But Ownsby was staring at Longarm. “What was that all about?”
Longarm shrugged. “Nothing.”
“First time I ever seen one lawman run off another one from the site of a theft. Strikes me as passing strange.”
“Maybe that’s because federal officers don’t do business the way you are used to your sheriff doing.”
Ownsby gave a snort. “That’s for damn shore. Any change in that direction would be a relief.”
Longarm said, “Now then, Mrs. Ownsby, can you tell me how much was taken?”
She fluttered her hands. “Well, I can’t say to the dollar, not until I get all of the sales receipts in from the man what runs the auction, the auctioneer.”
Ownsby said, “It was all the morning receipts. Them as had done their business and come in and paid Vera.” He nodded his head at his wife.
“Mrs. Ownsby. Whatever that figure come out to be. It will be a good piece of change.”
“More than, say, two thousand dollars?”
“Oh, good heavens, yes. Day like today, brisk as it was, it would be closer on to four thousand than two.”
Longarm shook his head slowly. “That’s a bunch of money to expect to find sitting out here in a grove of mesquite trees. Is it pretty common knowledge that ya’ll handle such funds out here?”
Ownsby pulled a face. “I wouldn’t say every Tom, Dick, or Harry knowed about it, but it wasn’t no secret. You come out here and stand around awhile and see a pen of horses go through and fetch a thousand dollars, and you see a man pay for them in cash, you’d kind of get the idea that we had some money behind the counter.”
“Yes, but doesn’t the man that sold the horses step up and take it right away?”
Ownsby shook his head. “Naw. Don’t work that way. First we got to remove our commission, and then we pay the seller by check. But it don’t happen one, two, three. Once the buyer has paid for his stock he goes around to inspect them. That all takes time. We don’t okay the sale until buyer and seller is satisfied. That’s what makes a auction barn different than trading out of a wagon on the town square. You never know what you’ll be getting there, but we guarantee the swap. And if the buyer pays by check, it’s us as stands to lose if his check ain’t no good. And that can hold up a trade. On some big checks with a buyer that ain’t from this part of the country or ain’t got no standing with us, why, we’ll hold up the trade until we can wire about the man’s check. And if a seller wants to be paid in cash, we will try and accommodate him.”
“They come around one o’clock. Wouldn’t they have gotten more money if they’d held up until, say, five?”
Ownsby shook his head. “Not necessarily. We shut down at about one, and don’t crank up again until three. By five o’clock, we might have paid off a lot of our sellers in cash and might have less money than at one o’clock.”
Longarm looked at Mrs. Ownsby. “Ma’am, I take it you were in here by yourself when the robbers called?”
She fluttered her hands in the air. “Oh, my stars, yes! My heart like to have stopped when they come through that door with them big guns in their hands.”
“How many were there?”
“They was only two come in here, but I could see they was about four more right outside the door.” She pointed at a little window beside the door. Longarm looked over his shoulder. He could see Bodenheimer and his deputies talking to a group of men. She said, “They was sitting their horses right by the door. One of them was holding the horses of the two who was in here a’robbin’ me.”
“How’d you know the men outside were robbers?”
“They was wearing bandannas ‘cross their faces just like the ones come in here, wasn’t they.”
“So the men that came in here had their faces covered?”
“Well—up to their eyes. And they had their hats pulled low.”
“So you don’t have any idea who they were? Or if you’d ever seen them before.”
Ownsby said, “Mother, didn’t you say one of them walked kind of familiar?”
She frowned. “Now, Marshal, I ain’t sure enough about this to swear by it, but the shorter one of the two come in here kind of had a hitch in his get-along. I’ve seen it before, in town, but I can’t put a name or a face to the walk.”
“Nothing else?”
Ownsby said, “She told me right after it happened that the leader, I reckon that would be Wayne Shaker, was riding a paint horse.”
Longarm shook his head in disbelief. He had heard several times that the leader of the gang rode a paint horse, but he could not bring himself to believe it. It was common coin that a paint horse had to be bred back to his own line so many times to get the variety of colors in his coat that all the quality was bred out of the animal so far as making a good mount. Longarm had never known of a paint horse that had much endurance or staying power, and if there was anything an outlaw required in a mount it was staying power. A robber had to have the means to get clear of a robbery and then put some distance between himself and the men that would be coming after him. And he couldn’t do that on a paint, at least not any paint that Longarm had ever come upon. He said, “That’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of. Mister Ownsby, you ever heard of a man that needs to make some tracks riding a paint horse?”
Ownsby shook his head. “Not me. And that’s why most folks that know anything are of the mind that that gang holds around here close. I don’t understand why that damn Otis Bodenheimer can’t flush them out. Hell, this is one of the smallest counties around. Fat as he is, looks like he’d stumble over them.”
“Have you ever seen Wayne Shaker, Mister Ownsby?”
The man shook his head. “Naw. I never even heard of him until a year ago. But everybody says he’s a Mason
