“Yes, sir, I did, but I was just wondering how it come to be there.”
The young man’s father looked at him. He said, “Rufus, sometimes you talk too much. Sometimes you ask too many questions.”
Longarm said, “No, that’s all right. That’s the only way the boy’s going to learn.” He turned to Rufus, “Yeah, I had to shoot a guy at about five yards as I was closing on him at a gallop. I was firing my handgun. He was about halfway raised up. I would guess the bullet I pumped into his lungs spurted some blood out. I wish the son of a bitch hadn’t gotten his blood on my horse.”
Rufus said almost breathlessly, “How many you kill, Marshal?”
His daddy said sharply, “Rufus, I’ll have no more of that. You’re starting to sound as bloodthirsty as the men who work for those two in the back room.”
“Your daddy’s right, Rufus. This ain’t anything to be keeping count of, and I don’t take no pleasure in that part of my job. I’m a peace officer. I’m not a trouble officer. Unfortunately, sometimes keeping the peace involves having trouble.”
Tom Hunter brought Longarm several sheets of clean paper and the pen and ink. Longarm got settled down with his drink and his cigarillo and started in to write. He got so far as “We the Undersigned” and then Hawkins came blowing in through the door.
He was looking exuberant and triumphant and excited. He said, “Boys, I never knowed I had it in me! I really never knew I had it in me!” He looked at Longarm. “That’s what I call a good early afternoon piece of work.”
“You want me to congratulate you for going into Jake Myers’s camp, don’t you?”
Hawkins’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Hell, yes. I not only went in and got Barrett, but I went in and got Myers, too. Say, do you know how close some of them bullets you were firing came to me?”
Longarm said, “They never came within ten yards of you. Are you going to start that again?”
Hawkins was almost chortling. He said, “That was something. You know, the way you were burning them horses so they’d go to jumping and pitching and then popping them old boys when they were scrambling around on the ground and then the clean way you knocked them other two off.”
Longarm looked pained, especially from the expression on Rufus Goodman’s face. He said, “By the way, George, you were carrying that .38 caliber pistol of yours. Why the hell didn’t you shoot those guys on either side of you? It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”
Hawkins looked shocked. He said, “Me? Shoot somebody? I ain’t supposed to be shooting anyone. Hell, I’m a leather salesman.”
Longarm said, “You’re a United States deputy marshal, which gives you the right to shoot anybody I’m shooting at.”
Hawkins took off his hat and scratched his head. “You know, I never thought about it that way. I reckon I could have, couldn’t I?”
Longarm gave him a flicker of a smile. He said, “You ever shot anybody, George?”
Hawkins thought a moment, then said, “No, I don’t reckon I have.”
“Then I don’t recommend you go to trying it in the future.”
Hawkins said, “You know it ain’t going to be safe around here for me unless you get Barrett and Myers put plumb away. Of course, they’re still going to have kin around here. I guess you know you’ve ruined this area for me.”
Longarm shook his head. “Nope. I’ve told Jake Myers that you were a United States deputy marshal and you had full right to be doing what you were doing and when I get through with this plan of mine, I don’t think Mr. Barrett or Mr. Myers are going to be bothering anybody. Now, why don’t you go and get yourself a drink of buttermilk or whiskey and quit bothering me? I’ve got this here letter to write.”
“A letter?”
“Well, it ain’t exactly a letter. Let me get on it.”
For the next thirty minutes, Longarm laboriously wrote out two documents. It took him so long because he wasn’t sure of some of the spelling and he never did write a neat hand, and also, he wanted to get the wording just exactly right. The others stood around watching him somberly, curious but not wanting to break into his mood. The only noise was the yelling and screaming from the back room where Jake Myers and Archie Barrett were confined.
When he was finishing the second document, he said, “Does anybody know what Mrs. Thompson’s first name is?”
They looked one to the other. Finally, Hawkins said, “I believe it’s Judith. As a matter of fact, I’m certain it’s Judith. Why don’t you just make it Mrs. Milton Thompson?”
Longarm said, “Yeah, that’s probably the best idea.” Longarm sat back, finally satisfied. He looked the two documents over and then he glanced at the four eager faces staring at him. He said, “Do y’all want to hear what these say?”
Tom Hunter said, “Well, I reckon.”
Hawkins said, “You’re worse than a cat with a mouse. You know we want to know what they say. Lives are at stake here, maybe even my own.”
Longarm said, “All right, I’ll read the first one. It’s a confession. Here’s what it says:
“We, the undersigned, Archie Barrett and Jake Myers, freely and willingly confess to causing the murder of Milton Thompson of Grit, Texas. We also confess to the murder and manslaughter of several homesteaders in the Grit area. We further confess and admit to cattle theft, horse theft, and the burning of homes and barns of homesteaders in the same area. We make this confession of our own free will and we give it in the hope that it will cause peace to come to this area. We understand that this confession, given to United States Deputy Marshal Custis Long, stands as a parole for our insuring that no such further incidents will happen in the Grit area. We
