'Sheriff Cotton! He's got a couple of men and they're looking to put you behind bars.'
Longarm didn't wait to figure out the whats or the whys, He was pretty sure that Clarence Huntington must have paid a judge to get an order for his arrest. Whether it was legal or binding meant nothing. Longarm knew that Cotton was just fool enough to try to arrest him and that the more people involved, the more likely people would be killed.
'What are you going to do?' Milly asked.
'If I stay and get arrested, I'm cooked,' Longarm decided out loud. 'I can't catch Eli Wheat and I can't do my job.'
'Then you should go.'
'I hate the idea of leaving you alone.'
'Who said that I'll be alone?' Milly replied, with a wink of her long eyelashes.
'You'd get a man in here after-'
'No, silly! Not at first anyway. I've got a lot of girlfriends that owe me favors for one thing or another. It might even surprise you to know that I've got some respectable women as close friends.'
'Nothing you say or do surprises me,' Longarm confessed.
He kissed her cheek and then grabbed his Winchester rifle and bags. 'I'll be back again when all this blows over and I've brought the outlaws to justice.'
'Don't get caught!' she pleaded. 'Now hurry up and go!'
Longarm guessed that he had better scoot. He'd killed two men already in this town, and he sure didn't want to spill the blood of a couple more fools.
CHAPTER 10
With Ike Cotton and a group of deputies looking to arrest him, Longarm knew that the railroad depot would be covered and that there was no chance of escaping on the train. That meant that he needed to reclaim his horse from Jimmie and leave on the run.
Longarm kept to the alleys most of the way to the livery, hoping to avoid any confrontation. When he saw Jimmie working with a pen of horses, Longarm hurried over to the man.
'Jimmie, I need my sorrel gelding saddled in a hurry.'
'You're running from the likes of Sheriff Ike Cotton?' Jimmie asked with surprise.
'I'll be back. But I can't do a damned thing in jail and I don't want to have to gun down the sheriff or any of his fool deputies.'
'Where are you going?'
'Better you don't ask.'
'Ned Rowe climbed on his horse about an hour ago.'
This offhand remark caught Longarm cold. 'He left town?'
'That's right. I watched him galloping northwest on his Palomino. He sure was in a hurry and he wasn't heading for Cheyenne.'
Longarm studied the man. 'You're still convinced that Ned is caught up in all this, aren't you?'
'I didn't say that,' Jimmie replied. 'But nothing that Ned does would surprise me.'
Longarm followed Jimmie into the barn and helped him bring out and saddle the sorrel. 'Any idea where Ned is going?'
'Nope. But he has a habit of hammering the ends of his horseshoes to a point. You won't have any trouble picking his tracks out. There's a big lightning-shot pine tree about a half mile southwest of here. Ned passed not fifty feet to the north of it and then headed directly toward the north fork of the Laramie River. My hunch is that he's skirting the Union Pacific.'
'You think he might be planning to join the gang and help stage another robbery?'
'That possibility has entered my mind.' Jimmie toed the dirt. 'That fella that you shot, he must have been part of the gang. My thinking is that Ned set him up for you to kill so he could get his share.'
'You've got a real suspicious mind,' Longarm said. 'You should have been a lawman.'
'Ain't got the stomach for it. But I do know Ned Rowe. He's no damned good and he's a con man. He figured to let you make a killing for him when he set up that fella with the roan pony.'
'But why would Ned leave town now?'
'I dunno,' Jimmie said. 'I'm just telling you that he did and I figure that, if you overtake him, you'll probably find out a hell of a lot more about that gang.'
'Thanks,' Longarm said as Jimmie removed the sorrel's halter and replaced it with a bit and bridle. 'Jimmie, I just received a telegraph from my boss in Denver saying that there has been another train wreck.'
'In Wyoming?'
'No. At Donner Pass. After I catch up with Ned, I'll intercept the railroad and trade in my horse for a train ticket to Donner Pass.'
'It would be damned interesting to see if Ned is planning to go thereabouts too, wouldn't it?' Jimmie asked with a lazy smile. ''Cause you see, if I was a betting man--which I'm not--I'd bet my boots that Ned Rowe is fixin' to do the very same thing you're fixin' to do.'
