He heard Longarm out before he shook his head and said, “If it was up to me you could have the rascal, Deputy. Hell, I was for just stringing him up the afternoon we caught him skulking about this little lady’s spread.”
“Yeah, I heard you found him with a running iron on him.”
“Well, to tell the truth, I can’t take all the credit. Miss Kim here, spied him hunkered down near the creek in some brush as me and a couple of my hands rode up to her front porch. Had not ladies been present, that would have likely been the end of it. The skunk lit out when he saw us coming. Windy Dawson, one of my hands, made as nice an overhand community-loop as you’ve ever seen and hauled the thief off his pony at a dead run. Miss Kim, here, said not to kill him right off, so Windy dragged him into the settlement and we threw him in the jailhouse.”
He swung around in his saddle to say to the girl on his far side, “You see why we shoulda strung him up that first day, honey? I told you he was a mean-looking cuss, and now we even have a federal lawman up here pestering us for him!”
The widow said, “Nobody’s getting him until they do right by the folks up here!”
Longarm saw he’d been barking up the wrong tree. The lady might not be related by blood to the money-hungry Stover family, but she’d surely picked up some bad habits from her inlaws!
Speaking across Timberline, Longarm said, “What you’re doing here ain’t legal, ma’am.” Behind him, Sheriff Weed called out, “Save your breath, Longarm. I’ve laid down the law till I’m blue in the face and nobody hereabouts seems to know what law is!”
Longarm ignored him and explained to the determined-looking redhead, “You’re holding that Cotton Younger on a citizen’s arrest, which is only good till a legally appointed peace officer can take him off your hands.”
Kim Stover’s voice was sweetly firm as, not looking his way, she said, “The Crooked Lance Committee of Vigilance was elected fair and square, mister.”
“I hate to correct a lady, but, no, ma’am, it wasn’t. Crooked Lance ain’t an incorporated township. The open range hereabouts ain’t constituted as a county by Wyoming Teritory. So any elections you may have held are unofficial as well as unrecorded. I understand the position you folks are taking, but it’s likely to get you all in trouble.”
For the first time she swung her eyes to Longarm, and they were bitter as well as green when she snapped, “We’re already in trouble, mister! You see a schoolhouse hereabouts? You see a town hall or even a signpost telling folks we’re here? Folks in Crooked Lance are poor, mister! Poor hard-scrabble homesteaders and overworked, underpaid cowhands without two coins to rub together, let alone a real store to shop in!”
“I can see you’re sort of back in the nothing-much, ma’am, but I fail to see why you’re holding it against me and these other gents.”
“I never said it was your fault, mister. We know who’s fault it is that Crooked Lance gets the short end every time! It’s them damned big shots out in the country you all rode in from. The cattle buyers who short-change us when we drive our herds in to Bitter Creek. The politicians in Cheyenne, Washington, and such! They’ve been grinding us under since I was birthed in these mountains, and now we mean to have our own back!”
Timberline noted the puzzled look in Longarm’s eyes and cut in to explain, “When Miss Kim’s husband, Ben, was killed, them buyers over to the railroad tried to get her cows for next to nothin’! Luckily, me and some of her and Ben’s other friends made sure they didn’t rob her before Ben was in the ground. We drove her herd in with our others and all of us stuck together on the price of beef.”
Kim Stover added, bitterly, “A little enough herd it was, and a low enough price, after all the hard work my man put into them damned cows.”
Longarm nodded and said, “I used to ride for the Jingle Bob and a couple of smaller outfits, ma’am. So I know how them eastern packers can squeeze folks, dead or alive. But Uncle Sam never sent me here to bid on beef. I’m packing a federal warrant on that owlhoot you folks caught, and I mean to ride out with him, one way or another.”
“Not before we settle on the price,” Kim Stover snapped.
Timberline added, still smiling, “Or whup damn near every rider in this valley, fair and square!”
“There’s five of us, Timberline.”
“I know. I can likely scare up thirty or forty men if push comes to shove. But I don’t reckon it will. These other four gents and me have had more or less this same conversation before you got here. And, by the way, in case you ain’t asked, the five of you ain’t together. We figure you’ll be bidding against one another before Cotton Younger leaves this valley.”
Sheriff Weed called out, “I’ve told you I’ll split the reward with you all, Timberline. This federal man aims to carry him to Denver, where they’ll likely hang him without even asking about Frank and Jesse James!”
There was an angry muttering from the other lawmen and du Val spat, disgusted. The railroad dick laughed and told Longarm, “Ain’t this a caution? We get into this fix every time we talk to these folks. My own bid’s highest of all, but nobody listens. If you ask me, they’re just funning us. I’m getting to where I wouldn’t be surprised if that jaybird in the hoosegow wasn’t in on it with these valley folks!”
Longarm considered the idea seriously for a moment. It made as much sense as anything else he’d heard that afternoon. He asked Timberline and the girl, “Have you folks thought about the who as much as the how much?”
Kim Stover asked what he meant.
Longarm said, “The reward might have greeded you past clear thinking. I, for one, could promise all the tea in China, were I a promising sort. But, on the hoof, your prisoner’s worth two hundred and fifty to you, period, and assuming you can take the word of whoever among us you turn him over to.”
Timberline began, “The reward on the James Boy’s…”
Longarm cut in to insist, “Cotton Younger ain’t no James. He’s small fry. So the most he’s worth in any place is maybe five hundred, split with the arresting officer. That is, with some arresting Officers.”
Sheriff Weed said, “Damn it, Longarm!”
But Longarm ignored him to go on, “County officers are allowed to accept rewards. Federal officers ain’t. If either of you can count, you’ll see I’ve just eliminated one temptation.”
The army man, Captain Walthers, cried out, “Hold on there! I’m a federal officer, too!”
Longarm nodded and said, “I’ll get to you in a minute, Captain. I’m trying to cut the sheriff out of the tally at the moment!”
Weed yelled, “I told ‘em I’d let ‘em have the whole reward, God damn your eyes!”
“Well, sure, you told ‘em, Sheriff. Likely, if you was to double-cross these folks out here in Wyoming, the folks in Missouri would vote against you, next election, too.”
He saw the widow Stover’s eyes were going tick-tick-tick in her pretty but bitter-lipped face, so he dropped the attack on the sheriff to say, “The railroad dick, here, is a civilian who’s working for the reward and nothing else. If he double-crossed you… well, being in the cattle business, you must know how fair a shake you’ll get from the courts, against the railroads and such.”
The railroad dick sighed and said, “Next time that French Canuck tries for you…”
“It was ornery, but you just tried to outbid the rest of us. Like I was saying, a U.S. Deputy Marshal ain’t allowed to accept rewards. So if I agreed to forward such rewards as was due…”
“I can see what you’re trying to pull,” snapped Kim Stover. “It won’t work. We know better than to trust any of you to send us the money!”
Timberline laughed and said, “I keep telling you we’ve been over this same ground, Longarm. You’d best see if Uncle Sam’s ready to pay that ten thousand. We ain’t piggy. We’ll sell the owlhoot to you for half what both James Boys is worth, and if anybody gets the other ten…”