ever called him by the name of Longarm, and when he allowed some had, she looked really upset and said, 'If I were you I'd skip dessert and let me show you another way out the back. We don't want trouble, I don't like noise, and even if I did, they just said something about you being a lawman!'
Longarm asked what else they'd said, and when she replied Miss Helga had called him a murderer who deserved to be punished, Longarm, sighed and said, 'I reckon I'd best skip dessert at that. But you never want to duck out the back way unless you're certain someone ain't been sent around to the alley with just such an event in mind.'
He asked how much he owed them. When she told him not to talk dumb and for heaven's sake get going, Longarm put a silver dollar on the checkered cloth by his empty plate, drank the last of his coffee, and got to his own feet, removing the Winchester from his lap to cradle it over his left arm as he headed for that same front door.
The waitress gasped, 'Are you crazy or just deaf? Didn't you hear what I just told you?'
Longarm said, 'Every word, ma'am. I know you're curious, but I'd be obliged if you stayed away from all this window glass for the next few minutes. Things are likely to get a mite tense out front for a spell.'
Then he opened the door, stepped out in the sunlight, and things did. One of the younger hands across the way softly hollered, 'Hot damn! The little darling must want to dance with all of us!'
An older and meaner-looking hand growled at him to shut up. All of them but their boss lady, standing with her boots apart a pace or more closer, were packing six-guns on their hips, and more than one, just like Longarm, had hauled out his saddle gun as well.
They were all a tad out of his way if the Western Union had been his next intended stop after all. He decided a beeline in any other direction but one could have the same effect on the wolf pack as a running deer fawn might have on the four-legged kind. So he strode straight across to where the only female in the bunch seemed intent on standing her ground. Then he stopped, just short of stepping on her booted toes, and softly said, 'Allow me to introduce myself, ma'am.'
Before he could she snapped, 'I know who you are and why have you been following me?'
To which Longarm could only reply, 'I ain't been. If I wanted to I reckon I could, lawful enough, on public thoroughfares across open federal range. I wasn't expecting to question you, on your own land or anywhere else I wanted to, before I had more to ask about. For now I choose to take your word you thought Baptiste Youngwolf was a misunderstood comrade in arms of your late father. I don't care just how you take my word it was him or me the other day when he came my way with that Cleveland twelve-gauge.'
'Killer!' she snapped. 'Cold-blooded killer with a bounty-hunting badge and not a fair bone in your body! Uncle Chief would have won if he'd really been after you with my daddy's shotgun in his capable old hands and a Navy Colt Conversion on his hip!'
Longarm shrugged and quietly asked, 'Were you there, ma'am?'
The same young rider who'd sounded off so silly earlier called out, 'Just say the word, Miss Helga! Just say the word and stand aside whilst we fix him good for our pal the Chief.'
Before anyone could get even sillier, Longarm told their boss lady she'd better explain why such gunplay would hardly be wise.
She stared up at him, sidewinder friendly, and quietly asked why it might be unwise of her to just stand aside and let nature take its course.
He said just as softly, 'You ain't that dumb. You're just pretending to be that dumb to scare me. I'm still working on why you feel a need to scare me. But suffice it to say, it ain't working.'
Another rider, this one ominously older and more serious, pleaded, 'Move clear and let us at him, Miss Helga. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a loudmouth trying to bluff his way out of a fight he brought on himself!'
Longarm waited, saw the gal wasn't going to say it for him, and raised his voice loud enough for all to clearly make out as he declared, 'There's one of me and seventeen of you, as I feel sure you've all been feeling swell about. So good as I like to feel I am, I doubt I'd be able to take even half of you with me on my way out of this old world. But what would the survivors do for an encore?'
He let that sink in and continued. 'It's possible to gun a federal deputy and make it to Canada or Mexico before Uncle Sam can hang you. But you'd play hell starting over anywhere in these United States with a federal murder warrant hanging over you. John Wesley Hardin was only wanted on a Texas murder charge, and they tracked him all the way back east to Alabama. But let's say at least some of you are smarter than old Hardin must have felt when he took to gunning lawmen. Killing this one would still mean the eternal end of all Miss Helga's late kith and kin ever worked for.'
The dangerously smart-looking hand growled thoughtfully, 'I fail to see how they could outlaw Miss Helga here for what some others might do with or without her full approval.'
There came an ominous rumble of agreement from all along the line, and sixteen men lined up a surprisingly long way, even as they commenced to circle some from both ends. So Longarm quickly pointed out, 'They don't have to prove toad squat in any court of law, once you make the boys I ride for sore at you. For openers, my having poked a few cows in my own time, let's talk about grazing fees. Or has the little lady here been paying any for all that federally owned bluestem you've been turning into beef for her?'
Helga Runeberg looked stricken and gasped, 'Range fees? Nobody has been asking me for any range fees, you fool!'
Longarm said, 'That's my point, and you'll find out who the fool might be if ever my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, takes it into his head not to like you, ma'am. Indians have recently been demanding and getting six cents an acre per month, or two bits per year, just by telling their B.I.A. agents they wanted it off white folks grazing odd corners of their reserve.'
He reached for a fresh smoke as he quietly asked, 'How much do you reckon a mighty sore white government agent might think an acre of prime long-grass prairie was worth? Oh, I forgot to mention the new fencing regulations up before Congress.'
He let the worried murmur die down before he explained. 'It ain't been passed yet, but we figure it will be within this decade. Seems a heap of self-styled cattle kings and queens have taken to fencing off public lands as if they owned it their fool selves. The Bureau of Land Management has a whole list of new regulations about drift fences, free access to water, and so on pending before Congress, like I said.'
