What they’d just committed was a sin, and he wasn’t going to say her sin was greater than his own because the sinners he kept having to deal with disgusted him with all their talk about only being half-ass sinners. A man who stole cows had no call to describe himself as a rustler instead of a cow thief. There was no offense under statute or common law described as rustling, swiping, or helping one’s self. What he’d just been doing to another man’s wife was described as the state offense of adultery, and it was sure a good thing that wasn’t a federal offense. For he was able to just button up her back like a sport without having to consider turning himself in. But as he did so, he reflected it was sure a good thing he’d be on his way back to Denver with that other sinner come morning. For now he might have at least two jealous Jaspers and who knew who else he had to worry about here in John Bull!
Chapter 7
The one and only morning train would be heading down to Golden after nine, lest anyone in town with urgent business miss it. But that still cut too fine for Longarm to find out whether Peony had bragged about him to that waitress pal of hers. Old Matilda would be fixing to start serving in the hotel dining room about the time he had to board that combination with Bunny McNee.
He hadn’t wanted to worry about a waitress gal’s poker face in any case, and they served tolerable flapjacks with fried eggs at a small joint across from the jail. It was tougher to eat breakfast with your gun hand free and both eyeballs peeled. So he stuffed his own face before he ambled across the way to pick up his prisoner and feed him decently before they headed out. Longarm was too polite to tell local lawmen how to run their own jails. But it was a simple fact that prisoners without pocket jingle to send out for luxuries, such as tobacco and food, got to chew lots of match stems and live on stale bread and unsalted beans in your average small-town lockup.
He found Deputy Rothstein in charge out front. Rothstein allowed his boss, Constable Payne, would be by directly to hand the prisoner over to the federal government on paper. Longarm nodded, but told the amiable younger deputy he wanted to make certain his prisoner got on the train looking well fed and halfway neat.
Rothstein allowed it would be all right to let McNee have some soap and warm water out back while they waited for the constable to get there. Rothstein didn’t have any toothbrush for the kid, and razors in the hands of dangerous criminals had never struck him as a sensible suggestion. So Longarm ambled back to the cell block for a word with his prisoner as Rothstein went to tell someone they wanted soap and water from the barbershop next door.
Longarm found Bunny McNee pacing like a caged critter, dressed to go in what looked like a bigger kid’s hand- me-downs. The loose jeans and baggy shirt likely were. Longarm told the kid they’d be leaving directly and that it was up to him whether the short day trip down to Denver would be relaxed or tense.
As McNee came to the bars to accept another smoke from the easy-going Longarm, he nervously asked just what that meant.
Longarm flared a match to light them both up as he tersely said, “You can ride down to Denver like a passenger who just happens to be headed for a hearing before a federal judge, or you can ride all the way in handcuffs and leg irons. I can be as fair or as firm as the situation calls for and … Hold on now, Bunny. Don’t we have you on yellow foolscap as a wayward youth of nineteen, going on twenty?”
The youthful prisoner shrugged and replied, “What if you do?”
To which Longarm soberly replied, as Rothstein came to join them with a remark about that soap and water, “You don’t need a shave.”
Rothstein had naturally heard that. So he said, “I told you why we don’t allow no razors back here unsupervised. Our swamper will be here with that soap and water as soon as it heats up next door. You say the punk don’t need any shave to begin with?”
Longarm gravely nodded and told the prisoner, “I’d like you to unbutton that floppy shirt and show us your hairy chest now. I’d as soon you kept your pants on, though.”
Bunny McNee primly replied, “I don’t want to unbutton my shirt for you. I was raised to be more modest than most, and since when is it a crime for a boy to have a bare chest?”
Longarm smiled thinly and said, “I’ve yet to see a boy with any sort of chest go all this jail time without even sprouting some lip fuzz, if he’s really a boy of nineteen. So about them buttons …”
McNee stamped a boot heel on the cement and sort of sobbed, “All right, if you must know, I’m not a boy. I’ m a girl. I’ve been a sort of tomboy girl for all of those nineteen years you mentioned. Are you satisfied?”
Longarm sighed and said, “A lawman transferring a prisoner just ain’t allowed to get satisfied with her. I owe my poor old boss an apology. I thought he’d assigned two deputies to transport you down to Denver because he didn’t want one of ‘em to go to a dance. Now I suspect he knew, or suspected, more than I did about you when I changed Marshal Vail’s orders behind his back!”
Turning to Rothstein, Longarm continued. “Let her have the soap and water, but don’t plan on her going anywhere today. I have to send me another telegram. There’s no way in hell I can get me another deputy and a matron from the federal house of detention up this way before I’m stuck for at least one more night up here. For I ain’t about to spend the better part of a day alone with a prisoner of the female persuasion and an established lying nature!”
The poor excuse for a youth on the far side of the bars blew a teasing puff of smoke and coyly asked, “Why, Deputy Long, are you saying you can’t be trusted not to abuse my fair white body?”
Longarm snorted, “I’m saying you can’t be trusted not to accuse me the moment we get you before a federal grand jury. But since you had to ask, I wouldn’t abuse you with Ginger Bancott’s dick, you skinny lying two-bit slut!”
She asked who Bancott was as Longarm stormed out, composing one mighty humble telegram in his worried mind. There was no damned way he could wire his home office without eating a generous helping of crow. But it likely served him right for being such a smart-ass in the first place. Some antique Greek had written, years before, how those frisky Greek gods in fig leaves and firemen’s helmets liked to totally screw mere mortals up by making them feel smarter than they could ever really be!
A man strode fast in low-heeled boots when he was as chagrined as a Turkish pasha with a big harem and a little dick. So he’d sent his sheepish wire and was coming back out of the Western Union near the depot when Constable Payne caught up with him.
Payne said, “Nate Rothstein told me. It wasn’t easy, but we got the prisoner’s pants down and she sure is a hairy little thing down in the cornfield where the sun but seldom shines! Are you saying none of you federal lawmen knew why that outlaw gang had her tagging along to hold their horses and doubtless other things for ‘em?”
