Longarm moved over to his dressing table to pour some Maryland rye into two tumblers, with a little pitcher water, as he told her, “No professional lawman worth his salt kills anyone he can bring in alive. Even if he’s mean-natured, it looks better on his record if he brings prisoners in the hard way.”
He held out a glass to her. “Sit down and drink this, even if you don’t drink. We got to talk brass tacks.”
She sat down with the tumbler but held it in her lap as she said, “I know Joseph is dangerous, but-“
“You don’t know how dangerous he is,” He cut in. “They don’t allow girl children to go to war. You have to go through at least one war to know who’s dangerous and who’s just trying to stay alive.” He took a swig of his own drink. “All right, there’s no delicate way to put it. Them two men your brother shot it out with was veteran gunslingers, both armed, and on the prod to make an arrest, when your brother stepped into your parlor to discuss his disgust with military life with ‘em.”
“I know all that. I told you Joseph has an unpredictable temper, Custis.”
He shook his head. “They should have predicted it. He was wanted for desertion and horse theft when he came in with a brace of six-guns strapped around his skinny hips. As I read the results, they was standing side by side not far from the door, and he was in the doorway or just inside when he slapped leather and beat them both. From the powder burns, he swung both guns up at once and fired both at once at point-blank range. It was still mighty fine shooting, considering one gun had to be in his left hand.”
“Joseph is left-handed,” she cut in. “We tried, and his teachers tried, to make him write right-handed but he had temper tantroms and after a time everyone gave up.”
He nodded. “For that I thank you. It goes in my notes and helps explain him a mite better. That still leaves him able to drill a man direct through the heart with either hand. That’s what you get when you force a natural lefty to use his right hand more than he ever wanted to. We know he drew and fired without a word of warning or even that certain look lesser gunslicks get in their eyes as they’re fixing to draw. Had those army agents had the merest hint they were up against anything more than what they took to be a mere kid, they’d at least have tried to do a thing about it in the short time they had left. But your brother didn’t give them time. He moved faster than spit on a stove, and he had them dead or at least unconscious before they could have even guessed they were in trouble.”
She tried a sip of the drink, winced, and asked, “What do you mean by dead or unconscious? Don’t you mean they were killed instantly?”
He shook his head. “I told you I rode through a war. A heavy slug through the heart stops it instant. But, if it ain’t too shocked as well, the brain can still work for a few seconds, and more than one man’s been killed by a man he just killed. On the other hand, a.45 slug can knock one out with its shocking power, hitting almost anywhere in the trunk, if the victim is relaxed when he gets hit. Tensed up, the hydrostatic shock don’t whip-snap through muscles near as much. So do you see the way it had to have happened, now?”
She swallowed and said, “I think so. You’re suggesting those two men were standing there, relaxed and maybe talking in a soothing way to what they thought was a frightened boy, when…”
“I ain’t suggesting it,” he cut in. “It don’t work no other way. So now we get to the ugly part. How in thunder can you expect any lawman to approach a natural disaster like your kid brother in a gentle, understanding way?”
“That’s why you have to take me with you, Custis. I can talk to Joseph. He’d never draw his guns on me.”
He raised an eyebrow as well as his glass, took a snort, and said, “You must have forgotten the bruised breastbone you showed me earlier, Miss Flora.”
She insisted, “That’s my point. He hit me. He didn’t shoot me. Isn’t it true the original Black Jack Slade was a wife beater, not a wife murderer?”
“It depends on which version you read. Some say they was sort of fond of one another and that she raised pure hell when the vigilantes come for him. I can see how, either way, gunning a gal could be against the code of such an otherwise surly cuss. But leave us not forget your kid brother ain’t really the man he seems to think he is. Gals get killed all the time in penny dreadfuls. It’s a matter of Wild West myth that Calamity Jane Canary was killed in a gunfight with Mormon Bill so’s Deadwood Dick could avenge the death of his true love.”
“That’s silly. Everyone knows Calamity Jane was the sweetheart of Wild Bill Hickock,” she said.
He smiled thinly. “That’s a myth, too, even if old Jane likes it too much to deny it. I met James Butler Hickock when I first went to work for the Department. He was working mostly at getting drunk. He was also as happily married as a heavy drinker can get, to Agnes Lake, who was built a lot nicer than poor old Calamity, because she was a circus performer he’d met touring with a circus back East.”
He took another slug and explained, “The point of all this tedious discussion is that even when things are down as public record in black and white, the gents who write the fairy tales your brother takes so serious don’t allow a little thing like the truth to get in their way. Most of them can’t even know the truth, writing as far off as London and stealing tall tales from one another. But your kid brother takes tall tales as his real world and, worse yet, he’s fast enough to back his loco notions. I’d like to get my hands on the range instructor who taught him to handle guns so good. But they ain’t sending me after him. It’s your kid brother the law wants, and you can’t come along to reason with anyone so unreasonable. I got enough on my plate with just having your family to worry about. I’d never forgive myself if you both wound up shot.”
She raised the glass and downed the drink with a heroic effort before she put it on his lamp table and began to unbutton her bodice again. He put his own drink aside. “Just what do you think you’re doing? I’ve already seen your bruises.”
She smiled up at him sadly and said, “I can’t go home, with those awful men tramping about my house. If you won’t take me with you, couldn’t I at least stay here with you tonight?”
She must have been able to read his thoughts, despite his valiant attempt at a poker face. For as she exposed her pretty little breasts to the lamplight she said, “It’s not as if either of us are virgins, you know.”
He said, “Speak for yourself. How pure I might or might not be is not the question. I ain’t in a position to compromise myself as an arresting officer.”
She smiled up at him archly. “Heavens, what are you planning to arrest me for, Custis?” she asked.
He said, “Indecent exposure and cruelty to animals. It ain’t going to work, Miss Flora. I admire your devotion to kin, but we both know what you’re trying to do. You’re just upsetting us both to no avail.”
She gathered her duds together more tightly and started to cry. Her tears were real. He sat down beside her and buttoned her bodice back up as he said, “You can’t stay here, for I know what any lawyer worth his salt could make of that in court. Pull yourself together and I’ll take you over to a hack-stand I know of in this neighborhood. It’s too late and dark out to send a lady back across Cherry Creek on foot alone.”
She didn’t argue. She acted sort of numb until he had them both downstairs and walking quietly and awkwardly toward the lit-up corner where, with luck, he’d be able to find a ride home for her.
As he spotted an empty hack tethered in front of Maria’s Cantina he said, “There you go. I’ll put you in and chase that fool driver out of that dive so’s he can carry you home, or to a hotel if you’d rather. Do you need any money?”