Stillman's War (A Sheriff Ben Stillman Western) by Peter Brandvold

Author:Peter Brandvold [Brandvold, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781641196291
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2019-05-28T22:00:00+00:00

“Yes, but you know as well as I do, mon cherie, that there are other things we can do.” She ran her tongue across her upper lip and then began unbuckling his belt. “I believe we’ve gotten quite good at it, in fact, no?”

Stillman lay his head back on the pillow and groaned.

A half hour later, Stillman clicked his Colt’s hammer back.

“All right, come on out of there before I start loosin’ lead. Come on—I see you back there!”

Stillman was sitting his horse at the corner of Gaylord Street and Clantick’s main drag, First Street, and he was aiming his revolver across the front of a barbershop on his right, toward the ends of a muffler he could see blowing out of an alley mouth. He’d just ridden down from his and Faith’s little ranch on a bluff north of Clantick when, approaching First Street, he’d glimpsed the shadowy figure dart into the alley between the barber shop and a little tobacco shop just beyond it.

The blowing muffler ends disappeared, as though whoever was standing in the alley had stepped back farther away from the mouth still gauzy with early morning shadows.

“I’m not going to tell you again!” Stillman warned. “Come on out of there now!”

Haltingly, a clay-clad figure emerged from the mouth of the alley. The slender person wore a white knit cloth cap, the muffler, and a long, gray coat. Long, sandy-blond hair blew around the girl’s head in the wind. Sheepishly, she lifted her dimpled chin, and smiled a little too brightly, slapping a hand to her chest. “Oh, Ben—it’s you!”

The sun just now rising behind Stillman shone in her pale blue eyes.

“Evelyn?”

“I didn’t know it was you. Didn’t even recognize your voice with all the trash blowin’ in the alley.”

Stillman depressed his gun hammer and returned the Colt to its holster. “What’re you doin’ out here so early, actin’ so . . . secretive? You ain’t plannin’ a holdup, are ya?” He chuckled.

“Oh, no—nothin’ like that, Ben.” Evelyn looked around, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and she appeared to be straining for an explanation before she hooked a nervous thumb over her shoulder and said, “I was . . . I was just comin’ from the doc’s place.”

“The doc’s place?”

“Yeah . . . I . . . uh . . . brought him breakfast. You know how he likes Sam’s venison liver and onions. We had some leftover, so I took ‘em up to him.”

Stillman canted his head in disbelief. “You tellin’ me, little lady, that Doc Evans is up at this hour?” The sawbones was a notorious drunk who, between patients, was known to either frequent the Clantick doxiehouses till late at night or mid-morning of the next day, or to stay home and read the books in his vast classical library and drink brandy till he passed out.

“Yeah, well . . . he was awake, all right.” Evelyn smiled, the flush in her cheeks deepening. “I was a little surprised by that myself. Thought I’d have to leave the vittles on his table.

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