Little Spider said she’d already told him that. As she got back on the bunk with him, she said, “There are now at least one man and two women left. Do you think they are coming here to kill us tonight?”
Longarm snuggled her closer and assured her, “I’m taking you back to town with me. You’ll be safe in my hotel at government expense as a material witness until we get a better handle on Miss Medusa Le Mat and her gang.”
Little Spider snuggled closer and said, “Wastey! Can we do this some more at your hotel?”
He repressed a shudder and said, “Not too openly. We don’t want anybody else knowing we’re working together like this. I’d tell that lady undersheriff if it wasn’t for your firewater business. But all in all, what Kansas law don’t know can’t hurt you, ohan?”
Little Spider agreed she didn’t want to brag about screwing white boys either. So they screwed some more and rode back to the Junction in the wee small hours.
Longarm registered the breed gal as a material witness, swearing the room clerk to total secrecy, and only screwed her once in her new quarters before he had to get cleaned up and join Pat Brennan at her place for breakfast.
They were served alone in the kitchen by Pat’s older housekeeper. As they had ham and eggs, Pat wanted to know where he’d been all night. Glancing awkwardly at her housekeeper, Pat said she’d dropped by his hotel to … ask him about something.
Longarm chose his own words carefully as he replied, “I was out most of the night asking questions of my own. That old Nesbit place hasn’t been such a promising hideout for some time. I figured Miss Medusa Le Mat and her gang might have scouted some other hideout by now.”
Pat asked if he’d found any likely alternatives. Longarm washed down some ham and eggs with coffee and replied, “Found more than one possible. None for certain. Where’s your houseguest from the Nesbit place this morning, Pat?”
The undersheriff shrugged and said she hadn’t seen Maureen that morning. She asked her housekeeper if the feebleminded kid was lying slugabed upstairs.
The housekeeper said Maureen had left for an early Mass with some young swain.
Longarm and Pat exchanged thoughtful glances. It was Pat who asked, “Mass? With the only church in town Protestant? Well, we’ve all agreed the poor thing’s not too bright.”
Longarm said, “Never mind her. Let’s talk about him!”
He asked the housekeeper what the jasper who’d taken Maureen to a Papist Mass at First Methodist might look like.
The motherly but not as worldly housekeeper thought before she said, “Nice well-spoken cowboy. Had on one of those tall Texas hats. I think he said his name was Martin.”
Longarm soberly replied, “It was Matt, Matt Currier. He called on another lady recently to tell her about my gunfight with Corky Crabtree and that other jasper!”
Pat half rose from her seat across the table, saying, “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Maureen just went off somewhere with a member of the gang that murdered her mother!”
To which Longarm could only reply, “It sure looks that way, and I ought to be whipped with snakes for not seeing things clearer, sooner. But that’s what happens when you buy just one big fib. The other side can build one big fib atop the other, like a house of cards, until you wind up staring at what looks like whole castles in the air!” Pat asked him what on earth he was talking about. Longarm said, “Monumental edifices, built of lies instead of cards. Pull one lie out near the bottom and it all collapses, see?”
She said she didn’t.
Longarm got up from the table, asking to be excused as he assured both puzzled women, “That’s all right. I see, and like I said, I ought to be whipped with snakes for taking this long to see it!”
Chapter 21
Most Indians, many lawmen, and not a few outlaws could tell you there was more than one way to cut a trail. Wolves, bloodhounds, and other such hunters snuffled around until they found a scent, and then they followed it as if they were on railroad tracks as the prey they were after doubled back and forth, splashed through running water, and so on since everyone knew how wolves and bloodhounds trailed you.
It could save a lot of time, as human hunters had figured out in Stone Age times, if you just tried to figure out where your prey was headed and got there first. You figured deer would bed down in thick aspen, while lions would wind up amid rimrocks no matter how merry a chase they led you around Robin Hood’s barn.
So Longarm didn’t ride out of Minnipeta Junction at a gallop with a pack of fox hounds. He strode over to the Western Union and sent a whole mess of telegrams. Then he went back to the banks and brought old Gordon Guthrie up to date on what he knew for certain, up to the sudden disappearance of Maureen Cassidy that morning.
Guthrie got both the Havana Claros he’d fished out of his cigar case going for them before he said, “I’M missing something here. You say you don’t think Little Spider Nash is guilty of anything but a family business. But at least two members of the gang were pussyfooting around her daddy’s whiskey still, and she and she alone can identify Matt Currier on sight?”
Longarm said, “Pat Brennan’s housekeeper saw him when he came by to carry Maureen off. She describes him the same as Little Spider. I doubt he cares. Once he shucks a deliberately distinctive Texas hat, we’re just talking about a clean-cut young cowboy who’s out of the county by now.”
Guthrie chewed his cigar like a bone and pointed out, “With a half-wit hardly anybody pays attention to? Leaving two smarter women who could point him out in a crowd?”
Longarm took a thoughtful drag on his own smoke and replied, “They ain’t worried about anybody local spotting Matt Currier. He’s only an underling, recruited to rob this bank. You and the Pinkerton Agency have foiled their plans. I might have helped some by turning over a few wet rocks and gunning at least three of ‘em. We’re talking about a hasty cover-up, lest they all wind up exposed to the cruel light of day. I figure they mean to go to ground and lay low for longer than usual this time.”
