As the horse and rider disappeared down the far end of the street, trailing a brown dust plume, Longarm frowned up at the window as the marshal pulled his head back inside. Boots pounded the floorboards, descended the stairs, crossed the saloon's main hall. The marshal looked out the first story's broken window, stepped over the casing and into the street.
Longarm poked his hat brim back off his forehead, staring in amazement.
He'd thought the lawman had spoken in a strangely high voice. Now he saw why.
The town marshal of Diamondback shoved the flaps of her jacket back and planted her fists on her hips, a healthy set of breasts pushing at her loosely woven blouse, the first three buttons of which were undone, and the lacy chemise beneath, like two baby pigs trying to shove their way out of a croaker sack.
When she finished surveying the human wreckage which Longarm had left sprawled in the street, she sauntered over to him and stared up at him from beneath the narrow brim of her olive plainsman, causing Longarm's heart to skip a beat.
Diamondback's town marshal had not only an amazing set of tits, she had one of the three or four most beautiful, blue-eyed faces he'd ever seenâstrong-jawed, straight-nosed, with high, chiseled cheekbones and a small beauty mark on her neck.
She was a big-boned woman, athletic-looking and tan. She was well curved and full-hipped, but Longarm doubted she wore one extra pound on her beguiling frame. Her long, straight, straw-colored hair winged out slightly from both sides of her face, the olive skin glistening slightly with sweat.
She offered a lopsided smile, full lips stretching back from white teeth, the right eyetooth protruding alluringly. “Thanks for the help. You the federal from Denver?”
Longarm's voice caught in his throat. “Yep.”
“Come on,” said Marshal Blassingame, reaching into Longarm's shirt pocket and plucking out a three-for-a-nickel cheroot.
She stuck the cigar in her teeth, beckoned with her eyes, and mounted the saloon's front porch. “The poison's on me.”
Chapter 4
Longarm followed the rangy marshal through the batwings, admiring the subtle sway of her round ass under the tight denim trousers, and her slow, regal stride. The top of the barman's head and eyes appeared, peeking up from the other side of the bar. The eyes slid from Marshal Blassingame to Longarm, then back to the marshal.
The man straightened, his fleshy, round, hairless face flushed crimson. “Jesus Christ, are you two about
done
?”
“For now,” the marshal said. “Give me a bottle and two glasses, will you, Jake?”
As the barman grabbed a bottle and two shot glasses off the back bar, he glanced around the saloon, at the bloody bodies, overturned chairs, and smashed tables. Turning, he set the bottle and glasses on the mahogany and ran his piqued gaze across the room once more. “Who's gonna pay for this, Merle?”
“Oh, quit cryin' and check their pockets, Jake. Yesterday was payday out to the Royal Flush.” Marshal Blassingame grabbed the bottle by the neck, plucked up the glasses with the first three fingers of her left hand, and glanced at Longarm.
She rolled her eyes with disgust, then strolled over to a table in the room's shadowy right flank, a good distance from the carnage.
As the barman mumbled and grumbled behind him, Longarm followed her, still dumbfounded by her beauty and position, not to mention her obvious toughness and handiness with a shooting iron.
She kicked out a chair, sagged into it, then popped the cork from the whiskey bottle, and splashed the oily, amber concoction to the rim of each glass. She tilted the bottle's neck up and was about to cork it when, catching him staring, she stopped and hiked a shoulder.
“You were expecting a flat-chested marshal. Put it behind you. We got official business.” She replaced the cork in the bottle's mouth, picked up her glass, sagged back in her chair, and stuck Longarm's cigar between her teeth.
She looked at him expectantly. Longarm chuckled, sat down, and plucked a cigar and lucifer from his shirt pocket.
He scratched the match to life on his thumbnail and held it across the table. The marshal leaned forward, staring over the flame, appraising him coolly, as he lit her cigar. She sat back in her chair, blowing smoke at the rafters.
When Longarm had lit his own cheroot, Marshal Blassingame said, “My father was town marshal before a drunk sheepherder shot him last fall. None of these other nancy boys”âshe glanced at the bartender, who was grunting and dragging one of the dead men toward the batwings by his anklesâ“wanted the job.”
“You're right handy with a shootin' iron.”
“Never much cared for dolls. You can call me Merle if I can call you . . .”
“Longarm.” He shrugged sheepishly and puffed his cheroot. “Everybody does. Long arm of the law or somesuch nonsense. Full handle is Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long.”
She sat slumped in her chair, nodding as she studied him, her cool eyes curious. “I've heard of you.”
“So, what's with these boys, if we can keep digressing from the main topic awhile longer?” Longarm canted his head toward the dead men in the room and on the street. “Why did they want your clock cleaned so bad? Ain't the boys around here been taught how to treat a lady?” He grinned and sipped the whiskey, ignoring how it raked his tonsils before setting an odd fire in his chest.
“That fool Falcon wanted to marry me.” She chuffed and threw back her own shot, slammed the glass back onto the table and reached for the bottle.
When she saw Longarm's skeptical glance, she paused, shrugged, and popped the cork. “Oh, I got drunk a couple weeks back and told him I would. I mean, I
guess
I did. I don't recollect. That's what Jake and a couple others told me. Anyway, when I told Falcon I'd had a change of heart, he got all sour and said I had three days to reconsider . . . or else.”
She sighed, puffed the cigar, and glanced at the second dead man the bartender was hauling out the door. “I reckon this was his âor else.'” She chuckled. “He brought his pa's men in from their Royal Flush ranch to give me hell. Couldn't do it himself.” She looked pointedly at Longarm, squinting her eyes a little. “Now, what kinda
man
is that?”
Longarm let smoke stream out his nostrils and looked at her from under his brows. “I for one, Merle, would do it myself.”
Her cool gaze slid across his chest and shoulders, returned to his eyes. Her upper lip curled. “You reckon you could?”
“I reckon I'd try.” His eyes flashed rascally. “And the devil take the hindmost.”
She dipped her chin slightly and pursed her lips. She raised her shot glass. “I reckon he would at that.”
Longarm raised his own glass, and they both threw back their shots. “Now, then,” he said, skidding his glass toward the middle of the table and waving her off when she extended the bottle toward him. “Seems to be the fashion in this countryâcomely lasses luring men off to their graves. Wanna fill me in?”
Marshal Blassingame refilled her glass. Longarm was not only amazed by how well she handled a six-shooter, but by how well she could hold her hooch. She was on her third shot in five minutes, and her eyes were blue steel.
“Magnusson and his wolf women,” Merle said, leaning back and shoving her fingers into her jeans pockets. “That's what we call 'em around here, on account of they have a pet wolf runnin' with 'em. Magnusson's off his nut, and so, apparently, are his daughters.”
“When'd they start killin'?”
“About nine months ago. When prospectors started rushing into Diamondback Canyon after a man named Hjelmar Petterson found a nugget in his placer diggings worth four thousand dollars. Magnusson has several cabins up there. Apparently, he got tired of the company, so he and his girls went to work killin' most of the prospectors in their area. Eight men dead in three weeks. A couple witnesses claimed the girls got them to let their guard down, and ole Magnusson went in either shootin' or swinging a pick. They stripped the bodies, took all valuables, and vamoosed.”
“They pretty much stick around the Diamondback?”
“Pretty much. Magnusson was one of the first to settle the canyonâhim and about three Basque sheepherdersâafter the French fur trappers disappeared about twenty years ago. His last Indian wife is buried near Skull Pass. I figure that's why he's staying.”
She sighed and threw back her shot, gritted her teeth as the coffin varnish hit her stomach. “Good luck finding them. I've been up and down that canyon twice now, and found neither hide nor hair. Magnusson's got about three or four other cabins, some in the Mummy Range, some in the Neversummers. Some claim they've even seen him and those wolf girls as far south as Ute Creek Peak in the Mummy Range. They haul an old teepee around on a travois.”
“What about the girls?”
The marshal snorted. “They're pretty . . . and wild.”
“Must be something in the water around here.”
“And men, bein' men, can't resist 'em. I hope you can resist them, Longarm, cause I hear tell they'll give you a hard-on that'll last a lifetime.”
“Business before pleasure,” Longarm said, feeling his ears warm at the lass's salty talk. He'd been around farm-talking females before, but none of them filled out their blouses half as well as this gal did. “Both of 'em have Indian blood?”
“Yeah, but only one is dark. The other must've taken after Magnusson's Norski side. She favors a Viking queen.” Merle snorted again. “They're quite a pair. If you ever catch sight of 'em, you won't forget 'em. Just don't forget yourself and try to fuck 'em.” She clucked and threw back the rest of her drink.
The whiskey was so bad, Longarm decided to have another shot to numb the dull ache this alley-talking looker was setting up in his loins. What was it about pretty women with blue tongues . . . ?
When he'd refilled his shot glass and taken another sip, he grated, “You drink this shit daily?”
She smiled. “Jake claims it has healing properties.”
Longarm took another sip and shook his head. “I reckon I don't have anything to heal.” He lifted the glass to the window to see if anything solid were floating around in the hooch. “You really think old Magnusson and his wolf women are going to be that hard to track?”
“Yep. 'Cause I've tried. The canyon's out of my jurisdiction, but the county sheriff ain't worth puke. I tried, all right, and came up empty.”
“A man might have an easier time . . . since it's men they're after.”
“Chew that up finer.”
“If I was to go up the canyon rigged out like a prospector who aimed to stay awhile . . .”
The marshal stared at him pensively, nodding. “It's worth a try, I reckon. You ever been up that country before?”
“Time or two, but I wouldn't say I know it.”
“You'll need a guide.”
“Got one in mind?”
“Got one already arranged. My uncle, Comanche John Blassingame. He's been at loose ends lately, needs a job to keep him from drinkin' too much and carousing. He was prospecting up the St. Vrain, but then his diggings dried up.”
“How much he charge?”
She hiked a shoulder and tapped ashes from her cigar onto the floor. “Five dollars a day. Uncle Sam can afford that, can't he?”
“That's nepotism, Marshal.”
“Sure as shit, Longarm.” She glanced out the street-side windows, beyond which several men were laying Falcon's dead gunnies out on the boardwalk before the women's clothing store. “Too late to get started today, though. Besides, Uncle John's sparking a widow lady over to Camp Collins. Won't be back here till late tonight.”
She stood and donned her hat, adjusting it atop her head, arranging her hair, taking her time as though to give Longarm a good study of her figure, full breasts pushing at the blouse and the lacy chemise exposed a good two inches beneath the top of her cleavage, nipples prodding the cotton like small buttons.
Though she was a big, healthy-looking girl, she had a proportionately narrow waist and well-turned hips and thighs. Her long legs were the kind that set a man to imagining how they'd feel, wrapped around his waist.
She glanced at Longarm and mashed out her cigar under her boot toe. “Forget it, Deputy. I've had enough trouble with men for one day.”
“Nothing to forget, Marshal. I never trifle with wildcats . . . no matter how pretty they are.”
She set her hands on the table and leaned toward him, her blouse billowing out from her chest, giving him a bird's-eye view of her cleavage. “Remember that when you go up the canyon tomorrow. It's usually the big, handsome sons of bitches who are especially vulnerable.”
She remained leaning over him a stretched second, giving him a good, long look of what she was denying him, then straightened, winked, adjusted her hat, and strolled out the batwings.
“I can't tell if I was just complimented or insulted,” Longarm told the barman setting up a table on the other side of the room.
The man stopped, his sun-seared face flushed from exertion, a lock of hair hanging over his sweaty forehead. “Poison. That's what that girl is.” He kicked a chair against the table. “Pretty poison.”
Longarm stood, donned his hat, and headed for the batwings. His headache was back. He'd take some air and get the lay of the town. “Lot of it around here, ain't there?”
Â
Longarm moseyed around town for a while, though there wasn't much to mosey around but shacks and sagebrush; then he rented a speckle-gray pack mule and packsaddle from the Occidental Livery and Feed Barn.