Potter shrugged. ?A man.?
?Do you remember his name, Donald??
Another shrug.
?What about the hood, Donald??
?Hood??
?Sure. This.? He pushed the flour-sack hood toward Potter.
?Tha?s just a bit o? cloth, y? know. Hoods are black, Hangmens wear hoods.? He shuddered. ?I seen a hanging once. I ?member that good.? He shuddered again.
Potter frowned for a moment, then his expression cleared as he put the memory of the hanging aside?some thing that seemed to come easy enough to him?and idly reached forward for the gleaming gold of the five double eagles.
His childlike mind seemed to be attracted to bright, pretty colors, and for several minutes he peered closely at the gold, fondled the coins, played with them. Longarm doubted that they held much value for him beyond their color and shininess, but he liked them well enough.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs beyond the jail door, and Longarm said, ?Put those down now, Donald. I think our supper is here.?
Potter smiled and did as he was told. He placed the coins into his palm one by one with slow, deliberate care to form a tiny valuable stack of minted gold. Then he picked up the white hood from the desk, and with infinite attention to what he was doing wrapped the coins inside the cloth and stuffed the small bundle into his pocket.
?Why did you do that, Donald??
?Do what??
?Wrap those coins like that.?
Potter shrugged again. ?I dunno. Keeps ?em nice, I guess.?
?Oh.?
Longarm leaned back in his chair and fingered his chin while he stared at the open, perfectly innocent expression of his prisoner. There was something
He shook his head, to himself rather than for Potter?s benefit, and looked up to greet the hotel waiter who had puffed his way to the top of the stairs with a heavy tray in his hands.
The aroma of tallow-fried steak filled the room when the towel was lifted from the plates, and Potter began to grin hugely.
?Me too,? Longarm said.
Both men pitched into their meal with good appetite.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Longarm tossed his napkin onto the greasy plate that was all that remained of an excellent meal and pushed his chair back. Potter had long since finished the last scrap of food available. The prisoner ate with an animallike speed and intensity, making loud slurping noises and using both hands to bring great bites to his face. A pleasant dining companion he was not.
?Time to go back to the cell, Donald.?
Potter accepted the instruction without a trace of regret, pausing only to check once again and make sure there was nothing edible left on the tray. Then he stood and calmly headed for the lockup. He looked quite happy with the whole situation. Longarm got the cell keys from the desk drawer and followed.
?In you go, Donald.?
Longarm reached for the cell door to swing it closed behind the prisoner. To his left there was the brittle sound of glass shattering. A lead slug spanged nastily against one of the steel cell bars, leaving a bright, shiny smear of fresh lead where a moment before there had been only paint, and sending fragments of soft lead whining through the room.
?Down!? Longarm barked.
He dropped to his belly, Colt in hand, as a second gunshot snapped through the broken window and again ricocheted dangerously off the cell bars.
Longarm fired blindly back into the new-fallen darkness. He had no target to aim at, no hope whatsoever that his slug would find a mark He only wanted to give the sharpshooter pause.
A third incoming bullet tore splinters of wood out of the window frame and thumped into the wall behind Longarm.
?I don?t like this,? Potter complained. He was standing at the cell door with a blank, uncomprehending expression.
?Get down, Donald. Lie in your bunk. Stay there.?
Potter nodded and walked slowly toward his cot. He lay on it and closed his eyes as if for a nap.
Jesus! Longarm thought.
A fourth bullet ripped through the window, higher this time, taking out what was left of the glass and spraying half the room with tiny shards.
Longarm felt one of them slice into his right cheek. Another nicked his ear. If this kept up
He fired through the window into the darkness twice, his shots quickly thrown without aim, then rolled, came
