Longarm #431 Read online

  A Close Shave . . .

  Wright started to tip the barrel of his shotgun up toward Longarm.

  Longarm’s .45 roared, blowing the barber sheet outward and setting it ablaze where his bullet passed through ahead of its lance of fire.

  Carl Wright looked down at his chest, his expression incredulous. Then he glanced over toward the pegs and all the guns hanging against the wall.

  “They aren’t mine, Carl,” Longarm said just as Wright dropped to his knees. And then forward onto his face.

  His shotgun clattered hard on the floor, and Longarm flinched, fully expecting the impact to dislodge the hammer and fire the gun. Fortunately there was no discharge. He and the other men in the barbershop began to breathe easier.

  DON’T MISS THESE

  ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES

  FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

  Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him . . . the Gunsmith.

  LONGARM by Tabor Evans

  The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

  SLOCUM by Jake Logan

  Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

  BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan

  An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.

  DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer

  Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex . . .

  WILDGUN by Jack Hanson

  The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

  TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun

  J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.

  BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  LONGARM AND THE SHARPSHOOTER

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  JOVE® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14476-7

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove mass-market edition / October 2014

  Cover illustration by Milo Sinovcic.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  All-Action Western Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 1

  His head had already bounced twice off the ground before he ever heard the gunshot. He remembered coming off the horse but little else. He had had the lead rope of Alton Gray’s horse in his right hand, but he could not recall what happened to that horse. Or to his prisoner. Now . . .

  Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long lay quiet on the grass. He was comfortable. If anything he was more comfortable now than he could remember ever being. Ever. So comfortable he could not even feel his body.

  That seemed off somehow. Not quite right. But he could not work out why. The hit on the head, no doubt.

  He looked up at Gray. Longarm lay on his back. Gray stood over him atop the bay horse. The two of them seemed a mile high, sitting there above him.

  “Serves you right, you son of a bitch.” Gray worked up a wad of spittle and let fly at him.

  “Don’t try an’ get away.” Longarm had to pause to catch his breath. “I’ll shoot you if you try.”

  He was short of breath. It was a great effort to speak.

  Gray reined the bay horse away and disappeared from Longarm’s field of vision. Which at the moment seemed to be directly overhead.

  Longarm wanted to sit up. Wanted to scratch his nose, too. He would do those things. In just a minute or so. For the time being he wanted to just lie here on his back and rest.

  But the side of his nose did itch quite abominably. He thought he would reach up and scratch it.

  But his arm. His hand. He could not feel them. Could not move them. Could not feel . . . anything.

  Oh, Lord. He could feel nothing, not anything from his neck downward.

  He was paralyzed!

  • • •

  “Hey!”

  Longarm’s eyelids fluttered and came open despite a buildup of glue-like secretion that bound them closed.

  “Son of a bitch. You’re alive.”

  It was a woman. She was standing over him.
She had a lead rope in her hand and he could see the head and enormous ears of a mule at the end of that rope.

  Longarm was still lying on his back. He had been there . . . he did not know how long. Overnight, he was sure of that. At least one night, possibly more. Time had begun to run together for him as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  “I was . . . never mind,” the woman said. She had his wallet in one hand, so she really did not have to explain why she stopped.

  “You’ve shit yourself,” she said. “Can’t you move?”

  He drew in as much breath as he could. “No.” The single word came out halfway between a whisper and a croak. “Help . . . me. I’m . . . deputy marshal . . . Long. Help . . . me. Please.”

  “Well, you damned sure need help. Reckon it’s up to me to give it.”

  The woman was heavy built, stocky, wearing a man’s bib overalls and a red pullover shirt. She had a wen the size of a hen’s egg on the side of her neck. Her hair, beginning to go gray, was cropped off short just below her ears. He guessed her age to be somewhere in the fifties.

  “What am I going to do with you, Deputy Long? I can’t leave you here to die.” She sighed heavily, as if feeling terribly put-upon. “I suppose I’ll just have to take you with me, damnit. Then you’ll up and die anyway, but you won’t be on my conscience when you do it. So come along, damn you.”

  She took hold of his coat and half lifted, half dragged him beside the mule. Pushed and pulled and grunted with effort.

  Longarm could see a little of what she was doing, could hear grunts and scrapes and the sound of something being dragged across gravel. But he could feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  He closed his eyes and faded away into unconsciousness again.

  Chapter 2

  The ceiling consisted of saplings laid close together. He could see thin tendrils of plant roots hanging down between the poles, so the cabin was roofed with sod. The walls were logs chinked with mud.

  Longarm could turn his head to the side a little, but that was all the movement he could manage. He could see to the side a bit but could not lift his head to see toward his feet.

  The place was small. Eight by eight was his guess. There was a folding, sheet-metal stove; the cot where he lay and a section of pine log about a foot across and two feet high sawed off flat to serve as a stool or a table. That seemed to be the extent of the furnishings.

  He wondered how tall the woman was. However tall, she must have been powerful to get him loaded onto the mule and brought here.

  She came inside from whatever she had been doing. Pulled off her woolen stocking cap and hung it neatly on a peg driven between two of the wall logs.

  “You’re awake,” she said. “Mayhap you can help me get those filthy clothes off’n you. I got a creek runs by the place. I can wash out your stuff there. In case you’re wondering, you been shot. Creased, actually. Right across the back of your neck.” While she talked she worked, bending over him, unbuttoning and unbuckling, tugging and lifting and pulling at his clothes.

  “Got to wash you, too, lest the stink from you make me vomit. You know how some men down south hunt wild horses? They crease them deliberate. Put the bullet just right, close to the spine it has to be, and it shocks them. Knocks them right down and paralyzes them. Except sometimes they shoot too close to the bone, and it kills them. Sometimes just in the meat not close enough and it doesn’t do much of anything to them. But get it just right and they only stay down for a little while. After a spell they stand up, and the horse hunter has them bridled and ready to be broke. Now you, I figure whoever shot you thought he’d killed you. And mayhap he did. You could yet die from this wound. Or you could be up and around tomorrow, next week, one of these fine days. I don’t know any way to tell.”

  While she chattered on, she worked. Pulling his clothes off. Rolling him back and forth so that his cheek was pushed hard against a scratchy blanket first on one side and then the other.

  “This water is cold, straight from the creek. Is it too cold for you?”

  “No,” he grunted. Icy cold or boiling hot, he could feel nothing. He could see that she turned and picked up a basin and cloth and began washing him.

  “My God, what a pecker you have, son,” the woman crooned. “Bigger even than the candle I’ve been using to pleasure myself.” She laughed, delighted. “What I wouldn’t give to have some of that shoved up my twat, eh? Shit, I haven’t had a man in . . . let me see . . . three years? Closer to four, I think. Not that you are in much of a condition to be fucking a girl. And more’s the pity.” She laughed again.

  A few minutes later she set the basin aside and said, “That is about as clean as I can get you, but try not to shit yourself any more. It isn’t much fun to clean after you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Longarm croaked.

  “Sleep now. If you’re going to heal, that is the best medicine for you,” the woman said. “And if you’re going to up and die on me after I’ve brought you this far, do it in your sleep so you won’t be bothering me with it, will you?”

  She turned away and fed some fat pine into her sheepherder’s stove and set a pot of water on top of the stove to heat.

  Longarm wondered if she intended to feed him. Or just wait to see if he was going to die before she bothered with that.

  He closed his eyes and, taking her advice, went to sleep.

  Chapter 3

  Her name was Nicole but she went by the name Nic. She had a man’s strength and in many ways a man’s outlook. She was out here in the mountains, she explained, because this was where the mineral was. Exactly what mineral she was digging she did not say and Longarm knew better than to ask. A direct question like that would have been considered an intrusion on her privacy.

  She did feed him. She propped him up in the bed and spooned a little warm broth into him. He did not ask what was in the broth. Suspected it was something he did not want to know. All he cared about was that the broth was warm in his belly and wondrously filling, and he was truly grateful for it.

  “More?” he asked when she set the bowl aside. His breath came hard and it was difficult for him to speak.

  “No more. You’ll shit yourself again,” Nic replied.

  She did take some warm water from a kettle on the stove—or boiling for all he could feel—and again dipped a cloth in to wipe his face and chest and cock.

  “What are you? Something over six feet, I’d say,” Nic mused while she washed him. “Damn good-looking man. It’d be a shame to see you die.” She laughed. “Especially with a pecker like that. Why, just look at this thing.”

  He was lying flat again, she having removed whatever it was she used to prop him up so he could eat. Consequently he could not see exactly what Nic was doing. But he could certainly hear her exclamation of joy.

  “Why, will you look at that,” she yelped. “You can’t feel shit, but your body knows. Damn thing stands tall as a tent pole, doesn’t it? Just a minute. Let me see what it tastes like.”

  Nic bent her head. He craned his neck so he could see a little. She had his cock erect and eager, not that he was aware of feeling anything. She had his foreskin peeled back and was running her tongue around the head.

  After only a few moments of that she started bobbing up and down on it. Sucking it, he supposed.

  Ugly as Nic was, Longarm nevertheless wished that he could feel her sucking him.

  But then at the moment he wished he could feel most anything.

  Nic sat up, smiling, and unfastened the straps on the bib of her overalls. When she did that the heavy denim dropped to the floor. Nic stepped out of the trousers. She was naked underneath.

  The woman was not fat but she was thick. She had a roll of belly and a dark, curly bush. Her pussy hairs dripped with unspent juices.

  Longarm quickly learned why. Still smiling, she joined him on the bunk, straddling him
and lowering herself onto his cock.

  He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. Nic, and what she was doing down there, was not a pretty sight.

  He could close out the view but not the sounds Nic made as she grunted and wheezed and bounced up and down on his prick until with a cry she achieved her climax.

  Finally she climbed off of him.

  At least then she had the decency—if he could call it that—to again pick up the bowl of hot water and cloth and once again wash his cock and balls of the juices she had left on him.

  “You didn’t feel any of that?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Damn shame, Marshal. I enjoyed it right fine. Filled me up, and there’s not many men can do that. We’ll do it again tonight, but right now I got work to do.” She dressed and over her shoulder called, “Don’t you go anywhere, honey.”

  Nic’s laughter was the last thing he heard before the cabin door shut and he was alone again.

  Longarm closed his eyes and hoped for sleep. Or for death. Anything other than this uselessness.

  Chapter 4

  It startled him so much that it woke him up. An itch. A simple little thing like an itch. He could not even be sure where he itched. Somewhere down south, that was as close as he could differentiate. In his foot, perhaps, or his leg. But he was sure that it was an itch.

  And he could feel it!

  “Did you say something, honey?” Nic asked from the stool where she was having her breakfast.

  “No.” He shook his head. “I di’n say anything.”

  “Tonight, honey,” she said around a mouthful of beans and pork fat. “Tonight we’ll have us a fine time.” She looked at him. At his crotch, actually. He could see where her eyes were directed. He was still naked. She kept him that way. Liked keeping him naked so she could look at his cock and play with it. And when she had the time could fuck herself with it.

  Five days now. He was her own personal dildo, and she had no intention to let her toy get away from her.

  He had given up asking for her to go get help for him. Or to pack him on the back of the mule and haul him out to someplace where there was a telegraph so he could inform U.S. Marshal Billy Vail that Al Gray had gotten away. Again.