The young one turned back. “You can’t give us no orders.”
Longarm took a step forward. He said, “You want to bet?”
The young man stood his ground stubbornly. He said, “I ain’t going nowhere without my firearm.”
“Yes you are. You’re going home without your firearm. You done proved to me you can’t use it. Next time you come in, you can get it, but you better be in a much better temper.”
When the two Barrett riders left and Longarm had listened to their horses riding off, disappearing in the distance, he brought his attention back to the several men left in the room. He said, “Now, I need somebody to go out and tell old Jake Myers that I want to see him at eleven o’clock tomorrow. I got any volunteers?”
The men stared at him, but not a one spoke or moved.
Longarm said, “You know, I’m a United States deputy marshal, and we’re sitting in the United States. By law, I can delegate any one of you to go out there. I would rather get a volunteer if I could. Somebody stand up.” There were four men left in the room, and they almost all stood up as one. Without a word, they headed for the door, marching between the tables in a line.
For a second, Longarm didn’t realize what they were doing. Then he laughed as the last one disappeared through the door. He said, “You can run, but I’ll still find you.” He turned back to the bar where his drink was still waiting, untasted. He picked it up and drank off half of it. It wasn’t bad whiskey for bar whiskey, but it was nowhere as good as his own Maryland whiskey.
The bartender stood there, gazing at him. Longarm said, “I guess you’re all upset about me running off all your customers?”
“No, that’s when I make most of my money, when the place is empty,” the man said.
Longarm laughed and tossed down the rest of his drink. He said, “Well, don’t feel bad. I’m fixing to go empty out the rest of the saloons in this town. You-all will be doing about the same amount of business.”
He got a silver dollar out of his pocket and spun it on the bar and then pointed at the two revolvers. He said, “Don’t give these guns back to those young men until tomorrow. You understand me?”
The bartender nodded. He said, “I understand what you are telling me, but I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do when they come back in here demanding them.”
Longarm said, “Tell them you lost them. You’ll be a lot better off. They might just beat you up, but I’ll damned well put you in prison. Understand?”
The bartender glowered at him. He said, “You ain’t aimin’ to make many friends around here, are ya?”
“If I make a single friend around here, then I won’t have done my job.” With that, he turned on his heel and walked through the batwing doors and out into the sunny street of the little village. Within the next hour, he had visited the other two saloons in the town. During that time, he had confiscated eight revolvers and one .32 caliber hideout gun, bloodied four faces, knocked three men out, and fired a shot into the ceiling of the biggest of the saloons, a place called the Texas Bar & Grill.
Because of the size of the place and because they did serve lunch, he decided that he would make that the official meeting place for the next morning, and he had informed two more Barrett men and four Myers men to make sure that their bosses got the word that he would be looking for them in that place and at that time and that he had better not be forced to go out and visit them. He had also incurred the wrath of two more saloon owners, since he had managed to empty both other places with the exception of a few townspeople who had been quietly having an afternoon drink.
The owner of the Texas Bar & Grill was named McAllister. He was a short, perspiring Irishman with a bald head and an apron tucked up around his chest. He said, “Damn it, Marshal. There ain’t no call for all of this. I agree that there needs to be some law in this town. I’ll admit that, but not at the expense of business.”
Longarm had looked at the man flatly. He said, “McAllister, until I get this place settled down, there ain’t going to be any business in this town. Got that? You better pass the word around to all your fellow merchants, whether they’re selling horseshoe nails or shots of rotgut bourbon. Business is over with until this mess gets straightened out. If you’ve any influence with either the Myerses or the Barretts, you had better urge them to get in here and meet with me, because I’m not going to be in a real good humor if I have to go see them.”
Supper that night was a very quiet affair at the boardinghouse. Mrs. Thompson served them roast beef with mashed potatoes and gravy and green beans. The mercantile clerk turned out to be a Mr. Sims, a quiet, middle-aged man who gave Longarm a quick shake and a nod of his head and then fell to his food. The drummer was a tall, lean man who said that he was from San Antonio. He sold custom-made saddles. He said, “We build the saddles to fit the horse and to suit the man. We build saddles for working cowboys, people who are going to be on top of a horse for fourteen, sixteen hours a day. We make the best saddle that money can buy, but we make it for a price a man can afford. I hear you caused a little trouble in town today.”
Longarm was taken off guard by the man’s sudden switch in topics. He said, “Well, if you call doing my job causing trouble Mr. Hawkins, I guess you can say I did.”
Mr. Hawkins took a bite of bread, chewed it, and then washed it down with coffee. He said, “I hear tell you left word that the town might as well shut down because there wouldn’t be any business done until you got things settled. That about the straight of it?”
Longarm nodded. “That’s about it. Anybody that comes riding in this town had better be coming to see me or coming to kill me—either talk peace or talk trouble—because he’s not going to stay in town long enough to do any business. The Barretts and the Myerses are the ones that I believe I’ve got to influence. What do you say, Mr. Hawkins? You’ve been around here, according to Mrs. Thompson, for several weeks.”
The skinny man nodded. He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He said, “Yep, and I’ve about made the acquaintance with everybody in this settlement. In fact, I was at the Barretts when two of their hired hands came riding in. One of them looked like his face had been beaten to a pulp. They claimed there was some crazy lawman in town that was going to get himself killed and they were just the ones to do it.”
Longarm half smiled. He said, “Is that a fact?”
Mr. Hawkins nodded slowly. “Yep. They’d gone to the bunkhouse for their rifles. Mr. Archie Barrett ordered them to put their guns down and stay on the place. But Marshal, I wouldn’t be surprised if you might not need a set of eyes in the back of your head here in the near future.”
“That would be the case, Mr. Hawkins, only if I planned to expose my back, which I have no plans on doing,” Longarm said.
Mrs. Thompson came in to see if anyone needed seconds. Longarm inquired why she didn’t eat with them.
She shook her head. She said, “Oh, no. My daughters and I take our supper earlier in the kitchen. We prefer it that way.”
Longarm said, “Makes it kind of lonely.”
She rearranged the vinegar and oil cruets on the table and said, “Oh, I don’t mind.”
“I mean lonely out here for us. We could use your company. Three old men don’t have much to talk about.”
She said, “I’ll fetch in your dessert. It’s apple pie again.” With that, she left the dining room and hurried back into the kitchen.
Mr. Hawkins’s eyes followed her. He said without looking at Longarm, “A very pleasing woman, wouldn’t you say, Marshal?”