Colley?'
One of them, a man about thirty with light brown hair showing out from under his derby said, 'Who's asking?'
'The man who's filling in for Morton Colton.'
'Where's Morton?'
'He took sick. There's twelve hundred dollars in this envelope. You want it?'
For a second, the man just stared at Longarm and then put out his hand and took the money. The other one said, 'We had better check and make sure how much whiskey is in these boxcars. We wouldn't want old man Colton shorting us.'
'Oh, I think you can depend on Mr. Colton being fair with you,' Longarm said.
'We'll see ourselves,' the blond one said. They started up the line, looking in the boxcars.
The deal was done as far as Longarm was concerned. He turned his back on Frank Carson and took a step or two after the men. As he walked, he took his badge out and pinned it in plain sight on his shirt. The two government agents had finished inspecting the last car and had started walking back toward him; he waited until the distance had closed to about fifteen feet. Then he said, without drawing his revolver, 'Hold it! My name is Custis Long, and I'm a United States deputy marshal and you two sons of bitches are under arrest.'
In response, the two men stopped and stared at him, dumbfounded. One of them finally strangled out a weak 'What?'
Longarm said, 'You heard me, you're under arrest. If you're carrying weapons, I'm telling you now to get them on the ground and get your hands over your head. I don't want no trouble with you. I won't kill you unless you make me.'
One of the men said in a quiet voice, 'We ain't armed.'
'Shuck them coats and them vests, and let me see what you've got on underneath there.'
A quiet voice from behind him said, 'Mr. Long, or Marshal Long, I should say, I'm armed, and I've got a high- caliber revolver pointed right at your back.'
Longarm said, not taking his eyes off the two Treasury agents, 'Mr. Carson, stay out of this. You don't want no part of this. This is serious business.'
'It is serious, Marshal Long. You're about to interfere with my livelihood and I don't care to get arrested. Now, you unbuckle your gun belt and let it fall to the ground. Don't reach for that revolver. I don't want to have to shoot you,' Carson said.
'Mr. Carson, I have no intentions of arresting you or interfering with your shipment of whiskey. It's these two men I want.'
'Marshal Long, I ain't going to tell you again. Unbuckle that gun belt and let it fall to the ground.'
Longarm was silent, watching the two Treasury agents.
Longarm carefully put his left hand to the buckle and slipped it just underneath until he could get hold of the.38caliber derringer that was held there by the steel springs. He said, 'Frank, you don't want to be doing this. I can't drop this gun belt. That revolver of mine has a hair trigger, and it'll go off if I drop it. Why don't you ease on up here and lift it on up out of my holster?'
'Just make sure you hold yourself right still while I do, Marshal Long.'
Longarm heard Carson's footsteps behind him. The instant he felt a touch on the butt of his revolver, he whirled to his left, pulling out the derringer as he did. As he came face-to-face with Frank Carson, he fired. He saw the .38caliber slug knock a surprised look onto the man's face. But Longarm had no time to hesitate. With his right hand, he jerked the revolver that Carson was holding out of his hand. He let his momentum carry him on around until he was on one knee in the grass, thrusting Carson's revolver out in front of him.
He yelled at the two Treasury men, 'Freeze and get those damned hands up!'
The agents had not moved. One had his coat half off. He just stood there. The other one put his hands quickly over his head. Longarm glanced toward the woods. The dim figure of John had disappeared. He glanced behind him at Frank Carson lying on his back, blood coming out of a hole in the left side of his chest.
He said, 'Dammit, Carson. How come you had to get involved?'
Carson turned his head slightly. He said, 'Hell, I couldn't let you have all the fun.'
CHAPTER 11
It was a long journey back to Denver. Longarm spent most of it trying to make sense out of the report he was writing. Since he had been given direct orders not to involve himself down in the tangled hollows and cuts and draws of the moonshining country, he had to invent plausible reasons why he was drawn step by step into the lengthy investigation that he was supposed to have had no part of. To tell it as it had actually happened would have given Billy Vail too much glee, so Longarm had added a few touches to make it seem as if his hand was forced at every turn.
He made it apparent that the federal men from the Treasury had been his goal from the beginning. Since that wasn't true, he had to invent a set of circumstances that made it seem so. He also had a little trouble with why he had not arrested any of the moonshiners. That had been a little more delicate. He had gotten around that by suggesting that it was work for honest Treasury agents and he was sure that the Treasury Department would be more than anxious to make up with some good work for the deceit and corruption of Colley and Small.
He had dropped the two agents off in Dallas, Texas, with a federal marshal there who would see to their arrival in Washington, D.C. He supposed that Billy Vail would write up the charges from Longarm's report. He had managed to get out of Colley first and then Small the amount of money they had managed to extort from the bootleggers over the years they had been assigned to the territory. It was a staggering sum. It had made Longarm angry to think of his pay in relation to what the two men had been receiving. No wonder they looked like they spent most of their time at the tailor.
Frank Carson had been a very lucky man. At first, Longarm had thought he was a goner for sure. The bullet hole
