target than almost all of you, pussyfooting down the stairs before your fool head can see where its going. So while the tall deputy and his Winchester tried to move quietly, they just went down the last flight of stairs in a sudden bunch, ready to return any fire aimed their way.
But as he got to the bottom, Longarm saw that nobody seemed at all interested in him. He could only make out some of the desk across the lobby and two ladies sitting at a dinky table under a potted paper palm between him and the front entrance.
So he circled the stairs he'd just come down to ease into darker shadows with his back against a solid wall. When nothing happened, he moved along the wall until, sure enough, on the far side of those descending stairs, he spotted the white-clad Deacon Knox seated sideways to him in a big leather easy chair, smoking a cheap-flash cigar as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Longarm swept the shadows all around with suspicious eyes. But if it was a trap, it was a new one on him. He slid along the wall until he could beeline in to gently but firmly shove the muzzle of his saddle gun between the top of the chair and the back brim of that big white planter's hat.
Deacon Knox stiffened as Longarm warned in a conversational tone, 'One twitch of your dick and your head winds up in a side pocket. For this ain't a pool cue I'm holding against your brains, you two-faced tinhorn rascal!'
Deacon Knox sighed and kept looking straight ahead as he replied, 'Use your own brains, Longarm. Would I be sitting here like a big-ass bird with both hands empty on the arms of this old chair if I meant you harm?'
Longarm left his rifle muzzle where it was as he asked, 'How come you picked my lock and tossed my room upstairs, you harmless cocksucker?'
Deacon Knox soberly replied, 'I never went up there to commit crimes against nature or yourself. I've been waiting here a spell. Knowing you'd been marked for death, I finally let myself into your quarters to pay my respects to your remains, read your mail, or whatever. I saw by the keys you'd left on the bed you meant to be leaving town tonight. I've been all over town trying to catch up with you and tell you not to do that. I finally came back here because it occurred to me that since you'd asked your office to wire you in care of this hotel, you might come back to check with yonder desk before you left.'
Longarm withdrew his Winchester from the nape of the tinhorn's neck and moved around to face him with the rifle pointed a mite less rudely. He reached for a nearby bentwood chair, spun it around so he could sit it astride while facing the older man in the easy chair, Winchester across his spread thighs and.44-40 hanging handy, before he declared, 'They told me about the con you pulled at Western Union. I'd like to read that wire you intercepted, now. Reach for it slow.'
Deacon Knox smiled sheepishly and said, 'I threw it away lest it be found on me. Your boss, Marshal Vail, wants you to meet with the county board of supervisors, convey his suspicions to the sheriff in command of the whole shebang, and head back to Denver unless you come across something really new. He says others have investigated other shootouts all over this great land without managing to indict even one of those Wyoming wildwomen.'
Then he took a drag on his big cheap cigar and added, 'What's a Wyoming wildwoman, old son?'
Longarm said, 'I was hoping you'd be able to tell me. But let's talk about you. What the fuck have you been up to, Deacon?'
The tinhorn wistfully replied, 'I wish I knew. I thought I knew until you bigger boys commenced to play too rough for this delicate child. You know me of old, Longarm. Did I throw down on you or try to get somebody else to gun you after you'd treated me so mean over Nebraska way?'
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, 'I didn't treat you so mean. I exposed you as a cardsharp after I caught you dealing dirty to a lady. Nobody killed you. Nobody even arrested you. You and your pals were allowed to leave town in peace, as long as you left sudden.'
Deacon Knox nodded soberly and said, 'Then it's established we left peacefully. I told you at the time I didn't want to catch any north-bound trains because I'd met up with a rougher crowd up this way. But your pals gave me no choice and so that's what happened. I was sitting there minding my own business with a faro shoe in a back room when Texas Tom Taylor, who was really named Hatfield, caught up with me the night before last. Texas Tom and I went back to a summer on a Missouri road gang. We had little else in common. But he knew I knew you on sight. So he offered to let me in on a good thing if I'd be willing to point you out when you came to town.'
Longarm nodded and said, 'I can see you pointed me out. What was the deal he offered for my demise, thirty pieces of silver?'
Deacon Knox blew smoke out both nostrils and gasped, 'Be fair! I never played Judas on nobody! Lord knows you've never been no pal of mine! You damn near got me killed, myself, when you exposed the way I'd got so lucky at Slapjack in that dinky Nebraska trail town. But I was never out to get you or anybody else shot in the back. They told me they were out to avoid you, not to murder a federal lawman! I like to shit my pants when I heard how you'd shot it out with Texas Tom. I could have told him how safe it was to shoot at you, had he asked me. But he never! I swear to God!'
Longarm said, 'Keep your voice down. Let's keep this private. You said they told you fibs about me. I only got Texas Tom. Who else am I gunning for?'
The tinhorn told him, 'Ram Rogers and vice versa. Taller than you but twice as skinny. Dark hair, dark complexion, dresses dark, and some say he has some colored blood, but he says it's Cherokee. Soft spoken and slow moving, until he tenses up to slap leather. He's said to move like spit on a hot stove when he has to. I've never seen him kill anybody. I didn't even know he had that rep when I first fell in with the two of them, Dear Lord, just a few short days ago that seem like years!'
Longarm said, 'Time flies when you're having fun and drags when you have a toothache. I know Ram Rogers by rep as well. His real first name is Melvin. That could account for the chip on his shoulder. I'd like more on that deal you mentioned, now.'
Deacon Knox said, 'You've heard of the Big Rock Candy Mountains beyond the Seven Cities of Cibola, and naked hula-hula dancers of the Sandwich Islands who just can't do enough for doods off whaling ships? Well, there's this one crossroads cow town up along the North Platte run by a ladies' sewing circle with even the town law in skirts!'
Longarm didn't grin back as he said, 'Keller's Crossing. What about it?'
The tinhorn scowled and said, 'I just told you. There's hardly any menfolk guarding the two banks in town, the stagecoach terminal, the railroad freight and passenger office and Lord knows what all. The town's on an all- season ford across the changeable North Platte, where a railroad spurhead connects with stagecoach traffic coming down from the Montana gold fields along the old Bozeman Trail, now that the army's reopened the same after putting Mister Lo, the poor Indian, in his proper place.'
'I know about rich passengers and gold dust changing to the railroad at Keller's Crossing.' Longarm cut in, adding, 'Are you saying they offered to cut you in on armed robbery in exchange for my ass?'
Deacon Knox shook his head and answered, 'You know I do my robbing with a deck of cards. Texas Tom told me the gang him and Ram Rogers were riding with planned to take the whole township over, lock, stock and barrel, see?'
Longarm said, 'I don't. Other menfolk would never allow it. They may or may not share your views on the qualifications of the weaker sex to hold public office. But I just can't see a gang of big tough boys busting in on a sewing bee to simply take the premises over. A good loud scream from just one of the upset shemales would surely bring other boys running. The county, if not troops from Fort Laramie, would be moving in on your pals before the dust settled.'
Deacon Knox said, 'Nobody said nothing about taking the township over the way the Cheyenne took and held Julesburg a few hours, that time. The bunch Texas Tom and Ram Rogers told me about mean to take over just the running of the township for keeps. They've seen it's an inbred clique of four or five widow women who've managed to squat on all the lily pads in a modest pool. Most of the men just working in and about Keller's Crossing have been too busy to worry about who's running the town, as long as it's been running smooth. I was told the plan was to buy out or scare off a few helpless widow women and replace them with men who share the views of the gang and the late Sheriff Henry Plummer, up Montana way.'
Longarm whistled softly as that pragmatic approach to wealth sank in. For the notorious Sheriff Henry Plummer and his deputized stage robbers had almost gotten away with it!
The wild career of Henry Plummer had begun around Nevada City, California, when he'd gunned the man of a
