New Mexico Powder Keg

by JR Roberts

  “What stash?” Clint asked.

  “Every whore’s got a stash. Money, bits of jewelry, whatever she holds dear.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “A pocket watch that belonged to my grandpappy.”

  “How sentimental,” Clint said.

  The stableman spat on the ground and scratched his crotch. “I was gonna sell it.”

  “Then let me give you the money for it and we can get on with this!”

  “That won’t give me my proof,” the other man said. “And it won’t give me the joy of seein’ the look on my grandmammy’s face when I sell the watch back to her for a better profit I could get from any store.”

  There were other ways to get the information he wanted. There were other people in town who might have that information. If he found one so easily, Clint could find another. And if it was any other horse except Eclipse, he might have considered putting this slimy bastard behind him. But it was Eclipse and Clint wasn’t about to cut corners after all of the hell that stallion had carried him through.

  “If I do this,” Clint said, “you’d better be able to tell me what I want to know.”

  “I’ve dealt with Andy Bennelli plenty of times.”

  “You know where I can find him?”

  “Better than that, I can have him come here. All I need to do is send word that I got some healthy horses just come in and you’ll get your meeting lickety split.”

  Since his head was spinning in trying to figure out how he’d gotten himself into this tangled mess, Clint said, “Just tell me where to find this Liza.”

  Chapter Eight

  There wasn’t a sign posted outside the cathouse but Clint was told the place was called The Green Rose. Finding it wasn’t a problem thanks to the directions he’d been given. Finding Liza was no problem whatsoever. Any man with a pulse could have found Liza with his eyes closed and one arm tied behind his back. In fact, some men might have paid extra to find her that way.

  When he got to the place, Clint went straight to the bar and was about to ask for Liza. Then he caught sight of her in the next room. She was a slender blonde with her hair cut just short enough to curl at the ends and brush her shoulders whenever she turned her head. Those shoulders were bare thanks to the dress she wore which also held her pert breasts up for all to see. She had the smooth skin and deep red lips of a girl who would carry her youth longer than most. It didn’t take long for her to spot Clint. It also helped that he’d been staring at her for the last couple of seconds without blinking.

  Sensing an easy mark, Liza made her way over to Clint and flashed him an even wider smile. “I haven’t seen you around here, have I?”

  “I just got into town,” Clint replied.

  “And you came right here? Must have been a long ride, cowboy.”

  “I’m not exactly a cowboy.”

  Her hand drifted down to touch Clint’s modified Colt. “I can tell. You look like a man who knows how to use his gun.” From there, she let her hand drift to other more interesting places below Clint’s waist.

  “Do you know a man named . . .”

  Liza raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Yes? Named what?”

  Clint’s breath had been taken away by the probing little fingers sliding between his legs to tease him in spots that made him twitch. “Harry,” he said as though he was spitting the word out. “Harry Brock.”

  She took her hand away from him while letting out a frustrated breath. “That smelly troll? What does he want?”

  “He thinks you’ve got a watch that belongs to his grandfather.”

  “I’ve got his watch,” she replied. “It belongs to me now. After what he tried to do to me, he’s lucky that’s all he lost.”

  Clint didn’t ask for any details because he didn’t need them and, more importantly, didn’t want them. “Look, all I need is for you to … duck!”

  Liza was confused, but before she was able to say another word, Clint slapped a hand on top of her head and pushed her down. His other had was balled into a fist and driven into the face of a man who’d rushed up behind Liza. Knuckles met jaw in a solid crunch to send a spray of blood across the liquor bottles lined up on a shelf behind the bar.

  When Clint had seen the other man coming, he’d reacted out of pure instinct. A knife was in the man’s hand and the blade was on its way to Liza’s back. The punch he’d delivered landed square but it wasn’t enough to put the attacker down.

  Having been derailed on his first attempt, the man with the knife quickly shifted his wrath to Clint. “Step aside!” he roared.

  From the corners of his eyes, Clint could see one burly young man closing in on the fellow with the knife and another smaller guy cutting through the crowd to get to the bar. Before either of those two could arrive to give the wild man the worst night of his life, Clint threw himself at the blade-wielding attacker.

  The man bared his teeth and swung the knife wildly. As soon as he’d put himself between the blade and Liza, Clint raised both arms above his head and leaned back to allow the knife to pass in front of him. It came so close to opening his chest that he could feel a breeze against his shirt as the weapon sliced along its deadly course. Before the other man could take another swing at him, Clint dropped both fists like hammers. One caught the attacker’s elbow, bending that arm at an awkward angle.

  Snarling a guttural obscenity, the man with the knife winced in pain. Clint’s other fist connected with a spot between the base of his neck and his shoulder, making the attacker’s legs wobbly beneath him. Clint followed up by grabbing the other man’s collar and pulling him down while bringing his knee straight up.

  The man with the blade in his hand grunted something, but couldn’t get a word out before his jaw was pounded by the knee that snapped his head back. Clint brought the scuffle to an end by plucking the knife from the other man’s hand and driving a swift right cross into his face that sent him to the floor.

  For a moment, everyone in the cathouse had their eyes glued to Clint and the man twitching near his feet. Then, as if the floorshow they’d been watching had come to an abrupt end, they went right back to their business.

  One of the young men who’d meant to take care of the guy stepped forward to take the knife away. Clint handed it over, looked to Liza and tapped the groaning attacker while asking, “Do you know this gentleman?”

  Her eyes were wide and her breath came in powerful bursts. Instead of answering his question, she took his face in her hands and planted a kiss on his lips that damn near made him forget he’d asked it.

  Chapter Nine

  Before he knew it, Clint was being dragged into one of the little rooms upstairs. There had been some stairs and a hallway along the way, but he missed most of that due to the constant affections being lavished on him by the overly grateful blonde. When they got to the door of the little room, Liza practically used Clint as a battering ram to get it open.

  “You … umm … never answered my question,” Clint said in the scant seconds when his lips were free.

  “Don’t know him,” Liza said while shoving him into her room and kicking the door shut behind her. “Probably sent by Harry.”

  “Does Harry have men working for him?”

  “No. He threatened to hire some men. That’s not hard to do around here. Now get that shirt off before I rip it off of you.”

  Clint tried to resist but found it was easier to just unbutton his shirt so she would stop fussing with it. “Before we … hey! What are you doing now?”

  Liza had already unbuckled Clint’s belt and was peeling off his jeans. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m thanking you for stepping in when that mad dog tried to cut me.”

  “No need for all of that. I just wanted to . . .”

  “Then I’m doing it because I want to. By the looks of it,” she added while grasping his rigid cock, “you want it too.”

  “Awww, hell,” Clint sighed. There would always be time for talk later. Once his shorts
was off, Clint reached for Liza’s blouse. He meant to unbutton it but she shifted when he wasn’t expecting it and he wound up pulling several of the buttons clean off. As they pattered against the floorboards, she looked at him with a surprised and hungry look in her eyes.

  “That’s more like it,” she said. Liza pressed herself against him, moving her hands along his chest, back, face, or any other part of him she could reach. While her hands moved erratically, her mouth had a purpose of its own. She started by kissing him aggressively and then worked her way down to his neck. Instead of kissing, she began nibbling at his skin and then licking her way down his chest. As she went further, Liza lowered herself to her knees and wrapped her lips around Clint’s erect penis.

  Her frenzied efforts overpowered Clint’s senses. Rather than try to direct her, he closed his eyes and sifted his fingers through her hair as she worked on him. Her lips gripped his shaft tightly and when she bobbed her head back and forth, she swirled her tongue around the tip of his cock. Suddenly, Clint was overpowered by something else. The desire he felt for her was a hunger that he had no intention of reining in.

  Placing his hands on her face, he coaxed Liza to her feet. Normally, he would have picked her up and put her on the bed but she wasn’t like most women. Instead, he shoved her roughly back until she fell onto the little bed. Liza hit the mattress with a little grunt and watched him expectantly for what he would do next. Clint didn’t disappoint her. He grabbed her legs, spread them apart and moved his hands up along her hips to gather her skirts up around her waist.

  “Yes,” she moaned. Her eyes widened further and she gripped the blankets tightly when she felt Clint’s tongue trace a line along the inside of her thighs. Liza arched her back and spread her legs even wider so he could lick her wet pussy until her entire body began to tremble.

  Soon, Clint stood up and positioned himself between her legs. He guided his rigid cock into her and drove all the way in with one powerful thrust. Liza let out a shuddering gasp, climaxing the moment she’d taken every inch of him inside of her. He stayed still for a short while, allowing her to regain her composure somewhat. “It’s good to see you the one that’s speechless for a change,” he said.

  Liza started to say something but only got a few trembling gasps out before Clint was moving again. This time, he pumped in and out of her in a building rhythm. He started slow at first but soon pounded harder and faster. Liza’s pussy was dripping wet and she grunted in pleasure each time he pounded into her. When she wrapped her legs around him, Clint grabbed her hips in both hands and fucked her harder.

  “Yeah,” she moaned. “Just like that. Harder!”

  Clint could feel another climax welling up inside of her. When it came, her entire body trembled and she pulled the blankets away from the bed. Holding her in place with both hands, Clint kept thrusting until his own pleasure built to its apex. He exploded inside of her after impaling her one last time.

  He stood there, still holding Liza’s legs, and noticed a small box sitting on a nearby table. Inside of it were trinkets of all kinds ranging from cigarette cases all the way down to watch fobs. While they had all most likely been taken from men’s pockets, it was doubtful they’d come from the same man.

  “I almost forgot,” Clint said as he released her legs. “Are you attached to that watch of Harry’s?”

  Liza curled into a ball and nestled into the rumpled bedding. “Take it,” she said breathlessly. “You earned it.”

  “Earned it, huh?”

  “If I was already asleep and scratching myself, you’d know exactly how I felt when one of you men got through getting what you wanted.”

  Clint didn’t have to look very long to find what he was after. The stableman had described that watch in such detail that it practically jumped out at him when he pushed aside a billfold and some loose coins.

  “If you’re lumping me in with every other man that’s been in this room,” Clint said, “then I didn’t do something right.”

  “You did plenty right and if there’s anything I can do for you, just name it.”

  “Actually, have you ever heard of someone named Andy Bennelli?”

  Liza grinned. “Maybe.”

  “What have you heard?”

  “The lady who runs this place has mentioned that name once or twice. I’ll ask her if you like.”

  “I’d like that very much,” Clint said. “I’ll just run Harry’s watch back to him and be back before you know it.”

  “Just wait in the bar,” Liza said. “After business is done down there, we can do some more business up here.”

  “Now that’s the kind of business I like.”

  Clint left the cathouse, his record of never having paid a whore still intact.

  Chapter Ten

  A short while later . . .

  Not long ago, Liza had told Clint to meet her back at the bar inside the cathouse where she worked. He’d gone back for that meeting and wasn’t surprised to find that she wasn’t available. Liza had a long list of regulars which was even less of a surprise. What did shock Clint was spotting Jarred Hall being led into that same cathouse by a working girl named Cassandra.

  Hall was a bounty hunter who was one of the few in his profession that wasn’t a hair’s breadth away from being worse than the scum he dragged in for a living. He did have a wicked streak, however, and a nose for tracking that would put a hound to shame. Any bounty hunter that didn’t share those characteristics wouldn’t last very long in his profession.

  He’d met Hall before in Carson City. It was an incident that could have gone a lot worse for both of them if they hadn’t decided to help each other at the last moment. In the end, the two of them had helped put some bad men into the ground and agreed to stay out of each other’s way in the future. It wound up amicable enough but neither of them was anxious to meet the other again. Bounty hunters were inherently suspicious of their fellow man and Clint had too many enemies that were willing to pay to see him dead.

  When Clint spotted Hall in the cathouse, he’d been surprised. When he’d seen the look in the bounty hunter’s eyes, Clint knew it wasn’t just a happy coincidence that he’d crossed paths with him again. Hall was there on business and when he’d spotted Clint, he didn’t look like he was going to buy a round of beers. What seemed like even less of a coincidence was the fact that Hall showed up at the same time that Clint found himself in a hunt of his own. There were too many unknowns surrounding the theft of Eclipse, so Clint decided to bring a few things into the light.

  The first step in doing that was to let Hall know he’d been spotted as well by approaching him at the bar. Clint gave him a friendly warning and left the cathouse, fully expecting to be followed on his way out. Hall wasn’t hot on his trail so Clint found a good spot to watch the cathouse from a distance. He stood in an alcove where two weather-beaten buildings leaned against each other and waited.

  After a while, Hall emerged from the cathouse and looked around. Clint thought he might have been spotted but knew better when Hall bared his teeth in a quick snarl and silently grumbled to himself. Although Clint wasn’t close enough to hear what the bounty hunter said, he could tell it wasn’t something that should be repeated in mixed company.

  Hall went back inside and stayed there. Clint got suspicious when the bounty hunter didn’t show up on the street again for several minutes. Even though there were plenty of distractions inside that place, Hall wasn’t the sort of man who was steered away from his chosen path very easily. Clint shifted his focus away from the cathouse, assuming that the bounty hunter had been able to slip away from there without being seen.

  Knowing a fair amount about tracking from his own experience, Clint knew that any hunter’s skill was put to the test when his trail inevitably went cold. It happened to the best of them and in that event, the tracker could either tirelessly search for a spot to pick up the trail again or he could take a leap. That leap had nothing to do with faith. It was guided by how well a man knew his c
raft and, more importantly, his prey.

  Keeping to the shadows, Clint moved along the side of the street. It was the dead of night, which meant the seedy district of town was alive and kicking. There was a fair amount of people making their way to and from the opium dens and saloons. As his feet kept him moving at a steady pace, Clint’s mind raced to narrow down the possibilities of what Hall would have done after going back inside that cathouse.

  Surely there were at least one or two other doors out of that building. Any cathouse worth its reputation had multiple entrances to accommodate guests who didn’t want to be seen coming in off the street.

  If Hall had gotten this close to Clint in Parker, there was a fairly good chance that he’d been following him for some time before Clint had gotten to town. If that was the case, the bounty hunter could very well be making his way to the stable where Clint had put up those three horses for the night.

  But the most likely of any possibility was that Hall was doing the same thing that Clint was doing at that moment: trying to outthink his quarry. Clint could have continued running circles in his mind to try and come up with one course after another in a desperate attempt to get one step ahead of Jarred Hall. Or, he could do one thing that wouldn’t occur to most men.

  It was something that had to do with any man’s confidence in himself at being at the top of the pecking order. Every man had pride but it took a finely honed instinct to know when to set that aside and admit to himself when he wasn’t ahead in the game.

  Clint Adams had many talents and had worn many hats. Jarred Hall, on the other hand, was a bounty hunter through and through. Clint would have bet a mighty large sum that Hall had been born a hunter and would die as one too. When facing a man like that on his playing field, there was no shame in admitting when he may very well be one step behind.

  All of this flowed through Clint’s mind in a rush and when he arrived at his conclusion, there was nothing for him to do other than commit to it. Clint kept his head down and his feet moving at the same pace he’d maintained since he’d first blended in with the rest of the people out scrounging for their nightly vices. Now that he’d put some distance between him and the cathouse, Clint turned toward the first alley he could find. The instant he’d taken a few steps off the boardwalk, he pivoted around to look directly behind him.