“I hadn’t run onto that story,” Longarm said. “But I’m ready to believe it.”
“You can believe it, all right! I knowed Jim before him and Belle got hitched, and afterwards too. And Belle knows I know. I don’t reckon she’d put up with me if I didn’t know more about her than she does about me.” An idea struck Longarm. He asked Yazoo, “If you know so much about Belle, maybe you can ease my mind a little bit, Yazoo. She roped me into this job, and I said I’d go in because, from the way Belle talks, she’s got strings in just about every town over on the other side of the Arkansas border, lawmen she claims she pays off to look the other way at her moonshining and selling stolen cattle. Is that just Belle blowing and bragging, or is it true?”
“It’s true enough, all right. Shit! I could name you names and tell you places-“
“I ain’t asking you to do that, Yazoo,” Longarm interrupted. “I don’t need to know anything except whether she’s told me a straight story about the law looking the other way while we pull off this job. That’s what bothers me right now.”
“Well, maybe Belle don’t pay off every sheriff or marshal or all their deputies from the Arkansas on up to the Neosho, and then on down to the Red. But she’s got enough of ‘em in her pocket so she can move around as free as she likes to, and get by with damn near anything she wants to pull.”
“Thanks, Yazoo. You’ve made me feel lots easier in MY mind.”
“You don’t need to worry,” the oldtimer assured him. “Y, hell’s bells, Windy! You don’t think I’d be sticking around here if it wasn’t the safest place I could find, do you? But I know, as long as I’m here at Younger’s Bend, there ain’t nobody going to touch me, because of Belle. And when a man gets to my age, he don’t much like the idea of going back to the pen.”
Longarm was absorbed in trying to formulate a plan. He replied absently, “Sure. You weren’t as old as you are now, that last time you got sent u-” He stopped short, and tried to swallow the words he’d just let fall so unthinkingly. The minute he saw Yazoo’s face, though he knew the damage had been done.
Yazoo was staring at Longarm, the light of belated recognition dawning in his eyes. Longarm could almost literally see the memories flooding back into Yazoo’s liquor-soaked brain.
“By God!” the old man said slowly. “That’s where it was I seen you before! It wasn’t in no outlaw’s roost, nor in no saloon, either!”
“Now hold up, Yazoo,” Longarm began.
“Hold up, my ass!” the old man went on. He wasn’t about to stop. “I seen you in a federal courtroom up in Wyoming Territory! Cheyenne it was, by God! The deputy that was guarding me pointed me out to you special!
You’re that federal marshal son of a bitch they used to call Longarm!”
“They still do, Yazoo,” Longarm said. He wasn’t worried about Yazoo jumping him. Age and liquor had robbed the old fellow of any real capacity to do any harm, and Longarm had never seen him wearing a gun.
“And you been skulking right here all this time!” Yazoo went on indignantly. “Acting like you was an owlhoot on the prod! Getting in on everything you got no business knowing about! You wait till I tell Belle and the rest of ‘em! You won’t last two minutes after they cut loose on you!”
“You’re not going to tell anybody anything, Yazoo,” Longarm said firmly.
He took a step toward Yazoo. The old fellow pulled out the wooden paddle he’d been using to stir the mash, and began to wave it threateningly.
“I might be old,” he said, “But I sure ain’t crippled. You’ll have to kill me to take me!”
“Listen to me, old man! I’m not after you! I don’t give a damn how much moonshine you stir up here. But I’ve got to shut you up, keep from spilling what You’ve figured out to Belle and the others.”
“Shoot me, then! That’s the only way you can shut me up!”
Longarm had been edging closer and closer to Yazoo, and the old man had been backing off, waving the paddle. Longarm feinted a rush to Yazoo’s left. The old moonshiner swung the paddle in that direction. Longarm stepped inside the swing with one long stride and grabbed the paddle. He wrested it away from Yazoo with one swift, twisting pull.
Yazoo struck at Longarm, who parried the wild swing with his arm. He grabbed Yazoo’s wrist and yanked him forward. Yazoo, already unsteady on his feet, would have fallen if Longarm hadn’t brought the arm he was holding up and around to keep him erect. He captured Yazoo’s free wrist and clamped one of his big hands over both of Yazoo’s.
“Now you keep quiet!” Longarm commanded. “They can’t hear you down at the house. It’s too far, so you might as well save your breath.”
“What You aiming to do with me?”
“Damn little I can do with you, Yazoo. I’m not interested in taking you in; all I want to do is shut you up for a while.” He shot a question suddenly. “Where’s Belle planning to pull this job, Yazoo?”
“Damned if I know!” Yazoo blurted.
Longarm decided his reply came too quickly for the old fellow to be lying. That was all he needed to know. He said, “I’m going to tie you up now. Don’t worry, I won’t do such a good job that you won’t be able to work free in an hour or so. By then we’ll all be gone, and as long as you don’t know where the job’s going to be, there ain’t a hell of a lot you can do to let Belle and the others know about me.”
Longarm looked around for rope. He saw none, but Yazoo’s bed stood in a corner of the stillhouse, a tangle of greasy blankets. Longarm pulled the old man over to the bed and sat him down on it. He ripped a blanket into strips and bound Yazoo, trying to tie him so that, with a little work and quite a lot of time, the moonshiner could work himself free.
Realizing that there was no way he could match Longarm’s strength, Yazoo put up no struggle. He said nothing until he saw that Longarm was preparing a gag, then he blurted, “I always swore I never would ask no favors of a lawman.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Longarm told him. “Hell, I don’t bear you any grudges, Yazoo. You’ve been real helpful to me.”
