Longarm #396 : Longarm and the Castle of the Damned (9781101545249) (16 page)

Very quickly he retrieved his gunbelt and took a moment to check his Colt to make sure no one had tampered with it and that it was still fully loaded.

“Psst! You can come in now,” he whispered to Sam Childers and the girl.

“Here.” He took one of the lever-action rifles—Marlins, good guns, he noticed—and tossed it to Sam. The other he took for himself. He stripped the gunbelt off the dead guard and gave that to Sam too.

“I can take that shotgun,” the girl said. “My grampa taught me how to hunt game since I was knee-high.”

“All right, but this game walks on their hind legs. Think you can do it?”

The girl ignored the question and stalked to the back of the room. She picked up the shotgun and stuffed a handful of shells into the pocket of Longarm's tweed coat.

Damned coat looked an awful lot better on her than it ever had on him, Longarm conceded.

He grabbed a box of .44-40s off a shelf for himself and another for Sam, then checked to make sure his rifle was fully loaded. It was.

“I want you two to slip out of this miserable excuse for a place,” he said. “Head for Craig. There's a road of sorts that'll take you right to it. When you get there, tell the county sheriff what's been going on here. Have him send a posse back this way to pick up some prisoners.”

“Where will you be while we're off fetching the sheriff?” Sam asked.

“Me, I got business here with Bunny Adams and with the Right Honorable Senator Lyon.” He smiled, but the expression held no warmth. “And with any of their pals that want to take a hand in this.”

“Go ahead then,” Childers said. “I'm right behind you.” He turned to the girl and added, “You go outside and hide. Me and Long will be along directly.”

“Like hell you say,” the girl retorted. “Don't you even think about sending me off by myself like that.” She hefted the shotgun and grinned. “I'm scared of the dark.”

Damn but Longarm did like this girl's spirit. Henry Lyon had not even come close to breaking her. And never would, Longarm guessed. The man could kill her but would never break her.

“Well I'm not gonna stand here all night arguin' with the two of you, so follow along and stay outa the way.”

He stuffed his pants pockets with .44-40s and extinguished the lamp so he could take a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then, Childers and girl on his heels, he headed out into the night.

The interior of the castle keep—or whatever the hell they called the tall building—was lighted bright as day. Sounds of merriment suggested someone in there was celebrating. Or possibly this was just an average, everyday night for these merry men. Longarm neither knew nor cared. What he did know was that the sound of their partying was more than loud enough to cover any noises he and his “troops” might make.

He stepped inside, then turned to glance back at the two on his heels. It was impossible to avoid noticing how very attractive the girl was wearing his coat, all blond hair at one end and shapely legs at the other. No wonder Lyon was so infatuated with her.

Placing a finger over his lips to advise silence, he crept toward the main hall and the revelers.

Longarm stood in the doorway. There were—he counted—seven men gathered with drinks in their hands, surrounding two young, very pretty—and very naked—women on the floor in the middle of the room. The girls were engaged in the position commonly known as a sixty-nine. When one of them lifted her head away from contact with the pussy of her companion, the men cursed and lashed her with belts.

This, then, was the sort of fate the girl behind him would have had if she were turned over to Lyon's men. Probably these girls had belonged to Lyon to begin with but were relegated to pleasing the guards once the senator tired of them.

The more he learned about this crowd, the more Longarm was pissed off by them. Bringing these bastards down was going to be a very great pleasure, he thought.

Longarm stepped inside.

There were more of them than there were of him. And anyway he saw no reason to give mercy to animals like these. Gunsmoke and lead were what they deserved.

And what they got.

One of the seven saw Longarm and his two companions standing there. The fellow moved his hand. It was remotely possible that he was raising his hands in surrender, more likely that he was going for the revolver on his hip.

Longarm neither knew nor cared which. He drew back the hammer of his Marlin and sent his first carefully aimed shot into the face of a burly redhead who seemed to be having fun beating the helpless girls.

The fellow's head snapped back and a red mist hung in the air as a good portion of his brains flew in the direction of the fireplace.

Longarm continued firing, cranking out bullets as rapidly as he could lever a fresh cartridge into the chamber and trip the trigger again.

He was aware without really looking that Sam had moved up beside him and was also shooting.

Not a one of the guards so much as got a gun in hand. They all died in a wild tangle of bodies and blood.

The room filled quickly with pale smoke, the normally pleasant smell of burned gunpowder so heavy it coated the insides of his nostrils and stank, the smell of it mingling with the lighter copper scent of spilled blood.

The shooting was over in a matter of seconds. The two girls froze in place.

Longarm walked over to them and nudged one in the butt with the muzzle of his rifle.

“Ouch, dammit, that thing is hot, mister,” she protested.

“Sorry. Tell you what, little missy, whyn't you and your friend here grab some clothes an' scamper the hell outa here. There's hell to pay for Henry Lyon and his friends this night, and you're better off out of it.”

“You don't have to tell me twice, mister.” The girl grabbed the hand of her partner and broke for the outside.

“Now what?” Sam Childers asked.

Longarm's ears were still ringing from the concussive pounding of so many gunshots inside a closed space, but he managed to hear what Sam was asking.

“Now we go hunting,” Longarm told him. “Neither Lyon nor Bunny Adams is in this pile o' cooling meat,” he said, gesturing toward the pile of dead at his feet. “I don't figure to let them get away, and now they will have got warned by all the shooting.” He grinned. “It just gets harder from here on, but it's something I best handle on my own. Two of us would just get in each other's way in close quarters. What I want you to do, Sam, is to cover my backside. I want you at the outside door. I want you to keep any other guards, if there be any, from comin' in behind me. Can you do that?”

“Damn right I can,” Childers said, busily stuffing fresh cartridges into his rifle.

“Good man. I'm counting on you.” Longarm reloaded his own rifle and headed for the staircase that led up to Lyon's private quarters.

Sam Childers raced ahead of Longarm, shouldering past him before Longarm reached the stone staircase and then taking the steps two at a time, his rifle held at the ready.

It was Sam's right to confront Lyon, Longarm conceded. After all, he had suffered much more abuse at the senator's hands than Longarm ever had, so Longarm followed several paces behind.

Sam's head barely came higher than the second-floor landing when he stopped, eyes widening as he tried to swing his rifle sideways toward something on that floor that Longarm could not yet see.

It was too late.

Longarm heard a sudden flurry of gunshots, and the back of Sam's head exploded as one bullet after another punched into him.

The man died instantly, his body crumpling onto the stairs and rolling down into Longarm's legs.

Without taking time for conscious thought, Longarm reached down. He grabbed Sam's lifeless body by the shoulder and heaved the bloody thing aside, tossing it off the stairs and out of the way. It was a callous way to treat what so recently was a living being, but Longarm was busy at the moment.

Busy trying to remember the exact sequence of the shots he'd heard fired. Trying to remember how many there had been.

Four? Five? He thought perhaps five.

If so—and if they had come from a revolver rather than a rifle—whoever was up there was empty or close to it. The shooter more than likely was now intent on reloading.

With the ringing from all the shooting down below still blocking his ears, Longarm could not hear well enough to tell if brass was hitting the floor, as would be the case if someone up there was punching out his empties.

He hesitated just a heartbeat or two, just long enough, he hoped, for the shooter to think there was no one on Sam Childers's heels. Just long enough to give the shooter the idea that he had time enough to reload.

Then Longarm set his rifle down on the stairs and palmed his Colt, the shorter arm being easier to swing to the side, that being where the shots had come from that hammered poor Sam Childers.

With his .45 at the ready, Longarm bounded the last few steps up to the landing.

His weathered face split into a joyous grin when he cleared the floor and could see into the second-story room.

Bunny Adams was there. The gunsel was intent on reloading a single-action Remington revolver. Longarm caught him with the gun in his left hand while his right was working the extractor pin.

Bunny cursed and threw the Remington at Longarm's head, clearly hoping to make Longarm duck and perhaps lose his footing on the stone steps.

It did not work.

Longarm laughed and triumphantly declared, “Adams, or Bannister, or whatever the hell your name is today, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Sam Childers and God knows how many more souls.”

Adams straightened to his full height and squared his shoulders. “Bastard,” he hissed.

“Tell me something, Bunny. Was that you that shot Moses Arthur up there in Cheyenne?”

Adams grunted. “That was me. The senator couldn't have some stupid old son of a bitch like that messing things up for him, now could he? The senator is going to form his own independent nation here, you see. He has it all worked out. But where the Confederacy went wrong was in trying to completely secede. The senator's nation will be a . . . he called it a protectorate of the United States. Like an Indian tribe, see, but for white men only. Like I say, he has it all worked out and I'll be his number two in command. I'll have my own slaves and everything. And I am
not
going to allow the likes of you to ruin his dream.”

With that Bunny reached behind him.

Longarm was not at all surprised that the man would have a backup gun.

Longarm's Colt roared, his first shot striking Bunny just above the belt buckle, the second in the chest as the recoil from a squat .45 cartridge lifted the muzzle, and his third shot taking Bunny in the throat.

Bunny Adams, real name Carlton Bannister, was very likely dead before his body hit the floor.

Longarm walked to the set of wooden stairs that led up to the third floor. “Henry. Are you up there, Henry? I'm coming for you, Senator. You are under arrest, Senator. Or maybe you're dead. That'd be your choice.” While he spoke, taunting the delusional state senator, he was busy reloading his Colt. The three remaining in the cylinder would probably be enough, but “probably” was not nearly good enough. He intended to have a full cylinder when he confronted the man.

Revolver recharged, Longarm took the stairs. But slowly. He did not want to be caught exposed the way Sam Childers had been.

The greatest danger would be when his head reached the level of the floor above. Not knowing exactly where his enemy was would put him at a disadvantage, and in a gunfight there was no such thing as fair play. There were only a victor and a vanquished. Custis Long damn sure intended to be the victor.

“Did you hear me, Henry? You're under arrest.”

If Lyon would just respond—in any way at all—hurl insults, move around on the wooden floor, any damn thing—it might give Longarm a clue as to where he was.

There was . . . nothing.

Longarm stopped on the steps and listened, his hearing beginning to return but doing him no good until or unless Lyon did something to give himself away.

He heard nothing at all from that floor. Nothing.

Well, if Lyon was not going to move, Longarm would have to.

He very slowly went up one more step. And another.

The top of his head came level with the floorboards. He poked it quickly up and back down again. He did not know where his Stetson was or he would have teased Lyon with a peek at that first.

There was just nothing else to do, he realized, but to hold his Colt high and ready and take that last step to fully expose his head.

He took a deep breath and willed his pounding heart to slow. Then he stepped up to find ... nothing.

The room on that floor was empty save for a bed, a wardrobe—some poor sons of bitches must have had themselves a time getting that big old thing up these narrow stairs—a chest, and a dressing table.

There was no sign of Henry Lyon.

A final set of stairs, however, more like a ladder than a staircase, led to the tower above.

Lyon pretty much had to be there.

Once again Custis Long faced the daunting test of exposing himself to an enemy while he climbed up to make an arrest.

It was something that had to be done, however, so Longarm, grimacing and growling, did it.

He reached the summit of Henry Lyon's castle without incident.

The senator—and would-be dictator of his own slave-holding nation—was there, standing beneath the banner emblazoned with a lion in honor of . . . himself.