Longarm and the Bandit Queen Page 12

  "What's wrong with Fort Smith?" Belle asked.

  For a moment Longarm was so astonished that he forgot to carry on with his acting. He stared at Belle, surprised. Then he caught himself up and shook his head. "I don't know all that much about the place, but from what I've heard, it's too big for five men to handle. Or fifty, if you come down to cases."

  "There are two big banks there," Belle said. "Both of them are big enough to make it worth the trouble."

  "I don't know, Belle." Longarm shook his head. "Sounds pretty risky. Hell, there's bound to be too many marshals and deputies in a place like that for you to have all of them bought off."

  "You'd be surprised if you knew how many I could make jump if I just said froggy," Belle said with a smirk. She was confident, now, that she was going to succeed in bringing Longarm into her scheme, and she showed it. "Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing."

  "Oh, I won't argue with that, Belle," Longarm told her. "I'll go this far, right now. You let me do a little thinking about it. And while I'm thinking, you do some talking with Floyd. If everything works out, I just might change my mind about throwing in with you on this job."

  "I thought you'd come around," she said. "Let's have a drink on it."

  She held out the bottle.

  "I'll drink with you, but I'll go get my own whiskey, if it's all the same to you. Corn liquor just hits my belly in the wrong place."

  Belle was miffed, but tried not to show it. She said, "That's your choice, Windy. Go get your bottle." Her voice dropped to a suggestive whisper. "I'll wait until you come back."

  Footsteps grated on the hard ground outside and clumped on the porch. Longarm stifled a sigh of relief. It didn't matter to him who was coming in; he wasn't going to be caught by Belle.

  Floyd said from the doorway, "Damn it, Belle, I couldn't get to sleep for worrying about that job. Mckee, then Taylor. I've got the feeling our luck's gone sour."

  Longarm spoke quickly. "You two'll want to talk private, I can see that. Belle, we'll have that drink later. I'll get out of the way now, so you and Floyd can get things straightened out."

  Before Belle could object, Longarm was outside the house. He collected his gear from the barn. Taylor's saddlebags caught his eye and he picked them up; there might, he thought, be something in them the girl would need when she awoke. With his bedroll, his Winchester, and the two pairs of saddlebags weighing him down, he walked the short distance to the cabin.

  CHAPTER 10

  Susanna was still asleep when Longarm entered the cabin. He moved as quietly as possible to avoid rousing her. He let his saddlebags slide quietly to the floor in the corner beyond the stove and put his bedroll beside them, then leaned his rifle against the wall just inside the door. He thought for a moment of going back up to the house and leaving Susanna to sleep undisturbed, but decided he'd be better off if he stayed clear of Belle, Floyd, Sam, and the rest of the Younger's Bend bunch.

  Stepping lightly on the wide floorboards, he pulled the almost empty bottle of rye from his saddlebag and put it on the table, then lighted a cheroot. He settled down in one of the chairs. It creaked when it took his weight. Susanna stirred and woke up. For a moment she stared at the ceiling, then the aroma of Longarm's cigar reached her. She twisted her head on the pillowless bunk, looked at him, and sat up. Her long, tousled blonde hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her eyes were still glazed with sleep.

  "Oh," she said. "Windy. I guess I was a little confused for a minute. I sort of forgot where I am."

  "You feel better, now that you've had a good sleep?"

  "Yes. At least I think I do." Susanna yawned and stretched. "I guess I'm hungry, though. And I need to..." She stopped and looked around the bare little cabin. "I need to go to the outhouse."

  "It's not far off. Up the slope a ways. It's toward the house, and if you want me to go with you while you get some breakfast, I'll be glad to."

  Her brows drew together in a frown. "I'm hungry, Windy, but I don't think I could stand to sit down and eat off that table where I saw Lonnie die last night. I'd lose my appetite for sure."

  "Tell you what. We'll walk up together and I'll go get you some breakfast on a plate, and we'll come back down here while you eat."

  "That'd be fine, if you don't mind. I don't mean to be a lot of trouble to you, but-well, even as hungry as I am, I just-I just couldn't stand to eat off that table right now."

  "Come on, then, if you're ready."

  Before they reached the house, they saw Sam Starr and Yazoo coming back from their unpleasant job in the grove. Longarm told Susanna, "You run on ahead. I want to have a word with those two."

  Yazoo greeted Longarm while they were still a dozen paces apart. "You're the damnedest one I ever seen, Windy. Where in hell did you find that blonde-headed woman? Prettiest thing I seen since I been here at Younger's Bend."

  "She's Taylor's woman," Longarm told him. "I let her sleep in my cabin. She didn't feel like staying in the house after Taylor died."

  "I got to give you credit," Yazoo chuckled. "You sure didn't let no grass grow under your feet."

  The oldtimer had obviously been lightening the job of grave-digging with a sip of corn for every shovelful of dirt, so Longarm let Yazoo's remarks pass. He said to Starr. "I hate to put you to extra trouble, but Susanna's hungry, and I don't think there was much left from breakfast except a few biscuits. If you wouldn't mind, could you stir up a bite for her?"

  "I don't mind, Windy. I'll get at it right now, before Belle finds some new job for me to do." Yazoo said, "I want a closer look at that yellow-haired girl. You get to be my age, Windy, you'll find about all you can do is look. Now, you go on back down to the cabin with her, and I'll bring her breakfast down there when I start back to the stillhouse."

  "I'd take that right kindly, Yazoo. Susanna's still upset about last night, and I'd as soon not leave her by herself."

  "Now, I just can't imagine why," Yazoo chortled as he followed Starr toward the house.

  Susanna joined Longarm a few moments later. Her face showed her disappointment when she saw he was empty-handed. "Wasn't there anything for breakfast?" she asked.

  "Don't worry. We'll just go back to the cabin and wait a few minutes. Your breakfast's going to be coming right along."

  Susanna looked puzzled, but she walked with Longarm back to the cabin. She spoke only once, to ask, "Those two men--Mr. Starr and the old one--they were carrying shovels. Had they been..."

  "They buried him up on the hill there. If you want, we can walk up and look, after while."

  "No. I don't think so, Windy. Lonnie's gone, and that's that. It wasn't-" She stopped short, shook her head. "I guess there's not much else to say, is there?"

  Susanna was thoughtfully silent while they waited for Yazoo, and maintained her silence while she ate. Longarm didn't try to encourage her to talk. Susanna was young, she hadn't seen enough of life yet to know that death is inevitable and comes in a fashion that seems arbitrary and undiscriminating and always unfair. He sat across the table from her, sipping rye while she ate.

  Having cleared her plate, Susanna sighed and stretched. "I guess I was hungrier than I realized. It was--goodness, it seems like a year since I had anything to eat. But it's really only been since yesterday."

  "You've been through an awful lot since then," he pointed out.

  "Let's don't talk about it, Windy, please. All I want to do is forget everything that's happened since Lonnie first found me, there in Texarkana."

  "Maybe that's what you think you want, but I ain't sure it's the best thing," Longarm told her. "I've found out that the things you try to bury have got a mean way of popping up to plague you later on, when they ain't welcome or wanted. Maybe it'd help if you was to get it all out of your system."

  Susanna thought this over for a moment. "You might be right, Windy," she said slowly. "I tried to forget about things that had happened to me at home, after I'd left. I never could really put them out of my min
d, though."

  "If you feel like talking, I'm ready to listen." Longarm didn't feel at all ashamed that he had an ulterior motive in making the suggestion. If Susanna began to tell him of her days with Taylor, she might let a few things fall that would help him.

  She stood up and walked the length of the little cabin, then came back to the table before she answered him. "It might be too soon to talk about all of it. But there are a few things that keep bothering me."

  "Such as what?"

  Susanna didn't reply any more quickly this time than she had to his earlier suggestion. She went to the bunk and sat down, crossing her ankles in front of her on the mattress, Indian-style. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her throat was a clean column from chin to shoulders, her long hair a stream of white framing her face. Her low-cut dress exposed the slope of her shoulders, and Longarm could see, in the hollows of her collarbones, the pulsation of her heartbeat.

  Longarm didn't try a second time to encourage her to begin talking. He waited patiently until at last she said, "Most of what bothers me is about me and Lonnie. I keep wondering if he might still be alive if he hadn't taken me along with him. You see, if I hadn't been with him, he wouldn't have had to buy me a horse and clothes, and he'd have had enough money to get him to Younger's Bend without his having to stop and steal some. Then the posse wouldn't have been after him, and he'd have gotten here safe and sound."

  "You figure you're to blame, some way or other?"

  "Well, don't you think I am?"

  "Not for a minute, Susanna. It-"

  "Windy," she interrupted. "Do me a favor. Please don't call me Susanna anymore. I left that name behind me too long ago. Anyhow, that's what Lonnie called me. Susanna or Susie or Sue."

  "Whatever you want. Only I wouldn't know what else to call you."

  "I told you last night. Maybe you weren't listening. Dolly. That's the name I've been going by almost from the time I left home."

  "Sure, I recall what you said now. Belle laughed you down, told you it was a made-up name out of a book. But if it makes you feel better, I'll call you Dolly from here on out."

  "Thanks." After a few seconds of thoughtful silence, she asked, "Why don't you think I'm to blame for what happened to Lonnie?"

  "Because a man's going to live out his appointed time. It don't matter if it's two years or two hundred, he ain't going to go a day sooner or a day later."

  "Do you really believe that, Windy?"

  "I sure do. You're too young to remember the War. But I saw men hit on one side of me and on the other, in front of me and in back of me. And there's only one way I can see that explains why one of the bullets that took their lives didn't hit me. It just plain wasn't my time to go."

  "I never did think of it that way," she said softly.

  "You think about it, then. It's a mighty comforting way to look at things. If it hadn't been you that your old sweetheart ran into, he'd have come across somebody else."

  "Lonnie and I weren't really sweethearts, you know," she said. "Why, we weren't more than about twelve or thirteen when we thought we'd just been made for one another. And then..."

  Longarm waited until he saw that Susanna--Dolly, rather--wasn't going to go on without encouragement. He said, "Go on, Dolly. Talk it all out of your system."

  "We grew up in the same little town, you know, Lonnie and me. But all we ever did was kiss a few times. Not even real kisses, either. I guess you know what I mean?" Longarm nodded and she went on, "Oh, I liked Lonnie all right, I guess, but it was somebody else that I fell for. Fell real hard. And I thought he fell as hard for me. I guess he did, but not the way I was thinking. He just had a hard-on for me. And all of a sudden I was pregnant. Fifteen years old, Windy. And Phil was already married."

  "So you had to run away."

  "Just about. I was lucky, even if I didn't understand it at the time. He was well-to-do. When my family turned me away after they found out I was pregnant, he gave me enough money so I didn't have a bad time while I waited for the baby. And then the baby didn't live but a week. The thing was, I couldn't go back home."

  "You said last night that you were working in a saloon when Lonnie bumped into you," Longarm said.

  "Yes. Phil's money ran out, of course. I found a job, but I found that keeping the job depended on taking care of the boss. It didn't take me long to figure out that I'd be better off just taking care of men, instead of working behind the counter ten hours and then taking care of one boss who was only paying me for my ten hours behind the counter. So that's how Lonnie came to find me in a saloon in Texarkana."

  "Somewhere along the way, you'd picked up Dolly Varden for your name," Longarm said.

  "Yes. Damn Belle Starr and her education! She almost ruined that nice name for me. It's not important, though, Windy. You know, for a while, up until last night, I almost went back to being Susanna Mudgett. That was because of Lonnie. But I intend to go on being Dolly Varden. Do you blame me?"

  "Not if it's what you want to do. I'd say Belle's a mite jealous of you. You're a lot younger and prettier than she is. It's up to you whether you want to be Dolly or Susanna."

  "Right now, I feel like Dolly. I'll tell you something I didn't intend to. I don't think I'd have stayed with Lonnie, even if nothing had happened to him. He made me remember how I was when I was Susanna, and I think I like Dolly better."

  "I'd say you've made up your mind, then. As long as you're sure you won't regret it."

  "I won't. And now that I've decided to be Dolly, pour me a drink out of that bottle of rye, if you will, Windy. Dolly enjoys a drink. Susanna was always just a little bit of a namby-pamby."

  Longarm handed Dolly the bottle and she tipped it to her mouth. He said, "I don't suppose you'll be staying here at Younger's Bend any longer than you can help."

  "No. For one thing, I don't like Belle Starr. She's a nasty old woman who's pretending to be something she's not."

  Longarm chuckled, and his respect for Dolly's good sense rose several notches. Then he grew serious. "When Taylor told you about this job he was coming up here for, did he give you any idea where it was going to be pulled off?"

  "No. I-I don't think Lonnie really trusted me to keep my mouth shut about things like that. He didn't even tell me where we were going until after he got shot. Then he knew I had to know how to find Younger's Bend, in case he might not be able to tell me later."

  "And he didn't tell you anything about Floyd or Steed, either?"

  "Just their names. Except that he didn't mention the young one--Bobby, isn't that his name?"

  "Yes. I don't reckon Floyd would put a whole lot in a letter. Letters have got a way of getting lost, or going to somebody they weren't supposed to."

  "Why, Windy? Why are you asking me all these things?"

  "Just curious, Dolly. But I'll tell you what I'll do; I'll make a dicker with you, if you're interested."

  "What kind of dicker?"

  "You already said you want to get away from Younger's Bend. I'll see that you do that, tomorrow or the next day, and see you on a train with enough money to pay your way to Texarkana or wherever you want to go, and a little bit extra."

  "And what do you want me to do in return?"

  "For one thing, I want you to keep Belle Starr off me."

  "How am I supposed to do that?"

  "Act like you're getting a case on me, falling for me. If I got Belle judged right, she's not going to be so hot after me if there's somebody younger and prettier than her giving her competition."

  "You said that's one part of the deal. What's the rest of it?"

  "Pester me to take you to Fort Smith, to buy you some new clothes and pretties."

  "Why?"

  Longarm shook his head. "If we're going to deal, you've got to take my part of it on trust. I won't say why."

  Dolly thought about Longarm's offer for a moment. Then she nodded. "All right, Windy. I'll hang onto your arm and make sheep-eyes at you whenever we're around Belle. That won't be hard t
o do, but I'll enjoy it all the more because Belle's the kind of woman she is. And I'll certainly keep telling you that I want to go to Fort Smith, because I'd go just about anywhere to get away from Younger's Bend, and the sooner the better."

  "We got a deal, then, you and me," Longarm said. "Oh. One more thing. If you'll take special note of any names you might hear Belle or Sam or Floyd or--well, any of them--any names they might let drop when I'm not around, try to remember and pass them on to me."

  "Just any kind of names?"

  "That's right, Dolly. People or places or whatever."

  The request plainly puzzled her, but she nodded. "All right. I guess that's not too hard to do."

  "Good." Longarm glanced out the door. The sun was already dropping down the sky toward late afternoon. "Now, I'll tell you what. I don't want to spend any time up at the house before supper. If you'd like to, we could walk down to the river and take a look at it, or throw rocks in the water, or whatever. Or we can stay here in the cabin and talk till supper, whichever you'd rather do."

  "Why can't we talk while we watch the river?"

  "No reason I can see why we shouldn't."

  "Then lets walk down to the river."

  They spent two pleasant hours talking of nothing Much, just letting time flow by, sitting on the bluff above the Canadian, tossing in a rock and now and then a twig, just to see what the river's uncertain currents did with it. When the sun dipped below the trees around them and began to shoot horizontal rays through the spaces between the trunks, Longarm said, "We better go on back. I didn't eat anything at noon, and my belly's telling me about it."

  "You missed eating on my account, Windy," Dolly said self-accusingly. "I was telling you all my troubles when you should have been up at the house getting your meal."

  "You were feeling right low about that time," Longarm said. "It looked to me like you needed somebody to listen to you a lot more than I needed vittles."

  "I was still being Susanna Mudgett then. I was feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't quite make up my mind whether I'd stay Susanna or go back to being Dolly."