Longarm and the Sins of Laughing Lyle (9781101612101) Read online

  “Hey!” the waddie said, pointing toward Laughing Lyle, “he’s run off with your hoss, Merle!”

  As the other two came stomping out of the roadhouse behind the first man, Longarm holstered his Colt and dug a neckerchief out of his coat pocket. Staring toward Laughing Lyle’s quickly diminishing, jouncing figure, frustration biting him now as fiercely as the invisible dog chewing into his arm, Longarm wrapped the cloth around the wound.

  “Hey!” intoned the waddie called Merle, pointing westward. “He’s makin’ off with my hoss!”

  “Yeah, well that’s not all he’s got,” Longarm said with a snarl, knotting the neckerchief tightly around his arm, gritting his teeth. He glanced at the waddies. “Don’t even think about goin’ after him,” he warned. “The man’s a killer, and he’ll kill you laughing.”

  While the waddies regarded him dubiously, he walked over to his dusty gray and untied the reins from the polished pine hitch rail. His inclination was to ride after Laughing Lyle and the Stoneville loot, but that could take some time. First, he had to check on Morgan.

  He climbed into the saddle, swung the horse away from the roadhouse and the three waddies milling on the porch, and booted it into a gallop, heading south.

  “Hey, you’re headin’ the wrong direction!” yelled Merle. “My hoss is west!”

  When he’d first scouted the roadhouse, Longarm had memorized the route into the hollow where he’d left Case Morgan. The rock- and brush-rimmed depression was a little more difficult to find in the growing darkness, but then he heard the whinny of Case’s mount and veered toward it. When he saw Case sitting where he’d left him, Longarm stopped the gray, swung down from the saddle, and dropped the reins.

  “Well, I got three of ’em, anyway.” He walked toward where Case slumped against the rock. “I’ll go after Laughing Lyle first thing . . .” He stopped and looked down at his partner, who sat with his head tipped back against the rock.

  Case wasn’t moving. His hat lay crown-down beside him. His pewter-streaked, dark brown hair lay matted against his head.

  Longarm felt his throat go dry. He crouched beside the older man. Dread thickened his voice. “Case?”

  No response.

  Longarm placed a hand on the man’s chest, but even before he’d detected no heartbeat he’d seen Morgan’s deathly pallor and the opaque stare in the half-open eyes. Longarm laced his hands together, elbows on his knees, and lowered his head.

  “Goddamnit, Case.”

  Sorrow racked him. A knot formed in his dry throat, and he felt a wetness in the corners of his eyes. He gritted his teeth, choking back the sudden swell of emotion. Longarm wasn’t accustomed to the feeling. He’d lost partners before. What lawman hadn’t? He’d grown a thick hide. But losing Case was a particularly hard bone to swallow.

  He crouched there beside his dead friend, guilt climbing into his mix of emotions—guilt over not getting Case to a doctor in Albuquerque when he should have. But none of those feelings was going to change the sad, eminently frustrating fact of Case sitting dead before him now.

  Morgan had a folding shovel among his gear. Longarm retrieved it from his horse. He also retrieved the lawman’s bedroll. The times they’d tracked together over the years, they’d always agreed that if one of them cashed in his chips the other would bury him in his bedroll wherever it was they happened to be. Neither man was married or had any family to speak of, so this way made things simple for both of them.

  Longarm unpinned Case’s moon-and-star badge from the man’s vest and slipped it into his own pocket. When he returned to Denver, he’d send the piece back to Judge Bean in Fort Smith. He eased Case’s body out from the rock, lay it flat, and crossed the man’s cold hands on his belly. Then he carefully wrapped him in his bedroll and, with a weary sigh, started digging a hole in the sandy soil beside him. When the dog in his arm started barking, he had to pause and tighten the bandage over the wound, then resume digging.

  He knew that a shallow grave would suffice. Case wouldn’t want him to linger over the burying, especially when he had a bullet-burned arm and a laughing killer running free.

  * * *

  Longarm buried his friend and erected a crude cross made of mesquite branches and rawhide strips from his saddlebags. He pinched his hat brim at the low mound upon which he’d piled rocks to keep predators away for at least a few days, then stepped into his saddle. Trailing Case’s copper bottom bay, he rode back into the roadhouse yard.

  The windows of the two-story structure with a wooden false façade were lit for the evening. Stars glittered in the sky. Coyotes howled mournfully as though in tune with Longarm’s own wretched mood.

  The cowpunchers’ two remaining horses were gone from the hitch rack. They’d likely headed on back to whatever ranch they worked on, two riding double. The stocky half-breed barman was standing on the porch. Longarm saw by the light from the doors and window flanking the man that he’d dragged the three dead cutthroats out and lined them up on the porch.

  “Whose horse?” the half-breed asked, blowing smoke.

  “Friend of mine—a lawman these men shot. I buried him back yonder. His horse belongs to the cavalry. I’ll be takin’ it with me in the morning when I go after Laughing Lyle.”

  “Laughing Lyle? That’s who that was?” The half-breed shook his head darkly. “Damn, I just thought he was a feller who laughed a lot. Didn’t know it was him his own self!”

  “I’d like a room for the night,” Longarm said, swinging down from the gray and tossing the reins over the rail.

  “Don’t normally take overnighters unless they pay for a girl, but I reckon we can make an exception for a lawman.”

  “I’ll be pay for the room, some grub, and a bottle of whiskey. You can have these men’s horses. I take it they’re in the barn yonder.”

  “They are.”

  “You can stable mine in there, too.”

  “What about them?” The half-breed tossed his head toward the three dead men.

  Longarm climbed the steps heavily, wearily, sucking back the pain in his wounded arm. “Roll ’em in a ravine or bury ’em. I don’t care.” He stopped near the half-breed, plucked a wad of greenbacks poking up out of the stocky man’s shirt pocket. “What’s this?”

  “Money they had on ’em.”

  “That’ll go back to Stoneville. You can have anything else they got on ’em. I’m sure their guns and horses will be worth a few coins.”

  He moved on into the roadhouse, and stopped. There were five women in the room. Four sitting with a bored air around one table were scantily clad in corsets and net stockings of various colors, feathers in their hair. Doves awaiting the night’s business. Longarm recognized the two he’d seen earlier—the blonde from upstairs and the round-faced brunette who’d been fucking Kid McQuade.

  The fifth woman he’d never seen before. If he had, he would have remembered. Firelight and lamplight glittered off her low-cut, red velvet gown trimmed with black lace, and on her rich, dark-brown hair flowing back across her slender shoulders. Pearls dangled from her ears, also reflecting the light of the lanterns and a fire snapping in the hearth at the room’s rear.

  Her face was Indian-featured, with high cheekbones, chocolate eyes, a long, regal nose, and full, rich lips. Her teeth were the same color as her pearls. Her body beneath the close-fitting gown was lush.

  “Well, well,” she said, leaning back against the bar, chocolate eyes dancing briefly up and down the tall, broad-shouldered figure before her. “So you’re the man causing the big ruckus around here.”

  Chapter 4

  When Longarm merely arched a curious brow at the woman, she smiled more broadly and lifted her chin toward the door. “I’m Tegan’s sister. He’s the apron. We own this place, him and me. Bought it from Finlay two years ago. Tegan said you’re a lawman. Do you think, next time, you c
ould do your law work outside?”

  She and the other girls studied him.

  “I do apologize,” he said, walking forward and doffing his hat. “Tegan said I could have a room, Miss . . .”

  “Alva. Just Alva.”

  “Should I call you ‘Just’ or ‘Alva’?”

  She tilted her head to inspect his arm. “You’re gonna need that cleaned. Go on upstairs. Take the last room on the left. Door’s open.” Alva addressed the four pleasure girls looking all dressed up with nowhere to go, as there were as yet no customers. “Ladies, haul a tub and water upstairs. Fill it full.”

  “I’d be obliged,” Longarm said.

  “Don’t be,” Alva said, her chocolate eyes looking up into his, little sparks dancing in them. “I just don’t want you bloodying up the place any more than you already have. It’s hard enough keeping the place going way out here without your brand of trouble.”

  As the girls started moving around behind the bar, Longarm said, “I’m obliged just the same, Miss Alva,” and started for the stairs.

  “Here.”

  Longarm turned back. Miss Alva was holding out a bottle. He took it, nodded cordially, continued to the stairs, and began climbing, feeling the heaviness of the day in every step.

  Upstairs, he went into the last room on the hall’s left side. It was obviously an extra room, with a made bed and an armoir, very neat and unlived in. The walls were paneled in pine, and there was a faint smell of pine resin. A washbasin sat atop a dresser that in turn was capped with an oval-shaped mirror. A moonstone lantern was bracketed to the wall near the dresser. Longarm lifted the mantle and lit the wick, the light instantly shunting shadows this way and that around the small, neat room.

  Longarm had no sooner sagged down on the bed and popped the cork on the bottle than the door opened, and two girls came in lugging a high-backed copper bathtub. He paid them no attention but merely began taking liberal pulls on the bottle. It tempered the pain in his arm but did nothing to dull the mental agony of knowing one of his best friends, Case Morgan, lay outside under a few shovelfuls of desert sand and rock.

  Two more girls came up with a bucket of water each—one with hot, one with cold. They glanced at him skeptically as they poured the water into the tub, obviously not sure what to make of him, a little afraid of him, then headed out, leaving the door open behind them. Longarm removed his string tie, untied the neckerchief from around his arm, and shrugged out of his coat. He pulled his shirttails out of his pants and lifted the garment as well as his vest straight up over his head, wincing as the shirtsleeve came away from the bloody wound.

  He tossed the shirt and the vest into a corner with his tie, then kicked out of his boots and shucked out of his socks, long handles, and pants. Footsteps sounded in the hall. The door came open. The girl who’d been on the fainting couch with Kid McQuade stopped halfway through the door and gasped, another steaming bucket of water in her hands. Her hazel eyes raked over him, widening slightly, lips parting. Another girl poked her head in behind her, frowning. Then she sucked a breath as her eyes took in the tall, broad, well-seasoned naked man standing between the bed and the tub.

  Longarm glanced at them, said with an annoyed air, “What—she tryin’ to drown me?”

  “Miss Alva said to fill it up,” said the petite, round-faced brunette, hazel eyes riveted on Longarm’s midsection.

  “Well, fill it up, then.” Longarm took another long pull from the bottle and went back to inspecting his wounded arm, scowling. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a naked man before.”

  The two glanced at each other, shrugged, then hauled their buckets into the room and emptied them into the tub. As they filed out, swinging their hips and shoulders, the second girl, a strawberry blonde with red ribbons in her hair that matched her nude corset bustier, glanced over her shoulder, once more raking Longarm’s brawny frame up and down, and said thickly, “Not like you, mister.”

  Her eyes glinted. She pulled the door closed behind her. In the hall, she and the brunette snickered as they headed for the stairs.

  Longarm had been only half-aware of them. He took another long pull from the bottle, then set it on the floor beside the tub and stepped into the water. He winced against the heat and slid down slowly until his butt was resting on the dimpled bottom. Scooping water over his upper right arm, he washed the wound, which was a clean one. The bullet had gone in the front and out the back, likely only grazing the bone. He’d douse it with whiskey, wrap it, get a good night’s sleep, and hit the trail after Laughing Lyle first thing in the morning.

  One of the girls had set a cake of lye soap on the dresser. He grabbed it, stood, and lathered himself from head to toe. More footsteps sounded in the hall—the clomp-clomp of an assured stride. A single knock on his door and before he could respond to it, the door came open.

  Alva came in holding a small leather kit in one hand, a bottle and two glasses in the other. She looked at Longarm standing naked and lathered before her, arched a black brow, then came in and kicked the door closed.

  “This room’s busier’n Larimer Street in Denver on a Saturday night.”

  He continued running the cake of potash lye around on his chest and under his arms.

  Alva stopped in front of the door, brashly appraised him once more, then set the bottle and glasses on the dresser. Longarm folded himself back down in the tub and splashed water up over his head and shoulders, rinsing. Alva pulled the room’s lone chair out from the corner and set it beside the tub. She sat down in it and set the kit on her knees.

  “What you got there?”

  “Sewing needle and thread.”

  “The wound’ll heal on its own.”

  “You’ll probably get a fistful of dirt in it before it gets a chance to. Just sit back, Marshal. Me and Tegan have only been out here two years, but I’ve sewn up a good dozen men so far.”

  Longarm looked up at the severely beautiful planes of her cherry-colored face between long, dark-brown tresses of her silky hair. Like her nose, her chin was at once strong and delicate. “Call me Longarm.”

  Alva opened the kit and withdrew needle and thread. “Tegan said you buried a partner.”

  Longarm sank back in the tub and sighed.

  “A good man?”

  “Yep.”

  When she’d threaded the sewing needle with catgut, she set the kit on the floor, rose, and, the velvet gown swishing about her long legs, walked over to the dresser. She popped the cork on the bottle. “This is the good stuff.”

  She filled two glasses and brought one over to Longarm. “Drink up. You’ll need it.”

  Longarm threw back the bourbon, smacked his lips. “Damn good.”

  “We stocked it for the railroad men looking to put a spur line through. Probably won’t sway them one way or the other, but a man likes a good drink even when he’s way out in the tall and uncut.”

  Longarm looked up at her again, feeling the liquor wash through him, warming him, dulling his aches and pains and softening the edges of his grief. “And a good woman.”

  Alva nodded as she held his right arm over the tub and doused it with the whiskey from his own bottle. He hissed at the fiery claws digging into the wound. Alva set the bottle down on the floor, then crouched low over his arm, scrutinizing it closely, pressing her half-exposed breasts against his forearm and wrist. Her bosom was warm against his skin.

  “We’ve got the best girls here. Best within a hundred miles, anyway . . .”

  “I’ll say you do.”

  “It’ll probably be pretty quiet tonight, it being a weeknight, but we have to be ready in case a mule train rolls in.”

  She looked at him staring at her, then pinched the skin up around his wound and ran the needle through. “I’m not for sale, Longarm.”

  Longarm gritted his teeth as she star
ted sewing. “Good to know, Alva. ’Cause I don’t like payin’ for it.”

  She poked him again, and the corners of her broad, enticing mouth quirked a faintly devilish smile. But when she’d finished sewing him up and had cut the thread and doused the sewn wound once more from the cheap bottle of whiskey, she walked over to the door and turned the key in the lock.

  She turned back to him. Her lips were parted. Her full breasts rose and fell behind the gown. She blinked slowly, then lifted one foot after the other, removing her shoes.

  Longarm watched her without expression.

  He continued to watch until she’d gracefully removed the gown and her underclothes and stood before him naked, long hair curling around the fullness of her dark-tipped breasts. The flickering, amber lantern cast shadows into her cleavage, angled down across her flat belly, and into the tuft of curly hair between her long, shapely, naturally tan legs.

  Longarm’s expression must have betrayed his incredulity. Alva hiked a shoulder. “I don’t know. I reckon you could use a friend.” She took long, leisurely, catlike strides to the bed, drew the covers back, and crawled under them, pulling them up only as far as her belly, leaving her breasts bare.

  They sloped slightly to one side, the brown nipples hard and jutting. “And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a man’s stiff rod between my legs.”

  Longarm felt a shudder of desire ripple up his spine. His heart thudded. He closed his hands over the side of the tub, rose, and dried himself with the towel she’d laid across the back of the chair. Staring down at her, his heart continuing to thud heavily, loins running hot, he ran the towel through his hair. As he sawed it across his back, Alva reached out from the bed and wrapped her hand around his jutting cock.

  Instantly, her breasts rose and fell sharply as she breathed harder, raspier. Slowly, she ran her hand from the base of his cock to the head and back again.

  Longarm felt his chest rise and fall, his knees quake.