Longarm and the howling.., p.11
Longarm and the Howling Maniac, page 11
Pushing off the wall, Longarm shambled as fast as he could through the deep drift that had piled up in the gap, to the rear corner of the next building. Lifting his rifle in both hands, he edged a look around behind the place.
The shadow was jerking, dwindling into the dark, snowy distance.
A man running away from him.
“Hold it!” Longarm shouted against the wind.
Twenty yards away, a pinprick of light flashed. The gun’s report was barely louder than a distant twig snapping. The bullet whispered past Longarm’s left ear.
Gritting his teeth, he smashed the Winchester’s butt against his right shoulder and fired twice, levering quickly, the rifle leaping in his hands, but the reports sounding like small-caliber pistol shots in the storm.
Seating another shell in the Winchester’s breech, Longarm shuffled farther into the gap behind the building on his right, in case the killer reckoned on the flash of Longarm’s rifle, and dropped a knee into the deep snow, keeping the Winchester aimed straight out from his right shoulder.
Another flash from farther away than the first—also lower and slightly right. Longarm could barely hear the pistol’s pop but he heard the nasty thump of the bullet tearing into some snow-buried rubble piled against the building’s rear wall.
Aiming at the spot where he’d seen the second gun flash, Longarm squeezed the Winchester’s trigger, levered, fired, then levered and fired again. As he ejected the last spent cartridge, he heaved himself up out of the snow and ran forward, his heart hammering eagerly, his knees pumping high. He couldn’t see the shadow now, but when he’d run a good fifty yards, he came to another gap between buildings, and, looking down, saw fresh, ragged tracks in the knee-deep powder.
They led into the gap. They were spaced several feet apart. The killer was running.
Longarm had taken two long strides when a shadow moved before him, jutting up from behind some rubble on his right. There was a flash of two angry eyes and gritted white teeth. Then he saw the board arcing toward him, held taut in two mittened hands, and he’d barely gotten his rifle raised defensively before the board smashed into his right forearm and then landed a glancing blow across his temple.
Losing his rifle, Longarm twisted around and left and hit the snow on his belly.
A man’s tooth-gnashing yowl rose above that of the storm.
Longarm rolled left just as a pistol popped. He glimpsed the flash in the corner of his left eye. As he scrambled around for the rifle but was unable to feel it in the cold, cottony snow, he heard a dull metallic click—like that of a misfired pistol.
Pushing up on his elbows, he saw a bulky figure before him—heavy fur coat and deerskin hat with earflaps—angrily toss his pistol aside and lift a knife from a wide belt sheath jutting up from behind the shaggy coat.
The dark, bulky figure moved toward Longarm, who heard the howl again but only briefly, as it stopped abruptly when Longarm kicked his right boot up savagely from the ground and buried the square toe in the howling killer’s crotch.
The figure bent forward, bringing both hands, including that holding the knife, over his oysters. Longarm, digging desperately under his coat for his pistol, heard him groan. The killer staggered back, and again Longarm heard the howl as the man raised the big knife that flashed in the ambient snow light.
Longarm closed his right hand around the smooth walnut grips of his Colt, but as he slid the gun from the holster, it got tangled in the sheepskin lining. The maniac seemed to realize Longarm’s predicament. He howled again, adding laughter to the crazed exultation and filling Longarm’s belly with little creepy-crawlies of dread, and then the stocky, fur-clad hombre flipped the knife so that he held it with the savagely upcurved tip pointed down.
He bounded off his heels and dove toward Longarm, cocking his arm for a killing stab to the lawman’s neck.
Longarm flung his left hand straight up and grabbed the killer’s right wrist as the man slammed down on top of him. He gripped the wrist so that the point of the knife was just beginning to tickle the skin over his jugular vein. Smelling the man’s unwashed fetor and the rancid aroma of his coat, hearing his grunting mewling beneath the lashing wind and pelting snow, he jerked his .44-40 free of his coat and rammed the barrel against the man’s ribs.
The man stopped squirming and his eyes snapped wide beneath cinnamon brows.
He stared into Longarm’s own eyes, his lips stretched back from long, yellow, tobacco-stained teeth, the right front one showing a long, jagged hairline fracture. He continued to press the knife down toward Longarm’s throat, the point now feeling like a bee sting.
Longarm gritted his teeth, rammed the .44’s barrel harder against the man’s ribs and, glaring into the man’s exasperated blue eyes, squeezed the trigger.
The killer jerked.
His brows beetled.
Longarm squeezed the double-action’s trigger again, and again the man jerked. His eyes began to glaze and gain a faintly beseeching cast.
His knife arm slackened but not quickly enough for Longarm, who pumped one more round into the man’s ribs, shredding his heart.
The maniac released the knife. It bounced off Longarm’s shoulder and tumbled into the snow. Longarm grabbed the man’s collar with his left hand and flung his spasming carcass into the snow, as well.
Longarm lay back in the drift, catching his breath, then gave a grunt that the wind drowned as he heaved up onto his left elbow and hip, aiming his pistol at the killer’s quivering carcass, the man’s mouth working and his eyes blinking rapidly as a thick gob of blood dribbled down over his thick, cracked lower lip.
“There you go, you bastard.”
Longarm scrambled up out of the snow and grabbed his hat, which he’d lost when he’d fallen. He stared down at the killer, and the killer stared up at him from his cocoon of fur and snow. The man’s face slackened, losing all expression, until his stocky, fur-clad frame ceased moving. When the man’s eyes rolled slightly back into his head, and he was dead, Longarm swiped his left wrist at his forehead that was just now beginning to burn and dribble blood into his eye.
The howling maniac had come within a couple of inches of cleaning his clock.
Dead now, though. He was probably just now getting a nice, warm welcome from Ole Scratch, maybe receiving a couple of painful pokes to the ass with the devil’s three-tined fork.
Longarm scrubbed snow across his forehead, holstered his pistol, and tramped back through the snow to the saloon’s front door and inside.
“Christ, what happened to you?” one of the men asked. They were sitting at tables, drinking and playing cards again, too anxious to sleep.
“I’ll be damned if I didn’t run into that bastard.” Longarm peeled off his gloves, tossed them onto the floor near the stove, then shrugged out of his coat.
They all just stared at him, waiting.
Longarm draped his coat over his chairback, then sagged down into the chair and splashed whiskey into his empty beer schooner, filling it half full. “He’s dead.”
He tipped the schooner back.
Chapter 14
Longarm finished his drink and, while the others celebrated, went upstairs to check on Janice Hathaway.
Apparently, Flora had helped her to one of the rooms after ordering the two saddle tramps to haul their gear into one already occupied by a couple of drummers, and then rode roughshod over Bill Carson, ordering him up and down the stairs with alternating buckets of hot and cold water, sweet-smelling soap, plenty of towels, and a bottle of brandy.
In the rooms off the second-story hall, a few snores resounded. Someone—it sounded like the German woman—was chuckling. Saddlebags draped over his left shoulder, his rifle in his right hand, and a cheroot smoldering between his teeth, Longarm knocked on the door behind which he could hear water splashing and Flora’s soothing voice.
Suddenly, Flora’s voice lost its soothing. “Bill, I told you we got all the water we need. Scram! You’re just wantin’ a look at this girl’s purty tits!”
“It’s Longarm.” Puffing his cigar, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Janice sat in a fancy copper tub, facing Longarm and bending forward as Flora knelt behind her, scrubbing her back with a sponge. The actress’s knees were raised to her chest, but Longarm could still see a good portion of her soapy breasts. Her hair was tied in a loose braid behind her head, and as her eyes found the tall lawman entering her small, humble room, they grew large with relief.
“Oh, Custis—thank God you’re back!”
Flora wasn’t half so relieved. Over Janice’s pretty head, a loosely rolled quirley hanging from a corner of her thin-lipped mouth, the coarse-featured she-male scowled and said, “Mind your manners, lawdog! Can’t you see a lady’s gettin’ a bath?”
Longarm grinned around his cigar—feeling a twinge of lust but also relief that the actress had come around and was looking as healthy and lovely as ever. “I see that.”
“Git outta here, Longarm, you lusty dog!”
Janice turned her head to one side. “It’s all right, Flora. Custis and I are . . . friends. Would you please excuse us?”
Flora shuttled an annoyed scowl between them both. “Huh?”
“Thank you so much for your ministrations,” Janice said, reaching up to pat the hand that Flora had clamped over Janice’s shoulder.
“Ah, shit.” Flora dropped the sponge in the water between Janice’s legs and rose, taking a deep drag from her quirley. Blowing smoke at the low ceiling and peeling her sleeves down her tan, corded arms, she regarded Longarm with barely concealed disdain. “You get the bastard?”
“Yep.”
Janice’s eyes snapped wide. “What? He’s dead, Custis? Are you sure?”
“Unless he’s got an ironclad heart, he’s dead as a side of cured beef. I’ll drag him inside in the morning, so the locals can get a look at him, maybe identify the son of a bitch.”
“Well, damn,” Flora said, donning her man’s felt hat and brushing up close to Longarm to snarl, “I was beginnin’ to wonder if you had it in you, lawdog.”
With that, she plucked the quirley from between her lips, gave a caustic chuff, and went out. Her boots clomped off down the hall.
Longarm kicked the door closed and turned to Janice. “You all right?”
“Now that you’re here. And that . . . that madman is dead.” She gave a quiver, then extended a wet arm to him, opening her hand. “Come. Put your things down, and scrub my back.”
“Looked to me like Flora was doin’ a pretty thorough job,” he said, dropped his saddlebags on a chair and leaning his rifle against the room’s only dresser, one leg of which was propped on a brick.
“She was very nice,” Janice said, smiling.
Longarm took her hand in his, knelt down beside the tub, lifted her hand to his lips, and kissed it. “Sorry about your boys. Not much point in lookin’ for ’em till sunup or the weather breaks.”
“They’re dead, or they would have come back to the car,” she said, frowning as Longarm pressed his lips to her hand. “But I don’t want to talk about it anymore tonight, Custis. Call me crass, but I want . . . well, you know what I want.” She stared at him darkly, lowering her knees slightly to reveal her pink, jutting nipples riding just above the surface of the sudsy water. “I want to forget this horrible night.”
Longarm ran his mouth up her long slender arm to her shoulder, then reached around her to cup her breasts in his hands. She groaned and tipped her head back as he nuzzled her neck and nibbled her ears, caressing her firm, perfectly shaped orbs until the nipples raked against his palms like small bullets.
“Take it out,” she whispered, twisting around, snaking her arms around his neck, and pressing her lips to his mustached mouth. She pulled her lips away to say in a raspy, sensuous whisper, “Take that big hog out of your pants and let me suck it, Custis. I want to feel it all the way down my throat.”
“Your wish . . .”
Longarm stood. His cock was rock hard and throbbing, pushing against his trousers. As he shrugged out of his coat and let it drop to the floor, Janice pressed the heel of her hand against his raging organ.
“Pull it out,” she whined, frowned as she stared at the firm mound in his tweed pants. “Pull it out, out, out!”
He unbuttoned his fly as fast as he could with her pressing her hand against it, then opened the top button of his trousers. His swollen cock caused his trousers to sag, and all he had to do was give them a little nudge, and they dropped around his knees. Before he knew it, Janice had frantically shifted around in the tub, splashing water over the sides, until she was on her knees, digging his cock out of his balbriggans.
When the member finally bobbed free of its confines, the actress gave a shudder and a long, deep sigh.
He felt her warm breath on his balls, and mini-explosions of desire rippled through his loins. She wrapped her hand around his shaft, squeezed, and pumped while gently massaging and nuzzling his scrotum. Finally, she looked up at him fatefully, licked her lips, and dropped her mouth down over his cock, sliding her warm, wet lips down his length until he felt the head of his throbbing member delightfully pinched by the actress’s expanding and contracting throat.
Up and down went her head. Up and down, up and down, until Longarm was leaning back on his heels and curling his toes and stretching his lips back from his teeth in desperate agony.
“Do believe that’s enough of that,” he croaked, placing his hands on her shoulders and shoving her back away from him, then, when her mouth had come reluctantly off his near-exploding member, lifted her to a standing position inside the tub.
“I wanted to finish you,” she sniffed, running her fingers over him and pressing her lips to his throat.
“Nope.” Longarm shook his head. “We’re gonna finish good and proper over yonder in the old mattress sack. Then we’re gonna sleep like spring lambs.”
He shuffled back away from the tub, keeping his eyes on her as he sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off his boots. Next, he shucked out of his trousers, then his tie, vest, and shirt. He practically ripped off his balbriggans, giving them a kick with his right foot and sailing them up high against the room’s far wall.
Janice stood in the tub, watching him lustily, her lips slightly parted, her wet breasts rising and falling sharply. Chicken flesh rose across them, and her nipples stood out like ripe cherries. Longarm doubted she was reacting to a chill, for Flora had stoked the coal stove in the corner until the sheet metal was glowing red.
The wind continued to sigh and batter the windows. The walls creaked and the room’s single lamp guttered. Snow cascaded over the building as if thrown every few seconds by an enraged giant.
Naked, his member jutting and pitching, Longarm grabbed a towel off a chairback and brought it over to the tub. Janice reached for it, but Longarm snapped it away.
“Uh-uh. I wanna do it.”
She leaned forward to rest her wrists on his shoulders. “Dry away, my well-hung lawman.”
Longarm dried her slowly, feeling the head of his cock caress her belly button. He tried to pay no attention to it, as he wanted his blood to cool so that when he finally got the delectable actress into bed, he could enjoy her—and her, him—for at least a couple of minutes before he exploded. As tired as he was from the long day, he doubted he’d be good for more than one bout.
Slowly, he ran the towel across the back of her neck, down her arms, her breasts, then her back and the firm, full lobes of her ass, and when he had them dry he massaged them with his hands while she sighed and nibbled his ears.
“All right.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder, stooped down, lifted her out of the tub, and set her on the floor. Taking the towel once more, he knelt down and thoroughly dried her ankles and fine-boned, delicate feet, lingering over her toes.
He tossed the towel aside, looked up to see the light brown fur at her crotch. It glistened faintly, damp.
Wrapping his arms around her, placing his palms against her ass, he leaned forward to nuzzle her love mound.
“Oh!” she groaned. “Oh . . . God, Custis . . . sweet Jesus!”
Her groans grew louder as she spread her feet slightly and he flicked his tongue up and down the sweet, petal-like lobes of her womanly flower.
“Ohhh!” she intoned, spreading her feet still farther apart and burying her fists in his hair.
“Oh . . . Christ . . . you do that”—a shiver rippled all through her—“rather well . . .”
When he had her wet and steamy and nearly howling as loudly as the murdering maniac, he picked her up, tossed her onto the bed, and threw himself down on top of her. He spread her legs and pressed his lips to hers, flicking his tongue in and out of her mouth. She groaned and mewled and wrapped her legs around his back, and suddenly he was plunging deep inside her.
He grunted and rose up on his arms and the tips of his toes, burying his fists into the soft mattress on either side of her head. She stared up at him glassy-eyed, as though she’d taken several drags off an opium pipe.
“Oh, gawd.” She sighed as he bucked against her once more. “You’re killing me, Custis. Oh, Christ almighty, you’re absolutely fucking killing me!”
He hammered against her, feeling sweat pop out on his forehead and dribble into his brows. “Want I should stop?”
She dug her heels farther into his rump, her fingers deeper into his bulging biceps. “You do, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Twelve wonderful, horrific minutes after they’d started, he plunged his hungry staff into her one final time, and they shook together until the bed sounded as though it were coming apart at every joint. It was nearly a minute before Longarm realized someone was pounding on the wall from the room next door.
“I said . . . if you two wouldn’t mind—some o’ us are tryin’ to get some sleep over here!”
It was one of the saddle tramps.
He grunted, “Sorry, feller.”
Janice groaned and fell slack as a wet towel against the mattress.
