horse. It looked like Longarm's.
He opened the door and yelled at Carson before he could get very far from his horse, 'You forgot my valise!'
Carson nodded and went back and untied the valise from the saddle and then came back, carrying the valise in one hand and his saddlebags over his shoulder. Longarm could read nothing from his expression.
As Carson was making his way, Longarm went to the table and got a quart of the four-year-old whiskey that the old man had given him. He poured them both out a drink and then sat down at the table. When Carson came in, Longarm said, 'Where the hell have you been? I thought for certain that you'd taken my money and run.'
But Carson had a serious look on his face. He didn't even pretend to smile. Instead, he shut the door behind him and then dropped Longarm's valise and his saddlebag at the end of Longarm's bed. He came over to the table, sat down, picked up his glass, drank off half of it, and then looked at it. He said, 'I see you've managed to get yourself in good with the old man.'
'How's that?'
'I was coming here nearly two years before he ever offered me any of this stuff. Mostly what I got was that pop-skull we've been getting.'
'What are you looking so damned serious about?'
Carson studied his glass. He said, 'You've got trouble. That's what I'm looking so serious about.'
A chill went through Longarm. Billy Vail had fouled up. Somehow, he had let Carson know who Longarm really was. But he said with as much nonchalance as he could muster, 'Oh, yeah? What kind of trouble I got? With you?'
Carson shook his head. He said, 'No, not with me. If you had trouble with me, you'd already know it. I wouldn't be sitting here drinking with you.'
The fear that he was exposed was growing larger and larger in Longarm's chest. Would anything go right with this damn job? He said, 'Are you going to tell me what this trouble is?'
Carson looked over at him. 'I want you to know that I had nothing to do with it. I don't know how it happened.'
'What? Dammit!'
'I reckon Morton Colton ain't more than an hour behind me. I damned near killed my horse trying to get here in time to warn you.'
Longarm sat up. His voice was a mixture of surprise and relief. 'What? What do you mean, Morton Colton's about an hour behind you?'
'Exactly what I said. He braced me up in town and said he was coming out here with me.'
'I thought you said you didn't know him.'
'I told you that I wasn't supposed to know him, if you'll remember. You don't come into town and act like you know Morton Colton. That's about like announcing you're in the whiskey business, but I know him and he knows me. We don't socialize together or go to church together. But he knows you're here.'
'How the hell could he know I'm here?'
Carson shook his head. 'I don't know, but he does. Maybe somebody sent word in to him. Have you made an enemy out here?'
Mark Colton's face instantly flashed into Longarm's mind. 'Yeah, you might be able to say that with no trouble.'
'Anyway, he knows you're here, and he wanted to ride out here with me. I told him I didn't want to be seen with him and I wasn't mixing into any trouble between you two. My best advice to you is to forget all about buying any whiskey, saddle that horse of mine, and go on back to Little Rock. Leave the horse at the livery stable and get on the next train.'
Longarm was starting to relax. Hell, it was just Morton Colton. He said, 'No, I like it here. I think I'll stick around awhile. Besides, I am getting married in three or four days.'
Carson blinked and blinked again and then stared at Longarm. 'I thought you just told me you were getting married in three or four days.'
'I did.'
'Somebody in Arizona?'
'No. A very nice lady right here.'
'There ain't nobody here that they would let you marry.'
'Well, she more or less asked for me herself in front of the whole family.'
Carson looked at his glass and then drank a part of it and then looked at the glass again. 'This stuff must be making me drunk faster than I realize, because the next thing I know, you're going to tell me that you're going to be marrying Miss Sally and I'll know we're both drunk.'
'Then I guess we're both drunk.'
Frank Carson was silent for a moment. 'I know you ain't kidding because that ain't something you'd josh about. It's just hard for me to believe that all of this has happened in the three days that I've been gone.'
Longarm nodded his head slowly. 'Well, it happened. They done invited me to marry her.'
'I take it you said yes?'
Longarm gave a short bark of laughter. He said, 'Would you have said no to a family that brings shotguns to the breakfast table?'
