Free Tabor Evans by Longarm, the Bandit Queen

reined in at a wide spot and dismounted. To his experienced eyes, the trail had the marks of the kind of approach he'd been looking for, one that was both easy and difficult, a trail that passed through cover for defenders, if the need arose to stand off intruders. Above all, in its passage through the narrow valley, the trail seemed planned to string out any group of men and horses in a way that would allow a relatively small group to bar their passage.
    Old son, he told himself, this is the likeliest spot you've hit. Somebody planned this trail, it didn't just grow up accidental. And even if there ain't no guarantee you're going to hit pay dirt at the end of it, You better strip down and be ready, just in case you do.
    When he'd shed his coat, Longarm had transferred his wallet, with his marshal's badge Pinned inside, to his hip pocket. He fished the wallet out now, and dropped his trousers. By letting them down almost to the tops of his closely fitting cavalry boots, he managed to slip the wallet down inside a trouser leg and below the level of the boot top. Pulling UP his Pants, he inspected the leg. There was no bulge, and the edge Of the wallet wouldn't be felt by anybody searching him for a sheath knife or a small-caliber concealed pistol.
    He climbed back in the Saddle and continued along the trail. It turned south at a cleft in the valley wall. Like the valley through which Longarm had ridden earlier, the opening was wide enough for only a single horseman. When Longarm entered the steep fissure, he saw unmistakable signs on both of its bare dirt sides that bushes and saplings had been uprooted from it in the recent past. The small amount of new growth that struggled to survive on the Steep walls was thin and spindly. Nowhere was there enough vegetation to give a man Protective cover. It Was planned, all right, Longarm assured himself, noting the barren walls of the defile as he rode deeper into it.
    Three or four men Posted with rifles UP there on the crests could stand off a good-sized army. I don't wonder that Gower's been shying away from bringing in a posse to clean this place up, if it's the place I'm looking for. It's sure beginning to look like it is.
    The narrow defile ended abruptly. Longarm reined in at its mouth and studied the scene that now lay revealed. A clearing stretched in front of him. It was roughly oval-shape and something more than a half-mile across at its widest point, which was several hundred yards from the cleft through which Longarm had just passed; the ravine Split the low, steep hills that concealed this stretch of level ground. The rise swept in an arc behind him, to both left and right. Somewhere ahead, the level land ended abruptly. Longarm couldn't see the actual ending, but it looked to him as though the flat clear area stopped at the rim of a sheer cliff, and he guessed that cliff must drop down to the Canadian River.
    Trees dotted the clearing; they were widely spaced at its center and more distant edges, thicker as the ground began to rise in the slope that enclosed the place. Among the trees were stumps that had been left when the land was cleared. Centered in the level area, a house stood in the middle of about an acre of ground that had been completely cleared of stumps and trees. The house was neither large nor fancy. It stood on a low fieldstone foundation, and was built from squared timbers chinked with clay. If it had any windows, they were on the other side of the house. The side facing Longarm was unbroken by windows or a door. A fieldstone chimney rose at one end, and at the other, a pole barn--no more than a roof with widely spaced boards nailed to the supporting posts--nestled close to the house.
    Longarm nodded when he saw the arrangement. He told himself, Old son, you hit the right place. Farmers and ranchers always put their animals away from the house, where the flies won't bother folks inside. Outlaws want their barn close, so they can get to their horses in a