Longarm in the Tall Timber by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Chapter 12

The tree seemed to fall slowly at first, but it picked up speed at an incredible rate. Longarm barely had time to send his horse lunging to the left. The animal’s shoulder crashed into Molly’s horse and knocked it sideways, too. Longarm kicked his feet out of the stirrups and left the saddle in a diving tackle that swept Molly off the back of her horse. She cried out, more in surprise than pain, as they fell to the ground.

With a great rushing sound, the tree came down. It slammed to the ground with a bone-jarring impact. The horses had leaped clear, but just barely. Longarm rolled over a couple of times with his arms still around Molly, taking her with him. He wanted to get them out of the way of those slashing hooves as the skittish horses danced around.

Longarm wound up lying on top of Molly. He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at her. She had pine needles in her hair and her eyes were wide with shock and fear. He felt her heart pounding as his weight pressed down on her.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes . . . I just . . . can’t breathe!”

Longarm realized he was crushing her and scrambled to his feet. As he reached down to grasp her hand and help her stand up, he heard yells of alarm coming toward them.

“Hey! Hey, nobody was supposed to be over here!”

Longarm brushed himself off and looked around. Several loggers rushed up, led by a man Longarm recognized as Hank Fenton. It had been Fenton who shouted a moment earlier. He went on, “Good Lord! Are you all right, Molly?”

Molly ran her fingers through her long, fair hair, pulling out some of the pine needles. More needles clung to her jacket and skirt. She nodded and said, “I’m not hurt, Hank. Well, at least not much. I may have gotten some bruises when Mr. Long landed on top of me.”

“Figured it was better for me to fall on you than a tree,” said Longarm dryly.

Molly nodded. “Yes, and I appreciate it. I suppose you saved my life . . . again.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Longarm. “I was getting out of the way of that pine myself. You just happened to be between me and where I wanted to go.”

Molly nodded, but he saw the gratitude in her eyes. She might not be willing to change her opinion of him all that much, but at least she didn’t seem to think he was a total son of a bitch anymore.

Not everybody shared that opinion. “Long!” exclaimed Fenton. “I recognize you now. You’re the fella who butted in when we were trying to teach Burgade’s men a lesson!”

Longarm looked at him coolly. “Maybe you should have been teaching your back-cut man to take a look around before he sends a tree down.”

Fenton was holding an ax. His hands clenched on the handle as he glowered at Longarm. “I’m the back-cut man on this crew, and I didn’t know anybody else was around.

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