had thought before, those lines were put there on the map by government men who’d never seen the country and wouldn’t have liked it much if they had.

The Green makes a big bend into Colorado in its upper reaches, then turns toward the junction with the brawling Colorado River near the southern border of Utah. To get there, the Green runs through canyonlands unfit for most Indians to consider as a home. The Denver & Rio Grande’s western division crossed the Green halfway to Arizona’s Navajo lands at a small settlement called, naturally, Green River. The lack of imagination implied by the name was the simple result of not having to name any other towns to the north or south in Longarm’s day.

They didn’t follow the river when they reached it. For one thing, the cliffs came right down to the boiling rapids along many a stretch. For another, Longarm knew the men trailing him might expect him to try this. So he led his prisoner the shorter way, across the big bend. The shorter way was not any easier; the route took them through a maze of canyons where the floors were choked with brush and the steep, ugly slopes of eroded shale smelled like hot road tar where the sun beat down on it. They’d been riding for three full days by now and Longarm figured they were nearly a hundred miles from Crooked Lance. Anyone who was still trailing them wanted pretty badly to have the prisoner back.

It was a hot and dusty afternoon when they hauled over another pass, and looking back, spied dust in the saddle of a shale ridge they’d crossed several hours before.

Longarm tugged the lead and muttered, “That Mountie’s damn good,” as he started them down the far side. Captain Walthers’s big walker had proven a disappointment to him on the trail. The army man had chosen it for show and comfort, not for serious riding over rough country, and while the bay he’d gotten from the remount section was still holding up, the walker under him was heaving badly and walking with its head down.

The prisoner called out, “I might have seen a dot of red back there. That’d be the Mountie’s jacket, right?”

“Yeah. I saw it, too. Watch yourself, and if that bay starts to slide out from under you, try to fall on the high side. shale is treacherous as hell.”

“Smells awful, too! What in thunder is it?”

“Oil shale. Whole country’s made out of it. gets slippery when the heat boils the oil out of the rock.”

As if to prove his point, the walker he was riding suddenly shot out from under him and forward, down the slope. Longarm cursed, tried to steady his mount with the reins, and seeing that it was no use, rolled out of the saddle as the screaming horse slid halfway down the mountain.

Longarm landed on one hip and shoulder, rolled to his feet, and bounced a few yards on his heels, before he caught a juniper bush and came to a standing stop. He looked quickly back and saw that the bay had stopped safely with the prisoner still aboard. He yelled, “Stay put!” and started down the slope of sharp, black shale in the dusty wake of his fallen mount.

The walker was trying to struggle to its feet at the bottom of the rise, screaming in dumb terror and pain. Longarm could see it hadn’t broken any bones. It had simply gutted itself on the sharp rocks after sliding a full two hundred yards down the trail!

He drew his.44 as he approached the dreadfully injured gelding with soothing words. The animal got halfway to its feet, its forelegs out in front of it and its rump high, as its bloody intestines writhed over the cruel, sun-baked surface. Then Longarm fired, twice, when he saw the first round hadn’t completely shattered the poor brute’s brain.

Swearing blackly, he stepped over to the quivering carcass and got his Winchester and other possessions free, glad it was the captain’s saddle he didn’t have to mess with cleaning. He put the rifle and supplies on a rock and walked up to where the prisoner watched with a silly grin on his face.

Longarm said, “It ain’t funny. Guess who gets to walk?”

“Hell, I don’t aim to stay up here like this with the ground under hoof greased so funny!”

Longarm helped him down and led both him and the bay to where he’d piled the other things. As he lashed everything worth carrying to the surviving mount’s saddle, the prisoner asked, “You figure we got enough of a lead on them other fellers, with one pony betwixt us?”

“No. Riding double or walking, we ain’t got till sunset before they make rifle range on us.”

“You don’t mean to leave me, do you?”

“Not hardly. Just keep walking.”

“Listen, Longarm, if you was to turn me loose afoot I’d be willing to take my chances. I could cover my boot prints, I reckon, if you just rode on, leaving ‘em a few horseshoe marks and a turd or two on the trail.

“Didn’t carry you all this way to lose you, Younger. You see that half-bowl in the cliffs across the creek we’re headed down to?”

“Sure. It looks to be a blind alley, though. A rifleman could doubtless make a good stand in there, but the walls behind him would be sheer.”

“I know. We’ll dig in there, behind such rocks as we’ll have time to fort up in front of us. ‘Bout the time they make it to the dead horse, I’ll spook ‘em with a few rifle rounds and they’ll fan out every wich way, diving for cover. By then it’ll be getting dark.”

“What’s to stop ‘em from working around behind us, up on the rim rocks?”

“You want to climb a shale oil cliff in the dark? They won’t have us circled tight before, oh, a couple of hours after sunup.”

He led the handcuffed man across the ankle-deep creek and up the talus slope beyond to the amphitheater some ancient disaster had carved from the cliff face. He sat the prisoner down beside the tired bay he’d tethered to a bush and proceeded to pile slabs of shale between them and the valley they faced. The dead walker was a chestnut blob across the way. It was just at the range Longarm was sure he could handle. Any man who said he knew where a bullet was going once it got past three-hundred yards was a liar.

The prisoner said, “If you’d take these cuffs off, I could help.”

“You want to help, take the horse upslope as far as you can and tie him to something, then come back.”

“Won’t he be exposed up there?”

“Sure. Out of range, too. They’ll spot him, but so what? They’ll know we’re here. Might save me a round if they grow cautious before I have to waste good lead just funning.”

“Won’t they know, once you miss a couple of times, that you don’t mean to kill nobody?”

“Don’t aim to miss by all that much, and if it comes down to real hard fighting I’ve been known to draw blood, in my time.”

The prisoner led the bay away, and by the time he returned, Longarm had erected a breast-high wall of slabs.

He said, “look around for some sticks, dry grass and such. You can work as well with your hands together.”

“There ain’t enough dry weeds and cheat-grass here for a real fire, Longarm. The thing you had in mind was a fire, wasn’t it?”

“Get moving. I got some shifting to do, here on this breastwork.”

“I’m moving, I’m moving, but you are pure loco! What in thunder do we want with a fire, not saying we could build one?”

Longarm didn’t answer. He was a fair hand at drywall construction and figured his improvisation would stand up to anything but a four-pound cannon ball, and he knew they wouldn’t be bringing along heavy artillery.

He saw the prisoner was doing a shiftless job at gathering dry tinder, so he went to work himself, gathering an armful of bone-dry weeds and cheat-grass stems. He threw it in a pile a few yards back from his stone wall.

The prisoner added his own smaller offering and Longarm started putting chips of shale on the tinder, with smaller fragments first and some fair-sized slabs topping off the cairn.

The prisoner watched bemusedly, as Longarm struck a match and set the dry weeds alight. As the acrid blue smoke of burning cheat curled up through the rocks he said, “I can see you’re trying to cook them rocks. What I can’t figure out is why.”

Then a thicker smoke, coiling like an oily serpent, slithered up and through the shale slabs to catch a vagrant tendril of breeze and float skyward like a blob of ink against the blue of the sky.

Longarm said, “Oil shale burns, sort of. learned it from a friendly Ute, last time I passed this way.”

“That’s for damn sure! Look at it catch! Burns with a damn black smoke, though. You says there’s Utes in this neck of the woods?”

“Utes, if we’re lucky, Shoshone if we ain’t.”

“You figure they’ll see this smoke signal and come running?”

“They’ll more’n likely come creeping, wondering who’s here in their hunting grounds. Not many white men have ever been this way and Indians are curious cusses.”

“Won’t the white boys trailing us see the smoke, too?”

“If they’ve got eyes, they’ve seen it by now. They won’t know if it’s us or some Shoshones fixing to lift their hair.”

“Hot damn! It may just turn ‘em back, don’t you reckon?”

“Not hardly. Men willing to chase a man with my rep and a Winchester don’t scare so easy. If they read this smoke as Indian signals, it might slow ‘em to a cautious move-in, though. I’m hoping they won’t be here too long before sundown. if they climb up behind us in good light, we’re in one hell of a fix.”

“What’s to stop ‘em doing it tomorrow just after sunup?”

“Tomorrow is another day, and like I keep saying, you eat the apple a bite at a time.”

“Yeah, I figure you got maybe twelve to fifteen hours before your apple’s all et, too! Man up there on the rim above us could save ammo and likely kill us just by chucking down some rocks! You reckon you could pick a man off against that skyline up there?”

“Doubt it. It’s about a quarter-mile straight up. Things look closer than they really are in this clear air of the high country.”

“But he’d have no trouble shooting down, would he?”

“Not hardly. Probably miss his first few shots, but we’ll have no cover, and like you said, a fistful of rock could do us in, thrown down from that height.”

“Gawd, you’re pretty cheerful about it all, considering!”

“Well, losing that horse threw me off my feed for a few minutes back there, but we’re in pretty fair shape again.”

“The hell you say! Can’t you see the fix they got us in, Longarm?”

“Yep. They’ll likely figure it the same way and move in slow and careful, like I want ‘em to. Hate to have to hurt anybody who don’t deserve a hurt, this close to the end of our game.”

“Longarm, I am purely missing something or you are out of your fool head! We are boxed in here with our backs to a quarter-mile-high cliff! You got a rifle and a pistol to hold off Gawd knows what-all in the way of white folks, and likely a tribe or two of Injuns!”

“Yep. Nearest Utes are about a ten-hour ride away. Boys from Crooked Lance should get here sooner.”

“Then what in tarnation are you grinning about? You look like a mean old weasel some dumb farmer just put to work guarding his hen house for the night!”

“I’ll allow some chicken-thieving tricks have crossed my mind since we lost that horse back there. I was worried we might have thrown ‘em off our trail, too, till I spied that Canadian’s fool red coat on the far horizon. You reckon they wear them red tunics to make a good target or to impress the Cree, up Canada way?”

“Back up. What was that about not trying to throw ‘em off our trail? Are you saying you could have lost ‘em in the mountains?”

“Hell, can a jaybird suck robin’s eggs? I’ll allow that Sergeant Foster’s a fair tracker, but I’ve been tracked by Apache in my time, and lost ‘em good.”

“In other words, you’ve been playing ring-around-the-rosie with them Crooked Lance vigilantes all the time?”

“Sure. Hadn’t you figured as much? Hell, a pissant like you could have lost ‘em by now! We’ve been over some rough ground in the last few days, boy. You mind when we crossed that ten-mile stretch of bare granite yesterday? Had to drop some spent cartridges along the way, pretending we’d been shooting birds for provisions. They know I pack.44-40 ammo, so…”

“But why, Gawd damn it? I thought your mission was to bring me in to Denver safe and sound!”

“I aim to. But I’m a peace officer, too. Can’t see my way to leave folks disturbing the peace and carrying on like wild men on federal range can I?”

“You mean you aim to arrest somebody riding with that posse of vigilantes?”

“Nope. If things go as I’ve Planned I aim to arrest the whole damn kit and caboodle!”

CHAPTER 18

It was getting late when Longarm spied the red tunic of Sergeant Foster on the skyline, far up the other wall of the valley. The Mountie had others with him. One rider was too tall in the saddle to be anyone but Timberline. Another distant figure had to be the midget, Cedric Hanks. Longarm looked for anyone riding sidesaddle, but the little detective had apparently left Mabel behind. He counted a good dozen-and-a-half heads up there and the sunlight flashing on glass told him Foster was sweeping the valley floor with field glasses. He’d probably seen the dead horse down on the far side of the creek. He had to have seen the big black mushroom of oil smoke still rising behind them.

Longarm turned to the prisoner at his side and said, “Lie down behind this barricade and stay put. I’ll be too busy to keep more’n a corner of my eye on you and I get testy if folks interfere when I’m working.”

“Longarm, we are boxed in here like mice in a cracker barrel with the cat peering over the top!”

“Just do as you’re told and hush. They’re moving down, sort of slow. I’ll tell you what’s going on, so’s to rest your mind. Don’t you raise your fool head, though. I only aim to have my own to worry about!”

“What are they doing now, then?”

“What you’d expect. There’s only one trail down from the top, so they’re riding down in file, and slow. Likely having as much trouble with that shale as we did… yep, pony just slipped some, but its rider steadied it nicely. Looks like that redheaded Kim Stover. She sure sits a horse pretty.”

“Jehosaphat! Everybody from Crooked Lance is coming to pay us a call with guns, and all you can talk about is how pretty that redhead is!”

“Hell, she is pretty, ain’t she? I’d say Pop Wade must be laying for us with some of the others in Bitter Creek. Don’t see Slim Wilson. He’d have led another bunch along the tracks west of Thayer Junction, most likely. The big hoorahs are sticking with the Mountie. All except Captain Walthers. He’s with one of the other scouting parties. That’s good. I was wondering what he’d say about me gutting his walker.”

Longarm removed his Stetson and placed it on a rock atop his wall, peering through a loophole he’d left below the highest course of shale slabs. He moved the muzzle of his Winchester into position and levered a round into the chamber as the band of riders across the way reined in and began to dismount, just upslope from the dead horse. He nodded and said, “Good thinking. They see this wall in front of the smoke and have the range figured. Yep, I see some of ‘em’s fanning out, working the rocks for cover.”

“Longarm, we don’t have a chance here!”

“Sure we do. They daren’t come much closer. They’ll stay on the other side of the creek for now.”

The Mountie, Foster, approached on foot until he was well within range at the edge of the stream. He took off his hat and waved it, calling out, “I see you, Longarm! You’ve made a big mistake, Yank!”

Longarm didn’t answer.

“You can see that it’s eighteen to one! You want to parley or have you gone completely mad?”

Longarm called back, “What’s your deal, Foster?”

“Don’t be an idiot! You know I’m taking Cotton Younger back to Canada!”

“Do tell? speaking of idiots, I just saw one wearing a red coat! You really think the others will let you ride north with him, Foster?”

“Yes. We’ve made our own compromise. The people of Crooked Lance are only interested in the reward for Jesse James. They say the prisoner is mine, once we get a few facts out of him!”

“Sure he is. Why don’t you just move back out of range for a spell?”

“We’ve got you trapped in there, Longarm!”

Longarm didn’t answer. Foster wasn’t saying anything interesting and it was a far piece to holler.

A rifle suddenly squibbed from among the rocks across the way and Longarm’s hat flew off the wall as Foster spun on his heel and ran for cover, shouting, “Stop that, you damned fool!”

Longarm considered speeding him on his way with a round of his own, but it didn’t look like the Mountie could run much faster. The shot they’d put through the crown of his hat had sounded like a Henry deer-load, not a.30-30. Longarm marked the rock its smoke was drifting away from and intended to remember it. Timberline and the girl were behind that other big boulder to the left of it. Likely one of the hands had gotten silly. The midget, Hanks, was behind that low slab, and was almost certainly too slick to be taken in by the old hat trick.

Someone else fired from behind another rock, so Longarm bounced a slug off it to teach him some manners, moving to another loophole with his gun since the one he’d fired from proceeded to eat lead. Longarm counted and marked each of the smoke puffs as they fired at the place he’d just been. A woman’s voice was screaming at them to stop firing, but the prisoner at his side was spooked too badly to listen. He was suddenly up and running—running in a blind panic up the slope toward the sheer cliff of the amphitheater. Longarm yelled, “Hang it all! Get back here, you fool!” But it was too late. The handcuffed prisoner staggered, fell to his hands and knees, and rolled over. Then he was up again and running back to Longarm, eyes wide and mouth hanging open, in a rattle of small arms fire!

Something hit the prisoner hard enough to stagger him, but he kept coming and in another few seconds was stretched out behind the wall, sobbing and carrying on like a cat whose tail had been stomped.

Longarm snorted, “Jesus H. Christ! Of all the fool stunts! Where’d they hit you?”

“All over! I’ve been killed!”

The gunfire died away as cooler heads prevailed across the way. The big lawman crawled over to the prisoner and rolled him onto his back. He whistled thoughtfully and sighed, “Damn it, you did get hit, boy! The one in your shoulder ain’t worth mention. But the one in your side don’t look so good. You feel like throwing up?”

“I just want to be someplace else! Anyplace else! I’m too young to die!”

“You just hold on and lie still, then. You ain’t bleeding too bad. I’ll stuff some wadding in the wound and wrap it tight for you.”

“Gawd, I’m so thirsty, all of a sudden! Can I have a drink of canteen water?”

Longarm had been afraid he’d say that. He shook his head and said, “You’re gut-shot, you poor, dumb son of a bitch! What ever made you do a fool thing like that?”

“I was scared! I’m still scared! You reckon I’m fixing to die?”

“Not for a few hours.”

“You said you was going to bandage me. Ain’t you aiming to?”

“No. Best to let the gas escape as it forms. You just lie there quiet. That fool Mountie over yonder’s waving his hanky at me and I’d like to see what he wants.” Longarm called out, “That’s close enough, Foster!” and the Mountie halted, holding a white kerchief in his hand as he called back, “That wasn’t my idea, Longarm. Did they kill him?”

“Nope. But you’re starting to piss me off. Why don’t you all settle down and make some coffee or something? You know you daren’t rush me before dark and somebody figures to get hurt with all this wild shooting.”

“Longarm, it’s not my job to have a bloodbath here. Why can’t you listen to reason?”

“Hell, I’m about as reasonable as anyone for a hundred country miles. You’d best ride home to Canada before they turn on you, Foster, You ain’t taking my prisoner, now that I have him. Not without killing a U.S. Deputy Marshal for your damned old queen!”

“Damn it! That’s what I’m trying to prevent! This gunplay’s not my idea, Longarm, but your only chance is to hand the prisoner over.”

“You’re not only pissing me off, you’re starting to bore the shit out of me! It’s tedious talking in circles and we’ve all had our say. So ride on out, or join in and be damned to you!”

The Canadian lawman walked back to the boulder that Timberline and the girl were behind. The wounded prisoner gasped, “What’s going on?”

“Beats me. They’ll likely jaw about it for a while. How are you feeling?”

“Terrible. It don’t look like I’m gonna make it to Denver, does it?”

Longarm didn’t answer.

“It’s funny, but I ain’t as scared now as I was. You reckon it’s on account of I’m dying?”

“Maybe. Most men are more scared of it when it’s coming than when it actually arrives. You might make it, though. I’ve seen men hit worse and they’ve pulled through.”

“They say a man knows when he’s sinking, but I can’t tell. It’s funny, but I’d rest easier if I knew for sure, one way or the other.”

“Yep, I know what you mean. You got anything you’d like to get off your chest while there’s still time, old son?”

“You mean, like a deathbed confession?”

“Must be some comfort to such since we get so many of ‘em.”

The wounded man thought a while, breathing oddly. Then he licked his lips and said, “You might as Well know, then. My name ain’t Jones and I ain’t from Cripple Creek.”

“I figured as much. You’re Cotton Younger, right?”

“No, my name is Raymond Tinker and I hail from Omaha, Nebraska.”

“You ain’t dying, boy. You’re still shitting me!”

“It’s the truth. I told everybody my name was Jones ‘cause I done some bad things in Nebraska.”

“That where you started stealing cows?”

“Nope. Learnt to change brands about a year ago. What I done in Omaha was to cut a man.”

“Cut him good?”

“Killed the old son of a bitch! He had it coming, too.”

“Maybe. What was his name?”

“Leroy Tinker. The mean old bastard whopped me once too often.”

“You say his name was ‘Tinker?’ Was he any kin to yourself?”

“Yep, my father. I told him I was too big to take a licking, but he never listened. Just kept comin’ at me with that switch and that silly grin of his. He was still grinning when I put a barlow knife in his guts.”

Longarm took another look through the loophole. The sun was low. If anyone had considered moving up or down the valley to scale the cliffs around them, the light would fail them before they got halfway to the top. He glanced at his smudge fire of oil shale. It was still sending up thick clouds of inky smoke. No need to put more shale on it. It’d burn past sundown.

The youth calling himself Raymond Tinker groaned and said, “You must be thinking I’m one ornery cuss, huh?”

“That’s between you and the State of Nebraska. Patricide ain’t a federal offense.”

“You don’t believe me. You think I made it up to get out of being Cotton Younger!”

“The thought crossed my mind. We’ll settle it in Denver.”

“You know I won’t live long enough to get there, don’t you?”

“Don’t hardly matter. Either way, I aim to take you there.”

“How-how you transport a dead man, Longarm? I know it’s a dumb thing to worry about, considering, but I’d sort of like to know.”

“Well, if you want to die on me, I can’t stop you. It’s cool up here in the high country, so you’ll likely keep a few days before you get rank.”

“Ain’t there no way to keep me from stinking after I go? I smelled a dead man, once. I’d hate to think of myself smelling like that.”

“It don’t figure to bother you. I was at Shiloh, and the dead were rotting under summer rains. None of ‘em sat up to apologize for the way they smelled, so they likely didn’t care.”

“That ain’t very funny, Longarm.”

“Never said it was. Shiloh was no laughing matter. If I can’t pack you in ice, some way, I’ll just remember you said it wasn’t your own idea. You got any other old murder charges you’d like to unload, Raymond?”

“Nope. Never killed nobody but my father. Is changing brands a federal matter?”

“Not unless it’s a cavalry horses brand. You’re turning out to be a big disappointment to me, old son.”

“I know, but it just come to me that I’m getting you lulled for no good reason. I mean, after I die, you can hand me over to them others and just ride out, right?”

“Wrong. For one thing, you ain’t dead yet. For another, you’re my prisoner, not theirs. You and them don’t seem to get my point, no matter how many times I say it. I was sent to Crooked Lance to bring you in. That’s my intention. Dead, alive, Younger, Jones, Tinker, or whomsoever, you can give your soul to Jesus but your ass belongs to me!”

CHAPTER 19

Sundown came without an attack from across the way. To make sure nobody had foolish nighttime notions, as soon as it was completely dark, Longarm sneaked out and built another firestack of oil shale well to the front of his breastwork, working silently in the dark. He pulled the slug from a cartridge with his teeth and laid a trail of gun powder toward the breastwork. It took him four cartridges to make it back to cover.

He struck a match and set the powder trail alight, rolling aside with a chuckle. Someone fired at the match flare as he’d expected.

The powder carried his flame to the shale pile and in a little while the space out in front of him was illuminated in smudgy, orange light. It left the slope across the creek black as a bitch, but he hadn’t been able to see anything that far, anyway, and anybody creeping in was asking for a bullet between the glow of his or her eyes. Longarm was of the opinion that anyone that foolish didn’t deserve to go on breathing.

The prisoner coughed and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. They’ll likely wait us out till sunup before they make the next move.”

“Be a good chance for you to make a break, wouldn’t it?”

“Not hardly. Only way out of here is forward, into at least a dozen and a half guns.”

“You couldn’t climb the cliffs back there?”

“Not with you. And if I did, where would I go?”

“Longarm, I thought my Pa was stubborn, but you got him beat by a mile. Don’t you know they’ll be shooting down on you an hour or less after sunup?”

“Take ‘em longer than that. Be nine or ten before they can work up the cliffs behind me.”

“Then we’ll both be dead, huh? I feel all empty-like below the belt line, now. I doubt I’ll last ‘til sunup.”

“Why don’t you try? I’ll never speak to you again if you up and die on me, boy.”

The dying man laughed bitterly and said, “You’ve been joking, but joining softer since I got hit. What’s the matter, do you feel sorry for me now?”

“Never was mad at you. Just doing my job.”

“You never cussed me out for killing my own father. I’ve been ashamed to tell anybody, even the friends I rode with.”

“You rode into Crooked Lance with friends, Raymond?”

“No. I never lied about that part. I’ve been alone since my partner got caught up near the Great Northern line. I was working my way south to meet some other rustlers… all right, cow thieves, in Bitter Creek. You was right about that running iron being foolish, but I never expected to get caught with it.”

“Most folks don’t. Tell me about your friends in Bitter Creek. Does one of ‘em pack a.30-30 rifle?”

“Don’t suspicion so. I can’t tell you their names. It’s against our code.”

“The rifle’s all I care about. You reckon them other cow thieves waiting for you in Bitter Creek would be serious enough to gun some folks? Say a Missouri sheriff’s deputy or a U.S. Deputy Marshal?”

“Hell, they likely took off like big-ass birds when I got caught. Don’t you reckon?”

“Maybe. That’s part of the cow thief’s code, too. I want you to think before you lie to me about this, boy. I won’t press you about who these friends of yours was if you’ll tell me one true. Was any one of ‘em from Missouri?”

“No. I ain’t giving anything away by telling you one was from Nebraska like me. The other was a Mormon boy from Salt Lake City.”

“Hmm, if I buy that, neither would have reason to pick off folks who knew their way around Clay County. You’d best rest a mite. I don’t like the way you’re breathing.”

Longarm sat silently in the dark, digesting what the dying youth had told him. He assumed that most of what his prisoner had told him might be true. But someone had gunned two lawmen from Missouri and at least one man who knew the James boys on sight.

It couldn’t be Frank or Jesse James. He’d managed to get at least a glimpse of everyone in or about Crooked Lance and the James boys were not only better at holdups than acting, but were known to Longarm at a glance. He’d studied the photographs of both men more than once.

The prisoner gasped, “Longarm, do you reckon there’s really a place like hell?”

“Don’t know. Never planned on going there if I could help it.”

“If there’s a hell, it’s likely where I’m headed, for I was birthed mean and grew up ugly. The good book says it’s wrong for a boy to love his mama, don’t it?”

“Hell, you’re supposed to love your mama.”

“all the way? I mean, like sort of fooling with her?”

“Are you telling me that’s what you and your pa had words about?”

“Hell, no, he never caught us. Ma and me was careful. We only done it when he was off hunting or something.”

“But you did commit incest, hombre?”

“I don’t know what we committed, but I purely screwed her every chance I got. She showed me how when I was about thirteen. Said I was hung better’n Pa. You reckon I’ll have to answer for that, where I’m headed?”

“Don’t know. What you want is a preaching man, old son. I don’t write the laws. I just see that they’re obeyed.”

“Well, couldn’t you pretend to be a preaching man, damn it? I mean, I’d take it kindly if you’d say a prayer over me or something. It don’t seem fitting for a man to just lie here dying like this without somebody says something from the good book.”

Longarm searched his memory, harking back to a West Virginia farmhouse where gentle, care-worn hands had tucked him in at night. He shrugged and began, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

By the time he’d finished, the invisible form at his knees had stopped breathing. Longarm felt the side of his prisoner’s throat for a pulse and there didn’t seem to be one. He sniffed and muttered, “Never thought I’d miss a poor little pissant like you, but you left me with a long, lonesome night ahead of me.”

But the night did pass, and in the cold gray light of dawn nothing moved across the way, though once, when the breeze shifted, Longarm thought he smelled coffee brewing. It reminded him he had to keep up his own strength, so he gnawed jerked venison, washed down with flat canteen water, as he watched for movement across the creek.

If they tried to talk some more it meant more precious time. If they didn’t, it meant more than one of them was working around behind him. How long would it take to work to the top of a strange cliff a quarter of a mile high? It was anybody’s guess.

The sun was painting the opposing clifftops pink when Foster showed himself once more. He called out, “Longarm?”

“We’re still here, as you likely figured. What do you want?”

“Timberline and some of the others are working up to the rim rocks above you. You haven’t a chance of holding out till noon!”

“I can try. What’s your play pilgrim?”

“I’ve been talking to Kim Stover and some of the cooler heads. If you give up now, we can probably work out a compromise. Frankly, this thing’s getting uglier than we intended.”

“I’ll stand pat for now, thanks.”

“Longarm, they’re going to kill you. Even if they don’t shoot to kill from up there, you’re taking foolish chances. We can’t control things from down here. Once men get to shooting…”

“I know. Why don’t you ride out with the gal before you both get in deeper? I can promise you one thing, Mountie. You won’t make it back to Canada with a dead U.S. Deputy to answer for!”

“I can see that, damn it! That’s why I’m willing to compromise! If you’ll come back to civilization with me now, I’ll abide by a legal ruling in Cheyenne about the prisoner. If they say he’s mine, I take him. If they give him to you, I give up. Agreed?”

“Hell, no! I got the jasper and possession is nine-tenths of the law. I don’t need no territorial judge to say who he belongs to. The prisoner belongs to me!”

“Longarm, you’re acting like a fool!”

“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”

Kim Stover called over to Longarm, “Please be reasonable, Deputy Long. I don’t want my friends to get in trouble!”

“They’re already in trouble, ma’am! This ain’t coffee and cake and let’s-pretend-we’re-vigilantes! You folks wanted the fun without considering the stakes. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though. You and any others who’ve had enough of this game can ride out peaceable, and I won’t press charges.”

“What are you talking about! You’re in no position to press charges! We’re trying to save your life, you big idiot!”

“Well, I thank you for the kind thoughts, ma’am, but I’ll save my own life as best I can.”

Foster yelled, “I’m moving Mrs. Stover out of range, Longarm. You’re obviously crazy as a loon and the shooting will be starting any minute now!”

Longarm watched them go back to their boulder, then rolled over on one elbow to gaze up at the cliffs above him. The prisoner’s face was pale and cold, now, and the eyes were filmed with dust. Longarm pressed the lids closed, but they popped open again, so he went back to watching the skyline.

His eyes narrowed when, a good ten minutes later, a human head appeared as a tiny dot up above. Another, then another appeared beside it. Longarm suddenly grinned and waved. One of the figures staring down at him waved back. Longarm went to the still-smoldering shale-oil smudge fire and, keeping his head down, used his saddle blanket to break the rising column of smoke into long and short puffs. The next time he looked up, the dots on the rim rock had vanished.

He crawled back to the breastwork, tied his kerchief to the barrel of his Winchester and waved it back and forth above the wall until Foster hailed him, calling out, “Do you surrender?”

“No, but you’re about to. Tell the folks around you not to get spooked in the next few minutes. Some friends of mine are moving in behind you and some old boys shoot first and ask questions later when they see Indians. Tell ‘em the ones coming in are Utes. They won’t kill nobody, ‘less some damn fool starts shooting!”

“What in the devil are you talking about? It’s my understanding the Utes are not on the warpath!”

“‘Course they ain’t. They’re on the Ouray Reservation, about a ten-hour ride from here, when they ain’t investigating smoke on the horizon. The Ouray Utes are wards of the U.S. Government, so I thought I ought to send for ‘em. Some of ‘em don’t speak our lingo, so make sure nobody acts unfriendly as they come in to disarm YOU.”

“Disarm us? You can’t be serious!”

“Oh, but I am, and so are they. I just deputized the whole damn tribe. You said eighteen-to-one was hard odds? well, I figure I now have you outgunned about ten-or twelve-to-one. So don’t act foolish.”

“My God, you’d set savage Indians against your own race?”

“Yep. Had to. Only way I could do what I aimed to be doing.”

“What’s that, get away from us with my prisoner?”

“Hell, I could have done that days ago. The reason I led you all down here was to put you under arrest.”

“Arrest? You can’t arrest me!”

“If you’ll look up the slope behind you, you’ll see that I’ve just done it.”

The Mountie turned to stare openmouthed at the long line of armed Indians on the skyline and the others coming down the trail on painted ponies. He saw white men getting up from behind rocks, now, holding their hands out away from their gunbelts as they tried to look innocent. A pair of Ute braves had Timberline on foot between their ponies and to avoid any last-minute misunderstandings, Longarm got up from behind his little fort and walked over to them, waving his Stetson.

An older moonfaced Indian on a stocky pinto rode it into the creek and waited there, grinning broadly as Longarm approached. He said, in English, “It has been a good hunt. Just like the old days when we fought the Sioux and Blackfoot in the high meadows to the north. What is my brother from the Great White Father doing here? Do you want us to kill these people? They do not seem to be your friends.”

“My blood brother, Hungry Calf, is hasty. Is the agent over on your reservation still my old friend, Caldwell?”

“Yes. He is a good man. He does not cheat us as the one you arrested that time did. We did not bring him. Agent Caldwell is good, but he says foolish things when we ride out for a bit of fun.”

“I’d like to have all these people taken to the reservation, Hungry Calf. I’m arresting them in the name of the Great White Father.”

“Good. We will take them to Agent Caldwell, and if he gives us his permission, we will hang them all for you.”

“Tell the others not to harm them in any way. Most of them are not bad people.”

“Ah, but some of these saltu have broken the white father’s law. Can we hang them?”

“You won’t have to. You Ho have herds of longhorns, now. You know how a hand cuts the critters he wants from a rounded-up herd?”

“Of course. Herding longhorns is less fun than hunting, but we are now fine cowboys, if what Agent Caldwell says is true. We shall drive them all in together, then my brother can cut the bad ones out for the branding. It should be interesting to watch. I have never herded white people before.”

CHAPTER 20

It took Longarm and his Ute allies most of the day to get the outraged whites over to the Ouray Reservation, to the east. One of them was kind enough to pack the dead prisoner in, wrapped in a tarp across a pony. When they rode into the unpainted frame buildings at the government town called White Sticks, as the sun went down, a tall man in a rusty black suit came out with a puzzled smile.

Longarm rode up to him and smiled back, saying, “Got a dead man with me, Mister Caldwell. Can I store him in your icehouse for a few days?”

“God, no, but I’ll bury him under ice and sawdust in a shed ‘til you want him bac! Who are all these other folks, Longarm? What have you and my indians been UP to?”

“I’m citing them for helping me make some arrests. They’ll be bringing in some others before morning. I deputized some of Hungry Calf’s young men to round up the others headed this way by now.”

Foster rode over to protest, “See here! I am on Her Majesty’s business under an agreement with the State Department!”

Longarm said, “He don’t work for the State Department, Sergeant. You’re on land controlled by the Department of the Interior and they don’t like State all that much. Ride back and take charge of the others, if you’re all so anxious to help. Tell ‘em to make camp and sort of stay put, for now, while I make arrangements with my friends. You do have your own grub, don’t you? These Ho friends of mine don’t have all that much to give away.”

Interested despite his outrage, Foster asked, “Why do you call them Ho? This is the Ute reservation, isn’t it?”

“Sure it is. Ute is what others call ‘em. They call themselves Ho ‘cause it means folks, in their own lingo. They call you saltu meaning strangers, for reasons you can likely figure out. So don’t mess up and nobody will get hurt.”

Caldwell said, “Longarm is delicate about indian niceties. He calls Apaches by their own name of Na-dene. Calls a Sioux a Dakota.”

“All but the western Sioux,” Longarm corrected. “They say La-ko-tab.”

The Mountie sniffed and said, “All very interesting, I’m sure. Do you have a telegraph connection here, Agent Caldwell?”

“Sure. Wired into Western Union.”

“May I use it to notify Her Majesty’s Government I’ve been abducted by Ute Indians?”

Caldwell glanced at Longarm, who nodded and said, “Why not? He’s a guest.”

Longarm saw that the Mountie wasn’t going to explain things to the others, so as Foster and Caldwell went inside the headquarters building to send the message, Longarm ambled over to the large group of whites around the Indian campfire they’d helped themselves to. Longarm saw that his Ho friends had given them back their sidearms, as he’d told them to, and had hidden their horses someplace as he had instructed.

Timberline had been squatting on his heels next to Kim Stover, who sat crosslegged on a saddle blanket near the small fire. The foreman smiled thinly and said, “I’d better never see you anywhere off this reservation, Longarm. You’ve pushed me from obliging a lady to personal!”

Longarm figured Timberline was just showing off for the redhead, so he ignored him and announced for all to hear, “I’m holding the bunch of you overnight on what you might call self-recog. The Indians won’t pester You less you try to reclaim a horse.”

The midget, Cedric Hanks, piped up from across the fire, “You’ve no right to hold us here! We’re white folks, not Utes! Your writ don’t apply to us here! The Bureau of Indian Affairs has nothing to say about the comings and goings of such as we.”

“You may be right, Hanks. When that Mountie’s through, I’ll wire my office for a ruling. Meanwhile, you’d all best figure on a night’s rest here in White Sticks. I’ll see, later, about some entertainment. Hungry Calf likes to put on shows for company. By the way, I got some Ho out looking for your wife and the others. We’ll sort it out once all the interested parties are together.”

“You say they have a telegraph line here? I’d like to send some wires.”

“You don’t get to. Reservation wire’s for government business only. The Mountie rates its use because he’s a real peace officer with a government. Private detectives are just pests. As for the rest of you, since some of you put all that effort into keeping the Western Union line to Crooked Lance out of order, you got no reason to send messages into a busted line.”

Kim Stover asked, “Do you have any idea who among us might have cut the wire to Crooked Lance, Deputy Long?”

“Got lots of ideas. But I’m trying to work out proof that would hold up in court. There’s more’n one reason to cut an outlying cow town off from communications. Friends of the prisoner one of you shot might have wanted things quiet while they made a private play to spring him. Then again, the eastern meat packers might not want folks with a hard-scrabble herd in rough range to be abreast of the latest beef quotations back East. I’ll save you asking by telling you. When I left Denver, range stock was selling for twenty-nine dollars a head at trackside.”

The girl smiled for a change, and said, “Oh, that is a good price! We had no idea the price of beef was up!”

“I figured as much. We’re going into a boom on beef after the bad times we’ve been having. They’ve been having bad crops and politics over in the old countries. Queen Victoria and Mister Bismarck are buying all the tinned beef they can get for their armies. France is bouncing back from the whopping the Prussians gave them a few years back and is carving slices out of Africa with an army that has to be fed. I’d say the hungry days are over for you cow folks.”

Timberline’s voice was almost friendly as he finished counting on his fingers and observed, “Jesus! Figuring all our herds consolidated, we got near fifty thousand dollars worth of beef up in our valley!”

“I know. You’ll be able to build your schoolhouse without obstructin’ justice and such. As long as we’re on the subject, that prisoner of yours …” Then Longarm caught himself and decided he’d said enough, if not too much, for now.

He was saved further conversation by the arrival of Hungry Calf at the fire. On foot, the chief looked much shorter than he had while astride a pony, for the Ho were built like their Eskimo cousins in the northlands they’d wandered down from before Columbus took that wrong turn to India. Hungry Calf’s arms and legs were a bit shorter than most white mens’. Yet his head and torso were bigger than Longarm’s. Given legs in European proportion to his body, he’d have been as tall as Timberline instead of being a head shorter than Longarm. It was just as well he was friendly. A hand-to-hand set-to with the bear-like Hungry Calf would be one hard row to hoe.

The Indian said, “The people are happy to have something new to talk about. The maidens would like to have a fertility dance to entertain our guests.”

Longarm nodded and said, “That’s right neighborly of my brother’s people. You tell ‘em it’s all right. Then come back. I’d like a few more words with my Ho brother.”

As the indian waddled off in the darkness Longarm turned back to the crowd of mostly-young male cowhands and said, soberly, “I want you all to listen up. The Indians are trying to be neighborly, and some of them young squaws can be handsome-looking to a healthy man, so I’d best warn you, Indians on a reservation are wards of the state and you’re not allowed to trifle with ‘em.”

One of the Crooked Lance riders snorted, “That’ll be the day! This whole damned camp smells like burning cow… excuse me, Miss Kim.”

“Burning cow pats is what you’re smelling, sure enough. I don’t want anyone here to get close enough to smelling any squaws to consider himself an expert on the subject. If the Indian agent catches you at it, it’s a federal charge. If the squaw’s old man does, it can get more serious. So you let ‘em flirt and shimmy all they want, and keep your seats till the entertainment’s over, hear?”

As he started to leave, Kim Stover asked, “Is this… fertility rite liable to be… improper?”

“You mean for a white lady to watch? No, ma’am. You’ll likely find it sort of dull, considering the message.”

He excused himself and walked a few yards toward the clustered outlines of the agency. Hungry Calf materialized to say, “The one in the red coat is standing around the ponies. Can my young men kill him?”

“No. Just have them watch him, without hindering him in any way. I want to know whatever he does, but he’s allowed to do it.”

“What if he steals ponies? Can we kill him then?”

“No. The Great White Father will pay you for anything he steals from my Ho brothers.”

“Hah! I think my brother is baiting some kind of trap! Can Agent Caldwell tell you the message he sent on the singing wire?”

“He doesn’t have to. I know.”

“Longarm has strong medicine. He knows everything. We know this to be true. When that other agent was cheating my people, none of us suspected it, for the man was cunning. Longarm’s medicine unmasked his trickery, even after his written words on paper fooled the other agents of the Great white Father. The red coat is a fool. We shall watch him, cat-eyed, through the night, until he does what Longarm knows he will.”

Longarm thanked his informant and went over to the agency, where he found Caldwell seated at a table with his vaguely pretty white wife. As Longarm remembered, her name was Portia.

Portia Caldwell remembered him, too. She literally hauled him inside and sat him in her vacated chair, across from her husband, and began to putter with her cast-iron stove, chatting like a magpie about fixing him something to go with his coffee.

Longarm grinned across the table at his host and said, “I’ll settle for maybe a slice of that apple cobbler you’re famous for, ma’am. What I came to ask about was the disposition of the remains I had packed in.”

Caldwell grimaced and said, “I might have known you’d want to talk about it at the table. Is it true the dead man was kin to Jesse James and wanted in Canada on a very ugly charge I’d as soon not repeat in front of my wife?”

“You read the sounds of the Mountie’s key as he was sending, huh? Who’d he wire, Washington or Fort MacLeod?”

“Both. He said he’d gotten his man, whatever that means.”

“It’s Mountie talk. You got the—you know—properly guarded?”

“Couple of Utes are keeping an eye on the shed it’s stored in. You don’t expect anyone to try and steal preserved evidence?”

Portia Caldwell shoved a big bowl of apple cobbler in front of Longarm, saying, “For heaven’s sake I know there’s a corpse in the smokehouse! I’m an army brat, not a shrinking violet. I saw my first body when my mother took me to visit my Daddy, three days after Gettysburg!”

Caldwell grimaced again and said, “she says the worst smell was when they burned the dead horses. Ain’t she something?”

“You’re lucky to have the right women for your job. The Shoshone try to steal any of your charges’ ponies, lately?”

“No, we’re having trouble with a few Apache bands to the south, as always, but I’d say the day of real Indian Wars is over, wouldn’t you?”

“Maybe. I filed a report from a breed informant a few months ago. If I was you, I’d keep an eye peeled for a wandering medicine man called Wava-something-or-other. They say he’s a Paiute dream-singer who has a new religion.”

“Paiute? Nobody’s ever had much trouble from that tribe. They maybe shot up a few wagon trains back in ‘49, but, hell, every young buck did that in them days just for the hell of it. Most of the fighting tribes despise the Paiute.”

“Well, this one young jasper I’ve heard of bears watching, just the same. He ain’t trying to stir up his own people. He wanders about, even riding trains, selling medicine shirts.”

“Medicine shirts? What kind of medicine?”

“Bulletproof. Not bulletproof iron shirts. Real old buckskin shirts with strong medicine signs painted on ‘em. I ain’t certain if this young Paiute dream-singer’s a con man or sincere, but, like I said, we’re keeping an eye on him.”

Portia Caldwell asked, “If you know who he is, why can’t you just arrest him, Longarm?”

“On what charge, ma’am? If there was a law against religious notions I’d have to start with arresting Christian missionaries, which just might not be such a bad idea, considering some I’ve met.”

“But this Paiute’s selling crazy charmed shirts he says can stop a bullet!”

“Well, who’s to say they can’t, as long as no Indian does anything to get his fool self shot at? The danger as I see it ain’t in wearing a lucky shirt. It’s in wearing it on the warpath.”

Caldwell shook his head and said, “My Ute are a pragmatic people. Besides, who’d buy medicine made by another tribe?”

“The Pine Ridge Dakota for openers. This Paiute priest, prophet, or whatever has been selling his shirts mail-order.”

“Oh, the damned Sioux can’t be serious about it. They’ve been whipped too many times. And besides, why should they think the magic of another tribe would be any good to them?”

“Don’t know. I ain’t a Dakota. Sitting Bull has said much the same about the crosses and bibles the Catholic mission at Pine Ridge has been distributing.”

“That’s not the same. Christianity is not an Indian superstition.”

“You’re right. It’s what us whites call good medicine.”

“Longarm, if you intend to start another religious argument…”

“I don’t. I’m outnumbered two-to-one, hereabouts. I’ve passed on my information. You folks can do what you’ve a mind to with it.”

“I thank you for it, and I’ll keep an eye peeled for those crazy bulletproof medicine shirts, but I’m certain we’ve seen the last of Indian uprisings in this century.”

“Maybe. ‘Bout thirty, forty years ago another white man collected some information on another kind of Indian. He was an Englishman named Burton, but he was sensible, anyway. He told Queen Victoria’s Indian agents about some odd talk he’d picked up from some heathen informants. They told him they knew better. British India had seen the last of Indian risings, too. Couple of years later the Sepoy Mutiny busted wide open and a couple of thousand whites got killed.”

He excused himself and got up from the table to let them ponder his words of cheer as he left. Outside, the night was filled with the monotonous beat of a dog-skin drum as Longarm sauntered back to where he’d left his “guests.”

A circle of Ho women were around the fire, arms locked, as they shuffled four steps to the left, followed by four steps to the right. Longarm hunkered down by the widow Stover’s blanket and observed, “I told you there wasn’t all that big a shucks to it, ma’am.”

“How long do they keep that up?” she asked.

“Till they get as tired of it as we already are, I reckon. I’ve seen it go on all night.”

“Is that all there is to it? Neither the beat nor the dance step varies. If you could call dragging your feet like that dancing.”

“Indians set great store by repeating things, ma’am. The number four is sacred to the spirits. They think everything either should or does happen in fours.”

“Where’d they get such a fool superstition?”

“Don’t know. Where’d we get the notion of the Trinity and everything happening in threes?”

“I’m not a Roman Catholic, either. You said this was a fertility rite. I expected something… well, more pagan.”

“Oh, they’re pagan enough. But Indians don’t act dirty about what comes natural. That drum beat’s calculated to heat things up, if you’ll listen to it sharp.”

“What is there to listen to? That fool medicine man just keeps whacking it over and over, bump, bump, bump.”

“You missed a beat. He hits it four good licks and starts over. The normal human heart beats just a mite slower than that drum. After a time, though, everybody listening sort of gets their own hearts going with that drum. Hearts beating faster heats the blood and, uh, other things. The fertility part just comes natural, later, in the lodges.”

“You mean we’re likely to see an all-night Indian orgy?”

“Nope. You won’t see or hear a thing. They don’t show off about such matters.”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’m bored as well as tired and I’d like to get some sleep.”

“I figured as much. If you’ll allow me, I’ll take you over to the agent’s home and they’ll bed you in a spare room.”

“Oh? That’s right thoughtful of you and your friends. I was afraid I’d have to spend another night on the ground in my blankets.”

“No need to, ma’am. If you ask her, Portia Caldwell might work out a bath for you, too. Let me help you UP.”

He rose, hauling Kim to her feet, and took her by an elbow to guide her toward the agency. Timberline suddenly appeared in front of them to demand, “Just what do you think you’re up to, damn it?”

“Don’t think nothing. I’m carrying this lady over to the agency to put her to bed.”

The big ramrod swung, saying something about Longarm’s mother that he couldn’t have possibly been informed about. Longarm ducked the roundhouse and danced backward, drawing his.44 as he sighed and said, “Now that’s enough, old son.”

“Damn it, if you was any kind of man at all you’d fight me fair.”

“If I fought you with fists I’d be more fool than any other kind of man worth mention. You’re too big for me and I’m too fast on the draw for you, so I suspicion we ain’t able to have a fair fight, either way.”

Kim Stover got between them and soothed, “Don’t be silly, Timberline. He was only taking me over to stay with the married couple at the house.”

“Oh? I thought…”

Longarm knew what he’d thought, but a man was wasting time to jaw with a fool. So he said, “We’d best get over to Portia Caldwell, ma’am. I got other fish to fry, this night.”

Timberline tagged along, muttering under his breath, but he didn’t do or say anything until they had all reached the porch of the agency. Kim Stover turned to him and said, “You’d best stay out here, Timberline.”

“I mean to see you’re safe, little lady.”

“Safe? I’m under arrest, thanks to going along with this foolishness. If you’re talking about this other man trifling with me, nobody knows better’n you I can hold my own on any front porch.”

“I ain’t leaving you alone with him.”

Longarm said, “Yes you are. I’ll go along with some showoff for the diversion of a lady, but she’s just asked you to git, so you’d best do it.”

Timberline didn’t move away, but he stopped following as Longarm escorted the redhead up the steps. As he was about to knock, she put a hand on his sleeve and said, “One moment, sir. You didn’t disagree when I just said I was under arrest!”

“Ain’t polite to correct a lady, ma’am.”

“May I ask what I’m under arrest for, now that you have your prisoner and the rest of us are left out in the cold?”

“You ain’t half as cold as my prisoner is on that bed of ice, ma’am.”

“I’m right sorry he got killed, but you know I never fired a shot at anyone!”

“Somebody did. Hit him twice, too. I ain’t charging you with killing him, ma’am. Let’s say you’re a material witness.”

“Dang it, I don’t know who’s bullets hit that boy! Half the men with me were shooting at Cotton Younger!”

“I know. Obstruction of justice and killing a federal prisoner under a peace officer’s protection could be taken seriously, but I’d be willing to overlook past misunderstandings, if that was all that happened.”

“You mean you’re still investigating the missing law men and the killing of Sailor Brown?”

“Don’t you reckon I ought to?”

“Of course, but none of us knows anything about any of that!”

“There I go, correcting ladies again, but you’re wrong, ma’am. Somebody either with you or headed this way knows more’n they’re letting on.”

“That may well be, but I don’t see why you’re holding me or the other innocent folks.”

“Funny, Hungry Calf did, and he ain’t been herding cows as long as you. What we’re having here is a tally and cut, ma’am. My Indian deputies are still rounding up the herd. I suspicion some will come in willingly, on their own. By this time tomorrow I hope to be done marking and branding.”

“And then my innocent friends and me will be riding out?”

“Maybe. Depends on who gets arrested. I’d best knock now. I’ve other chores to tend to.”

As he knocked, the redhead demanded, “Are you accusing me of… something?”

The door opened. Longarm introduced the two women, and before he had to answer more questions, left them to work things out.

Timberline was still waiting, and this time he had his old hogleg out and pointing. Longarm said, “Oh, put that fool thing away, kid. No gals are watching.”

“God damn you! I ain’t scared of you!”

“That makes us even. You’d best get back to the dance. The squaws’ll be passing drinks and tobacco in a while. They ain’t supposed to have no liquor, but you’ll likely get some passable corn squeezings.”

Timberline kept the pistol trained on Longarm as the lawman walked right past him. Timberline called out, “Stand still, God damn it! I ain’t done with you!”

Longarm kept walking. Timberline followed, blustering, “Turn around, God damn it! I can’t shoot no man in the back!”

Not looking back, Longarm said, “Not here, you can’t. Ain’t showing off without no audience, Timberline. We both know you’re stuck on a reservation filled with friends of mine. You got no horse. You got no nerve to go with your brag. You keep pestering me and you’ll have no gun. I’m coming to the conclusion you ain’t grown up enough to wear sidearms, the way you keep carrying on.”

Timberline holstered his gun, muttering, “One day we’ll meet where you ain’t holding all the winning cards, Longarm.”

Longarm didn’t bother to answer. He went near, but not all the way, to the fire, and took up a position where he could watch, standing back from the glow and the shifting shadows. He didn’t watch the dancers. Once you watched the first eight steps of most Indian dances you’d seen about all that was about to happen. He watched the vigilantes and the little bounty hunter, Hanks, long enough to see that they didn’t seem to be up to anything interesting, either. Foster wasn’t near the fire. Across the way, Timberline had hunkered down by some of his sidekicks, scowling fiercely.

A soft female voice at his side asked, “Has Longarm a place to sleep this night?”

Longarm turned to smile down at a pretty, moonfaced girl of perhaps eighteen summers. Like other Ho women she wore a shapeless, ankle-length Mother Hubbard of cotton, decorated with quillwork around the collar. Longarm said, “Evening, Dances-Humming. Is my brother, your husband, well?”

“This person is no longer the woman of Many Ponies.”

“Oh? Something happen to him?”

“Yes, he got older. This person is not a woman for a man who’d gotten old and fat and lazy. Many Ponies was sent home to his mother’s lodge.”

Longarm nodded soberly. He knew the marriage laws of the Ho well enough not to have to ask foolish questions. Some whites might say they were sort of casual about such things. He considered them practical.

On the other hand, while the man he knew as Many Ponies might be getting fat, he was big for a Ho and inclined to brood. The girl called Dances-Humming, while very pretty, had learned English from the last agent, the one arrested for mistreating the Indians. If there was one woman to be trusted less than a Denver’s Street play-pretty, it was a squaw who spoke perfect English.

He said, “How come you ain’t dancing with the other gals?”

“This person is tired of the old customs. They mean so little when our men grow fat and drunk on the Great White Father’s allowance.”

“Some healthy young cowboys, over by the fire?”

“This person has seen them. None of them look interesting. The last time you were here, this person was younger and you laughed at her childish ways. Since then, this person has learned how white women make love. Would you like to see how Dances-Humming can kiss?”

“Like to. Can’t. It’s against the law.”

“The Great White Father’s law, not ours. Come, we can talk about it in my lodge.”

Longarm was about to refuse, but a sudden suspicion made him reconsider. Dances-Humming giggled and took his hand, tugging him after her through the dim light. He allowed himself to be led, muttering, “Sometimes there’s nothing a gent can do but lay down and take his beating like a man.”

Dances-Humming’s lodge was not a tent. Like most of her people on the reservation, she’d been given a frame cabin neatly placed along the gravel street leading to the agency. The indians were furnished with whitewash, with the understanding that the Indians would paint their cabins. They never did so, not because they were shiftless, but because they thought it was silly to paint pine when the sun soon bleached it to a nice shade of silver-gray that never needed repainting.

Dances-Humming led him inside and lit a candle stub, bathing the interior in warm, soft light. The cabin was furnished with surplus army camp furnishings. The walls were hung with painted deerskins and flat gathering baskets woven long ago. Dances-Humming seldom worked at the old skills. Reservation LIFE was turning her and her people into something no longer Indian, but not yet white. Prostitution had been unknown when the various bands of Ho had roamed from the Rockies to the Sierras in a prouder time.

Dances-Humming sat on a bunk, atop the new-looking Hudson Bay blanket. She patted the creamy wool at her side and said, “Sit down. This person’s guest looks puzzled.”

“I reckon I am. Last time I was here you said something about a knife in my lights and liver.”

“This person was angry. You arrested a man who had been good to her and they made her marry an old man. But that was long ago, when this person was a foolish child.”

She suddenly drew her legs up under her and was kneeling in the center of the bunk. She pulled the loose Mother Hubbard off over her head and threw it aside. She laughed, stark naked, and asked, “Has not this person grown into a real woman?”

Longarm said, “That’s for damn sure!” as he stared down at her firm, brown breasts in the candlelight. Then he sniffed and said, “My medicine don’t allow me to pay a woman, Dances-Humming.”

“Did this person ask for presents? What do you take her for, a whore?”

Longarm did, but he didn’t say so. He said, “If Agent Caldwell caught us, he’d report me to the BIA.”

“No, he wouldn’t. He owes his job to you. Besides, how is he to know?”

“Well, you might just tell him.”

“Why would this person do that?”

“Maybe to get a white man who riled you in trouble. You did say you’d fix me, last time around.”

Dances-Humming cupped her breasts in her hands and thrust the nipples out at him teasingly, saying, “Is this the way you’re afraid this person will fix you?” Her voice took on a bitter shade as she added, “You are a white man with a badge. Do you think they’d take this person’s word against yours?”

He saw that there were tears in her sloe eyes and sat beside her, soothing, “Let’s not blubber about it, honey. You’re just taking me by surprise, is all. I mean, I didn’t know we were friends.”

“You men are all alike when it comes to a woman’s mind! Don’t you know that a woman is a cat? Don’t you know why a woman, or a cat, spits most at those who ignore her?”

“Ignoring you would be a chore, considering.”

“Good. Let’s kiss and make up, then, shall we?”

Without waiting for an answer, Dances-Humming was all over him, bare bottom in his lap as she rubbed everything else against him while planting a wet, openmouthed kiss full on his lips. She had his back to the wall now and was fumbling at his buttons, complaining with her mouth on his, “You white men wear so many clothes! Don’t they get in the way at times like these?”

“They sure as hell do!” Longarm said, pushing her clear enough to start undressing himself, as he added, “Snuff that candle. You ain’t got curtains on the windows!”

She laughed and leaped from the bunk, a tawny vision of desire as she bent to put the light out. By the time she crawled up on the bunk beside him, Longarm had gotten rid of most of his duds. The first thing he’d removed was his gunbelt, and he’d shoved it between the bunk and the wall, the grips of the.44 handy.

She wrestled playfully with him as he finished undressing and they were both laughing when, at last, their nude bodies melted together.

Dances-Humming was hotter than a two-dollar pistol and moved it like a saloon door on payday, but there was something wrong. Longarm had been with enough women to know when they were taking pleasure as well as giving it. The little squaw made love like a professional, and since that way’s calculated to pleasure a man, Longarm enjoyed it.

After a time, as they rested with him still inside her, he ran his hand down between their moist warm torsos to tickle her wetness. She stopped him, asking, “What is the matter, didn’t you enjoy it?”

“You know I did, honey. I’m trying to make you come.”

“Why? This person didn’t ask it.”

“Well, hell, it’s common courtesy! Don’t you want to come, honey?”

“I already did, before. You can just do as you wish. This person does not mind. She is tired.”

Longarm frowned, wondering why she was lying. She’d acted like she was going crazy, a minute ago, but he’d been with too many others to be fooled. She, while she wasn’t getting paid like a whore, was doing it like a whore. He’d wondered where she’d gotten that new blanket.

He said, “Well, if you’re tired, you’re tired. I’ll just be on my way, soon as I can find where I threw my boots.”

She stiffened and said, “You can’t leave now! It’s too early!”

“Maybe nine o’clock, maybe ten. I thank you for the hospitality, but I can see I ain’t wanted.”

“Don’t go! I’ll let you play with me! I’ll do anything, anything you want!”

“Uh-uh. Your Indian powwow stuff is slipping, too. I’d better get it on down the road, honey.”

He swung his bare legs over the edge and sat up, bending over to reach for his socks. Dances-Humming reached for the holstered.44 against the wall, drew it, and placed the muzzle against the back of Longarm’s head as she pulled the trigger.

The gun clicked twice before he’d reached around and taken it from her, saying, “First thing they ever told me was not to leave a loaded gun where a whore could get at it, Dances-Humming. I took the liberty of unloading it before leaving it there to bait you.”

She tried to back away as far as possible, but she only got as far as the corner. She sat there, knees drawn up, and trembling as she gasped, “I don’t want to die!”

“Well, not many folks do. Did the man who put you up to this say how you were to get away with killing me, or are you just dumb?”

“I didn’t think! I had to-I have to keep you here, no matter what!”

“well, blowing my brains out my nose was a piss-poor idea, honey. You weren’t gonna sing that same old song about the wicked white man trying to rape an Indian lady defending her honor, were you?”

“I don’t know! There wasn’t time to think!”

“You’d better learn to think, girl! If I’d been as dumb as you, we’d both be in a pickle. I’d be dead and you’d be explaining things to Hungry Calf and the other chiefs. I’ll allow an Indian Agent will believe most anything, but you’d last less than five minutes when the elders got to asking what happened.”

She buried her face in her hands and began to bawl like a baby. Longarm reached out and put an arm around her, soothing, “Oh, hush, no harm’s been done.”

“Are you going to tell on me?”

“Don’t reckon I need to, now. You do see how another wicked white man led you astray, don’t you? I swear, Dances-Humming, you do get led astray more’n any Ho gal I’ve met. You sure you didn’t have an Apache grandmother? No, that don’t figure. Apache blood would have left you smarter. You see, honey, if folks can’t be smart, they have to be good. Dumb and wicked is a fearsome combination.”

“If you won’t beat me, I’ll tell you who paid me to keep you here all night.”

I don’t aim to beat you, and I know who paid you. As long as he never paid you to kill me, what the hell.”

“What are you going to do when you leave here? Are you sure you’ll be able to kill him? He said he would be very cross with me if I let you out tonight.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what we’d best do. since I’m supposed to spend the night here, I’d just as soon. You did say you didn’t want me to tell Hungry Calf and the others, didn’t you?”

“Don’t tell them! I’ll do anything.”

“I know. I’m going to have to tie you up. Not that I don’t trust you, you understand, but I’d never in this world be able to fall asleep with you running about maybe looking for knives and such.”

“I wouldn’t try again to hurt you. This person is afraid.”

“That makes two of us. I’ll tie you gentle, but I’ll tie you fast. You want to do anything, first?”

She started to protest, but she knew he meant it, so as Longarm rummaged through her things for a rope she pulled a chamber pot from under the bed and relieved herself. From the long, hissing sound, he knew she was badly frightened.

He found a length of cotton clothesline, tested it with a few snaps, and decided it would do. He brought the coil to the bunk and sat down, fishing in his pants for his jackknife. Dances-Humming rose to her feet and stood before him, resigned to his will.

Longarm cut the rope into four sections and got up, pulling the top blanket from the bunk. He threw it out in the middle of the floor and patted the quilted surface as he said, “Climb aboard and pick out a comfortable position; you’ll be in it for some time.”

“I sleep best on my stomach.”

“There you go, then. Face down, hands above your head. I’ll give you a little slack, but I’ll hear you if you get to Jerking it, and I’ll whup your bare ass for it.”

The treacherous little squaw lay across the mattress on her belly and Longarm lashed a wrist to each head post of the bunk while she sniffled and protested. He tied her ankles to the posts at the foot of the bunk, leaving her some slack to shift a bit. Then he sat down with his back to her and started pulling on his socks. She asked, “Why are you getting dressed?”

“To keep from freezing before morning, of course. I’ll throw the blanket over you, directly. Then I’ll hunker down in a corner in my duds, facing the door.”

“It’s so early. Even Many Ponies used to make love to me more than once a night.”

“Honey, you are full of shit as well as frigid. You won’t get out of them ropes by stirring up the love potion pot. I’ll allow it figures to be a tedious cold night, but what the hell.”

“Won’t you do it one more time? Now that this person has less fear, she remembers how nice you felt inside of her. She was too worried to let herself go, before. This time will be different.”

“Oh, hell, I got my socks on and you’re hogtied just right, and face down to boot!”

“I can raise myself high enough. See?”

He saw indeed, as the moonlight now lancing through one window shone on the firm, plump hemispheres of her tawny buttocks. He ran his free hand over her flesh, soothingly, and sighed, “Don’t know as it’s right to do it to a gal tied up with ropes. Read someplace about this French feller who liked to do it that way, and the book said he was touched in the head.”

“Untie me, then.”

“In a pig’s eye! You don’t want to get humped. You only want to have them ropes off you!”

“That’s not this person’s reason. Feel the way she’s gushing with her need!”

He explored the crevice between her writhing buttocks and warm brown thighs with his fingers, noting, “You’re drooling like a woman in love and that’s a fact.”

“Do it! For some reason this person is excited by the ropes!”

Longarm got up and climbed aboard the bunk, resting his weight on all fours as he positioned his knees up and to either side of her hips. It was awkward in this position, but as Dances-Humming felt his erection in the wet crevice between them, she moved herself into line and took advantage of the slack bondage to engulf him with a hungry sigh.

“Oh, it feels so… interesting this way!” she giggled as Longarm, getting the hang of it, began to rock back and forward on his knees. It was well for him that he was a practiced horseman with well-developed riding muscles; even so, his thighs began to cramp by the time it was too late to stop. The Indian girl began to gyrate wildly as she literally screwed herself on and almost off, biting her lip as she groaned delighted words in her own language, for Dances-Humming was not a white man’s love-toy now. She reverted to her birthright as a natural, hotblooded girl who a missionary, in his ignorance, might describe as “primitive.”

This time she didn’t fake an orgasm. She had one, then another and another as the man who’d mastered her pounded and pounded her from the rear. Longarm gasped, “Oh, Jesus H. Christ!” and let her rip. It felt funny as hell to come with both legs fixing to bust.

He was tempted to untie her and make a night of it, now that they’d become better acquainted, but he knew he’d need his strength, come sunup, and he still didn’t trust her far enough to spit.

He climbed off and got dressed, throwing the Hudson Bay blanket over the crooning, sex-drugged little squaw. He bent and kissed her on the ear. Then he went to a corner and slid down to squat Mexican-style with his holster pulled around between his thighs. He reloaded the.44. Then he crossed his arms over his raised knees and lowered his head to them, trying to think if he’d left any loose ends.

He couldn’t think of any. His saddle and possibles were stored in the Agency, along with Kim Stover. If any of the others got in trouble with squaws or corn squeezings it wasn’t his duty to worry about it. Agent Caldwell and the tribal council were getting paid to keep things down to a roar, hereabouts.

It was already getting chilly, as the thin air of the high country surrendered its stored sunlight to the stars. He knew he’d have a frozen ass by daybreak, but he’d been cold before, and he aimed to rise early and to be wide awake as soon as he did so.

He might have dreamed. He must have dreamed, for he was thinking about how cold it was out here on the picket line tonight with the enemy just across the river and no picket fires allowed this close to the front by order of the general when, somewhere, a rooster crowed, and he sat up, rubbing the cobwebs from his brain and shivering in the icy dawn.

He sat still for a moment, gazing across the little cabin at the girl on the bunk. She was watching him from under the edge of the blanket, her sloe eyes unreadable. Longarm nodded and said, “‘Morning.”

“This person has been trying to understand you. Even for a white man, you act crazy.”

“It was your idea to do it that way. I’m damned if I can see what that French feller got out of it. Can’t change position worth a damn.”

“This person wasn’t talking about that. It was very exciting to be taken as a captive. Now the tales of the old women make more sense. What makes no sense at all is the way you acted after you made this person tell you the truth.”

“Would you rather I’d have spanked you?”

“No. Many Ponies tried to beat me, once. I sent him home to his mother’s lodge. I thought you’d go after the man who paid me to betray you.”

“And miss all the fun we had? Along with being dumb, you lack the imagination of your people, Dances-Humming. The Ho are famous hunting and fighting folks. The Dakota call ‘em their favorite enemies; it’s hard as anything to outwit the Ute band of the Ho.”

He got up, stretching and moving his holster over to his left hip as he came over and removed the blanket to untie her. Dances-Humming rolled over and writhed invitingly on her back, asking, “Would you like to do it the old-fashioned way this time?”

“I’d like to. Can’t. Got too many chores to tend to. I’ll be leaving now, with some parting words of advice. If you repeat ‘em to the BIA I’ll have to call you a liar, but you ain’t making it as an Indian, gal. If I was you, I’d move down to Salt Lake and take up the trade near the U.P. station. You’re a pretty little thing, and you could make your fortune off railroad roustabouts and whisky drummers looking for what you’re so good at. You stay here on the reservation, selling half-ass treachery along with what you’re good at, and some night one of the decent folks hereabouts will surely cut your throat.”

He left as she was still protesting her inborn goodness. Outside, the air had a bite to it, but tasted crisp and clean. The girl’s cabin, like most Indian dwellings, was unventilated and smoke-scented, for folks living close to nature with few warm clothes valued warmth more than their tears, and Indians could put up with more smoke than you’d think was good for their eyes.

As he walked toward the agency, he wondered if Caldwell would notice the squaw-smell clinging to his unwashed hide. He probably wouldn’t. The whole little town smelled Indian. It wasn’t a bad smell, just different. White towns smelled of coal smoke, unwashed wool, and horse shit. Indian villages smelled of burning dung, greased rawhide, and the dry, cornhusk odor of Indian sweat. By now, Caldwell and his woman smelled that way themselves.

As he approached the agency, a young Ho fell in beside him and said, “I am called Spotted Bear. Hungry Calf had me watching the dead man in the smokehouse.”

“I know, brother. How long ago did the man in the red coat steal the body?”

“Many hours ago. He took his own and one of our ponies, too. He rode out just after midnight, but his sign is easy to read. When shall we go after him?”

“We’re not going to trail him, brother. I’ll see that the owner of the stolen pony gets paid double. You and your friends did well.”

The Indian smiled at the compliment. “We did as you asked, but we don’t understand it. Wasn’t it your plan to let the red coat do a bad thing so you could kill him?”

“No. He was not a bad man. Just a fool pest I want to get rid of. I knew he wouldn’t leave without the dead man as a present for his she-chief, so I let him steal the body.”

“Does the crazy red coat’s she-chief eat human flesh?”

“No. She wants the dead man’s, uh, scalp. She thinks he did a bad thing to one of her people.”

“Oh. What did the dead man do to the red coat’s tribe?”

“Nothing. But he don’t know that. He’s likely huggin’ himself right now for being so all-fired foxy. We can forget about him. He’s a good woodsman, and since he thinks we’re tracking him, he’ll make sure nobody sees him again till he gets where he’s going. Did anybody else try to get away during the night?”

“No. All the white men are sleeping in their blankets by the fire. Some of them had firewater and got drunk. The reservation police are watching them, but your orders were not to interfere, just watch, is this not so?”

“You are a good and clever warrior, Spotted Bear. I’ll leave you now. I don’t want the other white men to know we’re close.”

As the Indian dropped back, Longarm went on up to the agency. He smelled ham and eggs, so he knew the Caldwells were early risers, like their charges. Someone had been watching from a window, because the door opened as he came up the steps and Caldwell said, “We’ve been looking for you. Sent a Ute out to fetch you when the wire came, but he said he didn’t know where you were.”

“I sleep private. What wire are we talking about?”

Caldwell handed him a piece of yellow paper, explaining, “This came in right after the Mountie telegraphed his own report. Your own outfit was likely listening in.”

Longarm held the telegram up to the light and read:

TO: DEPUTY LONG OURAY RESERVATION STOP

#ONE WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN UTAH TERRITORY STOP #TWO WHAT HAPPENED TO KINCAID STOP #THREE DO YOU NEED ASSISTANCE STOP

Longarm chuckled and folded the telegram away, following the agent inside. He nodded to the two women seated at the breakfast table and when Portia Caldwell invited him to some ham and eggs, he said, “In a minute, ma’am. I have to send a message to my chief. If he doesn’t find one waiting for him at his office, he’ll be hard on the help.”

Caldwell took him into an office where a sending set sat under a rack of wet-cell batteries. Longarm sat down at the table and began to tap out his reply, routing it through the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Justice Department and thence to the Denver office. With the salutations out of the way, he sent:

ANSWER TO #ONE MY JOB STOP ANSWER TO #TWO LIKELY DEAD STOP ANSWER TO #THREE No STOP

SIGNED LONG

Agent Caldwell, who’d sent some Morse in his time, had listened in. He said, “If that don’t confuse your boss, it pure confuses me! Would you mind letting me in on just what the hell you’re up to, old son?”

“Cutting and branding, like I said. Just got rid of that feller from Canada, and by the way, you can use your smokehouse again. Sergeant Foster rode off with the body.”

“You let the Northwest Mounted steal a U.S. federal fugitive?”

“No. I let him think he did. That owlhoot was just a poor shiftless thief who never did anything Uncle Sam’s interested in. Got at least a couple of birds with one shot, too. By slickering the Mountie into vanishing off into the blue with the evidence, I can forget who might have to answer to Utah for killing him. I’d be obliged if we kept all this between us, though. Might be a few birds left to that shot I just mentioned.”

“What was that about Kincaid?”

“He’s another deputy, turned up missing. I’m looking for the one that bushwhacked him on his way to Crooked Lance. Been snooping around for Mexican heels and a.30-30 deer rifle amongst the folks I brought over here yesterday evening. Ain’t found anybody that fits, yet. But we’ll have more company, soon. Let’s see about them ham and eggs. I’ve worked up a real appetite, likely from the mountain air.”

CHAPTER 21

A band of mounted Indians brought in Mabel Hanks and the six riders from Crooked Lance who’d been with her when she tried to cut Longarm and his prisoner off at Bitter Creek. They’d given up there, and followed sign as far as the scene of Tinker’s death before being jumped and captured by Longarm’s Indian allies.

Mabel rode in dusty but trying to look elegant, sitting sidesaddle under her feathered hat, which the Indians admired immensely. Her little husband came over as Longarm helped Mabel dismount, stealing a feel of the holstered, man-sized S&W she wore around her corseted waist. Cedric Hanks said, “You shouldn’t have let ‘em take you, damn it!”

“Oh, shut up! What were we supposed to do, make a stand in a dry canyon against all these Indians? What’s going on hereabouts? It looks like you-all had a firefight where these jaspers surrounded us.”

Cedric shrugged and said, “They surrounded us, too. This lawman’s pretty slick, but he lost his prisoner. Damned if I can figure what he wants with the rest of Us.”

Mabel glanced at Longarm and asked, “Is that right? Did the prisoner get away after all the work we did?”

“Didn’t get away, ma’am. He’s on his way to Canada, dead. That Mountie rode off with the body.”

“And you’re still standing here? what’s the matter with you? He can’t be more’n a few miles off. Why ain’t you chasing him?”

“Got bigger fish to fry. Besides, I’ve transported dead ones before. Gets tedious to smell after a day or so on the trail. I figure packing a rotting cadaver all the way to Canada is punishment enough for being more stubborn than smart. You and these boys hungry? The agent sent some husked dry corn over from the stores and the Indians will sell you jerked beef and coffee. For folks as aimed to track me and mine from hell to breakfast, you didn’t store much grub in your possibles.”

“We thought you was making for Bitter Creek, like you said.”

“I figured you might. Where’s Captain Walthers? Following the tracks across the Great Salt Desert?”

“How should I know? The army man peeled off along the way. He rode off talking dark about a telegram to the War Department.”

“That’s good. Why don’t you set a spell and make yourselves to home? I’ll be over at the agency if you need anything. Anything important, that is. I don’t split firewood and the Indians will show you where to get water, answer the call of nature, or whatever.”

He walked away, leaving the newcomers to jaw about their position with those already gathered, worried and restless, around the campfire.

As he crunched across the gravel, Hanks fell in at his side, protesting, “Not so fast, damn it. You got no right to hold Mabel and me. We ain’t done nothing. Hell, the other night, I thought you and me was going to spring Cotton Younger together!”

“So did I, ‘til I got a better grasp on the situation. You were right about Mabel being killed with me, but what the hell, she had her reasons.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Did Cotton Younger say anything to you ‘fore he passed away? You must know it wasn’t my idea to shoot him before he told us where the James Boys was hiding!”

“He died sort of sudden.” Longarm lied.

“Jesus, didn’t you get anything out of him? How come you let that Sergeant Foster steal him? Wasn’t your orders to bring him in dead or alive?”

“Yep, but I just explained all that. They’ll likely rawhide me some for losing the body, but not as hard as they would have for gunning a guest of the U.S. State Department, and Foster was a serious cuss. Besides, what can you really do to a dead owlhoot? He can’t talk and hanging him without a fair trial seems a mite uncivilized. I reckon they could hold a trial, if the jury had clothespins on their noses and the judge didn’t ask how he pleaded, but as you can see, it’d be a waste of time and the taxpayer’s money.”

“You’re funning me, Longarm. I’ll bet you got it out of him. I’ll bet you know where Jesse James is hiding! I know you marshals from old. You wouldn’t take that Mountie pulling the wool over your eyes unless you was on to something bigger than old Cotton Younger!”

“Well, you just go back to your woman and study on it. I’ve had my say about the missing cadaver and this conversation’s over.”

He left the bewildered little man standing there and continued to the mission. The sun had topped high noon and he found the Caldwell’s and Kim Stover out back, seated in the shade behind the kitchen shed as the harsh, cloudless light made up for the cold night before by baking the dusty earth hot enough to fry eggs on.

Agent Caldwell started to ask more questions, but his wife, Portia, looked knowingly at Kim and said something about making the rounds of the village, adding something about sick Indian kids.

Caldwell muttered, “I don’t remember any of the Utes being sick,” but he let her lead him off after she’d tugged firmly on his sleeve a time or two.

Kim Stover smiled wanly and said, “She’s quite the little matchmaker, ain’t she?”

Longarm sat on the kitchen steps near her camp chair in the shade and said, “She’s got a lot of time on her hands, out here with no other white women to talk to.”

“She was advising me on the subject. I reckon we sort of told the stories of our lives to one another, between supper and breakfast. She doesn’t think I ought to marry up with Timberline.”

“I never advise on going to war or getting married, but the gal who gets Timberline ain’t getting much in the way of gentle. He rides good, though. Must know his trade, to be working as ramrod for a big outfit. Maybe he’s out to marry you for your cows.”

“I know what he’s after, and it ain’t my cows. Ben and me didn’t have much of a herd when he died. It’s thanks to Timberline my herd’s increased by a third since then. I know you don’t like him, but he’s been very kind, in his own rough way.”

“Well, maybe he don’t like my looks. How’d he add to the size of your herd? Not meaning to pry.”

“He didn’t steal them for me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Timberline’s been honest and hard-working, for his own outfit and all the others in Crooked Lance. He’s the trail boss and tally man when we drive the consolidated herd to market because the others respect him. More than once, when the buyers have tried to beat us down on the railside prices, Timberline warned us to hold firm. Working for an eastern syndicate, he always knew the going and fair price.”

“That figures. His bosses back East would wire him the quotations on the Chicago Board. That’s one of the things I’ve been meaning to get straight in my head, ma’am. You folks needed that telegraph wire. When did it first start giving you trouble?”

She thought and said, “Just after we caught that cow thief, Cotton Younger. We wired Cheyenne we had him and they wired back not to hang him but to hold him ‘til somebody came to pick him up. Right after that the line went dead. Some men working for Western Union fixed it once, but it went out within the week. Timberline and some of the others rode up into the passes to look at it. They said it looked like the whole line needed to be rebuilt.”

“Were any of those other lawmen in Crooked Lance while the line was up that one time? More important, did any of them send a message from your father-inlaw’s store?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t speak to him or to his two awful women. My ex-mother-in-law said bad things about me that weren’t true. Her snippy daughter backed her.”

“Do tell? What did they say against you?”

“Oh, the usual small-town gossip about a woman living alone. My sister-in-law’s a poor old maid who likely doesn’t know what grown folks do in the dark. Her mother can’t know much better. All her man thinks about is money. You notice they only have one child, and she was born long enough ago to be getting long in the tooth now. Poor things are spiteful ‘cause they never get no… you know.”

“Ummm, well, they did seem sort of lonesome, now that you mention it. They gossiped about you and Timberline, huh?”

“Oh, that’s to be expected, even though he’s never trifled with me. What they suspicioned was even more vicious!”

“You mean they had more’n Timberline about your dooryard?”

“They as much as accused him of Ben’s death. When he was killed in a stampede they passed remarks about how Timberline had never liked Ben as much as he seemed to like me.”

“That’s a hard thing to say about a man. Anybody go along with it?”

“‘Course not. You may as well know I took it serious enough to study on it, too. I questioned all the hands who were on the drive with my late husband. Talked to hands who weren’t fond of Timberline as well as his own Rocking H riders. Them two old biddies should be ashamed of themselves!”

“Just what happened to your man, if you don’t mind talking about it?”

“It was a pure accident, or, more rightly, Ben was a pure fool. They were driving in rough country when the herd was caught by a thunderstorm. A lightning flash spooked the herd and they started to stampede. My husband rode out wide to head ‘em off and turn the leaders. Riding in fallen timber at a dead run. They say Timberline shouted a warning to him. Called him back and told him not to try, but to let ‘em run, since the running was poor and there was a ridge ahead that would stop ‘em.”

“That sounds like common cow sense, ma’am. What happened then?”

“Ben’s pony tripped over a log and went down. The herd ran over him and the pony, stomping both flat as pancakes. Later, my in-laws allowed it was Timberline’s fault. They said he’d put Ben on the point, knowing it was dangerous.”

“Well, somebody has to ride the point, though some trail bosses tend to pick unmarried men for it.”

“Ben knew cows as well as anyone. Nobody got him killed. He got himself killed trying to prove he was the best cowboy in the valley.”

She looked away as she added, bitterly, “He had to prove he was good for something, I reckon.”

Longarm sat silently, mulling over what she’d told him. He had to admit the boss bully of Crooked Lance hadn’t done much more wrong than any other trail boss would have, and even if he’d had a hankering for another man’s wife, Timberline didn’t look like a man who could scare up thunder and lightning with a wave of his hat.

Longarm’s groin tingled slightly as he mulled over her words about the Stover women. The one in his room had moved her tail from side to side like a fish. In the livery stable, had it been the same one? It was hard to tell. Nobody does it the same way standing up. Had he laid the mother, the daughter, or both of ‘em? And did he really want to know?

Kim Stover was asking, “When are you going to let us ride out? I asked the Caldwells, and while they’re friendly enough, I couldn’t get a straight answer from either one.”

“That’s ‘cause they don’t know, ma’am. They’re likely as puzzled about it as yourself.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Well, sure. Ain’t ready to say, just yet.”

“Portia Caldwell said you were given to sly ways, but I think you’ve passed sly and ridden into ridiculous! You’ve lost Cotton Younger. You know everything we do. What are you waiting for now?”

“The full cast assembled, ma’am. By now, Captain Walthers has intercepted the wires sent from here and will know where we are. He should be riding in directly, madder than a wet hen and likely leading a troop of cavalry.”

“Good Lord! Are you waiting for the whole world to ride onto this reservation?”

“No, ma’am, just all my suspects. If you’re getting bored, I’d be proud to take you for a ride in the hills or something.”

“I’ll pass on the something. Every time Timberline takes me for a ride we wind up wrestling.”

“I don’t wrestle with gals, ma’am. My offer was meant neighborly.”

“I’ll still pass on it. Timberline’s enough to handle. You’ve got a very sneaky habit of saying one thing and meaning another!”

CHAPTER 22

Captain Walthers rode in from the west late that afternoon. The Indians had not rounded him up. It would not have been a well-advised move, for the captain rode in full uniform at the head of two troops of U.S. Cavalry under fluttering red and white guidons.

Longarm was waiting for him on the front porch of the agency, along with Caldwell and some of the others, including Kim, the Hankses, and Timberline.

Captain Walthers rode directly up and stared down grimly without dismounting. “I have two questions and a squadron to back them up, Longarm. Where is my horse, and where is my prisoner?”

“Both dead. Your walker slipped and gutted himself on sharp shale, so I had to shoot him. My office will pay damages, of course.”

“We’ll settle that later. What’s this about my prisoner, Cotton Younger, wanted for desertion in time of war?”

“The man I lit out with is dead and gone, whether you wanted him or not.”

“What do you mean gone? Where’s his goddamned body? Sorry, ladies.”

“He was killed by one of these vigilantes. I don’t know which one. That Canadian peace officer, Foster, made off with the remains last night. He’s likely got a good start on you by now.”

“He stole a man wanted by the War Department? Which way did he ride out?”

“Headed for Canada, most likely. You’d be wasting your time trying to catch him, Captain. He’s a hell of a tracker and has a day or more of lead on you. I doubt I could find him myself, now.”

“I’ll see about that. I’m charging you with horse theft, Deputy.”

“Why make more of a fool of yourself? I said we’d pay for the critter and my defense at any trial would be that I requisitioned the nearest mount at hand to save a man from a lynch mob. As a peace officer, I have the right to do such things as the need arises.”

“Why didn’t you ask me to help you, then?”

“You’d only have got in my way. As it was, I had a hell of a time making it here before these others caught up.”

The army man turned to the Indian agent and asked, “Aren’t you the law, hereabouts?”

“I sure am, soldier.”

“I demand you arrest that man for obstructing me in my duties!”

Caldwell’s face was calm as he answered, “I demand you flap your wings and lay an egg, too, but I don’t suppose you have to if you don’t really want to.”

“You don’t intend to let a few past misunderstandings between the army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs obstruct justice, do you?”

“I sure do, soldier. Once upon a time, when I had some Navajo all set to ride back peaceable, some hotheaded second lieutenant charged in with his troop and… Never mind, some of our men have acted like idiots, too, in the past. Suffice to say, I don’t reckon Your office and mine owe one another favors.”

“I see. You intend to side with the Justice Department in this jurisdictional dispute.”

“No, I intend to side with Longarm. He’s a friend of mine. I never met you before.”

Captain Walthers turned in his saddle to address a burly, middle-aged noncom, saying, “Sergeant! Arrest that man!”

The sergeant looked thoughtful and replied, “Begging the Captain’s pardon, but we’re on Indian land.”

“God damn it, Sergeant, are you afraid of Indians?”

“Ute Indians? Yessir, and Fort Douglas might just like to know our plans before the Captain starts an Indian war without their say-so.”

“I am surrounded by maniacs!” the captain protested to anyone who wanted his opinion. Then he scowled down at Caldwell and demanded, “Would you sic your tame Utes on us if we just took this sassy deputy off with us?”

Caldwell shrugged and said, “I don’t know how tame they might be if you tried to arrest their blood-brother, soldier. It’s my duty to try and keep them off the warpath and if they got unruly, I’d have to chide them for… whatever. You’ll notice I’ve told my wife to stay inside until this is settled. I’ve told these other folks to take cover, but nobody listens to me around here. Not even the Indians, when they get riled up about things.”

The sergeant leaned toward the captain to murmur, “Sir, some Utes are covering us from those houses on our left flank. Just saw some movement off to the right…”

“Damn it, the War Department’s going to get a full report on this entire matter!”

Caldwell asked mildly, “Would you like to send a telegram on my agency wire, Captain? It’ll be dark soon. You and your men are welcome to spend the night on my reservation.”

Walthers hesitated as Longarm cast an anxious glance at the sky. The damned sun was getting low again. That was the trouble with soldiers. They moved like greenhorns riding snails.

He suddenly brightened and asked, “Hey, Captain? As long as you and your troopers will be riding back to Fort Douglas in the morning, what do you say to helping me transport some prisoners to the Salt Lake railroad depot? From there I’ll make connections over the divide and down to Denver, and…”

“What prisoners are you talking about? Are you holding that army deserter after all?”

“No, the one we were all fighting over in Crooked Lance is dead and gone. I’m figuring on arresting the killer of Deputy Kincaid, once I tie up a few loose ends so…”

“You ask the army to help you, after the way you’ve thwarted me at every turn?”

“Well, it would be neighborly, and we are working for the same government, ain’t we?”

“How would you like to flap your wings and lay an egg, Longarm?”

“I thought it was funnier the first time I heard it. Does that mean you won’t help me?”

“I’d join the Mexican army first! As soon as my men and their mounts are rested I’m going back to Fort Douglas to file an official complaint, and you-you can go to the devil!”

“I’ll tell Marshal Vail you were asking about him. You’re leaving me in a bit of a bind, though. Can’t deputize these Indians to transport prisoners off the reservation. Yep, it figures to be a chore.”

For the first time since riding in, Captain Walthers looked pleased as he asked, “You don’t say? My heart bleeds for you, Longarm, but I just can’t reach you. I hope you sink, you—never mind. Ladies present.”

The captain wheeled and rode off to find a campsite for the night as his troopers followed, some of them grinning and one corporal tipping his hat to the ladies as he swung past.

Kim Stover asked, “What was that about you making some arrests?”

Longarm looked around, as if worried about being overheard before he confided, “I’m going to have to ask a favor, ma’am. Timberline?”

“I’m listening, but I don’t feel up to doing favors, either.”

“Just listen before you go off half-cocked. It’s a long, hard ride back to Crooked Lance, the way we’ve all come. On the other hand, it’s an easy downhill ride from here to Salt Lake City.”

“What in thunder do I want to go to Salt Lake City for?”

“A ride, of course. Free ride on the railroad back to Bitter Creek, from where you’ll be only a spit an’ a holler from Crooked Lance. Wouldn’t you like to save Miss Kim here, and the others, a long hard ride for home?”

“Maybe, but what’s the tricky part?”

“I aim to deputize you as a U.S. Deputy’s deputy. You’ll get a dollar a day, vittles, and a free ride almost home in exchange for doing nothing much.”

Kim Stover’s eyes widened as she smiled hopefully.

Cedric Hanks said, “Hell, why not deputize me? He’s only a cowboy, big as he may be! Me and Mabel are professionals!”

“I thought about it,” Longarm soothed, “but my boss ain’t partial to private detectives since he had a set-to with Allan Pinkerton’s Secret Service, during the war. As for your wife, I’ve never heard of a female working for the government.”

Timberline’s suspicion had faded to anticipation as he asked, “Would I get to wear a badge?”

“Not on temporary duty. As a peace officer, I’m empowered to deputize posses and such, but I won’t need more’n one hand to help me herd my suspects in.”

Mabel Hanks asked, “Who on earth are you talking about, Longarm? Who are you fixing to arrest?”

“Ain’t sure yet,” Longarm lied. “We’ll work it out come morning, after the troopers and that pesky captain leave.”

Longarm didn’t spend the night with Dances-Humming. For one thing, he couldn’t trust her. For another, he wasn’t sure he should take his clothes off. He spent the night in the agency, in a spare room next to Kim Stover’s. As he lay across the bed, fully dressed, he could hear the redhead moving about on the other side of the wall. Once he heard her using the chamber pot. It shouldn’t have made him think of what it did, but the redhead had a nice shape and it was hard not to picture what he caught himself seeing clearly in his mind.

He knew his boast had been spread around by now. Timberline had strutted off like a rooster, feeling important, most likely. Hungry Calf’s young men were watching to see if anyone tried to make a break for it.

They had instructions not to try and stop him/her. The killer-or killers—of Deputy Kincaid and that Missouri lawman were dangerous as hell, but wouldn’t get far, once they made their play.

He could hear the bedsprings under the woman in the next room. She seemed to be tossing and turning as if she found it hard to fall asleep, too. Longarm lay there, puffing his cheroot and blowing smoke rings at the ceiling as he thought about Kim Stover, mostly to keep awake.

There was a soft tap on his door. Longarm frowned and rolled quietly to his feet. He slid over to the door and asked, “Yeah?”

A man’s voice said, “It’s Captain Walthers. I’d like a word with you.”

Longarm muttered, “Shit,” and opened the door.

The army man didn’t come in. He said, “Some of those hands were talking to my troopers by the fire. What’s going on here, now?”

“You mean Timberline helping me transport a prisoner or two? You already said you wouldn’t do it.”

“I don’t owe you spit, but I’ll admit I’m curious. Do you really have anything nailed down, or are you trying to bluff someone into making a break for it?”

“I owe you an apology. You ain’t as dumb as you seem. I didn’t think it was possible, anyway.”

“I figured you were bluffing. Unless your suspect’s awfully dumb, he’ll figure it out as well. There’s hardly a chance of getting away from here. Anybody can see that. You let the Mountie get away with our prisoner because you weren’t expecting it. By now, you’ll have your Utes watching every route out of the reservation, won’t you?”

More to pass the time than in any hope of learning anything, Longarm said, “Maybe the one, or ones, I’m after ain’t as smart as you and me.”

“It’s not my mission, but I’ve put a few things together. Your friend, Kincaid, had worked in Missouri, as had the other missing lawman and the old man who apparently came to help Cotton Younger. That means your man is from Missouri, probably well-known there. He had to kill the three of them because they might have recognized him on sight.”

“You aiming to help me, or are we just jawing?”

“Unless you can nail a prisoner with a military charge, I have no authority to help you. Cotton Younger was the only possible member of the James-Younger gang wanted on an army warrant, and thanks to you, his corpse is halfway to Canada by now!”

“You do go by the book, don’t you? It’s no wonder Cotton Younger deserted your old army. It’s gotten chickenshit as hell since I was in the service. ‘Course, in those days we were fighting, not lookin’ up rules and regulations. It’s been nice talking to you, Captain.”

He closed the door softly in Walthers’s face. While he wanted to annoy the captain, he didn’t intend to disturb the lady next door.

He chuckled as he heard the angry boot-heels stamping off. If he couldn’t use the infernal soldiers, at least he might get rid of ‘em by rawhiding their leader every chance he got.

He sat on the bed and pondered whether to get some sleep or not. The Indians would awaken him if anything important happened. He knew he might have a hard day ahead of him, too.

A tiny beam of light caught his eye. He saw that it came from a chink in the pine panelling between the rooms. He shrugged. She was likely under the covers, anyway. He lay back and tried to doze, but sleep refused to come. He muttered, “What the hell, curious is curious.”

He got up and tiptoed to the wall, putting an eye to the peephole. He was almost too late. Kim Stover had just turned from the dressing table and was headed back for the bed, stark naked. Longarm held his breath as she crossed the room and snuffed the light before getting under the quilts. Then he went back to his own bed, grinning. He’d been right as rain. She was red-haired all over.

The army column rode out just after breakfast, taking their own sweet time, as always. Hungry Calf found Longarm eating beans by the pony line and said, “Nobody left last night. What does my brother think this means?”

“Means I was wrong, or that I’m up against somebody smarter than I figured. Are your young men watching the soldiers?”

“Of course. It is fun to scout them from the rimrock. Just like the old days. Both you and Agent Caldwell said it would be a bad thing to attack them. Could we just frighten them a little?”

“No. I just want to know when they’re clean off the reservation and out of my hair. I’d like to have that snoopy captain at least half a day’s ride away from me before I make my next move.”

“We will do it, but the way you white men do things is very boring. Do you always take so much time to take an enemy at a disadvantage?”

“Some of us do. Lucky for us, your fows never got the hang of it.”

“If you know who you’re after, why don’t you just kill him?”

“Like you said, our ways are boring. I have to be able to prove my suspicions in a court of law. Sometimes, when a bad white man is very clever, he refuses to fight. He just says he didn’t do it. Then I have to get twelve other white men to see if he lies.”

“Can’t you choose these twelve from among your friends?”

“Not supposed to. How long a ride is it to Salt Lake City, maybe with some kicking and fussing along the way?”

“Two days, as white men ride. Maybe three, with trouble. The big town you speak of is sixty, maybe seventy of your miles.”

“Good roads?”

“Yes. Wide wagon trace. Plenty water. Easy riding. Just far. Didn’t you ride that way, the last time you were here after bad white men?”

“No, took the hard way home. That’s how I knew about that hold-out in the oil shale country. With all the folks and the fooling about, I’ll figure on a seventy-two hour ride. It’s gonna be a tricky bitch, but I’ll manage.”

Hungry Calf wandered off and Longarm spent the morning trying not to go out of his head from inaction. By noon, more than one of the people in White Sticks had pestered him for an idea of when he intended, for God’s sake, to do something.

A little past noon he wandered over to the crowd around the cold campfire. His scouts had told him the army troops were long gone, and he saw that Kim Stover had joined her Crooked Lance friends, along with the Hankses and Timberline.

He moved into position, took a deep breath, and let half of it out as he said flatly, “Cedric Hanks and Mabel Hanks, you are under arrest. Anything you say may be used as evidence against you.”

Everyone looked more than startled, but the midget leaped to his feet as if he were about to have a running fit. Mabel started to reach under her duster as Longarm’s.44 came out. “Don’t do it, Mabel. I’d hate to gun a lady.”

Cedric gasped, “Longarm, have you been drinking, or were you always crazy? You are reaching for straws! We ain’t done a thing you can fine us ten dollars for!”

The others were on their feet now, moving to either side as the little detective danced in front of Longarm, protesting his innocence.

Longarm said, “Deputy Timberline, disarm them prisoners.”

The big ramrod turned and started to do so. “Hot damn! But what are we arresting ‘em for, pardner?”

“The murder of Deputy Kincaid is enough to hang ‘em. We’ll get the details of the other killings out of ‘em in the Salt Lake City jail!”

Cedric Hanks pointed a pudgy finger at his wife and blurted, “It was her that took that shot at you in Bitter Creek, God damn it! But we were only trying to scare you.”

Mabel gasped and said, “It was his idea! I only wanted to be friendly, remember?”

“I remember it fondly, Mabel. You ware them same high heels when you smoked up the law office in Bitter Creek that night. A.30-30 is a light as well as an accurate weapon, too. I’ll allow you made good time, beating me back to the hotel like that. Then you and Cedric made up that fool story about someone running down the hall when I caught him trying to sneak in for another try at me.”

“Longarm, you know I had my head against that panel while you were…”

“Watch it. There are ladies present and you’re talking about your wife.”

“Hang it, I couldn’t have overheard what I overheard unless…”

“You had your head next to my keyhole. Where did you folks bury Kincaid and the other lawman, Hanks?”

“Bury? We never laid eyes on either. We was in Bitter Creek ‘til after you reached Crooked Lance. Hell, we met you on the train, halfway to Cheyenne!”

“So what? It’s a short run and the trains run both ways from Bitter Creek. You were laying for me. Just like you laid for them others sent for Cotton Younger!”

“Hell, there was a whole mess of you sent! You think we’d have been dumb enough to try and stop you all?”

“No, just the smart ones. You used me to do what you aimed to do all along. I’ll allow you got me to spring your friend from the Crooked Lance jail. Or if that wasn’t it, you were trying to get one more lawman out of the way. We’ll settle the details when we carry you before the judge.”

“Longarm, you don’t have a thing on us but hard feelings for some past misunderstandings. Hell, you don’t even have no bodies to show that judge!”

Longarm chuckled and said, “Sure I do. I got both of yours. You mind your manners, and I’ll try to deliver ‘em both alive!”

CHAPTER 23

“I feel sorry for the poor thing,” Kim Stover said as she sat by Longarm on a log, a day’s ride from Ouray Reservation. They’d made camp for the night at a natural clearing near a running brook of purring snow-melt from the Wasatch Mountains. The hands had built a roaring white man’s fire of fallen, wind-cured timber, and the Hankses were across from Longarm and Kim Stover. The midget’s left hand was handcuffed to his partner’s right, for the female of the species in this instance was likely deadlier than the male.

Longarm chewed his unlit cheroot as he studied his new prisoners across the way. Then he shrugged and said, “Nobody asked her to marry up with the little varmint, ma’am.”

“Oh, I’m not feeling sorry for her! It’s the poor little midget she’s obviously led into a life of crime.”

“Nobody gets led into a life of crime, ma’am. Though most everyone I meet in my line of work seems to think so. Folks like to shift the guilt to others, but it won’t wash. The man who murdered Lincoln had a brother who’s still a fine, decent man. An actor on the New York stage. I’d say his baby brother led himself astray. Most folks do.”

“I can see your job might make you cynical.”

“No might about it, ma’am. It purely does!”

“Just the same, I’d say that woman was the cause of it all. She’s hard as nails and twice as cold. She’s been spitting at you with her eyes all day.”

“She’s likely riled at me for arresting her and the midget.”

“There’s more to it than that. A woman understands about these things. I can tell what’s passed between the two of you!”

“Oh?”

“Yes. She obviously feels scorned by you. Tell me, did she flirt with you, when first you met?”

“Well, sort of.”

“There you go. And being a man who’d be too much of a gentleman to take the likes of her seriously, you likely laughed at her pathetic attempts to turn your head.”

“Now that you mention it, I did have a chuckle or two at her expense.”

“She’s been flirting with Timberline and some of the others. I told him what she was and he said I was probably right. You don’t reckon she’d be able to seduce any of our party, do you?”

“Not with her husband handcuffed to her and the key in my pocket.”

“I know most of the boys pretty well, but some of them are young and foolish, and she’s not bad-looking, in her cheap, hard way. You’re probably well-advised to keep them chained together. She’d do anything to get away.”

“I’d say you were right on the money, ma’am. But we got Timberline and over two dozen others guarding ‘em. So I reckon they’ll be with us as we ride into Salt Lake CitY.”

“Which one do you reckon will hang for the murders, the trollop over there or her poor little husband?”

“Don’t know. Maybe both of ‘em, if they get convicted. “They’re both sticking tight as ticks to their innocence.”

“You think the woman did the shooting, don’t you? It took me a few minutes to figure out what you meant about that.30-30 rifle. Won’t you need that as evidence?”

“I could use it, but I made a dumb move back in Crooked Lance when I jawed about it in front of everybody. I suspicion the rifle’s as well hid as the bodies, by now. They both packed S&W.38s ‘til Timberline took them away.”

“He’s so easy to please. I do think Timberline’s starting to like you, Longarm.”

“Well, most boys like to feel important in front of a pretty gal. He’s never really gone for me, serious. Them few brags and swings were sort of like walking a picket fence. Not that I blame him, all things considered.”

“I thank you for the compliment.”

“Just stating the facts as I see ‘em, ma’am.”

“Stop flirting. You know it flusters me. There’s something else I’ve been wondering about.”

“What’s that, ma’am?”

“If there is one thing I’ve learned you’re not, it’s a fool, Longarm. You played a foxy grandpa on that Mountie, didn’t you?”

“Did Portia Caldwell give away anything about government business while the two of you jawed about me?”

“She didn’t have to. I figured out why you were so calm and collected when Sergeant Foster rode off like a thief in the night with the body of that man we’d been holding. He wasn’t Cotton Younger at all, was he?”

Longarm laughed and said, “You weren’t behind the kitchen door when the brains got passed out, Miss Kim. I told you all in Crooked Lance you were wasting a lot of time by holding out on everybody over that fool reward. If you’d sent him on to Cheyenne right off, we’d have all known it sooner.”

“But the Mountie still thinks he’s packing the real Cotton Younger off to Canada? Oh, my, that’s rich!”

“Might be getting ripe, too. I wonder if he’ll smoke him, salt him, or just hang tight and tough it through. Hell of a long ways, considering it’s summer.”

“You waited until captain Walthers came and left, satisfied that another man had his deserter. You are the sly one, but why did you do that?”

“Why? Had to. Had to whittle it down to where I was the only lawman left. These jurisdictional matters can be a real pain, as you may have noticed when you were still in the game.”

“I’m sorry now that we were so dumb about it all. I know we’d have been tricked out of the reward some way, even if we had been holding the real Cotton Younger. Would you mind telling me who we were holding, all that time?”

“He was almost who he said he was. His real name was Tinker, ‘less his dying confession was another lie. Doesn’t seem likely, though, considering some of the other things he confessed to. there was no reward on him. So despite our past misunderstandings, you’ll have to settle for the rising beef market.”

“I feel like such a fool! Imagine, holding an innocent boy and almost seeing him hung improper!”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, ma’am. I don’t go along with improper hangings. but it turned out all right in the end. As for him being innocent, he wasn’t Cotton Younger, but he wasn’t all that innocent, either. Your friends were right to grab him as a cow thief, ‘cause that’s what he was. He wasn’t out for your particular cows, but he wasn’t packing that running iron for fun, either.”

“Some of the boys are worried about the fact that one of them shot him before we got, well, more friendly-like. I told them you’d said you’d forget about it when we all rode into Salt Lake City. Can I take it I told ‘em true?”

“Well, I never forget much, but I overlook a few things. My report will say he got shot trying to escape, which is close enough to the way it happened. No way on earth we’ll ever know just whose round finished him, and most of you were shooting at him, as I remember it.”

“You’re very understanding. I’m truly sorry if i seemed snippy when first we met. But one thing puzzles me. When you first rode into Crooked Lance, you said you weren’t going back without Cotton Younger.”

“I know what I said, and I meant it. But as you see, it wasn’t Cotton Younger you were holding. It ain’t my fault I can’t make good my brag. The man we were all fighting over answered Cotton Younger’s description, but he was somebody else. Meanwhile, half a loaf is better than none, and I am taking in the killer of Deputy Kincaid. So it’ll most likely pay for my time and trouble.”

“Longarm, who do you think you’re bullshitting?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Come on, I’ve gotten to know you, and you are not the wide-eyed country bumpkin you pretend to be! You have no intention of going back to Denver without Cotton Younger, have you?”

Longarm laughed and said, “That’s true enough, if I can lay my hands on the cuss, but who do YOu suggest I pick to fit my warrant?”

“I don’t know how I know this. Maybe it’s because there’s something sort of smug crawling around in them innocent eyes when you don’t think I’m looking. But I think you’re too satisfied about a job well done. I think you know where Cotton Younger is!”

Longarm’s mouth went dry as he forced himself to meet her level questioning gaze, but his voice was calm as he shrugged and said, “You have a lively imagination, ma’am. I told you the man we all thought was Cotton Younger wasn’t. That don’t leave us with anyone who answers to his description, does it?”

“I thought maybe you had your eye on one of the hands from Crooked Lance.”

“Do tell? What makes you say that?”

“The midget and the woman likely gunned those other lawmen, like you said. If they were sent out to free the man they thought was Cotton Younger, that makes sense. The other man, the man who was a member of the James-Younger gang could have only been killed by the real Cotton Younger!”

“Keep talking.”

“Don’t you see? The Hankses are private detectives who’d do anything for a dollar. That old man pretending to be a Canadian would have been valuable to them as an ally. Why would they have gunned him?”

“Beats me. Why would Cotton Younger have done it, if Cotton Younger wasn’t the man in your jail?”

“That’s simple. The real outlaw’s been hiding out in Crooked Lance all this time. You know we’re way off the beaten track, and ordinarily, no one would ever look for anyone there. Then a man answering to his description got picked up by us vigilantes and you know the rest. All hell broke loose. Old Chambrun-what’s-his-name came busting in to free his kinsman, learned we had the wrong man, and started to light out. That’s when the real Cotton Younger might have killed him, to shut him up for good. The Mountie saw through the fake Canadian accent. No telling how many ways a reckless old outlaw could have been caught, later, knowing the whereabouts of a wanted man who aims to lay low in Crooked Lance for keeps!”

Unfortunately, she was hitting damned close to home, considering she hadn’t heard the dying Sailor Brown’s last, wondering protest about being gunned unexpectedly.

Longarm chuckled and said, “You’d have made a great detective yourself, Miss Kim. But you’re forgetting something. Nobody hereabouts fits Cotton Younger’s description. Timberline’s too big and the midget is a mite short. I don’t know exactly what color hair you and that other gal might have started out with, but even if it should be cotton-blonde, the feller I’m after is a man.” He didn’t think he should tell her how he knew that both she and Mabel Hanks were definitely female, so he added, “I’ve looked all the others over, more’n once. There ain’t one in a whole score of riders that would fit the wanted posters for Cotton Younger, real or not.”

“Half the men in Crooked Lance aren’t here.”

“I know. If there’s anything to your suspicion, I might look the entire population of Crooked Lance Over with a hand lens, some day. But I aim to carry my prisoners in as I catch ‘em not as I’d like ‘em to fit wishful thinking.”

“Then, in other words, you’re saying I’m just running off at the mouth!”

“well, I do see some points you’ve raised that will have to be answered if ever we get that odd-matched pair to talk. To tell the truth, I don’t know just what they were up to.”

“You don’t? Then why did you arrest them?”

“I told everybody at the time. For the murder of Deputy Kincaid. You eat the apple a bite at a time, ma’am. It ain’t my job to get all the details out of ‘em.”

“But you said you didn’t know what they were up to!”

“I meant I didn’t know why. They might have been out to set the prisoner free. They might have been after the reward, just like they said. It don’t matter all that much. you heard ‘em admit they took a shot at me in Bitter Creek. That’s against the law, no matter how you slice it. Just why they did it and who they’re working for will come out in the wash. Since the midget is the brains, and she’s the brawn, he’ll no doubt tell a few tales on her to save his neck, before it’s all over.”

“Brrr, they are a pair, ain’t they? What was that he said about having his head to some plywood, listening to you talk to somebody in Bitter Creek?”

“Oh, I don’t remember just who I was talking to, ma’am. After his wife took a few shots at me I caught him listening, is all.”

“Oh, I got the impression he was listening in on you and that slut of his. I’m starting to remember just what it was he said.”

“Well, don’t you worry your pretty head about it, Miss Kim.”

This redhead was too quick-witted to be let out without a leash! A muzzle wouldn’t hurt, either! How many of the others had she been to with her infernal speculations? She suddenly blurted out, “Oh, I remember. He said he was listening when you and that hussy were…”

“What, ma’am?”

“You told him to hush, ‘cause there were ladies present. Meaning me, I take it, since I’d hardly call Mabel Hanks a lady.”

“I thought he was fixing to cuss. He was pretty riled when I arrested him.”

“Longarm, were you and that awful woman…? Oh, I can’t believe it!”

“That makes two of us. You do have a lively mind, and a mite dirty, meaning no disrespect. The woman is his wife, Miss Kim. Allowing for her being no better than you think she is, what you’re suggesting is mighty wild, if you ask me!”

“I’m sorry, but it did cross my mind. She’s not bad-looking, and you are a man, after all.”

“Heaven forbid I’d be that kind of man, Miss Kim! Do I look like the sort of gent who’d trifle with a woman with her husband listening, watching, or whatever?”

She laughed a sort of earthy laugh and said, “As a matter of fact, you do. But I can’t see you loving up a gal who’d just shot at you, with her husband next door, listening, or not. Nobody would do a thing like that but a very stupid man, which I’ll allow you ain’t.”

“There you go. I knew you’d drop them awful notions, soon as you reconsidered ‘em a mite.”

CHAPTER 24

Somewhere, somebody was hollering fit to bust, so Longarm woke up. He rolled, fully dressed, from under his canvas tarp and sprang to his feet, Winchester in hand and headed over toward the smoldering embers of the fire, in the direction of the confusion.

He found Timberline kneeling over Mabel Hanks, shaking her like a terrier shakes a rat as he thundered, “Gawd damn it, lady! I don’t aim to ask nice one more time!”

Longarm saw the open handcuff dangling from the one still locked to Mabel’s right wrist and said, “Let her be, Even when she’s talking she don’t tell the truth worth mention.”

He shoved a pine knot into the embers and waited, squatting on his heels, until it was ablaze. Meanwhile, everyone in camp converged around Timberline and his smirking captive. As Longarm got to his feet with the torch held out to one side, Kim Stover asked, “What happened? Where’s the midget?”

“Damned if I know. my own fault. I locked that bracelet as tight as she’d go, but he has a wrist like an eight-year-old’s and we hardly arrest enough that young to mention.”

He fished the key from his pants and handed it to her. “Timberline gets through shaking her teeth loose, get him off her and cuff her to a sapling ‘til I get back.”

“Are you going after him in the dark?”

“I don’t aim to wait ‘til sunup.”

He found a tiny heel mark in the forest duff and started away from the clearing. A couple of the hands fell in beside him, anxious to help.

He said, “Go back and check to see if he lit out with anybody’s weapon. I have enough to worry about, tracking him, without having to keep you fellers from getting shot.”

“How do you know he has a gun, Longarm?”

“I don’t. But I never track, trusting to a man’s good nature. Put out them embers and keep together. He ain’t got a mount. He may decide he needs one and you likely know by now, he’s a slippery little imp!”

He left them to debate the matter and started ahead, making out a scuff-mark here and a heelprint there, until he came to the bank of the stream.

“Wading in water so’s not to leave tracks, huh? Poor little bastard. Don’t you know how cold it gets up here at night?”

He assumed his quarry would come out on the far side. Nine out of ten did. A distant, steady roar, far up the slope, told him there was a waterfall within a mile. Taking into account the size of the strides Cedric took, a mile in icy snow-melt seemed about right. Longarm shoved the sharp end of the pine knot in the mud beside the stream, leaving it glowing there as a distraction visible for a good distance. Then, swinging wide, he ran up the slope through the trees. He ran until his lungs hurt, and ran some more, making no more noise than he could help in his soft-soled boots over spongy, fallen fir needles.

He was out of breath by the time he reached the waterfall, and anyone making better time would have to have longer legs. The midget’s only chance was that he’d been gone longer than Longarm figured.

He hadn’t. After Longarm had squatted near the lip of the falls for about five minutes, he heard a splash downstream and the crunch of a wet boulder under foot. He waited until a barely-visible movement caught his eye across the falls. Then he said conversationally, “Evening, Mister Hanks. Going someplace?”

The darkness exploded in a flashing roar of brilliant orange. Longarm knew, as something smashed, hard, into the wood above his head, that the little bounty hunter had stolen someone’s saddle rifle.

He fired back, rolling away from where he’d just been, as another shot flared across the stream, followed by the patter of little running feet.

Longarm ran across the slippery lip of the falls, calling out, “Hold on, old son! You’re turning this into serious business!”

His quarry fired again, aiming at the sound of Longarm’s voice. The shot went wild, of course, since Longarm knew enough to crab sideways after sounding off. He fired back, not really expecting to hit a savvy gunfighter in the dark by aiming at the flashes. He noticed that the little man had fired and crabbed to his right both times as a broken twig betrayed his next run. He kept running uphill, too. It figured. A man that size hadn’t seen army training or he’d know more about dismounted combat in the dark. The first thing you learned from old soldiers was that most men crab to the right and instinctively run uphill when they’re lost in the dark.

Longarm got behind a tree and called out, “Cedric, I’m pure tired of chasing you! You drop that thing and come back here!”

A bullet thudded into the trunk. The ornery little cuss was shooting to kill. So Longarm let out a long coyote-wail and gasped, “Gawd! I’m hit! SomebodY help me! I’m hit in my fool leg!”

Then he moved quietly off to one side and waited.

Something crunched in the dark. What seemed like ten years later, Longarm heard another sound, closer. The little cuss was serious!

Longarm decided to end it.

He fired blindly in the direction of the last sound, moving to his left as he levered the Winchester and watched the bright wink of the other’s rifle. Then Longarm fired, not at the flash, but to its left as he was facing. He heard a thump and the sound of a metal object sliding downhill over roots and pine needles, followed by some thrashing noises and a low, terrible curse. Then it became very quiet.

Longarm counted, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi to a hundred. Then he moved in, knowing that not one man in a thousand plays possum through a hundred Mississippi’s.

He heard harsh breathing, which was either somebody dying or damned fine acting. So he circled uphill and approached quietly from the far side.

In the almost-total darkness Cedric Hanks was only an inkblot against a blackboard. Longarm moved in, squatted, and put his Winchester’s muzzle against the blur before he said, quietly, “I’m fixing to strike a light. One twitch and this thing goes off.”

“You’ve done me, you big bastard!” the midget groaned.

Longarm held the match well out to the side, anyway, as he thumbnailed its head aflame. Then he whistled and said, “Smack in the chest. You’re right, mister. You’re dead.”

“You big bully! I never had a chance.”

“Sure, you did. You could have stayed put. What made you make such a fool play, Hanks? Your best bet would have been to face the charge in court. As your wife, Mabel, didn’t have to bear witness against you, and vice versa.”

“Mat bitch woulda sold me to save her own twitching ass! Why’d you put that light out? I can’t see a thing.”

“Nothing to look at,” Longarm soothed, holding the lighted match closer to the little man’s glazing eyes. He said, “Mister Hanks, you are done for and that’s a fact. Before you go, would you like to give me Mabel’s ass?”

“You already had it, you son of a bitch! Everybody’s had her. She was always sayin’ mean things about my size. How tall I am, I mean.”

“She’s a tart, all right. Did she gun Kincaid, or was it you?”

“I don’t know who she might have gunned in her time. You know who broke her in? Her own stepdaddy. Ain’t that a bitch?”

“Yeah, but let’s stick to serious crimes. When did you learn the man in Crooked Lance wasn’t the real Cotton Younger?”

“Don’t josh me, damn it. You know he was Cotton Younger.”

“Let’s try it another way. Who sent you out here? Who were you working for?”

“I told you, damn it, we was working it on our own, for the reward!”

“Then why did you and Mabel try to get rid of me?”

“It was her idea. She said she’d seen you once before, when one of the other gals in this… place she worked, pointed you out. She knew you were trying to steal our chance at the reward. Shit, you know the rest.”

“After she missed me on the streets of Bitter Creek, you worked out that old badger game to take me in bed, huh?”

“Sure. If you ask me, she enjoyed the screwing part best. I was to creep in and do you after she’d wore you out. I told her you looked like a hard man to wear out that way, but she said she’d give it her best.”

“All right, how’d you do Kincaid? Fall in with him on the trail and maybe finish him off as he was dozing restful in her arms?”

“I told you, I never seen this damn Kincaid!”

“What about that lawman from Missouri?”

Cedric Hanks didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Longarm closed the dead man’s eyes and got to his feet, heading down the slope. The little man would have been a messy load to carry. The cowhand who’d been careless about leaving firearms about could fetch him when he came to pick up his rifle.

Longarm made plenty of noise and called out, “It’s me, coming in!” as he approached the campsite. As others crowded around, asking all sorts of questions, he called out, “Let’s get some light on the subject. It’s all over.”

Someone kicked ashes off the banked coals and threw some sticks of kindling on. They blazed up. Longarm looked at Mabel Hanks, kneeling by an aspen sapling with her wrist chained to it, and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Your man is dead. Before he passed he named you as the murderer of Deputy Kincaid. He died before I could find out about the others, but…”

Then Mabel Hanks was screaming like a banshee and fighting her handcuffs like a chained grizzly as she glared at him insanely, calling him a mother-loving son-of-a-whore for openers. Then she really started talking dirty.

Longarm saw Kim Stover staring at the raging woman, openmouthed, and suggested, “You’d best go off and stop your ears, ma’am. I suspicion she’s a mite overwrought.”

“For God’s sake, she should be! You just said you killed her husband!”

“Yes, ma’am. He was trying to kill me, too. I was a mite better at it.”

Longarm had studied women, but the longer he’d been at it the harder it was to figure them out. After having called Mabel all sorts of things, Kim Stover went over to comfort her, as the more recent widow shouted, “He was twice the man you were, you son of a bitch!”

Timberline sidled up alongside Longarm, asking softly, “What was that about her killing them fellers?”

“Let’s put it this way: what he said to me was sort of fuzzy, but what I’ll remember to the judge might put her away for a spell.”

“Hot damn! You aim to railroad him, right?”

“Now, that’s putting it unfriendly, Timberline. Let’s say I’m worn out tying up all the loose ends of this case and, what the hell, I know for sure she shot at me. I’ll allow it ain’t neat, but at least it’s enough to satisfy a grand jury and let me get on to something more worthy of my time. I don’t really care if they convict her or not. I just want to be rid of this whole infernal mess!”

“You reckon any of us will get called as witnesses?”

“Why? Did any of you see her gun Kincaid or anyone else?”

“Hell, nobody but that old tattooed man ever got to Crooked Lance!”

“there you go. We’ll just deliver the gal to the Justice Department and let them worry about her.”

“You still need me as a deputy? I mean, what the hell, one old gal don’t seem to rate all this guarding, if you ask me.”

Longarm shrugged and said, “We’ll be in Salt Lake City by tomorrow afternoon, deputized or singing Dixie. It would be a favor if you were with me when I took her to the federal courthouse. I’ll likely need a witness, transporting a female prisoner as I just did.”

“A witness? Federal courthouse? You just said you wouldn’t need us in court. I wish you’d make up your mind.”

Longarm laughed and explained, “Not as a witness against her. As a witness for me, just while I sign her in. You’ve heard the mouth on her, and half the women a lawman brings in sing that same old tune of rape.”

Timberline’s eyes widened. Then he grinned lewdly, and exclaimed, “Hot damn! I never thought of that! A man would get some golden opportunities in your line of work, wouldn’t he?”

“People suspicion as much. A lawman with a lick of sense won’t trifle with female prisoners, though. Usually, I like to bring ‘em in with at least one deputy, making it two words against one. You won’t have to sign statements or anything. They’ll record you as my deputy and, of course, you’ll get a check from the Justice Department that you can cash in Bitter Creek when you and the others get off there.”

“Well, we’re all headed to Salt Lake City, anyways. what’s this thing about recording me?”

“You’ll be in our files as a sometime law man. It won’t interfere with your job at the Rocking H. We just like to keep a record on who’s for or against us.”

“Hell, that sounds good. Can I go on calling myself Deputy Malone?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be official once I drop you off the payrolL but I doubt if you’d get arrested for it. Malone’s your last name, huh?”

“Yeah, but you can call me Timberline like everybody else. They been joshing me so long with that fool name I’ve gotten used to it.”

One of the hands came over with a worried look and said, “I can’t find my saddle rifle. Anybody see a Henry.44-40?”

Longarm said, “Didn’t see it, but I know where it is. Get a tarp or a waterproof groundcloth and some latigos or twine. Got another package up the slope I’d be obliged if you’d wrap for me, seein’ you’re wearing leather chaps. My wool britches are soiled enough as it iS.”

Timberline followed Longarm and the cowhand up the slope to where their torchlight revealed the missing rifle ten yards from the toadlike body of the midget. Cedric Hanks had been ugly in life. Glaring up at them in death he looked like something that should have been carved on the parapets of Notre Dame. Timberline grimaced and said, “Funny, he looks so ugly for such a tiny thing. Didn’t it bother you, Longarm? Picking on somebody so much littler than you?”

“Why should it? Never bothers you, does it?”

“Hey, I thought we’d made up!”

“Couldn’t resist getting in a lick for fun. As to who was picking on who, the midget had the advantage, as well as the choice to make it a serious fight.”

“Advantage? Poor horse turd didn’t come up to your bellybutton!”

“made me the bigger target. As you can see, we were both throwing.44-40 balls at one another, so if anything, I had to aim better, since there was so much less to hit. He likely became a gunslick in the first place when he noticed that while God created Man, Sam Colt and other gunsmiths made them equal.”

Timberline watched the cowboy roll the little corpse up in the groundcloth as he shuddered and said, “My head tells me you’re likely right. But I’m glad it wasn’t me that killed him. Looks like Windy’s wrapping up a baby!”

“Let’s get back with him. It’s too late to think of bedding down, ‘cause the sun’s creeping up on us. We’ll get an early start. We can eat right away and break camp by first light.”

He turned and walked toward the campfire winking up at him through the trees, feeling more morose about the killing than he’d really let on to the men behind him. It didn’t bother him that the man he’d killed had been so small. It bothered him that he’d had to kill at all. He’d trained himself not to show the sick feeling these affairs left in his stomach. He’d steeled himself to eat his next few meals mechanically, tasteless as they might be. He knew why so many men in his line of work wound up with bleeding ulcers, or like poor Jim Hickock, got to be ugly drunks toward the end.

He wasn’t given to probing the dark shadows of his own mind, but he knew one night he’d dream about that ugly little gargoyle, as he had again and again, about the others he’d had to kill. It wasn’t as if he felt guilty. He couldn’t remember shooting anyone who hadn’t deserved it. At least, not since the war. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t sure why he should feel so drained after a gun fight—and disappointed.