by Tabor Evans
Back in Denver, Billy would still be thinking that Longarm was somewhere on the trail. Bringing Gray in for trial. Overdue but somewhere out there.
And Gray. What had become of him while Longarm was laid up here as Nicole whatever-her-name-was’s playtoy?
But he definitely had felt an itch somewhere low on his body.
He had never before felt so gloriously wonderful about as simple a thing as an itch, but this one made him feel like rejoicing.
If he had breath enough, he would break out in song. Something good and bawdy. Something loud and happy.
Custis Long chuckled.
And hoped to feel another itch.
Nic finished her bowl of slop and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I’m going to work now, but don’t you worry. I’ll be back this evening, and we’ll have us a fine old time.”
The thought made her laugh. It made Longarm cringe. The woman was insatiable. On the other hand, she had saved his life by bringing him back here and feeding him.
“I’ll clean you up when I get home, honey. You’ve shit yourself again. I can smell it.”
He could smell it, too. The heavy stink humiliated him almost as much as his immobility did.
But he had felt an itch, an actual, honest-to-goodness itch, and under the circumstances that seemed quite the grand triumph, for where there was an itch there might well be other feeling.
For the first time in days, Custis Long had hope.
Chapter 5
The itch. That damned, miserable itch was back with a vengeance. It was driving him crazy. It was everywhere. Intense and all consuming.
Then, worse, the itch turned to a tingle. Then a burning sensation over every surface on his body.
Longarm cried out aloud, hoping Nic was not close enough to hear. The tingle was just short of being severe pain, and there was nothing he could do to stop it or even to make is lessen.
But he rejoiced in the pain of it because it meant he was feeling.
Feeling, even feeling pain, was far better than feeling nothing.
His body was coming back from the shock to his spine that the assassin’s bullet had caused.
While he lay immobile on Nic’s bunk he had more than enough time to think. He had to conclude that the rifleman, whoever he was, shot Longarm so as to free Al Gray and that he likely believed Longarm was dead. Damn near had been, actually. A quarter-inch difference in the placement of that bullet and he would indeed be dead now.
It was pure luck that he survived, and a man in his line of work could not count on luck.
Longarm craned his neck to look at his bare feet. His whole body felt like it was on fire, but he twitched one big, hairy toe.
And grinned.
He had actually moved that toe.
He did it again and the grin got wider.
He moved a toe on the other foot, then lay back, exhausted by the simple act of holding his head up that long.
Longarm had to admit that he was not in the best of shape after nearly a week flat on his back and with nothing but a few spoonfuls of broth to sustain him.
But by damn he was on his way back. Feeling was returning to his body. He was able to move his toes. With effort and concentration he was able to move a finger as well. And then his hand.
It occurred to him that Nicole was guilty of false imprisonment. And of a federal officer at that.
If he wished, he could arrest her for that and she probably knew it. She was a rough old bat but not stupid. The woman might not want to lose her toy. Might not want him to recover.
Sweating now, Longarm steeled himself against an impulse to move his limbs lest he give himself away. The itching fires that covered his flesh raged, and he could do nothing to stop them.
But, oh, he was able to feel again.
He gritted his teeth to avoid crying out and waited, waited for full movement to return, waited for Nic to return.
Chapter 6
He waited until she had gone out, then got up, found his clothes, and got dressed for the first time in a week. He felt much better when he had boots and clothing and, even more importantly, his double-action, .45-caliber Colt belted around his waist.
It occurred to him now to wonder what had happened to the horse he was riding when the bullet struck Longarm and Alton Gray was a free man again.
Temporarily free, Longarm growled silently to himself. He had been sent to bring Gray back to Denver for trial. And likely for hanging. Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long fully intended to do exactly that, never mind that Gray was no longer in his custody.
Longarm had been sent to do a job, and he was going to do it or some son of a bitch was going to die.
Better, he thought, that that son of a bitch be Al Gray or the unseen rifleman than that it be Longarm himself, but the thought of coming up against the rifleman again was not going to deter him. If anything it made him all the more eager. Whoever the bastard was, Longarm wanted a crack at him.
Longarm would take them both in to face the law, Gray and the rifleman, if he could. But if he could not take them in then he intended to take them down. Their choice how that worked out.
He stood, more than a little weak after a week in bed, and swayed from side to side.
Before he could go looking for Gray, he needed something to eat.
He opened the stove door and built up the fire in Nicole’s tiny cabin, then rummaged through her things looking for something to eat.
Chapter 7
“What are you doing out of bed?” Nicole gasped when she returned home that evening. “You . . . why didn’t you tell me? How long have you been, uh, how long have you been able to get up like this?”
Longarm ignored the questions and said, “I took some o’ your food. Don’t feel bad about doin’ it since you’ve robbed me of all my money. Now I want it back, all except for a dollar, which oughta cover the cost of the few bites o’ grub I’ve et this afternoon. And mind you, I know how much I had there so don’t try an’ short me.” In fact he had no idea how much had been in his pockets the day he transported Al Gray. But Nic did not know that.
The burly woman—Longarm had known stevedores who would have envied Nicole’s biceps—reluctantly dug a purse out of a pile of rags and opened it. She seemed surprised. “It’s all there. You didn’t take anything.”
“I’m no thief,” Longarm said. “I coulda found your poke but I had no interest in it. Now give me back what’s mine.”
“I deserve something for my trouble,” Nic whined.
“Yes, an’ you already got it. You took it when I couldn’t resist nor do for myself. That’s true enough. We both of us came out ahead on the deal,” Longarm said. “Me with healing, you with, well, you with what you took from me.”
The woman, he thought, had about the ugliest pussy he ever saw. And about the strongest appetite to use it. He remembered her expression as she pumped her ass up and down on his cock. That had been pretty ugly, too. All in all, his experience here was not one he would remember with any sort of fondness.
“What happened to my horse?” he asked. “And my hat?”
“I don’t know. I never saw no horse. When I found you, you was laying there sprawled out on the grass. There was no horse. Some tracks, but no horse. No hat neither, at least none that I noticed.”
Longarm grunted. He was not surprised. Likely Al Gray took the animal with him when he rode away. If not that, then the untended horse simply strayed, maybe heading back to its home or maybe simply wandering from grass clump to grass clump until it was impossibly far away.
It was on loan from the Army Remount Service, and Lord knew where it originally came from.
Losing the horse was only a minor annoyance. But, damnit, he had liked that saddle. He regretted that loss and that of his nearly new flat-crowned brown Stetson.
“You owe m
e,” Nic said. “I gave up my bed and slept on the floor so’s you could heal proper.”
“You used me for a toy,” Longarm accused. “I owe you nothing.”
“Where are you going?” Nic asked. “Don’t you know it’s evening already? Won’t you stay one more night?”
“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Longarm snapped back at her.
“At least stay and eat with me. We could . . . one more time?”
Longarm ducked his head to get through the door on his way out.
Chapter 8
Longarm’s feet hurt like a son of a bitch. He was not sure of the distance from Nicole’s mine to Crowell City—some called it Cruel City because of the heartbreak of failed mines in the surrounding hills—but he guessed it to be at least twenty miles and possibly more.
The thing he knew for certain was that it was too damn far. By the time he limped into town he had worn a hole completely through the sole of his right boot and the left one felt paper thin. He could feel every pebble through the worn leather.
It was nearly dawn when he reached the town. Chickens and dogs were awake but not much else.
Longarm spotted the yellow glow of lamplight coming from a storefront in the next block and headed for it.
It was funny, he noticed—funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha—but he had been comfortable enough while he was on the trail hiking in. Now that he had arrived he felt like his feet were close to falling off. And he was so tired he just wanted to lie down somewhere, anywhere, and get some rest.
Funny, too, he mused, but he had been doing nothing but resting for the past week. Now he wanted more of it.
He limped on to the lamplight and found it was coming from a café window. The door was latched, but a little tapping on the glass brought the proprietor to open it a crack.
“We’re closed, mister. Come back in an hour.”
“Look, I don’t want t’ cause you no trouble, but I been walking all night. My feet hurt an’ I’m hungry an’ I’m thirsty and those stools by your counter are lookin’ awful good to me about now,” Longarm said past the crack in the door.
The fellow smiled and shrugged and pulled the door open. “Come in then. The coffee’s about ready. I’ll get you a cup.”
The place seemed to be run by a couple, the man shaggy and his woman worn down before her time. Longarm guessed they were both in their thirties, but the woman looked a good ten years older than her man. She wore an apron and a white cap with flyaway strands of hair poking in all directions from beneath it.
The man immediately poured a cup of steaming coffee and set it in front of Longarm. Only then did he mention, “I got to ask you, mister. Can you pay for your meal? I mean, coffee is one thing. A hot meal is another. If you know what I mean.”
“No offense,” Longarm said. “I can pay.” He pulled a dollar out of his pocket and placed it on the counter.
The café man grunted, turned to his wife, and said something that Longarm could not hear. To Longarm then he said, “Breakfast will be up in a couple minutes.”
The pair were as good as their word—well, the man’s word, anyway—and quickly laid a spread in front of the dusty traveler. Hotcakes, ham, sorghum syrup, and a dollop of sticky oatmeal, too.
Longarm felt a hell of a lot better once he had that meal in his belly. It gave his gut the feel of a nice, warm glow.
“Thanks, friend.” He smiled. “Any idea where I can find a cobbler in this fine community?”
“Glenn isn’t a cobbler exactly. More like a saddle maker. But he fixes boots when need be,” the café man said.
“An’ where would I find this gentleman?”
The café owner gave directions while he made change out of Longarm’s dollar. “’Tisn’t far,” he concluded.
“And a good thing that it isn’t,” Longarm agreed, thinking of his aching feet.
Chapter 9
Longarm sat at the café counter sipping coffee until well past daybreak until the proprietor mentioned that the saddle maker should have opened his shop for the day.
“Tell Glenn that I sent you,” he said.
“Glad to,” Longarm told him. “An’ you would be . . . ?”
“Buck Walters. Me and my missus run this place.” Walters stuck his hand out to shake, and Longarm gave his name. But not his line of work. “My pleasure, Mr. Walters”—a statement of plain fact. His feet still hurt but not nearly as much as when he came in.
Longarm bobbed his head toward Mrs. Walters and touched his forehead in silent salute, then headed down the street and around a corner to find Glenn Farley’s saddle shop.
The shop smelled of leather and neatsfoot oil. Farley, a slender man still young but with a body that was twisted and bent, was leaning over a workbench when Longarm came in.
“What can I do for you today?” he asked.
“Buck Walters said you might be able to do me some good.” Longarm grinned. “I seem to’ve worn holes in the soles o’ my boots. I like the boots, but I could do without the ventilation in ’em.”
Farley nodded. “I can fix that. Do you want new soles or do you want I should do it cheap and just lay a little leather over top?”
“New would be better, I think.”
“Yes, but it would cost a dollar a boot. You could get by for half that if you want,” Farley said.
“Let’s do it right then.” Longarm sat on a small bench at the front of the shop and pulled his boots off. The cool air felt good on his feet. He wiggled his toes a bit and handed the boots across to Farley.
“Easy job,” Farley said, looking at the boots. “If you don’t want to walk around barefoot, I have some old carpet slippers here you can use while I have your boots on my bench.”
“That’s mighty kind o’ you. I’ll take them and gladly.”
They made the exchange, Farley keeping the boots and Longarm sliding his feet into the oversized but soft and comfortable slippers.
“How long?” he asked.
“They’ll be good as new tomorrow afternoon,” Farley said.
Longarm had hoped for the work to be done by afternoon, but he was not complaining. He was happy that he could get the work done at all.
And while he was stuck in Crowell City he could ask around and perhaps get a line on where he might find Alton Gray and the son of a bitch who shot him.
Chapter 10
It felt strange to be walking on the town streets wearing carpet slippers instead of his boots. The slippers were soft enough, but the soles were thin and he could feel every pebble and dirt clod that he stepped on.
He found a small hotel that looked clean and went inside. The clerk looked up from a book he was reading and grunted a welcome. “How long will you be here?” he asked.
“Just tonight, I think,” Longarm said.
The clerk eyed him suspiciously. “No luggage?”
Longarm shook his head. “My horse ran off with everything I was carrying.”
“Tough luck.”
“Tell me about it,” Longarm responded. He accepted the key to room number four and went upstairs to take a look at it, then back down to tend to some things while he waited on the boots.
First up was a visit to a barbershop for a shave and a bath.
“Know a man name of Al Gray?” he asked the barber.
“No, sir. No one by that name that I can think of,” the barber said.
Longarm described Gray but got no better result. He thoroughly enjoyed the bath and the shave, though, and felt considerably better when he walked out of the barbershop than he had when he walked in.
From the barber’s he walked down the street to a fairly large mercantile where he bought a shirt, drawers, and socks. The ones he was wearing were becoming ripe. It seemed a shame that Nicole had not washed his things when she had them off.
More importantly he b
ought himself a hat. The store did not have the snuff-brown model that he favored so he made do with a dove-gray Stetson with a stockman crease. The new hat felt a little strange on his head, but he knew he would soon enough get used to it.
He carried his purchases back to the hotel and put them on, dropping his dirty clothes on the floor.
“Do you do laundry?” he asked downstairs.
“No, but we got a girl comes in every afternoon to collect whatever we have going out, brings it back clean and folded the next morning. If you want something ironed that takes another day. You got something going out?”
“Yes, sir. Up in my room.”
“Mind if she goes in there to get it?”
“Not at all. Just give her the key. It’s obvious what needs t’ be washed.”
“It will be ready for you tomorrow, probably late in the morning,” the hotel clerk said.
“I thank you, sir. Now where can a man find a drink in this town?” Longarm asked.
The gent gave him directions and Longarm, feeling much better than he had just a little while earlier, headed in that direction.
Chapter 11
“Rye,” Longarm said. “The best you have on the shelf there, if you please.”
The barman nodded and collected Longarm’s quarter without returning any change. He poured a generous measure, though, and the whiskey was excellent. Smooth and pleasant and warm in the belly. Longarm downed the first drink in a hurry, then relaxed a bit and looked around.
He was one of only three customers in the place. It was dark and smelled of spirits and cigar smoke. There was a billiards table in the back and two tables where a man might lay out a game of cards. A tall, narrow table off to the side suggested there might be someone dealing faro but not at this forenoon hour.
One of the other early drinkers took a look, then a second. And then he laughed.
