“That’s right.”
“And I’m to believe that you came from seventy miles out on the Cimarron Strip where it is hot enough to fry an egg on a rock right now and that you arrived in this freshly starched and ironed dress with your hair all done up perfect and all that rouge on your face and not a drop of sweat on you? Do you really want me to believe that?”
She looked at him round-eyed. “Why, whatever do you mean?”
He laughed. “Girl, I may have been born yesterday, but I wasn’t born the day before. Now, where are you staying? You walked into this hotel from someplace else where you got yourself all gussied up, and it damned sure wasn’t someplace out on the strip.”
She said, trying to sound indignant but not succeeding, “Why, Mister Long. That is certainly no way to talk to a lady. I have not misled you, as you seem to think. Did I once say that I had come from the strip? I said the Gallaghers had been on the strip, but I never once said that I was out there.”
Longarm gave her a long look. “You said you had just come from the Gallaghers and they were on the Cimarron Strip.”
“I said the Gallagher brothers want to meet you on the strip because they are comfortable in Oklahoma Territory.”
Longarm said, “I’m well aware of that, Lily Gail. Since they have bought off every sheriff in the territory, I can well understand why. Do you mean they are not on the strip right now? Where are they? Right here in town? I wouldn’t be at all surprised that you’ve led them to me and that they’re about to burst through the door at any moment.”
She said, “How you talk. There you go again. Such thoughts should never enter your mind. I arrived here from Raton, New Mexico, this morning, Mister Long, as if it is any of your business. I arrived here by train and I came straight to this hotel.”
Longarm looked at her again while he casually poured himself another drink. He said, “Let me get this straight. The Gallaghers want to meet me on the strip to turn over a bunch of small-fry in return for some kind of pardon for them. Is that what they are talking about?”
She fluttered her hands above her naked body. “I don’t know about that sort of thing. All I know is that they want to talk to you and they want to surrender some hooligans who have been doing some bad things in their name. All they want is a chance to have a talk with you and show you that they ain’t near as bad as they’ve been made out to be.”
Longarm laughed. “Nobody could make the Gallaghers out to be any worse than they already are.” He leaned down, took the edge of the bedspread, and flipped it across the bed. “Here, cover yourself with this while I think. You’re too much of a distraction for a man to get any serious thinking in when you’re lying there like that.”
“Well, pardon me!”
“Lily Gail, just be quiet for a moment.” He took a straight-backed chair, set it in front of the window that faced the side street, raised the shade, and then sat there with a glass of whiskey in his hand and a small cigar in his mouth, staring out thoughtfully while his mind considered all of the possibilities. Of course he was interested in any meeting, any confrontation with the Gallaghers. They were so elusive, so nigh on to invisible, that to even catch scent of them, much less sight, not to mention the sight over a gun barrel, even at considerable risk was worth the chance. He had no intention of buying into the game as they had it set up. He was no more going to ride out alone to meet the Gallaghers on the broad flat plains of western Oklahoma than he was going to join the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. He sat thinking, reviewing his options. He could wire Denver for some more deputies for assistance, but he was against that idea for two reasons. First, it might turn out to be nothing but a hoax and he hated to pull other marshals off their jobs to come up with nothing. Second, he’d told Billy Vail that he was on leave, that if Billy Vail bothered him with anything even remotely resembling law work, he would not only burn Billy Vail’s house and barn down, he would burn his neighbor’s house and barn down so that he would no longer be such a popular man. In short, he didn’t want to give Billy Vail any more ammunition than he already had to needle him with, and if he instigated some law work on his own, Billy Vail would cackle like the old hen he was.
Longarm took another drink of whiskey and continued to watch the slow traffic in the street. Unfortunately, he didn’t know any of the law around Taos, not well enough to risk his life with them. The only man he could think of who was in town or nearby was an old friend of some twenty years standing. Fisher Lee had been a sheriff down in south Texas until he had given up the job because of what he considered an ungrateful public who really didn’t want law and order. Now he was a professional gambler. Fish was a steady hand in a fight and a good man in almost any circumstance. More important, Longarm knew he could count on Fish’s help and he knew where he could lay his hands on him within the hour.
Longarm said, “When am I supposed to give you an answer?”
She said primly, “My train returns to Raton this evening by six. I’m supposed to bring an answer back by then.”
He said, “Hell, that don’t leave much time, Lily Gail. You ought to be up and dressing. I don’t think I can give you an answer by then.”
She said, “Well, I can take the train in the morning then and spend the night. That’s what I was told.”
He gave her a slow smile. “Lily Gail, I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but I can arrest you right here on the spot. You’re in the employ of wanted felons, which makes you an accessory to everything from cattle theft to murder. I could throw you in prison for ten years.”
She gave him a round-mouth look. “Oh, now you wouldn’t do that, now would you, Custis?”
He chuckled. “Oh, well, not before in the morning, anyway.”
Longarm got up and walked over and refilled his glass. “Did the Gallaghers say how many of these two-bit small-fry they were going to surrender?”
“Well, not in round numbers, but I think it’s somewhere around a dozen.”
Longarm laughed and shook his head. “Well, that must have been some bargain. I guess the Gallaghers gave them a choice: either be slow-roasted over a fire or pull a little prison time. I guess it wasn’t too hard a decision to come to.”
Lily Gail said anxiously, “Oh, no, that’s not the way of it at all, Custis. The Gallaghers, they captured these men and they have them ready to turn over to you.”
Longarm said, “Lily Gail, you’re good at one thing, why don’t you just stick to that.”
She tossed her head. “That’s an awful mean thing to say, Custis. Do you realize the last time we were together you got my hair all muddy in that old barn.”
He stared at her in amazement. What she was talking about was the struggle to get the keys to unlock himself from the chains that had bound him to the center post of the barn where he was being held. His struggle had been made more desperate because he knew the Gallaghers were only a few hours away and that his life was hanging in the balance. Now she was talking about him getting her hair muddy. Well, that was Lily Gail for you, he thought.
Longarm said in a sincere-sounding voice, “Lily Gail, you know, I’ve lain awake nights thinking about what I did to your hair. I can’t tell you the amount of sleep that I’ve lost over that.”
For a second, she almost smiled. Then she wrinkled her brow in thought before slapping the mattress with the flat of her hand. She said, “Oh, you’re just saying that. You’re not sorry at all.”
Longarm shook his head slowly. “Ain’t nothing gets by you, is there, Lily Gail. You’re too hard a nut to crack for me, I’ll tell you.” Then his tone of voice changed. He said briskly, “You had better get up and get dressed. We need to eat some supper here before too long. Obviously, you won’t be going back to Raton tonight, since I can’t make up my mind what I want to do by the time the evening train leaves.”