by Tabor Evans
“You’ll remember even better after I whip your ass. I say you’re yellow through an’ through.”
“Why, you—” Lennox did exactly as Longarm expected him to. He started a sentence but finished it with a wicked right hand.
Except Longarm was not standing there waiting to be punched. Seemingly effortlessly he swayed backward and Lennox’s thundering right whiffed harmlessly past, only inches from Longarm’s head.
The force of the blow pulled Lennox slightly off balance. Longarm stepped to the side and delivered a knuckles-forward punch to Lennox’s right kidney.
If nothing else, Longarm thought, Dexter Lennox would be pissing blood for a few days.
Lennox’s face turned red and he tried to drive an underhand blow to Longarm’s gut. Again Longarm leaned back, pulling away just far enough to take the sting out of Lennox’s punch.
“Hey!” Lennox bawled.
“Not used to having someone actually fight you?” Longarm taunted. He deliberately wanted to get under Ox’s skin so the big man’s anger would cloud his thinking.
Longarm reached out and with his thumb and forefinger took hold of Lennox’s nose. He twisted the tip of the nose, and Ox howled with fury.
The big man lashed out with a flurry of lefts and rights, which Longarm dodged, swaying back and forth in time to the onslaught. Lennox’s blows found thin air. Very thin air at this high mountain elevation. He was already beginning to gasp for breath.
“Hold still, you bastard,” Lennox shrieked.
Longarm held still. Long enough to set his feet and deliver a right hand to the shelf of Lennox’s jaw. The punch had his full weight behind it and should have been hard enough to drop an ox. This Ox indeed was jarred. Blood began to run from his mouth.
Longarm stepped in and gave the big man another shot with his right, this one on the point of Lennox’s nose. Blood spurted into the air and began to drip onto Lennox’s chest.
Lennox ripped a left hand low to Longarm’s stomach and nearly doubled him over. Longarm, however, did not want to give Ox the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt him. Instead he stepped lightly to his right and threw a straight left into Lennox’s breadbasket.
He heard the air whoosh out of Lennox’s lungs. Moved right again and tattooed the other kidney.
Lennox straightened. He had gone pale and must have been in considerable pain. For a moment he seemed to forget where he was and what he was doing. He stood, back arched, jaw set.
It was a gift, and Longarm took it. He slid to the side a few inches to get the angle he wanted, braced his feet, and hit Dexter Lennox just as hard as Longarm had ever hit anything in his life.
Lennox’s head snapped back and his eyes rolled up in his head until only the whites were showing.
The big man toppled face forward into the dirt, out before he ever hit the ground.
Longarm turned to the promoter and asked, “Do I have t’ stand here long enough to finish out the five minutes, or will this be enough for the two o’ you?”
It was only then that he became aware of the crowd noise. Men were screaming, cheering, some of them cussing.
Longarm grinned. It looked like somebody was going to be paying out big this evening—to him. He held his hand out to the promoter, palm upward. “Two hundred, I believe you said.”
Chapter 22
Longarm turned to the crowd and shouted, “Drinks for everybody. Courtesy of Ox Lennox.”
“Here, let me help you,” a man standing next to him said.
“Thanks, but help me with what?”
“With that cut on your cheek,” the fellow said, holding up a none too clean bandanna and wiping at Longarm’s face. The cloth came away with blood on it.
“Shit,” Longarm said, “I don’t even remember being hit.”
“He tagged you pretty good,” the friendly fellow said, continuing to scrub at Longarm’s cheek until he was satisfied that the blood had stopped seeping out.
That whole side of Longarm’s face was numb and the side of his lips tingled as feeling returned.
Inside the ring Lennox was just beginning to come around. He looked confused. And thoroughly pissed off. The promoter helped him to his feet, where he remained upright but more than a little wobbly.
Lennox saw Longarm standing just outside the ring accepting congratulations from a good many of the crowd. Congratulations and thanks for the round of free drinks that the vendors were pouring as fast as they could.
The fighter made his way to that side of the ring and leaned on the top rope to steady himself. “You bastard,” he complained. “We ain’t gonna make a dime on this trip. Might even go broke because o’ you. Just don’t turn your back on me, that’s all I got to say.”
Longarm turned away from the well-wishers and told Lennox, loudly enough for those nearby to hear, “I know better’n to turn my back on you, mister, but if you come at me, I’ll either shoot you down or haul you off to jail for assaulting an officer of the law. You got that?”
He did not have to say it twice. The promoter grabbed Lennox by the arm and dragged him away before he could get himself in any deeper.
Longarm returned to his conversations, making his way slowly over to the drink vendors so he could use some of his fight winnings to pay for all this pleasure.
And all the while he was keeping his ears open in the hope of overhearing something—anything—that would point to the identity of the mail thieves.
Chapter 23
Promptly at six the next morning Longarm was at the Carver Express corrals waiting for Will to join him and start the business of the day. There were already three passengers waiting out front for Will to hitch the team and get going.
The passengers were ticketed to Hartsel, where they would change to a coach heading down to Manitou and Colorado City. They could have made rail connections from Fairplay to Denver and then south to Colorado Springs, but it was actually quicker to go in a stagecoach down by the more direct route, quicker but in truth not as comfortable. The stagecoach connection was also much cheaper, and that might have been a consideration, too.
For whatever reason, they wanted to take the stagecoach route, and that would add a little income for Carver.
Longarm waited behind the express company office, laying out harness and in general starting the day’s preparations, until he became concerned about Will. Finally, at six forty-five, he went inside. Charlise was there along with the few pieces of luggage going with the passengers and three packages consigned to Bailey.
“Any idea where Will is?” he asked the blond owner of the express company.
“No, I don’t, and I’m starting to get worried about him,” Charlie said.
“Doesn’t he live with you?”
Charlie shook her head. “Will has his own place. He takes his meals with me, and he jokes about living with Mama but he’s mostly on his own.” She wrung her hands and walked over to peer out the front window. “This isn’t like him, Marshal. I’ve never known him to be this late before. I haven’t seen him since supper last night. He said he was going to the fight.”
“I was at the fight but I didn’t see Will. There was a big crowd, though. I could’ve missed him. If I knew where he lives—” Longarm began but was interrupted by the arrival of a scruffy little man in sleeve garters and an apron.
“Charlie!” the fellow said, out of breath and puffing from exertion. “Will insisted that I come tell you.”
“Tell me what, Doc?” she asked.
“He’s over at my clinic. He was hurt last night,” the little man said.
“Hurt?”
“He doesn’t want me to tell you, but . . . he was shot. Now don’t get excited. He will be all right. But it will be a few days before he is up and around again.”
Longarm stepped closer. “What happened?”
The doctor gave hi
m a wary look. “It’s all right, Doc,” Charlie said. “He’s a deputy United States marshal. You can tell him. And tell me, too.”
“It was before the prizefight last evening,” the doctor said. “Will was visiting, uh, he was visiting . . .”
“It’s all right, Doc. I know all about Maybelle’s and that Will likes to visit there sometimes.”
“Yes, well, Will was at Maybelle’s just like you guessed, and he got into an argument. Not much of an argument the way I heard it. The other party pulled out a pistol and shot Will in the leg. He lost a lot of blood, but he will recover. It will be a few days before he can get out of bed, I think, and then he will be on crutches for a few weeks.”
“Oh, Lord,” Charlie said, turning pale. “Without Will . . .” She stood up straighter and braced herself. “I’ll just have to do it all myself. But, oh, I don’t know how to drive a team at all, much less a four-horse hitch.”
“I know the route,” Longarm said quickly. “I can drive until he gets upright again.”
She gave him the sort of look he imagined a drowning man might give to his rescuer. “It would mean the difference between us staying in business or going under,” she said.
“I want t’ be on the coach anyway in order t’ catch those mail robbers. After all, that’s what I came up here for. This just puts me in a better position t’ do my job. Now if you’ll excuse me, I got to go make up that hitch an’ bring the coach around to the front.”
Chapter 24
It was a good thing Longarm had been paying attention when Will made up the team on those days the past week. Even so, it took him some time to sort out which horse should go where and how the various driving lines should be distributed. Finally he thought he had it right, hooked the traces, and climbed onto the top deck.
He took a deep breath and muttered a little prayer then took up contact with the horses’ bits and shook the lines. “Hyup, boys. Hyup.”
Damned if they didn’t move out for him just like he knew what he was doing. Fortunately the team knew enough to make up for what Longarm lacked when it came to driving a four-up. But he knew good and well that if the team had been a six-horse hitch, he would have been worse than useless up there on the driving box.
He wheeled the coach around to the front of the Carver Express Company office and pulled to a halt there.
“Sorry for the delay, folks. We’ve had a little problem, but we’re all right now. Let me help you with those bags, an’ we’ll get under way,” he called down to the impatient and by now irate passengers.
He climbed down, loaded up the luggage and a package for the Bailey postmaster, helped the passengers into the coach, then made the climb up on top again.
Longarm tipped his hat to Charlise, who gave him a grateful look. Then he picked up the driving lines and, taking another deep breath, put the team in motion.
He was not sure about popping the whip to get them racing out of town. It would have ruined his day—and ruined the team for their future cooperation—if he accidentally nicked an ear with the popper, so he left the whip in its socket and drove with the lines alone.
It surprised him how much raw power was coming off those horses and being transmitted to his hands. Surprised him, too, how tiring the driving was, wearing on his shoulders and making his fingers ache.
Come nightfall, he was going to need a stiff drink and perhaps an application of liniment. Or two. Of each.
By the time they reached Guffey, he hoped the mail robbers would not show themselves during this trip because he was not at all certain he would be quick enough with his .45 to take them.
Come the next trip, he intended to bring a shotgun along, too. At least with a scattergun, you did not have to be as precise as with a revolver. There was room for error while still getting the job done. No wonder shotgun guards and stagecoach drivers carried the weapons they did, he thought.
And now he was a coach driver himself.
He safely delivered the passengers to Lake George and picked up two more there on their way over to Bailey, dropped them and the postmaster’s package off there, and picked up two men and a matronly woman for the run back to Fairplay.
They pulled in at the Carver office in Fairplay well after dark.
But they, by damn, got the job done. Longarm felt good about that. And Charlie looked ecstatic.
“I was getting worried when it got dark and you still weren’t here,” she admitted while she helped Longarm break the hitch and tend to the horses for the night. “You must be hungry. Can I offer you supper as a way of saying thank you?” she suggested.
“I . . .” He was going to turn her down, then at the last moment changed his mind, and what came out of his mouth instead of a rejection was, “Yes. Thanks. That’d be nice o’ you.”
He set down the hoof he was working on and picked up another, certain that before this night was over, his back would break and he would be crippled for life.
Chapter 25
“That was wonderful, Charlie. Thank you,” Longarm said, folding his napkin and laying it beside his now very empty plate. He smiled. “If you ever give up the stagecoach business, you could make it down in Denver as a high-class chef.”
Her response was a loud, uninhibited guffaw.
“I have a question,” she said.
“Shoot.”
“Now I don’t mean to give offense, but from the stiff way you are holding yourself, I’m going to guess that your back hurts. Am I right? Or am I right?” she said.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “Those boys pull hard, an’ I’m not used to driving them. Haven’t yet learned when to relax an’ when to hold tight.”
“Will’s back gets like that sometimes, and he handles them every day. Would you like me to help you out with that?” she offered.
“If there’s anything you know t’ do short of shooting me to put me outa my misery, yeah, I’d appreciate it.”
Longarm was thinking in terms of a few good shots of whiskey. Instead Charlise said, “Take your shirt off.”
“What?”
“The shirt. Off.”
“If you say so,” he said and began fumbling at the buttons, his fingers still stiff from the day hanging on to those driving lines. He could scarcely imagine what it would have felt like had the Carver line run six-horse hitches.
Charlie helped him out of his vest and shirt, his coat already hanging by the door. She carefully folded both and laid them aside. “Now the gun belt if you don’t mind.”
Longarm complied, trying without success to hide a yawn.
“There is only one comfortable way to do this,” she said. “I know from past experience with Will. You need to lie full length, facedown, and there is only one place in this little house where you can do that, so follow me, please.”
He did, and Charlie led him past the kitchen to her bedroom. The bedclothes were surprisingly fluffy and girlish and the place smelled of powders and perfumes.
“There,” she said. “On the bed, please.”
Longarm did as she directed, stretching out facedown. Charlie perched on the side of the bed.
She picked up a small bottle and poured some of the contents into the palm of her hand.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “This is just a light oil. It isn’t scented.”
Longarm grunted his acceptance, and Charlie began smearing the oil onto his back. She oiled him with a liberal hand then began kneading his tight muscles with a relaxing, healing touch.
“Nice,” he murmured at one point.
Then amazingly, he drifted off to sleep while Charlise Carver massaged him.
Chapter 26
When Longarm awoke, he was on his back and Charlie was tugging at his belt buckle. She already had his fly unbuttoned.
“You’re awake,” she said.
“Barely.”
“There is something you should know. I am a widow. And a lusty woman. If that bothers you, now would be the time to get mad and storm out of here.”
Longarm only smiled.
Charlie pulled his boots off and tugged his trousers down over his hips. When she saw the size of what he had to offer, she gasped. And smiled back.
She stood and quickly shed her dress and underclothes.
Charlise Carver was not a big woman, but she was nicely put together. She had full tits with protruding nipples and exceptionally large areolae. Her waist was small with a puffy vee of dark hair in her crotch. Her thighs were slender—he liked that—and failed to meet at the top.
He could see droplets of juice clinging to some of her pussy hair. The lady was more than ready.
She carefully folded each of her own garments and laid them aside then returned to again sit on the side of the bed, her hands falling quite naturally on his lower belly.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. He did not ask her what she meant by that. He was pretty sure he already knew.
Charlie’s hand found his cock. Her fingers curled lightly around the shaft. She squeezed. Ran her hand up and down.
“If you don’t stop that,” he said, “you’re gonna have a handful o’ jism to clean up.”
Charlie laughed. “There are worse things that could happen. Are you close to coming just from this little bit?”
“It’s been a few days since I got laid,” he admitted.
“Then let me take the pressure off. We can romp and play later, but for now . . .” She bent low and took him into the warmth of her mouth.
“D’you think . . . ah, that’s nice . . . d’you think you can take it all? Just push on through int’ your throat. Ah!” Longarm arched his back and cried out aloud as Charlise pressed down onto him, his cock filling her mouth and on into her throat.
He could feel the head pass through the ring of cartilage at the upper end of her throat. There was a slight resistance when it penetrated to that point, then it burst through.