Free Arkansas Smith by Jack Martin Page B

O’Keefe didn’t move. He was in no danger. There was no way for Arkansas to break free of his bindings, but all the same the sheriff came back into the room, alerted at the sound of the struggle, his Army Model Colt in hand.
    ‘Please remain outside, Sheriff,’ O’Keefe said. He was clearly in control of the situation and was in no need of assistance.
    For a moment the sheriff looked unsure and his face held a puzzled expression that almost looked pained. ‘If this skunk gives you trouble,’ he said, eventually, ‘I’ll plug him here and now. Bullet or rope – he’ll still be very much dead.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said O’Keefe. ‘I’ll keep that in mind. Now, if you’ll excuse us, please.’
    The sheriff shrugged his shoulders and left the room, slamming the heavy door behind him.
    ‘You see,’ O’Keefe said, ‘unpleasant fellow.’
    ‘What do you want with me?’ Arkansas asked.
    ‘I think I can help you.’
    Arkansas looked the man directly in the eye. ‘You talking about my heavenly soul? I’ve had enough with the praying already and I’ll meet my Maker on my own terms.’
    ‘I’m talking very much about the physical you. What eventually happens to your soul is none of my concern.’
    ‘I’m listening.’
    ‘I represent Washington,’ O’Keefe told him. ‘We’ve been following your little rampage with great interest.’
    ‘Then you’ll know I’m here on trumped-up charges,’ Arkansas said. ‘That those men deserved to die.’
    ‘Difficult to prove, though.’ The podgy man pulled a large cigar from his coat and took a match to it. He sucked hard on the thick tobacco. ‘In fact, with the amount of corruption around here I would say it’s impossible to prove. And whichever way you look at it, the fact remains that you killed those six men, four of whom were US Calvary, not to mention a prominent politician and his son.’
    ‘And I’d do it again.’ Defiantly, words spat out with real venom. ‘To a man those lot were skunks. They shouldn’t have done what they did.’
    ‘Tell me,’ asked O’Keefe, pacing the small room, ‘have you ever heard of the Pinkertons?’
    ‘Alan Pinkerton?’ Arkansas said, resenting the fact that O’Keefe was talking down to him, as if he were dumb. He was lettered and he read whatever he could get his hands on. ‘Started up his agency when Pinkerton foiled an assassination attempt on President Lincoln. They protected the President during the war. I met a Pinkerton once – rat-faced-looking guy. Can’t say I really took to him.’
    ‘They still protect the current President,’ O’Keefe said. ‘But they can’t be everywhere at all times and, since the war, the area west of the Mississippi is proving problematic. Which is where you come in.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘I represent the President himself and I’ve been given the task of forming a special force. A team of ten agents all working independently of each other to enforce the law in this increasingly hostile landscape. Civilization is coming to the West and we need men out there to do the civilizing. Men like Arkansas Smith, men who know the land, men of courage.’
    ‘But I’m a convicted killer?’ Arkansas pointed out, as if the fact had slipped the man’s mind. ‘Due to hang at dawn.’
    ‘Oh, that,’ O’Keefe said it as though it were a trifling matter of no real onsequence. ‘Are you willing to enlist with us? To sign on and take orders directly from me? You’ll have the powers of a territorial marshal and more besides. Seems to me you have a simple choice: join us or swing.’
    ‘Why do I feel as if I’m going to put a tighter rope around my neck than the one waiting for me?’
    O’Keefe smiled. ‘Because you are perceptive, Mr Smith,’ he said, and left the room to make the necessary arrangements.

THIRTEEN
    Seemed the hunch paid off. Not that he had ever doubted it, but Arkansas had a feeling of incredible fortitude as he pulled the sorrel into the bushes that grew the