"Maybe that will be reason enough to keep them from firing," said Aurora. She looked over at Longarm. "I'm going down there, Marshal."
"Well, then, I'm going with you," said Longarm.
"I figured you would. Your little masquerade as a cowboy may be over."
Longarm shrugged. "I never expected it to last very long anyway, and it wasn't paying any dividends."
Aurora glanced at her foreman. "Mr. Flint, I expect you to keep the men in line. There'll be no trouble, no shooting."
Flint glowered a little, but after a moment he nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am. No trouble--as long as you're down there."
Longarm and Aurora rode slowly, side by side, down the hill toward the ranch. All movement had ceased around the buildings, Longarm noticed. Kinsman and his men were hunkering down and waiting to see what was going to happen too, just like the lumberjacks.
Matt Kinsman and Joe Traywick emerged onto the porch of the big house as Longarm and Aurora drew rein in front of it. Longarm tried to look past them for any sign of Molly, but he didn't see her. All he could do was hope that she was somewhere in the house, unharmed by the bullets that had been flying a few minutes earlier.
"Custis!" exclaimed Kinsman as he realized who was accompanying Aurora. "What are you doing with that... that Jezebel?"
"Well, now, we're going to have to talk about that, Mr. Kinsman," said Longarm. "Is it all right if Mrs. Mcentire and I light and set for a spell?"
"I'm a hospitable man," Kinsman said with a glower, "but I'll be damned if I let that woman in my house!" Aurora said coolly, "I feel the same way, Mr. Kinsman, so I'll say what I have to say out here. Can I count on your men to honor the truce?"
"I don't see no white flag, Boss," Traywick put in. Like Kinsman, he held a Winchester in his hands and seemed ready to use it.
"That don't make no difference, Joe," Kinsman said. Then he turned to Aurora. "As long as those men of yours don't start shootin', neither will we. Now, if you've got somethin' to say, woman, spit it out."
Longarm glanced over at Aurora, hoping she could keep a tight rein on her temper. With a visible effort, she did so. "What I want to know, Mr. Kinsman, is why your cowboys raided my camp earlier this afternoon and killed some of my men."
Kinsman pulled his head back and squinted at her as if she had just slapped him in the face. "Hellfire and damnation!" he exploded after a moment. "What in blazes are you talkin' about?"
"I think you know," Aurora said tautly.
Longarm was watching Kinsman closely, and he was convinced that the rancher didn't have the slightest idea what Aurora was talking about. The accusation had come as a complete surprise to him. Beside him, Joe Traywick looked just as shocked and baffled.
"None of my men have been off the ranch today," Kinsman insisted, " 'cept for Custis there." He waved a hand at Longarm, then narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the lawman.
"And you still ain't explained what's goin' on, son."
Longarm didn't see any good way out of this, other than telling the truth. He said, "Custis is just the first part of my handle, Mr. Kinsman. The other part is Long. I'm a deputy United States marshal working out of the Denver office. My boss sent me up here because the trouble between you and Mrs. Mcentire is jeopardizing a government lumber contract."
For a moment, Kinsman stared at Longarm in amazement; then his flushed face turned an even darker shade of red as anger surged up inside him. "You lied to me!" he accused.
"More like I just... left out a few things." Longarm went on quickly. "And that ain't really important now. What matters is that Mrs. Mcentire is telling the truth about the raid on her camp. A handful of men are dead and a building's been burned down. There are plenty of witnesses to say that the men who did the killing and burning were dressed like cowboys."
"That don't make 'em cowboys," snapped Kinsman, "and it sure as hell don't make 'em Diamond K hands."
"Could it have been some of your boys, not acting on orders, just doing something they figured you'd approve of?"
Instead of answering Longarm's question directly, Kinsman turned to Traywick. "You know the whereabouts of all the hands, Joe?"
"Of course I do," replied Traywick with a snort of disgust. "They're all on Diamond K's home range. I'd stake my life on it."
Kinsman turned back toward Longarm and Aurora with a look of smug satisfaction on his florid face. "Looks to me like the only attack around here was the one your men just launched on my ranch, ma'am. And it was mighty unprovoked, if you ask me."
"That's your story?" Aurora asked coldly.
"And I'm stickin' to it."
"Then who raided my camp?" Traywick said, "Just cause some gents have range duds on don't make 'em real cowboys." He snorted again and waved toward the ridge overlooking the ranch headquarters. "Hell, you could dress up those lumberjacks of yours, and they might look like cowboys!"
That same thought had already occurred to Longarm. The raiders could have been loggers from Ben Callahan's camp, disguised as cowhands to shift the blame onto the Diamond K. If that was the case, the ruse had been a stunning success, at least at first.
As Aurora considered what Kinsman and Traywick had said, Longarm thought he saw something like doubt appear in her eyes for the first time. That was a step in the right direction, he thought. If he could get both Aurora and Kinsman to admit that someone else might be to blame for their problems, he would have a better chance of getting to the bottom of this. His investigation was bound to go more smoothly without having to worry all the time about the loggers and the Diamond K hands trying to kill each other.
"Well," said Kinsman, "what're we goin' to do about this? I don't trust Miz Mcentire, and I don't much reckon she trusts me."
"You're right about that," said Aurora.
Kinsman turned a baleful stare on Longarm. "And I ain't overly fond of what you did, Marshal."
"Just trying to do my job," said Longarm. "And as for what the two of you are going to do, I figure the best thing would be to make this truce permanent. Have your men steer clear of that lumber camp, Mr. Kinsman. You tell your men to do likewise where the Diamond K is concerned, ma'am. That way, if there's any more trouble, you'll know for sure that neither of you is to blame."
"Well..." Kinsman said grudgingly, "I reckon that might work."
"It means we'd have to trust each other," Aurora pointed out.
"Or try to anyway," Longarm said.
Kinsman nodded abruptly. "I'll do it, leastways for the time bein'."
"My men won't like it," said Aurora, "but I'll make them listen to reason."
Longarm felt a surge of relief. With both Kinsman and Aurora being reasonable about things, he had a chance to actually do some good and find out who was really behind the killings and the other trouble in these parts. Whether it was Ben Callahan or someone else entirely, Longarm intended to bring whoever had hired those owlhoots to justice.
Along with the relief came a wave of weariness. It had been a damned hard day, and it was difficult for him to believe that only this morning he had appeared before that coroner's jury in Timber City. Since then he had bedded Aurora Mcentire, been ambushed and wounded by the men working for that mysterious boss, fought his way out of that trouble, reached the lumber camp too late to prevent more murders, and raced here to the Diamond K in a desperate attempt to forestall an even more wholesale slaughter. Along the way he'd lost a heap of blood and endured more pain than any man ought to be expected to endure.
Yep, that was a full day's work, all right, he thought.
That was almost the last thing that went through his mind before blackness reached out unexpectedly to claim him. He felt himself swaying in the saddle and reached for the saddlehorn, knowing that he was about to fall. His fingers clutched at the horn but slipped off it. As he tumbled off the roan, he vaguely heard a voice--no, two voices, female voices, cry out, "Custis!"