Longarm 397 : Longarm and the Doomed Beauty (9781101545973) (7 page)

“Come on outta there!” Longarm ordered.

“Don't shoot!” came the tremulous reply.

The head reappeared—just a cap of black hair and two brown eyes. Then the entire, black-mustached face rose from behind the bar, and the portly, round-faced man stood with his arms raised, his eyes dancing between Longarm's rifle and the copper badge pinned to the lawman's vest.

“Who're you?” Longarm said with a flint-eyed snarl.

“Florin. I own this place.” The barman's gaze flicked across the bullet-riddled room toward the broad, carpeted staircase rising at the rear. “What's left of it . . .”

“That Scobie?”

The man nodded. “I'd appreciate it if you'd put that rifle down.”

“You see the badge?”

“I could find a badge. If I wanted one badly enough.”

“Where's Mrs. Pritchard?” Longarm said.

“Upstairs.”

Poor woman, Longarm absently mused. Because of the wooden leg, she'd probably had trouble finding a husband. On top of
that
misery, all this . . .

“Anyone else here?”

As if in reply to Longarm's query, boots thumped in the ceiling, making their way across the second story over Longarm's head, toward the stairs. Longarm raised his rifle to his shoulder and aimed at the top of the stairs.

“Who's that?”

“That's Leroy,” the barman said just as a young man with longish, curly blond hair appeared at the top of the stairs, starting down and holding a pistol in his right hand.

“Found Kirby's old six-shooter,” the kid said, hurrying down the stairs, one hand on the rail. “It was right where you said it was . . .” The voice stopped suddenly, and he let his voice trail off. His eyes had found Longarm and turned sharp with fear.

“Drop the gun, Junior,” Longarm ordered, aiming down the Winchester's barrel.

“Ah, shit!” the kid intoned, crumpling his young face with fear and frustration. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Custis P. Long,” Longarm said. “Deputy U.S. marshal out of Denver. Go ahead and set that pistol down nice an' easy, and we can continue the conversation more friendly-like.”

“You a lawman?” the kid said, pulling his vest away to reveal the five-pointed star pinned to his shirt. “So am I!”

“That's Leroy,” said the barman, still holding his hands above his head.

“Leroy Panabaker,” the kid said. “Deputy town marshal of Snow Mound, Colorado Territory.”

“Just the same, Leroy, you'll wanna stow that pistol somewhere. You don't need it now. The three curly wolves out yonder are as dead as the gray-suited gent on the porch.” The kid didn't appear much over fifteen years old. He was short and so thin that even his snakeskin suspenders were having a hard time holding his trousers up on his lean hips. The big Colt holstered on his right hip looked far too big for him to carry around without falling over, much less for him to handle safely.

Deputy Panabaker's close-set eyes flashed in surprise as he wedged the Schofield behind his cartridge belt, all the leather loops of which, Longarm noted, were empty.
“You got 'em?”

Longarm lowered the rifle. “That's right. But not before they got your boss, looks like.”

The kid came slowly down the stairs, his gaze growing dark as his eyes found the sheriff lying dead on the floor. “Poor old Marshal Scobie. He took a ricochet just before I went upstairs looking for another gun and more ammo.” The kid deputy shook his head sadly. “He's the one that give me this job, nigh on two years ago, now. He saw I had a callin' and he give me a chance.”

“Two years ago?” Longarm said. “Good Lord—you must've been twelve.”

“Fourteen. No one else in town wanted the job, and I may not look like much, Marshal Long, but I can shoot the white out of a hawk's eye at four hundred yards.” He glanced at the barman, who'd finally lowered his hands and was walking out from behind his bar, looking around with a stricken expression on his soft, pale, black-mustached face. “Can't I, Al?”

“Look at my place,” said Al.

“Where's Miss Pritchard?” Longarm asked the kid as he shouldered his rifle and headed for the stairs.

“Room seven up yonder,” Leroy said. “She's awful scared, but she'll be glad to know we done took care o' them gunnies.”

Longarm gave a wry snort and climbed the stairs. On the second floor he stopped in front of the door with a brass number seven adorning its top panel. Hearing quick footsteps on the carpeted stairs at the end of the hall, Longarm rapped on the door.

“Uh . . . Marshal Long?”

Longarm glanced back the way he'd come, saw the kid taking long strides toward him, an anxious look on his face. On the other side of the door facing Longarm, a pistol cracked. A slug hammered through the door's upper panel.

Longarm felt the air curl just left of his face as the slug continued on across the hall and into the red-papered wall on the opposite side. As the gun cracked again, chewing more slivers from the door, Longarm threw himself to the right and dropped to a crouch, scowling.

“What the
hell
!”

As though in reply, a female voice screeched on the other side of the door, “Go away, you savages! I have a gun, and I know how to use it!”

“I forgot to tell you,” Deputy Panabaker said, crouching and holding one hand up, as though to shield himself from a bullet. “She's got a gun, and she knows how to use it!”

“Thanks for that valuable bit of information, Leroy!”

Young Panabaker rammed his left shoulder against the wall and hotfooted it up to the edge of the woman's door. He angled his left hand down low and rapped once on the door before jerking his hand back behind the wall. “Miss Pritchard—all's well! We done greased all three o' them owlhoots outside, and the coast is clear. You can come out now.”

“Who's out there with you?” came the crisp female voice from inside.

“Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long out of Denver, ma'am. I have a badge, if you want to see it.”

“What about the others?”

“The other who?”

“The other trail wolves,” cried the woman from behind the door. “You don't think there are just three, do you? Oh, Lord—I'm
doomed
!”

Longarm glanced at Panabaker cheeked up against the wall on the other side of the door and said, “Open the door, Miss Pritchard.”

“It's all right, Miss Pritchard,” Leroy gently assured the terrified woman. “Like I said, we done sent them three outside to hell with coal shovels.” He swallowed. “If you'll pardon my French . . .”

Longarm heard the squawk of a floorboard on the other side of the door. Likely, the poor one-legged, old thing was trying to compose herself as she headed for the door. Probably still trying to choke back a heart stroke. The lock scraped. The knob turned. The bolt clicked, and the door opened, hinges squeaking like red-winged blackbirds.

“All right,” came the woman's voice. “But you'd better be who you say you are.”

Longarm looked into the room and blinked his eyes as if to clear them.

“Like I warned,” said the incredibly gorgeous, young, full-bosomed blonde in a red-and-white, low-cut gingham dress standing about six feet back from the door, “I have this here gun. My boss gave it to me back in Pinecone, in case of just such a catastrophic situation as the one I find myself now facing.” She raised the gun in both her pale, slender hands. “And if you try anything at all untoward, I'll drill you! I swear I will!”

Longarm looked over the girl's right shoulder, widened his eyes, and winced as though spying a threat in one of the room's two windows. The girl fell for it. She'd no sooner turned her head to follow his gaze than he lunged forward and easily jerked the gun from her hand.

She gave an indignant cry and, turning too quickly forward, lost her balance and dropped onto the edge of the bed. Silky locks of honey-blond hair tumbled enticingly across her face that appeared deftly chiseled by a master sculptor. “Oh, you bastard!”

Holding her pistol in his hand, Longarm stared down at the girl, incredulous. “You're . . . Josephine Pritchard?”

She threw hair back and glared up at him through lime-green eyes in which copper sparks flashed. “Who else would I be? And give me back that gun, damn you. Mr. Cable from the Stockmen's Bank in Pinecone gave it to me to defend myself with!”

Longarm let his puzzled albeit appreciative gaze drift down the girl's fine, cream neck. He allowed it to linger for a second or two on the well-filled bodice of her low-cut dress, noting a very light splash of freckles across her cleavage that owned the color of a nearly ripe peach. A primitive, involuntary warmth touched the lawman's loins. He continued sliding his eyes down the girl's flat belly to her legs, the fine outlines of which he could see beneath her long, gingham skirt. Both were long, slender, and supple.

Obviously, neither was wooden.

Longarm chuckled. Did Billy really know what the girl looked like, or had he been merely trying to prepare his senior deputy for the worst possibility? Likely, the former.

Somehow, he'd gotten a description of the girl and, knowing Longarm's weakness for the fairer sex, had decided to jerk the randy lawman's chain. In Billy's conniving way, the ruse had probably also been meant to warn Longarm to keep his hands, as well as other more insistent body parts, off and out of the girl.

“Oh, God,” the girl cried, wrinkling her thin, blond brows as she stared up at the big lawman towering over her, raking his eyes across every inch of her. “You're not only uncouth but crazy, to boot!”

“Easy, miss,” Longarm said, poking her pistol into the waistband of his pants and regaining his composure. “I'm no more dangerous than your average coyote dog— as long as you don't prod me with sticks or guns, I keep my hackles down.” He turned to Deputy Leroy Panabaker standing just inside the door, blushing as he stared in unconscious admiration at the beautiful, disheveled, young creature on the bed near Longarm. “How many more o' them trail wolves, as Miss Pritchard calls 'em, is lurkin' around out there, Leroy?”

The boy turned slowly toward Longarm, lower jaw hanging. “What's that?”

“How many more o' them Younger gang is on the lurk, Deputy?” Longarm repeated, raising his voice to break the young badge toter out of his stupor.

“Twenty, at least,” the girl answered.

Deputy Panabaker patted down the rooster tail at the crown of his skull and frowned. “There can't be that many. When I was up at Miss Barbara's place, I only counted fifteen or so.”

“Where's Miss Barbara's place?” Longarm asked.

“About five miles up Old Burn Canyon, south of here. That's where the gang is holed up. They been sending a few men at a time to town to cause trouble—mess up the train tracks, shoot up saloons, and take potshots at the hotel where Miss Pritchard's been holed up since the two Pinkertons brought her to town to testify against old Babe Younger. They killed Detective Ramsay just last week—leastways, it was likely the gang that ambushed him from a dark alley when he was bringin' Miss Pritchard a supper tray.”

“Those Younger savages were tryin' to scare and bedevil me, I reckon,” the girl said, crossing her pretty legs and giving one foot a shake as she folded her arms on her chest. “And the rest of the town, too—for holding the trial for that awful varmint in the first place! But now, just this morning, they killed Mr. Andrews, the second Pinkerton, and stormed over here promising to hang me from the same gallows on which the town hanged Babe Younger!”

She sobbed and, scrunching up her face in horror, threw her head back, and howled. “After they took me back to that brothel in the canyon and let each of the gang take his turn with me!” She shook her head as tears streamed down her peaches-and-cream cheeks. “Oh, God—
I am truly doomed to a fate worse than death
!”

“Ah, you ain't doomed, Miss Pritchard.”

Longarm shifted his feet uncomfortably, staring at the poor, bereaved creature sobbing before him. Finally, awkwardly, he sagged down on the edge of the bed. He wasn't sure he should put his arm around her. The gesture might only repel her further. But she obviously needed comforting. He steeled himself for the worst, laid his rifle down on the bed beside him, and snaked his left arm around her slender shoulders.

He felt like a varmint as low and seedy as the Younger gang for what the girl's warm, yielding flesh did to his nether regions as well as his imagination. But he gave her a little squeeze, just the same, and tried to keep his thoughts on business.

To his surprise, rather than jerk away from him, screaming, she suddenly turned to face him, throwing her arms around his thick neck and burying her face in his chest. Her firm breasts pushed against his belly, stirring the strong-willed old snake lurking in his trousers.

“Please don't let them have me, sir,” she pleaded, shoulders quivering. “I'm all alone up here—just a poor girl from Pinecone working in Mr. Cable's fine bank to help support my family, and I thought I was doing right by testifying against those privy rats. They killed Mr. Lewis, after all!”

“Mr. Lewis?”

“The vice president and chief loan officer,” she said. “Shot him right before my eyes. Even sprayed my blouse with
blood
!” She sobbed hysterically, finally catching her breath a little. “And now . . . and now they want to do the same to me, but even
worse
!” A few more sobs as she soaked the front of Longarm's shirt and vest with salty tears. “And no one . . .
no one can save me
!”