Hawkins? You’ve been around here, according to Mrs. Thompson, for several weeks.”
The skinny man nodded. He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He said, “Yep, and I’ve about made the acquaintance with everybody in this settlement. In fact, I was at the Barretts when two of their hired hands came riding in. One of them looked like his face had been beaten to a pulp. They claimed there was some crazy lawman in town that was going to get himself killed and they were just the ones to do it.”
Longarm half smiled. He said, “Is that a fact?”
Mr. Hawkins nodded slowly. “Yep. They’d gone to the bunkhouse for their rifles. Mr. Archie Barrett ordered them to put their guns down and stay on the place. But Marshal, I wouldn’t be surprised if you might not need a set of eyes in the back of your head here in the near future.”
“That would be the case, Mr. Hawkins, only if I planned to expose my back, which I have no plans on doing,” Longarm said.
Mrs. Thompson came in to see if anyone needed seconds. Longarm inquired why she didn’t eat with them.
She shook her head. She said, “Oh, no. My daughters and I take our supper earlier in the kitchen. We prefer it that way.”
Longarm said, “Makes it kind of lonely.”
She rearranged the vinegar and oil cruets on the table and said, “Oh, I don’t mind.”
“I mean lonely out here for us. We could use your company. Three old men don’t have much to talk about.”
She said, “I’ll fetch in your dessert. It’s apple pie again.” With that, she left the dining room and hurried back into the kitchen.
Mr. Hawkins’s eyes followed her. He said without looking at Longarm, “A very pleasing woman, wouldn’t you say, Marshal?”
Longarm nodded. “I’d reckon, Mr. Hawkins, but I’ve only known her one day.”
Mr. Hawkins looked over at him. He said, “I meant pleasing in appearance. It don’t take you that long to know that, does it, Marshal?”
“No, it doesn’t, Mr. Hawkins, but right now, I’ve got other things on my mind. Tell me what you think. Do you think the Barretts and Myerses will come in and answer my summons, or do you think I’ll have to go and put them together and make it clear the fighting has to stop?”
Mr. Hawkins cleared his throat. He said, “Marshal, I’m a man approaching fifty years old, and I’ve made my living by hook and by crook throughout most of the West. There’s two things I won’t bet on.”
Longarm said, “And what would that be, Mr. Hawkins?”
“One is what a woman is going to do and the second is what a man is going to do.”
“That about covers it.”
By eight o’clock the next morning, Longarm was out on the street. The little village was almost deserted. There was one cafe besides the Texas Bar & Grill, and he looked in to see a couple of men eating breakfast. Other than those men and a few ladies in the mercantile, he saw very few customers.
About a half hour later, as he walked toward the northern end of the town, he could see a small group of horsemen riding directly toward the village. Longarm stepped quickly to the last building on the east side of the street, which was an empty storefront. There was a wooden water trough in front with a hitching rail. but the business that had once been a grocery store was now vacant and dusty. He put his back up against the wall and watched as the horsemen came in. There were three of them. He wondered, since they were coming from the north, if they were Jake Myers and his two sons, Jack and James.
As they neared, he could see they were all three of an age much too young to be either the father or his two middle-aged sons. These were either younger kinfolk or hired riders. He guessed they were from the Myers ranch because they were coming from the north, but he had no certain way of knowing.
When they were about a hundred yards off, he saw them pull their horses down from a lope to a slow trot, aiming directly toward the only street of the town. Longarm stepped across the boardwalk and leaned against the post that supported the roof of the porch that fronted the deserted grocery store. The post wasn’t much protection, being only about six inches thick, but it was better than nothing.
As he watched, the horsemen separated a few yards apart. They pulled their horses down to a walk as they neared the entrance to the town. Longarm could see them looking to the left and then to the right. He stepped out from behind the post so as to make himself clearly apparent to them and to make his badge clearly visible. The minute they saw him, they stopped instantly some twenty-five yards off.
Longarm said, “You boys wouldn’t be looking for a United States deputy marshal, would you?”
They were a hard-looking trio, and Longarm could tell in just one glance that the iron they used the most was a shooting iron and not a branding iron. He had a pretty good idea that if they were from Myers, the man had sent in his three toughest hombres to get rid of the problem in a hurry.
As if on order, they all three wheeled their horses to the left and started toward him at a slow walk. They were all dressed alike, wearing broad-brimmed Texas hats, leather vests, and jeans. Just from what he could see, all three were wearing cutaway holsters and all three had either a rifle or a shotgun in their saddle boots.
When they were some ten yards from him, Longarm said, “Hold it. That’s close enough, boys. You can hear me from there, and I can hear you. Who you coming from?”
The one on Longarm’s left, the closest one to him, leaned his forearms on the pommel of his saddle and said, “We work for Jake Myers. We came in here looking for some hombre that appears to be stirring up some trouble. Some of our men rode back in last night and said there was some know-it-all lawman claiming there wasn’t going to be no business done around this town and ordering—ordering mind you—Mr. Myers to come in here for a meeting. Would that be you?”
Longarm smiled thinly. He said, “Y, even as long-winded as you tell it, I guess that would be me. Though it just comes down to one simple thing: I want Myers and the Barretts to be in here at eleven o’clock this morning to get the situation talked out. I hear there’s been trouble around here, and I don’t like trouble. Do you understand
