Crossfire

by Matt Braun

  “Damn sure ain’t,” Tallman agreed, his mind still distracted by Pearl’s earlier display of cruelty.

  “Well, boys! What do you say? Think Red Rock’s ready for us?” Doc literally shouted after he tossed back another shot of popskull. “You ready to celebrate, Hoodoo?”

  “Hoodoo’s stayin’ here tonight,” Pearl announced with a smile. “Me and him’s goin’ to get to know each other a little better.”

  “Wheeew,” Doc jested. “I’d say a whole lot better.”

  “Goddamn,” Kirk moaned in a kidding tone. “Poor Hoodoo’s never gonna forget tonight.”

  “Shut up, you fuck-ups,” Pearl groaned as she kicked Kirk in the ass. “All three of you pecker-woods! Get the hell out of here!”

  Tallman watched the unusual display of human action with some amusement. The trio hooted and hollered, taunting Pearl like three little kids toying with their mother. Three kiddies and their sadistic mama.

  “And I don’t want to see none of you until tomorrow,” she shouted from the cabin step as they walked toward the lopsided barn.

  “Looks like those boys will tear Red Rock to the ground this evening,” Tallman said from his chair as he eyeballed the lady killer. “Just about drunk already.”

  Pearl closed the door, took two steps, stopped, and gave Tallman an odd stare. After a pause, she spoke. “How come you didn’t gun that guard?” she asked bluntly, her hand resting on her .36 Remington. “This ain’t no trick-shootin’ carnival act, Hoodoo!”

  “Goddamn, lady!” Tallman shot back. “There wasn’t no need for it. No reason to make that man suffer like that and no reason to piss Wells Fargo off any more than necessary.”

  “I don’t want no arguments,” she said as she threw aside her hat, and began to undo her hair. “I want them stagecoach shotgunners scared to death. Next time, shoot the bastard in the head . . . like you done the kid.”

  Tallman built a smoke and offered no arguments. From her bent perspective, her reasoning was sound. The gunshot guard would be plenty of warning if he made it back to Tucson alive. It was his job to shut down the whole operation as soon as possible, and that meant more play-acting with the little scorpion, Pearl Bowen.

  “Otherwise, Hoodoo, you done good,” she said as she approached him and began to unbutton her calico shirt. “Figure you can handle a real woman like you do that six-shooter of yours?”

  Tallman gave her a knowing grin and took a deep pull on his cigarette.

  The little woman undid the last button on her shirt and stripped it away, revealing a chest wrapped with several strips of torn bedsheet. “How about you unwrap me before my tits are squashed permanent,” she said as she eyed the newcomer.

  “Be glad to, Pearl.” Tallman allowed an inward smile as he walked over and untied the knots. The little woman aroused him, and he thought that odd when he considered her potential for brutality and her deranged view of the world. At once, he wondered if there was some strange animalistic mutual attraction between them. But he quickly wrote off that theory and accepted the fact that almost any woman can arouse a man if she was willing to work at it. He recalled one homely woman who was ten years his senior and a hundred pounds overweight, a Quaker who worked the underground during the Civil War. Few women, before or since, had aroused his sex as expertly as she had. When he undid the last wrap, Pearl began to rub her breasts with a slow circular motion.

  “What do you think, Hoodoo?” she asked as she turned to face him. “Nice tits for a woman two years shy of forty. Wouldn’t you say?”

  Tallman looked at the small, firm orbs, which were topped by the longest nipples he’d ever seen. He nodded approval.

  Pearl put a finger through his bandanna, turned, and pulled him toward the bedroom. His first instinct was to break her finger off and stuff it up her ass, but he held his temper and played along.

  “Stand still,” she said when they got in the room. Her voice sounded feminine for the first time since he’d met her.

  “What is it you got in mind, Pearl?” Tallman asked.

  “Sex,” she purred. “My way.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said as he reached for the small breasts. “Nice.”

  Pearl stood back, popped her feet out of her boots, and slowly squirmed out of the loose-fitting jeans. Tallman’s interest soared when he saw shapely legs topped with a jutting ass and a curly triangle of hair, which did nothing to cover the bulging lips that clearly delineated her womanhood.

  “Shame you hide that under them duds all the time,” he said, his cock growing hard.

  Pearl came closer and stroked the lump in his pants. “Totin’ a spare barrel for your Colt, Hoodoo?”

  While she deftly undid his belt and buttons, he fingered her unusual nipples. He took one of the little knobs, twirled it, and pulled gently. Pearl dropped his pants, snatched his purple-veined cock from his drawers and stared lovingly at the one-eyed monster as she stroked it.

  “Get the rest of your clothes off,” she whispered as she dropped his throbbing meat and backed out of his hold on her breasts.

  While Tallman kicked his boots off and stepped out of his pants, Pearl went to her bed, fell supine, and spread her legs as far as they would go. With her eyes fixed on Tallman, she smiled and, with both hands, pulled the lips of her cunt as far apart as they’d go. “You like this?” she asked. “Nice pink meat?”

  “Never seen one I didn’t,” Tallman answered, feeling somewhat foolish.

  Then she broadened her smile, released one side, stuck her finger deep into her own moist bog and began to moan, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on his.

  Tallman, his rod engorged with blood, went to the bed and prepared to mount her. She stopped him.

  “My way. Remember? Now lay down,” she said quietly as she turned to her side.

  Tallman obliged the lady robber and fell on his back, his swollen member pointing skyward. Pearl got up, sat next to him Indian style, grabbed his stiff cock firmly and began pumping with one hand as she palmed his balls with the other.

  Tallman watched as she stroked rhythmically and stared at her work. “I love to watch a man shoot,” she said in a monotone. “Just be still and let me do everything.”

  Not having had a woman in days, Tallman was quickly aroused, and her careful attention to her task was bringing him rapidly toward his release. She sensed his growing desire and placed her middle finger on his anus and poked at his sphincter until she pushed beyond the tight valve and began to massage his prostate with her fingertip.

  Tallman was being taken with the sensation and he began to move against her hand and finger. Pearl, sensing Tallman’s arousal, tightened her grip, stroked faster, and probed deeper. Tallman grunted as her deft fingers unleashed his seed. The head of his cock erupted in a shower of lumpy, white juice. A second convulsion sent another load aloft. Then a third. Tallman couldn’t believe the sensation. It was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, though he did feel sheepish as he came down from the orgiastic high, and became acutely aware of her nimble finger in his ass. He moved his eyes from the timber rafters to her face. Her eyes were glazed as she continued to pump out the final drops. She had the distant look of a lunatic.

  Her odd stare made him go limp.

  Sensing that his cock was softening, she bent forward, removed her finger from his hole, and captured the dying organ in her thin-lipped mouth, sucking and working his tip with her hard tongue. No man would have wilted under the skillful mouth of Pearl Bowen. Her tongue lashed at the hardening shaft, her head bobbed rhythmically, and the room came alive with the sound of greedy sucking. As she stroked him with her tight lips, she moaned loudly and flung her leg over his supine body and sat on his chest, her buttocks toward his face. Then she dropped him from her mouth, scooted forward, grabbed his ankles, raised herself and straddled his erect manhood. Very slowly, with perfect aim, she lowered herself on his shaft.

  Tallman craned his neck foward and watched as his huge cock disappeared into her d
amp curls. Once it had vanished, she slowly raised herself until the tip was about to pop out. Then she went slowly down again. As she pumped the tempo increased, and soon, she was hammering him with the speed of a piston on a fast-moving locomotive. Just as they were both rising toward trembling release, the sounds of a rider pierced the walls of the cabin.

  “Jesus Christ,” Pearl moaned, as she quickly removed herself from his pole. “That son-of-a-bitch would have to show right now.”

  TEN

  Tallman caught up with Doc the next evening just after sundown. The scarfaced outlaw was running amok in Anita’s, Red Rock’s only sporting house.

  “Figured you’d be somewhere where you could grease your pole,” Tallman said as he spotted the half-bagged stage robber, who had a fifteen-year-old Mexican whore sitting on his lap.

  “Hoodoo!” Doc shouted across the parlor when he saw Tallman.

  Tallman made his way through the liquored-up patrons and their scantily clothed attendants. At Stroud’s table, he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “Have a drink, Hoodoo,” Stroud said, his lips thick with whiskey. “And some of this,” he added as he reached into the girl’s loose dress and pulled out a youthful breast. As Stroud drunkenly pawed the girl’s tit and plucked the dark brown nipple, the young whore, who had the eyes of a moron, giggled like a ten-year-old.

  “You kiddin’, Doc!” Tallman grunted as he poured a shot of sourmash. “Pearl wore me out proper last night. Goddamn woman’s crazy.”

  “Crazy don’t describe Pearl,” Doc laughed as he greedily pawed at the little firm breast. “There ain’t no words to say how she is.”

  “You ain’t shittin’!” Tallman added as he took out the makings of a smoke. “Once with that bitch is all I want. Got me enough of a stake to lay back a bit. Play some cards.”

  “You ain’t ridin’ with us again?”

  “Nope,” Tallman said as he stroked a sulphurhead on the underside of the scratched table. “You and Kirk and Jake can have her all to yourselves.” Tallman was anxious to move on to Tucson without causing any suspicion or ill feelings among the outlaws.

  “Jesus,” Doc moaned. He dropped the girl’s breast and rubbed his scarred cheek. He suddenly appeared to sober. “I don’t know if Pearl’s gonna like that.”

  “She ain’t got no choice in the matter,” Tallman said firmly as he eyed Doc with a serious expression. “Woman’s trouble. You boys mark my words.” Tallman laughed inwardly. “I don’t mind stealin’ from them bastards at Wells Fargo. But I ain’t gonna be party to the likes of what she done to that guard.”

  Doc just looked at Tallman with lazy eyes.

  The whore jiggled her tit with her tiny hand. “You boys like?” she asked dumbly. “One dollar.”

  Tallman made small talk with Doc and the idiot whore while he downed a final shot of whiskey. When an Oriental in see-through silk approached, he begged off, claiming that he was planning to spend all night at a poker table in Tucson. The sore on the upper lip of the Chinese girl confirmed his first impression—Anita’s was the kind of place where one could get a permanent case of bugs on the brain.

  “Pearl ain’t gonna like it,” Doc said as Tallman got up. “I’m tellin’ you, she might take it personal-like.”

  “You no stay fuck Ling Chan?” the Oriental asked Tallman.

  Tallman tipped his hat at the putas and walked off. As he threaded his way through the dimly lit parlor and out the door, he pondered the half-dressed flesh sprawled on the cheap furniture. The scene caused him to reflect on his evening with Pearl. After she’d interrupted her backwards mount at the sound of the rider, she dressed, met the rider outside, and passed on what appeared to be a third of the gold. While she jawed briefly with the rider, he had quietly made his way to the front window. Being careful to avoid detection, he’d gotten a look at the rider and his distinctive brown-on-white paint. But from his vantage point beside the window, he’d been unable to hear anything but mumbling. When she’d returned to the bedroom . . . Well, he thought to himself as he mounted his horse and recalled Pearl’s odd sexual behavior, at least she didn’t send me for the bacon grease.

  As he headed south under the cool, early evening air, he slowly began to further ponder a plan that would rid the countryside of Pearl’s gang and those higher up in the organization.

  It was just past ten when he entered Tucson. It had been a year since he’d seen the territorial capital, and he was taken with its sprawling growth. He turned his horse over to the Mexican in the livery at the end of Calle de San Miguel and headed back to the Buena Suerte after he’d inquired as to the whereabouts of Sherm Jarrott. As he made the five-block trip, he found amusement in the throngs of men who were out that evening to win a fortune, or to vent their manhood in the belly of a whore, or to get stone-head drunk . . . or all three. When he saw the gaming joint on the other side of the street, he made his way across the dusty hardpan, hoping that Vivian had made some headway. Truth be known, he still needed more—much more—to solve Wells Fargo’s problem.

  When he entered the smoke-filled gambling den, he at once caught sight of Vivian’s table. She was tending to four boisterous players, and her table was surrounded by a host of rubberneckers who were hooting and laughing at the expense of a red-faced fat man. He smiled at the scene, walked to the bar, bellied up to the polished wood, and ordered a beer. He nursed the cold suds as he made his way to the casino’s most popular table. Shortly after he had arrived, a drunken sodbuster lost his last silver dollar and left the game, wondering what he’d tell his wife about the disposition of the month’s allowance for provisions. Tallman snatched the empty chair and began to lose. With a perfectly straight face she took his money on every bet. Some sense of humor, he mused. Despite her expensive amusement, she managed to get a cryptic message to her fellow Pinkerton. She’d see him later that evening in the Governor Hotel. Then he began to win. Sixty dollars to the good. Tallman left the game, hoping to get some shuteye before the 4 A.M. closing.

  His mind adrift, he ambled through the stained-glass doors and went left on the plankwalk. After only two blocks, he was alerted by a passing horse. It was the paint he’d seen from the window the night before. He kept walking and followed the loping horseman. In less than a minute, the rider tied his mount to a hitching rail in front of Vincent’s Saloon. The man who’d taken delivery of the gold stopped before entering and surveyed the street.

  Oddly, he and Tallman locked eyes for an instant even though they were separated by the width of the busy street. Though it was only a momentary thing, Tallman cursed himself, somehow concerned that the man was sharp enough to make something of it.

  But the rider seemed undaunted as he spun on his heels and entered Vincent’s. Tallman waited for five minutes and crossed the street. At the edge of the front window of the saloon, he checked for the rider. The nameless man appeared to be nowhere in the bar. He waited ten minutes to assure himself that the man was not in the outhouse, and then he went into the bar. There were no women, and the bartender denied that he had any cribs. Concerned, Tallman went outside with the idea of establishing a watch over the man’s horse. The handsome mount had vanished.

  For the next four hours, Tallman walked the streets in search of the distinctive paint. His efforts were fruitless. Discouraged by the sour luck, he went back to the Buena Suerte and waited for Vivian. When she emerged from the casino, he followed her to her hotel. With the exception of a few stumbling drunks, the moonlit street was quiet.

  “Who is it?” Vivian asked after hearing the light knocking sound at her door.

  “Ash.”

  “Come on in,” she said quietly after she opened the door.

  “You look good, Viv,” Tallman said as he threw his hat on the bed. “A sight for sore eyes.”

  “What did you find out?” Vivian asked eagerly. She was obviously engrossed in the case.

  “Enough. But we need more to nail the coffin shut on the higher-ups. Even pulled a job the day b
efore yesterday. I damn near closed the case right then and there.” He paused and gave her a serious look. “Watch your step. We’re dealing with a bad bunch.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “It’s all over town about that Wells Fargo guard! Who the hell shot his balls off?”

  “The leader of the bunch. A snake named Pearl Bowen.”

  “A woman?”

  “Meaner than a cornered wildcat.”

  “You can’t get much meaner than what she did. They say the man has better than a fifty-fifty chance. At least that’s what I heard.”

  Tallman winced, thinking of the cold-blooded way Pearl gutshot the guard and then blasted his crotch.

  “Like I said,” Tallman went on with raised eyebrows. “Be careful!”

  “That bitch ought to be drawn and quartered,” Vivian said through clenched teeth.

  “That would be too good for her,” Tallman said. “Even the Indians couldn’t make her pay her dues. But for now let’s forget Pearl Bowen and her gang of mama’s boys. What have you been able to get?”

  “I found out who Jarrott reports to. A man named Floyd Traber. I have nothing to tie him to the Wells Fargo jobs, but he is the number-one crook in Tucson. So I doubt he misses much. Travels with a dog-faced bodyguard who’s built like a tree stump. Also, Jarrott has me stroking the mayor of Tucson. I’m on orders to keep him up by sixty or seventy dollars a week. Might be a slick sort of payoff. But, to be honest, I don’t think the mayor has the sense to know whether or not he’s winning or losing.”

  Tallman listened and began to roll a cigarette. “Be glad when I can go back to factory-made smokes,” he said. “So you got anything more on Traber?”

  “Nothing more than I’ve just told you. I figure that my next step is to get next to Traber. He was bug-eyed the other night when I showed him a little of this,” she said as she squeezed her arms and caused a blossom of cleavage. “So it won’t be long.”

  “A man would have to be queer to resist.”