He turned his head back to Clem Gallagher. “I expected something like this, Gallagher. That’s why we have Rufus. If I’m not back in two hours, your brother is going to be hung up from an oak tree and skinned alive. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The thin-faced man drew his lips back in what Longarm took to be some sort of a satisfied smile. “Why, you damn fool. That wasn’t Rufus. That were a second cousin of ours named Jeremiah Kettle.”
Longarm said slowly, “I see. So the scar on the jaw was just a coincidence. Is that right?”
“Do you mean would Miss Lily Gail deliberately lie to you9 Well, I don’t know about that, Longarm. Maybe she just got confused. A lot of people mistake Orvil for my brother Rufus. You ain’t so very damn smart yourself. I was doing all the talking and Rufus is the elder. Do you reckon that I’d have been doing all that talking if Rufus had been there?”
“I guess I was a little slow about that.”
“I reckon that you’re going to be slow about a lot of things by the time we get through with you.”
“Well, I’m still confused. How did Lily Gail make up a story like that so quick? You couldn’t have anticipated that.”
Clem Gallagher made that smile again. “That’s a mighty smart little lady, Marshal Longarm. She does things real good. It appears that some of the things she does you like. Some of them other things, you don’t like.”
“That man is still your second cousin. You know that he’ll never make it back to you.”
Clem Gallagher said, “Who the hell cares? I’ve got more damn cousins than your mother has fleas.”
“I guess you must be an expert on fleas, Gallagher. You appear to have some in your brain. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to you if you harm a deputy U.S. marshal? You think you’ve been hunted before? That ain’t a drop in the ocean to what will happen afterwards. The entire marshals service will devote the rest of their time to running you to the ground.”
Clem Gallagher spat over the side of his horse. “Who gives a damn. We ain’t scared of your marshals service. Ya’ll have been trying to catch us for years. You ain’t done a very good job of it.”
Longarm said, “I think you’re lying about Rufus.”
Clem laughed. He turned his head toward the house. He yelled, “Rufus! Rufus! There’s a man out here that thinks you ain’t here! He thinks that you went off into New Mexico Territory with that other marshal! What did you do that for?”
Longarm turned his head to the right and looked at the shack. As he did, a man wearing an identical linen duster, only taller and heavier, came walking out carrying a carbine. He, too, wore a black flat-crowned hat, but around his neck he had a red handkerchief bound to keep the dirt from getting down inside his shirt. Longarm could see that he was wearing a vest and that his pants were held by both a belt and suspenders.
Clem Gallagher said, “There’s Rufus now. Why don’t you ask him how much we care what happens to Orvil Kettle? You can kill the sonofabitch for all we care. We’re content to have your ass. Now, I’ll tell you what you can do. Just as careful as you can, step down off that horse. Don’t you make no sudden move. Before you do, I want you to reach down and get ahold of your carbine with the one hand, get hold of it by the stock, pull it out, and let it fall to the ground. After that, you dismount real careful and keep both your hands in the air.” As he finished his remarks, Clem Gallagher slowly drew his revolver and pointed it at Longarm. He said, “Now is that clear?”
As Longarm pulled out his carbine from the boot, he glanced to the right to where Rufus Gallagher still stood. He had come no further than the edge of the porch. He stood there watching. Longarm assumed that whatever kind of party that they had in mind for him would take place inside the shack and that Rufus was probably the chief organizer of the festivities.
Longarm slowly eased his weight onto his left stirrup and swung his right leg over, keeping one hand on the saddlehorn and the other in the air so that Clem Gallagher would have no excuse for being sudden with the revolver that he had pointed dead at Longarm.
When he was standing by the side of his horse, both hands in the air, Clem Gallagher backed his horse up a few feet and motioned with his pistol. Gallagher said, “Walk toward me. Get clear of your horse. The horse is between you and the rifles in the house.”
Longarm took two steps forward so that he was just beyond the head of his horse. He thought it would be extremely funny if they suddenly fired at him, hit his horse, and blew themselves to kingdom come. Of course, since he would go up in the same explosion, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny as it would be if he wasn’t there.
Longarm watched as Clem Gallagher dismounted and walked toward him, his revolver in his right hand. He came and stood face-to-face with Longarm, or he came to stand in front of Longarm and tilt his face up to look into Longarm’s. He was even shorter than Longarm had thought. With his left hand, Clem Gallagher reached out and took Longarm’s revolver out of the holster. He pitched it to his left, toward the porch. Longarm hated to see his carefully kept weapon skidding along in the dust.
Clem Gallagher said, “Well, now, Mister Lawman. What do you think of yourself now?”
“I am supposed to stand here with my hands in the air like some damn fool? You’ve got me disarmed. Are you afraid of an unarmed man?”
Gallagher made a clucking sound in his voice that Longarm took for laughter. “By all means, Mister Lawman, put your hands down. You might need to scratch your ass. You might need to scratch a lot of places when we get through with you. You might not have a use for that little pistol that you use on Lily Gail so well.”
Longarm said, “Let me ask you something, Gallagher.” He turned before going on and looked at Rufus standing on the porch with his rifle. His rifle was hanging casually, not pointed at any one thing, but then Longarm reckoned that there were several backup rifles aimed directly at him. Whatever he did, it was going to have to be done soon and sudden. Once they got him inside the shack, they would no doubt bind his hands and then his options would be slim. He hooked his hands in his gunbelt, working his left thumb into the silver buckle where he kept the derringer. He made it seem like a casual nonchalant gesture intending to show that he wasn’t afraid. He said again, “Let me ask you something, Gallagher. You’ve gone through a hell of a lot of trouble to get me here and I’m curious as to the reason. Is it because of all that cash and silver that you think that I’m going to stop you from robbing in Springer, or is it because old Vern went up in a million pieces?”
Gallagher’s eyes suddenly blazed. He shifted the pistol to his left hand and with his right slapped Longarm with the flat of his hand as hard as he could. Longarm let the blow turn his face so that he was looking at the cabin.
