As the deputy tore out the front Longarm tried the handle of the vault, saying, “Seems undamaged, save for some chipped paint. It’s just as well they blew themselves up instead. They must have had a heap more nitro than professionals would have thought they needed. What’s the sad tale of them fancy Texas boots, Marshal? You say one of your own sent away for ‘em?”
Sattler sighed and replied, “Good help is hard to find. If I was right about that scrap of shirt material, it adds up to malfeasance. All my deputies knew we suspected old Brunhilda of sheltering the safecrackers. They went and made a deal with her. It’s a good thing for us she tagged along to make sure she got her cut. I don’t know how I might have pictured this mess with just my two dead deputies to hint at what might have happened.”
Longarm nodded soberly. “It does add up to wayward youths and a cunning old trash woman biting off more than they knew how to chew. You don’t learn to handle high explosives by just reading about ‘em in the Police Gazette. But what do you reckon they were after in yon vault? Hadn’t we agreed old Fingers and Juicy Joe had come to town to crack your bank vault?”
Sattler hesitated, then said, “Hell, you’re the law too. But I hope you understand this is a sensitive secret.”
Longarm snorted in disgust and allowed he was a part-time reporter for the Denver Post.
The older lawman must not have thought he meant it. He said, “The three of them must have had more faith than some of us. I warned the elders they were dealing with an outsider. But they thought Heger, being popular with some of his customers over in Cedar Bend, could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
“You’re talking about those rainmaking Ruggles sisters,” Longarm said flatly.
Sattler nodded. “That short sharp storm’s blown over as suddenly as it began. But it’s the simple truth that those Hexen have not gone away and left our wheat alone.”
Longarm said, “I doubt that summer hail was occasioned by dynamite in the sky or dancing about with snakes. But how was Horst Heger going to drive those weather witches away so sweetly? With money instead of honey?”
Sattler nodded soberly. “Eighteen thousand dollars and change, collected a few dollars here and a few dollars there from all the Brethren homesteaders. We’d heard the corn growers to the north had posted less than that in escrow, hoping for rain. We didn’t want any rain, with our own fields ready to harvest. You see, if the ground-“
“I know about reaping machines getting stuck in mud,” Longarm cut in. “Let’s stick to all that money Horst Heger’s supposed to bribe those Ruggles sisters with!”
Sattler made a sweeping gesture at the battered walls of the tiny shop and asked, “Do you see either Heger or the money here? Do you think those rainmakers would take the hard-earned tithings of this whole Gemeinschaft to stop making rain, and then go on and curse our fields with hail?”
Longarm said, “That storm passed over before it could have done enough damage to ruin anybody, and your wheat growers have sold a heap of futures, meaning they get paid the same for a poor crop as a good one, right?”
Sattler nodded down at the cadaver in the corner as he said, “That’s where the real money would have been tonight. The three of them must have thought Heger would have been dumb enough to skip out on all his bills and leave the money he never gave those Hexen in his deserted shop!”
As if to prove that last statement wrong the shopgal, Helga, came in to join them, bodice laced prim and blue eyes big as saucers as she marveled, “Herr Gott! So Unordnung und wer ist das im Ecke?”
Longarm was surprised how much of that he could follow as Helga stared in horror at the mangled lady in the corner. He told her not to look and suggested she cut some cake out in the kitchen, for it was shaping up to be a busy night.
He didn’t know how truly he’d spoken until that kid deputy tore back in to pant that neither Decker nor Lehrer seemed anywhere to be found. Then he made it worse by adding, “Kurt Morgenstern just gathered a posse over by the creek!”
Sattler gasped, “He can’t do that! Kurt’s a damned blacksmith, not a lawman!”
The Mennonite kid said, “I don’t think Kurt and those others care. They say they’re riding over to Cedar Creek to put those rain Hexen out of business one way or the other! They say they paid for it to stay dry, not to have it hail. So they want their money back too!”
Longarm didn’t ask where they were going as he chased Sattler out the front way. He said, “My hired ponies would be behind that Morgenstern’s smithy, assuming he’s half as honest as he expected Heger to be. You go on and get your own self going and with any luck I’ll catch up with you along the way!”
Sattler didn’t argue. They just ran their separate ways, and so it wasn’t long before Longarm was splashing across Sappa Creek on the paint, alone in the renewed moonlight—and what in blue blazes was the matter with this fool pony?
Horseflesh, like humanflesh, was heir to the same agues and cramps that made it easier to run at some times than at others. It was too late to go back for the other pony by the time he was back on the higher range of the Lazy B and still hadn’t been able to get the paint loosened up to lope right. You could do a heap of damage to a mount if you pushed it too hard with a sprained ligament, swollen frog, or whatever. So he cut off to his left, hoping it wasn’t too late at night, and saw to his relief that all the front windows were lit up as he rode toward the Lazy B home spread.
Iona MacSorley and her ramrod, Martin Link, came out on the veranda as Longarm reined in, saying, “Got to get over to Cedar Bend on the double and this pony’s gone lame. Could you help me out with a fresh mount?”
Iona told Link to see to it, and he lit out across the yards as if she’d snapped his ass with her riding quirt. It seemed possible she had. But she acted as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth as she invited Longarm inside while her hands took care of more mundane chores.
He politely declined and headed after Link afoot, leading the paint by its reins. As she fell in beside him, pouty- lipped, he explained he was on his way to prevent possible harm to Some other gals. Iona asked which one he was sparking.
Longarm laughed and assured her he hadn’t sparked with either of those rainmaking gals, which was the simple truth as soon as you left Helga out of it.
As they got to the stable, Link and Trooper O’Donnel were leading a bigger roan outside on its rope halter. Link
