by Tabor Evans
LONGARM AND THE UNWRITTEN LAW
By Tabor Evans
CHAPTER 1
Along about midnight a naked man ran screaming down the hotel corridor amidst a blaze of gunfire. He'd been shot on the stairs leading down from the floor above, and hit twice more along the way. Yet he somehow made it as far as the stairs leading down to the floor below before two hundred grains of hot spinning lead caved in the back of his skull and somersaulted his flailing bare flesh all the way down to the next landing.
So there he lay, oozing blood and grinning up blankly, while the somewhat older man who'd gunned him stood over him in a dusty black suit and a haze of gun smoke, clicking the hammers of two six-guns on spent brass until a firm but not unkindly voice called down. "You've emptied both your guns into him, which may be just as well for the both of us. So why don't you drop the both of them and tell me what this was all about. I ain't just being nosy. I'm Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long of the Denver District Court, and they pay me to pester folks like this."
The middle-aged killer without a live round to his name turned and smiled sheepishly up at the taller barefoot figure wearing only tobacco-tweed pants and a cross-draw gun rig. The.44-40 that normally rode its owner's left hip was staring down through the clearing gunsmoke as alertly as the steel gray eyes of the bare-chested lawman aiming it. So the older man dropped his own hardware to the rug, licked his lips, and said, "I know who you are. You'd be the one they call Longarm, and they say you can be fair as well as firm. I'd be L.J. Maxwell. I own and operate the Tumbling M, a day's ride down the South Platte."
He kicked the naked body at his feet just hard enough to rate a warning look from Longarm. "This piece of shit used to be my segundo, Sunny Jim Stanhope. He took my pay and he et my bread, and then he shagged my Edna Mae whilst I was away from our spread at the stock show!"
Longarm grimaced and said, "I take it your Edna Mae is the lady I just heard wailing like a banshee when I tore past that open doorway next to my own?"
Maxwell nodded, stared morosely down at the younger man he'd just killed, and replied, "It is. She said she was leaving me for this two-faced hound because he had a bigger dick. But I ask you, man to man, does this dead bastard's dick look unusually large to you?"
Longarm could only reply, "Not at the moment. I don't know why no spiteful woman has ever told her man that her lover's old organ-grinder was smaller than his."
Before Maxwell could answer, Sergeant Nolan of the Denver P.D. was at the bottom of the stairs with a brace of copper badges. Nolan and Longarm were on good terms. So the burly local lawman got out his notebook and asked, "Would this case be federal, state, or municipal, pard?"
To which Longarm was pleased to reply, "It's your misfortune and none of my own. Mister Maxwell here claims the bare-ass cadaver's one Sunny Jim Stanhope, and there's no argument about who just shot him deader than a turd in a milk bucket. Mister Maxwell alleges Stanhope was committing adultery with his lawfully married-up Edna Mae. So what'll you bet he's fixing to evoke the unwritten law?"
Sergeant Nolan stared up the stairs in dismay and declared, "It hardly seems fair that it's municipal. We just got here. You saw him first, Longarm!"
Longarm put his own gun away as he shrugged his broad bare shoulders and replied, "I never saw him do it. His woman's right upstairs, if you'd like to take her statement. Gunning your wife's lover smack in the middle of Denver has to violate some municipal ordinance. But it don't strike me as a federal offense. So like I said, it's your case to keep and cherish and I'm catching me a chill in this cold hallway."
He turned away to remount the stairs, ignoring all the noise that seemed to be coming from the Denver P.D. and other patrons of the Viceroy Hotel. Being just a few streets over from the stockyards, the place didn't cater to a very quiet crowd, and gunshots in the night were as good as fire bells when it came to getting folks up and half dressed. A Denver lawman passed him near the open doorway where all the shooting had started. So Longarm felt no call to go in and talk to the big fat naked gal thrashing about on the bed as she pleaded for mercy. Longarm left it to the Denver P.D. to assure her she hadn't been murdered and get a statement out of her, once she'd calmed down just a hundred percent. He gently rapped a certain way on the door of his own hired room, and another naked lady let him in. She was one hell of an improvement over Edna Mae Maxwell.
Lina Marie Logan, just in from Omaha and anxious to see all the wonders of the Mile High City, was hardly a waif, and way too pretty to be shy about the lamplight as the two of them got back in bed together. Longarm had to hang up his six-gun and slide out of his pants first. So that gave him plenty of time to explain all that noise outside to the buxom blonde who'd been on top when the gunfire had commenced.
She said she didn't care and that she'd been about to start again without him, damn it. So this time he got on top, hooked one of his elbows under each of her soft knee joints, and spread her smooth pale thighs wide enough to make her beg for mercy as he hit bottom every other stroke. So a good time was had by all, and then, alas, it came time to climb back down out of the stars and share a smoke while they fought to regain some firmer grasp on their gasping. As he calmed her some with a three-for-a-nickel cheroot, she became more aware of the thumpings, bumpings, and occasional outbursts of conversation all around. She snuggled closer and made as if to cover the two of them with some bedding. He said soothingly, "The door's bolted good and I told you Nolan was a pal of mine. Every copper badge in this precinct wants to see his own name on the final report. But they won't want us to join their crowd. The Denver P.D. would never forgive them for sharing this manslaughter complaint with another outfit."
She still pulled a single sheet waist high as she sighed and asked what he thought might become of that poor neglected wife, now that her lover had been shot and her husband was in for some time at hard, if not a hanging.
Longarm shrugged his bare shoulders, cuddled her closer, and told her, "Judging by the many times I've heard this sad story in the past, she'll go back to him and he, like a fool, will buy her teary-eyed promises to turn over a new leaf. From what I just saw of what she has to offer, not too many other men are apt to give her much choice. A jolly easygoing fat gal is one thing. A jolly easygoing fat gal with a man who comes after you with a brace of Army Schofields is another thing entire!"
Lina Marie chuckled, her unbound blond hair spread across one of his shoulders and half his bare chest, and proceeded to toy with the damp hairs on Longarm's belly as she mused aloud, "At least she might not feel so neglected. But I seem to be missing something. Didn't you just say you'd handed her jealous husband over to the local police, darling?"
Longarm nodded and explained. "He'll spend at least the rest of the night in jail. But any stockman who can afford his own lawyer ought to be out on bail by noon."
"But, Custis, he just killed an unarmed man in cold blood!" she protested.
To which Longarm replied, with a weary sigh, "That ain't the way his lawyer's going to present it to the grand jury. Maxwell's best bet is to remain silent whilst his lawyer paints the picture of a tormented soul, trying to save his marriage from the machinations of a false-hearted employee who'd led his poor corn-fed Edna Mae down the primrose path with buttered words and doubtless some of them French preeversions."
Lina Marie reached a tad lower to fondle his limp love tool as she purred, "Show me what you mean by perverse, you wicked French thing!"
He laughed softly. "We got all night and there's a whole nickel's worth of tobacco left here. I wasn't offering to go down on you just yet. I was telling you how Maxwell's likely to get off, as provided by the Unwritten Law, or the principal of equity, as it reads in most law books."
She said neither term made sense to her, and added, "I thought a law had to be put down on paper and passed by some legislative body before it could be enforced."
He nodded. "That's how come they call such fuzzy legal notions unwritten. You see, the laws we have today are based on a swamping heap of earlier ones, going all the way back to Moses by way of ancient Rome. Roman laws were all writ down in Latin, which can still be read by high-priced lawyers, and they tell me Augustus Caesar and his Roman crew wrote mighty sensible and consistent for such olden times. But their punishments were a mite harsh, and since they held Miss Justice had to be blind, there was no way to let any felon off. The law was the law, and if you didn't aim to end up nailed to a cross or worse, you damned well obeyed the law!"
She began to stroke what was no longer quite so limp as he took a deep drag on the cheroot and said, "You didn't want to hear about equity in any case, right?"
She protested, "I'm interested in that too. Just let me work this sweet thing up again for the both of us as you tell me why I ought to care about ancient Romans being mean to people."
He smiled thinly and said, "There might be time. I want it all the way up, you tight little doll. The blind justice of Roman courts could lead to results so mean that even the Romans were shocked enough to write them down in Latin. That's how later law clerks, trying to work out common law for the Middle Ages, found out about things like poor old crazy ladies or bitty kids getting crucified for showing disrespect to some statue of a naked cuss sporting a fireman's helmet. The tale I find most disgusting was when they came to arrest a Roman politician for abusing his authority. There was no doubt he was guilty, and our own politics might be less corrupt if we got to hang such rascals. But under Roman law they got to execute both him and his whole family. I reckon they figured it would be tough to be a serious crook without your kinfolk knowing about it."
She was interested enough to slow down, which hardly seemed fair, as she said, "Well, the Pinkertons did point out the time that they lobbed that bomb through Frank and Jesse's window. But I still think it was mean to kill that half-wit boy and cripple old Mrs. Samuel."
Longarm said, "When the Roman lawmen came to arrest this official called Sejanus, they were stuck with the fact that Roman law forbade them to execute a virgin. So they had to rape the man's little girl in public before they could make her pay for her dear old dad's crimes against the state."
Lina Marie gasped and said, "That was horrid of them, and I don't care how blind Justice is supposed to be!"
Longarm nodded. "Law clerks the Romans had down as dumb barbarians agreed with you on that. So they slipped in the sort of fuzzy notion of equity, which had nothing to do with equal justice but held that sometimes Miss Justice had to show some merciful common sense. Mortal folks can be driven over the line by native customs or a notion that they're obeying some older, higher law."
She nodded in sudden understanding. "You mean that old-time code of honor calling for a gentleman to defend his womankind and other property to the death?"
He said, "Something like that. I told you it was fuzzy and never written down on paper. They dasn't make it lawful to gun a man for fooling with your woman, or allow you to pistol-whip every gent who implies you might be fibbing. But just the same, they reduce charges of simple assault to aggravated assault if you can prove the victim called you a son of a bitch before you swung at him. And as for killing a man you just caught in the act with your woman, how many prosecuting attorneys with a lick of sense are likely to haul a poor heartbroken wretch before a judge and jury when they know that should one juror figure the dead Casanova had it coming to him..."
She began to stroke his much firmer erection faster as she said, "I see why outraged husbands seem to get away with it so often. And speaking of coming, I want to get on top again."
He snuffed out the cheroot as she cast the bedding aside with a giggle of glee and cocked a lush thigh across him to impale her pretty self on his now fully restored virility.
It felt swell, and he was content to let her do some of the work for a change. He had a job to go to in the cold gray dawn, and at the rate they were going, he doubted he'd catch much sleep before it came time to rise and shine.
He still felt obliged to roll her over and finish in her firm but voluptuous flesh. She took it as a compliment, and said she'd evoke that Unwritten Law and scratch any other gal in town bald-headed if she ever caught her flirting with her long-donging darling.
Longarm had to grin as he pictured Lina Marie fighting it out bare-ass with a certain equally well-proportioned widow woman up on Capitol Hill, or another somewhat more muscular blonde down Texas way. No man with a lick of sense was going to mention marriage certificates at a time like this. So he only said, "A body can get in trouble counting on unwritten law. There's nothing written down to say they can't punish you for busting a real law. It's up to the lawyers to figure out the fuzzy logic. Many an old boy, or gal, who tried to follow unwritten law wound up in real trouble from the law written down in ink!"
She wrapped her legs around his waist to keep him from rolling off as they let it soak in her some more. Not feeling up to more than that just yet, she allowed that the Unwritten Law sounded almost as mean in its own way as the draconian no-excuses laws it was meant to save poor sinners from.
Longarm moved gently in her to keep their friendship firm as he replied, "Slick talkers or slow thinkers can ruin the intent of the law no matter how it's been written. Them Romans should have seen it was just dumb to blindfold Miss Justice and leave her armed and dangerous, whilst common sense decrees that ninety-nine times out of a hundred a body who kills another body deserves to die for it. Not as much for doing it as lest somebody else feel the same call. If folks were made to feel you couldn't kill nobody without getting hung, a heap of killings might never take place."
She asked, "Don't you think that poor Mister Maxwell had call to kill his wife's lover tonight?"
Longarm shrugged his bare shoulders, making her purr and wriggle back, as he said, "Nope. They're going to let him off. For all any of us know, the dead man had it coming. But Maxwell never would have gunned him if he hadn't been brought up to feel a real man didn't have any other choice, or all that much to fear, once he'd caught a fool like the late Sunny Jim in such a ridiculous position!"
She murmured, "This position feels just grand to me. What other positions do you suggest for the couple next door, dear?"
Longarm started moving faster in her as he replied in a conversational tone, "It wasn't the physical pose Sunny Jim was in that left him no way to come out ahead. It was more like who he was posing with nude when her husband barged in on them this evening."
She gripped him tighter with her thighs and coyly asked what he might do if some other man kicked in their door.
He told her, "I'd stand a better chance than poor old Sunny Jim. For I've hung my own gun handy and it would be a fair fight, unless you fibbed about being new in town and unspoken for leastways."
She began to grind her pelvis teasingly in time with his thrusts as she assured him she was single and casually asked why the lover caught in this same act earlier couldn't have fought back.
Longarm said, "He could have. Had he won, he'd have been looking forward to his hanging along about now. The unwritten law allows the injured husband to gun his woman's lover. There's nothing writ or unwrit that allows a jasper to bust up a man's home and then put a bullet in him. I wasn't just being nosey when I asked you all them personal questions over supper at Romano's earlier. I've seen too many old boys buried young to mess with any other gent's woman!"
At the time he really thought that was all a man had to worry about as far as the Unwritten Law was concerned.
CHAPTER 2
The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News enjoyed a field day with what they described as the Sordid Love Triangle at the Viceroy Hotel. But after a couple of days on the front pages of both papers, things commenced to go about the way L
ongarm had expected.
Maxwell's slick Denver lawyers knew better than to enter a plea of justifiable homicide. Cockeyed Jack McCall had tried that in a Colorado court after backshooting James Butler Hickok up Dakota way, and everyone remembered the possibly unconstitutional but certainly fatal verdict. Colorado folks considered a homicide a homicide, and figured even a horse thief deserved to die by rope-dancing. So the old stockman's lawyers got the case postponed while their client had his head examined at a fancy private sanitarium down by Pike's Peak. That was the last of the case as far as any front pages went. Longarm had no idea where Maxwell's fat wife wound up. But a copper badge at the Parthenon Saloon did tell him Sunny Jim Stanhope had been buried out by the clay pits, neatly wrapped in mattress ticking, at no cost to the taxpayers and damned little to Maxwell's law firm.
By this time Longarm could see he should have asked more questions at that spaghetti joint the night he'd first wound up in bed with old Lina Marie. For while it was true she'd had no male friends out Denver way, she'd left out the part about wanting to find one in particular and settle down. It was a notion he'd run across before, womankind being less adventurous than himself. So he knew that once they got to saying they felt unfulfilled selling dry goods where they worked, or cramped for space in the furnished room that you'd found for them, it was only a matter of monthlies before you got that old ultimatum. But in this case the ploy was another gent, at work, who seemed anxious to make an honest woman of her, if only she'd forget that taller cuss with more hair who was only using and abusing her.
Longarm didn't invoke the Unwritten Law to go gunning for the son of a bitch. He just wistfully allowed there was no way he could top such a fine offer, and was sorry that he wasn't there to escort her to supper after each hard day's work, since that other gent, if he existed, seemed so set on making her feel so blamed fulfilled.
He didn't know why the pretty young widow woman he'd been planning to invite to supper instead slammed the door in his face when he showed up at her place on Capitol Hill with store-bought violets. He felt sure that whether Methuselah had really lived nine hundred years or not, he'd gone to his grave without understanding the unfair sex.