Longarm & the Bandit Queen

“Did any of it look like dog-meat?” Bobby asked the old man.

“Dog? I couldn’t say about that, Bobby. You put meat in a stew, it all looks pretty Much alike.” Bobby said, “I guess I’ll pass up the stews, then. But that roasted venison sounds pretty good to me.”

There was hardly room to move in the house. Belle was nowhere in sight, and the door to the bedroom was closed, so Longarm imagined that she’d gone in there. The food was plentiful, and he helped himself to venison roast, two ears of corn, and the only other meat he recognized, some pieces of fried squirrel. He took his plate outside and looked for a place to eat. Floyd, Steed, Bobby, and Yazoo had disappeared, probably to the cabins, Longarm thought. He wondered if they’d had the same feeling that had dogged him all the time he was in the house; Sam Starr’s relatives seemed to be avoiding looking at him or getting close to him.

Wandering outside, Longarm walked over to the well and sat down on its curb. The thigh-high coping of planks made it a comfortable height for a seat, and the wide horizontal top board gave him a place to rest his plate. Longarm ate slowly, his eyes busy.

From the well, he could look into the barn. The men were gathered in there, and he saw the glint of the whiskey jugs being passed from hand to hand and tilted. He contemplated going to his cabin for a sip of rye, but the exertion of grave-digging had diminished his ambition to do much besides sit still. He finished eating and lighted a cheroot. A woman carrying a bucket came out of the house and walked toward the well. Longarm started to rise and leave when he recognized her as the unusually pretty one he’d noticed earlier. He changed his mind about leaving in favor of getting a closer look at her. As she drew near, he saw that she was a bit older than he’d thought. Her amazingly perfect cast of features masked her age effectively.

Longarm stood up when she reached the well. She said, “You don’t have to move. I can draw from the other side.”

“I’ve finished eating, ma’am. It won’t bother me a bit to give you room. Here.” Longarm dropped the wooden bucket that stood on the coping into the well and waited for it to fill. He drew it up, the pulley creaking from lack of oil.

She said, “I never did really thank you for taking your drunk friend away while I was unloading the wagon.”

“I didn’t expect thanks. All I was doing was trying to keep any trouble from starting.”

“Yes. If the men had looked out and seen your friend, they’d have jumped to the wrong conclusion and probably would have rushed him.”

Longarm studied the woman covertly while he drew up the heavy water bucket. Her face was a perfect oval, and her large brown eyes, fringed with long lashes, added to its symmetry. The line of her nose gave her face a squareness that kept it from looking too plump. Her lips were perhaps a bit overblown, her mouth a trifle wide, but this did not detract from the regularity of her features. She wore her hair long, in loose, thick braids that dropped down her back.

He swung the bucket over to the coping and lifted it to fill hers. She asked, “Are you one of Sam’s friends? Or one of Belle’s?”

“Neither one, I’d say. I never saw Sam or Belle until I pulled in here about a week ago.”

“Then, are you-” She stopped short. “No, I mustn’t ask you any questions. Cousin Robert said that was something we should be careful not to do.”

“You can ask.” Longarm smiled. “There ain’t any law says I got to answer you.”

“Of course. But it’s better if I do what Robert says.”

Longarm noticed that her eyes kept returning to his freshly lighted cheroot. He asked, “My smoke bother you, ma’am?”

“No. Just the opposite. I’m wishing I could have one myself. That’s the kind I smoke. I stopped at the store as we passed through Eufaula, to buy some, but Eleazar said he’d sold out.” Her eyes widened and she added “Why, you must be the one who bought them! You’re the man who was with Belle and Sam yesterday!”

Longarm nodded. He said, “Yes. Too bad about your cousin. I guess the other fellow was a cousin of yours too?”

“Yes.” She shook her head. “It’s a little bit unnerving, two funerals in two days, and the long ride out here. Even if I didn’t know Frank except to nod to, and met Sam just once.”

Longarm took a cheroot from his vest pocket and offered it to her. “Maybe this’ll help settle your nerves, then.”

“Are you sure you won’t run short?”

“Take it, ma’am. I bought all the storekeeper had. If you want another one or two, I’ll be glad to-“

“No,” she broke in. “This will be fine. Thank you.” She looked at Longarm questioningly. “I’m Jessibee Vann.” She waited.

Longarm hesitated. It went against his grain to lie, and so far his deviousness with the gang at Belle’s hadn’t extended to outright lying. Rather, he’d just let them draw a lot of mistaken conclusions without correcting them. He didn’t relish being called “Windy,’ but the name had attached itself to him and he’d been contented to let it stand. Jessibee Vann deserved better, though, he thought.

“Around here I’m answering to a sort of nickname,” he told Jessibee. “But my name’s”—he hesitated for only a breath—“Custis.”

“I’m very grateful to you, Custis,” Jessibee said. “Both for drawing the water and for the cigar. Perhaps we’ll talk again before I leave tomorrow.”

“I’d like that, Jessibee,” Longarm said gravely.

“I’d better hurry back now,” she said. “They’ll be wanting this water to wash up with.”

Looking at Jessibee’s retreating form, Longarm tried to figure out whether she was full Cherokee or just part. She walked with an Indian’s upright posture and straight-pointed steps, but there was something about her that didn’t jibe with the idea that she was a full Indian.

He tried to recall what he’d heard, in bits and scraps during his wanderings, of Cherokee history. It seemed to him they’d been early to intermarry with white settlers, in their ancestral home in Georgia. And there had been some kind of split in the tribe a long time back that had brought part of them to settle along the Arkansas, even before the Cherokee Nation was carved out of the raw Western land. But that was years before Longarm’s time, and history had never been his long suit. It had always seemed silly to him to study the past, when the present had so many things to keep a fellow busy.

After spending a few minutes trying vainly to recall things he’d never really learned, Longarm gave up. The day was dropping down into evening, and he’d started early and worked harder than usual. He didn’t have much taste for going into the barn; in fact, he had a feeling that he’d find himself an outsider at a family gathering. He wandered down to his cabin, slipped off his boots, and poured a tot of his own Maryland rye into the glass that sat waiting beside the bottle on the table.

Longarm had long ago learned the wisdom of the old Indian axiom, “Never stand up when you can sit down; never sit down when you can lie down.” He stretched out on one of the narrow bunks and lighted yet another cheroot, realizing ruefully that he’d been smoking a hell of a lot of the things ever since Billy Vail had put him on the case. He figured it was probably due to the strain of maintaining his facade as the close-mouthed Windy. Vowing silently to quit as soon as he’d wrapped up this whole nasty affair, he turned his thoughts to the business at hand. Sam’s kin would be gone tomorrow and he’d need to think up some pretty convincing reasons to persuade Belle to join with the gang when the raid on the bank was staged. As the sun dropped into the bare little cabin, he noticed, not for the first time, that the pleasurable combination of his favorite liquor and tobacco had taken a few of the sharp edges off the world. He decided that maybe he’d been a mite hasty in his resolution to quit smoking. He’d definitely cut down, though—just as soon as he got back to Denver. Having thus appeased his conscience, he stubbed out the cigar and lay back. Then, after a bit, he dozed.

Longarm woke with a start and rolled from the bunk to his feet. He’d taken off his gunbelt and put it on the floor beside him. His hand moved as if by instinct to scoop up the Colt as he left the bunk. He was facing the door when a soft voice from the darkness said, “I hope I didn’t disturb you, Custis, but you said to ask you if I wanted another cigar.”

“Jessibee?” Longarm asked.

“I hope you weren’t expecting someone else. If you are, perhaps I’d better go.”

“No, no!” he said hastily. “I wasn’t looking for anybody at all. And if it’s a cigar you’ve come for, I’ve got plenty. Wait, I’ll light the lamp.”

“Don’t,” she said. “The moon’s just behind a cloud right now. We’ll have all the light we need in a few minutes.”

“If you say so. Wait, though. I’ll guide you in and get you sat down. That is, if you’ve got time to visit a spell.”

“I’m not in any hurry, Custis.”

Longarm groped his way to the door, and extended a hand. He found her arm, warm and soft, and led her to the table, put her hand on one of the chairs beside it, and sat down himself in the other.

He said, “You sort of took me by surprise. But if you’ve come for a cigar-” He took two cheroots from his vest pocket and handed one of them to her. “Now shield your eyes so the match won’t blind you so bad, and I’ll light it for you.”

Longarm took his own advice and closed his eyes until the first white flare of the match had subsided. He cupped the match in his hands and leaned toward her. Jessibee was just opening her eyes. They danced in the flickering of the flame as she puffed her cheroot into light. He lighted his own and blew out the match. The glow of the two cigars gave the little cabin a sort of radiance, a faint glow that was saved from being ghostly by its pinkish hue.

Jessibee said, “I couldn’t sleep. I don’t go to bed early when I’m at home, you see, like most of my relatives. They’re ready to turn in when the sun goes down. Most of them farm, so they have to be up at daybreak.”

“And you don’t?”

“That’s one of the good things about living alone; I don’t have to follow anybody’s schedule. If I want to read all night, I can. Or if I feel like getting up at three in the morning for breakfast, I can do that too, without disturbing anyone.”

“A pretty lady like you are, I’d have figured you to have a husband by now.”

“I had one,” Jessibee said. “Until three years ago, when he died of pneumonia.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m over it by now, Custis. And to save you asking, I’m not looking for another husband. I get along quite well alone, just as you seem to. You don’t have a wife waiting for you somewhere, do you?”

“No. Never found time to get married, or a woman I’d want to tie up with for the rest of my life.”

“Good. Then we don’t have to pretend to one another, do we? Ask a lot of questions with double meanings, or say a lot of things we don’t really mean.”

“That’s a habit I never got into,” Longarm told her.

“It took me a while to break mine. But I feel a lot better if I don’t try to put a false face up to someone.”

A bit more light began to seep into the cabin now, as the moon came from behind the cloud that had shrouded it. Longarm could see Jessibee as something more than an occasional oval of blurred features in the sudden glow when she puffed her cheroot. Her eyes were deep pools in the bluish, uncertain light that turned her lips to a crimson so dark they looked almost black, accentuating their sensuous fullness.

He said, “Since you’ve got a taste for cigars, I’d imagine you might enjoy a drink of whiskey. All I’ve got is Maryland rye, if that’ll suit you.”

“It’ll suit me fine. The whiskey that old man makes is good enough, but I had all I cared for up at Sam’s house.”

“Belle’s house now, I guess,” Longarm said as he poured their drinks. “I feel sort of bad about Sam. I was just getting acquainted with him.”

“I never really knew him. Or Belle either. I wouldn’t be here now, except that I was visiting Cousin Robert and he insisted that I come along.” Jessibee sipped the whiskey. “It’s very good.” She drained the glass. “Whiskey’s like a stallion mounting a mare. Quick and harsh. Brandy’s more like a man with a woman, slow and lingering, but still with force and authority.”

Longarm smiled. “That’s as neat a way of putting it as I ever heard. But you didn’t need to give me a message, Jessibee, except to let me know you’re ready.”

“If you are,” she said.

Longarm stood up. “Maybe not quite, but I will be fast enough, if you’re the woman I take you to be.”

Jessibee came up to stand before him. She turned up her face for his kiss. Her lips grasped his and drew his tongue into her mouth. He drew her to him in a hard embrace, and the warmth of her body began to bring him erect. Longarm ran his arms down Jessibee’s sides. His fingers met only smoothness. She had on nothing except her thin calico dress.

“You got a head start on me,” he said when they broke off their kiss. “Give me a little time to get off my clothes.”

“We don’t have to rush. But don’t dawdle, either.”

Longarm made quick work of undressing. He saw her pull her dress over her head, to show her body glimmering in the bluish glow that filled the cabin. It was as he’d thought: a woman’s body, wide-hipped, full-breasted, with swelling thighs.

Jessibee moved to him. He said, “Those bunks are too narrow for us to be comfortable, Jessibee. Wait just a minute.” He dragged his bedroll off and spread it on the floor. “Now. It won’t be a featherbed, but we’ll at least have room to lay down together.”

Jessibee folded her legs under her and sat down in a single graceful sweep. Her arms were slender white columns raised to invite him. Longarm knelt beside her. Jessibee’s hands were warm on his erection, which was beginning to throb to fullness.

“I was wondering if the light was fooling my eyes,” she told him. “I didn’t really believe them.” She squeezed gently, both hands wrapped around him. “But I believe what I’m holding now.”

Longarm found Jessibee’s full, soft breasts and felt her nipples grow firm and lift to tautness as he rubbed and kneaded them with his calloused fingers. They stood out like small rough fingertips as he bent to kiss them and caress them with his tongue.

Jessibee leaned back and pulled him with her. She whispered gustily, “Come into me like a stallion, Custis. But then make love to me like I’m a woman.”

Longarm moved his fingers to Jessibee’s thighs, to spread them. She twisted her body on the rough blanket that topped the bedroll to bring herself closer to him. Her hands were holding his shaft tightly now. She rubbed its tip over her moist warmth and whispered, “Now, Custis! Go in now!”

Longarm buried himself in her hot depths. She rolled her hips from side to side as he entered, and sighed contentedly when he filled her. Longarm raised himself, almost leaving her, but Jessibee brought up her legs and wrapped them around his lower ribs and levered her hips upward to keep him in place. He thrust hard, a series of deep, swift strokes, then slowed to a more deliberate rhythm as Jessibee gripped him hard with her thighs.

“Don’t hurry!” she whispered urgently. “I haven’t had a man for a while, and I don’t want to let go too soon.”

“Let go whenever you feel like it,” Longarm said. “I’ll hold out for as long as you need me to.”

“If you’re sure you can hold out until I’m ready again.”

“I’m sure. Go on. Enjoy yourself all you want.”

Jessibee took him at his word. Longarm continued to go into her smoothly and steadily, with a hard, deep thrust now and then to bring her along more quickly. Jessibee’s eyes closed as he continued his paced stroking, and he felt her body tensing. Longarm moved faster now, and thrust deeper.

Jessibee began to tremble, and when Longarm stopped for a moment, buried in her as deeply as he could thrust, she gasped, “Oh, not now!

Don’t stop now! Go faster, Custis, faster!”

Now Longarm started stroking with an intensity that set Jessibee panting and quivering tumultuously. He was buried in her to the hilt when she unlocked her legs from around him, spread her thighs wide, and began to gulp in a series of soft, sobbing cries. Longarm raised himself and then pounded into Jessibee with a succession of long strokes which he maintained until she shrieked deep in her throat and he felt her body heave convulsively and then go limp in a wave of relaxing shudders. He stopped thrusting then, and lay still, filling her.

Jessibee sighed. “Brandy and whiskey mixed, Custis. It’s a combination I don’t often find.”

“We’ll rest,” he said. “Unless I’m too heavy for you.”

“No. Don’t get up. Stay in Me. Now, especially. I haven’t felt this filled for a long time.”

Jessibee sighed and pulled Longarm’s head down for a kiss. Their tongues met and slid together. Jessibee stirred. “Can you stay hard for a while?”

“Sure. As long as it takes. But if you’re ready to start again, so am I.”

“You don’t need to hurry, if you want to rest some more.”

Longarm responded by lifting himself and thrusting hard again. Jessibee drew a quivering breath when she felt his deep penetration, and raised her hips to meet him. The hot flood that he’d felt surrounding him when Jessibee climaxed had aroused Longarm. He wanted to feel himself sinking repeatedly into her ready body, and stroked with steadily increasing vigor. He was still holding back, and continued to do so until Jessibee began to grow taut again. He was building quickly now, but she was responding faster, too.

There was a time of suspended feeling as Longarm held himself above Jessibee, looking down at her face in the strange, filtered moonlight, watching her lips twitching, her head rolling from side to side. When she grabbed him and pulled him to her for a long kiss, he knew the time was close. He let go his control, pounding hard, while Jessibee rolled and thrust up to meet him with a wildness that set him to trembling. He reached the point of no return and felt himself draining in a series of spasms while Jessibee’s throat pulsed with deep, sobbing moans. Then her body went soft and Longarm fell forward, growing soft inside her. Jessibee sighed. “I’ve been without a man for such a long time! You’ve done me more good than I can tell you, Custis.”

“You’re a real pretty woman. Seems like you’d have a lot of men chasing after you.”

“I don’t let just anybody catch me. I do the choosing, not them.”

“Like you chose me?”

“Exactly. I didn’t see any way that you could come looking for me. And I wasn’t sure you would, or even if you wanted to. So I came to you.”

“You’re a right strong-minded lady.”

“Most Cherokee women are. We run the families, you know. If we have a husband who doesn’t live up to what we think he should, we divorce him. You whites haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Are you a full-blooded Cherokee, Jessibee?” Longarm asked.

She chuckled throatily. “As much as any Cherokee is. We’ve always been tolerant, maybe too tolerant for our own good.”

Jessibee stirred under him, and as much as Longarm was enjoying feeling her wet heat around him, he rolled off to lie beside her.

“Do you have enough cheroots so you can spare me another one?” she asked.

“Sure. You lay still. I’ll get one for each of us.” Longarm padded over to the table, where his vest hung on a chair, and took out two cheroots and a match. He asked, “How’d you get a taste for these, anyhow, Jessibee?”

“That’s an easy story to tell.”

“You might as well tell it to me,” Longarm said, “unless you’re figuring on going back to your kinfolks real soon. I hope that ain’t in your mind, though.”

“It’s not. I know you can’t stay hard forever, though, so we might as well talk while we’re resting. But don’t worry about me wanting to leave. As far as I’m concerned, I’m settling down for a very enjoyable night.”

“I’ll do my best to keep you full,” Longarm promised. “And I aim to enjoy it as much as you do. But go on, Jessibee. Tell me how it was you started smoking cigars.”

“I didn’t start out with cigars. It was cigarettes at first. That was when I was going to Mills College. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of Mills?”

“Can’t say I have. Whereabouts is it?”

“In California, across the bay from San Francisco. It’s a college that teaches young women such as I was then to keep just a little bit ahead of the times. It’s what they all are becoming, advanced thinkers.”

Jessibee sighed. “That was quite a while ago. Just thinking back on it makes me feel old.”

“As long as you don’t look old, which you sure don’t—you’re pretty as any woman I’ve ever seen—and as long as you don’t act old, then you ain’t old,” Longarm said seriously.

“That’s a very nice compliment, Custis. But when I see all the changes that are taking place-” She shook her head. “I’m getting off the subject. Smoking was one of the advanced things I learned at college. Cigarettes, of course. But when I came back home, I found out that the storekeepers here don’t balk at selling cigars or chewing tobacco or snuff, but they look on cigarettes as the work of the devil. So I switched to cigars. It’s just as simple as that.”

“Your folks must’ve been well-fixed, if they could send you all that way to school,” Longarm suggested.

“They were. Are, I should say. My family got a head start here in the Nation, you see.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“We’re what the tribe calls West Cherokees.” Jessibee caught the question before Longarm asked it, and added hurriedly, “That hasn’t anything to do with the West family. I suppose you’ve never heard of Tahlonteskea?” He shook his head. She went on, “He was a Cherokee chief, many years ago. He saw that you whites were determined to take our homelands in Georgia, so he didn’t wait for it to happen. He led a group of our people to resettle on the Arkansas River back in 1809 or 1810. So my family’s been here for three generations. We were here long before the East Cherokees were resettled.”

“What you’re hinting at is that your folks got here first and sort of skimmed the gravy?”

“You could put it that way. My grandfather was an attorney. So is my father. Very good ones. They made a lot of money.”

“So they could send you to a college where you learned to like cigarettes,” Longarm said. “And being a pretty girl, you had beaus there, too. They took you to fancy restaurants like the ones I saw when I was in San Francisco one time, and you learned how to drink liquor like a lady, too.”

“Yes. And even if it’s not considered ladylike, I learned to like what we just did, too. That’s very important.”

“At least you’re honest and open about it,” Longarm said. “Most women ain’t. They act like they’re just putting up with a man.”

“I was open enough to come in here and practically tell you what I wanted,” Jessibee said. “Why not? I knew you wouldn’t come to me, not with my relatives up at the house. At least I’ve learned that if I want something, it’s up to me to go after it.”

She turned on her side and Longarm felt her hands surrounding his flaccid shaft. “Is it too soon for you to get hard again? Maybe if I helped a little bit?”

“You won’t have to help a lot.”

Jessibee began to squeeze and release him, her hand opening and closing in slow pulsations. “I like the feel of a man,” she confided. “It does something to me for a man to swell up and get hard in my hands.”

“It’s doing something for me too,” Longarm admitted. Then, as Jessibee massaged his beginning erection by rolling it between the palms of her hands, he added, “Especially when you do that.”

“I like to feel a man’s hands on me, too,” she reminded him.

Longarm grasped one of her breasts in each hand and bent over to close his teeth gently on her stiffening nipples, moving from one breast to the other.

“It’s not too soon, is it?” Jessibee whispered. She lifted a thigh high across his stomach and massaged herself with his soft tip. He could feel the moisture that still clung to her, and the tantalizing roughness of her pubic hair. She invited him, “Come into me, now. You’ll get really hard when you do.”

Longarm turned to her and Jessibee slid her other leg under him. She brought her knees high, up to his chest. Longarm felt her opening to him. Jessibee pulled his face to hers, and her mouth found his while her other lips were drawing him into her more deeply. He grasped her buttocks and pulled them to him. He was fully erect now, buried deeply inside her. She sighed contentedly and rotated her hips with slow, studied sensuality.

“I can lie this way for hours,” she said softly. “Will you stay with me, Custis?”

“As long as I can,” he promised.

Time seemed unimportant as they lay interlocked. Jessibee moved occasionally to rub herself on Longarm’s impaling member; her movements were slow and gentle. Now and then he pushed hard against her for a few seconds, and as time passed, she sought his lips or he found hers in a long, tongue-twining kiss. Jessibee lifted her shoulders from time to time to rub the pebbled tips of her breasts against the roughness of Longarm’s chest hair. Once or twice, as their joining grew more prolonged, she slipped her fingers between their bodies to trace them around the tender flesh where they were joined, and brought herself to a small orgasmic shuddering. Longarm grew even more engorged and was thinking about thrusting when Jessibee’s body suddenly began to tremble.

“Take me off,” she urged. “Now! I can’t hold back any longer!”

Longarm rose to his knees, with Jessibee’s legs over his shoulders, her ankles locked behind his neck. He cradled her buttocks in his hands and held her body suspended; only her shoulders rested on the blanket. He drew out, then thrust deeply and felt her tighten around him when their hips met.

Jessibee moaned, “Quicker, Custis! Deep and fast!”

He was building quickly, but Jessibee was building faster. She writhed, her hips twisting, her full breasts rolling, her head thrown back. Longarm drove faster with each long stroke until he began to tremble too. Jessibee was whimpering now, a whimper that became a laughing sob and then a shrill cry as her muscles stiffened under his stroking and she shook with spasm after spasm, her taut muscles rippling. He could go no faster nor penetrate any deeper. He thrust again and again until his own orgasm began, and kept pounding until his strength drained away. He let Jessibee’s limp body down, then dropped beside her and lay still until his rasping breathing slowed and he was able to move again.

Beside him, Jessibee exhaled in a long, contented groan. She said, “You’re a randy woman’s dream, Custis. I don’t often meet a man who’s built like you are, or one who can outlast me.”

“I like to pleasure ladies,” Longarm replied. “Most of all, ladies like you, who make it so plain you enjoy a man.”

“I’m going to hate to leave you. If it weren’t that this is Belle Starr’s place now that Sam’s dead, I’d stay and keep you company for a while. If you’d want me to, that is.”

“Oh, I’d want you to, Jessibee. You’ve got whatever it is that grabs a man and makes him want to stay with you. I don’t guess it’d work out, though, the way things are.

“No. It’s too bad you’re tied up with Belle.”

“I ain’t tied up with Belle Starr, not in any way, shape, or form. My business brought me here, and when it’s finished, I’ll go on my way and forget I ever seen her.”

“I wish I could believe that, Custis. But from what the family tells me, Belle’s got a way of holding men to her. Look at poor Sam. And everybody knows what her business is.” Jessibee paused and then added reflectively, “Not that our people have much respect for white man’s law. We’ve seen it change too many times, in ways that always seem to hurt us.”

“Well, Belle’s got no strings on me, Jessibee. And she never will have.”

“You say that like you really mean it.”

“I do.”

“Where will you go when your business with Belle is finished?”

“That’s something I can’t rightly say, but only because I don’t know myself right now.”

“If you travel north, I live up by Talequah. That’s just a little way from Fort Gibson.”

“Are you inviting me?”

“If you’re close by, it’d be unfriendly if you didn’t stop in.”

Jessibee stirred. “I guess I’ve got enough strength left to walk back up to the house. They’ll be waking up before too long. The first rooster that crows will bring Robert and Aunt Sarah out. It’ll save talk if I’m back before then.”

Jessibee stood up and found her dress, where she’d draped it over the back of a chair. She drew it on over her head and came back to the bedroll. Longarm had risen to his feet. She kissed him quickly on the lips, then bent to give him still another fleeting kiss.

“Goodbye for now, Custis. I still wish I could stay.”

Longarm watched her shadowy form as Jessibee went to the door, then outside into the gray false sunrise. He walked to the table and took a swallow of rye from the bottle, then he went back to the bedroll and stretched out and slept.

Whatever noise the visitors made when they left didn’t disturb Longarm. He blinked awake in the sunrise and rolled to his feet. The woman-scent of Jessibee still clung to him. The smile brought on by the memory of the night stayed on Longarm’s face while he took a whore’s bath, moistening his palms with whiskey and rubbing them over his face and body.

Fully dressed, his weapons checked, another wake-up drink glowing in his stomach like the coal of the morning’s first cheroot that he held clamped between his teeth, Longarm walked up to the house.

All the others were sitting at the table. Used plates in front of them showed that they were just finishing breakfast. The room was cool, and Longarm glanced at the stove. It had not been lighted. Judging from the food left on the plates, and that remaining on the platters that were in the center of the table, breakfast had consisted of leftovers from the funeral meats brought by Sam’s relatives the day before. The platters held a few pieces of fried squirrel and the drumstick of a chicken, two small venison chops, and a little heap of drying biscuits.

Only Yazoo spoke. The old man said, “Morning, Windy. You look like you didn’t get much sleep last night.” Then he cackled in a brief burst of laughter.

“I had all the sleep I wanted,” Longarm said.

Belle smirked. “I told them not to rouse you, Windy. I saw that draggletail Cherokee chippy sneaking back up to the house from your place this morning before daylight. I thought you’d need all the rest you could get.”

Longarm needed no interpreter to translate the jealousy in Belle’s words; he’d seen enough jealous women. He said, “What I do is my own affair, Belle.” He picked up one of the venison chops and a biscuit and began to eat, still standing.

“How was she?” Floyd asked. “Hot, like I hear these redskin wenches all are?”

“That’s my affair too, Floyd,” Longarm said levelly. He finished the little chop and reached for the other one.

“Don’t get riled, damn it,” Floyd said. “Hell, we’re all friends together. You might’ve called us, though. She could’ve took on me and Steed and then give Bobby a turn, after you got through with her.”

“Find your own women,” Longarm told Floyd curtly. He faced Belle. “I guess Floyd and Steed said something to you about the talk we had yesterday?”

“About your expecting me to take Sam’s place, and ride with you on the bank job?” she asked. Longarm’s mouth was full, so he merely nodded.

Belle said, “They mentioned it to me.”

“She ain’t said she’d do it, though,” Steed told Longarm.

Longarm asked Belle, “Well? What’d you decide to do?”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m still thinking it over.”

“Looks to me like you better make your mind up in a hurry, Belle,” he said. “This is the day we’re supposed to leave, if we still figure on pulling the job tomorrow.” He bit into a squirrel-leg without waiting for Belle’s reply.

In the silence that followed Longarm’s words, Yazoo stood up. He stretched and said, “You’re getting ready to talk business, I guess, and it’s business I got no part of. I’ll be going. There’s plenty for me to do up at the stillhouse.”

For several minutes after the old man had left no one spoke. Belle sat, her lips compressed angrily, a frown on her face. The others waited for her to reply to Longarm.

Finally Steed spoke up. He turned to Longarm and said, “Belle don’t think it’ll hurt if we put off the job for another day, or even two. Leastwise that’s what she was saying to me and Bobby and Floyd, while we was eating breakfast.”

Longarm looked at Belle while he finished chewing the mouthful he’d taken. When he’d swallowed it and she had still said nothing, he remarked casually, “Maybe, maybe not. The way I look at it, if Belle can’t make up her mind, we’ll be better off going ahead without her, or forgetting all about the damn job.”

He was taking another risk, Longarm knew, but he counted on the greediness of Floyd and Steed to keep the risk marginal. Instead, it was Belle who objected.

“What do you mean, call it off?” she asked quickly.

“Just what I said.” Inwardly Longarm breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s not your job to call off, Windy!” Belle said hotly. “I set everything up! Floyd and Steed and those two other fellows who had bad luck were supposed to fill out the gang, along with Bobby. Or did you forget that? You came tagging in at the last minute.”

“You asked me to come in. I didn’t offer or push in,” he reminded her. “I’ve told all of you more than once, I just said I’d help out, and I didn’t give a damn whether the job went off or not.”

“That’s right, Belle, he did,” Floyd agreed. “And even with Windy in on it, we’re still a man short, if you don’t go with us.”

Bobby spoke up unexpectedly. “Don’t I have anything to say about all this?”

“Sure you do, Bobby,” Longarm replied. “Just as much as anybody else does.”

“Well, I think we ought to either pull it off or call it off,” the youth said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but the longer we sit on our butts-“

Steed snapped, “That’s enough, Bobby.” Then he said to Belle, “I feel about like Windy does. We better go on and take that bank, just like we planned to. Hell, you said the other day you was sending word to them lawmen you’re paying off, telling them when to expect us. What happens if we don’t show up?”

Longarm welcomed the support Steed was giving him, but he didn’t let it show. He told Belle, “You see, I ain’t the only one that wants to go ahead the way we planned to. What’s the matter, Belle? Don’t tell me the Bandit Queen’s getting cold feet.”

“You know better than that!” she shot back. “I was hoping you men would be reasonable and let me have a few days to get over losing Sam, but-” Longarm broke in, “Like you said coming back from town the other day, Sam wasn’t the first man you ever lost.”

“Well he wasn’t!” Belle retorted. “And he might not be the last! But that’s no sign I can pick up and go about my business like nothing happened at all!”

“It’ll be good for you to go, Belle,” Floyd said. “Doing something ought to take your mind off your troubles.”

They fell silent. Longarm started to say something, then thought better of it. He’d said enough, he told himself. The others had picked up what he’d started and made an issue of it. Belle was finding herself backed into a corner, and as far as he could see, she had only one way out. Before the silence grew too tense, Belle proved that his judgment to keep quiet had been good.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll go ahead with the job, just the way we planned to. I still don’t think it’d do any harm to put it off a day or two, but it looks like you’re all dead set on rushing along. We’ll leave as soon as we get everything ready, and pull off the bank job tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 18

Longarm didn’t want to seem too eager, now that the decision had been made. He asked Belle, “You sure we can get to where we’re supposed to camp tonight, if we start this late?”

Before Belle could reply, Floyd said, “Hell, it ain’t all that late, Windy. And we won’t need to do much but spread out our soogans when we get to where we’ll be stopping.” Belle said sarcastically, “Maybe he’s too tired to ride today, Floyd. Too much time in the saddle last night.” Longarm said, trying not to sound too cheerful, “Give me five minutes to throw my gear in my saddlebags, and I’ll be ready to pull out.”

“It’ll take us a little bit longer than that,” Belle told him. “If I’m going on this job with you, I’ll have to change my clothes.”

She was still wearing the black velvet dress she’d had on the day before. She’d taken off her gunbelt, though.

“We might as well settle one more thing right now,” Steed put in. “Something we never did get around to talking about before. I’ll put in what I think right now. As soon as it’s safe to stop after we’ve done the job tomorrow, we split up the take and part company.”

“We can talk about that after we camp tonight,” Belle said.

“No.” Steed’s voice was firm. “We’ll settle it right now. I don’t aim to lose my sleep or get all nerved up arguing tonight in camp. Let’s get it done with before we leave, Belle.”

“I’ll go along with Steed.” Bobby chimed in.

“Me too,” Floyd said. “He’s right, Belle. When we settle down tonight, it better be to rest up so we’ll be fresh tomorrow. We don’t want a lot of jawing.”

“That suits me,” Longarm told the others. “Makes pretty good sense, I’d say.”

Belle could see that none of them was going to listen to her, but she battled to the finish. “Suppose there’s a slip-up? What if a posse takes after us and we have to break up before we can stop to split the take?”

“Then we’ll all meet back here,” Longarm suggested. “But you’re suppose to have things fixed so that won’t happen, Belle.”

“it won’t. Or shouldn’t.” Belle was on the defensive now. “You can’t control everything all the time, though. Something could go wrong.”

“All right,” Floyd agreed. “We’ll do like Windy said, meet back here and wait until we’re all together before we divvy up. But provided your setup holds good, and we ride away from the job free and clear, it’s going to be one hell of a long time before you’ll see me at Younger’s Bend again. It’s been too damned unlucky a place for me.”

“Amen to that,” Steed said. “I’ll be riding on when the job’s finished, too. How about you, Windy?”

“I didn’t aim to stay this long when I headed here. Just a night or two.”

“It’s all settled, then?” Belle asked. She spoke tautly, and they could all see she was holding her anger in check. “If it is, we’d better get ready and go.”

“All that’s left is for you to tell us where to ride if we get separated after the job,” Floyd told her. “You said you knew trails we could use to get to other hideouts, places where we’ll be safe.”

“I’ll tell you all that tonight, after we’re in camp,” Belle replied. “There’s no use wasting time on it now. We’ll be getting a later start than we ought to, as it is. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. I suppose all of you can be ready then?”

They broke up at once, to make their individual Preparations for departure. Longarm took fewer than the five minutes he’d told Belle he would require. All he had to do was roll up his bedroll, toss loose items into his saddlebags, and pick up his rifle. Carrying the bedroll and saddlebags balancing one another on opposite shoulders, his rifle in his hand, he returned to the barn. He was saddling the hammerhead bay when Belle came in.

“It looks like you’ll be the first one saddled up, Windy,” she said.

Longarm turned to look at her, and his jaw dropped. Belle was wearing men’s clothes, denim jeans tucked into boots, a flannel shirt, and a linsey-woolsey jacket that fitted loosely over her torso. She’d pulled her hair up under the low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson she had on, and her face under the brim might have been that of a callow youth, except for the age-lines it bore and loose flesh of her neck that showed above the loose shirt collar. She hadn’t abandoned her pearl-handled, silver-plated revolvers, though. She still wore them as she had when she’d been in a dress, in front, ahead of her hips, as was necessary when she roed sidesaddle.

Longarm said, “I didn’t look for you to be dolled up in an outfit like that.”

“I’ve worn men’s clothes before, when I was on a job,” she replied. “Mat’s why nobody credits me with a lot of jobs that I pulled off with Sam and with Jim Reed or Blue Duck.” Then she remembered her old boast and added quickly, “And Jesse and Frank James, of course.”

Longarm finished tightening the cinch around the hammerhead’s belly and dropped the stirrups down to hang by the horse’s sides. “I guess it’d fool somebody who just got a quick look,” he said.

“That’s not what you started to say, though,” Belle told him. “You’re all ready, I guess?” Longarm nodded. “Then will you do something for me?

Yazoo doesn’t know for sure we’re all leaving. Will you ride up to the stillhouse and tell him? I want him to sleep down here while we’re gone, and keep an eye on things.”

“You expecting somebody to come calling?”

“No. But I wasn’t expecting you, either, was I? You never know who’ll be riding in, here at the Bend. If Yazoo’s asleep at the stillhouse, he wouldn’t know it if somebody came and carried the damned house away.”

“Sure, I’ll tell him.” Actually Longarm welcomed the idea of being out of the way of everyone else during the period that was going to follow. He knew that tempers grew short when men were preparing to ride into danger, whether they were outlaws or a posse or soldiers.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“No. He’s got all that sugar up there, so he’ll have plenty to do to keep him busy. You should be back here by the time we’re ready to go. The others still have to get their horses saddled.”

“If I don’t get back by the time you’re ready to ride, just go ahead. I’ll catch up,” he said. He led the bay out of the barn and swung up on its back. As he rode off, he saw Floyd and Steed and Bobby, loaded with their saddlebags and bedrolls, heading up toward the house from the cabins.

There was no sign of Yazoo at the stillhouse, but the door was open and noises were coming from inside. Longarm went in, gagging at the overpowering smell of souring corn mash, old wood smoke, and the effluvium of whiskey that had escaped into the packed dirt of the floor. Yazoo was stirring a fresh batch of mash in a tub made from a sawed-in-half hogshead.

“Howdy, Windy.” From the old man’s speech, Longarm judged that Yazoo had been sampling his product pretty steadily since breakfast. That didn’t interfere with his work, apparently.

“Yazoo,” Longarm greeted him with a nod. “Belle wanted me to give you a message.”

“Decided to ride out and take care of that bank job, did you?” Yazoo nodded judiciously. “I sorta had the idea you would, the way they was talking this morning at breakfast, afore you come in. You know, Belle was sure riled at you, Windy, for having that cousin of Sam’s down visiting you last night.” He somehow managed to chuckle and leer at the same time. “Not that I blame you myself. Only thing wrong with Belle is, she’s jealous.”

“I never gave her any cause to be.”

“A’course you didn’t! But Belle gets mad if every man that comes here don’t fall for her.” He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Belle’s a whore at heart, Windy. Never did get over the days when Jim Reed used to give away a piece of her ass to cinch a tough horse-trade.”

“I hadn’t run onto that story,” Longarm said. “But I’m ready to believe it.”

“You can believe it, all right! I knowed Jim before him and Belle got hitched, and afterwards too. And Belle knows I know. I don’t reckon she’d put up with me if I didn’t know more about her than she does about me.” An idea struck Longarm. He asked Yazoo, “If you know so much about Belle, maybe you can ease my mind a little bit, Yazoo. She roped me into this job, and I said I’d go in because, from the way Belle talks, she’s got strings in just about every town over on the other side of the Arkansas border, lawmen she claims she pays off to look the other way at her moonshining and selling stolen cattle. Is that just Belle blowing and bragging, or is it true?”

“It’s true enough, all right. Shit! I could name you names and tell you places-“

“I ain’t asking you to do that, Yazoo,” Longarm interrupted. “I don’t need to know anything except whether she’s told me a straight story about the law looking the other way while we pull off this job. That’s what bothers me right now.”

“Well, maybe Belle don’t pay off every sheriff or marshal or all their deputies from the Arkansas on up to the Neosho, and then on down to the Red. But she’s got enough of ‘em in her pocket so she can move around as free as she likes to, and get by with damn near anything she wants to pull.”

“Thanks, Yazoo. You’ve made me feel lots easier in MY mind.”

“You don’t need to worry,” the oldtimer assured him. “Y, hell’s bells, Windy! You don’t think I’d be sticking around here if it wasn’t the safest place I could find, do you? But I know, as long as I’m here at Younger’s Bend, there ain’t nobody going to touch me, because of Belle. And when a man gets to my age, he don’t much like the idea of going back to the pen.”

Longarm was absorbed in trying to formulate a plan. He replied absently, “Sure. You weren’t as old as you are now, that last time you got sent u-” He stopped short, and tried to swallow the words he’d just let fall so unthinkingly. The minute he saw Yazoo’s face, though he knew the damage had been done.

Yazoo was staring at Longarm, the light of belated recognition dawning in his eyes. Longarm could almost literally see the memories flooding back into Yazoo’s liquor-soaked brain.

“By God!” the old man said slowly. “That’s where it was I seen you before! It wasn’t in no outlaw’s roost, nor in no saloon, either!”

“Now hold up, Yazoo,” Longarm began.

“Hold up, my ass!” the old man went on. He wasn’t about to stop. “I seen you in a federal courtroom up in Wyoming Territory! Cheyenne it was, by God! The deputy that was guarding me pointed me out to you special!

You’re that federal marshal son of a bitch they used to call Longarm!”

“They still do, Yazoo,” Longarm said. He wasn’t worried about Yazoo jumping him. Age and liquor had robbed the old fellow of any real capacity to do any harm, and Longarm had never seen him wearing a gun.

“And you been skulking right here all this time!” Yazoo went on indignantly. “Acting like you was an owlhoot on the prod! Getting in on everything you got no business knowing about! You wait till I tell Belle and the rest of ‘em! You won’t last two minutes after they cut loose on you!”

“You’re not going to tell anybody anything, Yazoo,” Longarm said firmly.

He took a step toward Yazoo. The old fellow pulled out the wooden paddle he’d been using to stir the mash, and began to wave it threateningly.

“I might be old,” he said, “But I sure ain’t crippled. You’ll have to kill me to take me!”

“Listen to me, old man! I’m not after you! I don’t give a damn how much moonshine you stir up here. But I’ve got to shut you up, keep from spilling what You’ve figured out to Belle and the others.”

“Shoot me, then! That’s the only way you can shut me up!”

Longarm had been edging closer and closer to Yazoo, and the old man had been backing off, waving the paddle. Longarm feinted a rush to Yazoo’s left. The old moonshiner swung the paddle in that direction. Longarm stepped inside the swing with one long stride and grabbed the paddle. He wrested it away from Yazoo with one swift, twisting pull.

Yazoo struck at Longarm, who parried the wild swing with his arm. He grabbed Yazoo’s wrist and yanked him forward. Yazoo, already unsteady on his feet, would have fallen if Longarm hadn’t brought the arm he was holding up and around to keep him erect. He captured Yazoo’s free wrist and clamped one of his big hands over both of Yazoo’s.

“Now you keep quiet!” Longarm commanded. “They can’t hear you down at the house. It’s too far, so you might as well save your breath.”

“What You aiming to do with me?”

“Damn little I can do with you, Yazoo. I’m not interested in taking you in; all I want to do is shut you up for a while.” He shot a question suddenly. “Where’s Belle planning to pull this job, Yazoo?”

“Damned if I know!” Yazoo blurted.

Longarm decided his reply came too quickly for the old fellow to be lying. That was all he needed to know. He said, “I’m going to tie you up now. Don’t worry, I won’t do such a good job that you won’t be able to work free in an hour or so. By then we’ll all be gone, and as long as you don’t know where the job’s going to be, there ain’t a hell of a lot you can do to let Belle and the others know about me.”

Longarm looked around for rope. He saw none, but Yazoo’s bed stood in a corner of the stillhouse, a tangle of greasy blankets. Longarm pulled the old man over to the bed and sat him down on it. He ripped a blanket into strips and bound Yazoo, trying to tie him so that, with a little work and quite a lot of time, the moonshiner could work himself free.

Realizing that there was no way he could match Longarm’s strength, Yazoo put up no struggle. He said nothing until he saw that Longarm was preparing a gag, then he blurted, “I always swore I never would ask no favors of a lawman.”

“Go ahead and ask,” Longarm told him. “Hell, I don’t bear you any grudges, Yazoo. You’ve been real helpful to me.”

“It wasn’t because I meant to be,” Yazoo grunted. “But except that you’re a goddamn dirty sneaking conniving federal marshal, which makes you a first-class son of a bitch in my book, you’re a right decent fellow, Windy—or Longarm or whatever you want to call yourself. You mind giving me a drink before you stuff that gag in my guzzle? My mouth’s terrible dry.”

“Sure. Where’s your water bucket?”

“Water! Who wants water? Hand me that bottle of whiskey from over there.”

Longarm held the bottle while Yazoo drank deeply. Then he finished the job of gagging him, and started for the door. Halfway there, he turned and said, “Oh, I nearly forgot, Yazoo. Belle said I was to tell you to sleep down at the house while she’s gone.” climbing into the saddle, he returned to the house. The others were just mounting. By common consent, they let Belle lead the way. She turned east as they came out of the long passage through the narrow ravine, and for the first part of the journey, the trail they took was one familiar to Longarm; he’d followed it before, when he came to Younger’s Bend originally, then back and forth between the Bend and Fort Smith. They rode silently.

Noon passed without a lunch stop, and Longarm rummaged in his saddlebag for some jerky. His breakfast had been less filling than the one eaten by the others.

Belle led them across the ford above the juncture of the Arkansas and the Canadian. On the east shore of the Arkansas she struck off on a trail less clearly defined than the main route to Fort Smith. The sun had been at their backs for the better part of an hour when they crossed the ford. It kept sliding down as they rode on in single file, until the thick maze of woodland through which they traveled took on the gentle haze that comes to such country in the period just before sunset.

Darkness was closing in fast when Belle abruptly turned off the trail. With the four men following, she wove her black gelding in and out among the tree trunks for almost a mile. There was no trail through the woods that Longarm could see, but Belle rode confidently, as though completely certain of the route. Suddenly the trees opened. A wide, shallow gully yawned in front of them. Belle followed its rim for a short distance, then urged her horse down its gently sloping side.

A tinkling white-water creek fanned over mossy rocks In the gully’s bottom. The smell of woodsmoke hanging low to the ground reached Longarm’s nose. In a few moments they saw light flickering ahead. A second light joined the first as they drew closer—the yellow, wavering glow of a lantern. The light shining in their faces hid what lay behind it until Belle reined in. Then Longarm saw that they’d stopped beside a slab-bark shanty, and that the man holding the lantern was dark and stocky. He wore overalls and an undershirt that, even in the uncertain light, was obviously long overdue for a visit to the washtub. His features were blunt and formless. He could have been Indian, Mexican, black, white, or any mixture of the four.

“Belle Starr,” he said. He looked at the riders. “Where’s Sam?”

“Sam’s dead,” Belle said. She offered no explanation, but went on, “I’ll tell you about it later. We need supper and a place to sleep, and breakfast early in the morning.”

“Sure,” the man said. “Get off and come in.”

“Chano will feed us,” Belle told the others. “There’s enough room inside for us to sleep. The horses will be all right out here.” She dismounted. “We’ll go over everything after supper.”

“How far we got to ride tomorrow before we hit the town where the bank is?” Floyd asked.

Longarm had been wanting to ask that question himself, but didn’t think it would have been wise for him to try to find out anything from Belle at that stage.

“Not far,” Belle said. “We’ll have to swing north a few miles to get around a big, sharp hook in the Arkansas. Then we’ll just follow the river down-” She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and added, “I guess it doesn’t make any difference, since we’re this close, whether I tell you now or wait until after supper. The bank’s in a little town about ten miles north of Fort Smith, but on this side of the river. The town’s called Van Buren.”

CHAPTER 19

A bright mid-morning sun in a cloudless sky sent sparkling glints from the surface of the river and defined the white painted houses and storefronts of the little town ahead of them as Belle drew up and the others halted behind her on the riverbank.

“All right,” she said as Floyd, Steed, Longarm, and Bobby pulled their horses up around the black gelding of the Bandit Queen. “There’s the town. Take a look at it now, and figure out which way you’ll be riding if something goes wrong and we can’t get out in a bunch.”

Van Buren was a bright town,.Longarm thought as he joined the others in scanning it carefully from their vantage point, a high spot a half-mile from the first houses. They could see that the town’s main street ran roughly parallel to the river. It was a long, narrow town, not a small, compact square or rectangle, but rather a crescent that curved along the course of the stream. Almost all the buildings and houses were white. A few were gray, and one or two of the stores had ventured into red or green paint.

Belle pointed to a buff-colored structure near the center of the main street. “There’s the bank. It’s brick, so don’t worry about a rifle slug going through the walls if any shooting starts.”

“There won’t be any, if you done your part right,” Floyd told her. He was edgy, as were all of them, and his voice showed it.

“I’ve done what I said I would, don’t worry. Now study the way we’re going out, then we’ll ride in and do it,” she said. Before going to bed, they’d spent two hours rehearsingtheir moves. Belle had given them the general layout of the countryside around Van Buren. If they had to scatter, each of them would take a different route back to Younger’s Bend. If there was no trouble, they’d leave as a group and get across the border into the Cherokee Nation, stop as soon as it was safe, divide up the loot, and separate.

Longarm had his own ideas about what was going to happen if his own plan worked out. He’d been at the disadvantage of being unable to evolve much of a scheme in advance, before he’d actually seen the town and the bank. He’d decided that the best thing he could do would be to get behind Floyd and Steed as soon as the three of them were inside, immobilize them with the threat of his Colt, and then depend on the bank’s workers to complete the capture while he went outside and took Belle and Bobby.

It wasn’t much of a plan, he’d told himself while they were riding along the river an hour earlier, but it was about all he could come up with under the circumstances. He had to let the robbery actually get under way. Longarm looked on juries as highly unpredictable. He’d seen too many spellbinding lawyers convince twelve good men that a band of hardened outlaws entering ‘a bank with weapons drawn had gone in only to make a deposit, that their intentions had been benevolent rather than felonious. This time he didn’t intend to take that chance. He’d have hard evidence to back him up.

“If you’ve looked all you need to,” Belle said, “we might as well ride in and get it over with.”

They nudged their horses ahead. Belle still rode in the lead. Looking along the curve of Van Buren’s main street as they came abreast of the first houses, Longarm could see only a few people moving around. In most towns that centered on farming areas, business in town waited until late afternoon. A rider was coming toward them, and Longarm caught the flashing of a star on the man’s vest.

Look out, old son, he told himself. Might be there’s been some kind of slip-up, and they got a hot welcome all ready for us.

As the rider drew closer, Longarm saw Floyd and Bobby, who were riding ahead of him just behind Belle, move their hands unobtrusively closer to their pistols. He turned to look at Steed, who was behind him. Steed was watching the approaching man with slitted eyes, his right hand hanging casually at his side, inches from his gun-butt.

A moment or two slid by. The lone rider was only a few yards from the group now, and was eyeing them with a frown growing on his face. Then he looked at Belle closely. His features relaxed. He grinned and winked at Belle, then turned his eyes straight ahead and rode past.

Floyd turned in his saddle. His face was split in a wide grin. He nodded triumphantly at the others before turning back.

Longarm looked over his shoulder at Steed. There was a grin on the burly outlaws face that matched the one Floyd had shown.

Ahead of them, the buff brick front of the bank loomed as they rode slowly down the curving street. A man was coming out, thumbing a wad of greenbacks. The bank had only two small windows in front, and a solid wooden door. There was a hitch rail in front of the building. The cross-street that Belle had described to them the evening before was visible now, but Longarm couldn’t see whether there were any more people on it than there were on the main street. Far down, a buggy pulled into view, heading to the center of town. It carried a man and a woman. A horseman crossed the main street on the cross-street. He looked idly at the five riders, but went on his way.

Belle reined in at one end of the hitch rail. She did not dismount. Bobby pulled his horse around Floyd’s and pulled up at the far end of the hitch rail. He stayed in the saddle too. Floyd pulled up next to Belle. Longarm took the next spot, and Steed went on and Jerked his mount’s head around to put himself between Longarm and Bobby.

“Don’t just sit here!” Belle hissed. Her voice was shrilly nervous. “Get on inside, and work fast!”

Floyd was already sliding off his horse. Steed and Longarm followed suit, moving more slowly. Belle’s plan, which she had explained to them the evening before, called for Floyd to saunter in and get to the back of the bank before Longarm and Steed entered. Then it would be up to Steed to handle the center of the building, Longarm to cover the door.

Floyd disappeared into the bank. Longarm could see Steed’s lips moving as he counted to ten, then the outlaw followed Floyd inside. Longarm ticked off his own ten-count and went in. Just as he was going through the door, he saw a husky man wearing a gunbelt, carrying a white canvas money bag cross the room. The man wore a uniform cap with a badge of some sort on it; Longarm didn’t get a good look at the badge, but figured the fellow for a guard.

As he walked the few steps to his position, Longarm had time to flick his eyes around the bank’s interior. He registered the details quickly. A long counter stretched across one side. A wire grillwork rose from the top of the counter, broken by three arched openings. Tellers stood behind the windows, but only one of them was busy with a customer. The man carrying the money bag walked behind the tellers and entered the vault, which yawned open in the rear of the building, behind the counter.

On the opposite side there were four desks. The first one was a huge and ornate roll-top. It was backed up to the wall and a gray-haired man sat in front of it, bending over a stack of papers. The second desk was a bit plainer; the man who sat at it was younger and was talking to an overall-clad customer who sat in a chair beside the desk. The other two desks were strictly utilitarian. The men who occupied chairs at them had ledgers in front of them and were bending over, entering figures in the ruled columns.

Floyd started the action as soon as he saw Longarm take his place and face the tellers. He whipped out his pistol and banged it on the desk nearest him. The sound echoed through the somnolent room. It seemed as loud as though Floyd had fired a shot. Everyone turned to look for the source of the unexpected noise.

“all of you stand real still!” Floyd commanded loudly. His voice had a jagged, nervous edge to it, but the pistol he was waving gave him all the authority he needed. Floyd saw that all eyes were on him and went on, “Just don’t nobody move and nobody’s going to get hurt!”

Nervously the tellers and others darted their eyes from side to side. They saw not just one gun leveled at them, but three. Longarm and Steed had drawn an instant after Floyd did.

His voice still pitched high, Floyd ordered, “All of you in behind that counter, get over here quick! And don’t try anything!”

At the first desk, the gray-haired man slowly raised his hands. He swiveled in his chair to face the room and called, “Do as he says! Let’s don’t have anyone getting shot!”

Taking their time, the tellers began to file out from their positions behind the counter. They walked with their hands over their heads and took slow, careful steps, casting apprehensive glances at the three men holding guns. The lone customer who’d been standing at the teller’s window backed across the room to stand beside one of the desks.

From the time the tellers had started moving, Floyd, Steed, and Longarm had been dividing their attention between the moving men and those at the desks. They failed to see the stealthy movement of the man at the second desk. He’d cautiously eased the drawer of his desk open and slid a revolver out on to his lap.

A loud, metallic clanging sounded inside the vault, and all heads turned in that direction. The guard came out. He saw the tellers with their arms raised, the men with guns standing across the room. He clawed for his gun, but Floyd’s pistol was ready. Before the guard could draw, Floyd shot him. The guard slumped to the floor.

Seeing his chance, the man at the desk picked up the gun from his lap and levelled it at Floyd. Steed saw the movement, but Longarm got off his shot an instant before Steed’s finger tightened on the trigger. Steed lurched forward to the floor.

Floyd’s eyes had been on the guard. He turned in time to see the banker at the desk leveling his gun, knew that he couldn’t bring his own weapon to bear, and dropped behind the desk by which he stood. The banker’s round whistled through the empty space that Floyd had just occupied.

Longarm saw the banker turning in his direction. He wasn’t going to shoot the man, but wasn’t going to hold still for taking a slug himself. Longarm dived for the teller’s counter and rolled behind it while the banker was still turning his chair around.

Floyd peered over the desk. Seeing the banker’s movement in Longarm’s direction, he brought up his gun and shot the banker in the back.

Longarm, unable to see from his position behind the counter, called loudly, “Don’t shoot me, mister! I’m a U.S. marshal! Get down under your desk and let me handle these outlaws!”

Floyd’s sudden rage at hearing Longarm’s call immobilized and silenced him for a moment. Then he shouted, “You! Windy! Is that right? You been dogging us all along?”

“That’s right, Floyd! You might as well drop your gun, or you won’t walk out of here alive!”

“Like hell I will! You’ll have to take me!”

Gunfire erupted outside the bank. The sound of pounding hoofbeats echoed briefly, then faded. The gunfire straggled away. Bobby crawled in through the open door, his belly hugging the ground. A bloodstain showed on his right shirtsleeve.

Longarm called, “Get over here out of the line of fire, Bobby!”

“Don’t listen to him!” Floyd shouted. “He’s a ringer! A U.S. marshal! Shoot him!”

Bobby’s gun was in his hand, its muzzle pointing directly at Longarm.

Longarm said, “Don’t do it, Bobby! Drop your gun and stay alive!”

Bobby’s eyes rolled uncertainly for a few seconds.

Longarm held his fire, gambling that the youth wouldn’t shoot. Bobby opened his hand, let his revolver fall, and crab-crawled to where Longarm lay behind the end of the counter.

Floyd fired too late. His slug tore Bobby’s bootheel off, but by then, Bobby was shielded behind the counter. Longarm asked him, “What happened outside?”

“Somebody started shooting at us from across the street. Belle took off.”

“She got away?”

“I guess. I didn’t stop to look.” Bobby frowned, trying to straighten out his confused thoughts. “Are you really a U.S. marshal?”

“Yep. And you just surrendered to me, so you stay here out of trouble while I take care of Floyd.”

Longarm inched himself into a position where he could peer around the edge of the counter. Tellers, bankers, and customers had all dived for cover when the shooting began. Longarm could see a foot sticking out here, a hand extended there, but he couldn’t see Floyd.

He called, “Throw your gun out, Floyd! Give up!”

“Go to hell, you sneaking son of a bitch! It’s me or you, Windy, or whatever your name is!”

Longarm located Floyd by the sound of his voice. He began crawling toward the last desk, where the outlaw had taken cover. He’d scrabbled half the distance when Floyd sprang up shooting. The moment’s glimpse he had of Floyd’s head rising above the desk gave Longarm the time he needed. Before Floyd could get his gun above the top of the desk, Longarm rolled, firing as he moved. At the same time, a rifle shot cracked from the door of the bank.

Longarm’s shot and the rifle bullet took Floyd at the same instant. The outlaw’s dying reflex tightened his finger on the trigger of his pistol as he was falling, but the slug plowed harmlesly into the floor a foot from Longarm’s shoulder.

From the doorway, Andrew Gower’s voice said, “Well, Long, I’m glad I got here in time for the cleanup.”

Longarm took his time about getting to his feet. He asked Gower, “How in hell did you know where to come? I didn’t find out this was the place until late last night.”

“I didn’t know,” the chief marshal replied. “There were only two banks fitting the description you gave in your letter, this one and the one at Greenwood, so I sent some deputies I knew I could trust to cover both of them.”

“You could’ve saved me a lot of trouble if I’d known you were going to back me up.”

“No way to get word to you,” Gower reminded him.

“Belle Starr got away, I guess,” Longarm said.

“You mean that was Belle who rode off when we opened fire?” Gower asked. “Hell, I thought it was a man!”

“That’s what she meant for folks to think.”

“Maybe she hasn’t gotten clear,” Gower said. “Two of my boys took out after her. Maybe they’ll catch her.”

“If they don’t, all you’ve got to do is have somebody waiting at Younger’s Bend. She’ll likely show up there. You got to send somebody to her place there anyhow. There’ll be an old fellow there, answers to the name of Yazoo. He knows the names of everybody Belle’s been paying off, and he’ll talk if you give him a choice of that or going to the pen.”

Bobby stood up slowly. “What’s going to happen to me?” Before Gower could speak, Longarm said, “You’ll need this young fellow to testify against Belle, when you catch up with her. Think you could make things easy for him? Like a suspended sentence or a parole? I got a notion he won’t be getting into any more trouble like this.”

“No, sir!” Bobby said feelingly. “I’ve seen all I want of what it’s like being an outlaw!”

Gower nodded. “I suppose something can be arranged, if you recommend it.”

“Which I do,” Longarm replied. He cocked his head at Gower. “Well?

You think I can go back to Denver now?”

“As far as I’m concerned you can. You’ve done a good job, Long. I’ll tell Billy that when I wire him.” Longarm nodded. Then he said, “You might tell him not to look for me too quick. I left an army horse at that town across the river from Fort Smith that I’ll have to ride back to Fort Gibson.”

“Well, that’ll take you a day or two longer than if you rode the train all the way,” Gower said thoughtfully. “I’ll tell Billy to allow for that.”

“Now don’t tie me too tight to getting back,” Longarm told Gower. He thought for a moment. “You see, I’ve got a little bit of personal business I might need to look after. You know the Cherokee Nation better than I do. How far’s Fort Gibson from a little town up thataway called Talequah?”

The End

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