“Billy Vail told me somebody’s been trying real hard to get Cole sprung out of the pen,” Longarm said. “I got the idea that’s one reason you two went to talk to him. You were afraid he might get out and join up with Jesse again.”
“No, damn it, no! We went to offer to let Younger out if he’d lead us to where Jesse and Frank are hiding right now. You know the prison grapevine, Long. I’m dead sure Younger could lead us to the James boys’ hideout. But he won’t. Said so, flat out. But you are right about one thing. It is Belle Starr who’s been trying to get Cole sprung. She’s been working at that ever since he got locked up. Even while she was married to Jim Reed and Blue Duck and whoever else she was really married to before she hitched up with Sam Starr. And she’s still trying, right this minute.”
“Blue Duck would be one of Belle’s husbands, I guess? Sounds to me like he’s an Indian.”
“Was Indian. Cherokee. So was her first husband—not counting Cole Younger, that is. Right after Cole left Texas, she married this breed, Jim Reed. And Starr’s part Cherokee, too.”
“I’d say Belle’s got a soft spot for Indian studs,” Longarm observed with a smile.
“She’s got a soft spot—and it’s right between her legs—for any man with a hard to poke in it,” Gower said.
“You think Jesse James ever poked into it?”
“He probably did, if she got him off alone with her,” Gower replied. Then he added, “When you come right down to it, Long, the only time we’re sure Belle ever saw Jesse was when Cole Younger took him to Texas on that visit he made to his family. And since it was that time when Cole and Belle first met, I doubt that Jesse had a look- in. There’s a rumor that Jesse hid out for a while at Belle’s place over in the Nation when she first moved there, but that’s the kind of rumor you come to look for when you’re dealing with the James boys. Shit! It wouldn’t surprise me if somebody started a rumor that Jesse’s disguised himself and got a job as one of my deputies!”
“I guess folks are willing to believe almost anything about the Jameses,” Longarm commented.
“Looks that way,” Gower agreed. “To get back to what I was telling you, Jim Reed got killed in a shootout down in Texas, and Blue Duck married Belle the other way around—and a little while after that, Blue Duck got bushwhacked and killed. Then Belle took up with a bad one by the name of Jack Spaniard, but he made some mistakes that put him on the wrong end of a hangman’s rope. Her last one before Sam Starr was a burglar, Jim French, but he got shot while he was trying to break into a store. That brings us up to when Belle married Sam Starr.”
Longarm’s whistle when Gower paused was low and long-drawn. “I’d say the lady really has bad luck with the men she picks out. If she was to wag her butt my way, I’d pass her by.”
“If you had any sense, you’d do that after you took one look at her,” Gower told him. “Now, Sam Starr’s part Cherokee, as I mentioned. He’s got a land allotment from the tribe down at the south end of the Cherokee Strip, on the Canadian, close to a little town called Eufaula. That’s where he and Belle make their headquarters now. They call it Younger’s Bend.”
“Named for Cole Younger, I take it?”
“Oh, I’m sure Belle picked out the name. I told you, she’s still got a soft spot for Cole. They’ve built a house there, and a few cabins. Our trouble is, the lay of the land makes it just about impossible for us to watch the place. The river’s on one side, with high bluffs running down to the water, the house on top of the bluffs, and a little narrow valley the only way to get to the place. Maybe you’ll be better than my boys at figuring out a way to scout the place when you get there.” Longarm said mildly, “I didn’t know I was going there.”
“You do now,” Gower retorted.
“It’s all the same to me, where I go,” Longarm said levelly. “Or who I bring in. What’s this Belle Starr wanted for?”
Gower snorted, “Hell! I don’t want Belle. She’s a nobody, and so is Sam. They’re out now on bail on a cattle-rustling charge. If I wanted them, I’d just have them picked up. That’s the biggest charge I could hold them on, though. No, Long, it’s that bunch of crooks who use the Starr place as a hideout that I’m after. Half the men on my wanted list right now work out of Younger’s Bend. About all Belle does is give them a safe place to hide out and help them get rid of what they steal.”
“She’s a fence, then, instead of a bandit queen?”
“Of course. If I wanted Belle, I could have her picked up any time she rides into Fort Smith on that big black horse she fancies. Oh, Belle puts on a real show! Dolls herself up in a long velvet dress, wears a pair of ivory-handled, silver-plated Smith & Wessons. But it’s all blow and no go with Belle, except when it comes to getting rid of the loot her boarders bring in.”
“It’d help if I knew what kind of loot she deals in,” Longarm suggested.
“Cattle, mostly,” Gower replied. “Some jewelry and trinkets from burglaries and stagecoach stickups. Except for the cattle, Belle doesn’t handle much but penny-ante stuff. The owlhoots that use Younger’s Bend as a hideout—well, that’s another matter. They’re waist-deep in damn near everything. Bank robberies, train holdups, stagecoach stickups, rustling, you name it. Belle’s only dangerous because she provides them with a place to hole up between jobs, and helps them get rid of what they’ve stolen.”
“If the place is as bad as you say, it looks to me like your best bet would be just to go in with a good force and clean it out,” Longarm suggested. “After all, it’s in your jurisdiction.”
“I didn’t ask you for advice, Long. Apparently you don’t know much about our jurisdictional problem in this district. You ought to, damn it. Billy told me you’d had some assignments in the Nation.”
“Two or three. Sure, I know the Indian police force has got the primary jurisdiction, and they don’t like outside lawmen coming in, even when they’re federals, like we are. I’ve run into that in the cases I’ve handled there. I know that about the only time we can go into the Indian Nation without being invited is when we’re on a chase after some owlhoot who’s just committed a crime covered in federal statutes.”
“That’s the shifty part of it!” Gower growled. “So far, we haven’t had a chance to go after any of the Younger’s Bend bunch in a hot-pursuit situation. But there’s more to the Younger’s Bend mess than that. Sam Starr or Belle—and I guess it was Belle’s idea, because she’s got most of the brains—worked out some kind of deal with the Cherokee Tribal Council. Belle calls it a treaty, which would put Younger’s Bend on a level with the U.S. as an independent nation. The treaty says that the Younger’s Bend bunch won’t pull off anything in the Cherokee Strip if the Indian Police will leave them alone. Hell, Long, I’ll never get an invitation from the police over there to come in,
