Even the sight of Harry Bolt and Clete Terry down at the far end of the bar wasn’t enough to make him unhappy. Not now. This business in Cargyle was over and done with as far as he was concerned. He’d done everything here that he had to, and he could leave with a clear conscience. And with Angela Fulton, who was a sweet little woman even if she wasn’t much of a looker. Once she healed up and got to feeling herself again he just might … no, he damn sure would go and look up her and Buddy in Central City. He liked the kid and he liked the mother and he could enjoy seeing more of the both of them. Why, sometime maybe they could all take one of those excursion trains that they ran down to … Almost without conscious thought he set the beer down onto the table and sat upright.
The young man who’d just walked in didn’t fit with this crowd somehow. It wasn’t his age. Lots of mining men start out young. In fact probably most of them. But there was something about him … he was too clean, too nicely dressed, looked too much the schoolboy to fit in here with these coal miners.
The young man paused in the doorway and looked slowly around.
That was part of it, Longarm realized. There was a wafiness about this fellow that didn’t quite fit the rest of his appearance. He was dressed in a nicely tailored and fairly new suit with a spanking-clean celluloid collar and a carefully tied necktie. He wore a narrow-brimmed hat in the stockman’s style, but there was something about him that prevented any possibility that he might be mistaken for a stockman. His shoes were freshly blacked, and there wasn’t a hint of sag in his stockings. All in all he was turned out as neat and tidy as a choirboy early on a Sunday morning.
Yet there was that indefinable something about him, something in the cautious way he inspected the room before he committed himself to it, that commanded Longarm’s attention.
Longarm looked across the room to where Bolt and Terry were in deep conversation about something. The two of them had their heads together, and were paying no mind to what all was going on around them.
On an impulse Longarm stood and, taking his beer with him, ambled across the room to reach the bar at just about the same time as this young newcomer did. And at the same stretch of bar as well. He stopped beside the young man and nodded to him. “Howdy.”
“Hello.”
“Buy you a beer, Steve?”
“Yes, thank you.” The fellow gave Longarm a quizzical look. “Have we met, perchance?”
“Not that I recall, no.”
“Then how …?”
“A shot in the dark.” Longarm grinned. “You should excuse the expression.”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t.”
“You have the advantage of me, sir.”
“Oh, yeah. So I do.” Longarm introduced himself.
“A federal officer. My, oh, my.”
“An’ you, of course, would be Steve Reese. How’s your papa, Steve?”
“He’s holding his own, Marshal. Thank you for asking.”
“I hope that treatment in—Scotland, was it?—I hope it helps.”
“You’re trying to tell me that you know all about my hopes, aren’t YOU.”
“I’m trying to tell you, Steve, that you ain’t gonna make it. There must be paper out on you in half a dozen different places.”
“Really? Am I accused of something then?”
“You know that better’n I do.”
“Federal crimes, Marshal?”
“Reckon you know that too.”
Reese smiled. “Yes, so I do. I have, shall we say, done my homework, Marshal. And if crimes were committed—which I do not admit, you understand—but if crimes were committed they do not fall under federal jurisdiction.”
“You’re a cool one, Steve.”
“No, Marshal. Merely committed to the pursuit of justice. Notice that I did not say anything about law. Law and justice are unrelated. And the course I seek, sir, is that of the just.”
“That so, is it?”
Reese nodded. “Indeed. If you want to know, Marshal, my father is an innocent man. I was there, don’t forget. Not that I was allowed to testify during the court-martial. But I was with my father through all those years. I knew. My father knew. His mistake was in his loyalty to men who weren’t worthy of the trust he placed in them. He was in charge of supply procurement, you know.”
“I heard that, yes.”
“He conducted himself honorably and with scrupulous attention to detail. Unfortunately for him there were others, officers who were in charge of the actual disbursement of those supplies, who acted in collusion with several of the Indian agents on the reservations at the time. My father saw that all appropriate materials were made available. All of it of the best possible quality too. Then others took those supplies and sold them on the civilian market. They either took them outright or in some instances replaced them with inferior goods. The Indians who were supposed to receive the supplies received useless goods. Or many times received nothing at all. It couldn’t have been done without the cooperation of both the reservation agents and the officers in charge of the actual distribution.”
Longarm grunted. What young Reese was telling him was, sadly enough, an all too common tale.
“The saddest thing of all, Marshal, is that my father knew about this. He learned about it at least eight months before charges were filed. Oh, he agonized over that knowledge. And in the end, you see, he decided that he could not bring charges against men who he regarded as his brothers. He pleaded with them to desist. He even threatened to expose them. But in his heart of hearts—he told me this himself—he knew he could never bear to ruin them.” Reese’s laugh was short and bitter. “They repaid him well for his loyalty. They falsified documents and brought charges against him. For their own crimes. I am sure, we both are sure, they believed if they did not strike first, then he would expose them as he so often threatened he would.”
“What about what he knew then? Shouldn’t that of been more’n enough of a defense for him?”
“Marshal. Please. Who would have believed him if he had tried to say anything after charges were already pending against him? It would have been taken as a craven attempt to wriggle out from under the truth.”
“So he stood there an’ took it on the chin?”
“He had no choice, Marshal. Besides, he still believed in his fellow officers. Then. He went to prison still certain that one of his brothers would yet step forward to exonerate him.” Reese snorted. “Brothers indeed. Scrupulus sons of bitches is more like it.” The handsome young man brightened and began to smile. “But say, did you know that most of them are dead now?”
“Oh, really?”
“My, yes. There’s a delightful irony in it, don’t you think?”
“I’d think that only if it happened by accident,” Longarm said.
Steven Reese shrugged. “By happenstance or misadventure, I think it hardly matters so long as the end result remains. They all deserved to die, you know. From that pompous Fetterman right on through to the last man on the list.”
“Except for your father,” Longarm said.
“Yes, of course. Except for him.”
“And you intend to see that it works out like that.”
“I never said that, did I, Marshal? Please don’t assume more than meets the eye. Surely you’ve been taught that.”
“I been taught a lotta things, Steve. Among ‘em being that murder is wrong.”
“Yes, there are wrongs. And then there are greater wrongs. Who are we to judge which among many wrongs is the greater or the lesser?”
“Me, I don’t try to. But I hear tell you sometimes take that chore upon yourself.”
“Do you have a warrant for my arrest, Marshal?”
“Well, um, no. Not exactly.”
“Then tell me, sir. Is there a point to this conversation?”