Longarm and Shotgun Sallie by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

When they got back to Salty’s Stables it was pitch-dark inside, so Longarm lit a match and held it up for light. “Bert?”

There was no answer, but they did hear a man snoring. “That will be him,” Shotgun guessed. “There’s a lantern hanging on a hook over there by that post.”

Longarm found the lantern, and after lighting it, he turned it down low. Then he and Shotgun Sallie went over to stand above the slumbering Bert, whose face was battered and badly swollen.

“Clausen really put a beating on poor old Bert,” Shotgun Sallie said, not bothering to hide her bitterness.

“Well,” Longarm remarked, “Deputy Clausen isn’t going to look a whole lot better than Bert right now. I broke his nose and I might even have broken his jaw.”

“I hope you did,” Shotgun said as she knelt down beside the old cowboy and touched his bruised cheek. “That sonofabitch deserves everything we gave him and more.”

“Do you really think that Bert can be moved all the way up to your ranch?” Longarm asked. “A buckboard is pretty rough riding and Bert looks to be in terrible shape.”

“He might die on the way up to my Shotgun Ranch, but if he stays here I have a feeling he’ll be murdered.”

Longarm considered that a moment and then said, “I don’t think that Bob Clausen would have the nerve to do that after the beating we gave him.”

“I’m not talking about the deputy,” Shotgun explained. “I’m talking about the gang that killed my sister and is hell-bent on killing you and me. Don’t you imagine that they’ve been watching us and know about Bert being laid up in this barn?”

“I suspect they might,” Longarm agreed.

“And don’t you think they’d kill Bert just out of spite?”

“Yeah. They’d do that all right. They might even come for him tonight.”

“Then we’ll have to take turns staying on guard tonight,” Shotgun Sallie said.

“I think you’re right about that.” Longarm looked around the musty old barn and his eyes landed on a pile of what appeared to be reasonably fresh grass hay. “That pile of horse grass looks almost as comfortable as my own bed,” he told her as he walked over to the pile, removed his hat, and stretched out on the grass.

“How is it?”

“Not bad,” he replied. “Not bad at all.”

She removed her own hat and lay down beside him, but Longarm noted that the woman was keeping her shotgun within reach. “This will do for tonight,” she agreed.

For a few minutes they lay side by side, listening to Bert’s labored breathing. Longarm wasn’t real optimistic that the old cowboy would survive a trip up into the Rockies, but he agreed that there was little choice but to take the risk. If Dr. Potter knew about their plans, he would be incredulous and flatly refuse to let Bert travel so far in a buckboard, but Longarm knew they’d be out of Denver before Potter got word of their absence.

“Custis?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to ask you something and I want a straight answer.

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