Longarm Giant #30: Longarm and the Ambush at Holy Defiance (12 page)

Longarm glanced at Haven. At the same time, she cast her hazel gaze at him, and it was like she’d touched those sweet lips to his balls. A shudder rippled through him. Flushing as though she’d just read his mind, she dropped her eyes quickly to her water glass around which she’d wrapped both her hands, gripping it tightly, as the revelry continued from the back of the room.

The whore sat on the table she’d been fucked on, drew her low-cut, fancily stitched dress up over her dark, swaying bosoms, and swept her curly hair from her face with the backs of her hands.

A man was calling for a beer for Elwyn. Sanders told him to get his own damn beer, that Big Frank was busy, and then Longarm glanced once more at Haven’s hands, suppressing certain memories from a few nights ago, and turned back to Three Wolves.

“All right, you killed the Mex in a jealous rage. For consideration of a lighter sentence, you sent the rangers and the marshals down looking for stolen gold you heard about years ago from Rafael Santana. Have I got the dog by the tail?”

“That’s right,” Three Wolves said, nodding.

“Don’t wash,” Longarm told him. “If there really was gold to be found down there, why didn’t you go after it a long time ago?”

“Oh, I thought about it,” Three Wolves said, nodding. “But it wouldn’t be so easy—a big half-breed Apache with one arm. Besides, Santana said he buried the gold on old Whip Azrael’s range. White rancher with a whole lot of men on his roll, some of ’em cold-steel artists. I bought the freighting company with money I earned swampin’ saloons and livery barns up on the Rim. Always thought I might go down and scratch around for that gold, but I also knew that gold could lead to a whole lot of trouble. I’ve had trouble all my life, lawman. Some big, some not so big.”

“Got him a wicked half-breed Apache temper,” Sanders said, sitting back in his chair, holding his beer in one horny, red fist and gazing amusedly at the half-breed. He looked at Longarm. “Why do you think he sent them lawmen into an ambush, Custis? Not that I don’t agree with you, but how would he know they’d take his bait and go down and look for the gold? Hell, that gold was lost three years ago. No tellin’ who woulda dug it up.”

Longarm kept his eyes on the half-breed, trying to read the man, which he thought he was doing fairly well. He’d had plenty of experience reading the eyes of questionable men. “Where’s the gold?”

“I gave the map I drew, based on what Santana told me, to the dead rangers.”

Agent Delacroix said, “How do you know Santana told you the truth?”

“I didn’t. Till them lawmen took the map down there and ended up with a bad case of lead poisonin’.”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean they were near the gold. Anyone might have thought they had a reason for killing the lawmen.” Haven looked at Longarm coolly, her professionalism edging aside her disdain for her badge-toting partner.

Sanders said, “Where Big Frank here sent them boys
wasn’t far from where the stage got hit all them years ago. There’s got to be somethin’ to Big Frank’s story, I think.”

Longarm looked at the old ranger. “Where’s Jack Leyton? I thought he was the captain in charge around here.”

“He is. He rode down south toward Holy Defiance, lookin’ fer the gold around where the other rangers and the deputy marshals got ambushed. Figured he might kick up somethin’ before you got here, Longarm. Him and Lieutenant Sullivan.” Old Sanders hiked a shoulder and smiled at Haven as he nudged his shoulders back, obviously proud of himself. “I’m in charge till he and Sullivan get back.”

She arched a mock-impressed brow at him.

Longarm said, “Ranger Matt Sullivan?”

“That’s right. They both rode down there.”

“How long have they been gone?” Agent Delacroix asked Sanders.

“Nigh on two weeks. Left here a week after we got word from Azrael’s men about the killin’s. Double D men found ’em, and the Azraels sent a man up here to report it.”

“Two weeks, eh?” Longarm rubbed his cheek and glanced at Haven, who gave him a skeptical look. Could Jack Leyton and Matt Sullivan have ended up as dead as the other lawmen?

Longarm glanced at Big Frank Three Wolves. “You think the gold is really where Santana told you it was?”

Three Wolves shrugged. “All I know is I didn’t send them into an ambush. I thought if they found the gold—good. On account o’ that and being as it was just a dirty little Mex I killed, I’d prob’ly get a light sentence. I know I’m gonna end up in Yuma, but I been there before and I’d just as soon not stay long enough to get to know all the rattlesnakes in the hole by name.”

Longarm took a deep drag off his cheroot and looked at the coal, running all the information he’d learned about this case through his head. “You can go back to work, Big Frank.”

The half-breed studied Longarm skeptically. He’d drank
half his beer and now he polished off the rest in one long draught, scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, and rose.

He walked over and picked up the ball to which his chain was attached, glanced once more with brash male interest at Haven, and then hauled his ball back behind the bar and hazed away the pewter-haired cowboy who’d been drawing beers and splashing whiskey into shot glasses for his partners.

Ranger Sanders polished off his own beer and looked from Haven to Longarm. “Was Big Frank any help to you folks?”

“Not really.” Haven shook her head, glanced at Longarm as though for corroboration, and sipped her water.

Sanders said, “Well, I reckon I had my beer and my whiskey, and now I reckon I’m gonna drift on back to the ranger office fer a nap. You two gonna be in town long?”

Longarm tossed back his whiskey shot. “We’ll be pullin’ out first thing in the mornin’. I’d like you to draw me a map to where we’re goin’, Roscoe.”

“I’ll help any way I can, Longarm. You know that.”

“The Arizona House still standin’?”

Sanders nodded. “Best hotel in town. Right where it’s always been.” He grinned at Haven, raking his randy old eyes across the girl’s well-filled shirt. “You might be able to get you a nice, hot bath, Miss Delacroix, purty yourself up.”

“Whatever for?” she asked with an ironic cast to her hazel-eyed gaze.

Sanders glanced from the girl to Longarm and back again, a strained smile creasing his face. Looking as though he’d just walked into a rattlesnake nest, he rose stiffly, pinched his hat brim to them both, and sauntered in his bandy-legged fashion through the batwings and out into the brassy, unforgiving Arizona sunshine.

Haven rose. “I believe I will go have that bath. Where’s this best hotel in town?”

“Back behind the ranger office.” Longarm grinned at her. “You need any help, you just ask polite-like. Just remember, though—it’s strictly
professional
.”

“No, thank you,” she said crisply. “But I suppose we should meet later and compare notes on the case.”

“As long as it’s only the case we’re comparin’ notes on.” Longarm finished his beer and belched.

Ignoring him, she strode away through the batwings. He refused to turn his head to get a good, long look at her ass.

A man had his pride.

When Longarm finished his beer and lowered his glass he found himself staring at two billowy, tan breasts sloping down into an incredibly low-cut, lacy cream dress. The frock was so low-cut that one nipple was poking out. The
puta
’s necklace dangled against the table where Agent Delacroix had been sitting a few minutes ago.

The whore’s broad, red-painted lips spread a smile, and her dark eyes sparkled as she said, “How ’bout it, cowboy? You want me make you happy?”

Longarm looked at her breasts again, and smiled. “I’d like to get happy with you, senorita, but I’m all wiped out. Long, hard pull in the saddle.” He thought she’d be tired after her recent workout at the back of the room.

“How ’bout a long, hard pull between my legs, cowboy?” The whore, who looked to be in her mid-twenties but was probably younger, glanced at the ceiling. “Come on, you can handle it.”

She slid her eyes to one side, indicating the drunken cowboys behind her, some of whom were now playing cards while two others were dancing to an imagined band. “These boys are all played out, won’t be game again until tonight. I get bored in the afternoons. Might as well make some
money. And a big hombre like you could use his ashes hauled, uh?”

She smiled again, broadly. She pulled her dress down until both breasts spilled out onto the table. They were large and well shaped if losing their firmness, and the girl was probably damn good at her work. Longarm just didn’t have any interest. He certainly had some time to kill. But no interest.

“No, thanks, senorita. You’re purty as punch, but I’m plum tuckered. Here.” He flipped her a gold dollar. “Buy yourself a new dress on old Longarm.”

She palmed the coin and straightened, shaping a surprised smile. “
Gracias
, amigo!” She jerked her chin at the batwings. “The one who was in here earlier—she’s yours, huh?” She smiled insinuatingly.
“Muchacha muy hermosa!”

Longarm felt the old tug in his groin again, remembering. “Her? Ah, hell, she ain’t nothin’ so damn special!”

With that, he stood, tugged his hat brim low, and sauntered on out through the batwings. The black-and-white dog lay at the bottom of the gallery steps, chewing the fur off a dead jackrabbit. As Longarm descended the steps, the dog looked at him and dropped a proprietary paw over its supper.

“Looks good, dog,” the lawman said, untying his reins from the hitch rack. “But I believe I’d prefer mine cooked. Enjoy yourself!”

With that, he swung up into the saddle and rode over to the livery barn that sat about fifty yards east of Slim’s and on the other side of the street. As he approached the barn, he saw Haven exit the place by a rear side door and stroll back past the rear paddock, making her way through the brush toward the Arizona House behind the rangers’ jail, her tan duster swirling around her long, denim-clad legs.

Longarm left the roan with the old, bib-bearded ex–desert rat, Hostetler, who ran the place, and then slung his saddlebags over his right shoulder, took his sheathed Winchester in his other hand, and headed farther east along
the shadowy main drag of Broken Jaw. He’d seen a bathhouse on his way into town, and he decided to while away the last hour before supper in a tepid path and scrape the two-day growth of beard from his jaws.

He stopped suddenly as he angled toward the street’s south side, frowning wonderingly. Why in hell was he thinking of a bath? That wasn’t usually a big concern for him. Even less of a concern was the length of his beard stubble.

Agent Delacroix?

Was he so plum taken with the girl that he was allowing himself to be led around by some semiconscious impulse to look good for her?

Nah.

He just had some time to kill, that’s all. And why smell yourself when you didn’t have to? Besides, he had a feeling it was going to be a long time before he’d see another bathhouse again…

The appropriately named Chinaman’s Bathhouse, owned by a Chinamen who dressed like a Mexican peasant but also wore the traditional coolie hat with a braided rawhide chin thong, sat about midway down the main drag. The house was constructed of vertical cottonwood planks and cream-colored canvas that snapped and flapped in the hot breeze.

Fronting the place was a fire over which several iron kettles were suspended. The Chinaman and a Chinese woman, similarly dressed, were tending the fire and boiling clothes as Longarm approached. There were two clotheslines strung lengthwise along the side of the tent shack, and a young Chinese boy was hanging wet wash from a handcart on one of the lines.

Longarm walked under the flapping front awning and asked if he could have a bath.

“Teef poo?” the Chinaman asked grinning and bowing.

Longarm scowled, puzzled.
“Teef poo?”

“Si, si,”
said the Chinamen, apparently getting his
Spanish and English confused. He pointed at his own front teeth with a finger. “Teef poo?”

He nodded at a sign hanging beside the one announcing the price for a bath. The second sign offered
TOOF PULL
for a mere dime. Another little sideline that the Chinaman had going, apparently. For the convenience of the customer with a grievous tooth, there was a wicker chair situated in the shade beside the tent, opposite the side on which the wash was hung. Pliers and a bottle of whiskey sat on a tree stump beside the chair.

“No teef poo,” Longarm said, shaking his head and smiling tightly. “Just bath, please, amigo. Not too hot, not too cold.” It was too hot for a hot bath; he wanted the water just warm enough to cut through the trail dust.

The Chinamen extended an arm to the bathhouse, and Longarm ducked through a flap and into one of the place’s two rooms equipped with a stylish copper tub sitting on a slatted wooden floor. There was a long wooden bench and a row of pegs for hanging clothes on. The canvas was so old and thin in places that he could see through it to the outside street.

It was warm and musty in here, smelling like boiled burlap, and Longarm quickly shucked out of his clothes and tossed them by the front flap. A few minutes later he was soaking in lukewarm water, and the Chinese couple was washing his clothes outside, for an extra four bits. He figured that with the air being as dry and as hot as it was even this late in the day—around five—the duds would be ready to go by six.

That had no more to do with the girl than the bath did, he reminded himself. It just made good horse sense. Why clad a clean body in soiled duds?

With his own horse brush and an egg-shaped cake of lye soap, he scrubbed himself from scalp to toe, singing, “O, Susanna, o, don’t you cry for me! I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee!”

Finished soaping and scrubbing, he whistled for the Chinaman to come in and pour another bucket of lukewarm water over his head, to rinse off the soap. When he sat back in the tub, the Chinaman offered him a fresh cigar for a nickel. The price was a little steep given that Longarm could buy three for that much at a little drugstore just down from the Federal Building in Denver. But the Chinese family was in business to make money like everyone else, and it wasn’t a bad-quality cigar.