GUN TROUBLE AT DIAMONDBACK (Bear Haskell, U.S. Marshal Book 1)

by Peter Brandvold

  “Ohh!” she said, throatily.

  He slid his finger farther inside her. “Oh!” she said again, lifting her rump a little to meet his hand. She panted, quivered, as he slid his finger deeper, deeper.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, swallowing, rolling onto her belly and shoving her butt up closer against him, causing his finger to go in even deeper. “Oh, yes ... god, that feels good!”

  “You like that?” he said tightly, anger mixing with the lust she’d ignited inside him.

  “Yes,” she said, and swallowed again, breathing hard. She turned her head to one side, glancing at him over her shoulder. “But you know what would feel even better, Bear?”

  “What’s that, Suellen?”

  “Your big cock!”

  Haskell heaved himself to his feet. “I got just what the doctor ordered, Suellen!”

  He unbuttoned his pants, shoved them down to his ankles. He opened his fly, pulled out his jutting dong. She looked up at him, her mouth forming a perfect dark ‘O’ in the amber-tinted shadows there by the fire. Her eyes glinted amber.

  Haskell dropped to his knees.

  “Oh,” she wheezed, looking at him. “Oh, oh, god!”

  He wrapped his right arm around her belly, drew her up taut against him. He brusquely spread her legs with his knees and then drew her back toward his hips. The pink folds of her pussy opened. He slid his cock inside.

  Deeper ...

  Deeper ... her love honey closing around him, the walls of her cunt grabbing him tightly, like a fist clenched in desperation.

  “Ohhh!” Suellen said, facing the ground now, propped on her forearms. “Oh, fuck me, Bear. Fuck me!”

  Haskell rammed himself against her hard, building to a violent crescendo. Suellen tossed her head like a mare being studded, thrashing wildly against his thrusts.

  He spent himself and released her. She dropped forward against the ground, mewling.

  Haskell stumbled off to relieve himself then returned to his blankets. Suellen remained as he’d left her, belly down, back rising and falling as she breathed.

  “Thank you, Bear,” she said.

  “Go to sleep, Suellen.”

  Haskell rolled over and went to sleep.

  ~*~

  Haskell rose early the next morning, pulled on his boots, and built up the fire. He worked quietly, letting Suellen sleep. He brewed a pot of coffee and then squatted by the low flames, watching her in the gray dawn light, sleeping soundly beneath her blanket.

  She’d gotten up to clean herself at the springs, but then she’d come back to bed, and he didn’t think she’d stirred once all night long. She slept now on her belly, face turned toward him. A faint, almost celestial smile curved her perfect mouth.

  “She’s a woman who needs to be needed,” he told himself.

  Last night, that man was him. Who would it be once he was gone? She was alone now. She wasn’t a woman who could live alone. Yet, she was too much woman for just one man ...

  A thought pricked at Haskell. He realized that it had been nibbling away at the edges of his consciousness for a while now, ever since he’d had supper at Suellen’s place two nights ago.

  Had Lou become a sour alcoholic because of Bear and Suellen’s betrayal?

  Lou might have outwardly forgiven them, because he hadn’t had much choice aside from losing his best friend and the only woman he’d ever loved. But had he forgiven them deep down inside himself. Or, even more, had he forgiven himself for not being man enough to keep her happy? Despite the fact that such a task was likely impossible ...

  “Ah, Christ,” Haskell said, tossing his coffee grounds on the fire.

  They sputtered and popped, steaming.

  Suellen lifted her head with a start, slitting her eyes and looking around through the fog of lingering sleep.

  “What’s ... what’s happening?” she said.

  “Time to get up. Gather your gear. I’ll be pulling out.”

  She moaned, shivered inside her blankets. “Come back to me, Bear. I’m cold!”

  “I’ll be pulling out in ten minutes. Get up, have a cup of coffee, and gather your gear.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve hitched your horse to your buggy.”

  “Oh, phooey on you!” She smiled at him through the tangled mess of her hair. But even just waking up, she was sexy as all hell. “How do you feel?”

  Haskell filled a coffee cup from his steaming pot. “I fucked my best friend’s wife. A second time. And I enjoyed it. How do you suppose I feel?”

  He walked over and handed her the smoking cup. She beamed up at him. “You just admitted to me that you enjoyed it.”

  Haskell wasn’t sure why, but he felt tender toward her. Maybe because she was alone now, and seemed more pathetic because of it. Maybe because his feelings for her had grown in some way since last night, despite the rough way he’d taken her. He’d wanted to punish her for attracting him so keenly. He couldn’t hold a grudge against her anymore, however, though he wished he could.

  He wrapped an arm around her, pressed his lips to her forehead. “How could I not have enjoyed it?” he said.

  She smiled, hiked her shoulders like a happy schoolgirl, and, holding her cup in both hands, tilted it to her lips.

  Haskell studied her. “What are you going to do, Suellen? Now that he’s dead?”

  Instantly, her happiness was gone. She pouted over the rim of her cup, staring off. The chill morning breeze toyed with her hair. “I don’t know,” she said in a little-girl, faraway voice. “I don’t know what’s going to become of me. Lou left very little money. All I have is the house, Rufus, and the buggy.”

  Haskell rose and picked up his saddle. He was stiff and sore, but his throat felt better. Everything would feel better once he caught up to Lou’s killer as well as to Krantz, though they might be one and the same. Krantz, Willie, and the others ...

  “I’m gonna saddle my horse,” he said. “Then I’m pulling out.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “After Lou’s killer,” he said over his shoulder as he walked out to where the buckskin grazed near Suellen’s cream, both horses’ coats coloring now as the sun broke loose from the eastern horizon, chasing shadows while casting a dark-orange glow across the chalky hogbacks.

  Fifteen minutes later, he watched her ride away in her buggy, heading southeast, following an old, shaggy, two-track trail back in the direction of Diamondback. Haskell wondered about her again, how she’d end up, deciding that if anyone could take care of herself, that person was the former Suellen Treadwell. She’d catch the eye of a wealthy rancher in the area, if she hadn’t already, and setup housekeeping in a house similar to the one she’d been raised in.

  Returning his attention to the task at hand, he rode around the burned out ranchstead, crossed the wash with its trickle of murmuring water, and swung down from his saddle. He dropped to a knee and studied the boot print he’d seen yesterday, tracing it with his gloved index finger. He turned to the grave and studied the stones tracing the heart. He plucked the hide sack from his shirt pocket, bounced it in his palm, felt the ring inside, then dropped the sack back into his pocket.

  Pondering, he stepped back into the saddle, crossed the second, shallower wash, and climbed the opposite ridge behind which the shooter had fired on him.

  He looked around carefully until he found the tracks of the shooter’s horse, and followed them. As he rode, the sun climbed and the day warmed. Birds darted through the air around him. He’d started out wearing his buckskin jacket, but by mid-morning he’d shed the jacket, wrapping it around his bedroll, and rolled up the sleeves of his calico shirt.

  The ambusher’s trail wasn’t hard to follow. This sandy country held a track just fine, and the rider had done nothing to cover them. Haskell followed the prints straight south, up and over the low hills and between haystack buttes, up and over the shoulder of the last ridge. He stopped near the ridge crest, near a crumbling escarpment of eroded limestone, and stared down at D
iamondback spread out below him, near the base of the ridge.

  The town ran from right to left, east to west. The business buildings with their high facades stood at the heart of it, roughly a hundred yards long. The board-and-batten buildings all needed the fresh paint they’d likely never receive. Miss Yvette’s sporting parlor stood out from the shabbiness, like a large, gaudily painted jungle bird.

  Haskell could see Lou and Suellen’s house on the town’s far side, at the southeast corner, beyond some brush and willows and near the wash that angled like a lazy snake along the town’s southern edge.

  Somewhere in the town, a dog barked. There was the regular, ringing clang of a blacksmith’s hammer on an iron anvil. A slow, sporadic stream of traffic made its way along the town’s main street—the occasional horsebackers passing by ones and twos, now and then a farm or ranch wagon, maybe with a couple of dusty, bored-looking kids in the back with a dog or a crate of chickens to sell.

  The breeze churned up the ash-like dust along the ridge, swirled it, let it drop. The sun beat down out of a near-cloudless sky. Haskell sweated but the dry air sucked it off him before it could soak his shirt.

  He was staring down at a banal scene. From this vantage, you wouldn’t have a clue about the secrets being housed down there.

  Haskell looked at the tracks trailing down away from him. They angled across the slope from left to right.

  He clucked to the buckskin, and dropped down off the ridge. The tracks led past an old windmill and stone stock tank, a small cabin—probably one of the original shacks—falling in on itself. The tracks brought him up to a small barn and corral flanking Bennett’s mercantile.

  Haskell reined up in front of the corral.

  Three horses milled inside, lifting dust as they clomped around. One was a black and white pinto. The horse stared at Haskell, curiously twitching its ears while munching hay. A cawing sound rose so sharply and suddenly that Haskell jerked with a slight start, beginning to slide his hand to his Schofield.

  Then he saw the crow glaring at him through small, muddy eyes from its perch on the corral’s far corner. The ragged beast had a small piece of viscera caught on its beak. It lifted its head, trying to eat the stringy gut. The crow got sidetracked again, turned back to Haskell, and gave another loud, ratcheting caw, as though it feared the interloper were after its morsel.

  A wooden scrape sounded.

  Haskell turned toward the mercantile just as the back door opened and Bernadine Bennett appeared in an apron over a checked gingham dress, a broom in her hand. She swept a pile of dirt out the door, dust rising around her blonde head. She glanced toward Haskell, turned back to her work, then snapped her head back toward the lawman with a startled gasp.

  She stopped sweeping and stared at him, her mouth slightly open, blue eyes wide.

  Haskell held her gaze for nearly thirty seconds before he said, “You’re a good shot, Miss Bennett. Too damn good. But then again, not quite good enough.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bernadine Bennett just stared at Bear, her eyes growing larger, brighter.

  Haskell plucked the sack out of his shirt pocket, let it dangle by its drawstring. “I found this.”

  Bernadette cupped a hand to her mouth and convulsed with a violent sob.

  Boots thumped behind her.

  “What is it?” a brusque voice said.

  Zach Bennett appeared in the doorway behind her, scowling out above her head, shading his squinting eyes with his hand. His pugnacious gaze found Haskell. He grabbed Bernadine’s arm and pulled her back into the hallway behind him.

  “Get inside!”

  Sobbing, Bernadine retreated, her hand still clamped over her mouth.

  Bennett stepped down onto a small wooden stoop, scowling.

  “Did you do it?” Haskell said.

  “Get out of here!” Bennett shouted, face flushed with fury, a thin lock of hair dangling over his left eye.

  “Because of this?” Haskell held up the bag again. “Because you didn’t think it was right—two girls that close? Maybe falling in love?”

  “I told you to get the fuck out of here!” Bennett shouted, lunging forward and shaking his tight fist.

  “It happens, Bennett,” Haskell said. “It happens all the time. There’s nothing wrong with it. That girl, Clara Lomax—she didn’t deserve to die because of it.”

  “If you don’t leave, I’ll get my boys and my shotgun, and we’ll blow you out of that saddle!”

  “I’m gonna head over to Lou Cameron’s office. I’m gonna wait there until I’ve gotten the whole story. I wanna know how Lou’s death plays into it. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve been educated, so you’d best get used to the idea.”

  Haskell clucked to his horse and started forward, heading for a break between the mercantile and a barber shop beside it. “The sooner I’ve gotten that story, and have the killers behind bars, the sooner I’ll leave.”

  He pinched his hat brim to the glaring Bennett, and rode on through the break and out onto the main street. He stopped and looked to his right. Big Deal was walking toward him from about a block away, on the street’s north side. Big Deal gave Haskell a slow, curious wave then swung off the boardwalk to climb the steps of the mercantile’s loading dock. The younker kept his gaze on Haskell then slowly, reluctantly turned away as he pushed through the mercantile’s front door, causing the cow bell to jangle.

  Haskell turned the buckskin left to trot eastward along the main, mostly deserted thoroughfare. Again, he felt eyes on him, glimpsed gray faces studying him from behind dusty shop windows. He paid a boy loafing around near the jailhouse a quarter to see to the buckskin’s tending, then, as the towhead led the buckskin toward the livery barn, he shouldered his Henry and pushed into the town marshal’s office.

  He pegged his hat in frustration, set his rifle on Cameron’s desk, and slacked into the swivel chair behind it. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on the desk, and raked his hands through his hair.

  This had gotten ugly. Damned ugly. And he still didn’t know who had killed Cameron.

  He got up, opened the door, and looked up the street toward the mercantile. Suddenly, the street was deserted. No movement whatever except a single dust devil spinning near the town’s opposite side. No sounds except for birds and the breeze. The town could have been abandoned. Haskell could see CLOSED signs hanging in several near shop windows.

  He looked around carefully, the hair at the back of his neck prickling.

  Where was Big Deal? Still inside the mercantile?

  Or ... ?

  Haskell grabbed his Henry off the desk. He walked to the rear door, opened it, and stared out.

  All was quiet out back. Too quiet. Cameron’s blood still shone in a couple of grisly brown patches in the brush along the trail leading to the privy.

  The privy.

  Haskell followed the path, looking around carefully, then opened the privy door and stepped inside. He pulled the door closed. The bottom of the door raked against the floor’s warped boards. He leaned the Henry against the wall then stood over the hole but did not unbutton his fly.

  He stared through the cracks between the wallboards.

  Outside, shrub branches fluttered and bobbed in the breeze. He could smell the tang of hot cedar. A cicada buzzed. The heat inside the privy was close and oppressive, compounding the stench wafting up from the hole.

  Haskell heard something. He turned to peer through a crack in the wall near the corner to his right. A shadow moved. A gun barked. Haskell jerked with a start. The bullet ripped into the wall before him, the bullet slicing inches past him on his left to thud into the wall behind him.

  The Schofield was instantly in his hand. He fired once, twice, three times, the roars deafening in the close quarters.

  Three ragged holes appeared in the wall before him, waist-high.

  Outside, a groan. The sound of a body hitting the ground.

  Haskell shouldered through the door and ran out, loo
king around for more bushwhackers. There was only one, it appeared. Holding his smoking Schofield up high and ready, the hammer cocked, Bear walked over and looked down at the young man thrashing on the ground.

  “Big Deal ... ”

  The young man rolled from side to side, yelling. Two of Haskell’s bullets had caught him nearly dead center. “Bastard!” he cried. “Oh, you bastard. Look what you done?”

  Haskell dropped to a knee beside him. “Why, goddamnit? Why’d you kill Cameron?”

  “Had to,” Big Deal said. “I had to, ya understand. He woulda hurt somebody ... somebody I was close to. Besides, he was a mean son of a bitch. He slapped me. Hard! Over and over! He was crazy from drink!”

  “Why’d he slap you?”

  “He knew I knew who done it.”

  “Done what?”

  Big Deal lay still. He stared straight up at Haskell. His body was relaxing, and his eyes were going flat. “Killed them two folks—Miss Clara and her pa. Burned their ranch.”

  “Big Deal!”

  Running footsteps rose in the west. Haskell looked up to see Bernadine Bennett running toward them. She covered her mouth with her hand, dropped to a knee beside Haskell, and stared down at Big Deal, clutching the young man’s arm.

  “Big Deal—no!”

  Big Deal rolled his eyes to her, swallowed. “You best leave here, Miss Bernadine. You don’t need to see this.”

  “Oh, Big Deal—I told you not to try it. I told you what he did to my brothers!”

  “I ... I had to try. To give you some peace.” Big Deal’s eyes rolled back to Haskell. “He’s a smart one. Cagey sumbitch. He woulda figured it.” Turning back to the sobbing Bernadine, he said, “I’m sorry, Miss Bernadine. So ... so sorry.”

  Big Deal gave a long, slow sigh, and then the light left his eyes. They rolled upwards. He lay still.

  Bernadine sobbed into her hands.

  Haskell rose. “Tell me what happened, Miss Bennett. Did your father and brothers kill Bliss Lomax and his daughter? Did they kill them because ... because of what you and Miss Clara meant to each other? Is that why Big Deal killed Cameron? To protect your family?”