“When Taylor told you about this job he was coming up here for, did he give you any idea where it was going to be pulled off?”
“No. I-I don’t think Lonnie really trusted me to keep my mouth shut about things like that. He didn’t even tell me where we were going until after he got shot. Then he knew I had to know how to find Younger’s Bend, in case he might not be able to tell me later.”
“And he didn’t tell you anything about Floyd or Steed, either?”
“Just their names. Except that he didn’t mention the young one—Bobby, isn’t that his name?”
“Yes. I don’t reckon Floyd would put a whole lot in a letter. Letters have got a way of getting lost, or going to somebody they weren’t supposed to.”
“Why, Windy? Why are you asking me all these things?”
“Just curious, Dolly. But I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll make a dicker with you, if you’re interested.”
“What kind of dicker?”
“You already said you want to get away from Younger’s Bend. I’ll see that you do that, tomorrow or the next day, and see you on a train with enough money to pay your way to Texarkana or wherever you want to go, and a little bit extra.”
“And what do you want me to do in return?”
“For one thing, I want you to keep Belle Starr off me.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Act like you’re getting a case on me, falling for me. If I got Belle judged right, she’s not going to be so hot after me if there’s somebody younger and prettier than her giving her competition.”
“You said that’s one part of the deal. What’s the rest of it?”
“Pester me to take you to Fort Smith, to buy you some new clothes and pretties.”
“Why?”
Longarm shook his head. “If we’re going to deal, you’ve got to take my part of it on trust. I won’t say why.”
Dolly thought about Longarm’s offer for a moment. Then she nodded. “All right, Windy. I’ll hang onto your arm and make sheep-eyes at you whenever we’re around Belle. That won’t be hard to do, but I’ll enjoy it all the more because Belle’s the kind of woman she is. And I’ll certainly keep telling you that I want to go to Fort Smith, because I’d go just about anywhere to get away from Younger’s Bend, and the sooner the better.”
“We got a deal, then, you and me,” Longarm said. “Oh. One more thing. If you’ll take special note of any names you might hear Belle or Sam or Floyd or—well, any of them—any names they might let drop when I’m not around, try to remember and pass them on to me.”
“Just any kind of names?”
“That’s right, Dolly. People or places or whatever.”
The request plainly puzzled her, but she nodded. “All right. I guess that’s not too hard to do.”
“Good.” Longarm glanced out the door. The sun was already dropping down the sky toward late afternoon. “Now, I’ll tell you what. I don’t want to spend any time up at the house before supper. If you’d like to, we could walk down to the river and take a look at it, or throw rocks in the water, or whatever. Or we can stay here in the cabin and talk till supper, whichever you’d rather do.”
“Why can’t we talk while we watch the river?”
“No reason I can see why we shouldn’t.”
“Then lets walk down to the river.”
They spent two pleasant hours talking of nothing Much, just letting time flow by, sitting on the bluff above the Canadian, tossing in a rock and now and then a twig, just to see what the river’s uncertain currents did with it. When the sun dipped below the trees around them and began to shoot horizontal rays through the spaces between the trunks, Longarm said, “We better go on back. I didn’t eat anything at noon, and my belly’s telling me about it.”
“You missed eating on my account, Windy,” Dolly said self-accusingly. “I was telling you all my troubles when you should have been up at the house getting your meal.”
“You were feeling right low about that time,” Longarm said. “It looked to me like you needed somebody to listen to you a lot more than I needed vittles.”
“I was still being Susanna Mudgett then. I was feeling sorry for myself. I couldn’t quite make up my mind whether I’d stay Susanna or go back to being Dolly.”
“I didn’t look at it quite that way,” Longarm said thoughtfully. “But I sure noticed how you changed when you decided to be Dolly.”
“It’s made me feel so good, I can even stand going up to the Starr’s house to eat, even with Belle buzzing around. And I’m getting hungry, thinking about supper, so let’s go.”
As they reached the cluster of cabins, the door to Floyd’s cabin opened, and Floyd came out and walked toward them. Longarm was just about to tell Dolly to be ready to get out of the way if she saw Floyd going for his gun, when the outlaw stopped and spread his arms wide, his hands at mid-thigh. He was not wearing a gun.
Floyd raised his voice and called, “I want to talk to you a minute, Windy.”
Longarm waited until there was only a gap of five or six feet between them before he asked, “You mean, talk private?”
“Yeah. Just you and me.” Longarm said to Dolly, “You go ahead up to the house. I’ll follow along as soon
