Diver gave him a sly wink. “If you was Ernest Crouch asking me, I’d say yes, because that was the deal as was struck in return for Vince and the boys having a safe haven. But I know my own son. If you was to hold my feet to the fire, I’d say Vince give the bank closer to a third.”
Longarm stared at the man a moment, took a sip of his coffee, and then glanced at Austin Davis. Davis shrugged. “I ain’t got no more questions.”
Diver said, “That’s pretty much all I know, Marshal. Only question is, what will you give me for it?”
Longarm sat thinking for a moment. He said, “How long will it take you to get in touch with Vince, Mister Diver?”
Diver shook his head dismissively. “An hour at most. He stays pretty close ‘round here. All I got to do is give a note to Robert and, unless he’s out hooting and hollering, he’ll be along Johnny quick.”
“Today is Monday. I want his bunch to rob the Mason State Bank on Wednesday morning at nine o’clock. I believe that is when the bank opens.”
Diver stared at him for a moment, horrified. “Rob our own bank? Hell, that don’t make no sense. I’ll never be able to convince my boy of that.”
Longarm took a drink of coffee. “Explain it to him this way. Tell him it’s a way of throwing the law off the track. Tell him there are a couple of federal marshals nosing around and they are coming to the conclusion that the gang is part of Mason County. Tell him that a robbery of the bank, especially with that pinto horse right up front identifying them, would make the marshals think that the gang ain’t Mason County grown. Tell him it would take a lot of the pressure off.”
Diver looked worried. “I don’t know about that.” He rubbed his chin. “Vince might see the sense in that, but it would upset the hell out of Ernest Crouch. He wouldn’t take kindly to having his bank robbed.”
Longarm said, “They ain’t actually going to rob it, Mister Diver. But it will look like they have. Tell Mister Crouch it will make it very convenient for him to fix up his books for the bank examiners.”
Diver still looked dubious. “What are them?”
“Mister Crouch will know. And I guarantee you he will think it is a good idea, especially if no money leaves his bank but he can claim he was robbed of twenty-five or thirty thousand. I would imagine that will fill in a lot of holes he’s got in his accounting.”
Diver looked thoughtful. He said to a far corner of the kitchen, “What are you aiming on doing, Marshal?”
“I’ve told you from the very first that my main intent is the gunhands, the hot triggers. That includes your son, Mister Diver, along with the rest of them. Dan Hicks, Jim Squires, the other Goustwhite brother.” He looked at Austin Davis. “Who am I leaving out?”
Davis shrugged. “We need to make a list, there’s so damn many of them. And they keep switching around.”
Longarm said, “What I want is as many men as your son can round up coming in to rob that bank Wednesday morning.”
“You going to gun them?”
Longarm shook his head. “No. I will have it so arranged that they won’t have a chance. There will not be a shot fired unless they force it.”
Diver let out a long breath. “You shore ask a lot. Man turn in his own son.”
“You want your daughters back, Mister Diver? You want to rot in jail with them? You don’t cooperate with me, you will get twenty-five years for conspiracy.”
It startled Diver. “At my age? Hell, Marshal, at my age I can’t do no twenty-five years.”
Longarm said steadily, “Then you’ll just have to do the best part of it you can, Mister Diver.”
Dalton Diver grimaced and squirmed in his chair. “I never expected nothing like this. I don’t know if Vince will do it.”
“You better see to it that he does,” Longarm said warningly. “If you give this away, to Vince or to anybody, you will go to jail along with the banker, the mayor, and your girls. And I will bring in a half-dozen more deputy marshals to scour this area until we bring your son and his gang in. You had better listen to me, Mister Diver. Your son is going one of two places. He is either going to prison or he is going six feet under. And that is not a promise, not a threat, that is a guarantee.”
Austin Davis said, “Better go along with Marshal Long, Mister Diver. Prison is better than dead. Men have been known to escape. As long as he is alive there is hope.”
Diver rubbed his face again, looking worried. “I don’t know, I just don’t know. I don’t see how I can lie to my own boy. My face will give me away.”
Longarm stood up. “That’s up to you, Mister Diver, how you do it. You do it my way and I will release your girls and see that you get off pretty light, maybe mighty light. You try and pull something, like telling Vince all about it and maybe trying to break your daughters out of jail, well, it will get pretty bad. You tell the banker or the mayor, well, it will get pretty bad. Your best chance is to go along with what I’m willing to do.”
Austin Davis stood up alongside Longarm. He said, “Mister Diver, what it comes down to is that you can wiggle, but you can’t get off the hook. Wrong has been done here, and your son is in the big middle of it.”
Longarm said, “Mister Diver, I will see order and law brought back to this county. You can bet your best horse on that.”
Diver stood up. He seemed somehow smaller than he had been. “It’s a hard thing you gentlemen ask.”
Longarm said grimly, “Your son is caught. He is caught right now. You want him dead or alive?”
Diver hung his head.
Longarm said, “He better come in Wednesday morning with his gang, and he better come in no wiser than he is now. I’m obliged to you for the drinks and cigars and vittles.”
Diver nodded. “You are more than welcome.” He sighed. “Well, when all the cattle are counted, I reckon you’d have to say he done wrong and now has come the time to pay.”
“That’s it,” Longarm said. “You keep thinking like that and you’ll be all right.”
Diver walked them out to the porch. His voice was mournful and worried as he said, “Is that it? Ain’t there no other way?”
“Not that I can think of, Mister Diver.”
“I just hate to see it happen in town. Couldn’t we all meet someplace?”
Longarm shook his head. “I need them in one place, in one bunch, and at the same time.” He didn’t add that he also wanted them in the act of committing a robbery.
Diver shook his head. “It’s a terrible bad thing you are asking me to do, Marshal.”
Longarm was swinging up on his horse. He said, “It was some terrible bad things your son did. Him and the others. And that includes you. Good night, Mister Diver. If you don’t keep your word about all of this, I will be back and I will be angry.”
They rode away leaving the old man standing on the dark porch. Austin Davis said, “It’s kind of pitiful. Makes me feel right sorry for him.”
Longarm gave him a glance. “Davis, that is the difference between a real law officer and a half-ass bounty hunter. You see the man now and feel sorry for the trouble he’s got. I think about the people his son robbed and killed. That’s who I feel sorry for.”
It was late when they got back into town. Austin Davis headed for the saloon and the poker game while Longarm went by the jail. Melvin Purliss and one of the deputies were on duty. They reported no trouble.
The deputy said, “Not as long as we keep the door closed back to the cells. Open that up and you never heard such a racket in your life.”
“Are they eating?”
Purliss said, “I guess they eat some. Mostly they save it to throw at us when we go back there.”
“Well, you haven’t got any business back there.”
The deputy, the one Longarm thought was Bodenheimer’s nephew, said, “Whyn’t you stick yore head in back there, Marshal. They been askin’ after you.”
Longarm looked around. He said to the nephew, “Go get the sheriff. I want all four of you up here night and day. I got reason to believe somebody might try and break them out.”