Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{Longarm nodded. He understood those reasons quite as well as Marshal Vail did. Snowshoe was a mining camp in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, not terribly far from the Ute reservation. Logically any relevant petitions would have been filed with a federal court in Denver, closest to the scene, so to speak. But it hadn’t been very long ago when the Ute nation had rebelled against their agent. There had been a massacre of whites at the agency headquarters at the time. Other whites unlucky enough to be there on the wrong day had been beaten, and several women raped but not killed. Before it was all over troops had had to be rushed in, and a pitched battle had been fought. The army had won the fight, but there’d been casualties on both sides of the conflict. Feelings still ran high about that in Colorado, and trigger fingers were still somewhat shaky. Any judge in Colorado would’ve known about that. And if the guy was worried about his own political future, he might’ve been plenty reluctant to follow Judge Dundy’s example from Nebraska and allow a habeas corpus release for the Utes regardless of guilt or innocence.}

_{“Lawyer Able ain’t stupid,” Longarm observed.}

_{“No, he isn’t.”}

_{“So now I go down t’ Snowshoe and spring these Utes outta the local calaboose, is that it?”}

_{“That would seem to be it, yes.”}

_{Longarm grinned. “Lawyer Able might be smart. But he sure ain’t shy about making me the most unpopular son of a bitch in Snowshoe, Colorado, is he?”}

_{“If it makes you feel any better, Longarm, you can cling to this thought. It’s only the whites who might want to shoot you in the back. The Utes will still think you’re a swell fellow.”}

_{“Yeah, that does make me feel a whole heap better, Billy. Thanks for the encouragement.” He grinned and tossed off the rye that he hadn’t gotten around to tasting yet.}

_{“Giving aid and comfort to my deputies is what I’m here for, Longarm,” Billy said dryly.}

_{“We always figured there had t’ be some reason. Nice t’ know what it is at long last.”}

_{“Henry can arrange for your expense vouchers, Longarm. Do I need to mention that the quicker you handle this one the better it will be for everyone?”}

_{“Believe me, Billy, the quicker I can get in there and hurry the hell back out the happier I’ll be too. I don’t wanta set myself up as a target any longer’n I have to.”}

_{“And do watch your backside, Longarm. The paperwork is just murder when a federal employee dies on the job. I haven’t got time for it.”}

_{“Your concern is touching, Boss.”}