Bowes laughed. 'You're wrong there, Marshal. Lots of men want you dead.'
Longtree couldn't argue with that. He had a way of making serious enemies whichever way he turned. But Lauters…Christ, he topped the list. Tom Rivers had said he was an ignorant, violent bastard, but that didn't even begin to tell the story. Longtree figured if he somehow managed to get his scrawny ass out of this particular mousetrap, he was going to have something to say to Tom Rivers. And most of it would be of the four-letter variety.
'I'm just making you aware of what could happen,' Longtree said. 'Gantz is a killer and he's gonna try for me. Believe that.'
Bowes looked disgusted. 'And let me guess, you're gonna sit on your ass and wait for him.'
Longtree smiled.
And outside, Lauters slipped away, his ear cold from being pressed against the seam of the window.
He knew all he needed to know.
33
It was night by the time Lauters made it out to Jacko Gantz' encampment. He saw much the same things Longtree had-the wagon, the traps and pelts, the rifles, the army tent. There was a smell of coffee and roasted meat in the air. Lauters tethered his horse to the wagon and went to the fire.
'Anyone about?' he called out.
He closed his eyes and winced. Talking above a whisper made him wince. Longtree had put the boot in on him but good. He was sore everywhere. His nose was bandaged. It had been broken and Doc Perry had to twist it back into shape. Lauters had never known such pain. Once, he'd tracked a Cheyenne horse thief up into the Tobacco Root Mountains and had gotten a bullet in his belly out of the deal. He'd had to dig the bullet out with his knife and even that hadn't been quite so painful.
Goddamn Longtree.
Goddamn half-breed sonofabitch.
'Who're you?' a voice called from the darkness.
Lauters didn't turn. 'Lauters. Sheriff of Wolf Creek.'
'What the hell do you want? I ain't done nothing.'
'I know. I just wanna talk a spell with you. That's all.'
Gantz sat across from him at the fire. He was a big, bearded man with dark eyes. 'There was another lawman here,' Gantz spat.
'Longtree?'
Gantz nodded.
'Well, he ain't the law around here-I am. Don't you pay no mind to what that breed says, Gantz.'
Gantz smiled. 'You know my name?'
'Word travels fast. I heard Longtree talking to my deputy about you.'
Gantz spat a stream of tobacco juice into the fire. It sizzled. 'Yeah, well, I was just minding my own business, Sheriff. That bastard hit me with his gun for no good reason.'
'I don't doubt it a bit. What's the story between you two?'
Gantz, sensing he had an ally here, told the sheriff in detail. His version was a bit different than the one Lauters had heard Longtree tell. 'He's a sadistic bastard, Sheriff. I wasn't exactly a law abiding citizen…but he didn't have to shoot me.'
Lauters touched his nose. 'I know what he's like, just like I know he hides behind that badge and the U.S. Government.'
'He do that to you, Sheriff?'
Lauters nodded. 'He did.'
Gantz' eyes narrowed. 'He's a rough one, that Longtree. How well I know that. He's fast with an iron and faster with his fists. He was a scout for the army, you know that?'
Lauters shook his head.
'Pretty good one from what I hear. Not surprising with that Crow blood in him. I heard tell he was a fighter out in San Fran before turning bounty hunter and lawman.'
Lauters didn't doubt this. There were few men he couldn't lick, but Longtree fought like a possessed man. 'A professional, eh?'
'Yep. Back in the early sixties. They called him Kid Crow out there. He barefisted with some of the best, made a roll of cash I heard. Went ten rounds with Jimmy Elliot, I'm told. Got his plow cleaned pretty good, but he held up.'
Lauters took this all in. 'He's trouble, Gantz. We gotta get rid of him.'
'A federal marshal?'
'Don't matter,' Lauters explained. 'Like I said, I'm the law around here. If a man was to say, shoot him in the back, there'd be no questions asked. And there might be some money to be had for the man who did it.'
'Keep talking, Sheriff, you interest me…'
34
'Strange him not being around, wouldn't you say, Bill?'
Lauters was at Dr. Perry's house. After he struck his deal with the devil, he rode back into town and stopped by Perry's for some dinner and conversation. The dinner was good-smoked ham, roasted potatoes, apple pie-but the conversation was lacking.
'Everything about Claussen is strange to me,' Lauters said, lighting one of the doctor's cigars. 'If he ran off it suits me fine.'
Perry stroked his mustache. 'But did he? That's the question.'
'What're you getting at, Doc?'
Perry licked his lips, thinking it out carefully before speaking. 'You rushed out of here this afternoon saying you were going to take care of him. Remember? And now no one can find him. Claussen's not one to miss services. He takes his religion a might serious, if you know what I mean.'
'Are you saying I had something to do with it?'
'Did you?'
Lauters frowned. 'Goddammit, Doc, what do you think I did, kill him?'
Perry sat back in his chair, staring at the darkness outside the window. 'I hope not, Bill, I truly do. But when you left here today you looked, well, like a man capable of just about anything.'
'I didn't kill him,' Lauters maintained.
Perry looked at him with steely eyes. 'Then what did you do?'
35
Longtree and Bowes rode up into the hills at an almost leisurely pace. They moved quietly, trying to stay in the shadows. To be caught on Blackfeet lands like this would not have been good. They paused in a thicket to make sure they were alone.
'What in Christ made you come out here on a dare?' Longtree said.
Bowes just shook his head. 'I don't know…young…stupid…who can say?'
'What happened?'
Bowes' face looked to be cut from bloodless stone in the wan moonlight. But you could see his eyes and they
