Longarm and the Bad Girls of Rio Blanco by Tabor Evans

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

Chapter 11

Longarm had played enough poker to quit whilst he was ahead, and thanks to two boilermakers, the dullness of Doc Robinson’s thriller about murdersome Thuggi, and the aftereffects of that forty-mile ride coming back as the excitement wore off, Longarm lay slugbed until six A.M. and would have slept longer if Undersheriff Trumbo hadn’t come back with the town law, a Marshal Price who said it was all right to call him Dad, like everyone else did.

Dad Price was naturally curious as to the details of Bull Marlow’s hard night. Longarm was, too. So betwixt them they established that that horse doctor had set the bully’s arm in a plaster cast, pulled the looser stubs of his busted teeth and prescribed bed rest with rye whiskey and the fat old breed gal who loved him despite all his faults.

Bull Marlow didn’t have a regular job. That was why he extorted drinks from smaller men or stole change right off the bar. It happened often, according to Dad Price. But nobody up until the night before had stood up to Bull Marlow, since the night he’d hospitalized all six foot six of Leroy Vogel, the ramrod of the Lazy Eight.

Dad Price opined, and Undersheriff Trumbo agreed, that Longarm should have killed the burly bastard when he’d had the justification. Price said, “He was assaulting you unprovoked with a deadly weapon and you had on that .44-40! Wild Bill or Bat Masterson would have shot him down like a dog!”

Longarm shrugged and said, “I ain’t out to shoot pesky drunks. Gets to be a bad habit, like bragging on how many whores you’ve seducted.”

Dad Price said, “The boys at the Last Chance all agree you were a real sport after Bull stole your beer and your money and tried to brain you. But if you’re expecting Bull to be a good sport about it, once he’s on his feet again, forget it! He’s poison mean to folk who’ve never done nothing to him, and a spite holder of the first water. The minute he feels up to it, Bull’s going to try and pay you back, and it’s an established fact he fights dirty!”

Longarm shrugged as he finished buttoning his shirt and said, “With any luck I’ll be finished up this way by the time he feels up to it. I’ll be out on the range a heap of my time in these parts, eliminating. Now that I’ve got here, I see the typewritten reports I read along the way failed to picture the lay of the land in detail. Before I ride out of town to pester other folk, I’d like to go over your own complaints and see if I can X ’em on my government survey map.”

Undersheriff Trumbo said, “No need to go to all that trouble. I can let you have a map of Rio Blanco County already Xed, except we drew circles around each home spread that’s been hit.”

As Longarm strapped on his six-gun, Trumbo added, “We ordered a score of maps from the printing office and there wasn’t that many circles to draw.

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