yourself.”
Hawkins still looked worried. “Could be they’ll think I had something to do with this. One of them just might decide to plug me.”
Longarm said with no attempt at bragging, “Your safety is going to be my first concern. If I see anybody throw down on you, that’ll be the man I shoot. I give you my word, you’ll come to no harm.”
Hawkins stared down at him from atop his mare. He said, “Well, Marshal, I’ll give you this. You’re a man who believes in himself. I just wish I could believe the same amount.”
“You had better go along now. Just believe in your mind that you’ve got that assassinated president’s saddle back there and it’s a wonder and it’s the best thing you’ve ever sold. You hate to let go of it, but you’ll be proud to see it in the hands of such a fine fellow as Archie Barrett.”
Hawkins gave him a sour look. “Now you are asking me to lie a little more than I can handle. My boat won’t float but just so many lies, and you’re about to overload me.”
Longarm smiled. He reached over his horse and pulled his .44 caliber, lever-action Winchester rifle out of the boot. He said, “Go on along, now, and bring me back a surprise.”
Hawkins put the spurs to his mare and said over his shoulder, “Yeah, that’s just what I wanted at my age. A nice surprise.”
Longarm watched him lope away, riding with the easy slouch and seat of an accomplished horseman. He reckoned that Hawkins could tell many a tale about his life in front of the campfire, especially if you ever got another drink in him. But he had to admire the man. There weren’t all that many that would admit when something had the best of them and they had to put it down or lose everything. Hawkins had been smart enough not to crow about it. Still, Longarm reckoned just from the way the man carried himself and the look in his eye that George Hawkins had lit more than one bonfire in his life and had outrun more than one stampede.
After Hawkins had gone over a rise and dipped partially out of sight, Longarm led his mount into the grove of cottonwoods. For himself, there was plenty of cover. He figured he was in for a long wait. His only worry was that Hawkins would arrive too late in the morning and Barrett wouldn’t want to make the trip into town until after the noon meal. That would be a long wait out in the prairie, and he didn’t relish that. Still, it was pretty country to look at, with the good grass and the mesquite trees and here and there,oak, cottonwood, and willows. Sometimes a line of willows would run right across a piece of flat prairie. That was a sure indicator there was underground water near the surface. It was a land well blessed with all the natural resources that a man needed to make a good living. It was a shame it had been deviled by two greedy sons of bitches.
Of course, there were more than just two. Archie Barrett and Jake Myers weren’t the only ones. They had the full help and cooperation of their families and friends. Everybody wanted to feed at the trough. Longarm wondered if the day wouldn’t come, through natural selection, that they would kill each other off. Of course, that would take a spell, and the people who were really suffering would be long gone by then.
Longarm hunkered down beside a cottonwood and took out a cigarillo and lit it. It was safe enough, this early in time, for him to be smoking. He also had a bottle of whiskey in his saddlebags along with his extra revolver. He didn’t feel like a drink, however. Mrs. Thompson had loaded them up with a good breakfast of scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. Longarm had eaten until he thought he’d pop. She was an outstanding woman. Steadfast, a good cook, a good homemaker, a good mother, and pretty damned good looking in the bargain. He doubted that she would stay on the market very long once she made up her mind to take off her widow’s weeds. Longarm didn’t think that she could feel easy in her mind so long as her husband’s killers still ran rampant over the land that he had tried to improve.
Time passed, and Longarm grew restless. He got out his watch a half dozen times. It came nine thirty, it came nine forty, and then nine forty-five. Gradually, it became ten o’clock and he Was starting to seriously worry that if Hawkins was able to talk Archie Barrett into coming into Grit to look at the saddle, that the two men would be waiting until after lunch. He didn’t know if he would have the patience to stay still that long. There was so much riding on this throw of the dice that he was anxious to get it over with. He calculated in his own mind that if Hawkins would be turned down, he would start back as soon as he saw that it was hopeless. Longarm calculated that would put him coming back by the cottonwoods around ten thirty, ten forty at the outside. So, if he hadn’t seen Hawkins by that time, he thought he could be fairly certain that Archie Barrett had taken the bait.
All he could do was wait. He smoked about a half dozen cigarillos and finally had taken a drink of the whiskey when it came to be ten twenty. For the twelfth time, he closed his watch and put it back in his pocket. He worked the lever of his rifle, looking at the chamber, making sure that a shell was there. He pulled the hammer back to half cock and then to full cock and then he gently let it back down.
Finally, he turned his back to the direction in which either Mr. Hawkins or the whole party would be coming. He wouldn’t look for another ten minutes. No, he wouldn’t look for fifteen minutes. He settled back, resting his head against the trunk of the tree, looking up at the canopy of sky above the leafy tops of the cottonwoods.
Five minutes passed. He heard his horse make a little nickering sound. It wasn’t much, but it was something. He eased up into a squatting position and looked toward his animal.
The horse had his ears pricked up and was staring in the direction George Hawkins had ridden off.
Longarm stood up and peeked slowly around the trunk of the tree he had been resting against. In the distance, perhaps two miles off, he could see several black dots coming his way. He watched them steadily as they went down a depression and then came up another rise. They were much closer now, and he could tell they were moving at a fairly good clip, something short of a gallop but faster than a slow lope. He doubted that Archie Barrett or any of his men cared much about the way they used horses.
Now, they were getting close. He could identify Hawkins. He was the second rider in from Longarm’s right. There were three others besides George Hawkins. He took the man to Hawkins’s immediate right to be Archie Barrett because of the way he was dressed. Hawkins was wearing his usual broadcloth frock coat and the man to his right was dressed the same way. The two outriders were wearing wide-brimmed hats and chaps and shirts with kerchiefs around their necks. He reckoned them to be the guards that he thought Archie Barrett went everywhere with. He was surprised there were only two.
Now they were really close, only a hundred yards away. Longarm moved stealthfully to the tree on the outside of the little clump. His plan was to step out and stop the party. He could see that Hawkins was managing to guide them as close to the cottonwood clump as he could. They had slowed now to a trot as they approached the gully that ran right in front of the cottonwoods. In another second, they would be within voice range. The whole point was to get Archie Barrett, but Longarm’s main intent was to make sure nothing happened to Mr. Hawkins. His finger was going to be very steady on the trigger and his instincts were going to be very quick to react.
When the horsemen were fifteen or twenty yards away, Longarm stepped out from behind the tree, his rifle cocked and at the ready. His sudden appearance caused them to check their horses. Longarm called out in a loud
