Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Lies. Every stinking bit of it lies. And they all three of them knew that it was all lies. Yet the bastard stood right there and looked them in the eyes with his own bare face hanging out and lied some more.}

_{This was crazy, Longarm thought. Crazy as hell.}

_{The really sad part of it was that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it either.}

_{Even if he could prove that every word in that newspaper story was a lie—and he sure oughta be able to prove that— he still couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. Because for some stupid reason nobody’d ever gotten around to making it illegal for a man to tell a lie. Not even in print. And}

_{wasn’t that a damned shame, Longarm thought bitterly to himself.}

_{He took a few last puffs on his cheroot and blew smoke in the direction of Ellis Farmer, then dropped the partially finished cigar onto the stone flooring and ground it out under his boot. With any kind of luck the smell of it lying there would piss Farmer off.}

_{Longarm stomped out without bothering to tell the bastard good-bye or looking back to see if Aggie was following.}

_{Chapter 25}

_{Aggie was pale and, for the first time, seemed genuinely worried. ‘They could be killed, couldn’t they?”}

_{“The Utes?”}

_{She nodded.}

_{“Ayuh,” Longarm agreed. “They could be. Just as bad, there could be others killed too. Other Indians killed if that article stirs people up too bad. Whites killed if the Indians retaliate. Something like this can run a long, ugly time if it once gets up a head o’ steam, Aggie.”}

_{“I hadn’t thought that. .. until now, Longarm, I’ve been regarding this whole thing as a game. A way I could show off and impress the people of Snowshoe. Oh, I’ve honestly wanted justice for my clients. But I hadn’t ever thought that this, any of it, could be so deadly serious. But it is serious. It really is.”}

_{“Uh, huh.”}

_{“We need to find Chief Bevvy, don’t we?”}

_{“Him or somebody else. The mayor, judge, some-damn- body. We need to get this writ served, or at the very least get those Utes released from wherever they’re being held. Gotta get them the hell outta these mountains for a spell, an’ the quicker the better.”}

_{“Come with me,” Aggie said abruptly. She turned and hurried away, Longarm trailing close at her heels.}

_{The lady lawyer took him off the main street to a maze of narrow alleys that seemed to be passing as streets, with shacks crudely fashioned from packing crate slats pressed}