The Jackals of Sundown (A Bear Haskell Western Book 2)

by Peter Brandvold

  As the waiter refilled the princess’s wine glass, she looked at Haskell, tilting her head slightly to one side, frowning skeptically. She’d caught the direction of his gaze. He smiled a little sheepishly, pinched his hat brim, and, deciding to let the princess dine in peace, sank into a table three tables from hers, also against the front wall.

  When the waiter came over to Haskell’s table, the lawman ordered a beer and a shot of bourbon as well as a steak with all the trimmings. The waiter brought the bourbon and a frothy, dark ale from behind the bar then headed into the kitchen to prepare the lawman’s main course.

  Haskell sipped the bourbon, enjoying the burn as it rolled down his throat, cutting through the dust and smoke from the locomotive’s stack. Since leaving Denver, he’d had a few pulls from his own traveling flask, but there was nothing like a drink in a relatively cool bar—especially in a relatively cool bar in which a pretty girl was dining.

  Haskell saw that the young woman had ordered a steak, lightly charred. She was no dainty eater, this girl. She was busily cutting into the meat, charred on the outside but blood red rare on the inside, and taking hungry bites complemented with generous forkfuls of her fried potatoes and green string beans.

  Between bites, she turned her head to stare out the window and into the street, where an undertaker’s wagon had been drawn up in front of the gallows. Several men were lowering the two hanging dead men to the ground while dogs and boys ran around, barking and yelling.

  It was a grisly scene. The girl was riveted. The dead men appeared not to have dampened her hunger one iota. While she watched the dead men get carted over to the wagons, their arms and legs sagging, hooded heads lolling, she continued to shovel food into her mouth and wash it down with quick, deep sips from her wine glass.

  While the girl was immersed in the scene outside, Haskell was immersed in the girl. Even when his own steak came and he ate hungrily, he kept one eye on the lovely vixen fifteen feet away from him.

  He found her as fascinating as she was beautiful. Something told him that she was a Midwesterner. A young, fresh-faced eastern gal traveling alone in the unheeled west, and she didn’t seem one bit frightened or repelled by the gallows scene. In fact, she appeared engrossed, even enthralled by it.

  Who was she?

  What was she doing out here alone?

  Haskell decided to get to the bottom of it. What else did he have to do? The sun was just now starting to slip down in the west, casting long shadows and salmon smudges into the street. There was a lot of night ahead.

  When the doomed men had been hauled away, and the crowd had disbursed, the young woman turned her attention from the street to her plate. She finished her steak ahead of Haskell, and slid the empty plate aside. She’d eaten every morsel, leaving only a couple of fashionable bites. Picking up her nearly empty wine glass, she turned her attention to the book lying open before her.

  When the waiter returned from the kitchen, he refilled the woman’s wine glass and took away her plate. He brought Haskell another ale and then hustled Bear’s empty plate away, as well.

  When the waiter had disappeared into the kitchen, Bear sat back in his chair, stifling a belch and drawing the waistband of his trousers and his two cartridge belts away from his belly with his thumbs. His hunger had been sated by the large steak and healthy portion of potatoes and beans, not to mention the fist-sized hot cross bun.

  Fortified, he felt ready to make his move. He needed to move fast, he thought. Three townsmen in business suits who’d likely been enjoying the festivities out in the street had sat down at a table between Haskell and the girl, and they were casting furtive stares her way, muttering conspiratorially amongst themselves.

  One of them wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and the two others seemed to be encouraging him, with slight elbow jabs, chuckles, and heated murmurs, to make a play for the honey-haired vixen. Not to be beaten at the game he knew so well, Haskell picked up his ale, slid his chair back, rose, adjusted the big Schofield on his hip, and walked past the three businessmen staring up at him incredulously. He stopped at the young woman’s table, smiled down at her.

  She’d just turned a page of her book. Now she looked up at the big man staring down at her, and sipped her wine. She looked him up and down, coolly, as though she were inspecting a horse she might be interested in adding to her remuda, and gave a faint nod.

  Her face was amazing—skin the color of a half-ripe peach and as smooth as a baby’s ass. Her hazel eyes were tinted a bronze that matched the stray hues in her hair.

  She had a small mole on her neck and another one just above and to the right of her cleavage. Those were the only flaws Haskell could see. He yearned to search for more. Like the slightest defect in the rarest of diamonds, the flaws made her all the more attractive.

  Haskell sat down, tossed his hat onto the table, ran a hand through his thick mop of unruly, dark-brown hair. “Name’s—”

  “No,” the woman said, cutting him off. “Don’t talk.” Her left hand lay palm down on the table. She slid it toward Bear, lifting her eyes to briefly glance at the three businessmen sitting behind him.

  She lifted her hand. Haskell stared down at a room key. The flat brass fob dangling from the key was inscribed with the number 22. “Pick it up but don’t make a show of it,” she said tightly under her breath, then smiled and drained her wine glass.

  Dazed, Haskell slid the key toward him, picked it up off the table, and lowered his hand to his lap. He stared across the table at the young woman, who leaned forward to say, “Give me fifteen minutes. Make sure you aren’t seen.”

  Haskell tried to respond but he couldn’t work any air past his vocal chords.

  The young woman rose from her chair, picked up her book and a reticule, and walked around to Haskell’s side of the table. She drew her right hand back and flung it forward, smashing her palm against Haskell’s left cheek with a crack like that of a small-caliber pistol being triggered.

  “How dare you make such an uncouth advance, you unwashed heathen!” she cried loudly enough for not only the three men in business suits to hear but for half the town to hear, as well. “What do you take me for—a ten-cent doxie?”

  She glanced at the three businessmen staring in silence behind Bear, and said, “Men!”

  Chin in the air, she strode angrily across the dining room and out the door.

  Haskell sat in stunned silence, his cheek burning, ears ringing.

  The three men behind him broke out in delighted laughter.

  Haskell glanced over his shoulder at them, shrugged, grinning, then scooped his hat off the table, got up, and walked back over to his original table. He sat down and opened his hand in his lap. The room key and the number 22 stared up at him.

  “That foxy little bitch,” he mused under his breath. He chuckled, shook his head, and slipped the key into his shirt pocket.

  Out of that same pocket he withdrew an Indian Kid and a lucifer. He bit the end off the cheroot, spat it onto the floor, and scraped the match to life on his thumbnail. He leisurely smoked the Indian Kid and sipped his beer, feeling both miffed at and intrigued by the golden-haired princess with the wicked right cross.

  Miffed, intrigued, and aroused ...

  He drained his beer while the three businessmen ate fried chicken at the table beyond his, then withdrew his tarnished silver railroad watch from his pants pocket, and checked the time. Snapping the lid closed, he tossed the stub of his cheroot into his empty beer glass, rose from his chair, slipped the old turnip back into its pocket, and donned his hat.

  As he walked toward the lobby, a man called behind him, “Say, friend?”

  Haskell stopped, looked back. The three businessmen regarded him with brightly jeering eyes, cloth napkins hanging from their collars for bibs.

  “You can find a ten-cent doxie over at Ma French’s place just up the street a block.” He winked and jerked his head to indicate east.

  He and the others laughed.

  “M
uch obliged,” Haskell said with a wooden smile.

  The businessmen’s laughter followed him out into the lobby, which he crossed with a nod at the desk clerk, who was also chuckling. The clerk had obviously overheard the commotion in the dining room. Haskell mounted the steps.

  “I hope you’ll find the room to your liking,” the clerk called behind him. “Your gear’s all there—safe and sound!”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll like it just fine,” Haskell returned with a wave, smiling to himself, feeling a hard pull in his trousers toward room twenty-two.

  He walked down the hall lit by a couple of fluttering lanterns, and stopped at the room whose number matched the number on the key fob. He poked the key into the lock, the metaphorical implications of the act causing a greater stirring in his loins, and turned the key until he heard the bolt click open. He gave the door a gentle shove.

  Hinges creaked.

  She was sitting in a chair at the end of the bed. She wore only a chemise that dropped down to the middle of her belly. The chemise was thin. Her pronounced nipples pushed against it, atop the two full, round mounds of her breasts. She had one long, fine, pale leg crossed atop the other. Her arms rested on the arms of the chair.

  Her chin was dipped toward her chest. Her lips were pooched out, speculatively. She looked at him from beneath her brows, her hazel eyes raking him up and down. She reached up to twist a white arm strap of her chemise.

  “Come in and close the door,” she ordered.

  Haskell came in and closed the door. He scrutinized her in much the same way she was scrutinizing him, and, feeling a throbbing in his chest and a tightness in his throat as well as in his pants, said, “What’s your ... ?”

  “No names.”

  “No names?”

  She shook her head and rose from her chair. “None whatsoever. I don’t care who you are. You can’t care who I am. We just are, that’s all. We are here for one reason only. One task—the merging of our bodies. When that merging has been accomplished, I want you to leave. If we should ever see each other again, which I doubt”—she gave a faint, ironic snort at that—“you are to act as though you’ve never seen me before.”

  Haskell canted his head slightly to one side. “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Then, why ... ?”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “That slap you gave me back in the dining room wasn’t called for.”

  “Oh?” She arched a foxy brow. “Would you like to hit me back?”

  Haskell frowned, his eyes probing her faintly amused ones. “I got a feelin’ you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Why don’t you try me?”

  Haskell shook his head and turned back to the door.

  “Where are you going?” she said, surprise in her voice.

  Haskell turned to her, one hand on the knob. “Lady, you’re pretty as all hell, but I don’t think I like you. I’ve paid for women with a lot more heart and conversation.”

  “Heart and conversation?” She laughed, her eyes dancing in the dusky light streaming in through the window flanking her. “Is that what you came up here for—heart and conversation?”

  “That’d be nice, for starters. I guess I didn’t really realize it before, but, yeah, I guess heart and conversation means as much to me as the rest of it. Now, I see no reason to waste anymore of your time. You might find what you’re looking for down in the dining room. He’s eating fried chicken.”

  “Damn you!”

  Haskell had started to turn the doorknob. He turned back to her again. She frowned at him angrily, jaws hard, a pink flush rising into her perfect cheeks. She reached up and slipped the straps of her chemise down her arms. The flimsy garment fell silently to the floor at her pretty, bare feet.

  Haskell’s heart began thudding again.

  Silently, he cursed.

  She smiled with self-satisfaction. “If you’re leaving, leave. If you’re staying, stay.”

  ~*~

  Three hours later, Bear lifted his head from the pillow. A sound out on the street had awakened him. Nothing to be alarmed about. Only a couple of horseback riders passing the hotel, conversing drunkenly.

  He relaxed once more. The dark wing of sleep had nearly ensconced him once more when someone moaned.

  Haskell looked down. His mysterious, honey-haired lover lay curled up between his spread legs. She lay with her head on his belly. His manhood was nestling in the deep cleavage between her breasts.

  He grunted a chuckle, remembering their three-hour romp that had started on the dresser and had moved to the bed and then onto the floor before moving back to the bed for the grand finale. Their near-violent tussle had left him tired in every bone and fiber.

  The princess lifted her head and, blinking sleepily, looked up at him. Her face was silhouetted by a lantern still burning from a wall bracket. The light glistened redly in her love-mussed hair.

  “Oh, God—you’re still here!” she said throatily. “What are you still doing here?”

  Haskell lay his head back against his pillow once more. Sleep was pulling at him hard. “Fell ... asleep.”

  She lifted her head, looked down at his manhood, which she’d been sleeping on. “You have to go.”

  “Simmer down,” Haskell said, sleep continuing to pull him down, down. Thickly, he muttered, “Not mornin’ yet. I’ll be gone ... by first light.”

  “No, you need to leave now,” she said, scrambling off the bed.

  Haskell only grunted. He started to turn onto his side, but then she grabbed his right arm and tugged on it. “You have to leave,” she said again, keeping her voice low but pitched with urgency. “You have to leave now!”

  “Oh, fer chrissakes,” Bear said, grabbing her own arm and drawing her easily onto the bed with him, pulling her over him and onto her back, grabbing one of her breasts with his big right hand, and squeezing. “Quit your caterwauling and go back to sleep, darlin’.”

  “No!” She grunted as she squirmed out from under him and again scrambled off the bed. Into his ear she said softly but commandingly, “You have to leave. Do you hear? Leave!”

  Haskell opened his eyes. She was stumbling around as though drunk, gathering his clothes. He watched her, admiring her beauty accentuated by the shifting shadows cast by the lamp. Her ripe breasts jostled, caressed by the ends of her dancing hair. Her ass was beautifully round. He felt himself getting hard again.

  “I don’t know what wild hair you got up your ass, lady, but why don’t you crawl back in here, and I’ll try to settle you down. That’s gonna have to be that last time, though. I gotta get up early an’—”

  She turned to the bed and threw a ragged ball of his clothes at him. There was one boot in the mix. It smacked him in the forehead.

  “Ow!” Bear yipped, slapping a hand to his right temple. “What the hell’s gotten into—?”

  She was stumbling around, grabbing more of his clothes from the floor where she’d tossed them when she’d undressed him, damn near devouring him like a hungry catamount. “I don’t sleep with my men. When my are done pleasing me, they go!”

  She tossed his hat, bear claw necklace, and another boot at him. This time he caught the boot before it could brain him. “My men? Who in the hell do you think you are, lady?”

  She tossed his gun belt at him, which he also caught though the buckle grazed his cheek. “If you are not out of this room in five seconds, I am going to scream rape at the tops of my lungs!”

  “Rape?” Haskell laughed dryly. “If anyone was raped in here, Princess, that was me!”

  She cupped her breasts in her hands, blew a lock of hair away from her eye, and canted her head toward the door. “One ... ”

  “Now, look, honey ... ”

  “Two ... ”

  “Jesus Christ—you’re serious!” Haskell scrambled off the bed, seeing visions of the princess’s room being stormed by half the men in the town and whatever lawman was hold
ing down the fort, throwing a horseshoe into Haskell’s assignment. If she accused him of rape, there was likely no man within a thousand square miles who would believe Bear over the buxom, honey-haired princess.

  “Three ... ”

  Haskell grabbed up his clothes, his boots, and his gunbelts. He donned his hat and, clutching his clothes against his bare chest, ran to the door.

  “Four ... ”

  He opened the door and looked both ways along the hall. Thank God it was empty. He turned and curled his upper lip at the princess. “How ’bout a goodbye smooch?”

  She stared at him coldly. “On the off-chance we should ever see each other again, you are not to acknowledge me as I will not acknowledge you!”

  Haskell whistled and ran his eyes across her succulent nakedness. She was still cupping her breasts in her hands. Her hands were much smaller than her lovely bosoms. “That’s gonna be awful hard, honey. After all we meant to each other, an’ all!”

  She threw her head back and opened her mouth wide, as though about to scream.

  “I’m gone! I’m gone!” Haskell fumbled open the door and tripped over his own feet going out. He drew the door closed behind him. He heard her turn the key in the lock. He stood there in front of her door for a moment, pondering the mystery of the honey-haired princess.

  “I’ll be damned if she don’t make me feel like a whore.” Shaking his head, deeply indignant, the big lawman padded barefoot down the hall toward his own room. “Yessir, nothin’ but a used-up old whore!”

  Chapter Seven

  The little town of Sundown was a humble collection of mud brick dwellings and business establishments strewn across the shoulder of a low, rocky hill.

  From a distance, the town had looked like nothing more than the same rocks that formed a spine-like cap on the hill. But as Haskell slid up to the settlement now, standing on the rear vestibule of one of the spur line’s two passenger cars, his gear at his feet, his rifle on his shoulder, an Indian Kid smoldering between his lips, he could see that those rocks were the mud brick dwellings of a town, all right.