thing, of course. You had no time to plan it in advance, and in truth, J.B., you didn’t do a particularly good job with the little time you had available.
“The thing is, you and your friends wanted so badly to take control of those free grazing lands from the Utes that you were willing to lie, to deceive even the president of the United States, to achieve your ends.”
“That is preposterous. You cannot believe …”
“Oh, but I do believe it, J.B. And we will prove it. Commissioner Troutman was killed in that explosion. He did not survive, as you so often assured me since. I have reliable witnesses who will swear to the timing of his death. Yet you went to a great deal of trouble to convince me that he was still alive. I had to wonder why you would take that risk. Your reasons come down to something as common and as tawdry as simple greed. Your friends, and therefore you, expect to make a great deal of profit if they can steal grazing rights from the rightful owners, the Ute nation. But the commissioner, or any honest replacement who might be sent out here by the president, was certain to report back in the Utes’ favor. You did not want that.
“So you—you personally and whoever else was in on this behind you—came up with this lame scheme. You could inform the president that his friend Troutman was still alive but operating in secret as a means to protect himself against further attempts on his life. By doing that you could send false reports to the president and assure that the Utes would be stripped of their grazing rights in favor of you and your cronies. You had to keep me in the dark so I would corroborate your claims. Besides, you are thieves, but not murderers. You did not want to kill any of us who did not die in the bomb blast. You only wanted to make use of us. As for what you would do once your purposes were achieved, I suppose your intention has been to fake the commissioner’s death, probably placing the blame for that on the Utes also. It almost has to be something on that order since you cannot come up with a live commissioner, not when the man has been dead all this time. But as long as the president believed him to be alive, you could get away with falsifying reports critical of the Utes and supportive of the cattlemen.”
“You cannot possibly believe that,” Cotton said.
“I not only believe it, J.B., I am sure the interrogations that are under way this very moment in other parts of the city will confirm it. You see, my people were summoned back from their assignments—assignments you gave them to keep them out of the way—yesterday. They gathered this morning to receive new assignments, and by now most of your friends should already be in custody, J.B. As you are yourself now. It is my distinct pleasure, Mr. Cotton, to place you under arrest.”
“On what charge?” Cotton demanded.
“Murder,” Longarm put in before Billy could respond.
“Murder? Don’t be absurd, Long. Even if the marshal were right, which I deny totally, he said himself that murder was not part of the plan.”
“Maybe not, but it happened.”
“The bombing was an act of murder, yes, but I had nothing to do with that. Nothing.”
“Oh, I believe you about that,” Longarm said agreeably. “The murder I was talking about was Carl Beamon.”
Cotton seemed genuinely puzzled. “Who?”
“Oh, nobody important. Just a fella that worked for the carriage-hire company. He saw something, knew something, maybe guessed something. Those boys standing behind you killed him to make sure he couldn’t tell it an’ point any fingers where they didn’t belong.”
“No, I …”
“But they did, Cotton. Didn’t they bother tellin’ you what they done? They killed that fella Beamon. An’ being part of your conspiracy, the fact that they killed him for you an’ your pals, in the eyes of the law, Cotton, makes you as guilty of murder as they are.” Longarm smiled. “Check it out with a lawyer if you happen to know a good one.”
“No!” the acting U.S. attorney shouted. “They couldn’t. They can’t have.” He spun to face the two. “You idiots. Don’t you know any better than to-“
The bodyguards, or whoever the hell they were, apparently had no intention of standing there while their own boss gave them away.
The one nearer the door grabbed his gun. The other wrapped an arm around J. B. Cotton’s neck and held the lawyer in front of him like a shield.
“Look, dammit, we aren’t going to swing for the likes of him and his friends,” the one holding Cotton said. “We’re going to back out of here nice and slow. Nobody has to get hurt. All we want is gone. Okay?”
“Not okay at all,” Longarm said. “You move, mister, I’ll shoot this man.”
“All right, shoot him,” Longarm agreed.
“I’m not bluffing. I will shoot him.”
“Mister, I’m not bluffing either. Go right ahead an’ do whatever you think is best.”
The one who did not have a human shield apparently did not much care for the direction the conversation was taking. He already had his gun in hand, and he leveled it at Longarm. Or tried to.
Before he could cock the single-action Colt, Longarm’s gun filled the hospital room with thunder and with the stink of burnt gunpowder. The bodyguard took a slug in the chest and reeled backward, turning and falling headlong into the doorway, where he lay unmoving.
Cotton tried to pull away from the second man. He twisted and dropped to his knees, giving Longarm a clear shot.
The second killer was no quicker nor better than his partner had been. He went down with three bullets in him as Longarm, Henry, and Billy Vail fired almost simultaneously, knocking him off his feet and onto his back with blood gushing from a set of wounds in his chest and belly.
J.B. Cotton looked at his bodyguard and began to vomit.
“I didn’t know about the murder,” Billy said.
