by Tabor Evans
“No boxes here,” Longarm said.
“No, just the mail drop for outgoing mail and some pigeon holes in the back to hold mail until I see the recipient,” Franz said.
Longarm grunted, lost for a moment in thought. Then he walked back across the street to Bonham’s store and inquired of him about how he handled mail. He got essentially the same information from the Nebraska storekeeper.
“This is a contract station,” Bonham said. “We sell a few stamps and handle mail going out or coming in. I send the outbound mail in a pouch that goes down to Kimball and the rail line.”
“And the telegraph?”
“The nearest wires would be at Lusk, though we hope to get our own someday,” Bonham told him.
“Damnit, Cal, some-damn-body represented himself as the town. Or towns. And asked for help from a whole company of deputies.”
Bonham smiled. “So you are an entire company all by yourself?”
Longarm laughed. “That’s me, all right.”
The storekeeper became serious again when he said, “I wish I could help you, Marshal. I really do, but I don’t know anything that would help. I didn’t send any letter and I don’t know who did.”
“Yet everybody over on this side knew I was coming, just like across the way there,” Longarm said. “It’s odd. Damned odd.”
“If you figure it out, let me know.”
“Yeah, I’d be glad t’ know that my own self. Oh, well. Say, d’you have any reasonably fresh cheroots? I could use some o’ them things. Or a plain old rum crook if you don’t have cheroots.”
Chapter 37
Longarm lay propped up on two pillows, a heavy glass ashtray resting on his chest and a cheroot between his lips. Liz lay tucked in close beside him. Both were naked. Her right tit was pressing against the side of his chest.
“Ouch, damnit!” Longarm jumped, coming upright almost into a sitting position. Liz jumped, too. After a moment he grumbled a bit, then laughed.
“What was that all about? What did you do, honey?” Liz asked.
“I missed the damn ashtray, that’s what I done. I like t’ set my chest hair on fire with a chunk o’ hot ash,” he said.
He glanced down in time to see Liz’s face contort in an effort to keep from laughing at his plight.
“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?”
“Well, now that you mention it,” she said, “yes. It is.”
“Why, you sorry little minx.”
She gave up trying to hold it in and burst out laughing. A moment later Longarm began laughing too, laughter being a contagious sort of thing.
Once their laughter subsided he set the ashtray aside and—carefully—the cigar, too. Then he rolled onto his side, wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, and spent some time kissing her.
He ran his hand over her hip and up the indent of her waist, on to the soft fullness of her breast. When he began lightly rolling her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, Liz whispered into his mouth, “Oh, I do like that, darling. I can feel it all the way down.”
“Down where?” he responded.
“Down you know where.”
“No, I don’t.” He grinned. “Tell me.”
“I can feel it all the way down into my pussy. Is that what you want to hear, Custis?”
“What I always want t’ hear, darlin’, is the truth, always the truth.” He slid toward the foot of the bed and began to lick and suck at her nipples, kneading the pliant flesh with his hand while he did so.
His hand left her breast and slid down across her belly. Into the soft mat of her bush. And beyond, into her pussy.
Liz gasped and arched her back to make his entry easier.
He toyed with her clitoris and quickly the lady cried out aloud as she reached a sudden climax.
“That’s not fair,” she said. “Now you’ve gone and taken the edge off.”
“Oh, I think I know how t’ put it back,” he said, smiling.
“Can you prove that?” she challenged.
“Damn right I can.”
Liz reached for Longarm’s cock. She wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed, then reached down lower and began to tickle his balls with her fingernails.
“Does that feel good?” she asked.
“You know it does, darlin’,” he said.
“Would you like me to suck this beautiful thing?” Liz asked.
“Is that an offer, honey, or jus’ curiosity?”
“Oh, it’s an offer, all right. I want to taste your come. I want to drink it,” she said.
By way of an answer Longarm laid his hand on the back of Liz’s head and gently pushed her down toward his cock, which by now was rock hard and pulsing lightly with each heartbeat.
Elizabeth practically purred with pleased eagerness as she licked her way down across his belly to his cock. She ran the tip of her tongue up and down his shaft, then probed inside his foreskin. She took him into her mouth, the heat of her engulfing and tantalizing him.
Then she began pushing herself onto him. She took the head in. Then deeper. And deeper still until he was penetrating past her mouth and into her throat.
Longarm felt his sap rise. He did not try to hold back. Elizabeth continued to suck even as his juices shot into her throat. She sucked it down greedily, making little snuffling, slobbering noises as his come flowed.
And that, he thought, was just the beginning of what promised to be a perfectly lovely evening.
Chapter 38
Longarm woke up, groggy and fuzzy headed. He had no idea what the time was or, for that matter, where he was. Gradually the fog cleared and he realized that he was in his own bed in Hettie’s whorehouse.
He had left Elizabeth about two in the morning. It was still dark beyond the small window in his room. Hettie’s girls must still be working, he assumed, because some inconsiderate son of a bitch kept pounding on his door.
That, he belatedly realized, was what woke him.
Longarm yawned and rubbed his face and eyes. The inside of his mouth tasted foul and his eyes were gritty, glued nearly shut with sleep.
“Go ’way,” he grumbled aloud.
“Marshal. Marshal Long,” a voice at the door persisted. “Wake up.”
Longarm sat up and blinked a few times trying to clear the cobwebs in his skull.
“Marshal! Come quick!”
That did it. He jumped out of bed and grabbed his britches and his gun belt.
He threw the door open to find a worried-looking man in sleeve garters and an apron. “He’s killing them, Marshal. It’s awful. You got to stop it.”
“Where’s this?” Longarm snapped.
“At the saloon. You got to come, Marshal. We can’t control him.”
Longarm thundered down the stairs. Hettie’s whores, most of them anyway, stood in the parlor doorway staring out at the excitement.
When he reached the street outside Hettie’s he automatically turned toward Jacob Potts’s saloon. Behind him the bartender who had delivered the frantic request screamed, “No, Marshal, it’s across the way in Stonecipher. It’s in Jason’s place.”
He changed direction and charged across the wide street toward the glaring lamplight showing at Jason Potts’s establishment. Once there he slowed and took a moment to catch his breath and steady the rhythm of his breathing.
He did not know if he would need a gun to handle this, but one thing he knew for certain sure: A man needs a steady hand on those rare occasions when it takes gunplay to resolve a situation, and a man whose chest is heaving for air is in no shape to reach for his gun.
Longarm took a deep breath. And pushed through the batwings.
Chapter 39
There were things he would rather have seen.
A dozen or so saloon patrons, cowboys most of them, were crowded against t
he wall to Longarm’s right. The long mahogany bar was on his left. Leaning against the bar was a man in overalls, a flannel shirt and a cloth cap. He had a rather wicked-looking skinning knife in his right hand and a small, nickel-plated pistol in his left. He appeared to be a farmer, not a cowboy.
The man with the knife had obviously been busy. One of his victims lay on the floor, curled into a fetal position, trying to hold his guts in. The gray and red coils of intestine had spilled out through a deep cut in his belly, and his blood was soaking into the sawdust that covered the floor planks.
Past him, past the man with the knife, two others cowered against the front of the bar. It appeared that they wanted to get past the knife-wielding man but were being prevented from doing so.
The bartender, a man named Revis, although Longarm did not know if that was his first name or last, was behind his bar, standing well clear of the loco farmer with the knife.
Of the two cowboys who were being held at bay by the man in overalls, at least one of them had been cut. He was holding a bandanna wrapped tight around his wrist. Blood dripped off his fingertips into the sawdust.
Longarm could not see if his companion had been cut, but from the way that fellow stood hunched over with his arms wrapped tight around his stomach considered it a very strong likelihood.
“You!” Longarm barked. “Drop the knife an’ the gun. Do it pronto.”
The man in the overalls looked at him and blinked a little. He did not drop either weapon.
“Did you cut these men?”
Again there was no answer, just a vacant stare.
“He did, Marshal,” the bartender said. “I think he’s killed young Ben there.” The man pointed toward the fellow lying curled up on the floor. “And he’s cut these two, too.”
“I got to get to a doctor, mister, but the big son of a bitch won’t let me past,” the second of the two cowboys at the bar said.
“He cut me too, Marshal, but not so bad as Leon here. He’s crazy, loony as a horned toad,” the nearer said. He was the one standing closer to the belligerent fellow so it took some balls to risk insulting him.
Neither of the cowboys was wearing a pistol or Longarm suspected the confrontation would not have gone on this long, and of the few others in the room who were armed no one seemed inclined to step in and do something about the situation. But then it was the marshal’s job to risk himself and they all knew it.
“Put the knife an’ the gun on the bar,” Longarm told the farmer. “An’ apologize for what you done here tonight.”
“These bastards was making fun of me,” the farmer mumbled.
“What? I couldn’t hear you,” Longarm said.
He repeated the comment and added, “They deserve to die for making fun of a man.”
“Maybe they do deserve it,” Longarm said. “I wouldn’t know ’bout that. But I do know it ain’t your place t’ decide it. I ain’t, either. That’s for a proper judge an’ jury. So do like I said. Put the knife an’ the gun on the bar an’ come with me.”
“Where?” the farmer demanded.
“Over to the jail,” Longarm told him. He smiled. “You got the honor o’ being the very first man ever put behind those bars.”
“Is that an honor? Really?”
Longarm could not decide if the man was being facetious or not. Not that it made any difference. “Yeah, ’tis,” he said.
The fellow seemed to turn that over in his mind for a few seconds. Then he grinned. Turned. Laid both his knife and his pistol on the bar. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go with you. I heard about that jail of yours. Now I’ll get to see it.”
“Let’s do this proper,” Longarm said. “Turn around an’ put your hands behind you so’s I can put the handcuffs on you.”
The farmer obediently turned and stuck both hands behind his back. At which point Longarm realized he did not have any handcuffs with him after jumping up out of bed and rushing across the street.
“For now,” he said, “we’ll have t’ pretend you’re wearing cuffs. Would that be all right?”
“Why?”
Longarm explained.
“Oh. Then . . . sure, that will be all right.” And he marched outside and off toward the jail with his hands held awkwardly behind his back.
Longarm shrugged. And followed.
Someone else would have to take care of the men who had been cut. Longarm wanted to get the farmer behind bars, then he could come back and see if the fellow would be charged with assault. Or with murder.
Chapter 40
Longarm got the door open but there was no light burning inside. With no prisoners in the jail there had not been any reason to burn oil overnight. He turned to his prisoner and said, “Wait here while I find a match. I forgot t’ grab mine when they rousted me out o’ sleep.”
“I have some,” the man offered.
“Thanks.” Longarm accepted a pair of matches from the farmer and went inside, the prisoner close behind.
He felt his way to the desk and struck a match, pulled the lamp close, and touched the flame to the wick. A warm yellow light filled the small room.
“Back there.” Longarm motioned toward the cell at the back of the jail.
The prisoner walked inside docilely enough but when Longarm moved to close the cell door the man’s eyes became wide and he shook his head vehemently from side to side. “No, sir,” he bawled.
“What?”
“Don’t . . . don’t close me in like that. I can’t stand to be closed in.”
“Mister, you can see right past these bars. You shouldn’t have a closed-in feeling about this.”
“No. Really. No.”
“I got to . . .”
Longarm did not have time to finish his sentence about what he had to do. The farmer stood up and bellowed, a roar that was not formed into words. And needed none.
Before Longarm could get the door latched shut the prisoner lunged, hands grasping, lips drawn back in a snarl.
And with a knife in his hand. Another knife that he had been carrying under the bib of his overalls.
Longarm had not thought to search the seemingly cooperative fellow. Now it was too late. Much too late.
Longarm swung the cell door shut in his face, but the man crashed through it, pushed it back into Longarm, who stumbled backward and nearly fell.
The prisoner lashed out with his knife blade, swinging and slashing crazily. It must have been the way he attacked those men in the saloon. Longarm did not want to wind up the same way—lying on the saloon floor. Not only did he not want to, he had no intention of it.
He sidestepped another swing of the knife blade and went for his Colt.
The sound of the big .45’s muzzle blast filled the small jail building and momentarily destroyed Longarm’s hearing.
A lead slug driven by forty grains of black powder struck the farmer in the brisket and knocked him to his knees.
The man looked up at Longarm. His mouth formed a wide O but no sound came out.
He looked down at the knife he still held in his right hand. Then he toppled forward on top of the weapon.
His feet drummed on the floorboards briefly and then he was gone.
“Shit,” Longarm muttered. He knelt beside the dead man and turned him over to retrieve the knife, which he put away on one of the little shelves built on the side of his desk in lieu of drawers.
He had not even gotten the man’s name.
Longarm drew the dead man’s legs out straight and crossed his arms over his belly, then pressed the eyes closed.
Finally he stood and went out into the pale starlight. He needed to go see to the situation at the saloon, see if the gutted man was dead and how badly the other two were hurt.
All that and he still had no idea what started the altercation. But then it was a saloon fight and the ca
use scarcely mattered anyway.
Longarm felt weary and a hundred years old as he walked slowly back toward Jason Potts’s saloon.
Chapter 41
“You had some trouble last night,” Jacob Potts said, sliding onto a stool at Longarm’s side.
Longarm nodded. “At your brother’s place.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard,” Potts said, “although I thought at first it was just a rumor. So there’s a prisoner in our jail this morning?”
Longarm picked up an undersized pitcher of fresh milk and poured some into his coffee, then dumped the rest over his bowl of porridge, adding a generous measure of sugar on top of that.
“No prisoner,” he said. “Which reminds me. I need t’ clean the floor in there, get rid o’ all that blood if I can.”
“What happened?” Potts asked.
“I’m s’prised you ain’t heard. You seem to get all the news from the other side of the line easy enough. Come t’ think of it, how do you hear what goes on over there if there ain’t no back and forth between you?”
Potts looked away. “A man just sort of hears things. Especially a man in my position. You know?”
“But how’d you hear this particular thing this mornin’?” Longarm persisted.
“Why, I think, um, I believe George might have mentioned it.” He paused for a moment, then nodded as if to himself. “Yes, I’m pretty sure it was George who said something about it.”
“And he would know about it how?” Longarm asked.
“I don’t really know, but our customers, Jason’s and mine, do sometimes cross the street.”
“I thought the cowboys were pretty much confined to one side or t’other,” Longarm said.
“They are, for the most part, but there is no law about it. And sometimes a man will want to come over to this side, like if he wants to change what brand he rides for or if he is just riding the grub line looking for work.” Potts smiled. “Not everyone around here works for one side or the other. Strangers passing through wouldn’t know or care about our ways, Marshal. They could carry tales back and forth.”
