As his backup moved off, the old-timer introduced himself as a Marshal Casey. Town marshals got to do that. They both knew Longarm was the senior peace officer present when he introduced himself as a deputy marshal. He'd already told Casey he was federal.
Casey naturally wanted to know what the hell the two of them were doing behind that barrel.
Longarm told him, "I was only passing through on my way to a trail town called Keller's Crossing. I had just sent a wire saying I suspected I was on a fool's errand. You just pointed out how easy it is to say dead or alive in the heat of the moment. But somebody seems intent on keeping me from getting any closer to his or her odd situation."
Marshal Casey asked if they were talking about that rash of dead outlaws occasioned by tomboys packing guns and badges, by the great horned spoon.
Longarm said the attorney general and Billy Vail were sort of shocked by such unladylike behavior as well and asked what a lawman closer to the scene might have heard about it.
Casey hunkered around to brace his back against the planking with his shotgun across his knees as he replied, "You name it. We've heard it. None of them crazy shootouts have transpired here in the territory. But the smart-money boys have passed the word it ain't too smart to go anywhere's near Keller's Crossing with a running iron in one's saddle or larceny on one's mind."
Longarm cocked a thoughtful brow and said, "Ain't had any reports about lost, strayed, or stolen cows. But you just now said you've been hearing all sorts of rumors. Reminds me of other trail towns I've run across. There's nothing like tales of blood and slaughter to keep the faint at heart at bay, or, contrariwise, attract trouble the way an open pot of honey attracts flies."
Marshal Casey said, "Most of the saddle tramps and mean drunks in these parts would seem to have been avoiding Keller's Crossing since them loco lady peace officers have taken to acting so hard-hearted."
Longarm nodded grimly and replied, "I just said that. A heap of naturally wild kids settled down once word got around that Dodge City was a piss-poor place to shoot out streetlamps. On the other hand, hard cases such as Clay Allison, John Wesley Hardin, and those murderous Thompson brothers might never have drifted into Dodge if it hadn't sounded so lively."
Marshal Casey nodded thoughtfully and said, "I follow your drift. You're saying that as word gets around about a peace officer with a serious rep and a nice ass, any hard cases riding in to test her mettle are likely to be harder than usual?"
Longarm couldn't resist answering, "I ain't seen the ass of either J. P. Keller or Undersheriff Reynolds. Have you?"
The Cheyenne lawman grinned dirty but confessed, "Wouldn't know either gal if I woke up in bed with 'em. But word around here is that few men would complain if they found themselves in such a surprising situation. Talk to two saddle tramps and you get three descriptions. But I've been given to understand both gals are grass widows. A gal would have to have a muley streak to carry on so mannish to begin with if you ask this child!"
Longarm hadn't. But it was a point worth considering. Divorced women were called grass widows because, single as they might be in the eyes of the law, they still had husbands above the grass instead of below it, like decent widows were supposed to.
There was nothing unlawful about a woman being a grass widow, as long as she didn't mind the gossip. They'd already told him Keller's Crossing was dominated by a few founding families, with pushy distaff members of the same taking more interest in local politics.
They both heard a hail and saw a distant hat being waved above the rim of that false front above the stationery store.
Casey said, "That's Pete's old cavalry hat. Pete rid with the cav agin Red Cloud back in sixty-six."
He called out that they wouldn't shoot. A bare head and some with hats peered over the top rim of that false front at them. So the two of them got up and headed across.
Casey muttered, "I just hate it when they shoot and run like fool roaches in the lamplight."
He called up, "Any sign up yonder, boys?"
Longarm was as surprised when the one called Pete yelled down to them, "Plenty. There's an old boy up here with half his face torn off. Looks as if he caught some pine siding and a key-holing bullet smack in the mouth. Not long ago, judging from all the blood still oozing out of him. But whenever or whatever happened to him, he's dead as you told us to take him, Marshal!"
CHAPTER 8
When Longarm and Marshal Casey joined the others atop the flat roof across the way, Longarm saw he'd guessed right about the Henry rifle the sneaky cuss had been pegging away with. It lay beside him on the tar paper as he stared up wide-eyed from his bloody mangled face. Longarm's return fire had left cat's whiskers of splintered sun-silvered wood sticking to the raspberry jam around his shattered teeth. But one of said teeth was gold, the staring eyes were oyster gray, and the heavy brows above them met in the middle.
The tan ten-gallon hat over by a smoke flue went with his fancy tooled Justin boots and buscadero gun belt. So Longarm wasn't too surprised when he hunkered down to find a tooled leather wallet on the corpse with a library card allowing he was Thomas Taylor out of Amarillo.
He told the other lawmen assembled, "This adds up to a serious want known bests as Texas Tom Hatfield. He had state and private bounties posted on him. We wanted him for robbing a post office. The states of Texas and Arkansas want him for back-shooting peace officers in both jurisdictions. The Pinkertons are paying the most because of a train he robbed in Kansas."
He rose back to his considerable height and turned to the town law to soberly add, "I am telling you all this because I'm up this way with other fish to fry. My own boss frowns on his deputies filing for reward money. You'd be welcome to as much as you can collect on this son of a bitch if you wanted to claim him as your very own and save me some paperwork."
Marshal Casey shot a sweeping look across the faces of his own men, there being no others up there with them, yet, and declared in a certain tone, "The son of a bitch put up a hell of a fight when we asked him what in thunder he was doing up here with that infernal Henry and no hunting permit. But just for the private peace of my soul, Deputy Long, what in blue blazes was this all about?"
To which Longarm was forced to reply, "I ain't sure. This rascal had a rep for back-shooting lawmen, on his own or for pay. Since I just recognized him as a wanted killer, he might have recognized me earlier and decided to kill me on his own. It's just as possible, and as likely, somebody else wanted me killed lest I be getting warm. If I knew whether I was getting warm or not I wouldn't have to guess so hard."
He moved toward the fire steps they'd all climbed up as he continued, "I got to get it on back to my hotel with a package I dropped across the way. Had this skunk known where I was staying, he wouldn't have been following me around. I reckon he, or they, were watching for me by the Western Union. That's where I'd watch for a lawman on a field mission if I'd just heard he was in town."
One of the younger deputies started to ask how come the late Texas Tom had scaled those fire stairs with yonder rifle instead of just letting fly with it over by the telegraph office.
Before Longarm or Casey could reply, a more weather-beaten deputy snorted in disgust and said, "He wanted to get away with it, you asshole. All sorts of folk point fingers at you when you gun a man on the streets of Cheyenne in broad-ass daylight. If he hadn't missed from up here, he'd have just laid low ahind yonder false front until his gunsmoke and the excitement faded away. Weren't you paying any attention when we shot it out with him, just now?"