Longarm and the Deadwood Shoot-out (9781101619209) (8 page)

“Is she still here? Can I interview her?”

“Sorry. She’s long gone. I don’t even know if she went back East or traveled on to California like she talked of doing.”

“Was she telling the truth in that article?” Longarm asked.

“Who knows. It could be, I suppose,” Hochavar said, “but I wouldn’t bank on it. She liked a tall tale as well as anybody.” The sheriff winked. “Liked her whiskey as good as anybody, too. Could have been whiskey talking in that story. Or she could have stumbled into something when she was passing herself off as a newspaperwoman. Which is what she wanted to be. The chance to travel and to see strange sights is probably why she took that job to begin with. That and to escape from the Bowery. She never admitted to me what she had done back there but I got the idea that it was something pretty bad.”

“How’d you come to know her?” Longarm asked.

The sheriff laughed. “Jen acted almost like a man. Her and me played cards together and drank some together. She isn’t a bad-looking girl and I think she liked me because I wasn’t always trying to get in her knickers the way most of the fellows did. With me it was just the cards and the liquor. And talk. Jen likes to talk.”

“But she’s gone now?”

Hochavar nodded. “Weeks ago.”

“Damn. I’d hoped to talk to her,” Longarm said.

“Sorry.”

“In your honest opinion, was she telling the truth in that article?”

“I just don’t know, Long. I just can’t help you there.”

“One more thing, Sheriff.” Longarm grinned. “Is there a decent hotel in town? It looks like I’ll be here for a few days until the next coach comes through.”

“Sure thing. You just go three blocks that way and…”

It was a hotel, all right. As for how good a hotel it was, well, Longarm was reserving judgment about that. It seemed a little on the seedy side but he could have been wrong about that. And it did have a bed and a door that could be bolted shut. Beyond that it did not much matter.

He looked through his carpetbag to make sure there was nothing contained in it that could not be easily replaced—just in case the mice in the hotel had sticky fingers—and deposited the bag underneath the rumpled bed, the appearance of which made him suspect that the sheets were not changed very often.

For whatever it was worth he locked the hotel room door behind him—the lock could be jimmied with a butter knife—and went downstairs.

“Where can I find a good café?” he asked the desk man.

“There’s a café in the next block over,” the fellow told him. Then he grinned and added, “Or there’s a
good
café in the next block after that one. Dud’s place. And it would be a kindness if you’d mention that I sent you.”

“Dud?”

“Short for Dudley.”

“Thanks.” He left the hotel and went to the closer café, not the one that would give a kickback to the hotel clerk, figuring that his recommendation had nothing to do with the quality of either place.

The meal he got there was tasty and inexpensive and the place was clean. Longarm figured a fellow couldn’t ask for much better than that. Not in a town he was just passing through. He ate, paid, and grabbed a toothpick on his way out the door.

As he was passing a store on his way back to the hotel he heard a loud crash and an even louder yelp of “damn you, Larry” coming from inside. The voice was a woman’s, and she sounded both angry and scared.

On an impulse Longarm turned and stepped inside.

The store proved to deal in ladies’ ready-to-wear, hats and dresses and unmentionables. Toward the back of the display space a woman was trying to fend off a tall, rangy man with blond hair and a mustache so pale it was difficult to see. The man wore a boiled shirt but no collar. He had garters on his sleeves.

The woman was a good foot shorter than the man and he probably outweighed her by fifty pounds. She was backed into a corner, spitting and clawing but quite obviously was losing this battle.

It hardly seemed a fair contest so Longarm crossed the small room and politely tapped the gent on his shoulder.

The fellow did not respond to the first light tap so Longarm tried again. Harder.

And when that did not work he grabbed the fellow by the arm and yanked him around so the two were face-to-face.

“Par’n me, ma’am,” Longarm said with a nod toward the lady.

Then he punched the man in the face.

That got his attention just fine.

The man let go of the woman and threw a quick left at Longarm.

Longarm swayed aside just enough to let the punch fly harmlessly past then dug a hard blow to the fellow’s ribs.

Had his attention? And then some. The man turned pale with pain but he was game. He moved in closer to Longarm and threw a left, which Longarm ducked, and followed it with a sharp right that connected with Longarm’s jaw.

Longarm’s face went numb. And he was pissed. He pummeled the SOB with a flurry of lefts and rights and lefts again.

With his back against the wall there was nowhere for the man to retreat toward. He tried to duck but to no avail. Within seconds his face was running with blood from a split lip and a smashed nose. A cut over his right eye must have nearly blinded him because he was no longer able to see to even try to block Longarm’s rain of fists.

“Enough!” he cried out, leaning back against the wall with his forearms guarding his battered face. “Enough.”

Longarm stopped punching, and the man ducked between Longarm and the woman to make his escape at a run, his shoe soles pounding across the floor. He slammed the shop door so hard it was a wonder he did not break the glass.

“Are you all right?”

Longarm looked down to see a very pretty, middle-aged woman. Until then he had paid little attention to her, being somewhat busy elsewhere.

She was small and lightly built. She had dark hair except for a few strands of gray showing at her temples. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a starched white shirtwaist and a black skirt.

She reached up and touched his cheek. He winced. He really had not realized that he was hit that hard in that brief dustup.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

Longarm harrumphed. “Not half as bad as that son of a…uh, as that other fella.”

The woman laughed. “The son of a bitch you refer to is my ex-husband, Larry.” She had a good laugh, light and delicate and pleasing to the ear. “I have to agree that he got the worse of the bargain. Come into the back with me for a minute. I have some water there. I’ll bathe that cut.”

“Cut?”

“It’s just a little one, but we wouldn’t want it to get infected, would we?”

“No, uh, we wouldn’t want that.”

Smiling, she went to the front door and threw the bolt to lock it, then fetched a closed sign from behind a rack of hats and set that in the window. Then she returned to Longarm and took him by the hand.

The back room was obviously a storeroom, but she had a bed there, too. A double bed, curtained off from the storage part of the room. The little woman held out her hand to shake and introduced herself. “My name is Angela Morris.” She grinned. “But I am no angel.”

Longarm completed his side of the introduction.

“A marshal,” she said. “I hope you are no angel, either, Marshal Long.”

“Now that is one thing I never been accused of, Miss Morris.”

“Please call me Angela.”

“All right. Angela it is.”

She gave him an impish smile. “And now, Marshal, you know why my husband left me.”

“I do?”

“Yes. It is because I have this insatiable desire to fuck every man I meet.” She tilted her head to the side and smiled again. “Right now, for instance. Do you mind?”

“Are you serious?”

“Very.” She began removing her clothes, the shirtwaist first, then her skirt and the blouse.

“Reckon,” he said, “I don’t mind.”

Angela Morris was small, with a compact body. Thin legs. Tiny tits that lay flat against her chest. Dark nipples that stood erect and proud. A bushy vee of hair at her crotch.

“Hurry,” she whispered, her voice low and throaty now. “Hurry, please. I need it. Please.”

Longarm hurried. It would have been rude to turn away now. He stripped as quickly as he could, his cock standing tall and eager.

Angela grabbed his hand and pulled him to the bed. She lay down, spreading herself open to him.

Longarm practically threw himself onto her. And into her.

She was already wet in anticipation of what was to come. “All of it. Yes. Give it to me.”

Incredibly, she began to shudder in a hard climax almost before he could fill her. She was as quick to come as he could ever recall knowing, and she continued to come time after time while he stroked into her and built to his own powerful climax.

When he tried to roll off of her, thinking his weight might be too much for her small frame, Angela stopped him, wrapping her arms around him and asked, “Stay. Please. I love to feel you inside of me, so big and warm and nice. You fill me. Not every man can do that.”

He stayed. He kissed her, her tongue probing inside his mouth. After a moment he began to grow hard again and the stroking resumed, more slowly this time though. Angela closed her eyes and lifted her hips to him, timing her thrusts to his. She began to come again, spasming time after time.

“Nice,” he said.

Eventually—he had no idea how much time might have passed—she said, “We have to stop now.” She laughed. “I’m too sore to go any longer. I’m sorry.”

The truth was that he was not a bit sorry. He was damn near worn out by so much of a good thing.

Angela got a hand towel and wiped him off, then cleaned herself while Longarm dressed.

“Will I see you again?” she asked.

He shrugged. “That depends on things that ain’t all in my control.”

“Come by if you find the time,” she offered. “My door is always open.” She laughed and cupped her pussy in one hand. “So are other things, too.”

Longarm put on his hat and started for the door.

“One more thing,” Angela said.

He stopped, his hand on the doorknob.

“It’s my husband. Watch out for him. Larry is…excitable. And a sneak. So be careful.”

“Thanks.” He let himself out the door. Angela was naked and in no condition to be seen. He would have locked it behind him except he did not have a key, so he settled for leaving the closed sign in the window and making sure the door was latched behind him when he left.

The sun was disappearing somewhere beyond the buildings on the other side of the street when Longarm left Angela’s Ladieswear. He had already had his supper earlier but he was feeling a mite puckish after his wrestling match with Angela Morris. And anyway he had no desire to spend the evening in that drab little hotel room.

He checked the lamps that were beginning to show up and down the street and decided on a saloon that was close to the center of town. His experience was that such places generally had a quiet clientele. That would suit him just fine for this evening.

As he had hoped the place was, if not silent, at least calm when he entered. There were a good many customers, most of them seated at the several round tables that dotted the sawdust.

Another good sign was that there were no whores in the place. It was obviously a saloon where the local gents came to drink and socialize and unwind after their days of doing whatever it was that they did to make a living.

Longarm nodded to the barkeep and placed a quarter
on the bar. “Rye whiskey an’ a beer chaser,” he said. He examined the free lunch spread and helped himself to a pickled egg.

“Coming right up, friend.”

The rye was of an excellent quality, and the beer had a crisp, clean flavor. Longarm saluted the bartender with his glass.

“Excuse me, mister.”

Longarm turned to see a gentleman in sleeve garters and a bowler hat. “Yes?”

“I don’t know if you play poker, but we’re looking for a fourth hand at our table. It’s just casual play. Low stakes, if that makes a difference. We’d be pleased if you’d join us.”

Longarm smiled. “Sir, you just made my evenin’. I’d be right happy t’ join you.”

He spent the next very pleasant hours playing stud poker and came away about a dollar and a half down. Longarm considered it money well spent for a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

About ten o’clock the game broke up, the other gents heading home to their families. Longarm stayed for a nightcap, then tipped the bartender a half dollar and headed back toward the hotel.

Come morning Longarm was lazy; he stayed in bed a good half hour past dawn. Then he got up, dressed, and went in search of first a breakfast and then a shave. Both were more than satisfactory. The barber in particular had a nice touch, his razor featherlight on the skin but leaving not a hint of beard behind. Longarm was so pleased with his shave that he tipped the man a dime.

Done with the morning necessities, he looked up Town Marshal John Bennett—tall, young, and eager—but learned nothing new about the robberies. From there he found the Bastrop office and spoke with the line’s agent.

Lew Arnold was a shopkeeper who contracted with Bastrop to handle their freight and ticketing rather than being employed by the line full time. He was aware of the robberies, of course, but could add nothing to what Longarm already knew.

“In my opinion, Marshal,” Arnold said, “Tom Bowen was not the man who pulled those other robberies.”

“I agree,” Longarm told him.

Arnold nodded toward the front door of his saddlery
and harness shop. “In case you’re interested, I saw Jeanine go past a couple minutes ago. Looked like she was headed for Bix Dooley’s place.”

“And Dooley would be…?”

“Our barber. He has…”

“The body. Right,” Longarm said. “I helped drop him off the stagecoach yesterday.”

Considering that he was the person who shot her husband down, Widow Bowen might not welcome a sympathy call from Custis Long. Still, he felt he owed it to the lady to pay his respects. He thanked Lew Arnold and headed back to the barbershop he had left just a couple of hours earlier.