Tabor Evans (31 page)

Longarm said, "I didn't look for you to be dolled up in an outfit like that."

"I've worn men's clothes before, when I was on a job," she replied. "Mat's why nobody credits me with a lot of jobs that I pulled off with Sam and with Jim Reed or Blue Duck." Then she remembered her old boast and added quickly, "And Jesse and Frank James, of course."

Longarm finished tightening the cinch around the hammerhead's belly and dropped the stirrups down to hang by the horse's sides. "I guess it'd fool somebody who just got a quick look," he said.

"That's not what you started to say, though," Belle told him. "You're all ready, I guess?" Longarm nodded. "Then will you do something for me?

Yazoo doesn't know for sure we're all leaving. Will you ride up to the stillhouse and tell him? I want him to sleep down here while we're gone, and keep an eye on things."

"You expecting somebody to come calling?"

"No. But I wasn't expecting you, either, was I? You never know who'll be riding in, here at the Bend. If Yazoo's asleep at the stillhouse, he wouldn't know it if somebody came and carried the damned house away."

"Sure, I'll tell him." Actually Longarm welcomed the idea of being out of the way of everyone else during the period that was going to follow. He knew that tempers grew short when men were preparing to ride into danger, whether they were outlaws or a posse or soldiers.

"Anything else?" he asked.

"No. He's got all that sugar up there, so he'll have plenty to do to keep him busy. You should be back here by the time we're ready to go. The others still have to get their horses saddled."

"If I don't get back by the time you're ready to ride, just go ahead. I'll catch up," he said. He led the bay out of the barn and swung up on its back. As he rode off, he saw Floyd and Steed and Bobby, loaded with their saddlebags and bedrolls, heading up toward the house from the cabins.

There was no sign of Yazoo at the stillhouse, but the door was open and noises were coming from inside. Longarm went in, gagging at the overpowering smell of souring corn mash, old wood smoke, and the effluvium of whiskey that had escaped into the packed dirt of the floor. Yazoo was stirring a fresh batch of mash in a tub made from a sawed-in-half hogshead.

"Howdy, Windy." From the old man's speech, Longarm judged that Yazoo had been sampling his product pretty steadily since breakfast. That didn't interfere with his work, apparently.

"Yazoo," Longarm greeted him with a nod. "Belle wanted me to give you a message."

"Decided to ride out and take care of that bank job, did you?" Yazoo nodded judiciously. "I sorta had the idea you would, the way they was talking this morning at breakfast, afore you come in. You know, Belle was sure riled at you, Windy, for having that cousin of Sam's down visiting you last night." He somehow managed to chuckle and leer at the same time. "Not that I blame you myself. Only thing wrong with Belle is, she's jealous."

"I never gave her any cause to be."

"A'course you didn't! But Belle gets mad if every man that comes here don't fall for her." He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Belle's a whore at heart, Windy. Never did get over the days when Jim Reed used to give away a piece of her ass to cinch a tough horse-trade."

"I hadn't run onto that story," Longarm said. "But I'm ready to believe it."

"You can believe it, all right! I knowed Jim before him and Belle got hitched, and afterwards too. And Belle knows I know. I don't reckon she'd put up with me if I didn't know more about her than she does about me." An idea struck Longarm. He asked Yazoo, "If you know so much about Belle, maybe you can ease my mind a little bit, Yazoo. She roped me into this job, and I said I'd go in because, from the way Belle talks, she's got strings in just about every town over on the other side of the Arkansas border, lawmen she claims she pays off to look the other way at her moonshining and selling stolen cattle. Is that just Belle blowing and bragging, or is it true?"

"It's true enough, all right. Shit! I could name you names and tell you places-"

"I ain't asking you to do that, Yazoo," Longarm interrupted. "I don't need to know anything except whether she's told me a straight story about the law looking the other way while we pull off this job. That's what bothers me right now."

"Well, maybe Belle don't pay off every sheriff or marshal or all their deputies from the Arkansas on up to the Neosho, and then on down to the Red. But she's got enough of 'em in her pocket so she can move around as free as she likes to, and get by with damn near anything she wants to pull."

"Thanks, Yazoo. You've made me feel lots easier in MY mind."

"You don't need to worry," the oldtimer assured him. "Y, hell's bells, Windy! You don't think I'd be sticking around here if it wasn't the safest place I could find, do you? But I know, as long as I'm here at Younger's Bend, there ain't nobody going to touch me, because of Belle. And when a man gets to my age, he don't much like the idea of going back to the pen."

Longarm was absorbed in trying to formulate a plan. He replied absently, "Sure. You weren't as old as you are now, that last time you got sent u-" He stopped short, and tried to swallow the words he'd just let fall so unthinkingly. The minute he saw Yazoo's face, though he knew the damage had been done.

Yazoo was staring at Longarm, the light of belated recognition dawning in his eyes. Longarm could almost literally see the memories flooding back into Yazoo's liquor-soaked brain.

"By God!" the old man said slowly. "That's where it was I seen you before! It wasn't in no outlaw's roost, nor in no saloon, either!"

"Now hold up, Yazoo," Longarm began.

"Hold up, my ass!" the old man went on. He wasn't about to stop. "I seen you in a federal courtroom up in Wyoming Territory! Cheyenne it was, by God! The deputy that was guarding me pointed me out to you special!

You're that federal marshal son of a bitch they used to call Longarm!"

"They still do, Yazoo," Longarm said. He wasn't worried about Yazoo jumping him. Age and liquor had robbed the old fellow of any real capacity to do any harm, and Longarm had never seen him wearing a gun.

"And you been skulking right here all this time!" Yazoo went on indignantly. "Acting like you was an owlhoot on the prod! Getting in on everything you got no business knowing about! You wait till I tell Belle and the rest of 'em! You won't last two minutes after they cut loose on you!"

"You're not going to tell anybody anything, Yazoo," Longarm said firmly.

He took a step toward Yazoo. The old fellow pulled out the wooden paddle he'd been using to stir the mash, and began to wave it threateningly.

"I might be old," he said, "But I sure ain't crippled. You'll have to kill me to take me!"

"Listen to me, old man! I'm not after you! I don't give a damn how much moonshine you stir up here. But I've got to shut you up, keep from spilling what You've figured out to Belle and the others."

"Shoot me, then! That's the only way you can shut me up!"

Longarm had been edging closer and closer to Yazoo, and the old man had been backing off, waving the paddle. Longarm feinted a rush to Yazoo's left. The old moonshiner swung the paddle in that direction. Longarm stepped inside the swing with one long stride and grabbed the paddle. He wrested it away from Yazoo with one swift, twisting pull.

Yazoo struck at Longarm, who parried the wild swing with his arm. He grabbed Yazoo's wrist and yanked him forward. Yazoo, already unsteady on his feet, would have fallen if Longarm hadn't brought the arm he was holding up and around to keep him erect. He captured Yazoo's free wrist and clamped one of his big hands over both of Yazoo's.

"Now you keep quiet!" Longarm commanded. "They can't hear you down at the house. It's too far, so you might as well save your breath."

"What You aiming to do with me?"

"Damn little I can do with you, Yazoo. I'm not interested in taking you in; all I want to do is shut you up for a while." He shot a question suddenly. "Where's Belle planning to pull this job, Yazoo?"

"Damned if I know!" Yazoo blurted.

Longarm decided his reply came too quickly for the old fellow to be lying. That was all he needed to know. He said, "I'm going to tie you up now. Don't worry, I won't do such a good job that you won't be able to work free in an hour or so. By then we'll all be gone, and as long as you don't know where the job's going to be, there ain't a hell of a lot you can do to let Belle and the others know about me."

Longarm looked around for rope. He saw none, but Yazoo's bed stood in a corner of the stillhouse, a tangle of greasy blankets. Longarm pulled the old man over to the bed and sat him down on it. He ripped a blanket into strips and bound Yazoo, trying to tie him so that, with a little work and quite a lot of time, the moonshiner could work himself free.

Realizing that there was no way he could match Longarm's strength, Yazoo put up no struggle. He said nothing until he saw that Longarm was preparing a gag, then he blurted, "I always swore I never would ask no favors of a lawman."

"Go ahead and ask," Longarm told him. "Hell, I don't bear you any grudges, Yazoo. You've been real helpful to me."

"It wasn't because I meant to be," Yazoo grunted. "But except that you're a goddamn dirty sneaking conniving federal marshal, which makes you a first-class son of a bitch in my book, you're a right decent fellow, Windy--or Longarm or whatever you want to call yourself. You mind giving me a drink before you stuff that gag in my guzzle? My mouth's terrible dry."

"Sure. Where's your water bucket?"

"Water! Who wants water? Hand me that bottle of whiskey from over there."

Longarm held the bottle while Yazoo drank deeply. Then he finished the job of gagging him, and started for the door. Halfway there, he turned and said, "Oh, I nearly forgot, Yazoo. Belle said I was to tell you to sleep down at the house while she's gone." climbing into the saddle, he returned to the house. The others were just mounting. By common consent, they let Belle lead the way. She turned east as they came out of the long passage through the narrow ravine, and for the first part of the journey, the trail they took was one familiar to Longarm; he'd followed it before, when he came to Younger's Bend originally, then back and forth between the Bend and Fort Smith. They rode silently.

Noon passed without a lunch stop, and Longarm rummaged in his saddlebag for some jerky. His breakfast had been less filling than the one eaten by the others.

Belle led them across the ford above the juncture of the Arkansas and the Canadian. On the east shore of the Arkansas she struck off on a trail less clearly defined than the main route to Fort Smith. The sun had been at their backs for the better part of an hour when they crossed the ford. It kept sliding down as they rode on in single file, until the thick maze of woodland through which they traveled took on the gentle haze that comes to such country in the period just before sunset.

Darkness was closing in fast when Belle abruptly turned off the trail. With the four men following, she wove her black gelding in and out among the tree trunks for almost a mile. There was no trail through the woods that Longarm could see, but Belle rode confidently, as though completely certain of the route. Suddenly the trees opened. A wide, shallow gully yawned in front of them. Belle followed its rim for a short distance, then urged her horse down its gently sloping side.

A tinkling white-water creek fanned over mossy rocks In the gully's bottom. The smell of woodsmoke hanging low to the ground reached Longarm's nose. In a few moments they saw light flickering ahead. A second light joined the first as they drew closer--the yellow, wavering glow of a lantern. The light shining in their faces hid what lay behind it until Belle reined in. Then Longarm saw that they'd stopped beside a slab-bark shanty, and that the man holding the lantern was dark and stocky. He wore overalls and an undershirt that, even in the uncertain light, was obviously long overdue for a visit to the washtub. His features were blunt and formless. He could have been Indian, Mexican, black, white, or any mixture of the four.

"Belle Starr," he said. He looked at the riders. "Where's Sam?"

"Sam's dead," Belle said. She offered no explanation, but went on, "I'll tell you about it later. We need supper and a place to sleep, and breakfast early in the morning."

"Sure," the man said. "Get off and come in."

"Chano will feed us," Belle told the others. "There's enough room inside for us to sleep. The horses will be all right out here." She dismounted. "We'll go over everything after supper."

"How far we got to ride tomorrow before we hit the town where the bank is?" Floyd asked.

Longarm had been wanting to ask that question himself, but didn't think it would have been wise for him to try to find out anything from Belle at that stage.

"Not far," Belle said. "We'll have to swing north a few miles to get around a big, sharp hook in the Arkansas. Then we'll just follow the river down-" She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and added, "I guess it doesn't make any difference, since we're this close, whether I tell you now or wait until after supper. The bank's in a little town about ten miles north of Fort Smith, but on this side of the river. The town's called Van Buren."

CHAPTER 19

A bright mid-morning sun in a cloudless sky sent sparkling glints from the surface of the river and defined the white painted houses and storefronts of the little town ahead of them as Belle drew up and the others halted behind her on the riverbank.