Longarm and the Great Divide

by Tabor Evans

  “Or that old fellow selling water. He sells on both sides of the line, doesn’t he?” Longarm said.

  “Wallace Waterman, you mean,” Potts said. “Yes, he sells to both sides. We tolerate him.” Potts scratched the beard stubble beneath his chin. “Come to think of it, we could forbid Wallace to sell on the other side. The thirst might drive them away and then we would be left alone to do as we please.”

  “How are the Nebraska people displeasing you as it is?” Longarm asked.

  “Why, um, well,” Potts blinked rapidly, “they just sort of . . . do.”

  “’Scuse me, Jacob. My porridge is getting cold.”

  “Yes, of course.” Potts stood, hesitated for a moment, then walked out of the café. Longarm returned to his rapidly cooling breakfast.

  Chapter 42

  Longarm spent the day being seen on both sides of the line, had supper on the Nebraska side, then paid Liz a visit.

  “I was hoping you would come for supper,” she told him when he got there. “I had a place at the table laid for you.”

  He smiled and took the lady into his arms. “Then how’s about we settle for dessert instead.”

  Liz’s tongue fluttered inside his mouth as she reached for the buttons at his fly. And for what lay behind those buttons.

  An hour later Longarm sat up and reached for a cheroot.

  “Sleep here tonight,” Liz said. “I love sleeping next to you. Love the smell of you, the warmth. Please stay.”

  He flicked a match aflame and used it to get the slender cigar lighted, then exhaled a cloud of aromatic smoke. “I better not,” he said. “If I happen t’ be needed, like I was last night, it’s best if they don’t find me sleepin’ in your bed. Besides, I got my rounds to make. Got to make sure all the proper doors are locked and there ain’t no burglars about.”

  “If you change your mind . . .”

  “I’ll know where t’ come,” he said, leaning down to give the girl a kiss.

  Longarm took his time with the cigar, then dressed and gave Liz one last kiss. Which threatened to last until morning, but he reluctantly pulled himself away and said, “I got to go now. Really, darlin’.”

  He let himself out, knowing his way in the dark by now, and made sure the latch caught behind him. He paused for a moment on the porch, enjoying the cool of the night, then made his way across toward the jail.

  The bright yellow of a muzzle flash blossomed in the night from beside the jail, and a bullet sizzled past his left ear like the buzz of the world’s largest—and nastiest—bee ever.

  Longarm hit the ground, Colt ready in his hand.

  He heard the distant, muted thud of running footsteps.

  Then the night air was silent but not so comfortably so as it had been just a few minutes earlier.

  Some son of a bitch was gunning for him, seriously gunning this time, but he had no idea who. Nor why. He had placed only two men under arrest since he came to town and both of them were dead now.

  But someone wanted him out of the way. He had no doubts about that. Someone wanted Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long dead.

  Chapter 43

  He rose to his feet and made his way across the ruts of the central street. Checked the door of the jail. It was not locked, but then there had been no need to lock it earlier and he had left it that way.

  A quick check inside found nothing out of place, at least nothing that was obvious.

  There certainly was no one lurking inside with a gun in hand. He rather wished there had been. It would have been a pleasure for him to shoot the son of a bitch.

  Lacking that, he walked back to the Nebraska side of the street and checked the doors along the sidewalk and around back through the alley. From there he crossed over to Wyoming and did the same on that side of the street.

  The only businesses that were open were the Potts brothers’ saloons, and those would stay open as long as there were customers. There was no law on either side to specify when a saloon could be open for business, so they were apt to stay all night if there was someone wanting to drink.

  Longarm wondered if the unknown gunman had fled from beside the jail to refuge in Jacob’s saloon. He very likely had, but customers were coming and going on a fairly regular basis at this hour so it would not be possible to identify the bastard that way.

  Still, he gave it a try. George Griner could not remember the comings and goings of his customers.

  “To tell you the truth, Marshal, unless I happen to know a man I don’t pay any attention to their faces. They order a drink; I serve it, but I don’t pay much attention to who’s drinking what.”

  Longarm grunted. He supposed that was possible. Although a genuinely good bartender not only knew the customers, he remembered what they drank. Longarm had known a man tending bar in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who served him a brandy flip one winter day. A year and a half later Longarm happened to walk into the same bar. The bartender immediately asked if he wanted another flip. Now that, Longarm thought, was a bartender.

  George Griner was not in that man’s league and likely never would be.

  But he was what Valmere and Jacob Potts had so he would just have to do.

  Just to be sure, Longarm walked across to Jason’s place and asked the barman there the same question. He got the same answer from Revis as he had from Griner.

  “I’m sorry, Marshal, but we’ve been busy this evening. There’s been a steady flow. Fellas coming and going. I can’t keep track of them. D’you want a beer or a whiskey or something?”

  “I could stand a beer,” Longarm said. At least here on the Nebraska side he could get a good one, unlike across the street in Wyoming.

  Revis drew one for him and Longarm took his time with it, standing with both elbows on the bar and facing into the room. He watched the crowd as they did indeed amble in and out, no one paying any particular mind to his presence.

  Eventually Longarm gave up and headed for his bed across the way in Stella’s.

  At least this time no one shot at him.

  Chapter 44

  It was pitch-black in his room when he wakened to a sensation of wet heat in his groin. His dick was hard so he must have been dreaming.

  Then he heard a series of soft, slurping sounds to go with the sense of urgency in his cock.

  Longarm smiled. And let himself relax to the sensations of a very deep, warm, wet, and experienced blow job.

  He had no idea who had slipped into his room and started sucking him, but whoever it was was very good. Quiet, too, to be able to come into his room like that.

  Longarm lay back and enjoyed what the girl was doing. Her touch was delicate, so soft he did not think she could bring him off. Especially after he was with Liz earlier in the evening. She had taken the edge off of his needs. Off his needs but not his desires.

  He arched his back and pushed deeper into the girl’s warm, wet mouth. Into the mouth and through to her throat, which he could feel tight around the head of his cock.

  With a groan and a lurch of his hips, Longarm shot his cum, spewing hot into her throat.

  The girl made a faint gobbling sound and grabbed at him so that for a moment he thought he must have hurt her, but she swallowed before she pulled away.

  His cock felt cold when the night air found the moisture she had left behind. It sank back to its normal size, and he felt the girl kiss his dick and his belly.

  “Thank you,” he said softly. “That was nice.”

  “Good,” she said. “I wanted it to be.”

  Longarm rolled onto one elbow and ran his hand over the back of her head.

  “Do you mind if I light the lamp?” he asked. “I’d like t’ see who you are.”

  “No, it’s all right.”

  He felt on the bedside stand for his matches, struck one, and touched it to the wick of his lamp.

 
; He smiled and caressed the side of the girl’s face.

  He could not remember this one’s name but he had been seeing her daily—nightly, really—ever since he moved into Stella’s. She was not pretty, a plump little thing with a bad complexion and small tits, but now he understood why she was so popular with the customers. The girl gave a blow job that was simply outstanding.

  “I’d like t’ ask you something,” he said.

  “All right.”

  “Why?”

  The girl giggled and reached up to pet his flaccid cock. “You been here all this time, living right amongst us, but you never made a pass at any of us. We was beginning to think there was something wrong with you. Like maybe you got your dick shot off in a gunfight or something. So we was talking about this and decided one of us should come find out. We drew straws and I came up the winner.” She laughed and added, “Now I can go back and tell all the girls that there’s not a thing in the world wrong with your dick. No, ma’am, there isn’t.” She touched it again, lightly stroking it.

  “Careful,” he said. “Keep that up an’ you’ll wake the wolf.”

  “Promise?” she said.

  “Promise.”

  With a bubbly grin she began to suck him again. Once Longarm was erect she pulled away and said, “This time I’d like to feel it in my pussy if you don’t mind.” With a sigh she said, “It’s such a pretty thing.”

  “I don’t mind,” he assured her. “Now come up here beside me on this here bed.”

  The girl threw her chemise aside and, naked, came to him.

  Chapter 45

  Longarm whipped up a nice froth in his soap mug and used his brush to plaster it onto his face. He lighted a cheroot to fill the time while he waited for the shaving soap to soften his beard stubble.

  His thoughts inevitably went to the girl who had come into his room during the night. It had not occurred to him until she was gone that he never got around to asking her name. Not that he supposed that mattered. She gave a great blow job and was a wildcat in bed. What more would a boy need to know?

  He set the cigar aside, ran his razor several times back and forth across a strop, and commenced to carefully shave. When he was done with that he used a hand towel—whorehouses are well equipped with towels if with nothing else—to wipe the remaining soap from his face.

  Taking a pair of small, sharp scissors from his bag, he trimmed his mustache, then dampened a corner of the towel, dipped that into a tin of salt and scrubbed his teeth. A quick run of a brush over his hair and he was ready to face a new day.

  It would be nice, he thought, if he could get through it without being shot at.

  No, he corrected himself, it would be nice if he could catch the son of a bitch who was shooting at him. So far he had no idea who that might be. Or why.

  He pulled his shirt over his head—he really had to remember to send his laundry down today—tucked it into his trousers and slipped his suspenders over his shoulders.

  Longarm buckled his gun belt around his hips and from long habit eased the heavy Colt out a few inches to make sure it was free in the leather, then carefully seated it again, ready for instant use if that should be required.

  He quickly fastened his collar and tie, picked up his hat and put it on, then finally reached for his coat and shrugged into it.

  Who, damnit? Why? The questions kept hounding him, but there was nothing he could do to satisfy them. Not at the moment, he couldn’t.

  Longarm went downstairs and outside, then turned toward the Valmere side of town, heading to the café and some breakfast, ready to start a new day.

  Chapter 46

  “Marshal, there’s a fight brewing over at the mercantile,” the nearly breathless boy shouted.

  Longarm stood. “Which side o’ town, son?” There were two general stores, one on each side of the line, just like pretty much everything else around here, and he had learned by now to make sure he was dashing off to the correct side of town before he did the dashing.

  “Wyoming, sir.”

  He grabbed his Stetson off the peg he had put into the wall beside the doorway and headed at a lope for Garrett Franz’s store.

  When he got there he found Franz facing off with a red-faced and obviously very angry cowboy. The cowboy was a good head taller than Franz, and his posture was threatening. Like most cowhands he carried a pistol on his hip when he was in town, although he might not have bothered with the weight and the nuisance when he was working. Franz was not armed, which likely saved him from the young cowboy’s fury.

  “You’re a cheating son of a bitch,” the cowboy bawled, his voice cracking.

  “Call me whatever you like,” Franz snapped back at him, “but you asked me to perform a service and I did so. It’s too late now for you to balk at the price.”

  “You deliberately cheated me, damn you,” the cowboy shouted.

  For a moment Longarm thought the young man was going for his gun. Longarm’s .45 was in his hand and ready to bark, but all the cowboy did was scratch his belly. He never actually touched the butt of his Colt.

  Garrett Franz must have had the same impression as Longarm. Presumably assuming that his customer was reaching for his gun, Franz lashed out at the tall young man, burying his fist in the cowboy’s belly.

  Longarm expected the cowboy to respond by beating the crap out of the shopkeeper. Certainly that was what most rugged young men would have done. Instead the boy doubled over, holding his stomach with both hands and dropping to his knees.

  That behavior seemed odd. Until Longarm saw the young fellow’s blood spilling out onto the rough planks of the floor.

  And saw the now-bloody blade of a knife in Garret Franz’s fist. The shopkeeper had been hiding a stinger beneath his apron.

  “You saw him, Marshal,” Franz said calmly. “He was going for his gun. I only defended myself. You saw. You were standing right there. You saw it all.”

  The cowboy continued to clutch his stomach. He looked up, tears streaming down his cheeks, but he said nothing.

  “Put that thing away, Franz, an’ help me get him over to the jail,” Longarm said, nodding in the direction of the knife that Franz continued to hold.

  “What? Oh, uh, yes, of course.” Franz tucked the blade away somewhere under his apron, grabbed the cowboy by the arms and yanked the young fellow to his feet.

  “Where do you want him, Marshal?”

  “We’ll take him over to the jail. I can stretch him out on one o’ the bunks.”

  Longarm got on one side of the cowboy and Franz took the other. Between them they half carried, half walked the cowboy out of the general store and down the street to the jail.

  “In there,” Longarm said, pointing to the lone cell at the back of the little building. They took the cowboy into the cell and laid him on the crude bunk.

  When they stepped back out, leaving the cowboy there, Franz said, “For what it is worth, Marshal, Bobby there is banned from my shop. Permanently.”

  “What was he arguing about?” Longarm asked.

  “He wanted a pair a chaps made with his personal brand inlayed on the right leg and his initials on the left. I had to take the chaps out of my stock and send them down to Cheyenne to have the work done. I don’t do it myself, you understand. I had the chaps made up to his exact specifications and paid the shoemaker . . . the fellow who did the actual work . . . out of my own pocket. Bobby became upset when I told him the price. You saw the result.”

  “Yes,” Longarm said. “So I did.” He also thought, but did not say out loud, that he was anxious to hear the cowboy, Bobby something, give his side of the story.

  Longarm saw Franz out, then returned to the cell where Bobby something lay curled up into a tight ball on the rough planks of the bunk.

  Chapter 47

  “Sir?” The voice was weak but at least the young fello
w was awake now. Longarm got up and went into the cell. He sat on the edge of the bunk where Bobby lay.

  “Yeah, kid?”

  “You . . . you’re the marshal?”

  Longarm nodded. “I am.”

  “You’ll tell me straight, won’t you? Am I gonna die?”

  Longarm smiled down at the worried youngster. “Hell, kid, we’re all of us gonna die. Eventually.”

  “I . . . I mean . . .”

  “Oh, I know what you mean an’ if I could tell you I would. But I just don’t know. It all depends on what got punctured in there. I’ve seen a man shot in the gut with a .50-caliber Sharps an’ live. On the other hand I’ve seen a man keel over an’ die without no reason at all, ’least none that I could figure. How do you feel?”

  Bobby reflected on the question for a moment before he answered. “Like I got a bellyache,” he said finally.

  “How bad?”

  “Pretty bad, sir. Can I have something to drink, sir?”

  “I seem t’ recall bein’ told once that a man with a belly wound shouldn’t have nothing to drink. An’ you don’t have to call me ‘sir,’” Longarm said.

  “Whoever told you that didn’t have a hole in his gut,” Bobby said.

  “You have a point. I wouldn’t think a little whiskey would hurt. Might help damp the pain down some.” He smiled. “I just happen t’ have a bottle I brought over from the saloon.”

  “Which side, sir?”

  Longarm laughed. “You aren’t so bad off, I’m thinking, if you can think about that. An’ it came from the Nebraska side.”

  “In that case, sir, I’d sure like to have me a drink.”

  Longarm stood up and went out into the office side of the room to fetch the bottle he had purchased from Jason Potts. He got it and returned to the cell. “Can you sit up?” he asked.