“Brrr, they are a pair, ain’t they? What was that he said about having his head to some plywood, listening to you talk to somebody in Bitter Creek?”
“Oh, I don’t remember just who I was talking to, ma’am. After his wife took a few shots at me I caught him listening, is all.”
“Oh, I got the impression he was listening in on you and that slut of his. I’m starting to remember just what it was he said.”
“Well, don’t you worry your pretty head about it, Miss Kim.”
This redhead was too quick-witted to be let out without a leash! A muzzle wouldn’t hurt, either! How many of the others had she been to with her infernal speculations? She suddenly blurted out, “Oh, I remember. He said he was listening when you and that hussy were…”
“What, ma’am?”
“You told him to hush, ‘cause there were ladies present. Meaning me, I take it, since I’d hardly call Mabel Hanks a lady.”
“I thought he was fixing to cuss. He was pretty riled when I arrested him.”
“Longarm, were you and that awful woman…? Oh, I can’t believe it!”
“That makes two of us. You do have a lively mind, and a mite dirty, meaning no disrespect. The woman is his wife, Miss Kim. Allowing for her being no better than you think she is, what you’re suggesting is mighty wild, if you ask me!”
“I’m sorry, but it did cross my mind. She’s not bad-looking, and you are a man, after all.”
“Heaven forbid I’d be that kind of man, Miss Kim! Do I look like the sort of gent who’d trifle with a woman with her husband listening, watching, or whatever?”
She laughed a sort of earthy laugh and said, “As a matter of fact, you do. But I can’t see you loving up a gal who’d just shot at you, with her husband next door, listening, or not. Nobody would do a thing like that but a very stupid man, which I’ll allow you ain’t.”
“There you go. I knew you’d drop them awful notions, soon as you reconsidered ‘em a mite.”
Somewhere, somebody was hollering fit to bust, so Longarm woke up. He rolled, fully dressed, from under his canvas tarp and sprang to his feet, Winchester in hand and headed over toward the smoldering embers of the fire, in the direction of the confusion.
He found Timberline kneeling over Mabel Hanks, shaking her like a terrier shakes a rat as he thundered, “Gawd damn it, lady! I don’t aim to ask nice one more time!”
Longarm saw the open handcuff dangling from the one still locked to Mabel’s right wrist and said, “Let her be, Even when she’s talking she don’t tell the truth worth mention.”
He shoved a pine knot into the embers and waited, squatting on his heels, until it was ablaze. Meanwhile, everyone in camp converged around Timberline and his smirking captive. As Longarm got to his feet with the torch held out to one side, Kim Stover asked, “What happened? Where’s the midget?”
“Damned if I know. my own fault. I locked that bracelet as tight as she’d go, but he has a wrist like an eight-year-old’s and we hardly arrest enough that young to mention.”
He fished the key from his pants and handed it to her. “Timberline gets through shaking her teeth loose, get him off her and cuff her to a sapling ‘til I get back.”
“Are you going after him in the dark?”
“I don’t aim to wait ‘til sunup.”
He found a tiny heel mark in the forest duff and started away from the clearing. A couple of the hands fell in beside him, anxious to help.
He said, “Go back and check to see if he lit out with anybody’s weapon. I have enough to worry about, tracking him, without having to keep you fellers from getting shot.”
“How do you know he has a gun, Longarm?”
“I don’t. But I never track, trusting to a man’s good nature. Put out them embers and keep together. He ain’t got a mount. He may decide he needs one and you likely know by now, he’s a slippery little imp!”
He left them to debate the matter and started ahead, making out a scuff-mark here and a heelprint there, until he came to the bank of the stream.
“Wading in water so’s not to leave tracks, huh? Poor little bastard. Don’t you know how cold it gets up here at night?”
He assumed his quarry would come out on the far side. Nine out of ten did. A distant, steady roar, far up the slope, told him there was a waterfall within a mile. Taking into account the size of the strides Cedric took, a mile in icy snow-melt seemed about right. Longarm shoved the sharp end of the pine knot in the mud beside the stream, leaving it glowing there as a distraction visible for a good distance. Then, swinging wide, he ran up the slope through the trees. He ran until his lungs hurt, and ran some more, making no more noise than he could help in his soft-soled boots over spongy, fallen fir needles.
He was out of breath by the time he reached the waterfall, and anyone making better time would have to have longer legs. The midget’s only chance was that he’d been gone longer than Longarm figured.
He hadn’t. After Longarm had squatted near the lip of the falls for about five minutes, he heard a splash downstream and the crunch of a wet boulder under foot. He waited until a barely-visible movement caught his eye across the falls. Then he said conversationally, “Evening, Mister Hanks. Going someplace?”
The darkness exploded in a flashing roar of brilliant orange. Longarm knew, as something smashed, hard,
