Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{“Look on the bright side, Ames,” Longarm suggested. “Maybe your town policeman will solve the train robbery. Then all you’ll have t’ worry about is the kind of so-called friend who’d lie to you about things like wild Indians. Who, in case you don’t know it, are just as human as you and me, mister. Which means there are good ones an’ bad ones an’ in-between ones. Just like you and me and the lying SOB who filled you full of make-believe fears. Now you think about that, Ames. Me, I’m going to bed. Somehow my pleasant evening on the town ain’t as fun right now as I was wanting. Thank you for the cigar, sir. And good night.”}

_{It still wasn’t all that late. Late enough, though, that Longarm was going to go back to Aggie’s cabin and see if he couldn’t sneak in without waking her. For sure he didn’t want to put up with any more argument from the likes of Ames Delacoutt. Ignorance of that nature could curdle even the best whiskey inside a man’s belly.}

_{He walked the distance to Aggie’s place in a matter of minutes, but paused outside. Whatever he might think about Mr. Delacoutt, he definitely had to applaud the man’s taste in cigars. And the one Longarm was smoking wasn’t close to being finished yet.}

_{A cigar this good wasn’t to be put out and kept overnight either. Smoke allowed to linger inside the body of the cigar would seep into the leaf and turn stale. By morning the flavor would be no better than that of any ordinary two-center: The way Longarm saw it, it would be damn near sinful to allow that to happen.}

_{Better, he figured, to stand outside and finish his smoke before he went in to bed. Besides, the night air was clean and crisp, the feel of it good in his lungs.}

_{There wasn’t any porch or bench provided at the front of Aggie’s cabin, but there was a roofed overhang on one side where firewood was stored dry and close to hand. At this time of year the wood pile was small, the past winter’s use shrinking it down to little more than a cord or so, although when full it probably held closer to a dozen cords of split aspen. Longarm decided to step in there and perch on the}

₁₂₇

 

_{stacked stove-lengths while he finished his cigar.}

_{He wheeled and took the few steps necessary to reach the front of the covered area, then slowed to grope his way into the deep shadows.}

_{He heard something. A gasp. And then the sound of a hammer being cocked.}