by Tabor Evans
“What does she have t’ do with it?” Longarm asked.
“Jake was one of Hettie’s partners in the whorehouse. I don’t suppose he would have cared if anyone knew that, but their other partner was dead set on remaining anony . . . anony . . .”
“Anonymous,” someone in the crowd provided.
“Thanks. Yeah, that. The other partner didn’t want to be known, so Jake kept quiet, too. Hettie only owns a ten percent share in Stella’s. Jake and the other fellow each had forty-five percent.” Jason sighed. “Now I suppose I own Jake’s share, me being his brother.”
The crowd milled around in the dead man’s saloon, everyone seeming to be speaking at once. Bartender George Griner could have used three sets of arms and six sets of hands to keep up with it all. Longarm suspected the place was taking in more money this evening than it ever had before. He even saw a large contingent of Stonecipher people who had come to listen and commiserate and drink.
Everyone else seemed to be wide-awake, but he was tired. He had gotten barely a wink of sleep during the evening and now was running out of steam.
He excused himself to no one in particular and walked outside into the cool of the night.
He turned to go back to the whorehouse and to bed but stopped short at the distinctive sound of a weapon being cocked.
“You son of a bitch. You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? You had to come here and completely fuck everything up.”
Without turning around, Longarm said, “Good evening t’ you, too, Garrett. You’re the other partner, ain’t you? An’ you don’t want t’ have to drop your prices to just a fair profit. You wanted t’ go on cheating all the cowhands on this side o’ the line. I’ll bet it was you and Jacob working together to get the jealousy started and the lies about who was welcome where. Was it you that shot at me a couple times, too?”
“That was Jacob. The softhearted idiot. He deliberately missed. He said he wanted to frighten you away. I wouldn’t have missed.”
“No, I expect you wouldn’t have,” Longarm said, still with his back to Franz. “Do you mind if I turn around? I’d hate t’ die with a bullet in my back. Better to take it face on an’ proud.”
“Go ahead,” Garrett Franz said. “But slowly.”
Longarm nodded. Slowly turned.
The big .45 already in his hand barked. Garrett Franz’s mouth opened as if to scream but no sound emerged from his throat. Longarm’s bullet ripped his throat out before the storekeeper could pull the trigger of the rifle he held in his hands.
Franz crumpled to the ground. Longarm walked over to him. Stood there looking down at the mortal remains of Valmere’s mercantile owner.
“Huh,” he said, shucking the empty brass out of his Colt and replacing it with a fresh cartridge. “Maybe you should’ve stuck to stocking shelves, mister.”
He thought about the soft bed waiting for him upstairs in Stella’s.
Then he thought about a different bed waiting for him across on the Nebraska side.
He walked on to Nebraska. And Elizabeth Kunsler.
Watch for
LONGARM AND THE YUMA PRISON
the 425th novel in the exciting LONGARM series from Jove
Coming in April!
