The sun was setting as Longarm dropped by the Western Union to see if they were holding any day letters for him. Day letters, like night letters, were slick notions of the late Ezra Cornell, who’d developed the Morse telegraph into the coast-to-coast Western Union Company. He’d noticed most wires were sent during peak business hours, when a nickel a word could save or make far more. But business slacked off to next to nothing during a slow day or most any night. So old Ezra had come up with a cheaper rate for those who didn’t mind getting their messages through a few hours slower, although still much faster than they could by way of the U.S. mails. All you had to do was ask them to send your wire by day-or night-letter rates and Western Union would do the rest, at a much cheaper rate. Your message would go out, sometimes a few words at a time, whenever the cross-country lines weren’t busy and the telegraphers had no nickel-a-word stuff to tap out.
So there was no saying when Billy Vail had composed his day letter from Denver admitting they might be barking up the wrong tree. Billy agreed a bank robbery around Minnipeta Junction seemed a mighty big boo for a sneaky gal who’d shown herself to be hysterical about being captured or even remembered. Billy suggested that if Miss Medusa Le Mat had been setting up a big payday bank robbery with the old Nesbit place as her quick-change hideout, the bank and Undersheriff Brennan being warned ahead of time should have discouraged the gang considerably.
Billy Vail pointed out that it would make more sense for the sneaky she-devil and her latest bunch of recruits to hit most any other bank.
Longarm couldn’t argue with old Billy’s logic. He wired a night letter to Denver, explaining he meant to poke about and see if he could cut any outlaw trails leading away from the old Nesbit place. The mysterious disappearance of Rose Cassidy could mean nobody who could identify Miss Medusa on sight would be in any position to identify her on sight. He had no call to elaborate. Billy Vail already knew Miss Medusa Le Mat seemed to move in on folks with a handy hideout, feed them some line as yet unrecorded, then leave them in no shape to record it.
Longarm sent some other wires to other lawmen and county recorders. Then he moseyed up to the Sunflower Saloon to see if Red Robin still liked him. He’d done about all there was to be done in Florence. But one more night in Red Robin’s soft arms and legs had to have a long night ride back to the Junction beat.
Being it was so early in the evening, there was only a modest crowd in the Sunflower. But Johnny Behind the Deuce O’Rourke was not only at one end of the bar, but well on his way to dead drunk despite the hour.
O’Rourke seemed to be drinking with two younger drifters dressed for a friendly little game of cards. Longarm knew the dapper little squirt with a waxed pimp’s mustache from somewhere. But he wasn’t sure where. The taller and huskier galoot to O’Rourke’s left, as the three of them held up the bar with their spines, looked uncomfortable in such a spiffy frock coat and brocaded vest. His big hands were too roughed up to deal cards slickly. He was likely a bodyguard. Tinhorns such as Johnny Behind the Deuce needed more guarding than sensible drinkers.
Longarm stopped near their end of the bar to smile pleasantly and ask Johnny Behind the Deuce what sort of a game he might have in mind. O’Rourke stared through Longarm and muttered, “I hear Deacon Ellison’s bucking the Faro Kid in the back room. I ain’t made up my mind whether it’s time to set up my own game.”
Longarm went on smiling as he softly said, “Do tell? Seems to me I heard some talk about you and me drawing for the ace spades. Any time you’re ready, O’Rourke.”
Johnny Behind the Deuce raised his hands to open his frock coat all the way, muttering defensively, “I ain’t armed this evening, Longarm. I don’t know who told you different. But I sure wish troublemakers would let others decide such matters, damn their lies!”
Longarm didn’t mention the derringer he knew Johnny Behind the Deuce was packing in that fancy vest. He just nodded politely, got his own belly gun out, and palmed it in his big right fist as he ambled on back to where Red Robin was trying in vain to play a sad old ballad.
She dimpled up at him when he swung his back to the wall and hooked his right elbow over the top of the battered upright, with his left thumb hooked through the front of his gun belt, ahead of the forward-facing grips of his cross-draw .44-40.
Red Robin missed a note, although it was hard to tell, when she spied the brass muzzles of his almost invisible double derringer. Then she gamely tried to play on, and was even worse.
Longarm was less worried. He knew Johnny Behind the Deuce was sort of inclined to speak in haste. They still told the tale about O’Rourke assuring one and all he meant to gun Johnny Ringo the next time he saw him. But somehow Johnny Ringo had wound up drinking alone that night when he rode into town to take O’Rourke up on his invitation.
Just the same, Longarm thought it prudent to step farther from the piano, and Red Robin’s soft spine, as he tried to help both her and old Johnny Behind the Deuce remember the damned tune by bursting into song with:
In Scarlett Town, where I was bound, There was a fair maid dwelling, And all the lads cried “Well away!” Her name was Barbara Allan.
But though Longarm was braced for a rejection of his singing, it was a damned good thing he was well braced. For it wasn’t Johnny behind The Deuce who moved like greased lightning. It was the squirt with the pimp mustache who was whipping a Colt .45 out from under his own frock coat!
Longarm got off the first two shots, of course, and let go of his spent derringer, crabbing away from the piano to snatch his own six-gun out as Johnny Behind the Duece screamed like a gal and dove for the sawdust-covered floor.
As they both flattened face-down on the floor, Longarm peered through the gun smoke to see that the bigger one with rough hands was slapping leather close to the front window. So Longarm yelled, “Freeze!” and when the oafish galoot kept right on drawing, Longarm blew him through the glass and out on the boardwalk with two hundred grains of mushrooming lead in his heart.
It got awfully quiet as the brimstone-scented haze lifted. Red Robin had rolled off her piano stool and ducked behind her end of the bar as the first shots rang out.
Nobody else in the place moved a muscle as Longarm called out to explain, “I’m the law, federal. I’m still working on why two total strangers just tried for me.”
The door to the back room opened and a cold-looking gent wearing a green eye shade stuck his head out, declared “Oh, shit!” and slammed the door shut again.
It didn’t take long, but it seemed as if it had when Hard Pan Parsons and two deputies charged in through the bat-wings, their own guns drawn.
Taking in the scene with the wisdom born of experience in saloon fights, Hard Pan asked the only man on his feet with a gun—and in this case a badge—to tell the sad tale.
