Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Never mind that these particular Ute Indians had the same rights as anybody else. Never mind that anybody, including an Indian, should be treated as innocent until guilty. Never mind, even, that there hadn’t been any crimes committed yet for anybody to be guilty of.}

_{What it came right down to was that there were Utes in the vicinity and the white settlers were scared of ’em. That was the bare-bones truth of it.}

_{And if Custis Long wanted to come in there and set the Utes loose in that community, the townspeople would see it as him coming in there and giving a bunch of Indians permission to run wild.}

_{Longarm understood all that.}

_{He also understood that understanding the problem wasn’t going to make him a lick more comfortable tonight when he was wanting a hot bath and a soft bed to help him over the aches and pains of getting there.}

_{“Next timer Longarm said curtly, picking up his lodging voucher and shoving it back into a coat pocket.}

_{Dammit anyhow.}

_{He turned and stalked the hell out of there in search of somewhere else he might be able to secure a room and a meal.}

_{Chapter 13}

_{This was getting kinda serious. There were two hotels in Snowshoe and seven boardinghouses and no telling how many privately owned homes where a paying guest might be welcomed. Normally welcomed, that is. So far Longarm hadn’t found any sort of place that would rent him a room.}

_{Not that he had tried all of them exactly. But he had tried both hotels and three of the boardinghouses without success.}

_{After the first couple of rejections he’d gotten wise that it wasn’t going to help any if he flopped out a government payment voucher for his stay, and had resigned himself to paying cash out of pocket and then fighting it out with Henry and Billy Vail about reimbursement.}

_{By then, dammit, even that hadn’t been possible. By then the word was around, complete with description: That sonuvabitch marshal’s in town, boys. Don’t nobody lift a finger to help him. And in particular don’t nobody give him a room where he can rest his weary ass.}

_{Not that Longarm was privy to the exact language of the warnings that were circulating. But he was willing to believe it was that or something close enough that the differences didn’t matter.}

_{The point was, he was already a marked man in Snowshoe, and an unwelcome one, and he wasn’t real likely to find things pleasant there now that the word was out.}