Egger hadn't heard that last part. Even as he put his walking papers away he was weakly gasping, "Margaret made a deal to turn Cal in? Oh, Dear Lord, where can we hide?"
Longarm led him inside the crowded depot by one arm, leaving his own gun hand free, as he said gently, "Your gal never told me where he was. She didn't know. Neither of you will have to hide from him if he gets caught. So I want you to keep a sharp eye on the folks all around and let me know if you spot Calvert Tyger, hear?"
Egger moaned they were both going to be shot down like dogs. So Longarm led him into the depot dining hall, and bought them some chili con carne with mince pie and coffee. When Egger said he felt too sick to his stomach to eat, even seated in a corner, Longarm ate both of their orders and drank all the coffee.
Then he consulted his pocket watch, saw it agreed with the wall clock, and said, "Pay attention lest you wind up feeling even worse, Egger. I can only watch so many ways at once, so there's an outside chance you'd get away from me if you made a break for it in the near future. After that it would be a toss-up whether I caught up with you and kicked the shit out of you, or Tyger got to you first and you wound up wishing you were only getting the shit kicked out of you."
The pale-faced crook whimpered, "Cal's got it all wrong. Nobody I was pals with robbed that payroll office behind his back and got him so famous out this way!"
Longarm said, "Tell him that as you lay dying. I hadn't finished your instructions. We'll be going out to the open platform now. It's early. There shouldn't be too many innocent targets in the way. I can watch you or I can watch for more important rascals. So like I said, you could likely make a dash for freedom if you weren't already free and had anywheres safer to dash. Can I bank on you acting sensible?"
Egger said he just wanted to be safely far away with his sweet little Margaret in his arms after all those lonesome nights in a cell.
Longarm didn't comment on how a gal that big-boned and buxom could be described as small, or where she really was just then. He rose to leave some coins on the table and muttered, "Let's move out."
They did, and sure enough, the open platform out back was sunny and unoccupied, with no train expected for a good forty-five minutes and the late afternoon sun glaring uncomfortably hot through the dust and coal smoke of the rail yards to the west. Longarm led Egger to an open stretch near the north end of the platform, and told him he doubted too many passengers would come crowding up this way to get on the Burlington Flyer's cowcatcher once it arrived.
Egger glanced nervously about and protested, "We're easy targets out here, and that dazzle off the boards and bricks will make it even tougher to spot Cal in time!"
Longarm stared soberly at the switchman's booth forming a cul-de-sac to the north as it almost met the sun-washed bricks of the depot's rear wall. "The light will be just as tricky for him. How come you're expecting Calvert Tyger in the singular flesh, Egger? He sent a whole swarm of lesser lights after me and we're still working on some of their true names and addresses."
Egger sighed and said, "You just answered your own fool question. You don't send a boy to do a man's job, and he wants us both bad if he suspects I rode with Brick Flanders against his orders and just now made a deal with the law!"
He glanced down the other way and added, "Aside from that, he must be finding good help tougher to find these days. We were all running low on pocket jingle when Brick took it in his red head to stop that train on his own."
Longarm started to ask how the gang could be throwing around all those hundred-dollar notes if they were so broke. But the punk had told him more than once that Calvert Tyger and his faction hadn't taken part in the Fort Collins job. That had doubtless made Chief sound mighty sincere when he'd told Helga Runeberg he'd been framed for a job he'd never done.
Egger sucked in his breath, and Longarm turned the same way to see a familiar figure, missing his chaps but wearing a six-gun, slowly coming up the platform from the cover of those baggage carts to the south. Egger said, "It's Gus Hansson. He's supposed to be riding for my sister-in-law back in Brown County! What could he be doing way out here in Colorado?"
Longarm said, "Move back and off to one side and I'll ask him."
So the unarmed Egger crawfished back and off to one side indeed as Longarm just stood there, smiling sort of wistfully.
As the Minnesota kid came within pistol range Longarm called out, "That's far enough and don't try it, Gus. Can't you see you're being used as a cat's paw by a sly old mouser who doesn't give a fig for your future?"
Gus Hansson stopped, only to drop into a gunfighter's crouch as he bitched, "We just got word from New Ulm, you son of a bitch! The sheriff just arrested Miss Helga and half of my pals on the Rocking R!"
Longarm nodded amiably and replied, "I know. I wired them earlier and allowed it was about time we commenced wrapping up. Somebody has to pay for hiring Laughing Larry Lucas to blow pretty ladies up, and I'm sure the big boss has told you it wasn't his dumb notion."
Gus Hansson snarled, "Fill your fist by the time I count to three. For that's when I mean to draw, you smirking know-it-all!"
Longarm thoughtfully threw his frock coat open to expose the grips of his cross-draw.44-40, but called out in a calm reasonable tone, "You don't want to try it, Gus. This ain't one of them Wild West yarns in Ned Buntline's magazines. Life is real, life is earnest, and I've got an edge on your skills and experience."
Gus Hansson grimly answered, "One!"
Longarm snorted, "Aw, shit, this is getting silly, Gus!"
To which the determined-looking kid answered, "Two!"
So Longarm, being a grown man instead of a kid who'd read too many dime novels in the bunkhouse, fired the derringer he'd been palming all this time before the fool kid could slap leather as he counted to three.
Then all hell busted loose, and Longarm let the double derringer dangle from his watch chain as he dropped to the platform and rolled over the edge to bob back up with his more serious six-gun in hand as he called out, "Smiley? Dutch?"
"Over here," came a jovial reply from the narrow dark slit between the switchman's booth and depot wall.
A second voice Longarm recognized as that of the more somber cuss called Smiley called out, "It didn't work quite as well as you planned though. We tried to get him to drop his damned gun and grab for the sky as he was fixing to throw down on your back. But he paid us no mind and, well, you know Dutch here."
Everyone who worked with the jolly but murderous Dutch knew how he was when suspects didn't do exactly as he said. But first things coming first, Longarm rose to his full height, brushing his tweed pants with his Stetson as he holstered his unfired six-gun and put the warm double derringer away for now. He moved over to the nearer of the two figures sprawled on the platform. Rolling Gus Hansson over with a boot tip, he could see at a glance the bravely stupid kid had no need for a sawbones. You aimed for the dead center of a man's trunk, when you only had two derringer rounds to work with.
But as he turned on Egger, the pallid punk raised his head from a puddle of puke and sobbed, "Am I still alive? Is it over?"
Longarm muttered, "All but some loose ends," as he saw his boss, Marshal Vail, coming out from the depot waiting room on his stubby legs, his own gun out.
Vail announced, "O'Foyle and Cohen will only be able to keep that crowd inside a few minutes longer. They keep saying they got a train to catch. Who's that lying yonder so dead?"
Longarm said, "His name was Gus Hansson. We met earlier back in Santee country. He was one of 'em. You already know Egger here. So let's see who Smiley and Dutch have yonder."
They moved to the far end of the platform. Despite his height, Longarm found it easier to move through that narrow slit than his shorter and stockier boss did. But they both managed, and sure enough, the tall grim Smiley and short jolly Dutch were standing over another corpse. This one was older, wearing his gun rig under a snuff-colored store-bought suit, and wasn't familiar to either Longarm or his fellow lawmen.