Vernon Castle’s mouth dropped. “Are you crazy? Are you insane? Are you suggesting that I have been shooting U.S. Cavalry soldiers?”
Longarm asked, “Haven’t you had the mayor and the city council and all of the citizens around here kicking up a ruckus to get that fort closed?”
Vernon stood up and came to the cell door. He said stiffly, “One has nothing to do with the other. I am trying to get that garrison out of here for reasons you wouldn’t understand, and I have no intention of telling you. But I’m not fool enough to kill soldiers in order to move them.”
Longarm turned his head and looked into the opposite cell to where Glenn and Billy Bob were sitting. He said, “Maybe you ain’t fool enough, but you may have a son that is.”
Billy Bob said, “Why, you crazy sonofabitch.”
Vernon Castle said, “Shut up, son. I will tend to this man.” He looked at Longarm. “is that what this is all about? You think that I have been having those soldiers killed or that I have been killing them? That is why you’ve put me in jail? This isn’t about illegal cattle, is it? It’s not, is it?”
Longarm grinned for a moment. “No, but it’s a charge that I can make stick. And all three of you can get fifteen years for it. I haven’t brought your brother, James, into this yet. But the whole pack of you could get fifteen years because you all shipped cattle in common. So when I bring him in, that will be four of you going up for fifteen years.”
Vernon Castle said, “You can’t mean that!”
Longarm grinned. “Oh, yes, I can, and I do. Unless you agree to one thing.”
Vernon Castle’s face got guarded. “Agree to what?”
“Agree to give up the son who is doing the killing. You know it and I know it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Virgil.”
For the second time, Vernon Castle’s mouth dropped open. He sputtered for a moment and then said, “Virgil? Virgil? Do you think that Virgil is capable of killing soldiers? My God, man, he keeps rabbits! Go out to my ranch, man, and look behind the barn. He’s got a pen of rabbits. He’s as gentle as a child.”
“He also runs around at night wearing a breechcloth and carrying a rifle.”
“He is playing. He doesn’t have any bullets in that rifle.”
“So you say.”
Vernon Castle looked frustrated. “Mr. Long, I don’t know what I can say to convince you that you are way off the track. The very idea that you are holding me and my two sons here because you think that my other son is a murderer. You, sir, are the madman. You are the lunatic.”
“Virgil thinks he is an Indian, doesn’t he?”
Vernon Castle said, “I’m not even gonna dignify that with a reply. That is just absurd.”
Longarm turned sideways so that he could see into the cell where Billy Bob and Glenn were listening. He said, “Oh, is that right? What about the night two years ago when his two brothers took him up to Mabelle Russell’s whorehouse and he had a pair of wire cutters with him and he was going to nip off the two nipples of a young lady there—a lady by the name of Kathy, I believe it was.”
Vernon Castle said, “That was greatly exaggerated.”
Longarm looked at Billy Bob and Glenn and said, “Was it, boys? You were there. Wasn’t he trying to cut off her nipples with those wire cutters?”
They both looked down and didn’t say anything. Longarm turned to face Vernon Castle and said, “It’s part of the Comanche creed that they disfigure any of their wives who are caught with another brave. Virgil saw a man coming out of that room where he was going in to get his cherry popped—with, as far as he was concerned, his bride.”
Vernon Castle said, “This is preposterous.”
Longarm looked at Glenn. “Didn’t you boys tell him that he was going to get married that night?”
They still would not look up.
Longarm said to Vernon Castle, “And what about the fact that he tried to cut a steak off a horse after cutting its throat? That’s an old Comanche trick also. When they are hard-pressed and there is enemy right behind them and they don’t have time to stop and eat properly, they just cut a steak off a horse’s haunch and keep riding on. What about that?”
Vernon Castle began to tremble. He went and sat back down. His voice was not as strong when he said, “I tell you, you are on the wrong track. The boy is touched but he is as harmless as a kitten. He wouldn’t do such a thing. I would know if he did. Holding us here is not benefiting anyone. If he is a danger, the worst thing that you can do is to hold us in this cell where we can’t take care of him.”
“Well,” Longarm said, you think on it. Meanwhile, you are still facing fifteen years on this cattle business. I wouldn’t be looking for Mr. Botts to be back in here with any good news any time soon. You’re in a little deeper web than you think you are.”
He turned and started out of the jail. Vernon Castle called out after him. “Marshal, surely there is something that can be worked out here. Surely there is something you want, something that we can trade for. You don’t believe that we are guilty of illegal cattle transportation for a second.”
Longarm laughed. “Oh, hell. Don’t kid me. I know damn good and well that you have been mixing Mexican cattle in with yours and shipping them north, but that’s common practice and nobody ever enforces the law. I’m not arresting you for that. I am arresting you to make you give up that son of yours—that murderous son of yours. I am arresting you because you are the father of a murderer.”
