"You assault men in their rooms this way often?"
"No, not for six months. Don't you like me and my bare boobies?"
"They're wonderful, but sometimes a man likes to take the lead."
"So go ahead, lead. You want me face down or face up?" She giggled. "Whoa, there I done it again."
Spur caught her hand and led her to the bed. He sat down and she sat beside him.
"I don't know your name."
"Lillian. That make you feel better? Hey, I ain't no whore."
"Good."
Spur bent and kissed her breast. She nodded.
"Oh, yeah, now that I like."
He kissed the other one, then licked both her nipples until she squirmed. He bit them gently, then harder until she yelped and dropped flat on her back on the bed.
"Do me quick, Spur McCoy, before I explode."
He pulled her dress up, found her pink cotton bloomers and gently lowered them off her legs. She helped.
"Lordy, lordy, lordy," she whispered. Her legs came apart and her knees lifted showing him how wet and ready she was.
Spur didn't even take off his pants. He opened his fly, brought out his whanger and eased between her white thighs.
"Do me now, now, now," Lillian chanted softly.
He bent and eased into her ready slot. She jammed her hips upward to take in more of him faster until their pubic bones grated together.
Her legs went up and around his back and she began rocking back and forth. Spur reached between them, found her hard node and rubbed it back and forth.
"What the hell you doing?" she barked.
"Wait and see."
Ten strokes later with his finger across the node, she writhed and moaned and yelped and then keened high and long as her body went into a series of vibrations. Her spasms shook her like a rabbit caught in a dog's jaws. She wailed and moaned and shivered.
Suddenly she stopped but only to start again and slam through the whole sequence as the spasms rattled her from her toes to the top of her dark-haired head.
Four times she went through the jolting climaxes before she sighed and dropped her legs, going limp under him. Spur watched Lillian. She peeked open one eye and looked at him.
"0 mil God but that was fantastic. I never knew I mean I wasn't sure ...oh, damn!"
She revived slowly. When she did she felt him still inside her and began to grind her hips under him.
"You now. Fast and furious, or slow and easy, however you want it. However, or wherever. You earned it."
Spur thrust slowly at first, then eased it up a notch and a moment later he drove so hard and fast that she couldn't keep up with him. Before he wanted to, he felt the start of it and then the roaring, smashing, plundering ecstacy of his own release. He was panting and wheezing and sweating like a railway track layer in August. At last he gave a big sigh and dropped on top of her.
She clamped her arms around his shoulders pinning them together.
"I like it this way, close and joined and nobody in any rush to get up and leave. But then it's your room so you wouldn't be leaving." She laughed softly. "I get a lot crazy when I've just been done good. Damn it to Frisco but you done me good, Spur McCoy."
It took him five minutes before he could see straight and get his breathing under control. He took one more deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he lifted away enough to get her in focus.
"Lillian, you know what goes on in town. Who is bedding who, who shouldn't be and whose wife is a little bit on the wild side?"
"I know some of the wild ones. Mostly the up to thirty-five group. There's these two couples who play cards every Thursday night. At least they start out by playing cards. The men always play the women. When the pinochle game is over they swap marriage partners and spend two hours making love, all four of them in the same bedroom. How is that for kind of wild?"
"Wild enough for me. You ever hear anything about either one of the sons-in-law of old man Teasedale?"
She laughed and grinned. "Oh, hell, yes. Doug Chandler and Nate Emerson. Are you kidding? Their escapades are all over this little town. Nobody has any secrets here. I've even done Doug once. He gets liquored up and starts grabbing women off the boardwalk. One of the ranch hands comes along and steers him off Main Street when he gets too drunk. If he can't find an uptown woman, he goes down to the soiled dove bedrooms on Front Street."
"Doug the wildest of the two?"
"Oh, yeah, by far. He's in town nearly every Saturday night leaving that cute little pregnant wife of his at home. He don't, you know, like to pay money or nothing like that, but time I did him he give me a present. Kind of like a gentleman, a gift."
"A nice gift?"
"Oh, my yes. A lady's watch, the kind that can go on a necklace. I know for certain that it cost over ten-dollars."
Spur loosened her hands and they sat up on the side of the bed.
Lillian laughed. "Hey, you never even took off your fucking britches."
"You didn't give me time. You still almost have your dress on."
They both laughed. She pulled the dress up, pushed her arms into it and buttoned it.
Spur reached over and caressed one of her breasts. "You hear anything more about Doug Chandler? Did he talk about his father-in-law, Teasdale?"
"He was half drunk and mad about something. Didn't take it out on me. He was gentle and fast. Four times in two hours. But he kept swearing at Old Man Teasdale, as he called him. Called him a skinflint, and a miser and all sorts of bad names."
Spur stood and she lifted up beside him stand ing close. He bent and kissed her breast through her dress.
"Again, right now," Lillian said. "You ever done it standing up? I can show you how."
"Love to, Lillian, but I have work to do. I was just getting cleaned up to go see a railroad worker. It's important."
"Maybe I could come back, sometime. How about tonight around nine? Then we'd have lots of time for an all nighter."
"You work here in the hotel?"
"Supposed to. Part time when they need me. No way to make enough money to get by. So how about tonight?"
Spur shook his head. "I'll be working until midnight talking to folks, then I'll need a good night's sleep. But maybe tomorrow night."
Lillian nodded, checked her dress, then picked up her mop and pail and broom. She unlocked the door and went into the hall after giving him one big wink.
Spur went back to the basin, finished his half bath and put on a clean shirt and a pair of town pants. He added the brown vest and his black hat and checked himself in the wavy mirror on top of the chest of drawers.
He found the express clerk right where he was told his house would be.
"Clancy Steffens?" Spur asked the man who came to the door.
The man shook his head and cupped his hand around one ear and leaned forward. "What?"
"Are you Clancy Steffens?" Spur said twice as loud.
"Oh, yes. Who are you?"
"Questions. I have some questions."
"Told the road people and the sheriff. No more answers."
Spur showed him his identification as a United States Secret Service Agent and Clancy's eyes went wide. He nodded and waved Spur inside the modest home. He saw a woman vanish through a doorway and could hear a small child somewhere.
In the living room they sat down on mismatched furniture.
"You were the Railway Express clerk on the train that was robbed, correct?"
"Yes. I'll tell you what happened. Save you a lot of questions. Same thing I told the sheriff. I was working my station when the explosion went off slamming the side door partly open. The explosion almost deafened me and pitched me to the floor. A masked man came inside, held me under his six-gun while he put a charge on the safe.
"He pushed me to the end of the car where we crouched down as the second bomb blasted the safe. That really deafened me. I haven't been able to hear right since."
"Thanks. Now, did you recognize the masked man?"
; "Recognize? No. Never saw him before in my life."
"How did he get the registered mail sacks?"
"Registered? Oh, just finishing my logging and the paper work when the blast came. The two mail sacks weren't even locked up yet."
"Could you recognize the man who robbed the car?"
"Only saw his eyes. Not much to go on."
"Your hearing seems to be getting better."
Clancy nodded not looking nervous at all, Spur noted.
"It comes and goes. Sometimes worse than before. I think it's a little better each day. They told me to take the week off and get my hearing back."
"Did you know what was in the registered mail sacks?"
"Sure, knew who sent it and who it was going to. It's all down on paper. I had no idea what was inside the envelopes and packages. I had to sign off on the whole batch before the other agent in Kansas City would release it to me. That's why it's called registered mail. Everyone who handles it signs off."
"Notice anything unusual about the robber? Did he have an accent, a cough or a limp, any hair hanging out of his hat? See what kind of a horse he rode? Did he have on strange clothes. Anything that would identify him?"
Clancy shook his head slowly. "Nope, can't say as I saw anything unusual or different. He was a good sized white man. About all I can say. I was scared after that dynamite went off at the sliding door. Thought the whole damn train had crashed. Stunned me a little and sent me to the floor. I guess that's when I scraped my face."
Spur moved toward the man, looming over him. "How much did the robbers offer you to have the safe open and not remember a thing? Fivethousand dollars?"
"What? What are you talking about? Nobody offered me nothing. I got a good job, don't want to lose it. You're crazy? Get out of my house right now. Go on, get out. That makes me mad."
Clancy walked to the door and held it open. Spur sat down again in the chair and waited for Clancy to come back. He did so a minute or two later but he didn't sit down.
"Glad your hearing is better, Mr. Steffens. That line about being offered part of the money is one of our usual tactics. Sometimes it works. Thanks for talking to me."
Spur stood, walked out the front door and down the three steps to the dirt path leading to the street. He still hadn't made up his mind about Steffens. The man could be lying like a professional, or he could be as innocent as he seemed.
Spur checked his pocket watch. Five minutes after three. Maybe the Judge was through with his work for today. Spur walked up the street, down a block to the old army fort and went up the broad steps into the court building.
The same small clerk sat at his desk in the room outside the big double doors.
"Is court in session?" Spur asked.
"Mr. McCoy, it is. Hard telling when it might be over. This is not the last case of the day, I'm sure. You might wish to observe." The balding man pointed to the big doors and Spur slipped inside and took a seat on a chair at the back.
Judge Amos Parker sat on his elevated bench behind a large cherrywood desk. He wore his black robes and a stern yet curiously blank expression that would not seem to favor either side. The county prosecutor was summing up the charge against the defendant to a jury of twelve men from the western part of Arkansas.
"So, gentlemen of the jury. Charlie Smith did and without remorse, shoot his partner on the night of January twenty-fourth while the two were camping in Indian Territory after fleeing from a robbery in the state of Arkansas. He shot him not once, but five times, then took his coat and his blankets as well as his six-gun, rifle and sheath knife, and moved down the trail to a known haven for criminals and spent the night `sleeping like a baby,' as the defendant himself testified. He is guilty of murder in the first degree and of inhuman behavior so atrocious that he is no longer fit to participate in polite society. I ask that the court find the defendant guilty of murder."
The jury was out of the courtroom only 20 minutes. Judge Parker had not permitted the defendant to leave the courtroom. When the jury foreman read the verdict, Judge Parker nodded and asked the defendant to rise.
"You, Charles Smith, have been found guilty by a panel of your peers of murder in the first degree in Indian territory. It is my duty to sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead. The sentence will be carried out at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. May God have mercy on your soul."
"But your honor," the defense attorney shouted rising to his feet. "That doesn't give me any time to prepare my appeal."
Old timers in the court gasped. The lawyer looked around at the stunned jury and the surprised prosecutors.
Judge Isaac Parker looked at the speaker with patient surprise and a touch of anger.
"Sir, you are out of order. This matter concerns a crime committed in Indian Territory. Congress has given me exclusive powers to judge such crimes, and to pass sentence. No appeal is possible, except a direct appeal to the President of the United States. In this case there is no chance that the President would soil his hands by even considering your appeal.
"Mr. Smith will be hung tomorrow morning on schedule." He stared at the offending lawyer. "Sir, in my court you are allowed one mistake. If there is another one you will not be permitted to appear again for any cases tried in the Federal Court of the Western Jurisdiction of the State of Arkansas."
The lawyer wilted in his chair, his client was led off to the jail below the court room and the next case was called by the clerk.
Spur slipped out of the room and went to the clerk just outside.
"When will court be finished today?" The clerk shrugged. "Sometimes at five o'clock, sometimes not until seven. At least there is no evening session scheduled for today." The clerk looked thoughtful for a moment. "May I make a suggestion?"
Spur nodded.
"Judge Parker always walks to his home about a mile away right after court is adjourned. You might walk along with him. That would be a good time for an uninterrupted conference."
Spur agreed and sat in on two more trials before the Judge ended the session with his gavel. The clerk had told Spur that the Judge always stopped by his desk before leaving, so Spur took up his post on the polished wooden bench across the hall.
A half hour later, Judge Parker came from the court room wearing a black suit, a gold watch fob hanging by a heavy gold chain from his top vest button hole and the other end vanishing into his vest pocket. He looked as if he had just combed his dark hair but his goatee flared in its usual disarray.
Spur stood and Judge Parker looked at him.
"Yes, Agent McCoy. Is there something I can do for you?"
They talked the 15 minutes it took for the briskly walking judge to travel the mile to his house. At the end of that time, Spur had received the Judge's permission to attach himself to a special six man team of deputy U.S.Marshals to sweep four or five places near the border in Indian Territory where felons, criminals and outlaws were known to hide out between quick thrusts into Arkansas towns and villages.
"I'll have the Marshal deputize you, to give you full authority there," the Judge said. "There's a six man team going out in the morning with a wagon for hauling prisoners. Your trip should take about three days."
Spur thanked the judge, turned and walked to the downtown section of Fort Smith which had grown to just over 3,500 souls. It was not a Wild West town, neither was it a staid midwestern village. It was in-between somewhere.
He watched children playing on the dirt streets. There were no sidewalks, no concrete used at all. The houses were mainly wooden, with a few of bricks and an occasional one of native rock and mortar.
The town had begun as a trade center for the surrounding area, with flat bottomed boats plowing up the Arkansas River from the capitol some 150 miles to the east and slightly south. A few cattle were raised to the north, but the area was mainly light agriculture and some hardwood sawmilling. Much of the small growth hardwood trees on the flats and on the low rising hills looked useless to Spur.
He went back to
the Clinton Restaurant for supper, and treated himself to a pound-and-a-half steak seared on the outside and blood red inside. He paid 95 cents for the meal, left the nickel as the tip and hurried back to his hotel.
The room clerk gave him his key and a message sealed in an envelope. It had not come by mail. He looked at the clerk.
"Sir, I have no idea where it came from or from whom. I found it on my desk here but saw no one leave it."
Spur thanked him and went up the stairs to room 212 that faced front. He took off his gunbelt and hung it on the bed post, then looked at the white envelope. He shrugged and opened it. A single piece of white paper was inside with one line written on it and the message was not signed. It said:
McCoy. Get out of town by tomorrow noon or you 'll be dead before sunset.
Spur McCoy stared at the handwritten threat he had just opened. It was in pencil in what he figured was a man's hand. Written, not printed, so the man must have some education. The words were spelled correctly. That cut down by about half the men in town. He had only a thousand suspects.
He sat down on the bed. Sure, he'd be out of town by noon tomorrow. In fact he'd be out long before that going with the posse of U.S.Deputy Marshals across the river into Indian Territory.
Who could have sent the threat? He had made no secret that he was in town. He had told a dozen people who he was and why he was here. He had been seen going in and out of the sheriffs office and Judge Parker's court room.
It had to be someone connected to the train robbery. Who else would want him out of town? But who could that be?
Somebody he had met? Probably not. He thought of changing rooms in the hotel. He should be safe enough tonight. When he came back, he'd get a different room and wouldn't tell the clerk downstairs.
Now his move was to get some sleep. It had been a strange day. Tomorrow might be even stranger, especially if he could find the four he hunted. He had the feeling that the girl might not be an unwilling captive by now. She could well be a part of the gang who hit the train. So was it a serendipity or did they know she was on the train?
They had to know. They evidently went to the passenger car hunting the girl.
Spur Giant: Soiled Dove Page 4