Longarm and the Banker's Daughter (9781101613375) (8 page)

Chapter 12

Longarm held on to his coat but automatically slid his right hand toward the pistol on his right hip, then hooked his thumb over the buckle of his cartridge belt. He stared at the two men—a younger man and an older one—watching him and Lacy with cow-stupid expressions on their bearded faces.

“Hidy,” Longarm said, walking toward the shore and tossing his coat onto the bank.

“You two shore took a swim,” said the older gent, who knelt atop the bank nearest Longarm, absently pulling at weeds with a knobby hand. “Chilly time o' the year for it.”

“It was sort of an accident.”

“Well, I guess it was!” said the older man, who had one steely-blue eye while the other one was nearly white, and it wandered. He had a thick southern accent, and he worked his gray-bearded jaws on a wad of chew bulging one cheek. A stream of the brown stuff dribbled down one corner of his mouth to add to the stain in his beard that hung nearly to his breastbone.

Longarm saw that the eyes of the younger man were on Lacy. Of course they were, but it made him edgy. He doubted his wet pistol would fire, as water had likely leaked into at least some of the cartridges. He'd lost his rifle along with his saddlebags and bedroll in the river.

“Pa?” a hoarse voice shouted somewhere behind the quartet of bearded starers. “Pa—what's so goddamn fascinatin' over there?”

Longarm saw movement behind the older man, who was likely in his fifties or early sixties—and he watched as a big figure dressed similarly to him and the younger man strode up toward the bank, moving through the hock-high bunchgrass and sage and weaving amongst the pines. Longarm couldn't determine the sex of the person until she stopped just behind the old man, and tipped a broad-brimmed brown felt hat back off her high forehead.

Then Longarm saw the fleshy, pale female features and the two large, doughy lumps behind her gray workshirt, which she wore under a duck coat and suspenders.

“What in tarnation do we have here?” she said, setting her gloved fists on her hips. Her coat and wool work trousers were peppered with sawdust. “Where in God's green earth did you two come from?”

Longarm figured it was probably obvious, but the old man said, “They come down the river, May. Both of 'em. Said they had an accident.”

“An accident? Well, I'll say they've had an accident. Look at these two!” The big woman with mannish features called May wobbled her big, broad hips and long, fat legs down the bank, her large pale face flushing with exertion. “And you two just standing there like lumps on a consarned log! Come here, child—come to May,” she said, standing at the edge of the stream and extending her thick arms toward Lacy. “My goodness gracious, you look about frozen
solid
!”

Shivering, blue lips quivering, Lacy gained her feet and, her own heavy coat hanging like wet concrete off her shoulders, walked slowly toward May. “I . . . I sure am cold,” she said. “S-sure . . . sure could use a hot fire, Miss May. Maybe a hot cup of coffee . . .”

“Sure, sure,” May said. “We'll get you back to the cabin and get you in front of a hot fire. But first, let's get this big, wet coat off of you. Why, it's only makin' you colder, isn't it, child?”

“I'll say it is,” Lacy said, thoroughly enjoying the ministrations of the big woman.

The young man and the older man continued to ogle Lacy, as though they'd never seen a female, much less one who looked like her, before in their lives. When May got the coat off of Lacy's shoulders, revealing the wet shirt clinging sinfully to the girl's spectacular breasts, clearly delineating each one, hard nipples pushing against the cloth from behind, Longarm saw their cheeks and ears turn as red as a hot fire.

“Help me here, Felix!” May said as she clumsily led Lacy up the bank.

The rawboned young man scurried over to grab the woman's proffered hand and arm, and, grunting, pulled her and Lacy up the bank. The big woman blew like a winded mule, flushed, and glanced over her shoulder at Longarm. “You'd best come, too, mister . . . whoever you are. Gonna catch your death of cold out here. You'll be welcome in the cabin just yonder. I'll stoke the fire, make you all some hot coffee with a nip of brandy, if you're of a mind for some o' the demon juice!”

She laughed at that, then, draping an arm over Lacy's shoulders, continued leading her off through the pines, the hunched blond looking doll-sized beside her.

Longarm stood where he was, regarding the old man and the younger man before him. They were both big men, he saw now that the older man was also standing. The old man was big and stringy while the young was big and beefy and hard-muscled, though his eyes bespoke about as many brains as could be poured into a sewing thimble. That and the look that Felix had for Lacy's comely figure had the nerves in Longarm's trigger finger sparking. He didn't want this to be another time the girl's female assets put a wrench in his own plans for . . .

The old man beckoned as he, too, watched the girl walk away from the river with the woman he'd called May. “Come on, mister. You heard what May said.” He chuckled dryly and turned to Longarm. “When May says jump, we ask how high—don't we, Felix?”

But the boy was still watching Lacy, transfixed, with his lusty cow eyes, and hadn't heard the question. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists aggressively. Longarm took note of that, too, but he was glad to see that he wasn't armed with either gun or knife. The older man, though, sported a Smith & Wesson Model 2 army pistol wedged behind the wide, brown belt encircling his lumpy waist, the gun's rosewood grips angled toward the belly pushing out his workshirt.

Longarm picked up his coat and, trembling from the cold water soaking every inch of him, climbed the riverbank, his boots squeaking, water bubbling out from the soles. “Name's Long,” he said, sitting down on the bank to wrestle one of his boots off. “Custis Long. Deputy United States marshal out of Denver.”

“You don't say?” said the older gent. “A real honest-to-gosh federal badge toter?”

“That's right.” Longarm emptied the water out of the boot. A good pint must have splattered onto the ground as he said, “And you might be . . . ?”

“Not just might,” the older gent said, chuckling dryly as he continued to work the chew around in his mouth, “but I am, yes, sir, Harcourt Greer. These here is my son, Felix. May's my sister. We got us a little cabin yonder. Run a few cattle, do a little gold pannin'. This time o' year we mostly sell wood to the miners up and down the river and cut a good bit for ourselves. Gets right cold and snowy up this high, don't ya know.”

“The river's right cold now.” Longarm emptied the water out of his second boot, then grimaced as he pulled it back on. The water must have shrunk it a size and a half.

“So what brings you down the river?” Greer asked as he and Longarm started walking in the same direction the women had gone.

Ahead, at the edge of the clearing, May was stepping into the saddle of a stout mule—probably the only beast stalwart enough to carry her—then reached down to pull Lacy onto the mule's back behind her. Nearby was a big lumber dray half filled with pine logs, a couple of more mules standing in the traces. Another mule stood beside the lumber dray, cropping green fescue and trailing log chains. Apparently, the Greers had been in the process of skidding logs out of the forest and loading them onto the dray when they'd spied Longarm and Lacy roiling down the river like driftwood.

“We were ambushed half a mile or so upriver,” Longarm said, feeling every muscle in his body quivering as though he'd been lightning struck. “By the same gang I pulled Lacy out of. To make a long story short, Mr. Greer, we might have brought trouble, so we'd best not linger and make it your trouble. But I would appreciate an opportunity to get dried out and have a cup of coffee in front of a hot fire.”

“Ah, hell, don't you worry none, Marshal,” Greer said. “Me, May, an' Felix are accustomed to trouble. Why, this part of the Sawatch is rife with outlaws of every stripe—most of 'em cattle rustlers. But there's plenty of claim jumpers in these parts, too, and we're handy at runnin' 'em off. My boy here ain't a cold-steel artist or nothin' like that, but he knows his way around a Winchester.”

He glanced back at the beefy younker trailing him and Longarm by about ten feet. “Ain't you, boy?”

Felix grunted. Longarm wasn't sure he could speak. He was staring broodingly after May and Lacy, chewing his lower lip as though he wanted to eat it.

As Longarm and Greer walked past the dray, Greer glanced over his shoulder again and said, “Get back to work, boy. Excitement's over now, hear?”

Felix stopped dead in the trail, looking as though he'd been slapped.

“But, Pa,” he protested, “I wanna go on back to the cabin with you. Why . . . why . . . we ain't had company in a month of Sundays!”

Greer puffed his chest up and clenched his fist at his sides as he fairly roared, “You go on back to work and get your mind off that girl, an' be quick of it! You mind your manners and quit thinkin' about stickin' your pecker in that girl. She's too damn good for you, ya damn cork-headed fool!”

The son of Harcourt Greer cowered like whipped dog, hanging his head like his neck was broken. Cursing and grumbling, he swung around and ambled off to where the single mule stood trailing the log chains.

Greer chuckled as he and Longarm set off again, following a two-track trail through the pines and into what appeared a deep cleft in the nearly solid wall of mountain that stood on this side of the river. “I do believe he's taken a fancy to your girl, there, Marshal.”

“Most do,” Longarm said, then spat river grit to one side of the trail. He walked with his heavy, sodden coat thrown over his left shoulder, only half paying attention to Greer as he brooded over Heck Gunn and Orlando Cruz and the fact that he now only had his Colt to defend himself and Lacy with. He sure wished he hadn't lost his rifle in the river.

“Well, she sure is a fine-lookin' little thing—I'll give her that.” Greer led Longarm under a timber ranch portal and into the cabin yard tucked back in the pines, against the base of the rocky, pine-forested mountain wall. “I tell you, when I seen her take off that coat, I myself thought my old ticker was gonna give out on me!”

Longarm stopped as they passed a corral and small stable and faced the bearded, wandering-eyed man, squinting an eye to more forcefully get his point across. “Greer, I appreciate what you're doin' here, but let me make one thing clear. That girl in there may look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. But she's evil. I don't believe in witches. At least, I didn't till I met Lacy. So, what I'm sayin' is this—you and your boy stay away from her, hear? I tell you that for your own good.”

Greer studied him curiously, beetling his gray-brown brows and absently scratching the coarse beard carpeting his weathered, brown face. “Sure, sure, Marshal,” he said finally. “I understand.”

Longarm continued walking toward the cabin, and Greer fell into step beside him. “A witch you say? With a body like . . . I mean, with such an angelic-looking face?” The rancher/woodcutter wagged his head as though genuinely befuddled by the news. “Imagine that!”

The log cabin had a half story and a broad front veranda. Smoke was gushing from the stone chimney that rose along its right end. “Come on in here, now, Marshal,” Greer said, mounting the porch steps. “You just go right on in and make yourself at—”

He'd just opened the door but stopped in front of Longarm. The lawman immediately saw what had stopped him.

Lacy stood in front of the fire that was blazing in the hearth, her back to the crackling flames. She wasn't wearing a stitch. Her clothes were draped over a couple of ladder-back chairs. Her full-busted, naked body was pink and perfectly curved. The big woman, May, knelt before her on a braided rope rug, massaging Lacy's belly and crotch with a thick towel, making those perfect orbs jounce deliciously.

Lacy had heard Greer and Longarm on the porch. Longarm knew she had. She held Longarm's gaze for a full two seconds before she gasped in feigned shock but did nothing to cover herself. May had been talking, but now she turned her head sharply to the door and said angrily, “Oh, for goodness sakes, you men! Give us girls another minute, will you?”

Greer stood frozen in the open doorway, one hand on the latch. His shoulders slumped a little, and his knees appeared to bend a bit. Longarm was afraid he'd pass out.

He gave the man's arm a tug. “Come on, Mr. Greer. Like your sis says, we'd best give 'em a minute.”

As he led the shocked and confounded older man back out the door, Longarm glanced once more at Lacy. She smiled beatifically. Longarm ground his jaws and latched the door.

Chapter 13

“You gonna be all right there, Mr. Greer?”

“In a minute, I reckon.” The woodcutter swallowed hard, blinked at the porch floor.

“You look a little pale.”

“I . . . I'll be all right.” Greer shuffled to the edge of the veranda and stared off across the sun-dappled yard that was rife with the tang of pine resin. He plucked a handkerchief from a back pocket of his patched trousers and used it to dab his forehead.

Longarm sat in a wicker-bottom chair and kicked one of his wet boots off. “Sorry you had to see that,” he said, grunting as he kicked the other shrunken stovepipe off his other foot. “I hope you don't have a weak heart.”

“Whew!” Greer chuckled and glanced at Longarm. “That shore was a sight to behold.”

“I appreciate your sister's tending the girl. She really got down to business, didn't she?” Longarm unknotted his string tie and lay it over the veranda rail.

Greer flushed. “May—she's sorta funny that way. Always has been. Never did get married.”

“I see, well . . .” Longarm had gotten the drift of May's ways long before he'd opened the cabin door and seen her rubbing that towel across Lacy's delectable body. “Greer, in the interest of my not freezing to death and getting these duds dried out as fast as possible, so Lacy and I can be on our way, I'm gonna go ahead and shuck down to as little as what my trail partner is wearing. I'm just gonna warn you ahead of time.”

Scowling at Longarm, who had peeled off both socks and was now standing and unbuttoning his shirt, Greer said, “You know, I reckon I best get on back to my woodcuttin', Marshal Long.” He hurried down the steps, boots thudding on the age-silvered boards.

“Might be wise.”

“You go on inside soon as you can, Marshal, and get yourself warm,” Greer said, backing away across the yard. “I'm sure May'll fix you coffee and a bite to eat. She may be funny in some ways, but she's a right good cook, May is.”

“Much obliged, Greer,” Longarm said, tossing his shirt over the veranda rail.

Grumbling angrily about Lacy enjoying the hot fire inside the cabin while he was out here turning blue, every muscle and tendon quivering like a diamondback rattlesnake, he peeled his balbriggans down his arms and legs and lay those over the porch rail, as well. He angled the chair in the sun, then sat down in it, stretching his legs out and lacing his hands behind his head, leaning back and absorbing the soothing rays.

He'd just nodded off when he heard the door latch click and the hinges creek and Miss May said in her mannish rasp, “Oh, good Lord—you're naked!”

“Yes, ma'am,” Longarm said, glancing behind him to see her standing there, nearly filling the open doorway and blushing. “Thought it best I didn't catch my death of cold.” He couldn't help keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

“I've tucked Miss Lacy into my bed upstairs,” May said, turning her eyes away from the naked man before her.

“Oh, you have, have you,” he said. “Well, don't let her get too comfortable, 'cause she and I'll be hitting the trail soon.”

“Oh, don't be silly!” May objected. “After what she's been through? No, sir—she must stay here today and get some rest. I've stoked the fire in my room to try to get the poor dear thawed out.”

She turned and walked farther back into the cabin. “I've put coffee and stew on the table, and also a bottle of blackberry brandy. Help yourself. I'm going to see if Miss Lacy needs anything!”

“I bet you are.” Longarm heard the woman's heavy footsteps on the stairs that angled up the rear of the room, right of the small kitchen area. Something besides being left out in the cold nagged at him.

Could he be jealous of May?

He grabbed his clothes and went inside. He draped all the duds over the hearth or chair backs in front of the fire, set his boots on the floor just close enough to dry but not to shrink so tight they wouldn't fit. He sat at the table and the delicious elk stew with crusty brown bread and washed it all down with coffee laced with May's brandy. The rib-sticking meal and warming brandy-laced coffee made him feel less angry at Lacy and annoyed with May for doting on her as though the little witch were royalty.

He piled his dirty dishes in the dry sink, then, yearning for a cigar, he snooped around the place until he found some cheap cigars in an American Powder Mills gunpowder tin. He found a rag and some gun oil in a peach crate serving as a shelf. Sitting naked in front of the fire, where he could easily see the trail fronting the ranch through a window, he carefully took his Colt apart and wiped each piece down thoroughly with the oily rag.

While he worked, and the fire drew the chill river water out of his bones, May came down and, paying Longarm no attention whatever, began heating water on the fire for Lacy's bath. She hummed as she stomped about the place, gathering soap and towels and a plate of food for Lacy, making the floor planks lurch and causing dust to sift from the rafters. Longarm merely chuckled to himself over the bath and continued to smoke and work on his guns and ammunition, keeping a close eye on the trail leading out under the log portal and off toward the river.

When he had the Colt cleaned and loaded, believing that none of the brass cartridge casings had leaked, he slid the gun down in its holster drying over another chair. His balbriggans were dry, so he put them on, and he was glad he had when, after what must have been a couple of hours, he heard voices in the yard. He jerked to life, incredulous at the fading light outside the cabin, and grabbed his pistol.

He slid it back into its holster, however, when he saw that it wasn't Gunn and Cruz come calling, but Greer and his son heading home in the lumber dray trailing the extra mule. May flanked them on the beefy mule. She must have finally allowed Lacy to rest and slipped out of the cabin with the naked man in it, to help Greer and Felix with the wood.

While they headed on past the cabin to the barn to tend the mules and their load of logs, Longarm dressed in his now-dry, soothingly warm clothes. He'd intended to head off today with Lacy in tow, but the swim must have taken more out of him than he'd thought.

He went upstairs to make sure Lacy hadn't slipped out on him without his hearing, as May obviously had. No, she was sound asleep in the big lone bed near a small sheet-iron stove. She lay curled on her side, honey-blond hair sprayed out across the pillow, sound asleep.

She looked like a damn doll. Looks were deceiving. Her clothes hung from a rope strung across the room within about six feet of the fire that had burned down nearly to coals.

Despite himself, he tossed another chunk of split fir on the fire, then headed on outside though not before snagging another cigar from the American Powder Mills can. He'd leave the Greers a double eagle before he left here first thing in the morning with a couple of horses he hoped to borrow. In the mean time, he took a long walk around, seeing no sign that the Gunn and Cruz Bunch were anywhere around. That seemed odd. Had they figured they'd lost their quarry to the chill waters of the river?

As he strode back to the cabin, he met Harcourt Greer slouching toward the cabin from the barn. “No sign of them men after you?” the man said, shoving his sawdust-covered hat brim back off his forehead, his wandering right eye angling toward his nose as though to scrutinize the end of it.

“Not yet.”

“Closest place to ford the river is Sapinero, downstream a good twenty miles. We had a bridge but it got washed out in the spring flood, and, as you saw”—Greer chuckled—“the river's been high all summer. Lots o' snow in the high country slow to come down.”

“They mighta given up on us,” Longarm said, lighting Greer's cigar that he'd only smoked half of earlier, studying the trail that angled off through the pines toward the river.

“If they do, you got nothin' to worry about. I got guns and ammo in the barn, and me and the boy know how to use 'em.”

The woodcutter glanced at his muscular son slouching toward the cabin from the barn, a dreamy look in his otherwise dull gaze. Felix had probably been thinking about Lacy all day, as his old man probably had, as well, after that glimpse he'd gotten of her naked earlier. Longarm hoped he wasn't going to have to hold them off all night when he already had Gunn and Cruz to worry about.

“I hope it doesn't come to that.” Longarm puffed the cigar again as he turned to the woodcutter. “I'd like to borrow a couple of horses tomorrow morning, Greer. Uncle Sam will pay you for them. Also a good rifle if you have one. I personally will pay you for the grub and the cigars I've pilfered from your gunpowder can.”

Greer chuckled. “The smoke and grub is on the house, Marshal. We don't get visitors out here often, and I'm just glad to see someone around besides my boys and ole May, God love 'em. I'll set you up with a coupla fine hosses first thing tomorrow, and I've got a nice Winchester I'll throw into the bargain.”

“I'd be obliged.”

“Come on in, Marshal. While May throws some supper together, you an' me'll sit out here on the porch and sip some brandy and palaver. What do you say? Like Felix said, we don't get many visitors this far out.”

“Fine as frog hair,” Longarm said, giving his darkly expectant gaze to the trail to the river once more, hoping he and Lacy were the Greers' only company this day.

*   *   *

Lacy didn't come down for supper. Instead, May brought her a plate of elk steak with all the trimmings and stayed up there a lot longer than was necessary to deliver the plate, Longarm thought. He and Greer and the beefy but bashful boy ate at the table, only Longarm and Greer conversing.

When they were finished with supper, it was good dark. May hazed Greer and Felix off to the barn, where apparently they slept every night, leaving the entire cabin to May herself. However, she insisted that Longarm sleep in the cabin by the fire to “finish baking that old, cold river out of his bones.”

He decided to take the woman up on the invitation. A chill lingered deep inside his marrow. He'd like to stay as close as possible to a hot fire, and he'd like to keep a close eye on Lacy. He wouldn't put it past her to try to slip away from him under cover of darkness.

When May had finished cleaning up the kitchen—she seemed to have boundless, jovial energy for a woman so large—and headed upstairs to bed with her sexy charge, Longarm threw down in the quilts she'd arranged for him in front of the fire. He slept long and hard, basking in the fire's warmth.

A squawk from the stairs woke him. He lifted his head, looked around the dark cabin, saw a big shadow moving toward him. He started to slide his hand toward his Colt when May whispered, “It's just May, Marshal. Fetchin' a coupla logs for the upstairs fire.”

Longarm thought with a silent snort, Aren't you and Lacy keeping each other warm enough?

Longarm lay his head back down on his flour-sack pillow. He lifted it again when he felt a draft, as though someone had moved past him. He could smell the must of an animal hide. As he looked up, he saw May standing over him. She wore a big, shapeless buffalo robe.

She gave a grunt and lurched toward him. “Take this, you dirty bugger!”

Longarm didn't see the log she swung at him until he heard the loud clang of a bell, and then everything went dark.