As he bellied up to the bar, he took out his pocket watch to check it against the ornate wall clock above the back bar. If they were right he was running a tad slow. When he wore his three-piece suit around the Denver Federal Building, his watch and pocket derringer rode in separate vest pockets on the same gilt chain. Having everything jumbled together in one breast pocket of a charro-length denim jacket couldn’t be doing his old timepiece a whole lot of good.
A well-fed barmaid with her auburn hair pulled up into a considerable bun came down his way with an easygoing smile to ask, “Was willst du, Kuhhirt?”
Longarm smiled uncertainly and replied, “If you’re asking what I want, I’d sure like a stein of beer, ma’am.”
She seemed to think that was funny as hell. But she poured him a pint of cool draft as she said she hadn’t thought he was from around Sappa Crossing. He didn’t say just who he might be or where he might hail from. So as he sipped some suds she decided, “You must be for der Schottisch Viehzuchter, Herr MacSorley, riding. Some of our own have also Kuhhirten, I mean cowboys, become since the price of beef has so high gone.”
Since she’d told him what he was supposed to ask, he felt no call to correct her. Sometimes Longarm was surprised by what he could learn just keeping his mouth shut and his ears open.
As she moved to serve an old cuss at the far end things got back to normal for a lazy afternoon in a taproom. Gents who’d stopped talking to see what a stranger might have to say for himself went back to talking among themselves, mostly in High Dutch. Longarm found the lingo sort of infuriating. Some words sounded almost the same as English, but just as you figured you were following the drift, it lit out like a cutting horse in another direction entirely. He’d leafed through a dictionary one time to confirm that while Hund meant hound, Henne meant hen, and a Kuh was a cow, they up and called a rabbit something that sounded like “hoss,” and you asked a lady if she’d like to fart when you meant to take her for a buggy ride. A lot of their innocent words sounded sort of dirty. He wondered what dirty words in English sounded like in High Dutch. There was no polite way to ask that barmaid. So he didn’t.
Two other gents dressed like Kuhhirten or cowboys were having what sounded like a soft but heated argument at a corner table behind him. They were too far away for Longarm to make out any words. But once you’d spent a few hours listening to furriners, it was surprising how Tennessee an old boy could sound when he twanged just loud enough to hear.
Longarm edged along the bar until he had a better view of them in the back-bar mirror. Neither seemed aware of him as they argued softly but seriously. From gestures and expressions alone, Longarm got an impression one was all for moving on, while the older and cooler-looking cuss was for staying right where they were, as if they were waiting for someone.
Longarm was good at faces. But he couldn’t match either of the nondescript cowhand types with any serious descriptions on file. So he finished his beer, left some small change on the bar, and sauntered out without looking back.
He moved faster out on the walk. He’d almost made it back to the town hall when two other total strangers seemed anxious to have a word with him.
The taller of the two said, “If you’d be Custis Long, Miss Iona MacSorley would like a word with you. I’d be Marty Link, the ramrod of the Lazy B, and this here’s Trooper O’Donnel, our boss wrangler. Miss Iona is waiting for the three of us at that tea-room across from the church.”
Longarm said, “You can tell her I’ll try. But right now I suspect I might have more pressing business. I have to have a look at a couple of strangers the town law picked up. If they’re anyone I know, I might know where some of their friends are right this minute.”
The two Lazy B riders fell in with him as he explained further on the way to the town hall. O’Donnel quietly asked why the three of them didn’t just round up the two in the saloon and march them on up to join their pals.
Longarm sighed and waved the muzzle of his Winchester at the sort of sinister reflection the three of them made in a hat shop window as he asked, “Would you let a sight like that come at you without getting spooked, innocent or guilty?”
Link said he followed Longarm’s drift. The three of them wore sun-faded denim and businesslike gun rigs. The hatchet-faced Martin Link had a ferocious beard, while Trooper O’Donnel’s battered features were framed by mutton-chops the color of rusty bobwire. On top of all that, Longarm explained, he was only guessing about the two still at large. There was no law of nature saying all those in town who weren’t Russian Dutch had to be pals.
The three of them joined that same kid deputy inside. When Longarm explained, Sattler’s young sidekick led them back to where, sure enough, two other gents dressed more cow than sodbuster sat morose as hell in a boiler-plate box painted baby-shit green.
One grinned out sheepishly at Longarm. The more experienced lawman nodded and said, “Afternoon, Fingers. Figured someone like you had a couple of his pals trying to make up their minds about some moves to be made mighty soon.” Turning to the others on his side of the bars, he explained. “This wayfaring stranger swept up unexpectedly would be the one and original Fingers Fawcett, just out of Jefferson Barracks after some hard time over a federal post office safe. Old Fingers can open your average combination lock without half trying and … right, this other poor simp would be Juicy Joe Walters, famous for knowing how to milk nitro out of dynamite without killing his fool self.”
The older Fingers Fawcett shrugged and said, “You ain’t got anything on us, Longarm. Like you said, I just got out, and Joe here ain’t got no dynamite on him.”
Longarm nodded soberly and said, “It’s early yet. Let me guess as to just what all four of you came here to set up. The winter wheat harvest is about to commence. All prices are rising this summer. So a heap of Eastern grain buyers have already started sending advance checks on wheat futures.”
He turned to the Mennonite kid and asked, “Are you with me so far?”
The kid said, “Sure. My Uncle Franz just banked the check he got from Chicago.”
Martin Link didn’t seem to grasp the notion. So Longarm explained. “Never mind why some grain dealers pay in advance, hoping the grain will be worth more by the time it’s shipped. Just remember this is a small town with a bitty bank, already commencing to fill up with the just rewards of a whole lot of plowing last autumn.”
Trooper O’Donnel objected. “You said those Eastern buyers only send checks as advances on the harvest.”
