by Tabor Evans
"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 d
oor. 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.
"All right," she said as Floyd, Steed, Longarm, and Bobby pulled their horses up around the black gelding of the Bandit Queen. "There's the town. Take a look at it now, and figure out which way you'll be riding if something goes wrong and we can't get out in a bunch."
Van Buren was a bright town,.Longarm thought as he joined the others in scanning it carefully from their vantage point, a high spot a half-mile from the first houses. They could see that the town's main street ran roughly parallel to the river. It was a long, narrow town, not a small, compact square or rectangle, but rather a crescent that curved along the course of the stream. Almost all the buildings and houses were white. A few were gray, and one or two of the stores had ventured into red or green paint.
Belle pointed to a buff-colored structure near the center of the main street. "There's the bank. It's brick, so don't worry about a rifle slug going through the walls if any shooting starts."
"There won't be any, if you done your part right," Floyd told her. He was edgy, as were all of them, and his voice showed it.
"I've done what I said I would, don't worry. Now study the way we're going out, then we'll ride in and do it," she said. Before going to bed, they'd spent two hours rehearsingtheir moves. Belle had given them the general layout of the countryside around Van Buren. If they had to scatter, each of them would take a different route back to Younger's Bend. If there was no trouble, they'd leave as a group and get across the border into the Cherokee Nation, stop as soon as it was safe, divide up the loot, and separate.
Longarm had his own ideas about what was going to happen if his own plan worked out. He'd been at the disadvantage of being unable to evolve much of a scheme in advance, before he'd actually seen the town and the bank. He'd decided that the best thing he could do would be to get behind Floyd and Steed as soon as the three of them were inside, immobilize them with the threat of his Colt, and then depend on the bank's workers to complete the capture while he went outside and took Belle and Bobby.
It wasn't much of a plan, he'd told himself while they were riding along the river an hour earlier, but it was about all he could come up with under the circumstances. He had to let the robbery actually get under way. Longarm looked on juries as highly unpredictable. He'd seen too many spellbinding lawyers convince twelve good men that a band of hardened outlaws entering 'a bank with weapons drawn had gone in only to make a deposit, that their intentions had been benevolent rather than felonious. This time he didn't intend to take that chance. He'd have hard evidence to back him up.
"If you've looked all you need to," Belle said, "we might as well ride in and get it over with."
They nudged their horses ahead. Belle still rode in the lead. Looking along the curve of Van Buren's main street as they came abreast of the first houses, Longarm could see only a few people moving around. In most towns that centered on farming areas, business in town waited until late afternoon. A rider was coming toward them, and Longarm caught the flashing of a star on the man's vest.
Look out, old son, he told himself. Might be there's been some kind of slip-up, and they got a hot welcome all ready for us.
As the rider drew closer, Longarm saw Floyd and Bobby, who were riding ahead of him just behind Belle, move their hands unobtrusively closer to their pistols. He turned to look at Steed, who was behind him. Steed was watching the approaching man with slitted eyes, his right hand hanging casually at his side, inches from his gun-butt.
A moment or two slid by. The lone rider was only a few yards from the group now, and was eyeing them with a frown growing on his face. Then he looked at Belle closely. His features relaxed. He grinned and winked at Belle, then turned his eyes straight ahead and rode past.
Floyd turned in his saddle. His face was split in a wide grin. He nodded triumphantly at the others before turning back.
Longarm looked over his shoulder at Steed. There was a grin on the burly outlaws face that matched the one Floyd had shown.
Ahead of them, the buff brick front of the bank loomed as they rode slowly down the curving street. A man was coming out, thumbing a wad of greenbacks. The bank had only two small windows in front, and a solid wooden door. There was a hitch rail in front of the building. The cross-street that Belle had described to them the evening before was visible now, but Longarm couldn't see whether there were any more people on it
than there were on the main street. Far down, a buggy pulled into view, heading to the center of town. It carried a man and a woman. A horseman crossed the main street on the cross-street. He looked idly at the five riders, but went on his way.
Belle reined in at one end of the hitch rail. She did not dismount. Bobby pulled his horse around Floyd's and pulled up at the far end of the hitch rail. He stayed in the saddle too. Floyd pulled up next to Belle. Longarm took the next spot, and Steed went on and Jerked his mount's head around to put himself between Longarm and Bobby.
"Don't just sit here!" Belle hissed. Her voice was shrilly nervous. "Get on inside, and work fast!"
Floyd was already sliding off his horse. Steed and Longarm followed suit, moving more slowly. Belle's plan, which she had explained to them the evening before, called for Floyd to saunter in and get to the back of the bank before Longarm and Steed entered. Then it would be up to Steed to handle the center of the building, Longarm to cover the door.
Floyd disappeared into the bank. Longarm could see Steed's lips moving as he counted to ten, then the outlaw followed Floyd inside. Longarm ticked off his own ten-count and went in. Just as he was going through the door, he saw a husky man wearing a gunbelt, carrying a white canvas money bag cross the room. The man wore a uniform cap with a badge of some sort on it; Longarm didn't get a good look at the badge, but figured the fellow for a guard.
As he walked the few steps to his position, Longarm had time to flick his eyes around the bank's interior. He registered the details quickly. A long counter stretched across one side. A wire grillwork rose from the top of the counter, broken by three arched openings. Tellers stood behind the windows, but only one of them was busy with a customer. The man carrying the money bag walked behind the tellers and entered the vault, which yawned open in the rear of the building, behind the counter.
On the opposite side there were four desks. The first one was a huge and ornate roll-top. It was backed up to the wall and a gray-haired man sat in front of it, bending over a stack of papers. The second desk was a bit plainer; the man who sat at it was younger and was talking to an overall-clad customer who sat in a chair beside the desk. The other two desks were strictly utilitarian. The men who occupied chairs at them had ledgers in front of them and were bending over, entering figures in the ruled columns.
