CHAPTER 23
“I feel sorry for the poor thing,” Kim Stover said as she sat by Longarm on a log, a day’s ride from Ouray Reservation. They’d made camp for the night at a natural clearing near a running brook of purring snow-melt from the Wasatch Mountains. The hands had built a roaring white man’s fire of fallen, wind-cured timber, and the Hankses were across from Longarm and Kim Stover. The midget’s left hand was handcuffed to his partner’s right, for the female of the species in this instance was likely deadlier than the male.
Longarm chewed his unlit cheroot as he studied his new prisoners across the way. Then he shrugged and said, “Nobody asked her to marry up with the little varmint, ma’am.”
“Oh, I’m not feeling sorry for her! It’s the poor little midget she’s obviously led into a life of crime.”
“Nobody gets led into a life of crime, ma’am. Though most everyone I meet in my line of work seems to think so. Folks like to shift the guilt to others, but it won’t wash. The man who murdered Lincoln had a brother who’s still a fine, decent man. An actor on the New York stage. I’d say his baby brother led himself astray. Most folks do.”
“I can see your job might make you cynical.”
“No might about it, ma’am. It purely does!”
“Just the same, I’d say that woman was the cause of it all. She’s hard as nails and twice as cold. She’s been spitting at you with her eyes all day.”
“She’s likely riled at me for arresting her and the midget.”
“There’s more to it than that. A woman understands about these things. I can tell what’s passed between the two of you!”
“Oh?”
“Yes. She obviously feels scorned by you. Tell me, did she flirt with you, when first you met?”
“Well, sort of.”
“There you go. And being a man who’d be too much of a gentleman to take the likes of her seriously, you likely laughed at her pathetic attempts to turn your head.”
“Now that you mention it, I did have a chuckle or two at her expense.”
“She’s been flirting with Timberline and some of the others. I told him what she was and he said I was probably right. You don’t reckon she’d be able to seduce any of our party, do you?”
“Not with her husband handcuffed to her and the key in my pocket.”
“I know most of the boys pretty well, but some of them are young and foolish, and she’s not bad-looking, in her cheap, hard way. You’re probably well-advised to keep them chained together. She’d do anything to get away.”
“I’d say you were right on the money, ma’am. But we got Timberline and over two dozen others guarding ‘em. So I reckon they’ll be with us as we ride into Salt Lake CitY.”
“Which one do you reckon will hang for the murders, the trollop over there or her poor little husband?”
“Don’t know. Maybe both of ‘em, if they get convicted. “They’re both sticking tight as ticks to their innocence.”
“You think the woman did the shooting, don’t you? It took me a few minutes to figure out what you meant about that.30-30 rifle. Won’t you need that as evidence?”
“I could use it, but I made a dumb move back in Crooked Lance when I jawed about it in front of everybody. I suspicion the rifle’s as well hid as the bodies, by now. They both packed S&W.38s ‘til Timberline took them away.”
“He’s so easy to please. I do think Timberline’s starting to like you, Longarm.”
“Well, most boys like to feel important in front of a pretty gal. He’s never really gone for me, serious. Them few brags and swings were sort of like walking a picket fence. Not that I blame him, all things considered.”
“I thank you for the compliment.”
“Just stating the facts as I see ‘em, ma’am.”
“Stop flirting. You know it flusters me. There’s something else I’ve been wondering about.”
“What’s that, ma’am?”
“If there is one thing I’ve learned you’re not, it’s a fool, Longarm. You played a foxy grandpa on that Mountie, didn’t you?”
“Did Portia Caldwell give away anything about government business while the two of you jawed about me?”
“She didn’t have to. I figured out why you were so calm and collected when Sergeant Foster rode off like a thief in the night with the body of that man we’d been holding. He wasn’t Cotton Younger at all, was he?”
Longarm laughed and said, “You weren’t behind the kitchen door when the brains got passed out, Miss Kim. I told you all in Crooked Lance you were wasting a lot of time by holding out on everybody over that fool reward. If you’d sent him on to Cheyenne right off, we’d have all known it sooner.”
“But the Mountie still thinks he’s packing the real Cotton Younger off to Canada? Oh, my, that’s rich!”
“Might be getting ripe, too. I wonder if he’ll smoke him, salt him, or just hang tight and tough it through. Hell of a long ways, considering it’s summer.”
“You waited until captain Walthers came and left, satisfied that another man had his deserter. You are the sly one, but why did you do that?”
“Why? Had to. Had to whittle it down to where I was the only lawman left. These jurisdictional matters can be a real pain, as you may have noticed when you were still in the game.”
“I’m sorry now that we were so dumb about it all. I know we’d have been tricked out of the reward some way, even if we had been holding the real Cotton Younger. Would you mind telling me who we were holding, all that time?”
“He was almost who he said he was. His real name was Tinker, ‘less his dying confession was another lie. Doesn’t seem likely, though, considering some of the other things he confessed to. there was no reward on him. So despite our past misunderstandings, you’ll have to settle for the rising beef market.”
“I feel like such a fool! Imagine, holding an innocent boy and almost seeing him hung improper!”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, ma’am. I don’t go along with improper hangings. but it turned out all right in the end. As for him being innocent, he wasn’t Cotton Younger, but he wasn’t all that innocent, either. Your friends were right to grab him as a cow thief, ‘cause that’s what he was. He wasn’t out for your particular cows, but he wasn’t packing that running iron for fun, either.”
“Some of the boys are worried about the fact that one of them shot him before we got, well, more friendly-like. I told them you’d said you’d forget about it when we all rode into Salt Lake City. Can I take it I told ‘em true?”
“Well, I never forget much, but I overlook a few things. My report will say he got shot trying to escape, which is close enough to the way it happened. No way on earth we’ll ever know just whose round finished him, and most of you were shooting at him, as I remember it.”
“You’re very understanding. I’m truly sorry if i seemed snippy when first we met. But one thing puzzles me. When you first rode into Crooked Lance, you said you weren’t going back without Cotton Younger.”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. But as you see, it wasn’t Cotton Younger you were holding. It ain’t my fault I can’t make good my brag. The man we were all fighting over answered Cotton Younger’s description, but he was somebody else. Meanwhile, half a loaf is better than none, and I am taking in the killer of Deputy Kincaid. So it’ll most likely pay for my time and trouble.”
“Longarm, who do you think you’re bullshitting?”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”
“Come on, I’ve gotten to know you, and you are not the wide-eyed country bumpkin you pretend to be! You have no intention of going back to Denver without Cotton Younger, have you?”
Longarm laughed and said, “That’s true enough, if I can lay my hands on the cuss, but who do YOu suggest I pick to fit my warrant?”