suit.”
Clell Martin licked his lips. He said, “That’s right, Running Wolf He’s a long knife, just sure as shootin’. Never mind about the uniform, he just ain’t got it on, but he’s a long knife just the same. How you want to finish him off? You want to scalp him alive?”
Longarm said, more to satisfy his own curiosity than anything else, “I see how you did it now. You both did it. Virgil shot the trooper on the south road and you shot the troopers on the north. Isn’t that right, Clell?”
“What you know and what you hear ain’t never gonna be told, so it don’t make a damn. Besides, we’re mighty proud of what we’ve done.”
Virgil Castle said, “My daddy hates them blue bellies. My daddy wants them blue bellies to leave. I want to please my daddy. I killed them blue bellies.”
Clell Martin said, “You damn right you did, Running Wolf. You done real good.”
Virgil Castle asked, “This blue belly? This man blue belly?”
Clell Martin said, “Yeah, Running Wolf. He’s a blue belly. He may be the worst blue belly of all of them. You want him with your knife like you did the one in the alley?”
Longarm said, “So you killed all six?”
Clell Martin said, “It’s fixin’ to be seven.”
Longarm asked, “Can you spare me a few minutes, Mr. Martin? If you are intent on killing me, the least you can do would be to tell me why you went about it and how you went about it. I mean, I’m kinda curious. I mean, I’m the one that’s come out on this black night. I’m the one that came up here. Mr. Martin, you forget that I could have shot you while you were leaning over that rock firing on the fort and I didn’t do it. So I think the least you owe me is an explanation.”
All the while he was talking, Longarm had hung both thumbs in his gunbelt. His right thumb was very carefully working the handle of his derringer up into the palm of his hand. It was going to be a poor weapon in the dark and at the three-or four-yard range that the two men faced him from, but it was the only weapon that he had left.
He said, “It seems to me it’s the least you could do for a man you are considering killing. And by the way, I am not a Yankee. I’m from Colorado. I never had anything to do with the Civil War.”
Clell Martin exploded. He said, “Goddammit, don’t call it the Civil War, you Yankee sonofabitch. It was the War of the Confederacy. Any fool knows that.”
Longarm said placatingly, “All right, all right, all right. The War of the Confederacy. But will you still tell me about the soldiers here? Tell me why Virgil did what he did? I think I understand why you did what you did.”
Martin looked undecided. He glanced over at Virgil, then said, “Well, maybe I owe you that much for not back-shooting me, which is what most Yankee dogs would have done.”
For about three minutes, he sketched out the murders that had occurred over a two-month period. He ended by saying, “And now you are going to be the last. I am fixin’ to set this Indian loose on you. How do you want to do it, Running Wolf? Do you want to just skin him alive, or do you want to take him straight in the belly, Running Wolf? Remember, this is the long knife that put your daddy in jail. Matter of fact, I have it on mighty good authority that he is the one that done it. He’s done the same as admit it to me. He’s the marshal. He’s the worst of the long knives. In fact, he may have already kilt your daddy.”
By now, Longarm had worked the derringer up so that he had it concealed in the palm of his right hand. At the words from Clell Martin about killing his daddy, Virgil Castle began a low growl in his throat. His head came down and his arms went out from his sides. The skinning knife was in his right hand. He began making animal noises.
Clell Martin said, “Go get him, Indian. Go get him, Running Wolf, he’s yours.”
Longarm had his back pressed up against a boulder. He didn’t want to take the rush of the young man with no room to give, so as Virgil Castle started toward him, he stepped forward, hoping to be able to catch the wildly swinging knife arm in his left hand. They came together a yard from where Longarm had been standing. Longarm missed his grab at the arm. He felt the knife slice into his left bicep. He didn’t know how deep he was cut. All he knew was that, regretfully, he had no choice. He had the derringer pressed right against the breastbone of the young man.
He pulled the trigger. There was a loud explosion and the young man slumped.
As quickly as he could, Longarm grabbed him under the arms despite his own wounded arm, holding him up as protection from the shot that Clell Martin fired from his Navy Colt. The shot took Virgil Castle in the back. It saved Longarm’s life. Longarm had his right arm stretched under the dead young man’s armpit. It was a long shot in the gloomy darkness, but he fired straight at Clell Martin. The .38 slug hit him in the chest.
For a second nothing happened except that Clell Martin got a surprised look on his face. Then the Colt fell from his fingers and dropped to the ground. For a moment, he just stood there and then, very slowly, he crumpled.
With a sigh, Longarm let the body of Virgil Castle slide to the ground. Before he did anything else, he searched the ground and quickly found his .44 revolver. The two-shot derringer was all used up.
Keeping the revolver pointed at Clell Martin, he went over to the old man. He stood over him. It was difficult to see in the dark so he nudged him with the toe of his boot. Martin didn’t move. Longarm reached down and felt his heart. His hand came away sticky with blood. He wiped it on the old man’s shirt. He was dead.
He got up and slowly moved around the top of the butte until he located his rifle. Holding it straight up, he fired three quick shots into the air. He paused, then fired three quick additional shots. It was the traditional close- on-me signal of the cavalry.
After that, he went over and slumped down on a rock next to the body of Clell Martin. He felt very drained and very sad. He could feel the blood from the knife slash trickling down his left arm. He didn’t think it was very bad. He flexed it a few times and it seemed to work all right. Apparently his muscles hadn’t been cut across, just sliced downward. It was, he thought, a shame, a damn shame. Eight men were dead. Eight men had died because of one man’s greed, one man’s confusion, and another man’s revengeful insanity. It was a sad commentary on the whole state of affairs.
