Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{“I might be able to sell that lamp oil to somebody, though,” Parson suggested hopefully. “If you don’t have a need for it, that is, sir.”}

_{“Help yourself.”}

_{‘Thank you, sir.”}

_{“You wouldn’t happen t’ know who our visitors were, would you?”}

_{“No, sir,” Parson said. ‘They aren’t from Snowshoe, I can tell you that. There isn’t man, woman, nor child who lives here that I haven’t at least seen b’fore, sir. They might not’ve seen me, Mr. Long, but it’s part of my business to see and to know ... things. If you see what I’m saying, sir.”}

_{Longarm did see. He nodded. This man who moved so fearlessly in the night was that fat old woman’s eyes and ears. Parson was much more than merely a bodyguard to her.}

_{“And I can tell you for sure, sir, that they aren’t from around here.”}

_{Longarm kneaded his chin and pondered that.}

_{Like nearly everything else connected with this deal, it made no sense.}

_{It was the people of Snowshoe who were supposed to have a hard-on for him, dammit. Who were supposed to be so scared about the possibility that the Utes would be released from confinement and go on a rampage. Yet when somebody tried to kill him, it wasn’t anybody from Snowshoe at all who made the attempt, but some strangers that nobody around there knew.}

_{No, he corrected himself. Strangers that weren’t from there, maybe. But that didn’t necessarily mean that nobody around there knew them.}

_{Some body did. Somebody in particular. Otherwise they wouldn’t have come to be there at the cabin with their full tins of lamp oil and their fresh box of matches. And, oh, yes, with their murderous intent for those otherwise-innocent items. So some-damn-body around there knew them.}

_{The question was: Who? And why?}

_{Longarm helped himself to a cheroot, the fire to light it provided courtesy of the late arsonists. His own smoke didn’t taste as fine to him as Ames Delacoutt’s cigar had— helluva stroke of good fortune that he’d wanted to finish}

_{that smoke instead of going straight inside and to bed; otherwise those handsomely dressed young men might have succeeded in their mission—but the nice part was that he was still alive to enjoy it.}

_{“You said something about it being a message that brought you here tonight, Parson?”}

_{“I wasn’t gonna forget, sir.”}

_{“No, I don’t believe you would have. The point is, why don’t we go inside and see if we can’t get Miss Aggie t’ find us something to wet our whistles with whilst you deliver your message. Don’t know ’bout you, but this kind o’ work gives me a thirst.”}