Longarm and the Bandit Queen Page 7

  Starr Went to the stove, lifted the lid of one of the pots, and stirred the contents. "I told Belle I'd have supper ready when she and the others got back," he explained. "Well, sit down, Windy. You want a drink?

  I'll guarantee it; we make it right here on the place."

  "Pour me one while you're at it, Sam," Yazoo put in.

  Longarm said, "I'll join you in a little nip, sure."

  Starr pulled a bottle out of a wooden KC Baking Powder box, one of several nailed to the wall at one side of the stove to form a rough sort of kitchen cabinet. He found glasses, Put them on the table, and filled them.

  Longarm tasted the liquor. It was raw at the edges, and corn whiskey wasn't much to his fancy, but he downed it and said, "Real good stuff, Starr. You do the distilling?"

  "Mostly, me and Yazoo. Belle's busy with other things."

  Yazoo had finished his drink while Longarm was still tasting. He filled his glass again and held the bottle out to Longarm, who shook his head.

  Yazoo urged, "Come on, Windy. One more never hurt a man."

  "After awhile." Longarm said, then turned to Starr. "Quite a place you got here. Good and private."

  "That's what everybody says. Good for business, you know."

  Longarm was studying Starr as the Bandit Queen's husband moved around the stove, lifting a Pot lid, shoving in a fresh stick of wood. Starr was a slight man, and on the short side. Except for his movements, which were swift and sure, and his toed-in walk, he showed no signs of his Cherokee ancestry. Longarm judged that the Indian blood Starr had was pretty well diluted after a hundred years or so of his tribe's intermarriages with whites, blacks, Spaniards--racial discrimination wasn't a Cherokee trait.

  Starr's features were regular, his nose a bit broad at the nostrils, his lips full. His face was long rather than square, his chin small and slightly receding. He was clean-shaven, but wore his hair long, brushed straight back to fall just above his shoulders. The hair was not Indian-black, but had a slight auburn tinge. It was perfectly straight, though, and somewhat coarse. Yazoo was Pouring himself another drink. He extended the bottle to Longarm again. "You better keep up, Windy. About all a man-" He stopped short and cocked his head to one side, listening.

  Longarm listened too. The thrumming of hooves was coming in through the open door. Three or four horses, as closely as Longarm could tell. The hoofbeats grew steadily louder."

  "Must be Belle and the boys coming back," Starr volunteered.

  Voices trickled in from outside. Longarm swiveled his chair around to face the door more squarely.

  A woman appeared in the doorway. She was tall, her height emphasized by the long green velvet dress she wore; the dress was full-skirted, and its hem swept the floor. She had on a man's Stetson, cream-colored, uncreased; one side of the brim was pulled up and pinned to the crown with a plume of ostrich feathers dyed green to match the dress. What drew Longarm's attention was the pair of silver-plated, pearl-handled pistols that she wore high around her waist.

  She looked at Longarm with obsidian-black eyes and asked, "Who in hell are you?"

  "It's all right, Belle," Sam said quickly. "His name is Windy, and he's looking for a place to stay. Yazoo knows him, he spoke up for him."

  "Yazoo. Is that right, Yazoo? Do you know this dude?"

  "From someplace, Belle. He's one of our kind of folks." The old man's speech was growing blurred.

  Behind Belle, a young man stood in the doorway, his arms filled with twine-wrapped bundles. He pushed his way past her and moved toward the stove. "Here's the flour and stuff you wanted, Sam," he said, beginning to deposit the packages on the floor.

  Another man appeared in the doorway. Belle had come into the house by now, and Longarm had a good view of the newcomer. He recognized him just as the man saw him sitting there. His name was Mckee, and Longarm had brought him in for a bank holdup almost two years ago. Now Longarm saw recognition springing into Mckee's face.

  "Why, damn you!" Mckee blurted. He was clawing for his gun as he spoke. "You dirty son of a bitch! I told you I'd get-"

  Longarm's Colt blasted a split second before Mckee had his revolver leveled. A dime-sized hole appeared in the outlaw's forehead. He grimaced as he began crumpling to the floor. He was dead before he finished falling.

  CHAPTER 6

  Longarm completed the turn he'd started when he leaped from his chair to draw on Mckee. The move brought Belle Starr and Sam under the menace of the colt's still-smoking muzzle. Belle had her right-hand pistol halfway out of its holster and Sam was starting toward the wall, where his rifle rested on pegs, when Longarm spoke.

  "Everybody just stand still. I got no grudges against anybody else around here. Me and Mckee had a score to settle, you heard him say so. Turned out it was settled my way. Now it's over and done with, and I don't aim to pull the trigger again unless one of you makes me do it."

  Silence greeted his announcement. Out of the corner of his eye, Longarm could see Yazoo sitting at the end of the table, his whiskey-glazed eyes not really taking in what had happened. Sam Starr had obeyed the command to freeze, and so had the young man who'd brought in the packages. And so, for that matter, had Belle Starr, but she still had a hand on her revolver's grips. Longarm fixed her with his stony gaze and she opened her hand, letting the pistol slide back into its holster.

  Belle said, "Regardless of what your argument was with Mckee, I don't like to have strangers showing up here and killing my boarders. Yazoo said your name's Windy. Suppose you tell us the rest of it, and explain what you're doing here."

  "Windy's all the name I need, right now," Longarm replied. "it was something personal between Mckee and me. Goes back quite a while. You heard what he said and you saw him draw. I was just sitting there, not going for my gun, when he grabbed."

  "So I noticed," Belle said dryly. "Whoever you are, Windy, You've got a quick hand. What was your argument with Mckee about?"

  "Now that he's dead, I don't see where it matters much," Longarm replied. "Or which one of us was in the right. Looks to me like all that signifies is that I'm standing here and Mckee's dead."

  "That's one way of looking at it," Belle said. "But just the same, I'd like to know."

  "It was private between him and me," Longarm told her in a tone designed to let her see that he wasn't going to say more.

  Belle shrugged. "If that's the way you want it." She looked at Longarm narrowly, frowning. "I don't think I've heard your name, but maybe I've seen you before, when I rode with Jesse James."

  "Not likely, ma'am. I haven't had the honor of meeting Mr. James. Not that I wouldn't like to reach out and take his hand," Longarm said. That, he thought, was the truth. Nothing required him to say that if he took Jesse James's hand, it would only be to hold it still while he snapped the cuffs on the outlaw.

  Belle's eyes narrowed as she thought aloud. "You're not from the Nation or Texas. I'd have heard about you if you'd been busy in either place. Or Arkansas or Kansas or Missouri. You must come from further west?"

  "You could say that without being too far wrong," Longarm agreed.

  Yazoo broke in long enough to say, "Save your questions, Belle. I tried 'em all on old Windy, and he ain't answering." His words were slurred, his eyes obviously unfocused.

  "You're drunk, Yazoo," Belle said. There was no accusation or anger in her voice; she was simply stating the fact.

  "Sure. I try to be, Belle. Mostly I do it, too." He fell forward across the table, his arms dangling down beside his chair.

  Belle ignored Yazoo's collapse. She turned to her husband. "How's supper coming along, Sam? I'm getting hungry."

  "It'll be a few minutes, Belle." Sam Starr's voice was apologetic. "I didn't know exactly when you'd get back, or I'd have had it on the table."

  "It's all right. I suppose you can leave the stove for a minute, long enough to carry Mckee out to the grove? You can bury him after we eat; there'll be plenty of time before dark."

  Starr nodded. "Sure, Belle, plenty of
time."

  "Get Bobby to give you a hand," Belle went on. "And on the way back, the two of you can unsaddle the horses and put them in the barn."

  "All right." Starr turned to the young man. "Come on, Bobby." Longarm said, "I killed Mckee. Only right for me to help you put him away."

  "No," Belle said sharply. "You stay right here, Windy. I want to talk to you." She added, "You can holster your gun now. I never did like Mckee much, and that's the truth of it. It's no skin off my ass if you two settled a private fuss."

  "That's right considerate of you ma'am," Longarm said as he restored his Colt to its holster.

  Sam and Bobby started off on their unpleasant errand. They picked Mckee's body up--Sam grabbed the dead man's wrists, Bobby taking hold of the ankles--and disappeared with the slain outlaw swinging between them.

  "Sit down, Windy," Belle told Longarm. "I won't press for your name, real or otherwise. Yazoo's word's good enough for me."

  "I'm glad you feel that way, ma'am." Longarm settled down in the chair he'd been occupying when Mckee came in.

  "Call me Belle, for God's sake!" Belle was taking off her hat. She hung it on a peg by the door, unbuckled her gunbelt and hung it on the peg next to the hat. "I told you a minute ago, and I'll say it again for the last time. I don't allow my guests to fight while they're at Younger's Bend. I'm excusing you because you didn't know my rules. Mckee did. He broke them, and he's paid. That's over and settled. Just see you don't break them again."

  "I'll sure try, Belle."

  Belle came and sat down across the table from Longarm, and he got a close look at her for the first time. She looked like anything but the title she'd given herself, he decided. The self-appointed Bandit Queen was a tall woman, beginning to show the spreading hips of middle age. Her waist was still slender, but her hips and buttocks flared out visibly, even under the loose-fitting full skirt of her green velvet dress. Her breasts were small; they made scarcely a bulge under the embroidered bodice of her dress. The flesh of her chin and neck was beginning to sag loosely above the scarf that was tucked into the dress and wrapped high on Belle's throat.

  Her chin was small, almost receding, and her lips were a short, straight line. Her nose was an uptilted button between high cheekbones on which a layer of fat was beginning to form.

  Belle's eyes were the best thing about her, Longarm decided. Now they were soft and liquid, but he remembered how they'd darkened and snapped with anger during the moments just after Mckee's death. Her hair was dark, almost black, and pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck. Thick bangs, brushed forward at an angle across her forehead, failed to hide the fact that her forehead was unusually high.

  She wasn't, Longarm decided, the kind of woman he'd fall all over himself trying to get acquainted with. Remembering Andrew Gower's listing of Belle's husbands and lovers, he wondered what so many men had seen in her.

  While Longarm was evaluating Belle, she'd been studying him as closely as he was examining her. She said, "Well, Windy? Like what you're looking at? Because I think I do."

  Longarm thought he'd better stretch a point. It was against his nature to lie outright, even to a woman he might be romancing. He didn't have any ideas about romancing Belle Starr, but Longarm thought that, under the circumstances, a little bit of evasion wouldn't do him any harm.

  "You look real nice, Belle," he said. "If you didn't have a husband, I'd sure be interested in you."

  And that's the straight-line truth, old son, he thought, even if she don't take what I said exactly like I meant it. I'd be interested in her the same as I am in anybody that lives on the wrong side of the law.

  "I've got a rule never to let a husband stop me from doing what I feel like doing, when I like a man," she told him. "No man alive owns Belle Starr, the Bandit Queen. You think that over, Windy."

  "Oh, I will. I sure will."

  "Now that we've got that out of the way, suppose you tell me who showed you how to find Younger's Bend," she said.

  "Nobody."

  "Don't lie, Windy. Somebody had to tell you."

  "Now, Belle, you know how word gets around. Hell, this place is getting as well-known as the Hole in the Wall, Buzzard's Roost, and Brown's Hole." Longarm named only three of the eight or nine places he knew of, from Wyoming and Utah down to the Big Bend of Texas, where men on the run could drop out of sight of the law. It was a regular network of bolt-holes; none of them were actually unknown to lawmen, but most of the hideouts were natural fortresses that would have taken an army with artillery to penetrate.

  "Is that the truth?" Belle seemed pleased and flattered.

  "Don't have any reason to lie to you. I disremember who it was told me about Younger's Bend, or where I was when I heard about it, but it's a place I've had in the back of my mind for quite a while."

  "And you finally got here. Where are you wanted, Windy?"

  "Hold on. You've got your rules, Belle, and I got mine. One of them is that I don't talk about myself."

  "Yazoo said you were real close-mouthed. I guess he was right."

  "He ought to know," Longarm said with a smile.

  "Well, I'm going to let you stay," Belle said. "Ten dollars gold a day for your room and meals. If you're short, I'll take a one-third cut of whatever you bring in from the next job you pull. If you haven't got anything planned, I can work out a deal for you with Floyd and Steed, I suppose."

  Longarm took time to fish out a cheroot and light it. When the cigar was drawing well, he asked, "Who are Floyd and Steed?"

  "Two of the fellows staying here. They'll be in for supper pretty soon. They've been here quite a while, they'll tell you how easy things are. You know the U.S. law can't touch you here, I guess? Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Colorado--don't have to worry about any sheriffs from anyplace. Or from the U.S. marshal's office, either."

  "That's one of the reasons I'm here," Longarm said truthfully, again letting Belle put her own interpretation on his words.

  "I've got a treaty with the Cherokee Nation, you see," Belle went on. Longarm looked up at the word "treaty"; it was the same one that had riled Gower so badly. Belle went on, "The only way the law can come into the Nation is by an invitation from the Indian police, or if they're chasing somebody they've caught on a job."

  "So I've heard."

  "I was pretty sure you had. But I'm telling you this because I want you to understand how it is here. As long as one of my guests doesn't pull any kind of job in the Nation, my treaty holds. So if you've got any ideas about operating out of here, just be sure it's across one of the state lines."

  "I've been moving so fast I ain't had time to look around for any setups for a job," Longarm said.

  "Well, when you get ready, you let me know. I can fix up something for you with the fellows I told you about."

  "I'll keep it in mind," Longarm promised.

  Sam Starr and Bobby came in. "I fed and watered your horse, Windy," Sam said. "Didn't bother your saddle gear, though. Wasn't sure whether you'd be staying or riding on."

  "Windy's staying awhile," Belle announced. "Now, you'd better see to supper, Sam. Floyd and Steed will be showing up any minute, yelling how hungry they are. And be sure you set a place for Windy."

  Almost before Belle had finished speaking, loud voices outside announced the arrival of the other two outlaws. They burst into the house, still arguing. One of them said to Belle, "Tell this damn fool he's seeing things, Belle. Steed says he seen Sam and Bobby hauling Mckee's body up to the grove a few minutes ago."

  "He wasn't seeing things, Floyd," Belle replied. "Mckee's dead. Sam's going to bury him right after supper."

  "See! I was right!" Steed said.

  Steed was the blustering type. He was in his mid-twenties, high-colored, husky, broad-shouldered, heavy of leg and thigh. His hands looked like small hams, and his neck was as thick as a steer's. He had a pistol stuck into his belt; Longarm wondered if he made a habit of carrying a gun that way. More than one careless gun-handler who took up the habit o
f toting an unholstered gun stuck between belly and belt had checked out with a set of bullet-riddled guts.

  Floyd was Steed's antithesis. He was pale, his eyes a watery blue, his hair the shade of unbleached tow. His hands were small, almost delicate. His face was thin, and somehow managed to look mournful even when he was smiling. In repose, he appeared to be suffering from either chronic melancholy or a stomach-ache. Floyd carried his revolver in a cross-draw holster, high on his left side. Longarm marked him as being the one to keep an eye on.

  While Belle confirmed Mckee's death, Floyd's lips compressed into an even thinner line than they were normally. He asked Belle, "What happened to him?"

  "You'll have to ask Windy." Belle pointed to Longarm, who hadn't moved when the two men came in. "There was some sort of old grudge between him and Mckee, and he settled it!"

  Floyd wheeled to face Longarm. "You shot Mckee?"

  "Yes. He drew on me."

  "Why?"

  "That was between Mckee and me. It's no business of yours."

  Longarm's voice was level, emotionless.

  Floyd frowned. "Maybe I choose to make it my business."

  "Suit yourself," Longarm said with a laconic shrug.

  Belle intervened. "Hold on, Floyd. I saw what happened. So did Sam, so did Bobby and Yazoo, if he could see anything at all, drunk as he was by then."

  "Stay out of this, Belle," Floyd told the Bandit Queen. His voice was a sad whisper. He faced Longarm again. "Mckee was a friend of mine."

  "Too bad. He was no friend of mine."

  "Why'd you kill him?"

  "He'd have killed me if I hadn't," Longarm said quietly.

  "That's right, Floyd," Sam Starr put in. "All of us saw what happened, Belle, me, Bobby, and Yazoo. Mckee saw Windy, started cussing him, and went for his gun. Windy got his Out first. That's the way it happened. Windy didn't make the first move." Floyd appeared not to have heard what Sam said. He was looking Longarm up and down. Finally he snarled, "Windy! That's no name! Who in hell are you?"