“Ain’t rightly sure just what he’s up to, but I got a charge that will stick, if I could get him before a judge.”
“I see. And you think I’d be fool enough to transport him back to civilization, leaving you with one less of us to contend with?”
“Hell, you’re not about to get Cotton Younger. Why not take in at least some damn prisoner and let me share the credit with you?”
“Longarm, you really should have gone into the snake oil business! Are you telling me any truth at all? I’ll bite. Who’s our suspect, and when are you going to arrest him?”
“Pretty soon. Are you aiming to help?”
“Help you arrest a man on a federal charge, certainly. Transport him out of here for you? Never!”
“Well, it was worth a try. Make sure you get that hind shoe. It looks like your walker’s picked up a stone.”
As he stepped outside, Walthers followed. “Not so fast. I’d like to know what you’re up to.”
“Since you ain’t helping, it ain’t your nevermind, Captain.”
“You intend to take him alone?”
“Generally do. We’ll talk about it after.”
Leaving the army man watching, bemused, Longarm hunted down the Mountie and repeated his request. The Canadian lawman’s response wasn’t much different. He was willing to back a fellow officer’s arrest, but he had no intention of leaving Crooked Lance without Cotton Younger. Longarm decided he’d never met such stubborn Men. He strolled back to the veranda and hunkered down, sitting on the edge, as he pondered his next move. He knew he didn’t intend to ride out with any prisoner but the one they’d sent him for. On the other hand, he couldn’t just let his intended victim run free much longer. The man was dangerous, and Longarm had no idea what his play was. You eat an apple a bite at a time, and the prisoner in the jail would likely keep for now.
He saw that the midget detective and his wife were over by the stream-side. Cedric, for some reason, was skipping rocks across the water. Likely it came from pretending to be a little boy most places they went.
Sheriff Weed was seated in a barrel chair down at the far end, smoking a cigar and digesting his cast-iron buckwheats. Longarm half turned, still seated, and said, “I’ve been going over what you said about Kid Antrim, Weed.”
“Do tell? Thought you said you wasn’t after him right now.”
“Ain’t. I’ve been counting strikes. I’d say knowing one of Billy the Kid’s less written-up handles makes it strike three. You mind telling me who the hell you are?”
Weed suddenly rose from the chair frowning through a cloud of tobacco smoke as he asked, “Strike what? What in tarnation’s got into you? I told you I was Sheriff Weed of Clay County, Missouri!”
“That was strike one. I didn’t see why a county sheriff would ride all the way out here in person, ‘stead of sending a deputy, in an election year. But, like I said, that was just strike one. You coulda been a dumb sheriff from Missouri.”
“I don’t like being called dumb, but have your full say, son.”
“All right. Last afternoon, over by the jailhouse, you called Chambrun du Val an hombre. That was strike two, Weed. Folks from Missouri don’t call men hombres. That’s Southwest talk. Maybe Texas or New Mexico. But, what the hell, you could have picked it up from Ned Buntline’s magazine or somebody you rode with one time, and anyway, you don’t call a man out on two strikes, so I waited till you let that slip about the Lincoln County War, down in the Southwest…”
The man calling himself Sheriff Weed went for the S&W at his side. He didn’t make it. Longarm fired, sitting, with the derringer he’d been holding in his lap, then dove headfirst and rolled across the grass, whipping out his sixgun as he bounded to his feet, dancing sideways as he trained it at the end of the veranda.
Then he stopped and lowered the unfired.44, knowing he didn’t have to use it now. The man called Weed was spread-eagled in the dust beyond the end of the planks, his heels up on the veranda with his hat between them. As Longarm moved over to stare soberly down at the glazed eyes staring sightlessly up at him, he was joined by the other two lawmen and the odd detective team.
Captain Walthers gasped, “My God! Did you have to kill him?” and the Mountie shouted, “You can’t be serious! I know that man! He’s the sheriff of Clay County, Missouri!”
Longarm shook his head and said, “Not hardly. Maybe something on him or in his possibles can tell us who he really was.”
As Longarm knelt to go through the dead man’s pockets, a bunch of local cowhands and Kim Stover ran around the corner of the building. The storekeeper, himself, came out cursing, but with neither his wife nor his daughter in evidence.
At the same time, Timberline rounded the cluster of buildings on the far side, gun in hand. He slowed down as he took in what had happened and approached the crowd around Longarm saying, “What did he do, Longarm? Call you a boy?”
Captain Walthers said, “Longarm, I hope you had a federal charge against that man. As the senior federal officer here…”
“Oh, don’t tell us all you’re dumb, Captain. Let us figure some things out for ourselves. Of course I had a charge. it’s a federal offense to impersonate an elected official, which a sheriff is. The badge he had pinned on his vest says ‘Sherriff,’ but it don’t say what county, Clay or otherwise. Man can pick a toy badge up in most any pawnshop. He’s got nothing with a name on it in his wallet. What’s this?”
Longarm unfolded a sheet of stiff paper he’d taken from the dead man’s breast pocket and spread it on Weed’s chest. Kim Stover gasped and said, “Oh, dear, it’s got blood on it.”
“Yes ma’am. Bullet went through it. It’s a telegram, federal flyer sent to every law office worth mention a week or more ago. This particular one’s addressed to the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe. Likely where this feller
