“If this is about that Reese boy, Long, my story hasn’t changed. I told you the truth. I seen he was reaching for a gun and didn’t know he was fixing to hand it over to you peaceful. Which maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. So I shot. I did it to protect a fellow peace officer, and I’d do it again. I suppose, though, you’ll be wanting a written statement to that effect. Is that what you’ve come for?”
“Actually, Harry, what I come here about don’t have nothing to do with Steve Reese’s murder.”
Bolt raised an eyebrow and began to look a mite prickly. “I don’t much care for your use of the word murder there, Long.”
“That’s all right, Harry. You’re entitled to your feelings on the subject.” Longarm stuck a cheroot between his teeth and flicked a match into flame. He held the flame to the end of the cigar and took his time about building a coal, then shook the match out and tossed it toward a cuspidor in the corner. He kept the cheroot in his teeth and laid his hand onto the grip of the Winchester.
“If you’d be more comfortable,” Longarm offered, “I could call you Dennis instead of Harry.”
“What?”
“Dennis Connor O’Dell is the long of it, I believe.”
“Who are you talking about, Long? Have you gone crazy in the head here?”
“All these years. Just think of it, Dennis. You’ve gotten away with it for all these years.”
“I don’t know …”
“Yes, you do, Dennis. What happened? Did Harry Bolt serve that warrant on you? It was the last he ever signed out. We looked it up. And it was never returned— Paper on Dennis Connor O’Dell, George Timothy Ward, and James Leon Fowler. Harry Bolt, the real Harry Bolt that is, was never seen again afterward. Not by anybody who’d known him before, though someone calling himself Harry Bolt showed up in southern Colorado soon afterward. George Ward was killed a couple years ago in Arizona. Did you know that? And James Leon Fowler died right here about two weeks back. I know because I killed him myself. More to the point, Dennis—or if you wouldn’t mind—Harry. I’ve got in such a habit of calling you by that name that it’s hard to quit now that I know different. Anyway, that was your old pard who showed up here. What was it, Harry? Dennis? Did he come here by accident an’ just happen to recognize you? Or had he kept track of you all that time till he got outa the pen?”
“I don’t know what you’re …”
“Of course you know, Dennis. Harry. You’re the one who set Fowler up to kill me, of course. Shit, it was the smart thing for you to do. Which I finally recognized once I peached to what had happened all those years ago. The real Harry Bolt arrested you but somehow you managed to kill him. And, instead of staying on the run as Dennis O’Dell with a price on your head, you took Harry Bolt’s papers an’ pretended you was him. Got away with it all this time too, and would’ve got away with it for who knows how much longer except all of a sudden there was two different threats that could expose you.
One was James Leon Fowler, who knew you from back when. The other was Steven Reese, who didn’t know you at all. With Fowler it was easy. You turned him outa the jail that night, handed him a shotgun, an’ sicced him onto me. Like I said, Harry. Dennis. It was smart. No matter what Fowler did, you won. If he killed me, then I wasn’t no threat to learn the truth from Reese, who you already knew was supposed to be on his way to find Harry Bolt. An’ if I killed Fowler, then Fowler wasn’t no threat to expose you as Dennis O’Dell. So you came out ahead no matter what happened.
Another thing I’ve figured out this past couple weeks, Harry—excuse me, Dennis—is that if I’d delivered the message an’ gone right back to Denver there wouldn’t have been no problem for you. Or anybody else. Young Reese would have come here, tracked you down, and found out you didn’t look anything like his Harry Bolt. So he would have gone off looking someplace else for the officer he’d known when he was a kid. But thanks to your muscle-headed friend there, I hung around town a few days longer than I otherwise woulda, an’ so I was a danger to you. What if Reese came an’ I found out he didn’t recognize you? That’s what happened, of course. I’d of let it all pass after Fowler was dead except for Reese walking in here an’ looking around.” Longarm smiled around the end of his cheroot. “Looked right at you, Harry. An’ right on by. He’d of reacted if he’d seen Harry Bolt in this room here. But he didn’t. All he’d seen was a bunch of strangers. That’s why he had to die, Harry. That’s why you had to kill him before he could complain to me about not finding Harry Bolt here in Cargyle where Harry Bolt was s’posed to be all this time.”
“You’re crazy, Long. You been drinking Chinese medicines or something.”
“Really, Dennis? You’ll swear to that?”
“Hell, yes, I will.”
“That’s good, Dennis. Because there’s a man on his way right now who served in the army with his brother officer Harry Bolt. The man’s name is Beckwith. He’s a lawyer now. An assistant to the United States attorney in the Denver district. He says he won’t have no trouble recognizing Harry Bolt.” That part was a bit of a lie. Beckwith was still in Omaha and would be needed there for some weeks more. Billy Vail had agreed with Longarm, though, that Harry Bolt—or Dennis O’Dell—should be taken quickly, before something might spook him and make him turn rabbit on them. They hadn’t wanted to risk him getting away yet another time.
“Harry?” Clete Terry whined. “What the hell is he talking about, Harry?”
“Shut up, Clete.”
“Haven’t you been listening, Cletus? Your pal here isn’t Harry after all. He’s Dennis. And he’s still wanted on charges of mail theft, robbery, murder—there’s probably more paper still outstanding on him. But that’s all right. We got plenty of time to look it all up an’ find out just how many different jurisdictions want to file charges against him.”
“Harry? Is he telling me the truth, Harry?”
“He’s lying, Clete. He’s always wanted a chance to get back at me. Ever since I took his woman away from him years and years ago. He’s jealous of me, Clete. And I think it’s time to put a stop to this. Are you with me, Clete? Will you back me here?”
“Anything you say, Harry. You know that.”
“Kill him, Clete! Kill him now.”
Harry Bolt—Dennis O’Dell—was already moving, rolling out of his chair and placing Clete Terry’s bulk between him and Longarm.
Terry was moving too. But unlike Bolt or Longarm, Cletus Terry thought in terms of muscle and steel. He reached not for a gun but for a knife.
Longarm ignored Terry. The threat came from Bolt after all. O’Dell, dammit. Dennis O’Dell.
He pulled back the hammer of the Winchester and sent a slug into Harry Bolt’s stomach. Unfortunately for Clete Terry, the bullet had to pass through his thigh in order to reach Bolt.
Longarm didn’t stop to worry about that. He levered the Winchester and fired again. If he gave Harry Bolt time to get that shit-eating little Smith into action, Longarm was a dead man, and he knew it. Harry—Dennis—wasn’t fast, but he was hell for accurate.
Longarm quit fooling with the slow-to-load Winchester and spun out of his chair, palming his revolver as he moved.
Harry was down but he was still game. He slid underneath Clete Terry’s chair, using Terry’s body for cover.
Longarm saw the nickel flash of Harry’s gun. Longarm’s Colt roared first. A .44 slug grazed Terry, causing the big man to scream in pain, and ripped through Harry Bolt’s gun arm.
“You’re done, Harry. Give it up now.”
“Screw you, Long.”
“Leave be, Harry. There’s nothing left to fight for.”
The Smith & Wesson lay on the saloon floor, its nickel plating dulled by blood and clinging sawdust. Bolt—O’Dell—gritted his teeth and shifted his weight onto the right arm that Longarm’s bullet had shattered.