by Tabor Evans
“Forget it, feller,” Longarm muttered to the dog. “That woman walking away is the best thing that ever happened to you. Let her keep on walkin’!”
He followed her and Sanders into the saloon. Most of the sweaty, dusty punchers seemed to be grouped around a table at the back of the room, holding up wads of greenbacks and yelling out bets. A big, long-haired man with Indian features—probably a half-breed—and wearing a white apron shuffled amongst them, delivering frothy beer mugs from a round tray. As he turned from the group at the back of the room and started toward the bar, he tripped on something and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught himself against a table.
Just then his molasses-dark eyes found Sanders, and he snapped out angrily, “Goddamnit, Roscoe, how’m I supposed to work when I keep trippin’ over this goddamn ball an’ chain?”
Just then, Longarm noticed two things about the big, hawk-nosed half-breed with close-set, angry eyes. He had only one arm—the right one. And around one of his ankles was a stout iron shackle to which a six-foot length of chain trailed away to an iron ball hooked behind a chair leg.
Longarm had no sooner finished sizing up the half-breed than he saw what the cowboys were betting on at the back of the room. Apparently one of them was fucking a dark-haired girl bent forward across the table in front of him, the whore’s skirt pushed up around her waist, the cowboy’s denims and longhandles shoved down around his ankles.
He was crouched low over the whore, who was propped on her elbows on the table, leisurely resting her chin against the heel of her right hand as the waddie hammered away behind her. The whore was laughing and yelling encouragement in Spanish-accented English.
She was a big, comely girl, and her full, brown breasts raked their heavy nipples across the table beneath her.
The men around the hip-thrusting waddie were calling out times, betting on how long it would take him to finish, some cheering him on while others yelled for him to slow down and take his time.
One of the gamblers had him at twelve minutes while another—an older, short, wiry gent with pewter hair—had him at twenty. The little, older gent stood atop a chair near the whore’s head, yelling and stomping one boot as though to the beat of a mariachi band, his spurs ringing like rusty chimes.
Longarm looked at Haven, who stood to his left, staring toward the back of the room. “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?”
“Maybe you’d better wait outside.”
“Men are disgusting.” Haven drew a deep breath and turned to Sanders. “Mr. Three Wolves, please, Ranger?”
Sanders beckoned to the big half-breed, who had just returned his tray to the bar and was glaring at the old ranger. The half-breed had apparently noticed Haven, because his eyes were riveted on the beautiful Pinkerton as he went over and picked up the iron ball and carried it down the bar to where the newcomers stood clomped at the end near the batwings.
“What do we have here?” he said.
Sanders said, “Can you take a break, Frank? These folks wanna talk to you.”
“Who are they?” Three Wolves had only glanced at Longarm, his gaze remaining on Haven.
“Law.”
“Really?” Big Frank’s dark eyes flashed surprise as they roamed up and down the woman’s busty frame clad in tight denims, long duster, and dusty stockman’s boots. “They sure don’t look like law!”
“Why don’t we have a drink?” Sanders said.
“I don’t drink while I’m working,” Haven said reproachfully.
“Don’t you ever get tired of the same old song?” Longarm looked at the half-breed. “I’ll have a beer and a shot of rye.”
Haven flared her nostrils with disdain.
Longarm, Agent Delacroix, and Roscoe Sanders took seats at a table near the front of the saloon, a good distance away from the festivities, which were continuing, Longarm couldn’t help noticing though the hip-thrusting waddie looked about ready to blow his load at any second. His face was red and swollen and he was shouting, “Ah, shit! Ah, shit—I ain’t gonna last!” while the whore said, “Two more minutes, Elwyn, and you will make Carmella one rich puta!”
She cackled wildly.
A couple of the waddies clapped. The little, pewter-haired cowboy on the chair was bellowing encouragement in a heavy Scandinavian accent. Apparently, a couple of the bettors had lost out and were slumping into chairs to ease their loss with beer and whiskey.
Three Wolves came from the bar carrying his iron ball as well as his beer, not an easy maneuver for a one-armed man. He’d already delivered beers and whiskey shots to Longarm and Sanders, and a glass of water to Agent Delacroix. He looked worn-out and angry but Haven’s appearance had gained his attention and tempered his owly mood. Like every other man who encountered her, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Haven looked at the iron ball as the half-breed dropped it onto the floor, and scowled at Sanders. She said, “Making a one-armed man serve drinks while chained to an iron ball. Is this your doing, Ranger Sanders?”
“That was my flash of brilliance, yes, sir. I mean, ma’am.” Sanders chuckled. “I figure Slim needed a barman, and Frank here wasn’t doin’ nothin’ but eatin’ and shittin’—pardon my language, miss—over at the jailhouse while we was waiting for you two to show up. So why not put him to work slingin’ drinks? The ball ain’t nothin’ personal, but Captain Leyton—that’s Captain Jack Leyton,” he told Longarm, “said to make sure he don’t escape. Don’t see how even ole fleet-footed Big Frank here could escape with an iron ball chained to his ankle!”
Sanders laughed.
“Oh, don’t go feelin’ sorry for ole Frank, Miss Delacroix. Frank’s strong as an ox and mean as a hydrophobic wildcat. He got himself in this here sichyation when he cut the head off a poor little, unsuspectin’ greaser he found diddlin’ his girl in their shack out by Diamondback Canyon. Stuck the head on a post in front of his place, as a warning to others who might get the same idea, and fed the rest of the little Mex to his hogs.”
Sanders pointed at the big half-breed, who sat glowering at him murderously, and laughed.
Chapter 12
The half-breed looked as though he were about to dive across the table at Ranger Sanders, so Longarm said, “All right, all right—enough about Big Frank here and the Mex, fer now.” He fired a match to life on the marred tabletop and touched it to the cheroot sticking out of his mouth.
Haven said, “We’re here about the stolen gold, Mr. Three Wolves. And the dead lawmen.”
“I was locked up,” Big Frank Three Wolves said, his dark eyes flaring out of his big, broad, pockmarked face at Haven and then at Longarm. “I didn’t kill no one!”
“No, but you know who did, don’t ya?” Longarm smiled knowingly at the man through the smoke wafting about his head.
Haven sat staring at Three Wolves, one fine, pale hand wrapped around her water glass, one brow arched with interest.
Longarm waved the match out and tossed it on the floor. He continued: “I got a feelin’ you sent them down there, right into an ambush. Didn’t you?”
Three Wolves shook his head, the nostrils of his big nose flaring. “You got it wrong, mister.”
“Then tell me how it really went.”
“I killed the Mex, all right. Caught him with Estella. Everyone knows how I feel about her. I get back from a freight run to Tucson early, and I find Cruz an’ Estella…in my cabin, goin’ at it like a coupla wildcats.” He looked at Agent Delacroix as though for sympathy.
She jerked with a start as a shrill cry rose from the back of the room. The whore laughed. A roar went up, and the old, pewter-haired cowboy whistled and clapped his hands, leaping down from his chair and running over to congratulate Elwyn, who stumbled back away from the whore, his dick drooping between his bare thighs.
He looked as though he’d run a long ways over rough ground.
Longarm glanced at Haven. At the same time, she cast her hazel gaze at him, and it was like she’d touched those sweet
lips to his balls. A shudder rippled through him. Flushing as though she’d just read his mind, she dropped her eyes quickly to her water glass around which she’d wrapped both her hands, gripping it tightly, as the revelry continued from the back of the room.
The whore sat on the table she’d been fucked on, drew her low-cut, fancily stitched dress up over her dark, swaying bosoms, and swept her curly hair from her face with the backs of her hands.
A man was calling for a beer for Elwyn. Sanders told him to get his own damn beer, that Big Frank was busy, and then Longarm glanced once more at Haven’s hands, suppressing certain memories from a few nights ago, and turned back to Three Wolves.
“All right, you killed the Mex in a jealous rage. For consideration of a lighter sentence, you sent the rangers and the marshals down looking for stolen gold you heard about years ago from Rafael Santana. Have I got the dog by the tail?”
“That’s right,” Three Wolves said, nodding.
“Don’t wash,” Longarm told him. “If there really was gold to be found down there, why didn’t you go after it a long time ago?”
“Oh, I thought about it,” Three Wolves said, nodding. “But it wouldn’t be so easy—a big half-breed Apache with one arm. Besides, Santana said he buried the gold on old Whip Azrael’s range. White rancher with a whole lot of men on his roll, some of ’em cold-steel artists. I bought the freighting company with money I earned swampin’ saloons and livery barns up on the Rim. Always thought I might go down and scratch around for that gold, but I also knew that gold could lead to a whole lot of trouble. I’ve had trouble all my life, lawman. Some big, some not so big.”
“Got him a wicked half-breed Apache temper,” Sanders said, sitting back in his chair, holding his beer in one horny, red fist and gazing amusedly at the half-breed. He looked at Longarm. “Why do you think he sent them lawmen into an ambush, Custis? Not that I don’t agree with you, but how would he know they’d take his bait and go down and look for the gold? Hell, that gold was lost three years ago. No tellin’ who woulda dug it up.”
Longarm kept his eyes on the half-breed, trying to read the man, which he thought he was doing fairly well. He’d had plenty of experience reading the eyes of questionable men. “Where’s the gold?”
“I gave the map I drew, based on what Santana told me, to the dead rangers.”
Agent Delacroix said, “How do you know Santana told you the truth?”
“I didn’t. Till them lawmen took the map down there and ended up with a bad case of lead poisonin’.”
“Doesn’t necessarily mean they were near the gold. Anyone might have thought they had a reason for killing the lawmen.” Haven looked at Longarm coolly, her professionalism edging aside her disdain for her badge-toting partner.
Sanders said, “Where Big Frank here sent them boys wasn’t far from where the stage got hit all them years ago. There’s got to be somethin’ to Big Frank’s story, I think.”
Longarm looked at the old ranger. “Where’s Jack Leyton? I thought he was the captain in charge around here.”
“He is. He rode down south toward Holy Defiance, lookin’ fer the gold around where the other rangers and the deputy marshals got ambushed. Figured he might kick up somethin’ before you got here, Longarm. Him and Lieutenant Sullivan.” Old Sanders hiked a shoulder and smiled at Haven as he nudged his shoulders back, obviously proud of himself. “I’m in charge till he and Sullivan get back.”
She arched a mock-impressed brow at him.
Longarm said, “Ranger Matt Sullivan?”
“That’s right. They both rode down there.”
“How long have they been gone?” Agent Delacroix asked Sanders.
“Nigh on two weeks. Left here a week after we got word from Azrael’s men about the killin’s. Double D men found ’em, and the Azraels sent a man up here to report it.”
“Two weeks, eh?” Longarm rubbed his cheek and glanced at Haven, who gave him a skeptical look. Could Jack Leyton and Matt Sullivan have ended up as dead as the other lawmen?
Longarm glanced at Big Frank Three Wolves. “You think the gold is really where Santana told you it was?”
Three Wolves shrugged. “All I know is I didn’t send them into an ambush. I thought if they found the gold—good. On account o’ that and being as it was just a dirty little Mex I killed, I’d prob’ly get a light sentence. I know I’m gonna end up in Yuma, but I been there before and I’d just as soon not stay long enough to get to know all the rattlesnakes in the hole by name.”
Longarm took a deep drag off his cheroot and looked at the coal, running all the information he’d learned about this case through his head. “You can go back to work, Big Frank.”
The half-breed studied Longarm skeptically. He’d drank half his beer and now he polished off the rest in one long draught, scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, and rose.
He walked over and picked up the ball to which his chain was attached, glanced once more with brash male interest at Haven, and then hauled his ball back behind the bar and hazed away the pewter-haired cowboy who’d been drawing beers and splashing whiskey into shot glasses for his partners.
Ranger Sanders polished off his own beer and looked from Haven to Longarm. “Was Big Frank any help to you folks?”
“Not really.” Haven shook her head, glanced at Longarm as though for corroboration, and sipped her water.
Sanders said, “Well, I reckon I had my beer and my whiskey, and now I reckon I’m gonna drift on back to the ranger office fer a nap. You two gonna be in town long?”
Longarm tossed back his whiskey shot. “We’ll be pullin’ out first thing in the mornin’. I’d like you to draw me a map to where we’re goin’, Roscoe.”
“I’ll help any way I can, Longarm. You know that.”
“The Arizona House still standin’?”
Sanders nodded. “Best hotel in town. Right where it’s always been.” He grinned at Haven, raking his randy old eyes across the girl’s well-filled shirt. “You might be able to get you a nice, hot bath, Miss Delacroix, purty yourself up.”
“Whatever for?” she asked with an ironic cast to her hazel-eyed gaze.
Sanders glanced from the girl to Longarm and back again, a strained smile creasing his face. Looking as though he’d just walked into a rattlesnake nest, he rose stiffly, pinched his hat brim to them both, and sauntered in his bandy-legged fashion through the batwings and out into the brassy, unforgiving Arizona sunshine.
Haven rose. “I believe I will go have that bath. Where’s this best hotel in town?”
“Back behind the ranger office.” Longarm grinned at her. “You need any help, you just ask polite-like. Just remember, though—it’s strictly professional.”
“No, thank you,” she said crisply. “But I suppose we should meet later and compare notes on the case.”
“As long as it’s only the case we’re comparin’ notes on.” Longarm finished his beer and belched.
Ignoring him, she strode away through the batwings. He refused to turn his head to get a good, long look at her ass.
A man had his pride.
Chapter 13
When Longarm finished his beer and lowered his glass he found himself staring at two billowy, tan breasts sloping down into an incredibly low-cut, lacy cream dress. The frock was so low-cut that one nipple was poking out. The puta’s necklace dangled against the table where Agent Delacroix had been sitting a few minutes ago.
The whore’s broad, red-painted lips spread a smile, and her dark eyes sparkled as she said, “How ’bout it, cowboy? You want me make you happy?”
Longarm looked at her breasts again, and smiled. “I’d like to get happy with you, senorita, but I’m all wiped out. Long, hard pull in the saddle.” He thought she’d be tired after her recent workout at the back of the room.
“How ’bout a long, hard pull between my legs, cowboy?” The whore, who looked to be in her mid-twenties but was probably younger, glanced at the ceiling. “Come on, you can handle it
.”
She slid her eyes to one side, indicating the drunken cowboys behind her, some of whom were now playing cards while two others were dancing to an imagined band. “These boys are all played out, won’t be game again until tonight. I get bored in the afternoons. Might as well make some money. And a big hombre like you could use his ashes hauled, uh?”
She smiled again, broadly. She pulled her dress down until both breasts spilled out onto the table. They were large and well shaped if losing their firmness, and the girl was probably damn good at her work. Longarm just didn’t have any interest. He certainly had some time to kill. But no interest.
“No, thanks, senorita. You’re purty as punch, but I’m plum tuckered. Here.” He flipped her a gold dollar. “Buy yourself a new dress on old Longarm.”
She palmed the coin and straightened, shaping a surprised smile. “Gracias, amigo!” She jerked her chin at the batwings. “The one who was in here earlier—she’s yours, huh?” She smiled insinuatingly. “Muchacha muy hermosa!”
Longarm felt the old tug in his groin again, remembering. “Her? Ah, hell, she ain’t nothin’ so damn special!”
With that, he stood, tugged his hat brim low, and sauntered on out through the batwings. The black-and-white dog lay at the bottom of the gallery steps, chewing the fur off a dead jackrabbit. As Longarm descended the steps, the dog looked at him and dropped a proprietary paw over its supper.
“Looks good, dog,” the lawman said, untying his reins from the hitch rack. “But I believe I’d prefer mine cooked. Enjoy yourself!”
With that, he swung up into the saddle and rode over to the livery barn that sat about fifty yards east of Slim’s and on the other side of the street. As he approached the barn, he saw Haven exit the place by a rear side door and stroll back past the rear paddock, making her way through the brush toward the Arizona House behind the rangers’ jail, her tan duster swirling around her long, denim-clad legs.
Longarm left the roan with the old, bib-bearded ex–desert rat, Hostetler, who ran the place, and then slung his saddlebags over his right shoulder, took his sheathed Winchester in his other hand, and headed farther east along the shadowy main drag of Broken Jaw. He’d seen a bathhouse on his way into town, and he decided to while away the last hour before supper in a tepid path and scrape the two-day growth of beard from his jaws.
