The brunette poured some coffee for herself as she gently but firmly reminded Longarm he owed her a story.
Longarm washed down some cake and began. "Once upon a time there was this sort of odd couple, well-fixed for cash but on the dodge for having obtained the cash under many, many false pretenses. They came in their travels upon this bitty trail town, well-located but dying on the vine because it was located betwixt a haunted mesa and an Apache reservation.
Being keen students of human nature, the couple I"ll call Frenchy and Dolly saw folks were still unreasonably spooked by Indian troubles of the past. So it was possible to buy valuable property up this way cheap."
He took another bite and continued. "They did. One going business finances another, and so in no time at all Frenchy and Dolly became Queen Kirby and her boys. They naturally sent for other grifters to help them run their private town."
Meg Campbell protested, "They didn"t own all of us. I"ll have you know I was hired by the town council, not any card-house or parlor-house madam!"
He said soothingly, "I know. Almost half the town council is made up of more respectable old-timers. That"s what was eating the greedy gent who was posing as a gal."
She gasped. "Good Lord! Queen Kirby was a man?"
Longarm said, "I reckon Trisha never told you because she never knew.
He made a fairly convincing old gal, But that wasn"t the crime that caused so much bother. There was a colonial governor back in the time of the real Queen Anne who liked to dress up like a fine lady, but he never dressed others up as Indians to spook folks even worse."
He saw he"d gotten ahead of himself again when she marveled, "Those Apache were dressed up silly too?"
He silenced her with a wave of his coffee cup and said, "Forget a heap of their unusual habits and you"ve still got greed. The natural laws of supply and demand raise real-estate values as a township gets more attractive to investors. They must have noticed how unwise it was to simply grab property the way they did down Lincoln County way. It was slicker when they grasped how Uncle John Chisum had wound up owning everything when the gunsmoke cleared, leaving the surviving property-holders demoralized and ready to sell out for a song. But as word got out about those Jicarilla being cleared to make room for progress, land values in these parts figured to go up, not down, and leave us not forget the rising price of beef back East. In sum, Queen Kirby"s trail-town empire had finished expanding for the foreseeable future, unless they could make the future look different."
He sipped, put down the cup again, and said, "They sent out for more help. Some of them hardcase killers but mostly just adventurous saddle tramps. Only a small number of them had to be let in on their true plans. They didn"t want to make it easy to add up the numbers, so they had some camping over in the canyonlands at first. That was a mistake they corrected as soon as they heard word was getting out to the real world about private armies gathering. They knew Governor Wallace and even the president who"d appointed him would be on the prod for another New Mexico dust-up like that Lincoln County War. So they pulled them into town and enlisted them with the rest of their so-called Regulators before I ever got here."
"Regulators regulating what?" she demanded.
He said, "Apache, of course. Turns out no Jicarilla have really gone all that wild over the latest BIA nonsense. They likely figure Washington will reshuffle everybody back the way they were as soon as they get Victorio calmed down or buried. But everyone else with the hair and horseflesh they value was already braced for another Apache war before this county"s effeminate answer to Uncle John Chisum decided to provide "em with one. It was simple for Wes Jones, as Frenchy now called himself, to stage some Apache raids while pretending to be protecting all the white settlers from the savages. They didn"t have to steal half as seriously as real raiders to scare the liver and lights out of folks. They didn"t want to kill anyone capable of signing a bill of sale for some quick cash on the way to safer parts. So for all the dramatics, it was mostly hollow noise."
She poured him more coffee as she marveled, "Well, I never. But how much of this might Trisha have known, the two-faced thing?"
He grimaced and replied, "Not much. There was no need for hardly anyone they used to know what they were really up to. Trisha never came into the story before I came down from Colorado, by a devious route and a tad late. They"d known I was coming. We"re still working on old pals they might have had on the BIA payroll, working for the railroad or whatever.
Drifting grifters meet a lot of other shady sorts in their travels and a buck is always worth a hundred cents."
He sipped more coffee--she"d brewed it swell--and explained, "It was my getting here way later than expected that confounded them about me. I fear their first plan was to have me killed by Apache. I showed up not exactly as described after killing somebody else along the way. So, not wanting to waste a possibly valuable a.s.set, Queen Kirby, or more likely the one you all knew as Wes Jones, came sneaking around, found Trisha in my room with me somewhere else, and made a quick deal with her."
Meg nodded and said, "She knew Wesley well. She said he was a generous tipper who was always nice to her. She seemed confused that he never asked her out after work."
Longarm said, "He had a steady sweetheart. But he persuaded the gal I"d been fool enough to confide in that they"d make it worth her while if she"d report every fool word I said to her to them!"
Meg fluttered her long lashes and murmured, "Heavens, I can see how foolish that might make you feel!"
He sighed and said, "I doubt they cared about my personal idiocy. I told Trisha who I really was. But then I told her I had no idea who I was really after or what might be going on. So they figured it was as easy and a heap safer to just hire me and have me where they could keep an eye on me as they got me to jump through hoops like a trained flea.
They figured I"d tell Trisha when and if I commenced to suspect anything important, and they were right. I acted like a total sap, and even when I did start to get warm, I was still so far from the truth they"d have been better off letting me run down like a clock and head on home. Have you ever felt really stupid, Miss Meg?"
She reached across her table to pat the back of his big tanned hand and soothed, "It might have gone worse for us. If they were even partway onto you, and that two-faced Trisha hadn"t convinced them you weren"t onto them, they"d have killed you before you found out a thing and then where would we be?"
He put his own free hand atop hers--most men would have wanted to--and quietly replied, "You"re doubtless right--and I reckon all"s well as ends well. How come you asked where we would have wound up, Miss Meg?
No offense, but I don"t recall old Marshal Billy Vail putting you on the case with me."
The pretty schoolmarm looked away, cheeks flushed, as she murmured, "I guess I meant we"d have never been having this conversation, after Trisha had told me so much about you. I suppose you"re in a hurry to get back to Denver, now that you"ve learned all there ever was to know about our d.i.n.ky town?"
To which he could only reply, with a friendly squeeze, "I ain"t so sure I"ve gotten to know everyone down this way as well as I"d like to. In any case I"ll have to stick around long enough to tidy up a few loose ends and make sure law and order"s been restored total."
She asked, in that case how many days, or hours, they might have to get to know one another better. When he suggested at least a good two days, she shyly suggested they"d best get started and so, what with one thing and another, it was over a week before Longarm got back to Denver, walking sort of funny.