daddy. And I doubt seriously that you can either.”
Longarm grimaced. “I reckon we are just going to have to piece together what little bits of information we can. Listen, you’ve been here as a civilian. Likely folks will talk freer around you than they will me. What have you heard? It strikes me that the folks around here are damned unconcerned about having such an outfit operating here so openly for so much time. It is unnatural.”
“I can’t put a finger on any one thing,” Davis said. “Though I agree with you that it is unnatural. The local citizenry seems to be uninterested or at least unworried. If I had a gang of cutthroats running loose, I’d be hollering to the law left and right. I was in the saloon when word come in that the auction barn had been robbed. So far as I know, that’s the first piece of business has been done inside the county lines. But you’d of thought it had happened in Louisiana the way folks took it. Of course that saloon crowd ain’t going to get too excited about anything unless the robbers was to come in and steal the beer and whiskey straight out of their glasses.”
Longarm got out a cigar and lit it. When it was drawing good he said, “Well, I got Bodenheimer locked up. If he is going to tell me anything, it’s going to be after he has baked behind those bars for a time. But to tell you the truth, I don’t think the sonofabitch knows much. If I was a bandit with a lick of brains, I wouldn’t tell Bodenheimer anything. Just pay him off. No, there is somebody else making this thing work. I got to figure it is Dalton Diver, and the only way I know to get at him is through his daughters.”
“Exactly how am I supposed to approach this daughter of his? Rebeccah you said her name was?”
Longarm stood up and stretched. “I don’t know. Why don’t you knock on my door in the morning and we’ll go eat some breakfast. It’s near two o’clock.”
Austin Davis got up. “What time?”
“Whatever time you get up and get hungry. We don’t keep no schedule in this business. And I ain’t got to tell you again, do I, to keep this deputy marshal business to yourself.”
“No. Of course not.”
“Folks you’ve met—do they know you’re bounty hunting?”
Davis frowned. “That ain’t something you go around advertising. All a bounty hunter is is a man with some wanted paper in his pocket looking for some faces or bodies to go with the paper. Hell, anybody can do it. The trick is to collect the money. It ain’t something it pays to advertise about.”
“Well, get on out of here.” Longarm yawned. “I will say this one more thing, Davis. I ain’t in the habit of picking up help like this. I’m taking a risk with you.”
Austin Davis made a droll face. “Yeah, I see how you’re taking a hell of a risk. Let’s see, I ain’t got no badge, no papers, no appointment, nothing but a conversation held with a man over whiskey and late hours. Yeah, you’re the one taking the risk, all right. I can see that.”
“You got a smart answer for everything?”
“Only when the conversation takes a turn on the dumb side.” He turned and started to open the door. Longarm’s voice stopped him. He looked back. “What?”
Longarm said, “I don’t think you fetched up to what I meant about them little flowers waiting to have their petals plucked. If Hannah is right, then the woman you are going to go sniffing around ain’t been tested yet.”
Davis laughed. “Hell, I don’t believe you. By your own admission you was about to help little Hannah out of her problem, and she’d only been married a little better than a month. Rebecca has been married two years. Or widowed two years. I got to believe that some buck has come along to show her when to ride and when to get off.”
Longarm took a pull on his cigar. “Hannah said her mother’s advice was to wait until a man come along that she took a shine to and then put him to work. I ain’t all that sure that man has come along for Rebeccah, not seeing I’m tied up with Hannah and can’t get free. I would reckon Rebeccah has got the same high standards as Hannah. I’m hoping you can fill the bill. But that’s all I’m doing. Hoping.”
“Just keep your hopes a-going, my friend. I’ll handle the rest of it.”
“You know you got to handle a virgin kind of careful. Can’t push them along too fast. A little teaching might be in order. That is, if you know anything about the subject yourself.”
Austin Davis stood there, his hand slowly turning the doorknob back and forth. “You will rag a fellow, won’t you, Longarm. if you need me to give you some pointers with Hannah, why don’t you just up and ask instead of beating around the bush like you are doing. By your own mouth you couldn’t handle matters this afternoon. Made up some story about being called away by the sheriff. Is that the reason you arrested him? He didn’t interrupt you earlier?”
Longarm gave him a sour look. “Get on out of here, Davis. Be the last time I waste my breath giving you advice.”
Austin Davis laughed and went through the door, closing it behind him.
Longarm walked over and turned the key in the lock. He very seldom bothered with that sort of thing, but he had an uneasy feeling about his situation. He didn’t ever recollect being in a place where he had a harder time telling who was who and who was on which side of the law.
He shook his head, went over, sat down on the side of the bed, and started taking off his boots. It was getting to be one too many for him. He wondered whether he should have a talk with Bodenheimer the first thing in the morning or go out and work on Hannah. The prospect of working on Hannah certainly presented a much more appealing picture, but he thought he ought to pass by and make sure Bodenheimer and his kin were still under lock and key. Melvin Purliss did not strike him as the most reliable jailer he’d ever seen. He yawned and started undressing. It had been a long day.
Longarm came out of the sheriff’s office and mounted his horse. He turned away and rode south across the front of the courthouse, and then turned east toward the river and Hannah’s cabin. The morning air was fresh and crisp, with the smell of fall in it. Mason, he decided, was a pretty little town, in spite of the people that lived there. As he rode around the two-story courthouse built of country rock, with a big yard shaded by pecan trees, he couldn’t help but speculate that people could get themselves in more trouble in five minutes than they could get out of in a lifetime. Breaking the law just wasn’t a good play. Even if you didn’t get caught, there’d be people in your life who would know you were crooked, and most folks had a conscience to nag them. And if you got caught, well, the law could be a hell of a lot tougher on you than any conscience.
