“Oh, it only made sense to have the drop on him before I told him he was under arrest.”
“Come now, I’ve made a few arrests myself. You know you could have taken him alive.”
“You don’t say?”
“I do say. You tricked him into slapping leather because you had no intention of having to take him in, without the man you came for.”
“I heard you Mounties were tolerable good. You likely know this job calls for considering things from all sides before you move. It didn’t pleasure me to trick that fool out there into making things simple, but I couldn’t leave him running loose.”
“I know what you did and why you did it. I know you got rid of the railroad detective rather neatly, too. I think it’s time we got something straight between us, Longarm.”
“I’m listening.”
“My organization’s not as old as your Texas Rangers, but we operate in much the same way.”
“I know. You always get your man. I read that somewhere. Don’t you reckon that’s a mite boastful?”
“No, I don’t. I have every intention of taking that prisoner, Cotton Younger, before Her Majesty’s Bar of Justice, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me!”
“You talking about me or them vigilantes all around outside?”
“Both. I’ve had just about enough of their nonsense and I’m not too happy about the way you’ve been trying to whittle your opposition down to size. I warn you, if you make any attempt to run me out…”
“Hey, look here, he’s got a copy of this month’s Capon Billy’s Whiz-Bang. It’s pretty humorous. You oughta read it sometime. Do wonders for your disposition. Nobody’s aiming to run you out, old son. I didn’t run the old man or the railroad dick out of Crooked Lance, and I shot that other feller fair and square. What’s eating you? You are a real Mountie, ain’t you?”
“You want to see my credentials?”
“Nope. My boss told me to expect a Mountie here, and I doubt anyone else would want to wear that red coat.” Longarm’s eyes narrowed, thoughtfully.
The Mountie asked, “What’s wrong? You look like you just thought of something new.”
“I did. I’m starting to feel better about that feller I just shot. There was somebody from the Clay County Sheriff’s office coming out here. That bounty hunter must have waylaid him! Somewhere in the mountains there’s at least two lawmen buried!”
The Mountie put a hand in his tunic and took out a leather billfold, saying, “I insist you read my Sergeant’s Warrant. You’ll note it gives my description in addition to my name.”
Longarm scanned it and said, “You’re likely Sergeant Foster, right enough.”
“William DeVerrier Foster of the Royal Canadian Northwest Mounted Police, to be exact. May I see your identification?”
Longarm grinned and took out his own billfold, showing his badge and his official papers to the other. The Mountie nodded and asked, “Have you checked Captain Walthers’ credentials?”
“Didn’t have to. I asked him a few trick questions since we met. Besides, who but an army man would be after a deserter? You got a point. Maybe you do get your man, most times.”
“Do I have your assurance you’ll not try to get rid of me as you did the others?”
Longarm nodded and said, “You got my word I won’t shoot you or try to buy you off with reward money.”
He’d already decided there had to be some other way.
CHAPTER 12
Longarm didn’t ask Captain Walthers to show his i.d. He knew the Mountie would, and it was just as well they didn’t get to be friends.
By noon the dead man had been buried, amid considerable whooping and shooting off of cowpoke’s guns. One could get the impression that folks in Crooked Lance didn’t get many occasions for a celebration. Longarm didn’t attend the funeral. He was not a friend of the deceased and it seemed an opportunity to have a word with the prisoner.
It wasn’t. A pair of hard-looking men with rifles stood by the log jail and when Longarm said he wanted to talk to Cotton Younger they told him it would be over their dead bodies. He considered this for a moment, and decided it wasn’t his best move.
As he walked over to the general store the midget, Cedric, fell in step at his side, taking three strides to each of Longarm’s as he puffed his big cigar and piped, “We’re gonna have to make our play damned sudden, Longarm. Cotton Younger don’t figure to keep much longer.”
“How’d it get to be our play, and what are you talking about, Cedric?”
“There’s advantages to being a detective knee-high-to-a-grasshopper, big man. Us little fellers can get into places most folks don’t consider.”
“You been listening to folks from under your wet rock?”
“That’s close enough. Want to know what the talk in town is, now?”
“Maybe. What’s making you so friendly, all of a sudden?”
“I don’t like you, either. Never have liked you, even before you had your way with my woman, but I don’t play this game for likes or don’t likes. I’m in it for cash. You want to trade more insults, or do we work together?”
“Depends on what we’re talking about, Cedric. Suppose you start with something I don’t know.”
“They’re fixing to lynch Cotton Younger.”
“What? That don’t make a lick of sense, damn it!”
“You met anybody in this one-horse town with a degree from Harvard yet? I overheard some of Timberline’s hands talking about a necktie party. You see, the redhead, Kim Stover, is the brains behind the scheme to build up Crooked Lance with the proceeds of… whatever. When I say ‘brains,’ I ain’t saying much, for as me and Mabel see it, the game is as good as up. Ain’t nobody here in town fixing to get paid a thing but trouble.”
“That’s what we’ve all been telling’em.”
“I know, and everyone but that stubborn widow woman can see it.”
“Then why don’t Timberline turn the prisoner over and have done with the mess?”
“He can’t. He’s in love with the redhead and she’d never speak to him again if he double-crossed her like that.”
“All right, so how else does he figure to double-cross her?”
“Like I just told you, with a sudden necktie party! He won’t be taking part in it, of course. His plan is to be over at the redhead’s, trying to steal a kiss or better, when all of a sudden, out of the night…”
“I got you. ‘Some of the boys got drunk and riled up about that running iron, Miss Kim, and I’m pure sorry as all hell about the way his neck got all stretched out Of shape like that.’”
“That’s one thing they’re considering. Another is having him get shot trying to escape. Either way, it figures to happen soon.”
“They say anything about me and the other lawmen?”
“Sure. They don’t figure three big men and a dwarf can stop ‘em. I reckon you’re the one they’re calling a dwarf. Timberline told ‘em not to shoot none of us, ‘less we try to stop the fun.”
Longarm stopped at the store front and leaned against a post as the midget put a tiny boot up on the planks to wait for his next words.
Longarm mused, half-aloud, “The Mountie would fight for sure and go down shooting. Walthers might try, and get hurt…”
“You and me know better, right?”
“Against at least fifty armed drunks? You’re sure you got it right, though? Timberline’s got the odds right, but there ain’t much that can be said about his thinking. Hell, he doesn’t have to kill the prisoner. They could just let him go with an hour’s head start and you, me, the others would be hightailing it out of the valley after him. They’d never see any of us again and Timberline could go back to courting his widow woman. Maybe consoling her on their mutual misfortune.”