Gunsmith #362 : Buffalo Soldiers (9781101554388) (6 page)

They checked into the hotel, which had plenty of rooms, so they were able to get one each. They carried their rifles and saddlebags upstairs.

“You see that desk clerk?” Clint asked in the hall. They had gotten rooms right across from each other.

Reeves nodded.

“Heavy beard, beady eyes.”

“What do you want to bet he’s another son?”

“Family-owned town,” Reeves said. “I hope this wasn’t a bad idea.”

“Too late now,” Clint said. “Let’s get some sleep and get out of here in the morning.”

“After breakfast,” Reeves said. “I want a hot breakfast.”

“Agreed.”

“Night, Clint.”

“See you in the morning.”

Clint opened the door to his room and went inside. He heard Reeves’s door close.

* * *

It was a couple of hours later when Clint heard the sound of someone walking down the hall. The walking stopped and then he heard a knock—but not at his door.

He grabbed his gun from the holster on the bedpost—a tried-and-true place to keep his gun when he was in a hotel room—and padded barefoot to the door. He cracked the door open enough to look out. He saw the blond girl from the saloon standing at Reeves’s door. At that moment she knocked again, and the door opened.

Reeves appeared in the doorway, bare-chested and barefoot.

“What—” he said.

She quieted him by putting her hand against his bare chest and rubbing it.

“Oh my,” she said. She pushed him and he stepped back. She entered and closed the door behind her.

Clint closed his door quietly, returned his gun to his holster, and resumed his position on the bed. He picked up the book he had been reading.

The saloon girl was about to find out if Bass Reeves was that big all over.

A short time later Clint again heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. They stopped, and the knock came on his door.

He grabbed the gun once again, padded to the door, and opened it. It was the other girl from the saloon, the brunette with the chubby breasts.

“Surprised to see me?” she asked. “I thought we were sending each other messages across the room.”

“We were,” Clint said. “Come in.”

He backed away from the door to admit her, once again returned his gun to his holster.

“What made you think you’d need that?” she asked. “You must have known I was coming.”

“But how did I know you’d come alone?”

“Oh, handsome,” she said, “I wouldn’t want to share you with anybody. Besides, the only other person I might have brought was Letty, and isn’t she across the hall with your big black friend?”

“I suppose she is.”

“Want to go and listen at the door?”

“No, thanks,” Clint said. “He may have kicked her out.”

“I haven’t met a man yet who would kick her out of bed.”

She dropped her shawl to the floor. She was still wearing her saloon dress, cut low to reveal creamy shoulders and lots of equally creamy breast.

“Or me,” she added.

“I can believe that.”

“What?” she asked with a smirk.

“What you just said.”

“I want to hear you say it, handsome.”

“I can believe that no man has ever kicked you out of bed.”

“Show me,” she said. “Show me how you believe it.”

He walked to the door.

“Are you leaving?” she asked. “Have I frightened you away?”

“No,” he said. “I just want to make sure the door is locked.”

He turned the key and locked it, then pressed on the door. It wasn’t a good one. One good kick would splinter it open.

“Are we ready?” she asked.

He turned, saw her standing there with her dress down around her ankles.

“You are,” he said.

She put her hands on her hips and said, “I’ll wait.”

In the lobby the bartender entered with three other men from the saloon.

“What are you doin’ here?” his brother, the desk clerk, asked.

“Did that big black bastard with the badge check in?” the bartender asked.

“Yeah, he’s in room five,” the desk clerk said. “His friend is in six.”

“Bass Reeves, right?” the bartender asked.

“That’s right.”

“Well, get your gun,” the bartender said. “That black bastard made a fool of me and I ain’t about to stand for it.”

“What about his friend?” the desk clerk asked.

“I don’t care about the friend,” the bartender insisted.

“I think you better care about him.”

“Why?”

His brother reversed the register and said, “Look for yourself.”

The bartender read the name on the register, then turned to the three men with him.

“We’re gonna need more guns.”

While Clint undressed slowly, he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Julie.”

“Don’t you have any men in town you like, Julie?” he asked.

“It’s the fact that you’re a stranger that makes you appeal to me,” she said. “When we’re done, you’ll leave town, and I won’t have to deal with you.”

“That sounds like something a man would say,” he commented.

“Men aren’t so wrong about everything,” she told him. “Just most things. Ooh.”

She said “ooh” when he dropped his pants and underwear and she saw his cock, already coming to life.

She came to him on strong legs, her thighs as juicy and rounded as her breasts, and took hold of him, stroking him. He reached behind to grab her buttocks, found them as full as the rest of her. The woman was perfectly built for bouncing around on a bed. He just wished they had a better bed to bounce around on.

And a better town to do it in.

But before they got to the bed, she fell to her knees before him and took him into her mouth, sucking him avidly, wetly.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, as if actually speaking to his cock. “You’re so beautiful.”

She took him in, wet him fully, and then slid him out, stroking him with her hand.

Clint had backed them toward the bed, meaning to put her on it, but also so he’d be closer to his gun.

Just in case…

The bartender and the desk clerk were brothers, Mike and Mark McCall. They had three men each following them up the stairs, so the staircase was a little crowded, and objecting in the form of loud creaking.

“Easy,” Mike hissed at the men. “Go single file, for Chrissake!”

The men had been trying to get up the stairs at the same time. Now they backed off and went single file behind the two brothers.

“I want that black marshal,” Mike the bartender said. “He’s mine.”

“Okay,” his brother said, “we’ll take Adams.”

They stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to the other men.

“We got to go quiet!” he hissed.

The men all nodded, and then they started down the hall.

Clint had had many women come to his room, for various reasons. A lot of them came for sex. Women liked him, and he thought it was because he treated them well, made them feel good. He always felt a man and a woman should both come out of their shared time happy and satisfied.

But there was another reason women came to his room, and it was one that had happened to him just weeks ago. Women had been sent to his room to keep him busy while someone tried to kill him.

He hadn’t liked the way the men in the saloon had looked at them, especially the bartender. If they had sent these two women up to keep them busy, they’d be sneaking down the hall just about now. Which would explain the creaking noises he’d heard. He’d noticed the stairs creaking when he and Reeves had used them.

Still on her knees, moaning with her mouth full, Julie slid her hands up the backs of his thighs until she reached his buttocks, then clutched them and pulled him to her as she took his cock all the way down her throat. He hoped she wasn’t setting him up, because she was very good at this and he would have liked very much for her to finish…

But then he heard the floorboards…

Bass Reeves lifted the blond girl off him and got to his feet.

“Get down behind the bed,” he told her. “Or maybe under it.”

“But what—”

“Just do it!”

Her eyes were glassy. Standing there naked, he looked like a statue made of smooth black marble. She reached for him, wanting him in her again, but he pushed her hand away and said, “Get behind the bed and stay down!”

She did as he said, her eyes beginning to focus again.
She didn’t know why he was pushing her down behind the bed, but she could guess.

He grabbed his gun and stood against the wall, behind the door, held his fingers to his lips. She thought he looked absolutely beautiful like that…

When the door slammed open, Clint did two things: he pushed Julie out of the way, and drew his gun from the holster on the bedpost.

Four men came pouring into the room led by the desk clerk. They all had guns in their hands, but they all had to look around a moment to locate Clint, while he could plainly see them coming through the door. He started shooting first…

The door to Bass Reeves’s door slammed open, barely missing him as it slammed into the wall. The girl on the floor screamed and tried her best to get under the bed.

As the four men came through the door, led by the bartender, Reeves grabbed the door and slammed it back on them. It struck two of the men, causing them to stagger back into the hall.

The first two looked around the room wildly, trying to locate Reeves. When they saw him, they froze. Naked,
holding his gun, he had the look of a gladiator from times gone by. He was a fearsome sight.

“Big mistake, friend,” he said to the bartender…

Clint fired, put two bullets in the chest of the desk clerk. The bearded man fell to the floor, causing the man behind him to trip. Clint shot him while he was falling, killing him.

The trailing two men realized something bad was happening in the room, and tried to reverse course. This wasn’t worth the twenty dollars they were being paid.

Clint followed them into the hall, still naked, and fired at them as they tried to escape. They fired back, but their shots went wild, and in seconds they were lying on the floor of the hall, dead.

Doors began to open, and there were still shots, these coming from Bass Reeves’s room…

The bartender and the second man turned, their eyes wide as they saw Reeves, and they tried to bring their guns to bear. But Bass Reeves had not stated the matter clearly enough. It was not only a bad idea, but a decidedly deadly one.

“-Wait—” the bartender yelled, but it was too late. Reeves killed him and the second man just as the third and fourth men got the door open again and came running into the room.

When they saw the naked black man with the gun, they stopped and one of them said, “Whoa!”

That was way too late. They knew Reeves was going
to fire. One man squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t see it coming. The other man tried to bring his gun around. Neither man had chosen the right course of action, and in seconds they were both dead.

Reeves heard the shots in the hall, and rushed for the door…

Clint saw Reeves come rushing from his room after the last shot, and now he and the black deputy marshal were standing there, naked, brandishing guns.

Reeves looked up and down the hall, saw people peering out of their rooms, and shouted, “Back inside!”

They withdrew their heads and shoulders and slammed their doors.

“Have you got a girl in your room, Bass?” Clint asked him.

“Yeah, I do,” Bass Reeves said, “the blond saloon girl.”

“Yeah, I got the brunette,” Clint said. “I’ll bring her into your room. Let’s find out if they were in on this.”

“Right.”

Reeves went back into his room and got Letty out from under the bed. By that time Clint had dragged the naked brunette into the room. There was a lot of smooth, pale skin in evidence. Clint had taken the time to pull on his pants, so Reeves did the same. Now the skin that was showing was mostly female.

There was some commotion in the hall now that Clint and Reeves were not there. Clint slammed the door of Reeves’s room. It wouldn’t close firmly, but it stayed just ajar.

“Are you ladies aware what just happened?” Clint asked.

“No,” Letty said. “I—I was under the bed.”

Clint looked at Julie.

“Seems to me you killed some men who were tryin’ to kill you.”

“And is that what you’ll tell the sheriff?” Clint asked.

She smirked and said, “Well, yeah, but it won’t matter much.”

“Why not?”

“Because he ain’t much of a sheriff.”

“You let us worry about that,” Reeves said. “What we wanna know now is, what—if anythin’—did you two know about this?”

“Wha—” Letty said.

“God, no!” Julia said. “You think if I knew lead was gonna be flying, I’d be here?”

Clint studied her. She didn’t look as frightened as her friend, Letty, but both girls looked to him to be telling the truth.

“You gals better get dressed,” he told the naked women. “We’re probably going to be having some company soon.”

Letty grabbed her clothes, and she and Julie ran to Clint’s room to get dressed.

“You believe them?” Reeves asked.

“Yeah, I do,” Clint said, scratching his head. “There was too much of a chance of them getting hurt for them to be in on it.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“Too bad,” Clint said. “I was sort of having a good time.”

“When did you realize what was happenin’?” the black deputy asked.

“Oh,” Clint said, “I had an idea that even if they weren’t in on it, somebody might use them as a distraction anyway. I didn’t like the looks we were getting in the saloon. I think I know why the town is called Poison Springs. It’s not exactly friendly.”

“Did it ever occur to you to warn me?” Reeves asked his friend.

“Oh, I knew you’d hear them coming down the hall like a herd of cattle,” Clint said.

“Yeah, well,” Reeves said, “you better go get dressed if the sheriff’s comin’.”

“And then we’ll get our rooms changed,” Clint suggested.

“Why bother?” Reeves asked. “Let’s just saddle up and get out of here before somethin’ else happens.”

Clint shrugged.

“That suits me.”