“No. I never lied about that part. I’ve been alone since my partner got caught up near the Great Northern line. I was working my way south to meet some other rustlers… all right, cow thieves, in Bitter Creek. You was right about that running iron being foolish, but I never expected to get caught with it.”
“Most folks don’t. Tell me about your friends in Bitter Creek. Does one of ‘em pack a.30-30 rifle?”
“Don’t suspicion so. I can’t tell you their names. It’s against our code.”
“The rifle’s all I care about. You reckon them other cow thieves waiting for you in Bitter Creek would be serious enough to gun some folks? Say a Missouri sheriff’s deputy or a U.S. Deputy Marshal?”
“Hell, they likely took off like big-ass birds when I got caught. Don’t you reckon?”
“Maybe. That’s part of the cow thief’s code, too. I want you to think before you lie to me about this, boy. I won’t press you about who these friends of yours was if you’ll tell me one true. Was any one of ‘em from Missouri?”
“No. I ain’t giving anything away by telling you one was from Nebraska like me. The other was a Mormon boy from Salt Lake City.”
“Hmm, if I buy that, neither would have reason to pick off folks who knew their way around Clay County. You’d best rest a mite. I don’t like the way you’re breathing.”
Longarm sat silently in the dark, digesting what the dying youth had told him. He assumed that most of what his prisoner had told him might be true. But someone had gunned two lawmen from Missouri and at least one man who knew the James boys on sight.
It couldn’t be Frank or Jesse James. He’d managed to get at least a glimpse of everyone in or about Crooked Lance and the James boys were not only better at holdups than acting, but were known to Longarm at a glance. He’d studied the photographs of both men more than once.
The prisoner gasped, “Longarm, do you reckon there’s really a place like hell?”
“Don’t know. Never planned on going there if I could help it.”
“If there’s a hell, it’s likely where I’m headed, for I was birthed mean and grew up ugly. The good book says it’s wrong for a boy to love his mama, don’t it?”
“Hell, you’re supposed to love your mama.”
“all the way? I mean, like sort of fooling with her?”
“Are you telling me that’s what you and your pa had words about?”
“Hell, no, he never caught us. Ma and me was careful. We only done it when he was off hunting or something.”
“But you did commit incest, hombre?”
“I don’t know what we committed, but I purely screwed her every chance I got. She showed me how when I was about thirteen. Said I was hung better’n Pa. You reckon I’ll have to answer for that, where I’m headed?”
“Don’t know. What you want is a preaching man, old son. I don’t write the laws. I just see that they’re obeyed.”
“Well, couldn’t you pretend to be a preaching man, damn it? I mean, I’d take it kindly if you’d say a prayer over me or something. It don’t seem fitting for a man to just lie here dying like this without somebody says something from the good book.”
Longarm searched his memory, harking back to a West Virginia farmhouse where gentle, care-worn hands had tucked him in at night. He shrugged and began, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”
By the time he’d finished, the invisible form at his knees had stopped breathing. Longarm felt the side of his prisoner’s throat for a pulse and there didn’t seem to be one. He sniffed and muttered, “Never thought I’d miss a poor little pissant like you, but you left me with a long, lonesome night ahead of me.”
But the night did pass, and in the cold gray light of dawn nothing moved across the way, though once, when the breeze shifted, Longarm thought he smelled coffee brewing. It reminded him he had to keep up his own strength, so he gnawed jerked venison, washed down with flat canteen water, as he watched for movement across the creek.
If they tried to talk some more it meant more precious time. If they didn’t, it meant more than one of them was working around behind him. How long would it take to work to the top of a strange cliff a quarter of a mile high? It was anybody’s guess.
The sun was painting the opposing clifftops pink when Foster showed himself once more. He called out, “Longarm?”
“We’re still here, as you likely figured. What do you want?”
“Timberline and some of the others are working up to the rim rocks above you. You haven’t a chance of holding out till noon!”
“I can try. What’s your play pilgrim?”
“I’ve been talking to Kim Stover and some of the cooler heads. If you give up now, we can probably work out a compromise. Frankly, this thing’s getting uglier than we intended.”
“I’ll stand pat for now, thanks.”
“Longarm, they’re going to kill you. Even if they don’t shoot to kill from up there, you’re taking foolish chances. We can’t control things from down here. Once men get to shooting…”
“I know. Why don’t you ride out with the gal before you both get in deeper? I can promise you one thing, Mountie. You won’t make it back to Canada with a dead U.S. Deputy to answer for!”
“I can see that, damn it! That’s why I’m willing to compromise! If you’ll come back to civilization with me now, I’ll abide by a legal ruling in Cheyenne about the prisoner. If they say he’s mine, I take him. If they give him to
