apiece for any sensible reason.'
She tilted her face up to his in the moonlight, softly asking, 'Isn't there anything else you'd rather do than fight, Custis?'
To which he could only reply, 'There's plenty, starting with just minding my own beeswax, Miss Lenore. But they don't pay me to avoid fights, and like you said yourself, that one jasper in the big hat surely seems to be spoiling for one!'
CHAPTER 3
The combined smoking salon and taproom lay aft of the sleeping quarters for sensible reasons. There was no sign stating women were not allowed. But it was generally understood by the traveling public that such dimly lit and smoke-filled areas were not intended for the giggles of females or the patter of little feet. There was a ladies' salon up forward for that.
Longarm was glad. He'd pinned on his federal badge and unsnapped his pocket derringer from the more dangerous end of his watch chain, and had the sneaky two-shot.44 palmed in his big right fist as he came through the starboard entrance. His bigger.44-40 double-action was there for the world to see on his left hip, plain but hand-fitted grip forward, so he could draw as well sitting down, standing up, or astride.
The two he was looking for were across the salon against the bar. They both stood with their backs to the bar, as if they might have been expecting someone. Now that he could see the face of the one in the Carlsbad hat, he could see it was no improvement on the ugly mutt wearing the darker Texas hat, although that was still the one with the meanest expression. They were both heeled with double rigs, worn too low for trouble on horseback but just right for a stand-up showdown.
Longarm strode right over to them as, off to his left, an older gent dealing cards at a corner table muttered, 'Oh, shit, I reckon we'll play this hand later, boys. This child is going out on deck for some fresh air and he strongly advises you all to follow!'
Longarm didn't worry about the action that followed to either side as he simply stopped two paces from the bar and casually but firmly stated, 'I'd be Custis Long and I'm the law, federal. One of the nicer things about my job is that I don't have to shilly-shally with suspicious characters. So I'd like you gents to state your own names and tell me why you've been acting so suspicious.'
As he'd hoped, they'd been braced for the usual bullshit involving narrow-eyed stares and veiled remarks leading up to what they had in mind. So they both froze as each waited for the other to say the first words or make the first move.
In the meantime both kept their hands politely clear of their four guns. So Longarm demanded, 'Cat's got your tongues?'
The mean-eyed one in the bigger hat stared back even meaner as he came unstuck and croaked, 'We know who you are, Longarm. Neither one of us is wanted by any federal court in the land.'
Longarm said, 'I already figured as much. Had either of you fit any wanted fliers I've read recently, I'd have come in with my side arm drawn. I don't shit around like those lawmen in Ned Buntline's wild and woolly magazines. I'm asking you once more to state your names and business. It's all the same to me whether you'd care to do as I say or fill your fists.'
Somebody else tore out a side door as the more sensible-looking one in the paler hat gulped and protested, 'Hold on, Longarm. You can't just throw down on law-abiding citizens for no good reason!'
Longarm insisted, 'You're giving me good reason. The law gives me the right to ask anyone this side of President Hayes to state his name and business, and the right to arrest and hold him on suspicion for seventy-two hours maximum should he give me probable cause. As for whether you want to come quiet or shoot it out right here and now, I'm assuming anyone who tells a federal lawman to just go fuck himself isn't planning on coming quiet.'
The one in the Carlsbad hat said quickly, 'I'd be Hamp Godwynn and this would be Saul Reynolds, better known as Squint Reynolds for reasons you can see for your own self. We are poor but honest cowhands in search of honest employment.'
'Aboard a coastal steamer, acting suspicious and packing two guns apiece in border bully rigs?'
The one called Squint replied, in a surprisingly boyish tenor, 'It was border bullies we got armed against. We were just down this way to see if we could get hired on at that monstrous ranch some steamboat skipper started at the mouth of the Rio Grande. We found they mostly hired Mex buckaroos, the cheap bastards.'
Longarm smiled thinly. 'I reckon you mean vaqueros, and I know the big spread you just mentioned. Since I've no good reason to call any grown man here a liar, I'll only say you could've saved us all some needless sweat on a hot night by simply answering me sensibly in the first place. Now that we all know who's talking to whom, let's talk about all them dirty looks you boys were aiming my way earlier this evening at supper up forward.'
Hamp Godwynn said, 'Squint wasn't aiming dirty looks at you in particular, Longarm. He looks that mean-eyed at everybody, and I don't mind telling you we've had this conversation with other gents who took Squint's natural expression wrong.'
Longarm considered, shrugged, and said, 'We've all been out with a gal whose naturally flirty eyes drew unexpected as well as unwelcome attentions from others. But like I told one version of that flirty gal on one occasion, there's no need to back up a naturally troublesome expression with a chip on one's cold shoulder.'
Squint Reynolds snapped, 'We told you who we was and said we was sorry about scaring you. What more do you want, an egg in your beer?'
Longarm answered, firmly but not unkindly, 'For your information, I ain't scared of you and your kin combined. But since you've given me information I can check out later, we'll just say no more about it for now. I'd offer to buy a round if I liked either one of you and it wasn't so blamed stuffy in here. But since I don't and it ain't, I'll just say buenoches and don't go glaring like that no more if we should meet at breakfast, hear?'
Then he left. He didn't have to crawfish backwards. There was a big glass window offering him a good view of everyone in the salon as he strode out to the starboard promenade deck.
Once he had, it didn't feel much cooler. But the promenade deck got its name because it went all the way round the upper passenger section of the combined freight and passenger steamer from stem to stern.
He was closer to the stern at the moment. So he got out a cheroot and lit it in the still-muggy air on that side. Then he ambled aft and rounded the last stern corner to discover that, just as he'd told pretty Lenore, a fairly
