by Jake Logan
But although Lily was a woman of great restraint when necessary—and a consummate actress, at least when she was singing, or when she was working a mark—she realized there was one thing—one man—she couldn’t resist. And that man saw through her as clearly as if she were made of glass.
Maybe that was the source of her attraction.
Or, she thought with a little shrug, maybe it was just lust, plain and simple.
A shiver of desire passed through her, and she stood on shaking legs. Damn it, anyway! Should or shouldn’t? It didn’t make any difference.
She went to her bureau and pulled the pins from her hair, brushing it until it hung down over her shoulders and cascaded down her back like soft, red waves. Quickly, she took off her dress, laid it out carefully, and then went to work on her underthings.
When she was finished, she donned a frothy negligee, a soft baby blue one that she knew set off her hair and eyes. And that she’d been saving for her wedding night with David.
Well, he’d just have to take seconds, that was all. In fact, she hadn’t given him a thought since she started stripping the pins from her hair.
Her mouth quirked up in a secret smile.
Giving her hair a final brush over her shoulder with her fingers, she opened the door and peered out into the hall.
It was empty, and she smiled.
Softly, she started padding toward Slocum’s room.
At his door, she knocked softly.
No answer.
Brow knitted, she gave a harder rap with her knuckles.
Nothing.
Angrily, she tried the latch.
Locked!
Where the hell was he?
Livid, a frustrated Lily stalked back to her room, where numerous pieces of the management’s brica-brac were about to meet their doom.
Slocum stood in the shadows of an overhang and peered curiously through the bank manager’s office window. The object of his attention was David Chandler, who, by the light of a single desk lamp, seemed to be fiddling with an entry ledger.
And by fiddling, Slocum meant just that. Chandler appeared to be changing entries here and there. Even from the outside, with the glass between them, Slocum could hear him whistling softly. And happily, too, it sounded like.
Slocum figured that he knew what Chandler was up to, but why?
Why would a man steal from his own damn bank?
Did he swipe stuff from the shelves of his mercantile, too, and hide them under his coat, away from the manager’s eyes? It was a puzzlement, that was for sure.
Slocum had been in his hotel room, waiting for Lil, but when Chandler left her at her door, he walked back the other way, toward the stairs, and Slocum determined to follow him. Lily was going to be madder than a bag full of badgers, but it was for her own good.
Not that she’d be appreciative of it right away. In fact, she’d probably lay into him pretty good.
But then, she was at her best when she was mad, wasn’t she?
He smiled, and just then, Chandler blew out the lamp on the desk. Slocum backed farther into the shadows, in case Chandler was suspicious. He’d be able to see outside, now that the light was out.
But he didn’t come to the window. Slocum watched, sidling around the building, as Chandler—or rather the hint of a shadow that was him—walked out into the main bank, then back behind the teller’s cage. He stopped and seemed to be fumbling for something in his pocket. It turned out to be a lucifer.
Chandler struck it, then leaned toward the wall, which Slocum had just realized wasn’t the wall but the face of the safe. By the light of his sulfur tip, Chandler carefully turned the dial this way and that, and then opened the safe door.
It was a big safe, because he walked inside. More like a vault, Slocum thought. And then he thought it was odd that a little town like Poleaxe would have a need for such a thing.
Chandler came out as quickly as he had gone inside. Tucking something into his inside coat pocket, he closed and locked the safe behind him. At least Slocum thought so. Chandler’s match had gone out, and everything was shadows again.
So, just what had he taken out of there? Cash? Paper money?
Maybe he was stealing something out of the safe-deposit boxes, if this hick town had such a thing.
Quietly, Slocum backed around the corner of the building when Chandler’s shadow approached the front door. Whatever he’d been up to in there, he was finished, because he came out on the walk, then locked the door behind him. As he strode back down toward the hotel, Slocum followed him.
But all Chandler did was go up the stairs and supposedly to his room. At least, he walked down to the far end of the hall and entered a door there.
“Shit,” Slocum whispered. He was annoyed. He’d hoped that he’d have some excuse to shoot Chandler, or at least knock him out.
Well, he hadn’t really. Not tonight, anyway, and not in town. Chandler practically owned the place, and doing anything within its limits to so much as muss Chandler’s hair was probably a hanging offense.
He stood in the hall for about twenty minutes—long enough for him to see the fan of light from Chandler’s door suddenly disappear. And only then did he hie himself to Lily’s door.
He rapped.
No answer.
She had a mad on, all right.
The door was locked, but he could deal with that if necessary. Once again, he knocked softly and whispered, “Lil, honey?”
Still, no reply.
Well, he was damn sure going to get something out of this evening! He dug in his pockets until he found what he needed—a couple of short pieces of stiff wire—and inserted them into the lock.
It wasn’t hard to pick, but just as he felt the mechanism give way, the door magically opened.
There stood Lily, arms crossed, foot tapping, nose in the air. “Have you taken up hotel burglary since we last met?” she hissed.
She was pissed, all right. Slocum smiled. “No, just stealing the patrons from their rooms.”
He pulled her out into the hall, picked her up, and carried her down to his room. She struggled, but not too hard. She fought him, but he noticed that she did so in quiet whispers and hisses.
And when he unlocked his door and pushed her into his room, she said, “Oh, you’re maddening! I just hate you sometimes, Slocum!”
And then she threw herself into his arms.
He kissed her, kissed her hard, and at the same time used the arm that wasn’t holding her to him to raise her flimsy gown’s hem, gathering it into his fist like so much gossamer.
And when it was hiked up high enough, he let it fall—but not before he slid his hand to her fanny. The fabric fell down over his fingers, and he squeezed her bare backside.
She wiggled against him and deepened her kiss before she broke it off long enough to say, “Slocum honey, the bed?”
He kept on kissing her while he backed them up toward the waiting mattress, and when they got there, he pulled her down atop him. She straddled him and sat up long enough to pull the nightdress—he thought it was blue, although he had to admit he was more interested in what was under it—over her head and toss it to the floor.
She was as advertised and as he remembered. Her high, round, pink-nippled breasts fit into his hands and spilled over. Her waist was tiny, her hips full, and her legs were long and strong.
Of course, he couldn’t see much of them at the moment. She had already released his aching cock and was bent over, laving the tip with her tongue.
“Have mercy, Lil,” he whispered and pulled her to him.
She came willingly, and when he rolled her onto her back—and rolled on top of her—she already had her legs spread.
With one hand he shoved his britches down and out of the way while he toyed with one breast, then with the other. She was a miracle, his Lil. No wonder he couldn’t stay away.
The tip of his shaft nudged at her moist opening, and she was so wet that he slipped in easily. She let out a long sig
h, as if beyond contentment.
Propping himself on his elbows, he kissed her again and began to move inside her.
It didn’t take her long. Before he had made a dozen thrusts, she arched her back, craned her neck back, and came with a huge clenching of her vaginal muscles and a cry. Which he had the sense to cover with his hand, even though that sudden internal squeeze pushed him over the edge, too.
A moment later, when they had both caught their breaths and could both talk again, she said, “Slocum? You’re a beast.”
He kissed her temple, then grinned at her. “I know it.”
She frowned prettily. “Men. You’re all the cock of the walk, aren’t you?”
“Can’t speak for anybody but myself, darlin’,” he said as he moved to reach for the nightstand.
She watched his hand and grinned. “You bought champagne!”
He pulled it from its bucket, where it had been chilling in precious ice that had cost him more than the bubbly. The bartender said they brought it down from the mountains once a month. He’d been lucky to get it at all, since once it got to Poleaxe, he’d been told, it didn’t last more than two days, even wrapped in cheesecloth, stuck in a Chicago cooler box, and kept in the root cellar.
He popped the cork. “For you, Lil, anything,” he said as he poured out two glasses.
“Then get out of those clothes,” she said as she took her glass. “But first, a toast.”
“What to, this time?” he asked.
She pursed her lips for a second, then said, “Living the good life!”
Considering the source, Slocum figured that the phrase could have meant just about anything, but he clinked his glass against hers and downed it straight-away.
It wasn’t the best champagne he’d ever had, but any champagne was better than none.
While Lil finished her glass, he managed to get his boots kicked off, his shirt and britches and gun belt off, then poured them each a second glass.
Lily, as naked as the day she was born and flushed from the champagne as well as their frenzied lovemaking, leaned back against the pillows.
Christ, she was beautiful!
He already felt a fresh stirring in his loins, and now he had no way to hide it.
Lily looked at his crotch. “My goodness, Slocum,” she said with raised brows. “I’m shocked.”
“I can’t imagine anything shockin’ you, Lily darlin’,” he said. “Except maybe a man who didn’t tumble for you.”
She grinned. “Flatterer.”
He grinned back. “Drink your champagne, wench.”
“You going to ravish me again?”
“Wouldn’t be surprised. Wouldn’t be surprised if I just kept on ravishin’ you till sunup.”
She lay a hand across her throat. “Whatever will I do?”
Slocum chuckled. “Oh,” he said, “you’ll think of somethin’, honey. You always do.”
She brightened. “I do, don’t I?”
Slocum had drained his glass by this time and set it aside. He’d just remembered about Chandler being Felix Hamilton, and about old Red Eye’s murder at Hamiton’s hands. Lil had the most cussed way of distracting a fellow!
He said, “There’s somethin’ we need to talk about, Lil.”
She put her glass down as well. “Oh, Slocum, I think there’s something we need to do first.” She leaned toward him and took his member in her hand.
It seemed the damned thing had a mind of its own, because he was suddenly fully erect again.
“Aw, hell,” he muttered as he pulled her atop him—and right down on his ready cock. “I forgot what it was, anyway.”
Smiling wickedly, she wiggled her hips.
6
Charlie rose before the dawn.
He wasn’t particularly well rested after his night of tossing and turning, and it took him all of two whole hours to finally get himself het up enough to grab a stray hand, put him in charge for the day, then strap on his gun belt and saddle his horse.
He was headed for town. He didn’t exactly know what he’d do once he got there, but he’d decided that he’d go loco if he had to wait out there on that ranch anymore. It was just too much worry, wondering if some little piece of cheap Christmas trash was going to be leading the boss around by his balls.
In fact, he didn’t know who to resent more: David Chandler for buying his ranch and then taking mercy on him and giving him a job, or that strumpet he’d got himself crazy over.
In fact, in Charlie’s mind, this Tiger Lil girl was beginning to take on the facial characteristics and the mannerisms of the little whore Charlie had married himself.
God, he sure hoped to hell that she was dead! He’d aimed to make her that way, anyhow.
He hoped she’d died in misery and pain and that it had lingered a long time, too, and that just before she gave her last gasp, she’d whispered, “I’m sorry, Charlie.”
Not that he would have forgiven her, even then.
Women! he thought with a snort so loud that it startled his horse. Women and girls! If he’d had a daughter, he would have drowned her at birth, just to save some other poor bastard the trouble of killing her later on.
The pretty ones all grew up to be whores, gold diggers, painted hussies—or all three. The ugly ones all turned to Jesus and beat you over the head with a Bible the whole day and night long.
One way or the other, he was going to take care of this damnable business of Tiger Lil.
Although he’d been up since four, Miles Kiefer, Poleaxe’s sheriff, showed up at the jail at eight o’clock in the morning, as usual.
He woke up the night deputy, Josh Childers, by swatting him with his hat. Josh’s boots hit the floor with a bang—as usual—and he said, “Wasn’t sleepin’, Sheriff.”
Also as usual.
Kiefer slipped a cup of lukewarm coffee under his nose, watched him take a sip, then wrinkle his nose. Josh was a good boy, but he still had some growing up to do.
“Keep tellin’ you, Josh. Don’t fall asleep. And don’t let the coffee get cold.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Josh said and rubbed at his eyes, then his cheeks. “Sorry, Miles.”
During this conversation, Sheriff Miles Kiefer had stoked up the stove again and set a fresh pot of coffee on to brew. Not only was Josh’s pot too cool to drink, it probably had tasted like weak tea mixed with horse shit to begin with. He’d have to have a talk with the boy about that.
But not today. Something else was pressing closer to the top of his mind.
“Chair?” he said.
Remembering himself, Josh scrambled to his feet and vacated the chair in back of the desk. “Sorry,” he said and started for the door. “See you tonight.”
“Hold it just a minute, kid,” Miles said and indicated that his deputy should have a seat opposite him. Josh did, although he looked puzzled.
“What is it?”
“I believe we’ve got us some trouble in town, that’s all. May turn out to be nothing,” Miles said, “but then again, you never can tell.”
Josh leaned forward eagerly, his chin floating above the desk. He was still young enough, Miles supposed, that trouble sounded like fun. Well, he’d get over that. At least Miles hoped he would.
“You ever heard of a gunslinger named Slocum?” he asked.
If Josh had been a dog, his ears would have suddenly pricked to attention. “As in the Slocum? The famous shootist? The one in the dime books?”
Miles sighed. “That’s the one.” He’d been around over fifty years, and he knew better than to believe everything he read.
Especially those stupid dime books.
“You mean he’s real?” Josh went on, and by the look of him, he could barely contain his excitement. “Is he the trouble?”
“Yes, and yes,” replied Miles. “Well, maybe on that last yes. Might be he’s here just mindin’ his own business. For now, that’s the attitude this office is going to take. But I just thought you should have a heads-up.”
“He’s really real?” Josh repeated. Miles wondered if the kid had heard anything else he’d said.
Again, Miles heaved a sigh. “Yes. Really. Don’t believe those dime books, Josh. They’re way off the mark about nine-tenths of the time.”
But Josh wasn’t listening. He was staring out the front windows. “Golly!” he muttered under his breath. “Slocum. In Poleaxe!”
“Josh?” Miles said. And when the kid didn’t turn toward him, he said it again, only louder.
Josh appeared to come down to earth again, and his neck got a little red. “Sorry, Sheriff,” he said and had the decency to look a tad flustered.
“Go home and get yourself some sleep,” Miles said. “But don’t let your mouth get the better of you. Understand me?”
Josh nodded but anxiously asked, “How’d you know he was in town? What name’s he travelin’ under? Is he doing somethin’ suspicious?”
“Stayin’ at the hotel under the name of Slocum,” Miles said with a small smile and a shake of his head. “And I saw him in the saloon last night. Came for Tiger Lil’s second show and left halfway through.”
“Well, that’s suspicious right there!” the deputy almost shouted. “How could anybody leave when she’s singin’?”
Miles shrugged. “Well, I did. Followed him over to the hotel.”
“And?” Josh said eagerly.
“And I already told you. He’s registered.”
The deputy sat back in his chair, apparently disappointed.
“Don’t get all soft on me, kid,” Miles said, and stood up to check the coffee. It was starting to smell pretty decent. “Cheer up. He may do somethin’ devious yet.”
Josh brightened considerably.
After Josh took his leave and Miles was alone with his coffee, he spent a long time staring at the walls.
Slocum had come to town, and there might be a whole lot more trouble than he’d let on to Josh.
Oh, he already knew about the other crook in town: Chandler. He’d known from the start. But he’d thought it was wiser to close his eyes to it than end up shot, and thus, he’d kept his mouth closed.
