In a moment, he saw a movement. A man came sidling around the side of the house, a rifle in his hands. Longarm took his hands off the horn of his saddle and raised them partway in the air to show that his hands were empty. He said, “Hadee. I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Long, looking for Tom Hunter. Just come to pay a visit.”
The man stepped out into the sun and came walking forward, leaving the shadows at the side of the house. He said, “I’m Tom Hunter.” He still kept his rifle at the ready. Longarm said, “All right if I dismount?”
The man had stopped five yards short. He said, still holding the rifle, “Suit yourself, though I don’t know what business you have here.”
Moving as carefully as he could, Longarm put both hands on the saddle horn, swung his leg over, and then stepped to the ground. He walked forward, letting the reins of his horse drop to the ground. He stopped a few yards short of Tom Hunter, who was a young man in his early thirties. Longarm could see an intelligent face and a work- stained hat, wide shoulders with big forearms and hands. There was an honesty and assurance about the man that caused Longarm to take a quick liking to him.
He said, “Mr. Hunter, I’m not used to standing with my hands in the air. What would it take to convince you I don’t mean you any harm? You can see by the badge on my chest that I’m a deputy marshal. I’ve come to talk to you about the situation that is going on in this area. I’ve been sent down by the Denver bureau of the Marshal Service.”
Hunter lowered the barrel of the gun toward the ground, but he still said suspiciously, “If you’ve come on behalf of the Myerses or the Barretts, you can just get back on that horse and ride off. If they can’t whip us by themselves, I don’t see where they’ve got any call bringing the law in.”
Longarm laughed slightly. He said, “Mr. Hunter, I’m not on anybody’s side. I got sent down here to put a stop to this trouble, and that’s what I intend to do. The first thing I’m going to do is find out who’s causing the trouble, and then I’m going to make them quit it. Now, if it’s you that’s causing it, then I reckon that I’m going to have to make you quit, but if it’s someone else, then rest assured, I’ll be going after them.”
Hunter smiled thinly. He said, “Well, Marshal, I’m not too worried about you finding out that it’s been me causing the trouble. All I’ve tried to do is come down here and make a place for me and my family to live and prosper. Some of the other folks haven’t wanted me to do that. All I’ve been doing is defending what is mine.”
Longarm said, “Then you have nothing to fear from me, but I would like to have a talk with you. You’re the first of the homesteaders that I’ve had a chance to visit with.”
Hunter had hard, green eyes and he put them directly on Longarm. He said, “What about Barrett and Myers? You had a chance to talk to them?”
“They ain’t been real cooperative.” Longarm smiled thinly. “I sent word for them to meet me in town, but they never showed up. Sent some boys with guns they ought not to have been carrying, and I had to get stern with them, if you take my meaning.”
Hunter eyed him curiously. He said, “You say you had to get stern with them?”
“Let’s just say that they ain’t going to be welcome in town until this business gets settled. In fact, right now, the rule is that none of the Myerses and none of the Barretts can come into town until the big honchos come in and talk this matter over with me.”
Hunter pulled a face. He said, “Is that a fact? First I’ve heard of it. That’s kind of an unusual step. What do the townspeople think about all that?”
Longarm said, “Might surprise you to know that they don’t much care for it.”
Hunter scratched his jaw. He said, “I’ve got some coffee in the house that’s been on the stove since about six this morning. It could probably walk on its own legs. You want to take a chance on a cup?”
Longarm reached for the boot of his saddlebags behind his horse and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He said, “We might could thin it down with some of this.”
Tom Hunter looked up at the sun. He said, “That might not be too bad of an idea. Normally, it would be too early for me, but this is Tuesday.”
“No,” Longarm said. “I think it’s Wednesday.”
“Well, either way, Tuesdays or Wednesdays are my days to drink early.”
Longarm laughed and they walked into the cool, dim house.
Chapter 5
They sat at a handmade table in the spacious kitchen of the cool house. Tom Hunter had told Longarm that with the help of two Mexicans, he had built the place himself. He said, “Marshal, I quarried this limestone out of the ground, transported it, mixed the mortar, trucked in the lumber on a box wagon, and built it from the ground up. I put in the plumbing so I could have indoor running water coming in from that windmill out yonder in the backyard. My wife could stand right there at that kitchen sink and pump that handle and get water without having to carry it in here in a bucket. I’ve got good barns, I’ve got good corrals, and I’ve got some good stock. Ain’t none of it worth a damned to me because of Jake Myers and Archie Barrett and that bunch. I started out with a hundred head of cattle and twenty horses. Now I’m down to ten head of breeding stock and five horses. On top of that, I can’t go further because I’m cut off from water.”
Longarm raised up slightly and looked out the back window. He said, “Mr. Hunter, I can see what appears to be a pretty good stream from here. At least, according to that line of willows.”
Tom Hunter made a snorting sound. He said, “Yeah, at one time, that was a pretty good stream, and I could water a lot of stock from it and at least part of it’s on my land. But the Barretts dammed it up about five miles upstream. They’ve got themselves a nice lake—on government land I might add—but I don’t get a drop. I have to drive my cattle to water every day and then drive them back. It’s a four mile going and a four mile coming. I can’t let them drift down there, or I’d never see them again. And my windmill dried UP.”
Longarm took a sip of his coffee. He said, “I don’t understand, Mr. Hunter, why you and the rest of the homesteaders let this matter get so out of hand. From what I understand, there’s about fifty homesteads around here.”
Hunter nodded. He said, “Yeah, you’d think we could have handled it that way. The only problem with that, Marshal, is that out of that fifty or so men, there’s only about twenty of them that’s willing to fight. The Myerses and the Barretts together could double that with gunhands. But that ain’t the big problem. The biggest problem is
