Longarm swung around to face the deputy. “How about you?”
“Marshal, I … I don’t know anything myself. He was talking to the sheriff mostly. I didn’t have much to do with it. Like the mayor said, the Nelsons are a powerful family. We thought it was a joke, someone putting out a wanted notice on a man like yourself. I mean, the name Longarm is famous around here.”
“Fine. So you both understand what will happen to you if I get any interference or if anything happens that ain’t supposed to happen, like that sheriff getting out of jail.”
The deputy nodded his head. He said, “Yes, sir. I understand.”
Longarm said, “How about you, Mayor?”
The mayor nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, sir!”
Longarm stepped back and glanced at Lee Gray, who was leaning against a far wall. “What do you think, Lee?”
Lee Gray shrugged his shoulders, “Well, they sound pretty cooperative to me right now, and they’ll probably be cooperative enough as long as you’re around. But then, they’ll probably try and get a little high behind, wouldn’t you reckon?”
Longarm nodded. He could see where Lee was going. “Yeah, I reckon.”
“And then I’m going to have to beat the shit out of both of them and then slam them in a cell, just like you did that sheriff. So I guess it’s just all to do over again.”
Longarm said with a straight face, “Yes, I’d reckon, but don’t kill either one, will ya?”
“Not unless I have to.”
Both the deputy and the mayor were making protesting noises, swearing to their non-involvement in the disappearance of the deputy and swearing they would not cause the Federal Marshal Service any trouble. That they’d never had any idea that any actions of theirs could have done such a thing, and that they were law-abiding citizens and upholders of the law and intended to remain so.
Longarm turned on his heels and gave them a long steady look. He said without turning his head, “Now, will you listen to them, Lee? Boy, they sure sing a different tune depending on who’s playing the fiddle.”
Lee Gray said, “They must not care for that six-gun fiddle music and they must not care for getting whomped up on. I’m kinda looking forward to them stepping over the line. I always did have a kind of a dislike for these little hick-town tinhorns, shoving folks around and one thing and another, Yeah, I reckon I’ll be giving a pistol-whipping before you get back.”
Longarm turned back to the mayor and the deputy sheriff and said, “That brings up the question of where this castle that belongs to the Nelsons is located.” He looked at the deputy. “Do you want to tell me?”
The deputy swallowed visibly. He was an ordinary man in what had been an ordinary job who’d suddenly found himself in a situation that had suddenly turned extraordinary. He said, “Marshal, I ain’t been out there but once, maybe twice. I’ve taken some of his big guests out there one time. There ain’t no road, there’s just prairie all the way and it’s about a hard fifteen-mile ride south of here. You can’t miss the place. It’s damned near, well, it’s nearly as big as the hotel and it’s white. They like white things—I don’t know why—and it’s just there. It has several barns, a bunch of corrals where they keep some horses out there, and they even keep some wild pigs—some of them big Russian boar pigs from Arkansas—and they are always riding around sticking lances in them. I’d call them spears, but they call them lances for some reason. And they’ve got some other kinds of animals out there I don’t know what all they are. It’s just not the kind of place you hang around much.”
Longarm looked at the mayor. He said, “Tell me about the three brothers.”
The mayor’s fat little face quivered slightly. He said, “Marshal, I hope you realize that these men are not friends of mine and I don’t know a great deal about them. But from what talk I’ve heard, Asher is the head man. He’s over the others. I don’t know if he’s the oldest, it’s hard to tell. They all kind of look the same, all built up strong, all of them are kind of blond, and they are all pretty well tan, and there’s not much else I can tell you about them. They are well spoke and they’re polite and they wear the best damned boots I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what kind of leather that is, but it’s just a subtle and nice and shines up, oh, you wouldn’t believe it.”
Longarm said, “I ain’t interested in a description of their boots, Mayor. How many guns they got out there?”
The deputy glanced at the mayor. He said, “Guns? Well, sir, I don’t know. I’ve never been in the house to see, but they do have some big rifles.”
Longarm gave him a look of disgust while Lee Gray snickered. “No, you idiot. How many gunhands do they have? How many pistoleros?”
The deputy’s face cleared. “Oh, they ain’t got any.”
Longarm frowned. “They haven’t got any?”
The mayor nodded. “That’s right. Everybody has always commented on that, but then, they don’t need none. They don’t have any cattle and what horses they’ve got are kept up close.”
“Who works the place?”
The deputy said, “Well, they’ve got a bunch of vaqueros around there that tend to the livestock and one thing and another, and they’ve got some women who tend to the cooking. But they ain’t got no regular what you’d call gunslingers out there, the way most men in this part of the county who ranch have to have. They ain’t got nothing to steal.” He paused. “Besides that, Marshal, those three brothers have a reputation of being men you don’t want to fool with.” He glanced over at the mayor. “Ah, maybe the mayor can tell you what I’m talking about.”
The mayor gave the deputy a furious look. “This man doesn’t know what he’s saying, Marshal. We’ve just had some people who disappeared who had headed in that direction, but that don’t mean nothing. These were roustabouts, ne’er-do-wells who headed south, some in pairs, some in threes, and some singularly. Some of them never was heard of again. A few of their horses come back, but that don’t mean nothing about the Nelsons. Like I’ve said, the Nelsons have been mighty good to this town, and for all we know, they’re upstanding folks.”
Longarm pointed toward the poster on the wall. “What about that?”
