Tabor Evans (6 page)

"You're Long, I suppose," Gower snapped before Longarm could introduce himself. "My clerk said you'd been here earlier, looking for me."

"That's right. It was a little bit early, I guess."

"Early, hell! You were supposed to be here yesterday. I guess you got in during the evening and spent the night tom-catting around the saloons and whorehouses instead of reporting in."

"Matter of fact, I got to the river too late to get on the last ferryboat. And I was too damn tired to report last night, even if I'd made it into town."

"All right, sit down." Gower pushed aside the papers he'd been working on. "Now that you're finally here, I suppose you're ready to go to work?"

Longarm traded stares with his temporary boss. Right at that moment, he'd decided that this case wasn't going to be one he'd enjoy working on. If the greeting he'd gotten from his temporary superior was a fair sample, Gower was a man he was prepared to dislike.

CHAPTER 4

"I came to work," Longarm replied at last. He kept his voice level and expressionless. "Billy Vail didn't give me a lot to go on. Only thing he said was that the grapevine's put Jesse James at some kind of outlaw hangout over in the Cherokee Nation."

"That's about all we've got," Gower affirmed. "I've been getting reports that there's a lot more activity than usual going on at Belle Starr's place. I guess you've heard about Belle? Calls herself the Bandit Queen?"

"I've heard her name, that's about all," Longarm answered. "And I know she operates in the Nation. But if you've got the time to pass on whatever I'd need to know about her and whoever she runs with, I'd sure like for you to."

Honey, old son, Longarm kept telling himself as he looked at Gower. Honey catches more flies than vinegar.

Gower had taken out a pouch of Bull Durham and papers, and was rolling himself a cigarette. He took his time, jogging the flakes of tobacco evenly, wrapping the paper tight, licking the seam, twisting the ends of the completed cylinder. Then he touched a match to the finished smoke. Longarm thought most of the men he'd ever seen smoking cigarettes looked sissified; he noted with mild surprise that Gower did not. Just the opposite, in fact.

Longarm countered by extracting a cheroot from his vest pocket and lighting it. The blue smoke from the cigar and the white, acrid smoke from the cigarette began to fume up the office, and, after a few moments, Gower started talking.

"There's a chance you might have heard about Belle Starr by another name. Belle's had so damn many names since she started out that I don't think she remembers all of them herself. You ever heard of a woman bandit that called herself Belle Reed? Or Belle Shirley? Or maybe even Belle Younger?"

Longarm shook his head. "I must've missed all them names. It's the same Belle, though, I take it?"

"Same Belle," Gower nodded. He took a final drag on the cigarette and exhaled a cloud of thin smoke, then tossed the butt into a cuspidor that stood handy at the corner of his desk. "Since you're new to this district, I suppose the first thing to do is to go back to the beginning."

"Might be, at that." Longarm settled himself back to listen.

"As far as my boys and I have been able to find out," the chief marshal began, "Belle's real name is Myra Belle Shirley. At least, that's how she started life. Her folks were from Missouri, up somewhere around Carthage, which would make them neighbors to the Jameses and the Youngers. Matter of fact, there's some kind of connection between the Shirleys and the Youngers--second cousins twice removed, or something--one of those vague family things that goes back God knows how many years since there was any close kinship. But the Youngers stayed in Missouri when the Shirleys moved to Texas, sometime back in the late sixties or early seventies. Belle's folks still live up in North Texas, somewhere around Fort Worth or Dallas."

"That'd explain how Belle got tied up with Cole Younger, then?" Longarm asked when Gower paused to start rolling another cigarette. "And you and Billy happened onto the connection when you went to talk to Cole Younger in the pen at Stillwater?"

"Damn it, Long, don't start guessing!" Gower snapped. "I knew about the connection before we talked to Cole Younger. Belle claims she was married to Cole when she was just a young girl, and she makes no bones about telling everybody Cole's the daddy of her daughter Pearl. Pearl's about eleven or twelve years old now. I guess you know that Cole was one of Jesse James's bunch before he got caught and landed in the pen."

"I don't have to guess about that," Longarm said shortly. "Everybody knows it."

"I suppose so. Well," Gower went on, "Belle had a whole string of husbands--or men she said were her husbands--after Cole pulled out of Texas and went back with the James gang. The thing is, Belle can't seem to get Cole Younger out of her craw. Maybe that's because, as far as we can tell, he's the first man that ever got to her. It happened that time when Cole and Jesse were visiting with the part of the Younger family that had moved to Texas and were living close to Belle's folks."

"Billy Vail told me somebody's been trying real hard to get Cole sprung out of the pen," Longarm said. "I got the idea that's one reason you two went to talk to him. You were afraid he might get out and join up with Jesse again."

"No, damn it, no! We went to offer to let Younger out if he'd lead us to where Jesse and Frank are hiding right now. You know the prison grapevine, Long. I'm dead sure Younger could lead us to the James boys' hideout. But he won't. Said so, flat out. But you are right about one thing. It is Belle Starr who's been trying to get Cole sprung. She's been working at that ever since he got locked up. Even while she was married to Jim Reed and Blue Duck and whoever else she was really married to before she hitched up with Sam Starr. And she's still trying, right this minute."

"Blue Duck would be one of Belle's husbands, I guess? Sounds to me like he's an Indian."

"Was Indian. Cherokee. So was her first husband--not counting Cole Younger, that is. Right after Cole left Texas, she married this breed, Jim Reed. And Starr's part Cherokee, too."

"I'd say Belle's got a soft spot for Indian studs," Longarm observed with a smile.

"She's got a soft spot--and it's right between her legs--for any man with a hard to poke in it," Gower said.

"You think Jesse James ever poked into it?"

"He probably did, if she got him off alone with her," Gower replied. Then he added, "When you come right down to it, Long, the only time we're sure Belle ever saw Jesse was when Cole Younger took him to Texas on that visit he made to his family. And since it was that time when Cole and Belle first met, I doubt that Jesse had a look-in. There's a rumor that Jesse hid out for a while at Belle's place over in the Nation when she first moved there, but that's the kind of rumor you come to look for when you're dealing with the James boys. Shit! It wouldn't surprise me if somebody started a rumor that Jesse's disguised himself and got a job as one of my deputies!"

"I guess folks are willing to believe almost anything about the Jameses," Longarm commented.

"Looks that way," Gower agreed. "To get back to what I was telling you, Jim Reed got killed in a shootout down in Texas, and Blue Duck married Belle the other way around--and a little while after that, Blue Duck got bushwhacked and killed. Then Belle took up with a bad one by the name of Jack Spaniard, but he made some mistakes that put him on the wrong end of a hangman's rope. Her last one before Sam Starr was a burglar, Jim French, but he got shot while he was trying to break into a store. That brings us up to when Belle married Sam Starr."

Longarm's whistle when Gower paused was low and long-drawn. "I'd say the lady really has bad luck with the men she picks out. If she was to wag her butt my way, I'd pass her by."

"If you had any sense, you'd do that after you took one look at her," Gower told him. "Now, Sam Starr's part Cherokee, as I mentioned. He's got a land allotment from the tribe down at the south end of the Cherokee Strip, on the Canadian, close to a little town called Eufaula. That's where he and Belle make their headquarters now. They call it Younger's Bend."

"Named for Cole Younger, I take it?"

"Oh, I'm sure Belle picked out the name. I told you, she's still got a soft spot for Cole. They've built a house there, and a few cabins. Our trouble is, the lay of the land makes it just about impossible for us to watch the place. The river's on one side, with high bluffs running down to the water, the house on top of the bluffs, and a little narrow valley the only way to get to the place. Maybe you'll be better than my boys at figuring out a way to scout the place when you get there." Longarm said mildly, "I didn't know I was going there."

"You do now," Gower retorted.

"It's all the same to me, where I go," Longarm said levelly. "Or who I bring in. What's this Belle Starr wanted for?"

Gower snorted, "Hell! I don't want Belle. She's a nobody, and so is Sam. They're out now on bail on a cattle-rustling charge. If I wanted them, I'd just have them picked up. That's the biggest charge I could hold them on, though. No, Long, it's that bunch of crooks who use the Starr place as a hideout that I'm after. Half the men on my wanted list right now work out of Younger's Bend. About all Belle does is give them a safe place to hide out and help them get rid of what they steal."

"She's a fence, then, instead of a bandit queen?"

"Of course. If I wanted Belle, I could have her picked up any time she rides into Fort Smith on that big black horse she fancies. Oh, Belle puts on a real show! Dolls herself up in a long velvet dress, wears a pair of ivory-handled, silver-plated Smith & Wessons. But it's all blow and no go with Belle, except when it comes to getting rid of the loot her boarders bring in."

"It'd help if I knew what kind of loot she deals in," Longarm suggested.

"Cattle, mostly," Gower replied. "Some jewelry and trinkets from burglaries and stagecoach stickups. Except for the cattle, Belle doesn't handle much but penny-ante stuff. The owlhoots that use Younger's Bend as a hideout--well, that's another matter. They're waist-deep in damn near everything. Bank robberies, train holdups, stagecoach stickups, rustling, you name it. Belle's only dangerous because she provides them with a place to hole up between jobs, and helps them get rid of what they've stolen."

"If the place is as bad as you say, it looks to me like your best bet would be just to go in with a good force and clean it out," Longarm suggested. "After all, it's in your jurisdiction."

"I didn't ask you for advice, Long. Apparently you don't know much about our jurisdictional problem in this district. You ought to, damn it. Billy told me you'd had some assignments in the Nation."

"Two or three. Sure, I know the Indian police force has got the primary jurisdiction, and they don't like outside lawmen coming in, even when they're federals, like we are. I've run into that in the cases I've handled there. I know that about the only time we can go into the Indian Nation without being invited is when we're on a chase after some owlhoot who's just committed a crime covered in federal statutes."

"That's the shifty part of it!" Gower growled. "So far, we haven't had a chance to go after any of the Younger's Bend bunch in a hot-pursuit situation. But there's more to the Younger's Bend mess than that. Sam Starr or Belle--and I guess it was Belle's idea, because she's got most of the brains--worked out some kind of deal with the Cherokee Tribal Council. Belle calls it a treaty, which would put Younger's Bend on a level with the U.S. as an independent nation. The treaty says that the Younger's Bend bunch won't pull off anything in the Cherokee Strip if the Indian Police will leave them alone. Hell, Long, I'll never get an invitation from the police over there to come in, as long as that agreement stands!"

For the first time, Longarm felt a flicker of sympathy for Gower. He said thoughtfully, "I see the kind of bind you're in, but I sure hope you're not looking to me to work it out for you."

"If I can't work it out as chief marshal, I don't see how you could as a deputy on temporary assignment here," Gower replied impatiently. "That's not why I asked Billy to send me his top man, Long. I've talked to you enough now so I feel safe in telling you the real reason you're here."

"Thanks. I'd sort of like to hear it."

Gower went to the door of his office, opened it, and looked both ways along the corridor. He came back and sat down. Leaning over his desk, he dropped his voice and said, "That bunch at Younger's Bend is in so many things and gets away with so much that I've got a suspicion a bunch of local marshals and sheriffs are in cahoots with them."

"You mean they're being paid off?"

"That's exactly what I mean. Belle's like any other fence, Long. She's got to have room to work in. The only way a fence can buy that kind of room is by paying off somebody to look the other way when she's making her deals. And once a man on our side of the law begins taking payoffs, it's not long before he's taking money to be out of town when a gang rides in to rob a bank. It starts with the fence, but it's not long in spreading."

"I ain't aiming to embarrass you, Marshal Gower," Longarm said carefully. "But I'd be interested in knowing how far it's spread."

Gower stared at Longarm, his face set grimly. He dropped his voice as he answered. "Yes, you're right, Long. You do need to know how far it's gone. Well, I've got a suspicion, without a damned shred of evidence to back it up, that some of my own deputies have sold out to Belle Starr and her gang."