Tabor Evans by Longarm, the Bandit Queen Page A

stay. Yazoo knows him, he spoke up for him."
    "Yazoo. Is that right, Yazoo? Do you know this dude?"
    "From someplace, Belle. He's one of our kind of folks." The old man's speech was growing blurred.
    Behind Belle, a young man stood in the doorway, his arms filled with twine-wrapped bundles. He pushed his way past her and moved toward the stove. "Here's the flour and stuff you wanted, Sam," he said, beginning to deposit the packages on the floor.
    Another man appeared in the doorway. Belle had come into the house by now, and Longarm had a good view of the newcomer. He recognized him just as the man saw him sitting there. His name was Mckee, and Longarm had brought him in for a bank holdup almost two years ago. Now Longarm saw recognition springing into Mckee's face.
    "Why, damn you!" Mckee blurted. He was clawing for his gun as he spoke. "You dirty son of a bitch! I told you I'd get-"
    Longarm's Colt blasted a split second before Mckee had his revolver leveled. A dime-sized hole appeared in the outlaw's forehead. He grimaced as he began crumpling to the floor. He was dead before he finished falling.

CHAPTER 6
    Longarm completed the turn he'd started when he leaped from his chair to draw on Mckee. The move brought Belle Starr and Sam under the menace of the colt's still-smoking muzzle. Belle had her right-hand pistol halfway out of its holster and Sam was starting toward the wall, where his rifle rested on pegs, when Longarm spoke.
    "Everybody just stand still. I got no grudges against anybody else around here. Me and Mckee had a score to settle, you heard him say so. Turned out it was settled my way. Now it's over and done with, and I don't aim to pull the trigger again unless one of you makes me do it."
    Silence greeted his announcement. Out of the corner of his eye, Longarm could see Yazoo sitting at the end of the table, his whiskey-glazed eyes not really taking in what had happened. Sam Starr had obeyed the command to freeze, and so had the young man who'd brought in the packages. And so, for that matter, had Belle Starr, but she still had a hand on her revolver's grips. Longarm fixed her with his stony gaze and she opened her hand, letting the pistol slide back into its holster.
    Belle said, "Regardless of what your argument was with Mckee, I don't like to have strangers showing up here and killing my boarders. Yazoo said your name's Windy. Suppose you tell us the rest of it, and explain what you're doing here."
    "Windy's all the name I need, right now," Longarm replied. "it was something personal between Mckee and me. Goes back quite a while. You heard what he said and you saw him draw. I was just sitting there, not going for my gun, when he grabbed."
    "So I noticed," Belle said dryly. "Whoever you are, Windy, You've got a quick hand. What was your argument with Mckee about?"
    "Now that he's dead, I don't see where it matters much," Longarm replied. "Or which one of us was in the right. Looks to me like all that signifies is that I'm standing here and Mckee's dead."
    "That's one way of looking at it," Belle said. "But just the same, I'd like to know."
    "It was private between him and me," Longarm told her in a tone designed to let her see that he wasn't going to say more.
    Belle shrugged. "If that's the way you want it." She looked at Longarm narrowly, frowning. "I don't think I've heard your name, but maybe I've seen you before, when I rode with Jesse James."
    "Not likely, ma'am. I haven't had the honor of meeting Mr. James. Not that I wouldn't like to reach out and take his hand," Longarm said. That, he thought, was the truth. Nothing required him to say that if he took Jesse James's hand, it would only be to hold it still while he snapped the cuffs on the outlaw.
    Belle's eyes narrowed as she thought aloud. "You're not from the Nation or Texas. I'd have heard about you if you'd been busy in either place. Or Arkansas or Kansas or Missouri. You must come from further west?"
    "You could say that without being too far