“Outside. The people here, they expect you to follow Mister Burdick and the men. Out to the barn, they said. You leave now. But you do not go to the barn, no. You go out back. Into the rest house that is set aside for the ladies. In few minutes I will go out. Into the rest house. You wait for me there. When we are finished speaking I will leave first, make sure no one watches. Then I will tap on door and you will know it is safe to follow, yes?”
“Sounds all right t’ me, I reckon,” he whispered back while looking in another direction entirely.
The deception seemed silly as hell. But then he didn’t know what the whole deal was here. The time to scoff would be after he had all the facts, not before.
Taking his time about it, Longarm fired up one of Howard Burdick’s good panatelas and sat there for several moments letting the smoke wreathe his head while he savored the taste of the tobacco. Then he rose and left the table, stopping at the front door to slip into a pair of the cold and clammy rubber boots before going outside.
Across the muddy yard he could hear the sound of voices inside the barn where Burdick and the others were working to move the hay.
Longarm felt bad about letting them do all the work, but he didn’t see that he had much choice. If the woman in blue knew something about the man who wanted to gun him, well, that was information he wanted pretty bad. He turned away from the barn and headed around back toward the outhouses.
He passed by the men’s outhouse with the tiny hole in the side wall from where the first attempt had been made on Longarm’s life. And him not so much as recognizing the shooting for what it was, dammit. He went on by, and hesitated when he got to the door of the ladies’ outhouse.
It just purely wasn’t in him to go waltzing in there without knocking. Shit, he’d be embarrassed half out of his mind if he walked in and found even one of the whores perched on the pot. And if he intruded on Mrs. Burdick? There weren’t words enough in the English language to explain away a blunder like that. He tapped lightly on the door and asked, “Anyone there? I say, is anyone in there, please?”
There was no response, and after another moment’s hesitation he pulled the door open and stepped inside.
The shitter was empty. He was fascinated to discover, though, that it didn’t smell at all like the men’s two- holer. This one smelled almost … nice.
Then he saw the reason why. Beside the bin where the wiping paper was stored someone had put a little shelf. On it there was a bottle of patent toilet water—right well named in this instance, he thought—with a lantern wick jammed into the mouth of the bottle. The damp wick allowed the fragrance, lilac according to the label on the fancy little bottle, to escape slowly into the air, covering over much of the natural odor of such a facility and making the whole thing a much more pleasant place for a lady to drop her drawers.
Longarm sat down to wait—no need to fret here about an errant aim splattering piss on the toilet seat—and smoke his cigar.
“You will allow me?” the woman in the blue gown asked as, without waiting for a response, she reached up and plucked the cigar out of Longarm’s mouth.
He let her take it without quarrel. Hell, he’d run into women more than once in the past who rebelled against the social restriction imposed upon the weaker sex and who in private might enjoy the taste of tobacco. Or other things generally forbidden to them.
He figured this woman was another one like that, and if she wanted a drag on his cigar, then … “Hey!”
His yelp came too late, and with horror he watched her drop the fine, pale panatela into the open maw of the dump hole. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“I am very sensitive to the smoke, no? You must not smoke in these close quarters. My lungs are delicate. But of course if you want your filthy thing back again, Marshal, I will attempt to retrieve it for you.” There was a sound from behind the veil that might have been muted laughter. “Of course you must first promise me that you will smoke the rest of it. Then I will be sure to recover it for you, no?”
“Thank you so much,” he said in a dry tone.
“You do not want it now? So sad. It would have been amusing for us both, I think.”
“Not for us both,” he said. “Look, inside the station you told me you know something ‘bout this bird that wants to perforate my belly.”
“I did? I really said a thing like that?”
“That’s what I took you t’ mean.”
“But non, mon cher, that is not quite what I mean to say.
“Then what …?”
“I tell you I have information that is vital. But it is not about the man who would shoot you. Of that I know nothing. I would tell you if I knew. But I do not.”
“If not that, then …?”
“The country. This country. It is in very great danger, marshal. And you, as a representative of the government of this country, you are one to whom I can deliver my warning, yes?”
He gave her a questioning look. Information vital to the country? What the hell was this broad talking about?
“You wish to know what I have to say?”
“Well … yeah. Uh, yeah, I’m sure I do.” If he happened to have reservations about that, well, he’d keep those to himself. For now.
“First you must do three things, Marshal,” the woman said.
“Three?”
“Yah, three.” First he’d thought the hint of accent was Slavic, and then maybe French, and now it sounded more like low German, or it could be Polish. Weird.
