Longarm said, “I’ll join you in a little nip, sure.”
Starr pulled a bottle out of a wooden KC Baking Powder box, one of several nailed to the wall at one side of the stove to form a rough sort of kitchen cabinet. He found glasses, Put them on the table, and filled them.
Longarm tasted the liquor. It was raw at the edges, and corn whiskey wasn’t much to his fancy, but he downed it and said, “Real good stuff, Starr. You do the distilling?”
“Mostly, me and Yazoo. Belle’s busy with other things.”
Yazoo had finished his drink while Longarm was still tasting. He filled his glass again and held the bottle out to Longarm, who shook his head.
Yazoo urged, “Come on, Windy. One more never hurt a man.”
“After awhile.” Longarm said, then turned to Starr. “Quite a place you got here. Good and private.”
“That’s what everybody says. Good for business, you know.”
Longarm was studying Starr as the Bandit Queen’s husband moved around the stove, lifting a Pot lid, shoving in a fresh stick of wood. Starr was a slight man, and on the short side. Except for his movements, which were swift and sure, and his toed-in walk, he showed no signs of his Cherokee ancestry. Longarm judged that the Indian blood Starr had was pretty well diluted after a hundred years or so of his tribe’s intermarriages with whites, blacks, Spaniards—racial discrimination wasn’t a Cherokee trait.
Starr’s features were regular, his nose a bit broad at the nostrils, his lips full. His face was long rather than square, his chin small and slightly receding. He was clean-shaven, but wore his hair long, brushed straight back to fall just above his shoulders. The hair was not Indian-black, but had a slight auburn tinge. It was perfectly straight, though, and somewhat coarse. Yazoo was Pouring himself another drink. He extended the bottle to Longarm again. “You better keep up, Windy. About all a man-” He stopped short and cocked his head to one side, listening.
Longarm listened too. The thrumming of hooves was coming in through the open door. Three or four horses, as closely as Longarm could tell. The hoofbeats grew steadily louder.”
“Must be Belle and the boys coming back,” Starr volunteered.
Voices trickled in from outside. Longarm swiveled his chair around to face the door more squarely.
A woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall, her height emphasized by the long green velvet dress she wore; the dress was full-skirted, and its hem swept the floor. She had on a man’s Stetson, cream-colored, uncreased; one side of the brim was pulled up and pinned to the crown with a plume of ostrich feathers dyed green to match the dress. What drew Longarm’s attention was the pair of silver-plated, pearl-handled pistols that she wore high around her waist.
She looked at Longarm with obsidian-black eyes and asked, “Who in hell are you?”
“It’s all right, Belle,” Sam said quickly. “His name is Windy, and he’s looking for a place to stay. Yazoo knows him, he spoke up for him.”
“Yazoo. Is that right, Yazoo? Do you know this dude?”
“From someplace, Belle. He’s one of our kind of folks.” The old man’s speech was growing blurred.
Behind Belle, a young man stood in the doorway, his arms filled with twine-wrapped bundles. He pushed his way past her and moved toward the stove. “Here’s the flour and stuff you wanted, Sam,” he said, beginning to deposit the packages on the floor.
Another man appeared in the doorway. Belle had come into the house by now, and Longarm had a good view of the newcomer. He recognized him just as the man saw him sitting there. His name was Mckee, and Longarm had brought him in for a bank holdup almost two years ago. Now Longarm saw recognition springing into Mckee’s face.
“Why, damn you!” Mckee blurted. He was clawing for his gun as he spoke. “You dirty son of a bitch! I told you I’d get-“
Longarm’s Colt blasted a split second before Mckee had his revolver leveled. A dime-sized hole appeared in the outlaw’s forehead. He grimaced as he began crumpling to the floor. He was dead before he finished falling.
Longarm completed the turn he’d started when he leaped from his chair to draw on Mckee. The move brought Belle Starr and Sam under the menace of the colt’s still-smoking muzzle. Belle had her right-hand pistol halfway out of its holster and Sam was starting toward the wall, where his rifle rested on pegs, when Longarm spoke.
“Everybody just stand still. I got no grudges against anybody else around here. Me and Mckee had a score to settle, you heard him say so. Turned out it was settled my way. Now it’s over and done with, and I don’t aim to pull the trigger again unless one of you makes me do it.”
Silence greeted his announcement. Out of the corner of his eye, Longarm could see Yazoo sitting at the end of the table, his whiskey-glazed eyes not really taking in what had happened. Sam Starr had obeyed the command to freeze, and so had the young man who’d brought in the packages. And so, for that matter, had Belle Starr, but she still had a hand on her revolver’s grips. Longarm fixed her with his stony gaze and she opened her hand, letting the pistol slide back into its holster.
Belle said, “Regardless of what your argument was with Mckee, I don’t like to have strangers showing up here and killing my boarders. Yazoo said your name’s Windy. Suppose you tell us the rest of it, and explain what you’re doing here.”
“Windy’s all the name I need, right now,” Longarm replied. “it was something personal between Mckee and me. Goes back quite a while. You heard what he said and you saw him draw. I was just sitting there, not going for my gun, when he grabbed.”
“So I noticed,” Belle said dryly. “Whoever you are, Windy, You’ve got a quick hand. What was your argument with Mckee about?”
