“I’m not sure. Couple of folk was setting me up to get killed. Before that, they told me plans were afoot to do the same for you. Could have been true. Could have been another lie. As you see, it don’t make no nevermind, now.”
“You’re the federal man called Longarm, ain’t YOU? Am I ever glad to see you! You see, it’s all a misunderstanding, so you can take these irons off me, now.”
“That’ll be the day, boy. You’re wearing them cuffs till I have you safe in federal custody, which just might take a while. I’ll help you when you have to eat or take a leak. You ain’t the first man I’ve rode like this with, Younger.”
“God damn it, my name is Jones!”
“Whatever. Like I said, that ain’t my job. I was sent to transport you back to Denver, and since both of our critters are still breathing, we’d best be on our way. Hold onto the cantle with your fingers if that McClellan’s not your style. Didn’t you ride a McClellan when you were with Terry on the Rosebud, a few years back?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never deserted from no army!”
“Now, did I say anything about desertion? You stick to any yarn you aim to.”
“It ain’t no yarn, God damn it! You got the wrong man!”
“Well, if I find out I have, once we get you before a judge in Denver, I’ll apologize like a gent to you. Meanwhile, Jones, James, Younger, or whomsoever, that’s where you and me are headed, come hell, high water, or a full Sioux uprising!”
Longarm was tough. Ten times tougher than the good Lord made most men, but his prisoner was only human, and the horses were only horses. By sunup, he could see he was running all into the ground and reined to a halt in a tangle of bigleaf maple. He helped his prisoner down and Cotton Younger simply fell to the damp leves and closed his eyes, falling asleep on his side with his raw, chained wrists behind him. Longarm removed the bits from the animals’ pink-foamed mouths after hobbling each with a length of latigo leather. He didn’t think either one was in condition to walk away, let alone run, but a front hoof lashed to a hind would discourage them from bolting, should they get their wind back before he was ready to move on.
He’d watered both mounts an hour before dawn at a chance run of snow-melt, so they were happy to drop their heads and graze the hurt from their muzzles in the sweet-scented orchard grass and wild onion growing in the dappled shade. He unsaddled both, spread the saddle blankets over tree limbs for the wind to dry, then found a patch of sunlight where he placed the saddles bottoms-up. Some said it wasn’t good for the sweat-soaked leather, but Longarm had heard that those little bugs Professor Pasteur was writing about over in France, weren’t partial to sun baths. He’d risk a cracked saddle skirt against a festered saddle sore any day. He’d started this play by riding out with the two best mounts he knew of in Crooked Lance. He was depending on keeping them that way.
Captain Walthers’s tall mount, after eating a few bites of greenery, was already leaning against a tree trunk, head down and eyes closed. The army man hadn’t fed it enough oats for its size, most likely. The older army bay he’d borrowed from the remount section he had picked because he looked like a tough one, and he seemed to be living up to Longarm’s hopes. He was nearly worn out, but still stuffing his gut like the wise old cuss he was. there was no telling when they’d be taking a break in such good grazery again.
Longarm considered the wild onion and other herbage as he rubbed both mounts down with Captain Walthers’s spare cotton drawers from the saddle bags the fool had left attached. Here in the shade it was choice and green, but hardly touched, except for an occasional rabbit-nibble. Longarm saw the healed-over trunk scars where a long-dead elk had rubbed the velvet from his antlers on a good day to fight for love. Once, a grizzly had sharpened his claws on a tree beyond. The sign was fresher. Maybe from early that spring. Longarm patted his mount’s rump and said, “Yep, we’re on virgin range, oldtimer. Don’t know just where in hell it is, but nobody’s run cows through here in living memory.”
Leaving all three of his charges for the moment, Longarm circled through the shapeless mass of timber, fixing its layout in his mind for possible emergencies. He came to an outcropping of granite, studied it, and decided it would be a waste of time to climb up for a looksee. Even if the top rose above the surrounding treetops, which it didn’t, there’d be nothing to see worth mentioning. The land was flattening out as they approached the south-pass country. If a posse from Crooked Lance had found their trail yet, it would be too far back to be visible on gently rolling timberland. Longarm went back to the sleeping prisoner, grabbed him by the heels, and dragged him over to the outcropping, as he half-awoke, complaining, “What the hell?”
“Ain’t smart to bed down next to the critters.” Longarm explained, adding, “Horses nicker to one another at a distance. I figure that if ours get to calling back and forth with others skulking in on us… never mind. If you knew a damn thing about camping in unfriendly country you’d have never got caught by folks who weren’t even looking for you.”
He placed the prisoner on dry forest duff, strode over to the granite outcropping, and hunkered down with his back against its gray wall, bracing the Winchester across his lap with his knees up, folding his arms across them, and lowering his head for forty winks, Mexican style. He’d almost dozed off when the prisoner called out, “I can’t sleep with my hands behind me like this, damn it!”
“You can sleep standing on your head if you’re really tired, boy. Now put a sock in it and leave me be. I’m a mite tuckered myself, and by the way, I’m a light sleeper. You move from there in the next half hour or so and you’ll be buried a yard from wherever I find YOU.”
“Listen, lawman, you’re treating an innocent man cruel and unusual!”
“Shut up. I don’t aim to say that twice.”
Longarm dozed off. He might just have rested his mind a few minutes. It wasn’t important, as long as it worked. In about an hour he lifted his head, saw the prisoner was where he’d last seen him, and felt ready to face the world again.
But he was not an unreasonable taskmaster. Longarm knew others might still be tuckered while he was feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so he let the prisoner snore as he smoked a cheroot all the way down, chewing on his own thoughts. He had no way of knowing some things, but when in doubt, it paid a man to consider the worst, so he tried to decide just how bad things could possibly be. The idea that the others had simply given up never crossed his mind.
The midget and his woman had sold them out. The reason could wait for now. Timberline and the Crooked
