Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (24 page)

Longarm saw it at once. Halfway down the stairs that led to the balcony, one of the saloon girls was struggling with a young cowhand. The girl stood on a step lower than the man. He had his hands locked around her wrists, and she was pulling vainly in an effort to break free. A trickle of blood came from her mouth. The whiskey-flushed face of the youth—Longarm judged him to be less than twenty years old—was twisted in anger.

“Now, by God, Ruthie!” he yelled, “You ain't going to work here another night, you hear me? Damn it, I want you to marry me!”

“Let go, Fred, please!” the girl begged. “Come on, let's go sit down at a table and talk it over. It won't help a bit for you to get all wrought up this way.”

“I've talked all I'm going to!” he retorted. “And I've waited as long as I can!” He freed one of his hands from the girl's wrists, drew the pistol that dangled from his gunbelt, and pressed its muzzle to her head. “Like I told you upstairs, if I can't have you all to myself, nobody else is going to have you!”

Everyone in the saloon was frozen, watching the deadly drama on the staircase. Only Longarm moved. He started in a slow, deliberate walk toward the struggling pair, and had gotten halfway to the staircase before the young cowhand noticed him.

“You there! Stop right where you are!” the youth called. He swiveled the pistol's muzzle away from the girl's head and waved it in Longarm's general direction. “You take another step, and I swear to God, I'll plug you!”

Longarm stopped. He said mildly, “Now, you don't want to pull a fool trick like that, Fred. How do you think Ruthie's going to feel if she has to watch you dangling off the wrong end of a hanging rope because you gunned down somebody you don't even know?”

“I don't give a damn whether I know you or not!” Fred shouted. “I'm taking Ruthie out of here, and nobody's going to stop me!”

“What makes you think I want to stop you?” Longarm asked. He watched the young cowpuncher's face as the drunken youth tried to grasp the meaning of the question. The cowpoke was still shaking his head worriedly when Longarm went on, “I'd say Ruthie's got the right idea, Fred. Maybe she'd be willing to tell you why she didn't want to go with you, if you were to talk things over. Then you might be able to argue her around. Why don't you and her come on down those stairs and set a while, talk about it?” As he spoke, Longarm took another careful step or two toward the stairway.

“Damn you, I told you to stand still!” Fred called.

When Longarm didn't stop his slow forward movement, the youth triggered off a shot. The slug was wide by a yard. It crashed into an unoccupied table, cut a white groove along its top, and set the table to rocking unsteadily.

Fred yelled angrily, “You'll get the next one, unless you stop trying to get to me!”

Still inching steadily forward, Longarm said soothingly, “Now, that wasn't a right smart thing, Fred.” He spread his empty hands in front of his body. “Look here. I've got no gun. You wouldn't want to shoot at a man who's not shooting at you, would you?”

Ruthie's mind worked faster than Fred's. She said, “He's right, Fred. If you killed an unarmed stranger, they'd hang you for sure. Then how could we go off together, the way you want to?”

Fred took his eyes off Longarm and gave all his attention to Ruthie. “You told me you didn't want to go away with me!”

Longarm used the opportunity to gain three more careful steps in the direction of the staircase, but he was still too far away to jump the cowboy.

Ruthie said, “Don't you know a girl wants to be persuaded, Fred honey? You never did really ask me, you just
told
me.”

“I didn't!” he protested. “I asked you to marry me the best way I knew how!”

Again Longarm gained a step or two. This time his movement caught Fred's eye. He leveled his revolver at Longarm once more.

“Now damn you, mister, I told you to stand still!” the youth said menacingly. “I don't want to have to kill you, but I damn sure will, if you keep snaking up on me!”

Ruthie interrupted again. “Fred. If you really want me to listen to you, you'll have to listen to me first. Let's go down the stairs now, and sit at a table and talk, like I've been begging you to.”

With a drunk's unpredictability, Fred suddenly snarled, “Damn it! You're pushing at me, all of you! Quit it now!”

He raised the revolver and fired at the ceiling. Wood splintered as lead tore through the ceiling and roof.

It was the chance Longarm had been waiting for. Before Fred could lower the muzzle of his pistol, Longarm leaped across the short distance that now separated them. He closed the gap with two bounding, catlike strides and grabbed the youth's wrist as the gun started down. The two wrestled for a moment, their arms seesawing, as Fred tried to bring the pistol down and Longarm, at a disadvantage on the step below him, fought to keep the menacing weapon pointed upward.

For a moment they swayed, almost falling, then Longarm got a foot on the next higher step. There, his superior height and strength quickly settled the contest. With both hands on Fred's wrist, Longarm's callused, steel-strand fingers put such a punishing pressure on bones and nerves that the younger man's hand was numbed. The gun fell from his limp grasp. Longarm pressed his advantage. He brought the cowhand's wrist down with a whiplash jerk and twisted his arm, throwing the youth off balance. When Fred turned, trying to stay on his feet, Longarm twisted the wrist back and upward until the hand that had held the gun was between Fred's shoulder blades.

“Damn it, you're killing me!” Fred panted. “Let go!”

Without bothering to answer, Longarm grabbed the young cowpoke's free wrist and twisted it too, behind his back. Then he used the painful pressure to force the youth down the steps to the floor of the saloon. Ruthie stood aside, pressing against the wall, to let them pass.

When they reached the bottom step, Longarm didn't pause. He forced Fred across the floor ahead of him until the two reached the table where Sheriff Grover still stood.

“I'll give him over to you, Grover,” Longarm said. “Lucky for him, about all you can lock him up for is being drunk and creating a disturbance.”

“I'll tuck him in jail until he sobers up,” Grover said. He pulled handcuffs from his hip pocket and snapped them around Fred's wrists. Then he hesitated. Obviously the next words were hard to bring out. “I—I'm glad you jumped him before he hurt somebody.”

“No thanks needed, Sheriff.” Longarm stressed the title. “You and me have still got our talk to finish, but we'll do that tomorrow. Right now, you've got a prisoner to book, and I'm going to hit the hay. It's been sort of a long day.”

Longarm stood watching as Grover hustled Fred out of the saloon. The brief fracas seemed to have created no lasting excitement; from the way those in the saloon reacted, it was nothing out of the ordinary. Longarm had taken a step toward the batwings when he was stopped by a hand on his arm. He turned. Ruthie stood there, tears in her eyes, but a smile on her lips.

“I guess I owe you a lot,” she said in a low voice. “I don't know how to thank a man who's just saved my life. I thought I'd been in every kind of mess a girl can get herself into, but this is the first time anybody's ever kept me from getting killed.”

“You don't owe me a thing, ma'am,” Longarm replied. “I'm just glad you didn't get hurt.”

“I think I owe you a lot, mister.” She hesitated before adding, “If—if you'd like to come up to my room with me, I'd be real pleased to show you how grateful I am.”

“Now, I wouldn't feel right if I did that. I reckon I know how you feel, and it doesn't mean I think any the less of you if I don't take your offer. But what you need to do right now is go back up to your room and clean the blood off your face. Then get a good night's rest. I'll drop in tomorrow or the next day, and maybe we can sit down and have a drink together. We can talk then.”

“If you're sure—”

“I'm sure. You do what I tell you, now. Go on to bed. You've had a tough time, and you need some rest without anybody around.”

Reluctantly the girl turned away. Longarm went to the bar and said to the barkeep, “I guess I owe you for whatever drinks the sheriff and I had.”

“You don't owe me a damn dime. The shoe's on the other foot, I'd say. Wait a minute.” The man went over to the backbar and studied the bottles displayed there. He selected one and passed it to Longarm. “You favor Maryland rye. Compliments of the house.”

Longarm saw the label and whistled softly. “Now, that's right proud whiskey. Don't see much of it in this part of the country. It'll slip down right smooth.” He nodded his thanks to the barkeep, tucked the bottle under his arm, and walked the short distance to the hotel.

In his room, Longarm made quick work of opening the whiskey and found that it was as silky smooth as he'd known it would be. He sipped now and then while he shed his clothes and puffed on a freshly lighted cigar. Finally he hung his holstered Colt on the left side of the bed's headboard and let himself sink to the lumpy mattress with an appreciative sigh. He was just dropping off to sleep when a light tapping sounded at the door.

Instantly alert, Longarm slid his Colt out of its holster and padded barefoot to the door. Standing to one side of its thin panels, his Colt poised, he called, “Who is it?”

“It's me. Ruthie.”

Years of experience had made Longarm cautious. He unlocked the door and cracked it open. When he was sure the saloon girl was alone in the corridor, he opened the door wide enough to let her slip through.

“As long as you're here,” he told her, trying to keep the sleepiness out of his voice, “I guess you might as well come in.”

Chapter 3

“You're not mad at me because I decided to come see you after all, are you?” Ruthie asked. “I still feel like I need to thank you proper, you know.”

“I'm not mad,” Longarm assured her. He indicated the long balbriggan underwear he had on. “I wouldn't say I'm dressed for company, though.”

“That won't bother me. You're not the first man I've seen in a union suit. Or without one, either,” she smiled. She stepped inside.

Closing the door, Longarm moved to the bed and fished a match out of the pocket of his vest, which hung on the headboard. As he lighted the lamp and trimmed the wick down low, he said without looking at his uninvited guest, “Except you don't owe me any more thanks than you've already give me, Ruthie.”

“No thanks for saving my life? Listen, I can still feel that ice-cold pistol barrel pushing into my ear. Every time I think about it, I get the shivers.”

“Chances are that young fellow wouldn't've had the nerve to shoot you, even as drunk as he was.”

“He was wild.” Ruthie shook her head. “I thought I'd seen some crazy men, but he's the worst ever.”

Longarm motioned to the single chair the room held. “You might as well sit down and be comfortable while we talk. And I can't think of anything better than a sip of good Maryland rye whiskey to settle down a case of the shivers.”

Ruthie smiled as she crossed the little room and sat down in the chair. “This is something I'm not used to, now—sitting down in a chair when I'm in a room with a man. Most of the time, they can't wait for me to flop on the bed. But I guess you're right, I can use a drink. All they let us have at the saloon is weak tea, unless we're at a table with a customer and drinking from his bottle. I guess you'd know how that works, though, being a lawman.”

“How'd you find that out?” Longarm frowned. “I don't recall saying anything to you about who I am or what I do.”

You didn't.” Ruthie was settling herself comfortably in the chair. “Sheriff Grover came back after he'd put Fred in jail. He told Bob, and Bob told me.”

“Bob? That'd be the barkeep?”

Ruthie nodded. “Bob said the sheriff didn't place you right off. Then he remembered what some folks call you. Longarm, isn't it?”

“Some do, I guess. Others ain't quite so polite.”

“Enough to give you quite a reputation as a lawman, the sheriff told Bob.”

With his back toward her while he poured whiskey from the bottle of bonded rye into his only glass, Longarm said, “I've found out that the farther a man gets away from home, the bigger his reputation gets, too. So don't put too much stock in what you hear.” He handed her the glass, took the bottle, and sat down on the bed.

Ruthie held up the glass. “I guess I ought to say something, a sort of toast, but I can't think of the right words.”

“Let's just forget about things like that.” Longarm tilted the bottle to his lips and took a swallow of the smooth whiskey. He got a cheroot from one vest pocket and a match from another. As he lit the cheroot, he reflected that as much as he hated being a slave to tobacco, the combination of a pretty woman's company, a glass of rye, and a good cigar was unbeatable for sheer comfort.

Ruthie was sipping the whiskey. Longarm studied her through the veil of smoke that billowed between them from the freshly lit cigar. She'd put on a street dress before leaving the saloon, and he'd been too busy watching Fred to pay much attention to her earlier, but now he recalled the low-cut, sequined knee-length dress she'd been wearing then. He tried to remember, but all that came to his mind was a vague impression of full breasts, a small waist, and flaring hips emphasized by the cut of her working garb. The drab brown full-cut garment she was now wearing could hide almost any kind of shape under it, he thought.

As he looked closely at Ruthie's face, he realized that she was younger than most saloon girls; her heavy makeup didn't hide the smooth, unlined skin of her face. He saw in it the freshness of a girl in her early twenties, and guessed her teens weren't too far behind her. She'd combed her light brown hair straight back, instead of leaving it in the high puff that he remembered from their earlier encounter. Her brown eyes looked wise, despite some puffy traces of the tears he remembered that she'd shed, tears of fright mingled with relief, but they were only slightly reddened. Her nose was small and straight, her upper lip short, but the rouged lips themselves were full, almost pouting. Her chin was round and firm, her neck as smooth and unlined as her face.

Suddenly Longarm became aware that Ruthie was studying him almost as closely as he was studying her. The little bubble of tension that had been forming between them broke as they both smiled.

“I guess you're wondering what sort of a girl I am,” she said. “That's what seems to interest most of the men I meet.” Somewhat defiantly, she added, “My customers, if you want to put the right name to them.”

Longarm took his time replying. He said, “You know, Ruthie, all I care about is what I see in you right now. You're an honest girl with enough backbone and spunk to look at the world the way it is, instead of trying to fool yourself, the way most folks do. If you're trying to find out if I think any the less of you because of the line of work you're in, the answer's no. You're a girl called Ruthie, and that's good enough for me.” Longarm reached across the narrow gap that separated the bed from the chair where she sat and patted her arm.

She cocked her head to one side and looked at him curiously. “You don't act like other men do. You look at me like I'm a real woman, not something you've paid to use for a little while. I still feel like I owe you a lot for saving me the way you did.”

“Now, we settled that when you first came in,” he reminded her. “Thing is, you're all nerved up, after what you went through. Here.” He refilled her glass. “Take some more of this. It'll settle your nerves down.”

“I don't usually drink anything, you know. The older girls, the ones that've been around a while, they always tell me that if you lay off liquor, the other—you know what I'm trying to say—the other doesn't hurt you.”

“Let's just call this a special time,” Longarm suggested. He held up the bottle in salute. Ruthie raised her glass in response, and when Longarm drank from the bottle, she gulped down most of the whiskey in one convulsive swallow.

When she'd stopped shuddering, she asked, “Can I tell you something? You won't get mad if I talk to you, will you?”

“'Course not. Tell me anything you want to get off your mind.”

“I guess I was mostly to blame for what happened there tonight, in the saloon. You see, Fred wasn't like most of the men I run into. He was—well, sort of like you, treated me like a human being. And I guess I fell for him, a little bit. Led him on.”

“Fred's probably a nice enough young fellow, when he ain't a lot drunker than a man ought to get.”

“But it was wrong, don't you see? I shouldn't've done it. If I'd just treated him like I do all the rest, he never would've acted the way he did.”

“I suppose so. But you've got to remember, Ruthie, it's a woman's nature to act that way when a man's interested in her.”

She smiled sadly. “Oh, I've learned that, Longarm. You might say that was my first lesson. How do you think I got started out?”

“Like most young girls, I'd imagine. You let some randy young rooster sweet-talk you into bed with him. Somebody found out about it, and told you that you were ruined for good just because you did what's humanly natural, and you weren't old enough to know different, so you believed it.”

“You're a pretty good guesser, but you missed part of it. I was the one who was randy, and it was me who did the sweet-talking. And it didn't seem to me I was ruined at all. I enjoyed every minute of it, after the first time, when it hurt like I suppose it does all girls who never have been with a man before. But even that didn't bother me much. And nobody found out; it was him who got tired of me after a little while, and told me I was ruined for good, then he went and found himself another girl.”

“You ain't old enough for that to've happened very long ago,” he said.

“Long enough. I've been in the sporting life over three years.”

“Hell, that ain't so long. You can always quit, if you don't like it.”

“It's a funny thing.” Ruthie drained her glass before going on. “I do like it, for a little while, now and then. When I meet some man who's not a pig, and I can let myself go with him, and not just go through the motions without feeling anything.”

She stood up, fumbled for a moment at the neck of her dress, then shook her shoulders sharply from side to side. The drab brown dress slid to the floor. Underneath it, Ruthie wore nothing except her shoes and long net stockings held by fancy red garters at mid-thigh. In the soft warmth of the yellow lamplight her body glowed like a symmetrical pillar of alabaster.

For a moment she stood quite still, inviting Longarm to look at her as the slanting rays of the lamp revealed full, high breasts with warm pink rosettes that were beginning to pucker and push pink tips from their centers. Her tiny waist flared into generous, fully rounded hips; between them, a small, flat belly showed its oval center dimple. Below her lustrous, light brown tangle of pubic hair that caught the lamp's glow in mysterious highlights, slim thighs tapered into slimmer legs.

“You're the kind of man I know I can let myself go with,” Ruthie said. Her voice was a husky whisper now, not the light voice of the girl who'd been speaking moments earlier. “And not just because I feel like I owe you anything.”

Somehow, Ruthie's words relieved Longarm's mind. He no longer felt that she was offering herself to repay a debt. They could now be simply a woman and a man coming together.

With a single long step she crossed the space that separated them. Her hands brushed lightly over Longarm's cheeks, her fingers crept around his neck and pulled his face to nestle in the warm valley between her breasts. He felt her shiver with anticipation as the rough stubble on his square jaw brushed the tips of her nipples, and he felt himself respond as the warm, perfumed woman-scent of the valley into which his head was being urged filled his nostrils.

For a moment, Ruthie held Longarm's head firmly against her soft breasts, then she moved her hands and began working at the buttons of his longjohns. Longarm pressed against her, nibbling at the waiting flesh with hardened lips. Her hands were busy pulling at his only garment, and the night air was cool on his shoulders and back as the rough underwear dropped to his waist, He stood up. Ruthie pushed the balbriggans down below his hips, freeing his erection to rise, then swiftly she slid a hand down to bring the throbbing shaft between her thighs.

They stood clinging together, Longarm's hands smoothing her back and hips with long, caressing strokes while he rubbed his lips and face over her smooth shoulders and throat. Her cheek slid across his chest and over a shoulder; her warm, moist tongue darted into his ear. Her hips were moving slowly against him, pressing downward.

“Take me standing up,” she panted into his ear, her breath hot against his cheek. “Now, right now.”

Longarm spread his legs to brace himself and grasped her firmly fleshed buttocks with his strong, callused hands. He lifted her, and as he picked her up, Ruthie spread her legs to encircle his waist, as her hand reached down at the same time to guide him into her. She whimpered softly as he penetrated her, and locked her legs around him to pull him in more deeply.

For several minutes, Ruthie seemed content merely to let him fill her. She kept her legs clasped tightly around him, sighing, now and then, but moving very little. Longarm made no attempt to thrust; he was willing to let her set the pace.

“Am I too heavy for you?” she whispered. “Can you hold me this way as long as I need to come?”

“Take your time, Ruthie. I can hold you up all night; you don't weigh all that much.”

She fell silent then, and began to devote all her attention to finding the pleasure she was after. She locked her hands behind Longarm's neck and let her legs relax a bit to settle herself more firmly against the rigid male flesh on which she was impaled. Pressure alone soon failed to satisfy her, and she began to shift the weight of her hips from side to side, gently at first, then so rapidly that Longarm had to dig his fingers into the yielding flesh of her buttocks to keep her from slipping out of his hands.

When Ruthie felt the increasing pressure of his fingers, she asked, “Are you getting tired?”

“Not a bit. Like I told you, take your time.”

“I'm never fast anymore,” she said, beginning to work her body back and forth between periods of sidewise gyration. “I guess it's because I'm always thinking about getting my customers off as fast as I can, before I really start feeling anything. Oh, Longarm, you don't know how wonderful this is for me! I'm starting to feel like a woman ought to feel.”

“Go on and enjoy yourself all you want to,” he told her. “I'm feeling pretty good right now, myself.”

“You're not about to come, are you? Because I'm not ready yet.”

“I'm good for a long time yet. You just wiggle along however way makes you feel best. I'll hold out, don't worry.”

“Can you hold me under my arms for a while? Sort of let me swing free?”

“Sure. Whatever you like.” He shifted his hands to her armpits, and she stretched her arms, letting her body lean away from him, but still keeping her legs around his waist. He said, “Let go with your legs, if you want to. I can hold you as easy that way.”

“God, but you're strong!” Ruthie exclaimed as she released her legs from around Longarm's waist and let them dangle. “And long and big, too. Most men couldn't handle me this way,” she said between gasps of pleasure. “But you're better than most men.”