“Why were you hiding under the bed, then?”
“Hell, I was scared! I heard running in the hall, cracked open the door, and saw you bounce out stark naked with a full-grown gun in your fist! Before you could turn and blow my fool face off I dove for cover. You know the rest!”
“You’re likely full of shit, but saying you ain’t, did you get a look at anyone attached to them running footsteps?”
“No. Whoever it was made the stairwell before I got to the door. Ain’t you aiming to put that gun away?”
“Maybe. Tell me something a man with his head against that plywood might have heard.”
“What are you talking about? All I heard was you and Mabel—you know.”
“I don’t know. I know what she was saying as I heard the key hit paper. If your ear was next to that plywood, you must have heard it, too.”
The woman blushed, for real this time, and stammered, “Longarm, you’re being nasty!”
But Longarm insisted, “Cedric?” and with a malicious grin at the naked woman on the bed, the midget said, “She said what you were doing to her was just lovely.”
Longarm lowered the muzzle of his.44, nodded at the woman on the bed, and said, “You can get dressed now.”
Mabel Hanks leaned over, grabbed up her nightgown and put it on, gathering the other things in one hand. He saw she was looking at the two gold eagles lying on the rug near the foot of the bed and said, “Leave ‘em be, honey. I don’t know what I owe you, but twenty dollars seems a mite steep, considering.”
“You-you son of a bitch!”
“Will you settle for two bucks? I understand it’s the going price, these days. I don’t hold it against you that we never finished the last time.”
She swept grandly out, too mortified to answer. The midget dropped off the chair with a smirk and edged his way for the door, saying, “I’d be willing to split that reward, if you want to talk things over.”
“You talked just enough to save your ass, old son. And by the way, you need a shave. You and your Mama hit Crooked Lance with that stubble on your pretty little chin and there might be some who haven’t my refined sense of humor!”
Cedric hesitated in the doorway with a sly smile on his ugly little face as he asked, “You don’t aim to give our show away, Longarm?”
The big lawman laughed good-naturedly and asked, “Why should I? I’ve enjoyed the show immensely!”
CHAPTER 5
The sky was a starry black curtain fading to gray in the east as Longarm reined in on the Crooked Lance Trail and sat his mount for a time, considering the ink blots all around them. He’d slipped out of the hotel a little after three in the morning, gotten his borrowed army bay from the livery without being seen, and was now a distance from the town that he judged about right for a bushwhacking.
In the very dim light of the false dawn he could just make out a granite outcropping, covering the trail. Longarm clucked to the bay, eased him around to the far side, and tethered him to one of the aspens growing there. He slid the Winchester.44-40 from its boot under the saddle’s right fender and dismounted. He soothed the bay with a pat and left it to browse on aspen leaves as he climbed the far side of the outcropping. He knew the treetops behind him would hide his outline against the sky as the light improved. He lay atop the rock, levered a round into the Winchester’s chamber, and settled down to wait. If he’d timed it right, the sniper with that.30-30 deer rifle would be getting up here just about now, and if the rifleman knew the lay of the land along this trail he’d have a hard time picking a better place to set his own ambush. A million years went by, and the sky was only a little lighter. Longarm was used to waiting, but he’d never liked it much. The stars were going out one by one from east to west, but the sniper seemed to be taking his own good time. What was the matter with the fool? He wasn’t dumb enough to stake out the front of the damned hotel, was he?
He wondered if Kincaid or any of the other missing lawmen had run into this situation. It made more sense than a town where they shot strangers on sight. Kincaid or any of the other missing men could be buried anywhere for a full day’s ride or so. The folks in Crooked Lance, for all he knew, could be just as puzzled as everyone else. With the wire down, they were cut off, so nobody there would know who was coming or when.
He took a cheroot from his vest pocket and put it between his teeth, not lighting it, as he studied what he knew for sure. It wasn’t much, but he could assume the hands who’d captured Cotton Younger and locked him up were acting in good faith. If they’d been on the outlaw’s side, they never would have captured him. If they hadn’t wanted the law to know they had him, they’d have just killed him and kept still about it. Could it be an escape plot?
Maybe, but not on the part of the folks in Crooked Lance, for obvious reasons. The most likely candidates to plot an escape would be friends of Cotton Younger, and if it was true he was tied in with Frank and Jesse James … possible, but wild. None of the James-Younger Gang had ever operated this far west, and if it was them, they were acting differently than they’d ever acted before. He’d studied the working habits of the James-Younger Gang. They were given to moving in fast, hitting hard, and moving out even faster. Cotton Younger was being held in a log jail, probably loosely guarded by simple cowhands. If the James-Younger Gang had ridden out here to spring him, he’d have been long gone by now and there’d be no need for all this skullduggery.
On the other hand, the gang had been badly shot up in Minnesota and were scattered from hell to breakfast. If a lone member of the old clan was trying to help his kinsman… that might fit.
Behind him in the fluttering aspen leaves a redwing awoke to announce its undisputed ownership of the grove. It sounded more like a wagon wheel in need of grease than a bird, and it meant the sun was getting ready to roll up the eastern side of the pearling sky. Longarm could see the trail he was covering more clearly now. In less than an hour things would have color as well as form down there. His sniper was either a late riser or stupid. Or he’d given up for now.
Longarm decided to wait it out till full light. Half the secret of staking-out lay in waiting out that last five minutes. It was tedious as hell, but he’d made some good arrests by simply staying put a little longer than common sense seemed to call for. It was a trick he’d learned as a boy from a friendly Pawnee.
Another bird woke up to curse back at the redwing and a distant peak to the west was pink-tipped against the dark blue western horizon as it caught the sunrise from its greater altitude. Innocent travelers would be taking to the trail soon. Where in thunder was his sniper?
Longarm’s eyes suddenly narrowed and he stopped breathing as his ears picked up the distant scrape Of steel on rock. He saw two blurs moving into view up the trail. What he’d heard was a horseshoe on a lump of gravel.
He could see who it was, now. A lone rider on a big black plowhorse, with a teammate tagging along behind like an oversized hound. As the odd group came nearer Longarm saw that the man on the lead mount was carrying a rifle across his knees. He was riding bareback, his long legs hanging down to the end in big bare feet. The top of him was clad in patched, old-fashioned buckskins, a fur hat made of skunk skin with two feathers cocked out of one side, and a long, gray beard covering the upper third of his burly chest.
He was peculiar looking, but Longarm decided he was likely not his man, as he studied the weapon the rider was packing. It was an old Sharps.50. Single-shot and wrong caliber. The lack of high heels, or even boots, was comforting, too. Longarm flattened himself lower against the granite to let the stranger pass without needless conversation. The odd old man and his pets passed by the lawman’s hiding place without looking up and vanished on up the trail. Longarm stretched to ease his cramped muscles, then settled down to wait some more.