days.”
He went on outside and started for the barn, where his horse was still hitched to the pole. Before he’d gotten well off the porch, Belle called to him. She came up to him when he stopped and turned around.
“Don’t be too quick with your gun if you hear somebody walking around after dark. I usually take a little stroll before I go to bed, walk down to the bluff and look at the river in the moonlight, or just go around making sure everything’s all right.”
“I see.” Longarm saw only too well. “All right, Belle. I’D be careful.”
“You do that. Because if you hear anybody, it’ll just be me. I always like to be sure my guests are comfortable.” She paused and added in a suggestive whisper, “Comfortable, and well-cared-for, too. I’ll see you later, then.”
Longarm stood looking at Belle’s back as she walked to the house.
In the fading light that trickled through the paneless window and the open door, Longarm surveyed the interior of the cabin. It was tiny, but its very bareness made it look larger than it was.
A pair of narrow bunks were attached to opposite walls at one end; they were bare except for thin mattresses, and the straw with which the mattresses were stuffed protruded here and there through holes in the ticking. The bunks had no Pillows. At the other end of the bleak, uninviting room stood the inevitable monkey stove, a low sheet-iron oval fed through a door in one end, with a single pothole on its top for cooking. A table and two chairs completed the furnishings, An oil lamp stood on the table, and the water bucket Sam Starr had mentioned was behind the stove.
Longarm studied the window. It had no outside shutters, and its location, high in the end wall between the two bunks, made both of them vulnerable. Anybody tall enough to stick a gun through the window could rain bullets on either bunk while the thick timber walls protected him from return fire.
You better sit down and do a little bit of thinking about this mess you walked into, old son, Longarm told himself.
He lighted the lamp, just in case anybody in the house glanced down that way, took the partly full bottle of Maryland rye and his gun-cleaning kit from his saddlebags, and went back into the cabin. As an afterthought, he went back out and fixed in his mind the locations of the cabins occupied by Floyd, Steed, and Bobby. Neither of them was more than a dozen yards away. Back in the cabin, he leaned back in the sturdier of its two straight chairs, lighted a cheroot, and let a swallow of rye trickle down his throat.
If I aim to sleep on one of them bunks tonight, he thought, chances are I just might not wake up tomorrow morning. Not with Floyd doing everything but coming right out and saying he figures to cut me down first chance he gets.
He took another conservative sip of the whiskey, and began to clean his Colt. And then there’s Belle, his thoughts ran on. She’s made it right plain she’s got plans to drop in during the night, and that’s one lady I got to be one hell of a lot hornier than I am right now to give stud service to. Except, if I aim to stay here until I dig out what Floyd’s cooking up, I can’t afford to make her mad and have her hand me my walking papers.
Before considering the alternatives to a night in the cabin, Longarm had another swallow of the rye. After the corn squeezings he’d had before supper, he needed the sharp bite of the rye to clear his throat. Then he carefully reloaded his revolver and holstered it.
Now, I could go sleep up at the stillhouse, but it’s a toss-up which smells worse, Yazoo or the barrels of corn mash he’s bound to have fermenting up there.
There’s the main house, but if Belle’s taken a notion to come crawl in with me, she’d be likely to do it there, even with Sam asleep in the next room.
The thing for you to do, old son, is bunk in the barn. Good clean hay’s going to smell better than either one of them mattresses. If anybody comes prowling, chances are one of the horses’ll nicker. If Belle don’t find me here, she’ll likely figure I decided to sleep out in case Floyd might take a notion to pay me back during the night for shooting Mckee.
Having made up his mind, Longarm saw no need to hurry. He sat quietly until he’d finished his cigar; there’d be no smoking during the night in the barn, with the hay he’d glimpsed piled high along one wall ready to go up in flames if touched by a match or an unextinguished cigar butt. It was fully dark when he blew out the lamp and led his horse back to the barn. Moving quietly, he led the hammerhead bay into the barn and tethered it, then went to stand at one corner of the house. There was no need to get very close, or strain his ears, to hear the conversation going on inside. Floyd was saying, “God damn it, Yazoo, think harder! You got to remember where you seen this Windy fellow before!”
“I’ve tried all I got the power to.” Yazoo’s voice was tired and his words slurred. “I told you twenty times, it could’ve been just about anyplace. I tossed the names of a lot of places at him, but he didn’t remember, either.”
“Now listen, Yazoo,” Steed began, but Yazoo had apparently had enough questioning.
“No, Steed. I ain’t flogging my brain for you men another minute. Not tonight, at least. I got a batch of mash cooking, and I’m going up and stir it good, and then I’m going to bed.”
Longarm stepped back into the shadow of the barn while Yazoo staggered across the narrow porch, managed to navigate the steps without falling down them, and started weaving toward the grove of trees in which the illegal still stood.
Belle’s voice broke the silence next. “Why are you so set on finding out about Windy, Floyd? He seems all right to me. And I’m like Yazoo; I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen him before. Maybe when I was riding with Jim Reed down in Texas, or somewhere else.”
Steed grumbled, “He’s with us now, Belle, and if we’re his own kind, how come he don’t open up more?”
“Because he’s careful!” Belle snapped.
“Just the same, he ought to open up a little bit more. Hell, he could be anybody, for all we know!” Floyd
