Longarm and the Diamondback Widow by Tabor Evans

vest and peer up skeptically at Longarm.
    â€œWell, do you?” Longarm said. He did not like this man at all. That he was a son of a bitch was obvious by his demeanor and by the way he dressed and by the pearl-gripped pistol he carried in his holster. The gun didn’t fit him—it was too pretty for him—but he wished it did.
    â€œNo, I don’t reckon,” the man said, his eyes working around in their sockets again, gravitating toward a whiskey bottle on the cluttered desk before him. “I’m just sayin’ . . . you know . . . a fella can’t be too careful who he talks to. Who he tells where the sheriff’s at . . . that’s all . . .”
    He stared at the bottle.
    â€œWho are you?” Longarm said, removing his hand from his own gun and hooking his thumbs behind his cartridge belt.
    â€œMelvin Little. I’m fillin’ in, you might say.” Little glanced at the badge again, as if he suddenly wished it weren’t there.
    â€œAnd where’s Sheriff Rainey?”
    â€œHell if I know,” Little said, jerking his head toward the door. “All I know is I’m replacin’ him here for now. Orders of the town council. Why don’t you ask them where he went?”
    Longarm wasn’t satisfied with the answer in the least. He doubted this unshaven, unwashed tinhorn with the expensive gun and the badge he still needed to grow into could tell the truth if his life depended on it.
    â€œYou must have some idea.”
    Little looked around the room as though for an answer. He was getting even more riled, more impatient. “Hell, I don’t know. North!” He threw his arm at the door. “That’s where he headed. North. There was some beef collared up around Beulah Springs and he rode up there to check it out!”
    Longarm kept his gaze hard and commanding as he stared down at the man shifting around uncomfortably before him. “You sure about that?” He pitched his voice with threat.
    â€œSure enough!”
    â€œWhere exactly? Who’s ranch? I’ll ride out and meet him.”
    â€œI don’t know. They didn’t tell me who’s ranch he rode out to!”
    â€œWho’s ‘they’?”
    â€œThe town council.”
    Longarm was even more skeptical, and he was also growing more and more uneasy. “Why wouldn’t Rainey have told you himself? You are his deputy, aren’t you?”
    â€œNo, I ain’t his deputy, big man. I’m just sittin’ in for him.”
    â€œThe town council gave you the job?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œWho’s on the town council?”
    Little blinked up at Longarm, hesitating. “Doc Baker, Charlie Mulligan, and Alexander Richmond.”
    Towns as small as Diamondback often had very small town councils, which weren’t really councils at all, but three mucky-mucks who got together to call the shots. “Where can I find these men?”
    â€œWhat the hell you wanna bother them for? Listen, you got no call to come barging in here stirrin’ up trouble.”
    â€œI didn’t know I was stirrin’ up trouble,” Longarm said, raising his voice. “I was just asking where I’d find Sheriff Rainey, and you got all riled over that. Would you mind telling me why?”
    â€œI ain’t riled. You’re the one who’s riled!”
    Longarm looked down. The man’s right hand was once again closed over the pearl grips of his .45. Longarm said nothing. Little followed his gaze to his own hand. He released the pistol, looking sheepish.
    He slacked down in his chair, turned toward the desk as though he were about to get back to work, and tossed his hand at the door. “Go on, get outta here! I don’t got time to listen to a bunch of federal blarney! Go on an’ leave me alone. I don’t get paid near enough to put up with this shit.”
    Longarm gave a wry