“Yep, I know what you mean. You got anything you’d like to get off your chest while there’s still time, old son?”
“You mean, like a deathbed confession?”
“Must be some comfort to such since we get so many of ‘em.”
The wounded man thought a while, breathing oddly. Then he licked his lips and said, “You might as Well know, then. My name ain’t Jones and I ain’t from Cripple Creek.”
“I figured as much. You’re Cotton Younger, right?”
“No, my name is Raymond Tinker and I hail from Omaha, Nebraska.”
“You ain’t dying, boy. You’re still shitting me!”
“It’s the truth. I told everybody my name was Jones ‘cause I done some bad things in Nebraska.”
“That where you started stealing cows?”
“Nope. Learnt to change brands about a year ago. What I done in Omaha was to cut a man.”
“Cut him good?”
“Killed the old son of a bitch! He had it coming, too.”
“Maybe. What was his name?”
“Leroy Tinker. The mean old bastard whopped me once too often.”
“You say his name was ‘Tinker?’ Was he any kin to yourself?”
“Yep, my father. I told him I was too big to take a licking, but he never listened. Just kept comin’ at me with that switch and that silly grin of his. He was still grinning when I put a barlow knife in his guts.”
Longarm took another look through the loophole. The sun was low. If anyone had considered moving up or down the valley to scale the cliffs around them, the light would fail them before they got halfway to the top. He glanced at his smudge fire of oil shale. It was still sending up thick clouds of inky smoke. No need to put more shale on it. It’d burn past sundown.
The youth calling himself Raymond Tinker groaned and said, “You must be thinking I’m one ornery cuss, huh?”
“That’s between you and the State of Nebraska. Patricide ain’t a federal offense.”
“You don’t believe me. You think I made it up to get out of being Cotton Younger!”
“The thought crossed my mind. We’ll settle it in Denver.”
“You know I won’t live long enough to get there, don’t you?”
“Don’t hardly matter. Either way, I aim to take you there.”
“How-how you transport a dead man, Longarm? I know it’s a dumb thing to worry about, considering, but I’d sort of like to know.”
“Well, if you want to die on me, I can’t stop you. It’s cool up here in the high country, so you’ll likely keep a few days before you get rank.”
“Ain’t there no way to keep me from stinking after I go? I smelled a dead man, once. I’d hate to think of myself smelling like that.”
“It don’t figure to bother you. I was at Shiloh, and the dead were rotting under summer rains. None of ‘em sat up to apologize for the way they smelled, so they likely didn’t care.”
“That ain’t very funny, Longarm.”
“Never said it was. Shiloh was no laughing matter. If I can’t pack you in ice, some way, I’ll just remember you said it wasn’t your own idea. You got any other old murder charges you’d like to unload, Raymond?”
“Nope. Never killed nobody but my father. Is changing brands a federal matter?”
“Not unless it’s a cavalry horses brand. You’re turning out to be a big disappointment to me, old son.”
“I know, but it just come to me that I’m getting you lulled for no good reason. I mean, after I die, you can hand me over to them others and just ride out, right?”
“Wrong. For one thing, you ain’t dead yet. For another, you’re my prisoner, not theirs. You and them don’t seem to get my point, no matter how many times I say it. I was sent to Crooked Lance to bring you in. That’s my intention. Dead, alive, Younger, Jones, Tinker, or whomsoever, you can give your soul to Jesus but your ass belongs to me!”
CHAPTER 19
Sundown came without an attack from across the way. To make sure nobody had foolish nighttime notions, as soon as it was completely dark, Longarm sneaked out and built another firestack of oil shale well to the front of his breastwork, working silently in the dark. He pulled the slug from a cartridge with his teeth and laid a trail of gun powder toward the breastwork. It took him four cartridges to make it back to cover.
He struck a match and set the powder trail alight, rolling aside with a chuckle. Someone fired at the match flare as he’d expected.
The powder carried his flame to the shale pile and in a little while the space out in front of him was illuminated in smudgy, orange light. It left the slope across the creek black as a bitch, but he hadn’t been able to see anything that far, anyway, and anybody creeping in was asking for a bullet between the glow of his or her eyes. Longarm was of the opinion that anyone that foolish didn’t deserve to go on breathing.
The prisoner coughed and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. They’ll likely wait us out till sunup before they make the next move.”
“Be a good chance for you to make a break, wouldn’t it?”
“Not hardly. Only way out of here is forward, into at least a dozen and a half guns.”
“You couldn’t climb the cliffs back there?”
“Not with you. And if I did, where would I go?”
“Longarm, I thought my Pa was stubborn, but you got him beat by a mile. Don’t you know they’ll be shooting down on you an hour or less after sunup?”
“Take ‘em longer than that. Be nine or ten before they can work up the cliffs behind me.”
“Then we’ll both be dead, huh? I feel all empty-like below the belt line, now. I doubt I’ll last ‘til sunup.”
“Why don’t you try? I’ll never speak to you again if you up and die on me, boy.”
The dying man laughed bitterly and said, “You’ve been joking, but joining softer since I got hit. What’s the matter, do you feel sorry for me now?”
“Never was mad at you. Just doing my job.”
“You never cussed me out for killing my own father. I’ve been ashamed to tell anybody, even the friends I rode with.”
“You rode into Crooked Lance with friends, Raymond?”
“No. I never lied about that part. I’ve been alone since my partner got caught up near the Great Northern line. I was working my way south to meet some other rustlers… all right, cow thieves, in Bitter Creek. You was right about that running iron being foolish, but I never expected to get caught with it.”
“Most folks don’t. Tell me about your friends in Bitter Creek. Does one of ‘em pack a.30-30 rifle?”
“Don’t suspicion so. I can’t tell you their names. It’s against our code.”
“The rifle’s all I care about. You reckon them other cow thieves waiting for you in Bitter Creek would be serious enough to gun some folks? Say a Missouri sheriff’s deputy or a U.S. Deputy Marshal?”
“Hell, they likely took off like big-ass birds when I got caught. Don’t you reckon?”
“Maybe. That’s part of the cow thief’s code, too. I want you to think before you lie to me about this, boy. I won’t press you about who these friends of yours was if you’ll tell me one true. Was any one of ‘em from Missouri?”
“No. I ain’t giving anything away by telling you one was from Nebraska like me. The other was a Mormon boy from Salt Lake City.”
“Hmm, if I buy that, neither would have reason to pick off folks who knew their way around Clay County. You’d best rest a mite. I don’t like the way you’re breathing.”
Longarm sat silently in the dark, digesting what the dying youth had told him. He assumed that most of what his prisoner had told him might be true. But someone had gunned two lawmen from Missouri and at least one man who knew the James boys on sight.
It couldn’t be Frank or Jesse James. He’d managed to get at least a glimpse of everyone in or about Crooked Lance and the James boys were not only better at holdups than acting, but were known to Longarm at a glance. He’d studied the photographs of both men more than once.