"I could, ma'am, but it wouldn't be worth the paper it was written on. You see, Cotton Younger has to stand trial before it's legal to hang him, and there's always that outside chance some fool jury might set him free. The reward's for capture and conviction. As to Frank and Jesse James, us federals might make a deal with Younger and we might not. I could put in a good word for you if it was a federal man that caught them rascals, but there's others looking. So the James boys might get caught by other folks. They might get turned in for the reward by anybody. They might never be caught at all, since n.o.body's seen hide nor hair of either one for a good two years or more. You see how it is?"

She sighed and said, "At least you're likely more honest than some of the others. Sheriff Weed's promised us the moon, but he gets cagey every time I ask him to put it in writing."

"You're not likely to get anything on paper, and if you do, it won't be worth all that much. The position you've taken just won't wash, ma'am. The longer you hold that prisoner, the more riled at you his rightful owners are going to get."

She hesitated. Then, with a firmer tilt to her head, she said, "I have to think about it. You've got me mixed up, as you doubtless intended."

Longarm believed in riding with a gentle hand on the reins, so he tipped his hat and said, "I'll just let you sleep on it, then. Good night, ma'am. It's been nice talking to you."

They were waiting in the shadows as Longarm rode out to the main trail. He saw they weren't skulking, so he didn't draw as Timberline and another tall man fell in on either side of him as he left the redhead's property. Longarm nodded and said, "'Evening, Timberline."

"What was you pestering Miss Kim about, Longarm?"

"Wasn't pestering. Wasn't cutting in on you, either. As she'll likely tell you, it's no secret I was asking questions."

He turned to the other rider and asked, "Would you be Slim Wilson?"

The youth didn't answer. Timberline said, "A stranger could get hurt, messing about my intended, Mister."

"I gathered as much, but like I said, that ain't My play with the widow. I only want what's mine. That owlhoot you and she are holding in defiance of the law."

"Oh, h.e.l.l, that p.i.s.sant's caused more trouble than he's worth! If she'd just let us string the rascal up and have done with him, the valley could get back to its business, raising cows!"

"Why don't you just let me take him off your hands, then? We'd all ride out and you could be free to pick posies for your gal, Timberline."

"It's tempting, but she'd never talk to me again. You may have noticed Kim Stover is a stubborn woman, Longarm."

"I did. You really want to marry up with her?"

"h.e.l.l yes, but she's stubborn about that, too. Says she has to know me better. h.e.l.l, I've known her half a dozen years already, but she's skittish as a colt about a second try." Timberline's voice dropped lower as he confided, "That Ben Stover she was married to was a mean-hearted little runt, just like his father over to the general store."

"I noticed his old woman and the gal look tuckered some. Haven't had more'n two words with the storekeeper. Seems a moody cuss."

"He is. Beats both his wife and the girl. Ben Stover used to whup Miss Kim when they first married up. That is, he did until me and him had a friendly discussion on his manners."

"I take it you've always been right fond of Kim Stover."

"You take it right, pilgrim. And don't think I can't see that you're a good-looking man, neither. You see where this friendly talk is taking us?"

"Yep. We're almost to the store, too. Look, Timberline, I said I ain't sparking the widow and I don't lie any more'n most gents. I got enough on my plate without fighting over women."

"All right, I'll let you off this time, boy."

Longarm's.44 was suddenly out and almost up Timberline's nose as he reined in, blocking the bigger man's mount with his own as he purred, "You did say mister, didn't you?" He saw the one called Slim about to make a foolish move and quickly added, "Stay out of this, Slim. You make me blow his face off and you figure to be next, before you can clear leather!"

Timberline kept his free hand well clear of his holstered hogleg as he gasped, "You hold the cards, Longarm! What in thunder's got into you?"

"I don't take kindly to being bullied and I don't like being talked down to. You may have taken the simple truth as crawfishing, but let's get one thing straight. I ain't been riding you, so I don't mean to be rode. You got that loud and clear?"

"Mister, you have made your point, so point that thing somewheres else."

Longarm said, "Mister is all I was after," and lowered the Colt, holding it down at his side as he added, "I reckon this is where we say good night, don't you?"

Timberline nodded and said, "Yep, and I'll be parting friendly for now, since I suspicion we understand one another."

Longarm sat his mount quietly as the other two swung around and rode back toward Kim Stover's spread. He didn't know if Timberline had been calling or just watching. It wasn't really his business. The big ramrod and the stubborn redhead were welcome to one another.

But he couldn't help wondering, as he rode to the hotel, what that sulky little spitfire would be like in bed.

CHAPTER 11.

Longarm awoke in the pitch-black little room, aware that he was not alone. He pretended another snore as his right hand slid under the cornhusk pillow for his derringer. He'd left his room key there, too, this time. Wasn't it safe to sleep anywhere in Crooked Lance?

He flinched as cool fingers brushed his naked shoulder and a soft whisper sighed, "Oh, pretty! So pretty!"

"Mabel?"

"Hush! Oh, do be still! He'll hear us and he can be so cruel!"

Longarm felt the shabby blanket lift as a cool, nude body slid into bed with him. He moved over to make room on the narrow little cot as his mystery guest flattened small, firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a work-hardened, almost boyish body against his warmer flesh. As she buried his face in loose, fine hair and began to nibble his collar bone, Longarm folded her in his big arms and muttered, "Did you lock the door behind you, ma'am?"

She placed a palm over his mouth and hissed, "Yes! Oh, don't make a sound! His ears are sharp and his temper's not of this world!"

She waited until she saw he wasn't going to say anything, then slid the hand, moist from his lips, down the front of his body. All the way.

Longarm lay there, as puzzled as he was aroused as she took his p.e.n.i.s in her hand and began to play with it, whispering, "Oh, so pretty. I want! I need!"

And then she'd forked a thigh over and was on him, riding him as if in the saddle, astride a trotting pony.

Longarm tightened his b.u.t.tocks and drove up to meet her as she ground her pubic bone against his, hissing like a pleasured cat with each movement. He ran his hands up and down her spine, noticing how the bones rode under her tight, smooth skin like those of a half-starved Arapahoe camp dog. Then, wider awake and getting more interested, he got a firm grip on each of her small, lean b.u.t.tocks and started helping her on the downstrokes. She was good, d.a.m.ned good, whoever she was, and she pleasured him the first time fast. As he gasped in enjoyment she kept going, sliding and moaning her own pleasure as the wetness seemed to add to it.

Longarm was still able to serve her, but the first flush had cleared his mind enough to wonder what in h.e.l.l was going on. The h.e.l.lcat rutting with him wasn't Mabel; she moved no way at all like this one. It couldn't be Kim Stover, could it? Nope, there was more to the redhead than this skinny little bundle of pure l.u.s.t. That left... h.e.l.l, that hardly seemed likely!

And then she shuddered, stiffened, and fell forward, kissing him full on the lips as she ran her tongue between them. It was old Stover's wife or daughter, sure enough. Both of them had buck teeth.

Longarm was a gentlemen of the old school, so he didn't laugh. The poor, ugly little brute had done her best to please him, and in the dark, kissing her chinless little face wasn't all that bad. She nestled into him like a lost kitten, kissing him over and over as Longarm felt warm wetness on his cheek and knew she was crying.

He rolled her over to his side and cuddled her, kissing the tears from her eyelids gently as he petted her trembling, nude flanks, as if he were calming a spooked pony or a kicked dog. She buried her face in the hollow of his neck and whispered, "Oh, you're so nice. So very nice. I knowed it when first I seen you!"

Longarm frowned in the darkness, trying to see his way out of this mess. How was a gent supposed to deal with a lovesick critter like this? Good G.o.d! How was he going to explain it? He could already see the jeering looks of the others at the breakfast table. Both mother and daughter were ugly as sin, and come to think of it, which of the d.a.m.n fool Stover women had he just laid?

Longarm started exploring her flesh gently with his free hand, looking for wrinkles, stretch marks, or some such sign. There wasn't a fold of loose skin clinging to her thin, muscular body. Her skin was smooth and nice to feel. He tried to picture the two worn-out looking women who'd served dinner. Both had been skinny and scared-looking. Scared little sparrows that never looked a man in the eye. He was hoping like h.e.l.l it was the older one. She moved like a gal who knew the facts of life, and Jesus H. Christ, if it was the unwed daughter...

The woman took his explorations to mean desire and responded with caresses of her own. She suddenly slid her hips from the cot and trailed her unbound hair down Longarm's belly, grabbing him again and kissing his semi-erect p.e.n.i.s teasingly. Longarm sighed and let her give him a French lesson, for he was in as much trouble already as he was likely to be.

She got him back in the mood amazingly fast, considering her buck teeth and all, so Longarm pulled her up from where she was kneeling and climbed aboard to do it right. Her legs locked around him and she started wagging her tail like a happy puppy. It was a funny way for a gal to move herself, but it was pure heaven, and in the dark it was easy to forget what she looked like in broad daylight.

They made love, wildly and as silently as church mice, for perhaps a full hour. Then she suddenly leaped up, unlocked the door, and was gone without a word.

Longarm made sure the door was locked again, then sank back on the cot, puzzled. It wasn't as if he'd never had anything as good, but it hadn't been bad, considering. You never could tell, just by looking at a woman, could you?

He stretched out on the moist blanket, suddenly grinning as the old trail song sprang to mind. "... I humped her standin' and humped her lyin'... If she'd had wings I'd have humped her flyin'. Come a ti-yi-yippee all the way, all the way, Come a ti-yi-yippee all the way!"

Then he frowned and muttered, "It ain't funny, you d.a.m.n fool stud! How in G.o.d's name are you ever gonna face that gal at breakfast, and more important, which of them Stover women was it?"

Breakfast came like death and taxes and there was no way to get out of biting the bullet. So, although he took his time getting dressed, Longarm finally went in to join the others around the plank table, braced for d.a.m.ned near anything.

All but the railroad detective were there ahead of him, of course. One of the Stover women came out of the kitchen and put a tin plate of buckwheat cakes in front of him without comment. Longarm watched her back, saw the gray in her tied-up hair, and decided it couldn't have been the mother.

The midget, Cedric Hanks, called down the table, "Where's that d.i.c.k, working for the railroad? Anybody seen him this morning?"

Longarm broke into the puzzled murmurings to announce, "I sent him to Bitter Creek. Don't seem likely he'll be back."

The Mountie smiled thinly and asked, "So you've eliminated one of us? How do you propose to get rid of me, Longarm?"

"Don't know. Still thinking about it."

Captain Walthers said, "I warn you, Deputy, you'll have the War Department to answer to if you try to... whatever you did to that other man!"

"Don't get spooked, Captain. I didn't use nothing but sweet reason on him. It ain't my way to threaten. Ain't my way to brag, neither. Speaking of which, is there any chance some of your friends at the War Department might be sending in a squadron or so of cavalry? I just counted heads across the street. There's a good two dozen cowhands and such loafing around the log jail. Don't know if they're fixing to lynch the prisoner, run us out of town, or both."

Sheriff Weed said, "I moseyed over to jaw with that Timberline just now. They seem more cautious than unfriendly. Timberline says since you rode in, some of the vigilance committee's getting anxious."

"Could be. Timberline tried to crawfish me, last night."

"Do tell? What happened?"

"I didn't crawfish worth mention. He's likely surprised to meet up with somebody who ain't afraid of him."

Weed laughed and agreed, "That's the trouble with growing as big as a moose. Most fellers leave their brains behind once they top six feet. Get used to having their own way without the effort the rest of us have to put out. You been following that trouble they've been having down in New Mexico Territory, Longarm?"

"Lincoln County War? Last I heard, it was over. New governor cleaned out both factions' friends in high places and appointed new lawmen. What's Lincoln County to do with hereabouts?"

"Just thinking about a matter of size they got mixed up on down there. You ever hear of Kid Antrim?"

"Billy the Kid? Sure, he's called Kid Am, Billy Donney, Henry McCarthy and G.o.d knows. There's a federal warrant on him for killing an Indian agent, but other deputies are looking for him. I take it you don't know where Kid Antrim's hiding, these days?"

"No, I was talking about his size. Kid An can't be more'n five foot four, and he's killed more men than men like Timberline ever even have to punch. You see my point?"

"Saw it long before you took us all over the Southwest Territories to say it. When folks crowd me, I just crowd back. I didn't have to spin no yarns to Timberline. I suspicion we've got it straight, about now."

The daughter came in from the kitchen with a fresh pot of coffee and placed it on the table, looking neither at Longarm nor at the others as she scooted out again. Weed said, "Ain't they something? Act like they expected one of us to grab 'em and run off to the South Seas or a Turkish harem with 'em."

"Mountain folks are bashful," Longarm said, feeling much better.

The storekeeper, Stover, came in to glare down at everyone and ask, "Is everything to your pleasure, gents? Excuse me--lady and gents?"

Mabel Hanks dimpled prettily and said, "My husband and I were just admiring your cutlery. Wherever did you get such a splendid service? It's so unusual."

Stover said, "It's odd stock from a bankrupt mail-order house, mostly, ma'am. I reckon some it's all right. We don't stint on guests in Crooked Lance."

Stover saw there were no complaints forthcoming, so he went back to tend his other enterprises as Captain Walthers smiled at Mabel knowingly. The army man was wrapped about her finger, right enough. But how was a U.S. Deputy to use that? Longarm knew the woman could be bought, but the captain didn't look like a man who would desert in the middle of a mission.

After breakfast they all met out back to walk by the creek or sit on the veranda, waiting for something, anything, to break the deadlock, as what promised to be another tedious day settled in.

Longarm managed to get the army man aside as the latter was checking out his own big walking horse in the livery. Longarm watched Walthers clean the walker's frogs with a pointed stick for a time before he cleared his throat and asked, "Would you be willing to take a federal prisoner back to Bitter Creek for me, seeing as we're both federal officers?"

"You mean Cotton Younger? Of course, but how are we to get him away from those crazy cowboys across the way?"

"Wasn't talking about him. As I see it, were stuck in this bind with the vigilantes till somebody sends help or they come to their senses. I'd say that could take at least a week. Meanwhile, I'm figuring to make an arrest. I mean, another arrest."

"Oh? You mean you've identified someone here in Crooked Lance as a wanted man?"

"Ain't rightly sure just what he's up to, but I got a charge that will stick, if I could get him before a judge."

"I see. And you think I'd be fool enough to transport him back to civilization, leaving you with one less of us to contend with?"

"h.e.l.l, you're not about to get Cotton Younger. Why not take in at least some d.a.m.n prisoner and let me share the credit with you?"

"Longarm, you really should have gone into the snake oil business! Are you telling me any truth at all? I'll bite. Who's our suspect, and when are you going to arrest him?"

"Pretty soon. Are you aiming to help?"

"Help you arrest a man on a federal charge, certainly. Transport him out of here for you? Never!"

"Well, it was worth a try. Make sure you get that hind shoe. It looks like your walker's picked up a stone."

As he stepped outside, Walthers followed. "Not so fast. I'd like to know what you're up to."

"Since you ain't helping, it ain't your nevermind, Captain."

"You intend to take him alone?"

"Generally do. We'll talk about it after."

Leaving the army man watching, bemused, Longarm hunted down the Mountie and repeated his request. The Canadian lawman's response wasn't much different. He was willing to back a fellow officer's arrest, but he had no intention of leaving Crooked Lance without Cotton Younger. Longarm decided he'd never met such stubborn Men. He strolled back to the veranda and hunkered down, sitting on the edge, as he pondered his next move. He knew he didn't intend to ride out with any prisoner but the one they'd sent him for. On the other hand, he couldn't just let his intended victim run free much longer. The man was dangerous, and Longarm had no idea what his play was. You eat an apple a bite at a time, and the prisoner in the jail would likely keep for now.

He saw that the midget detective and his wife were over by the stream-side. Cedric, for some reason, was skipping rocks across the water. Likely it came from pretending to be a little boy most places they went.

Sheriff Weed was seated in a barrel chair down at the far end, smoking a cigar and digesting his cast-iron buckwheats. Longarm half turned, still seated, and said, "I've been going over what you said about Kid Antrim, Weed."

"Do tell? Thought you said you wasn't after him right now."