Longarm turned and looked at Bodenheimer. All the sheriff did was blink, but Longarm’s look was grim. If he was going to be played for a fool, he wanted it to be by someone who was at least smarter than a milk cow, which was what Bodenheimer reminded him of.
The auction barn was located seven miles on the other side of town, on the Llano road almost at the Llano County line. It had been deliberately located there so it could draw trade from as big an area as possible. It was a major cattle and horse trading market. A man might take an individual horse or cow or a few goats into the town square on market day, or Trades Day, but the auction barn dealt in volume and attracted cattlemen and horse ranchers from a considerable area. The barn usually held its bigger auctions on Trades Days so as to take advantage of the number of out-of-country people who would be coming to the area.
It took them an hour and a half to ride through the town of Mason and then cover the seven miles to the auction barn. Longarm had expected most of the traders would have gone home. The robbery, as best Longarm could figure but from the excited man who’d brought the news, had taken place some four hours previously. It was pushing six o’clock and sundown by the time Longarm rode up to the barn. He estimated there were still forty to fifty men standing around, looking agitated.
They started yelling as soon as they saw Bodenheimer. Longarm left the sheriff to deal with the crowd while he dismounted and went into the cashier’s office by the outside door. It was in that office that the robbery had taken place. The cashier was a middle-aged lady, the wife of the auction barn owner, John Ownsby. There were several other people in the office, but Longarm cleared them all out except for Ownsby and his wife. The owner was having a glass of whiskey and his wife was drinking coffee. Both, Longarm could tell, were considerably shaken by what had happened. Longarm sat down and accepted a whiskey from Ownsby.
Mrs. Ownsby was seated at her desk, while her husband leaned against the wall and nursed his drink. He said, looking worried, “Marshal, I don’t know what in hell to do.” He gestured outside the building. “I got a lot of men out there who have bought and paid for a bunch of animals, paid cash, and I can’t let them take their own property away because there ain’t no money to pay the men who owned the stock that they bought.” He ran his hand over his face. He was a man pushing fifty, and his hair was streaked with gray. He went on. “It’s one hell of a mess. And where was that damn Bodenheimer and his deputies when we got held up? Hell, clean over on the other side of the damn county. And that sonofabitch knows we deal in considerable cash here.”
“Does he ever send deputies around?” Longarm asked, curious. “Or come around himself?”
Ownsby looked disgusted. “Hell, no. The sonofabitch said they wasn’t nobody going to go to a place where they was half a hundred able-bodied men and hold it up.” Ownsby leaned forward. “Well, they never come in no place where they was half a hundred able-bodied men.” He gestured around the small office. “They come in here, where the money was, and where they wasn’t nothin’ but a nice little lady to scare the hell out of!”
Mrs. Ownsby put her hand to her breast and looked toward the ceiling while she took a deep breath. She said, “Marshal, John and I got caught in a flood in a wagon that drowned the team in its traces, and I wasn’t nowhere near as scared as I was when them two men come in here waving guns around and demanding the money. Heavens, they didn’t have to demand it.” She gestured at the top of her desk. “It was all right here. All they had to do was lean down and pick it up.”
“How much was taken?” Longarm asked.
Before anyone could answer, the door opened from the outside and Otis Bodenheimer started in. Longarm wheeled in his chair. “Stay outside, Bodenheimer.”
The sheriff protested. “Hell, Marshal, this is my business. This done taken place in my county.”
“Couldn’t have happened nowhere else. So we agree about that. But I don’t want you in here. You get outside and tend to the electorate, especially men who have got money or stock coming. See if you can explain what happened to them.”
But Bodenheimer stood his ground. “I’m the sheriff here,” he said stoutly. “And this is my affair to handle. This is my business.”
Longarm stood up. “Bodenheimer, if you don’t get out of here I’m going to have to give Mister Ownsby an announcement to make to the crowd.”
Bodenheimer frowned. “What’s that?”
“I said I’d have to whisper a few words into Mister Ownsby’s ear that he could announce to the crowd.”
Bodenheimer was still frowning. “What, uh, kind of announcement?”
“That’s just the thing,” Longarm said. “You won’t know until it’s too late.”
Bodenheimer looked uncertain. “I ain’t right sure I’m following you.”
“What I’m saying, Bodenheimer, is once Ownsby tells the crowd what I got in mind, you’ll be running for your life.”
The sheriff took a step backward. “Now, hold on,” he said. “You better not go to spreadin’ no tales about me.”
“It won’t be a tale,” Longarm said. “Now, are you going to get out of here or do I send out Mister Ownsby?”
The sheriff looked back and forth from Longarm to Ownsby. “Why, why, YOU are threatening me with what I don’t know. That ain’t fair. I ain’t got no way of knowing what you might have Mister Ownsby say to that bunch. They be pretty upset, Marshal. Ain’t no time for rash doings.”
“Then I reckon you better get the hell out of here and talk to them yourself. That way you can control the situation.”
Bodenheimer blinked and felt behind him for the door handle. “Well, all right, Marshal, but you and I is got to have a little talk. We both on the same side.”
“Right now I want you on the other side of that door. That’s the only side I want you to be on. The other.”
“I’m goin’ then. Damned if I know what this is all about.”
Longarm watched, without a word, until Bodenheimer had let himself out and closed the door. Then he turned and sat back down in the chair.
“Now then,” he said, “how much did they get?”
