“Nobody gets led into a life of crime, ma’am. Though most everyone I meet in my line of work seems to think so. Folks like to shift the guilt to others, but it won’t wash. The man who murdered Lincoln had a brother who’s still a fine, decent man. An actor on the New York stage. I’d say his baby brother led himself astray. Most folks do.”
“I can see your job might make you cynical.”
“No might about it, ma’am. It purely does!”
“Just the same, I’d say that woman was the cause of it all. She’s hard as nails and twice as cold. She’s been spitting at you with her eyes all day.”
“She’s likely riled at me for arresting her and the midget.”
“There’s more to it than that. A woman understands about these things. I can tell what’s passed between the two of you!”
“Oh?”
“Yes. She obviously feels scorned by you. Tell me, did she flirt with you, when first you met?”
“Well, sort of.”
“There you go. And being a man who’d be too much of a gentleman to take the likes of her seriously, you likely laughed at her pathetic attempts to turn your head.”
“Now that you mention it, I did have a chuckle or two at her expense.”
“She’s been flirting with Timberline and some of the others. I told him what she was and he said I was probably right. You don’t reckon she’d be able to seduce any of our party, do you?”
“Not with her husband handcuffed to her and the key in my pocket.”
“I know most of the boys pretty well, but some of them are young and foolish, and she’s not bad-looking, in her cheap, hard way. You’re probably well-advised to keep them chained together. She’d do anything to get away.”
“I’d say you were right on the money, ma’am. But we got Timberline and over two dozen others guarding ‘em. So I reckon they’ll be with us as we ride into Salt Lake CitY.”
“Which one do you reckon will hang for the murders, the trollop over there or her poor little husband?”
“Don’t know. Maybe both of ‘em, if they get convicted. “They’re both sticking tight as ticks to their innocence.”
“You think the woman did the shooting, don’t you? It took me a few minutes to figure out what you meant about that.30-30 rifle. Won’t you need that as evidence?”
“I could use it, but I made a dumb move back in Crooked Lance when I jawed about it in front of everybody. I suspicion the rifle’s as well hid as the bodies, by now. They both packed S&W.38s ‘til Timberline took them away.”
“He’s so easy to please. I do think Timberline’s starting to like you, Longarm.”
“Well, most boys like to feel important in front of a pretty gal. He’s never really gone for me, serious. Them few brags and swings were sort of like walking a picket fence. Not that I blame him, all things considered.”
“I thank you for the compliment.”
“Just stating the facts as I see ‘em, ma’am.”
“Stop flirting. You know it flusters me. There’s something else I’ve been wondering about.”
“What’s that, ma’am?”
“If there is one thing I’ve learned you’re not, it’s a fool, Longarm. You played a foxy grandpa on that Mountie, didn’t you?”
“Did Portia Caldwell give away anything about government business while the two of you jawed about me?”
“She didn’t have to. I figured out why you were so calm and collected when Sergeant Foster rode off like a thief in the night with the body of that man we’d been holding. He wasn’t Cotton Younger at all, was he?”
Longarm laughed and said, “You weren’t behind the kitchen door when the brains got passed out, Miss Kim. I told you all in Crooked Lance you were wasting a lot of time by holding out on everybody over that fool reward. If you’d sent him on to Cheyenne right off, we’d have all known it sooner.”
“But the Mountie still thinks he’s packing the real Cotton Younger off to Canada? Oh, my, that’s rich!”
“Might be getting ripe, too. I wonder if he’ll smoke him, salt him, or just hang tight and tough it through. Hell of a long ways, considering it’s summer.”
“You waited until captain Walthers came and left, satisfied that another man had his deserter. You are the sly one, but why did you do that?”
“Why? Had to. Had to whittle it down to where I was the only lawman left. These jurisdictional matters can be a real pain, as you may have noticed when you were still in the game.”
“I’m sorry now that we were so dumb about it all. I know we’d have been tricked out of the reward some way, even if we had been holding the real Cotton Younger. Would you mind telling me who we were holding, all that time?”
“He was almost who he said he was. His real name was Tinker, ‘less his dying confession was another lie. Doesn’t seem likely, though, considering some of the other things he confessed to. there was no reward on him. So despite our past misunderstandings, you’ll have to settle for the rising beef market.”
