“I feel like such a fool! Imagine, holding an innocent boy and almost seeing him hung improper!”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself, ma’am. I don’t go along with improper hangings. but it turned out all right in the end. As for him being innocent, he wasn’t Cotton Younger, but he wasn’t all that innocent, either. Your friends were right to grab him as a cow thief, ‘cause that’s what he was. He wasn’t out for your particular cows, but he wasn’t packing that running iron for fun, either.”
“Some of the boys are worried about the fact that one of them shot him before we got, well, more friendly-like. I told them you’d said you’d forget about it when we all rode into Salt Lake City. Can I take it I told ‘em true?”
“Well, I never forget much, but I overlook a few things. My report will say he got shot trying to escape, which is close enough to the way it happened. No way on earth we’ll ever know just whose round finished him, and most of you were shooting at him, as I remember it.”
“You’re very understanding. I’m truly sorry if i seemed snippy when first we met. But one thing puzzles me. When you first rode into Crooked Lance, you said you weren’t going back without Cotton Younger.”
“I know what I said, and I meant it. But as you see, it wasn’t Cotton Younger you were holding. It ain’t my fault I can’t make good my brag. The man we were all fighting over answered Cotton Younger’s description, but he was somebody else. Meanwhile, half a loaf is better than none, and I am taking in the killer of Deputy Kincaid. So it’ll most likely pay for my time and trouble.”
“Longarm, who do you think you’re bullshitting?”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”
“Come on, I’ve gotten to know you, and you are not the wide-eyed country bumpkin you pretend to be! You have no intention of going back to Denver without Cotton Younger, have you?”
Longarm laughed and said, “That’s true enough, if I can lay my hands on the cuss, but who do YOu suggest I pick to fit my warrant?”
“I don’t know how I know this. Maybe it’s because there’s something sort of smug crawling around in them innocent eyes when you don’t think I’m looking. But I think you’re too satisfied about a job well done. I think you know where Cotton Younger is!”
Longarm’s mouth went dry as he forced himself to meet her level questioning gaze, but his voice was calm as he shrugged and said, “You have a lively imagination, ma’am. I told you the man we all thought was Cotton Younger wasn’t. That don’t leave us with anyone who answers to his description, does it?”
“I thought maybe you had your eye on one of the hands from Crooked Lance.”
“Do tell? What makes you say that?”
“The midget and the woman likely gunned those other lawmen, like you said. If they were sent out to free the man they thought was Cotton Younger, that makes sense. The other man, the man who was a member of the James-Younger gang could have only been killed by the real Cotton Younger!”
“Keep talking.”
“Don’t you see? The Hankses are private detectives who’d do anything for a dollar. That old man pretending to be a Canadian would have been valuable to them as an ally. Why would they have gunned him?”
“Beats me. Why would Cotton Younger have done it, if Cotton Younger wasn’t the man in your jail?”
“That’s simple. The real outlaw’s been hiding out in Crooked Lance all this time. You know we’re way off the beaten track, and ordinarily, no one would ever look for anyone there. Then a man answering to his description got picked up by us vigilantes and you know the rest. All hell broke loose. Old Chambrun-what’s-his-name came busting in to free his kinsman, learned we had the wrong man, and started to light out. That’s when the real Cotton Younger might have killed him, to shut him up for good. The Mountie saw through the fake Canadian accent. No telling how many ways a reckless old outlaw could have been caught, later, knowing the whereabouts of a wanted man who aims to lay low in Crooked Lance for keeps!”
Unfortunately, she was hitting damned close to home, considering she hadn’t heard the dying Sailor Brown’s last, wondering protest about being gunned unexpectedly.
Longarm chuckled and said, “You’d have made a great detective yourself, Miss Kim. But you’re forgetting something. Nobody hereabouts fits Cotton Younger’s description. Timberline’s too big and the midget is a mite short. I don’t know exactly what color hair you and that other gal might have started out with, but even if it should be cotton-blonde, the feller I’m after is a man.” He didn’t think he should tell her how he knew that both she and Mabel Hanks were definitely female, so he added, “I’ve looked all the others over, more’n once. There ain’t one in a whole score of riders that would fit the wanted posters for Cotton Younger, real or not.”
“Half the men in Crooked Lance aren’t here.”
“I know. If there’s anything to your suspicion, I might look the entire population of Crooked Lance Over with a hand lens, some day. But I aim to carry my prisoners in as I catch ‘em not as I’d like ‘em to fit wishful thinking.”
“Then, in other words, you’re saying I’m just running off at the mouth!”
“well, I do see some points you’ve raised that will have to be answered if ever we get that odd-matched pair to talk. To tell the truth, I don’t know just what they were up to.”
“You don’t? Then why did you arrest them?”
“I told everybody at the time. For the murder of Deputy Kincaid. You eat the apple a bite at a time, ma’am. It ain’t my job to get all the details out of ‘em.”
“But you said you didn’t know what they were up to!”
“I meant I didn’t know why. They might have been out to set the prisoner free. They might have been after the reward, just like they said. It don’t matter all that much. you heard ‘em admit they took a shot at me in Bitter Creek. That’s against the law, no matter how you slice it. Just why they did it and who they’re working for will come out in the wash. Since the midget is the brains, and she’s the brawn, he’ll no doubt tell a few tales on her to save his neck, before it’s all over.”
