Somebody in the crowd said, “That’s right. How about that, Werner?”
Then somebody else said, “Say, where’s Werner? He was here a moment ago!”
Longarm was already on his feet, headed for the far doorway at a run as he drew his .44-40 with a wolfish grin, growling, “Thank’s a heap, you treacherous dumb bastard! I hadn’t gotten to half the stuff I was fixing to bounce off your guilty conscience!”
Outside, as if he could read minds, a kid in a cap and knickers pointed at some settling dust across the way and yelled, “He rode off that way! On another man’s pony!”
Longarm could see that as he tore across the dusty street to find a cowhand war-dancing around in front of a hitching post, yelling his horse had been stolen.
Longarm asked what sort of pony they were jawing about. When the hand said he’d been riding a bay horse, Longarm ran over to a tethered cordovan and helped himself to it, yelling, “Tell the owner I’m the law and I’ll be back with both ponies, Lord willing and I don’t get shot!”
Then he was after Werner Sattler, lashing his borrowed bronc with the rein ends as they tore between houses and over some fencing until they were out of the small settlement and galloping through ripe red winter wheat and to hell with the damage. For Longarm spotted Sattler out ahead on that purloined bay, going for broke catty-corner, with no regard for any neighbor’s harvest.
Longarm was the bigger man but better rider. There was more to winning a horse race than just sitting there. So Longarm began to gain as he stood in the stirrups with his weight forward as they tore across the rolling wheat fields stirrup-deep in shattered stalks.
Sattler saw who was after him and twisted in the saddle to shoot back at him. Longarm wasn’t ready to return fire at that range. A man firing a Colt .44-40 from a standing position could hit another by shithouse luck at four hundred yards, but only nail him with certainty at fifty. Blazing away at full gallop made it even tougher, and it was a pain in the ass to reload without slowing down.
Old Werner was lucky, or good, as he sent some of his rounds way closer than wild. Longarm knew a wild round could kill you just as dead as a shot fired from a bench rest. On the other hand, if the son of a bitch was out of ammunition when a body caught up, there were still a heap of questions that could be answered.
Chasing him over a rise, Longarm saw they’d commenced to harvest the quarter section ahead. Dozens of men, boys, and a couple of gals in sunbonnets were gathering sheaves left by two mule-drawn reapers and running them over to a mechanical thresher powered by belting from a donkey steam engine set up a safe distance away. Nobody with a lick of sense wanted the firebox of a steam engine close to piles of straw and windblown wheat chaff.
The corrupt lawman and false-hearted friend rode between the two reaper crews and straight at the gap between the steam engine and threshing machine, yelling fit to bust in High Dutch.
So the steam engine operator released his clutch to drop the thick leather belting almost to the ground, and old Werner just tore through to the other side at full gallop.
Then the rascal at the controls snapped the thick power belt up tight, and Longarm nearly spilled as his borrowed cow pony shied to a halt and reared.
As he fought to regain control Longarm yelled, “Let me through, goddamn your eyes! I’m the law and he’s getting away!”
A burly Mennonite elder with bib overalls, full beard, and pitchfork stepped between Longarm and the taut drive-belt to call out. “Einen Augenblick, Mein Herr! Was wunschen Sie mitt unser Marschall?”
Longarm yelled, “If your talking about your marshal, he’s a killer and a crook!”
But now there were more stubborn-looking Mennonites blocking his path despite the gun in his hand, as their obvious leader said, not unkindly but firmly, “kh verstehen Sie nicht. Sprechen Sie kein Deutsch?”
Thanks to Helga, Longarm understood part of the last. So he yelled, “Of course I don’t speak Dutch to ignorant assholes! We’re in the state of Kansas, not the back steps of Russia!”
Before he had to shoot anybody Longarm heard a commotion behind him, and turned in the saddle to see a dozen other riders from town coming to help or hinder him. Before he had to shoot any of them, good old Kurt Morgenstern yelled out in High Dutch and the harvest crew began to get out of the way. Morgenstern yelled, “Werner must have had some reason to bolt like that. But are you sure about all this?”
Longarm called back, “No. That’s how come I want him alive. Tell that asshole at the steam engine clutch to let us through, damn it!”
So Morgenstern did, and they all followed as Longarm heeled the cordovan over the slack belting whether it wanted to go that way or not. But as he topped the higher rise beyond, Werner Sattler was not to be seen in any direction across the rolling wheat or prairie grass all around.
As Longarm reined in to stand taller in the stirrups, Morgenstern joined him there to demand, “Which way did he go?”
It was a good question. Longarm said, “North, east, or south work as well. Thanks to that squall the other night he ain’t raising any dust as he rides slower somewhere out yonder.
He might be dumb enough to ride east to your county seat. He has a bank account yonder. Depends on how much of his ill-gotten gains he banked and whether he values his hide more.”
The fatter and slower-riding banker cum undersheriff, who was supposed to be leading any local posse, caught up with them in time to overhear part of that. He puffed, “Werner has an account with us too. Not nearly as much as Horst Heger should have had on him, though.”
Longarm asked how much was not nearly as much. When the part-time undersheriff and full-time banker estimated a modest four figures, the federal lawman said, “That’s still a healthy bank account for a small-town lawman drawing, say, five hundred dollars per. And I know he has another account, like I just said, at the county seat. But I suspect he split that windfall with some partners in crime. That’s how come I want to take him alive.”
Kurt Morgenstern frowned and said, “I don’t understand. Why would Werner have needed help in murdering poor Heger for that money he was holding for us?”
“That’s too cute. You murder a man to rob him or you murder a man to shut him up. You seldom get to kill that many birds with one stone, and I’ve noticed in my travels that when there’s two separate motives there’s usually two separate crooks.”
The undersheriff said, “I don’t see two separate motives. We all knew that gunsmith had just been given some money to give to those two rainmakers. So Werner killed him for the money and tried to lay the blame on this Wolfgang von Ritterhoff, who may not have ever been anywhere near the scene of the crime!”
“Or vice versa,” Longarm objected. “I’m pretty sure Horst Heger really spotted that other killer. My own office never would have heard about any of this if Heger hadn’t wired us. The only way an honest man who wasn’t familiar with American law would have made such an odd move would have called for some poor advice by someone who was familiar with American law.”
They both proved his point by staring blankly at him. So he put away his six-gun and reached for a smoke as he explained. “Picture a gunsmith in a remote trail town recognizing a wanted killer. Heger had a mess of wanted posters in his cellar and the ones on Ritter may have jogged his memory or … never mind how he did it. He did it. So wouldn’t he naturally go right to the town law with the information before he did anything else?”
Kurt Morgenstern brightened and s aid, “Ach, so! Werner suggested he keep it to himself and contact a more distant federal marshal than he had right here in Kansas because … warum?”