Longarm said, 'Move back and off to one side and I'll ask him.'
So the unarmed Egger crawfished back and off to one side indeed as Longarm just stood there, smiling sort of wistfully.
As the Minnesota kid came within pistol range Longarm called out, 'That's far enough and don't try it, Gus. Can't you see you're being used as a cat's paw by a sly old mouser who doesn't give a fig for your future?'
Gus Hansson stopped, only to drop into a gunfighter's crouch as he bitched, 'We just got word from New Ulm, you son of a bitch! The sheriff just arrested Miss Helga and half of my pals on the Rocking R!'
Longarm nodded amiably and replied, 'I know. I wired them earlier and allowed it was about time we commenced wrapping up. Somebody has to pay for hiring Laughing Larry Lucas to blow pretty ladies up, and I'm sure the big boss has told you it wasn't his dumb notion.'
Gus Hansson snarled, 'Fill your fist by the time I count to three. For that's when I mean to draw, you smirking know-it-all!'
Longarm thoughtfully threw his frock coat open to expose the grips of his cross-draw.44-40, but called out in a calm reasonable tone, 'You don't want to try it, Gus. This ain't one of them Wild West yarns in Ned Buntline's magazines. Life is real, life is earnest, and I've got an edge on your skills and experience.'
Gus Hansson grimly answered, 'One!'
Longarm snorted, 'Aw, shit, this is getting silly, Gus!'
To which the determined-looking kid answered, 'Two!'
So Longarm, being a grown man instead of a kid who'd read too many dime novels in the bunkhouse, fired the derringer he'd been palming all this time before the fool kid could slap leather as he counted to three.
Then all hell busted loose, and Longarm let the double derringer dangle from his watch chain as he dropped to the platform and rolled over the edge to bob back up with his more serious six-gun in hand as he called out, 'Smiley? Dutch?'
'Over here,' came a jovial reply from the narrow dark slit between the switchman's booth and depot wall.
A second voice Longarm recognized as that of the more somber cuss called Smiley called out, 'It didn't work quite as well as you planned though. We tried to get him to drop his damned gun and grab for the sky as he was fixing to throw down on your back. But he paid us no mind and, well, you know Dutch here.'
Everyone who worked with the jolly but murderous Dutch knew how he was when suspects didn't do exactly as he said. But first things coming first, Longarm rose to his full height, brushing his tweed pants with his Stetson as he holstered his unfired six-gun and put the warm double derringer away for now. He moved over to the nearer of the two figures sprawled on the platform. Rolling Gus Hansson over with a boot tip, he could see at a glance the bravely stupid kid had no need for a sawbones. You aimed for the dead center of a man's trunk, when you only had two derringer rounds to work with.
But as he turned on Egger, the pallid punk raised his head from a puddle of puke and sobbed, 'Am I still alive? Is it over?'
Longarm muttered, 'All but some loose ends,' as he saw his boss, Marshal Vail, coming out from the depot waiting room on his stubby legs, his own gun out.
Vail announced, 'O'Foyle and Cohen will only be able to keep that crowd inside a few minutes longer. They keep saying they got a train to catch. Who's that lying yonder so dead?'
Longarm said, 'His name was Gus Hansson. We met earlier back in Santee country. He was one of 'em. You already know Egger here. So let's see who Smiley and Dutch have yonder.'
They moved to the far end of the platform. Despite his height, Longarm found it easier to move through that narrow slit than his shorter and stockier boss did. But they both managed, and sure enough, the tall grim Smiley and short jolly Dutch were standing over another corpse. This one was older, wearing his gun rig under a snuff- colored store-bought suit, and wasn't familiar to either Longarm or his fellow lawmen.
Longarm called Egger through the slot and demanded, 'All right, is that the real Calvert Tyger, or has he faked his damned death some more?'
Egger gulped and marveled, 'It's Cal. You got him! I didn't think it could be done! He was such a sly old dog!'
Longarm shrugged and said, 'I figured he'd be more cautious than a villain in one of Ned Buntline's gentlemanly duels. That's how come we staked out all the handy cover he'd have to work with, after I'd made sure he'd know of a good time and place to nail the two of us.'
Billy Vail chuckled fondly and said, 'There was never a rider that couldn't be throwed or a slicker who couldn't be snowed. It's sort of sad about his young sidekick. But we got him. So that's about it, right?'
Longarm said, 'Wrong. We have an even slicker bastard left, Boss.'
CHAPTER 30
Fort Collins, sixty-odd miles north of Denver, had commenced as a military outpost on the Cache La Poudre or Powdercache River. But by this time it had grown into the seat of Larimer County, with a new land-grant college and all. The federal government offices had all closed for the day when Longarm paid his call on Miss Lorena Fenward, the surviving female witness to the horrendous events at the payroll office closer to the center of town.
The stenographer gal roomed with an even more maidenly older lady, who sniffed at Longarm's badge and identification, and allowed he and her roomer gal might be more comfortable out on her front porch as the warm shades of a summer evening crept down from the Front Range to the west.
When she fetched Lorena Fenward, the mousy little thing looked sort of pleased with him. As she offered Longarm her tiny hand, she told him she and Clifford, the other survivor of the robbery, had just read the newspaper reports about the capture of those notorious outlaws.
As they sat down together on the nearby porch swing, with somebody inside doing a piss-poor job of peeking through lace curtains without moving them, Longarm told her, 'The three leaders and a heap of their followers are dead, not captured, ma'am, and notorious was just the word I wanted to talk to you about.' She seemed to be
