Lazy K cows and he matches them reward posters to the T!”
“I never stole cow one! Where in hell would I go with a stolen cow?”
“You saying you never had that running iron in your possibles, Son?”
“all right, I did have a length of bar-iron I sort of picked up along the way. That don’t prove all that much!”
“It proves you had the tools of the cow thief’s trade, God damn your eyes!”
Longarm had heard this same discussion almost every time he’d talked to a man in jail and it was tedious every time. He said, “What you done hereabouts ain’t the question, Mister Younger. I’ll be taking you to Denver to talk to the judge about some other matter.”
“God damn it, I ain’t Cotton Younger! My name is Jones. Billy Jones from Cripple Creek!”
“Jesus H. Christ, son, can’t you do better than Jones?”
“Hel, somebody has to be named Jones, don’t they?”
“How about James? Ain’t the Younger and the James boys kin?”
“How should I know? I ain’t kin to nobody named James or Younger. I’m just Billy Jones, from Cripple Creek, and everybody hereabouts is crazy!”
“Well, then, you got nothing to worry about when I carry you back to Denver, have you?”
“Why in hell do I want to go to Denver? I was on my way to Oregon when these crazy folks hereabouts damn near killed me and started calling me an outlaw! I don’t want to go to Denver!”
“‘Fraid you’re bound there, just the same. You answer the description and I’m just the errand boy, not the judge.” He turned to the jailer and said, “I got his papers right here. You want me to sign for him, Mister Wade?”
Pop Wade said, “Can’t let you have him. It ain’t my say who goes in or out of here, mister.”
“What are you talking about, you can’t let me have him? I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal with a Federal Warrant on this cuss, God damn it!”
“I don’t doubt that for a minute, mister. There’s a Canadian mountie, a Missouri Sheriff, and a whole posse of other lawmen over at the hotel who say the same thing. The committee says it ain’t made up it’s mind yet.”
“What committee, what mind, and about what?”
“Vigilance Committee of Crooked Lance. This here Cotton Younger is their prisoner until they says different. Ain’t nobody taking him no where ‘til Timberline and the others say it’s fitting.”
Longarm considered. He could take Younger away from the elderly jailer easily enough, and the hands out front would likely crawfish back long enough for the two of them to ride out. On the other hand, it was a long ride to the nearest place he’d be able to hold him safely.
Longarm shrugged and said, “I’d better have a talk with those other lawmen and this big hoorah called Timberline.”
The hotel in Crooked Lance wasn’t as fancy as the one in Bitter Creek. It wasn’t a hotel, in fact. The family who owned the general store and ran the post office and telegraph outlet had a livery shed and an extra lean-to partitioned into tiny, dirt-floored cubicles they rented to those few riders staying overnight in town. The family’s name was Stover and they were inclined to take a profit wherever one could be found. The hotel had a sort of veranda facing the muddy banks Of the valley stream on the far side from the one street. There, Longarm found another quartet of moody men, seated on barrels, or in one-case, pacing up and down. The man on his feet wore the scarlet tunic of the Northwest Mounted Police, trail-dusty and worn through at one elbow. The other three wore civilian clothes, but one had a star pinned to his lapel. As the storekeeper introduced Longarm to his fellow lawmen, the mountie asked, “Are you the person who just beat up a Canadian citizen?”
“‘Fraid so. Where’d they put old du Val? By the time I came out of the jailhouse they’d carried him off.”
“He’s inside, with a concussion. They told us you’d beaten him unconscious. I’d say you owe me an explanation, since I’m here on Her Majesty’s business and…”
One of the others said, “Oh, shut up and set down, damn it. you know he’s a U.S. Marshal!” To Longarm he added, “I’m Silas Weed, from Clay County, Missouri. This here’s Captain Walthers from the U.S. ArmY Provost Marshal’s office, and the gent with the big cigar is a railroad dick called Ryan.”
Longarm nodded and hooked a boot over the edge of the veranda as he said, “My outfit’s missing a deputy called Kincaid. Any of you met up with him?”
There was a general shaking of heads, which didn’t surprise Longarm. He turned to the one called Ryan and asked, “Are you from the same detective agency as a funny couple called Hanks, Mister Ryan? They said one of their agents was missing, too.”
Ryan grimaced around the stub of his cigar and growled, “Jesus. Are you talking about a female traveling with a dwarf?”
“Sounds like the same folks. You with their outfit or not?”
“God, no! Cedric Hanks and his wife work alone! They’re bounty hunters, not detectives! Where’d you run into them?”
“Bitter Creek, headed this way. You say the gal’s his wife?”
“Yeah, when he ain’t pretending to be her little kid. Ain’t that a bitch? They run con games when they’re not hunting down men with papers on ‘em. If you met up with that pair you’re lucky to have the fillings in your
