do something you don’t really want to do, because I figure you’ve already done more than I could ask of any citizen, luring Mr. Barrett out from behind his fort where I could get my hands on him.”
George Hawkins smiled slightly. He said, “Well, that’s mighty kind of you, Marshal, though I think you’re just trying to salve your own conscience. If I don’t take that note, who do you reckon is going to take it? Tom Hunter? Rufus Goodman? Robert Goodman? I don’t think so. Why don’t you just take it yourself? It would be just about the same as if you sent one of them.”
“You could go into town and find some young boy and pay him a couple dollars to take it out there.”
Hawkins laughed. He said, “Yeah, and the first thing Jake Myers is going to ask that boy is, ‘Who gave you that note, son? I’m going to twist your arm off and shove it up your ass.’ And that kid would describe me and then Mr. Myers would know.” He shook his head. “No, there ain’t but one way, and that’s for me to stick my head in the lion’s den again, like it or not. Why all this, Marshal? Are you getting worried about me?”
“No, I can’t say that I’m getting worried about you, George. It’s just that you bitch such an uncommon much when you’re asked to do the least little old thing, like just make a short five-mile ride and drop off a note and come back.”
Hawkins looked Longarm steadily in the eye. He said, “You want this note put in Myers’s hands, don’t you?”
“Yep.”
“You don’t want it handed off to some hired hand and then I turn tail and run, do you?”
“Nope.”
“So, then I’ll be standing there while Jake Myers reads it. Right?” Hawkins said.
“Right.”
“And you reckon he’s going to let me take off?”
Longarm took a second to answer. Finally, he said, “I don’t see why not.”
Hawkins laughed. “Then you’re a bigger damn-fool than I thought. Listen, this time, don’t shoot so damned close to me. That’s all I ask.”
“You ain’t got no idea what I’m going to do,” Longarm said.
Hawkins spit on the ground and scuffed at it with the toe of his boot. He said, “Marshal, I’ve done seen you in action. I know how you do your talking. Now, let’s go back in. I could do with another cup of coffee.”
Longarm turned around and glanced inside the cabin. He could see that Barrett was still at the table. He said, “Let’s wait a minute until that pig gets out of there. I can’t stand the sight of him.”
Hawkins cackled. He said, “He is a sight, isn’t he. That’s the hairiest son of a bitch I believe I’ve ever seen. What we ought to have done, or maybe still could do, is hold him over a low fire and turn him and singe all that hair off of him. Wouldn’t do no good shaving it, it’d just grow back.”
Longarm said, “Mr. Hawkins, you do have the best ideas. Are you sure you want to do this?”
Hawkins looked at him with amazement in his face. “Want to do it? Hell, no, I don’t want to do it. But will I do it? Hell, yes, I’ll do it. You just be damned sure you do your part.”
Longarm said with a straight face, “I’ll go inside and get about a half of a bottle of whiskey in me so as to steady my hand. How’s that? That make you feel better?”
Hawkins stared at him with round eyes. He said, “Don’t be saying that to an old reformed drunk. My God, man. You scare me to death talking like that. I better not even see you near a bottle of whiskey.”
“Oh, I won’t be near a bottle. I’ll put it in a glass if that makes you feel any better.”
Hawkins said, “You are a rare son of a bitch, Marshal.”
Longarm answered, “No, I call myself more well done than rare.
Chapter 9
They had all calculated that it was about a two-hour ride for Hawkins to Jake Myers’s ranch and a little over an hour’s ride for Longarm to the butte where he could take up his ambush position on the northern side of the knoll they called Rocky Hill, the place the note suggested that Barrett and Jake Myers meet. Hawkins was fidgety and anxious to get it over with, so they sent him off at about eleven o’clock, allowing him to take it slow and easy so as to arrive around one o’clock and hope that he could get Myers started no later than two. Longarm planned to give himself plenty of time. He was going to start for his position no later than noon.
Rufus Goodman had Longarm’s horse saddled and bridled and had made sure that the saddle blanket was smooth and that the roan’s hooves were clean with no stones or any other objects that could make the gelding go lame. Longarm’s preparations were to put a dozen rifle cartridges into his shirt pocket and to stick his extra .44- caliber revolver in his belt. It might be uncomfortable, but then he couldn’t be sure when he was going to need it. Hunter urged him to take along a 12-gauge, double-barreled shotgun that Hunter owned, but Longarm said, “If I let anybody get that close, I’ll go to fighting him with the butt end of my pistol.”
The others had watched Hawkins ride away. Longarm came back inside and sat down at the table. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot to say. Either Myers came and they could go ahead with their plan, or he wouldn’t. There was nothing they could do about it.
Longarm said, “Did our star boarder make a good breakfast?”
Robert Goodman shook his head. He said, “I damned near couldn’t cook fast enough, the way that son of a bitch was poking it down, and he must have drank about a half of gallon of water and about the same amount of coffee. Then he had the nerve to want whiskey.”
Longarm shook his head. “I’m glad I wasn’t here to see it.”
Tom Hunter said, “He ain’t a very pretty sight, I’ve got to admit that. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get that room clean and smelling like anything.”
