what about you?”
Bodenheimer shrugged. “They let me keep my job. An’ the mayor let me put two of my kinfolk to work.”
“That all?”
Bodenheimer looked uneasy. “Well, they did gimme a twenty-five-dollar-a-month rise in my salary. An’ they started furnishin’ me an’ my two deputies with horses.”
Austin Davis laughed. “I bet that wasn’t no hardship—the horses, I mean. Probably had more stolen stock than they knew what to do with.”
Longarm said to Bodenheimer, “One thing I ain’t exactly clear on. The money went to the bank, to Mister Ernest Crouch. But I don’t believe that he talked a bunch of hard men into giving him the proceeds from their robberies. Most robbers are stupid, but I can’t believe anybody is that stupid.”
Bodenheimer looked startled. “Oh, no, Marshal. Them robbers taken their cut. Land-a-mercy, naturally they did. What the mayor and the banker done was to charge them for hidin’ out in Mason County. Sort of a fee or a rent. Don’t you see?”
“How much was it?”
Bodenheimer shook his head. “Now that I don’t be knowing.”
Austin Davis said, “Otis, one thing as has puzzled me is where the Diver girls come into this business. They kept marrying into the gang, but the marriages never come to nothing. What was that all about?”
Bodenheimer shook his head again. “I couldn’t tell you that, Marshal Smith. That was ol’ Dalton Diver’s work. Didn’t have nothin’ to do with our arrangement. I’d reckon that was just his way of making a little something on the side. We all thought it was pretty fine because it took more of the money out of the actual robbers’ hands and kept it here.”
“What do you know about a Mister Summers drowning?” Longarm asked. “About two or three months ago? That was handy as hell for Dalton Diver and his daughter Hannah.”
The sheriff was defensive. “Now I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout that and I don’t want to know. I tol’ my deputies to steer clear of the business and that is a fact. What they wanted to do amongst themselves was no affair of our’n.”
Longarm thought for a moment, and then he glanced at Austin Davis.
Davis just made a shrugging motion as if that was all as far as he was concerned. Longarm said, “All right, Bodenheimer, get off your horse.”
Chapter 8
The sheriff stood there uncertainly, looking as if he were waiting for further instructions. None came. Austin Davis rode over, gathered up the reins of Bodenheimer’s horse, and turned back toward town. Longarm wheeled his mount and started off in company with Austin Davis. The sheriff watched them dumbly for a few seconds, and then he said loudly, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! What are you doing?”
Longarm was about ten yards away. He turned in his saddle and looked back at the fat man wearing manacles. He said, “Why, what you asked, Otis. I’m seeing you safe out of Mason. You’re out of Mason and you’re safe. What else you want?”
Bodenheimer had a stricken look on his face. “But you can’t leave me afoot out here like this! Somebody will come along and kill me. I can’t walk in these boots, and you still got me chained!”
Austin Davis said, “There is just no pleasing some people. Hell, Marshal, it doesn’t appear that Otis is grateful to you for his freedom.”
Bodenheimer said, “You can’t leave me afoot!”
Longarm said, “Bodenheimer, you the same as told me the horse you are riding is stolen. As a law officer I can’t let you ride off on a stolen horse.”
“But you promised you’d see me safe. Didn’t he, Marshal Smith?”
Longarm turned and looked at Austin Davis. “Did I promise that, Marshal Smith?”
Austin Davis did not even have the good grace to look ashamed. He said, “Well, maybe in a way you did. But he looks pretty safe right now. And he is free and he is out of Mason.”
Bodenheimer’s voice rose in a kind of wail. “I meant see me safe someplace else than Mason County. Hell, I ain’t even out of the county! I meant see me safe someplace I can stay! I can’t stay on this road.”
Longarm turned his horse around so he was facing the sheriff. “Listen, Bodenheimer, what am I supposed to do with you? I ain’t got time to carry you to a place where you can be safe. I don’t know what safe is for you. I told you earlier that you might want to go to prison, might ask to go to Kansas. Is that what you want? Because that is about the only safety I can offer you.”
Behind him Austin Davis said, “Marshal, I’ve had a thought.”
Longarm looked back. “And what would that be, Marshal Smith?”
“Well, why don’t you let him go back to sheriffing?”
Longarm was startled. This had been no part of their plans. He said, “Marshal, why in hell would I want to arrest a law officer for being a crook and then give him his job back?”
Davis said, “Well, perhaps he’s learned his lesson. And perhaps he could be of some help to us. Maybe he’d like to redeem himself and be an honest sheriff.”
Longarm looked at Bodenheimer and then back at Davis with amazement clear on his face. He said, “One of us is talking like they’ve been eating loco weed, and I don’t think it is me. Why in hell would you want me to let him come back as sheriff? He ought to be a sheriff, all right, in a cell in Leavenworth. Malfeasance in office is a federal crime that will get you ten years breaking rocks.”
Davis said, “Yeah, I know you got him dead to rights, Marshal Long, but hell, everybody makes a mistake now
