the hell out of here! You all knew about this. You’re all crooks. I’ve a great mind to lock the bunch of you up! Now move!”
They found the bodies of Vince Diver and Dan Hicks and a man that Austin Davis guessed to be Emil Goustwhite. “Looks like his brother.”
“I guess Squires got away.”
“Unless he’s that one you knocked off his horse over yonder.”
Longarm stepped up onto the boardwalk. “I better see about the sheriff.”
He went inside the bank and found that his two deputies had the sheriff sitting up in a chair. The man was pale and there was a crimson blotch on his right shoulder, but he looked as if he would live. Longarm said to the deputies, “Dammit, get out there and run that crowd off. And one of you have sense enough to get a doctor over here for the sheriff.”
A few of the bank employees were venturing out, and Longarm called for one of them to fetch a bottle of whiskey. “And be damn quick!”
He looked down at the sheriff, a slight grin at his mouth. “Otis, what came over you to suddenly start acting like a sheriff?”
The sheriff looked down. He mumbled, “I don’t know, Marshal. I just had this sudden over-powerin’ feelin’ to do my job.”
Longarm laughed without humor. He said, “Otis, first rule of being a good lawman is always be sure you have the advantage over the bandits. There are a lot more of them than us. Stepping into an open doorway in front of a bunch of men with drawn revolvers ain’t exactly the best way of getting the advantage.”
“I’ll shore keep that in mind, Marshal. If I get me another chance.”
Longarm patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll get another chance, Otis.
You done yourself a whole lot of good today.”
The next day Longarm and Austin Davis sat at a table in the saloon, each of them nursing a whiskey. Austin said, “Well, looks like that wraps it up. You even got Squires. I wonder who the one was got away.”
Longarm shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. I reckon these folks are out of business. I feel bad about old Dalton, though. But then, you set out to do rough work, you better expect some to come back your way.”
“The daughters. Hannah say anything to you when you let her out?”
Longarm laughed. “Aw, yeah. She said a bunch. I never knowed a girl that young could know so many words you couldn’t print in a newspaper.”
He glanced over at Davis. “I ain’t sure that Rebeccah knows you were part of this. That door might still be open.”
Davis nodded. “I had considered having a look inside. See how matters fall out. I don’t know how they are going to take it about their daddy getting killed.”
“I think they understood the risks of the business. All of them girls was older than their age. They knew what was going on. They knew all about Vince. They also knew why I locked them up. Hannah told me in no uncertain terms that it was a lowdown trick and that the only way she’d ever have me in her bed again was if I was to get back in it.”
Davis smiled. “What’s next?”
Longarm pulled a face. “I got to transport the mayor and the banker all the way to Austin and turn them over to a federal court. I expect the court will send down an examiner to have a look at Crouch’s books. Ought to be pretty surprising.”
Davis pulled several papers out of his pocket. He said, “These here are wanted circulars on Hicks and Vince Diver and Squires. I know you popped Squires off but you can’t take a reward, so I wondered if you’d just Put your John Henry on these and the date and place. There’s five hundred dollars a head on each of them.”
Longarm looked at him and then at the pencil in his hand. He said, “You just noted that I couldn’t take a reward because I was a deputy marshal. What the hell you think you are? You can put them posters and that pencil away.”
Davis blinked. He said slowly, “You are joshing me. Say you are joshing me. Don’t tell me I went through all this for three dollars a day.”
Longarm nodded. “That’s a fact. You didn’t earn it, but I figure you got five days coming. You turn in a voucher, in triplicate, to the headquarters in Colorado, and you ought to get your fifteen dollars in, oh, two or three months.”
Davis sagged back in his chair. “I don’t believe this. You’re joshing?”
Longarm gave him a blank look. “I don’t understand, Austin. Where is the carefree, lighthearted man who made fun of me for taking matters too seriously? Where is that devil-may-care lad? What happened to him?”
Austin Davis leaned his head back. “He got buried under fifteen hundred dollars he didn’t get.” Then he sat forward and laughed ruefully. “What the hell, I took the job. It ought to have dawned on me you was dying to have the last laugh. Well, have it. But let’s have another whiskey.”
“I can’t,” Longarm said. He stood up and took a stub of a pencil out of his pocket. He added, “Don’t never say I never done nothing for you.” Then, on each of the posters, he wrote his name and his commission and his federal district, and certified that each of the wanted men had been killed by Austin Davis. He put the pencil back in his pocket. “That suit you, Marshal Smith?”
Davis looked at the papers and then up at Longarm. “You didn’t have to do that. I made a deal. I’m willing to stick by it.”
Longarm laughed. “There was no deal. There ain’t no such thing as a provisional deputy marshal. I made that up. Now I got to get going. It’s a long drag to Austin.” He was turning for the door when Austin Davis stopped him. Longarm said, “What?”
