Billy Vail held up his hand and ticked off his fingers. He said, “I wired the sheriff, I wired the mayor, I wired the town marshal, and I wired a bank down there just in case. I haven’t heard a word back.”
Longarm took off his hat and scratched his head. “Well, that’s the beatenest thing I’ve ever heard. Does it say who they’re to apply to for the reward money when they either have me a prisoner or a carcass?”
Billy Vail shrugged. “According to the information I’ve gotten so far, interested parties are to contact the Nelsons in Santa Rosa. It doesn’t give an address.”
Longarm said, “Do you reckon this might be some kind of joke, Billy?
Some kind of prank? I mean, ten thousand dollars is a hell of a lot of money. I know I’m worth considerably more than what ya’ll are paying me, but ten thousand dollars just for one deputy marshal?” He whistled and shook his head. “Either somebody has a lot of money to throw around, or else they’re playing a joke. Now, if this is a joke, Billy, and I go stumbling my way down to New Mexico—and I will be stumbling because I’m about half asleep right now—I’m not going to be in a very good frame of mind. There’s liable to be some bodies turned in, but they won’t be mine.”
Billy Vail put his hands on the top of his desk and looked directly at his deputy. “All right,” he said, “if you were me, what would you do? Would you just ignore it, pay it no attention? Just say … oh, well, never mind about that? And suppose I ignore it and suppose you get killed. Guess what my superiors might think about that! Put yourself in my boots for a minute.”
Longarm squirmed in his chair. He didn’t know quite what to think. “Billy, if they’re putting up those posters, that’s against the law. I don’t know what the legal phrase for it is, but they’re assisting in my murder. They’re paying somebody to kill me, and that’s against the law the last time I looked. So I don’t know who these fool people are, but all I’ve got to do is go down there and arrest them on the spot.”
Billy gave him a dry look. “Yeah, well, how are you going to prove they’re the ones who put up posters? Let’s say you find these Nelson brothers or cousins or whatever they are, and you have one of those posters in your hand, and you say, “Ya’ll are all under arrest for threatening to murder me,’ and they say, “We didn’t have nothing to do with that.’ What will you do then?”
Longarm frowned. “I’ll be damned if I know, except maybe get them together and lock them in a room until one of them decides to tell the truth. That’s all I can think of.”
“Custis, you’re a fair hand for bending the rules, but I don’t think even you would bend them that much. There’s something in this. I don’t know what it is, but it’s got me puzzled enough that I’ve got to send you down there to find out.”
“You know, Billy,” said Longarm, “it would seem to me that I’d be the last man to send down there. You’ve got about a dozen other deputies around here. Why don’t you send one of them down there to find out? There’s no price on their heads. Let them go down there and look things over and see what the deal is.”
Billy Vail nodded. “I’ve thought about that, Custis. I’ve thought it over and over. I’ve put myself in your place, and if it was me that was on the receiving end of this threat, I’d be the one wanting to look into it. I wouldn’t want to depend on the skill of any other man. If my life was being threatened like that, I’d want to get to the bottom of it just as quick as I could.”
Longarm said, “Damn it, Billy, these men would have to be fools. If I got killed, they’d have the Marshal Service all over them like bees on honey. They can’t be that crazy. There’s more to this than meets the eye, I can guarantee you that. I don’t think these men are trying to get me killed or captured. I think they’ve got some other reason.”
The chief marshal looked at him. “That’s just fine, Custis. But what if some gun-happy fool sees one of these posters and doesn’t know they don’t want you killed. What if he says, “Look here, here’s the famous Deputy Marshal Custis Longarm Long,’ and pops you one right between the shoulders? Is it going to make you feel a lot better when they tell him, “Oh, that was a big mistake, we didn’t really want this man shot?’”
Longarm sighed again and slid down in his chair. “I guess you’ve got a point. I can’t get away from it. I guess you really do have a point, but I’m damned if I feel like going back out into the field.”
Billy Vail leaned back in his chair. He said, “Well, why don’t you take twenty four hours and let’s think it over. Maybe we can get some more information in here.”
Longarm said, “Better than that, why don’t you send a deputy down there and let him get on the ground and get us some reliable information instead of us relying on some telegrams from heaven only knows who?”
Billy Vail grimaced. “That’s just it. I ain’t really got anybody to send.”
“There’s Ross Henderson. He ain’t doing a damned thing. He’s been laying around this station for the last month, it seems like. You ain’t put him to work yet. When is he going to do some work where he don’t have to back up to the pay table?”
“Oh, Ross is just a kid, Longarm. Hell, I can’t send him out like that, not on a job like this.”
Longarm said, “Billy, what do you think I was? The first job you sent me out on, I wasn’t nothing but a kid.”
Billy Vail leaned forward. “You were never a kid,” he said. Then he fixed Longarm with a gimlet eye. “And by the way, you’re making it sound like me sending you out when you were a kid, well, that makes it sound like I’m a good deal older than you, and we both know there ain’t that many years separating us.”
Longarm laughed loud and long. “Oh, I hope the Good Lord doesn’t strike you down dead for that one,” he said. “Billy, you can go to Hell for lying as well as for stealing. You know, if headquarters ever finds out how old you really are, you’ll be drawing two pensions as soon as they retire you.”
Billy Vail got red in the face. “Now don’t you be spreading none of that kind of talk. You and I both know there ain’t no truth to that.”
Longarm kept on laughing. “Billy, Billy, I’ve been here I don’t know how many years and you sure as hell ain’t got no younger. You looked like old saddle leather the first day I started working here. You looked like a mule that had already put in his career’s work and was ready to be turned out to pasture, and I don’t know how many years have passed since then. Lord have mercy.”
Billy Vail was still glaring. He said, “Well, that kind of talk ain’t going to get you your way. You can see that, can’t you, mister?”
“Look, Billy. Henderson doesn’t have to go down there and blunder into anything. He can just go down there and mealy-mouth and pussy-foot around and get a line on what’s actually going on and then get word back up here. That’ll give me some time to rest. Billy, I ain’t kidding. I didn’t sleep in a bed for ten days. I think the best bed I had the whole time just didn’t have any rocks under it, and that was as good as it got. And I know I didn’t have a hot meal the whole time unless it was warmed up by gunfire.”
Billy Vail gave him a sour look. “My heart is bleeding for you, Custis. You can’t believe how bad I feel.”
Longarm said, “Now, there’s no need to get sarcastic, Marshal Vail. There’s no call for that. What do you say about sending Ross Henderson down there? He needs the work and he’s got to get his feet wet, Billy. I know you think he’s a little slow and a little backwards, but he seems bright enough to me.”
“You’ve never heard me say I thought Ross was slow or backwards. He’s a sworn deputy United States marshal. We ain’t got none, with the exception of yourself, that’s slow or backwards.”
“Well, anyway, I wouldn’t want to see the kid go out on a job like this if he couldn’t handle it. But all you got to do is tell him to be careful.”