Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Aggie seemed to think nothing about that, but Longarm damn sure did. There wasn’t any refinery in Snowshoe. He was positive about that. If there had been, he would have seen and smelled it long before now. Hell, the only stamp mills that could be operating there were small-time affairs that disassembled into parts small enough and light enough to be packed in by mule. And without heavy equipment, why, you just plain couldn’t reduce gold ores to anything compact and valuable. The kind of concentrate that could be produced in a camp at Snowshoe’s stage of development was bulky and heavy in relation to value. That very problem was the reason investors were so eager to build narrow-gauge rail lines into the small mountain camps. But until that happened, the concentrates produced in places like Snowshoe were hardly worth stealing, unless someone was prepared to undertake a major freighting project as part of his getaway.}

_{He explained as much to Aggie, but all she did was shrug. “I wouldn’t know about that, dear. I can only tell you that the train was robbed and the gold, whatever form it was in, was stolen.”}

_{“That’s crazy,” he said.}

_{“Bite your tongue.”}

_{“Pardon?”}

_{“Please don’t you ever suggest that criminals should wise up and change their ways, dear. Not in my presence. Why, where would us lawyers be if it weren’t for craziness and cupidity and all those wonderful human failings. So please, dear, speak with respect about the people I hope to have as clients someday.”}

_{He laughed and pulled his coat on, finally settling the Stetson into position. “Don’t wait up for me.”}

_{“I had no intention of trying,” she assured him.}

_{He bent and gave her a perfunctory peck on the cheek before letting himself out of the cabin. What the hell, he decided, just because she was a lousy lay it didn’t necessarily follow that she was a totally worthless person. There were times when she was fairly pleasant company. That probably ought to count for something.}

_{Longarm ambled off into the night in search of a glass of rye whiskey.}

_{There are some genuine verities in life, pillars a man can depend on no matter what else befalls him, and one of those is that regardless of how badly a man hates your guts, he will still be willing to take your money.}

_{Longarm might not be able to get anything in the way of cooperation in Snowshoe, but he could buy whiskey and lose at cards as well as the next guy. The whiskey wasn’t bad. His run of cards was terrible.}