by Tabor Evans
And then threw himself sideways, out of the room, off the windowsill, and into the night.
Longarm rushed to the window and leaned out, .45 held ready, but there was no sign of the man. He had virtually disappeared, just that quickly.
There was no balcony outside the window, not even a proper ledge, and they were on the second floor. Apparently the thief had dropped to the ground and scuttled out of sight, perhaps beneath the overhang so that Longarm had no line of sight to spot him.
“Shit,” Longarm muttered aloud.
“What did you say?”
He turned. For a moment he had completely forgotten Beth. She was sitting on the bedroom floor now, her hair mussed and her dress slightly askew.
“Sorry,” Longarm quickly said, rushing to help her up.
He caught himself before he gave in to his automatic impulse to brush off her backside. That would not have been exactly proper.
“You said something,” Beth said.
“Oh, uh, it was nothing.”
“Yes you did, I heard you.”
Longarm grinned. “In that case, you know what I said.”
“Oh. I was right then. You did say that.”
“If you say so,” Longarm said. He returned to the window, leaned down, and once again looked outside, as if hoping to see someone he could shoot out there.
Reminded of the six-gun in his hand, he gave it a look as if the weapon had offended him, then he shoved the .45 back into the leather where it belonged.
“What was that all about?” Beth said.
Longarm shrugged. “Somebody tryin’ to rob our room is what I’d guess. Are you all right?”
“Yes, thanks. I’m fine. Was the man just coming in or had he already had time to steal from you?” She smiled and added, “I know he didn’t take anything from me. Everything I have with me is in this bag and I’ve had it with me all evening.”
“I’ll look,” Longarm said.
He put his carpetbag onto the bed and rummaged through it. Things looked like they might have been disarranged, but he might have done that himself when he was shaving before they went down to dinner. If anything was taken, he did not know what it might have been.
“I guess everything’s here,” he said, turning.
And got his second shock of the evening.
Chapter 17
Beth was standing by the wardrobe, her back to him. She was in the process of removing her dress.
Longarm figured his eyes must have gotten as big as that thief’s when he looked into the muzzle of his .45.
Beth had matter-of-factly stepped out of her dress, brushed it off a little, and hung it in the wardrobe. She had a taut, tight, rounded ass, Longarm noticed. His dick noticed, too, immediately growing hard.
Then Beth opened her oversized handbag and pulled out a nightshirt, which she proceeded to pull on over her unmentionables. Finally, reaching up underneath the nightshirt, she removed her chemise and her pantaloons.
Longarm had not exactly seen anything. But, oh, what his imagination supplied.
Only then did he notice that there was no cot in the room. Two people. One double-sized bed plenty large enough for both of them.
His dick began to throb with anticipation.
No woman would act this way in front of a man she did not intend to fuck. Surely not.
While Longarm stood there, horny as a goat, Beth went to the washstand, poured some water into the basin, and proceeded to wash out her underthings.
Once she was done with that, she carefully draped her bits of silky clothing over the radiator.
And got into bed. Smiling.
Longarm did not intend to be found wanting. He shucked out of his clothes slick as an eel and crawled in beside her.
Chapter 18
Longarm heard a loud crack and suddenly saw stars and squiggles floating in front of his eyes.
“Ow, dammit,” he hollered. “What’d you hit me for?”
“You’re being lewd. And making some very unwelcome advances, sir. Now I suggest you get right back up and put something on. Were those balbriggans I saw you step out of? Good. Find them and put them back on.”
“But you . . .”
“I have nothing in my bag but this nightshirt and my hairbrush, a few things like that. There isn’t room in there for clothing, and I don’t have a suitcase with me, so I shall have to wash things out as we go and brush off my dress as best I can. Finding me in this state of undress does not, sir, mean that I encourage your advances. I am a married lady and I intend to remain true to my husband. Is that clear, Marshal? Is that perfectly clear now?”
“Yes’m,” Longarm said contritely. “Perfectly clear.”
“Fine. And I shall trust you not to snore, sir, or I will poke you in the ribs. Now, please, go to sleep.”
“Yes’m.” Longarm crawled sheepishly out of the bed and pulled on his balbriggans, then blew out the bedside lamp, and returned to the bed.
But, oh, he was achingly aware of that pretty ass lying so close at his side and the warmth her small body gave off.
She smelled of yeast and naphtha soap and some faint, delicate perfume.
And his dick just would not go down.
He thought Beth had gone to sleep but after a time she stirred and said, “I understand how you men are. If you want to, well, if you want to pleasure yourself, I won’t look.”
It seemed a very long time before he was able to sleep.
Chapter 19
Sam Jones was in the lobby waiting for them when Longarm and Beth came down for breakfast. “Good. I’m glad I caught you before you leave to go west,” Jones said.
“Has something happened?” Longarm asked. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing more than we already talked about,” Jones said, doffing his hat and nodding toward Beth. “Clete and I talked last night. We agreed that we should give Hank’s pay to Mrs. Bacon.”
“I thought you said Bacon already collected his pay,” Longarm said.
Jones nodded. “He did. But time moves along. And, well, we just don’t know where Hank is or where we might send his next pay. So it seems only reasonable that Mrs. Bacon should have it.”
Jones pulled a small change purse out of his coat pocket and handed it to Beth then said, “May I offer you two some breakfast before you leave? There won’t be another westbound train for several hours.” He smiled. “I took the liberty of checking the schedule for you.”
“Some chow might be nice,” Longarm said. “It could be a long day ahead.” He looked at Beth and raised an eyebrow. She nodded her agreement, and the two of them followed Sam Jones to a quiet café off the main street where both service and food were excellent.
“Let me,” Jones said when it came time to pay. Longarm certainly had no objection to that and neither did Beth.
They had a pleasant time—Longarm thought Jones was smitten with Beth and would like to court her—then Longarm collected his carpetbag and they were at the Union Pacific depot in plenty of time to catch the westbound passenger train.
He noticed Beth surreptitiously peeking into her newly acquired coin purse while they were waiting on the platform.
“How much?” he asked her, grinning.
Beth looked a little embarrassed to have been caught counting her money, but she said, “Two hundred. It’s all in gold. I’ve never had so much in my hand at one time, not in my whole life. It is . . . it is more than a month’s salary for Hank. Mr. Jones really is a very nice man, isn’t he.”
“Aye, he certainly seems t’ be,” Longarm said, more than ever convinced that Jones would like to have more than an employer-employee relationship with Mrs. Bethlehem Bacon. He would not be at all surprised if Jones tried to get close to her should she prove to be a widow. Not that Longarm could blame the man. He would like to have some of that himself.
She was an almighty attractive little bit of a thing.
Beth stood, craning her neck and peering off toward the east. “I think I see our train coming,” she said.
Chapter 20
Rock Springs was raw and dusty. It was inhabited by workingmen and a few whores to service them. There were probably some fine, civilized folk who lived there, but Longarm did not happen to see any of those.
“Can we find a place where I can have a proper bath?” Beth asked.
“We’ll look around,” Longarm said. “There might be such.”
They found a barbershop that advertised clean water in the baths, and Longarm overpaid for the privilege of Beth being the only patron. He stood outside the bathing room door to make sure she was not disturbed.
“Feel better?” he asked when she emerged, smelling strongly of soap and hot water.
“Much better, thank you. Now I have some shopping to do.”
“I didn’t see a ladies’ wear anyplace in town,” Longarm told her.
“It isn’t a ladies’ wear that I’m looking for,” she responded. “A general mercantile should do.”
“Well, there’s several o’ those to choose from.”
They went down the street until Beth found a place she approved of, then Longarm once again stood watchfully by while she made some purchases. She bought, he noticed, men’s clothing in small sizes.
“Now we need a place t’ stay the night,” he said when Beth had outfitted herself for riding. “Slim pickin’s in that regard, but this’n over here might do.”
The place was rough but the cleanest he had seen so far. The Wickiup consisted of a large building with canvas partitions dividing the interior into rooms and narrow, canvas cots in them for beds.
“Fifty cents a night, take it or leave it,” the proprietor said, “and I ain’t responsible for anything you leave in your room. Folks around here been known to steal, just so’s you know.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Longarm said. “We’ll take two rooms, side by side.”
“All right. You can have numbers, uh, let me see . . . six and seven. The room number is painted on the wall. You won’t need a key. The wall is just canvas, after all. Pull it back and go right in.”
“Fine. Is there a good café close by?” Longarm asked.
“There’s a café right next door.” The man chuckled. “Up to you to decide if it’s good or not.”
They ate supper—it really was not all that bad—and returned to the rabbit warren that passed itself off as a hotel.
“I’ll be right on the other side o’ that drape,” Longarm reminded Beth. “If you need anything, just sing out. I sleep light.”
“I am sure I shall be all right, Marshal, but thank you.” Beth disappeared into her cubicle and Longarm got ready for bed. The bed consisted of the hard canvas cot and one rather thin blanket. But Longarm had slept in much worse conditions. At least this night he had a roof over his head.
He lay down and quickly went to sleep.
He was awakened sometime later by a screech from the adjacent cubicle.
Chapter 21
Longarm grabbed his .45 and tumbled off the cot to the floor, banging his knee when he did so. He scrambled up and charged forward. Threw the flimsy canvas partition aside and found himself facing a swarthy man holding a knife.
The fellow was skinny and unshaven. His knife was long and slightly curved. The polished blade gleamed in the thin light coming over the partitions from a string of lanterns in the corridor beyond.
Bethlehem Bacon lay cowering on her cot, the intruder standing over her with his blade poised above her torso.
“Do it, mister, an’ you die,” Longarm said, straightening to his full height and cocking the Colt in his hand.
The double-action revolver was self-cocking, but Longarm had always found that the sound of oiled metal catching the sear inside the Colt was a powerful deterrent.
“Please. I’ll . . . I’ll give you—” Beth began.
Longarm cut her off, saying, “You’ll give this son of a bitch nothing. He’ll get his ugly ass outa here or he’ll die right here an’ now.”
The man looked down at Beth and for a moment Longarm thought he was going to call Longarm’s hand and plunge the dagger into her.
Then, slowly, not trusting Longarm to hold fire, he backed toward the front wall curtain.
“Stop,” Longarm ordered. “Beth, d’you still have your poke? Make sure nothing’s been taken before I allow this fella to step away.”
She sat up and bent down to retrieve her clothes and rummage inside them. After a moment she said, “My money is gone.”
Longarm motioned with the muzzle of his .45. The thief was quick to take the hint. He reached inside his coat and produced Beth’s coin purse then tossed it to her.
The man started to turn away but again Longarm said, “Stop. Beth, check t’ see everything’s in there.”
She squeezed the spring-loaded sides of the purse to pop it open, looked inside, and said, “It seems to be all right.”
Longarm grunted then motioned again with his .45, this time as if shooing the intruder away. The fellow was gone in an instant.
Longarm let the hammer of his Colt back down.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, I . . . thank you.” Her breathing was rapid but she said, “I’m fine.” Beth smiled. “I’m glad you were so close.”
Despite the circumstances, he could not help noticing that she was wearing only the thin nightshirt. He could see the unusually small bumps in the cloth where her nipples protruded. And he could imagine the other sweet delights hidden beneath that cloth. Bethlehem Bacon was an exceptionally pretty young woman.
Beyond mere appearance, though, there was something powerfully seductive about her, as if she secreted some odor, a natural perfume, that made a man want to possess her.
Hank Bacon was one lucky son of a bitch, Longarm thought. And one very foolish man to accept work that took him away from Beth’s side.
Had she belonged to Longarm, he would have wanted to be in her bed every night. He would have wanted to fuck her every night. He wanted her now.
But she belonged to Bacon, the lucky bastard.
“I’ll, uh, I’ll be right here if you need me,” Longarm said, backing out of Beth’s room and into his own.
It was some time before Longarm was able to sleep again. His dick kept reminding him of its presence. And of Beth’s, so close on the other side of the canvas wall.
Sometime during a restless night he came bolt upright on his cot, eyes wide and mouth agape.
The dagger, he thought, remembering every detail of its appearance now.
Every man he knew carried a knife. But a pocket knife, not a curved dagger like this man had in his hand.
And that hand with the dagger in it had been poised over Beth.
The son of a bitch already had her poke. There was no further need for him to be there. By all rights he should have slunk away into the night the moment he had that coin purse in hand, yet he had not done it. He was still there, poised as if to strike, when Longarm burst in on him.
The bastard had meant to kill her.
But why? Longarm chewed on that for some time before he got back to sleep again. There seemed no good reason that he could think of unless . . . unless the man was there to kill and the coin purse was only secondary. A bonus for a killer.
Longarm regretted now that he had not shot the son of a bitch. It was with that in mind that he finally drifted into a fitful sleep.
Chapter 22
Longarm woke up early, not fully rested but ready to face another day. He could hear Beth’s slow, steady breathing from the other side of the canvas as she slept. He did not want to wake her so he dressed then sat on the edge of the cot, smoking an occasional cheroot, until he heard Beth begin to stir
.
“Good mornin’,” he said, keeping his voice low so he would not disturb anyone else.
“Good morning, Marshal. I’ll be ready in just a minute. Can you wait for me?”
He smiled at that. Beth did not know it but he had been waiting for her for more than an hour already. “Yes, I can wait,” he said.
He heard some scuffling and a few grunts from the other side of the wall, then Beth pulled back the partition and stepped into his room. She was grinning. It took him a moment to see why.
She was wearing her dress, as expected. But beneath it she was also wearing the trousers, men’s trousers, that she had purchased the day before.
“We shall have to ride astride, I am sure,” she said, smiling. “And I won’t want to show my limbs. So . . .”
“Very effective,” Longarm admitted.
“Can we go to breakfast now?” she asked. “I am awfully hungry.”
“Sure. Let’s go.” He picked up his carpetbag and held aside the sheet of canvas that served as a door, motioning her ahead of him.
It was already past daybreak, and they had their choice of cafés that were open for business. Beth chose one, not too crowded, and they shared a long table with several gents.
When they were done, Beth insisted on paying for both meals. “You have been paying for everything. It’s about time I pull my own weight,” she said.
Longarm felt a little uncomfortable about Beth paying. He knew she had a limited amount of money and might not receive any more. Still, it was something that seemed important to her.
“Now what?” she asked as they were leaving the café.
“Now we go over to the railroad depot.”
“There isn’t—”
“No, there isn’t a train where we’re going. I want t’ leave my bag with the stationmaster. It’d be awkward to take with us.”
