Longarm and the Great Divide (9 page)

The town marshal's office was almost complete. The shelves were up and the carpenters were busy building a desk and stools. Longarm left them to their work and went first to Cal Bonham on the Nebraska side and then to Garrett Franz in Wyoming, collecting—or begging for—paper, ink, pens, and the like.

“I'm impressed,” Bonham said. “You're bringing things together better than I ever thought you could.”

“If you didn't think I could do much good here, why'd you send for me?” Longarm asked.

Bonham blinked. “Why, I . . . I didn't do that. Didn't have any part in having it done, either, Marshal.”

“Then who did?” He still wished he had gotten a look at the signature on that wire asking Billy to render assistance to the local law.

Bonham shrugged. “Damn if I know, Marshal.”

“That's interestin'. Say, you wouldn't have any o' them pushpin things, would you? Thumbtacks, I think they're called.”

“I think I have some. Hold on. I'll see if I can find them,” the Nebraska storekeeper said.

Across the wide street—and Nebraska state line—he posed the same question to the Wyoming storekeeper.

“No, I didn't send it,” Franz responded. “I don't think any of our people did.”

“But you knew about it. When I got here everyone was expecting me. Everyone on both sides, in fact.”

Franz peered toward the ceiling and scratched his neck. He needed a shave. After a moment he said, “No,” drawing the sound out a bit. “But I can't remember how I came to know you would be coming. Or one of your people, that is, not you in particular.”

“Isn't that strange,” Longarm mused. “No one admits to sending the wire. Or the letter or whatever the hell it was. Come t' think of it, Billy never showed me the actual paper. Could've been a wire. Could've been a letter. You do send mail from here, don't you?”

“Of course we do. I have a postal window in the back there. The wagon goes over to the highway once a week, every week, winter or summer. And let me tell you, getting anything through in the winter around here can be rugged.”

“I'd think so,” Longarm said. “Do you remember anybody sending a letter to the United States marshal down in Denver? Would've been a month, two months ago?”

“No, but then I don't have to look at the mail or sort it or anything. We don't have local service. The town is so small there's no need to buy a stamp to send a note to the next block over. Everything that's mailed from here is going somewhere else, so I bag it all up and send it down to Cheyenne. Incoming mail is another matter, of course. I sort that and hand it to the person the next time I see them.”

“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.”

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.

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.

There were things he would rather have seen.

A dozen or so saloon patrons, cowboys most of them, were crowded against the 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.