Longarm and the Shotgun Man by Tabor Evans

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

Chapter 11

In the side shed off Hawk Ridge Station’s main barn, Longarm snapped his eyes open.

He was sleeping out here to be close to—and alone with—the bullion-bearing strongbox that he and Anderson had stowed under the side shed room’s lone cot. There being no safe on the premises, they figured the gold would be safer here than in the house, where any would-be night-attacking thieves would look for it first.

Longarm lifted his head from the cot’s musty pillow and reached for the double-barreled coach gun. He’d heard something in the main barn—a faint rasping sound, like that of a slowly opening door. Dropping his bare feet to the floor, he looked around the unfamiliar room to get his bearings. Milky moonlight angled through the room’s single window, directly across the room from the cot. He could see the narrow door to his right, in the same wall the cot abutted, about eight feet away.

There was a sharp click as someone tripped the door’s leather and steel latch.

Longarm bounded to his feet and tiptoed over behind the door as its hinges began to groan. In the moonlight, he watched the plank door move slowly toward him. Straw and grit crunched as the person behind the door stole into the room. Longarm aimed the gut shredder’s double barrels on the silhouetted figure, earing both hammers back.

They clicked loudly in the room’s dense silence.

Longarm said, “Stop right there less’n you want me to open a hole in your back big enough to run a train through.”

He’d no sooner said it before the moonlight fell over thick blond hair and, swinging toward him, Rye Spurlock said, “Don’t shoot, Gus—it’s me, Rye!”

Longarm shouldered the door closed and lowered the shotgun. “Goddamn it, Miss Rye—you’re gonna be the death of me yet,” he complained. “I told you to stay inside. What the hell you doin’ out here anyways?”

“That big half-breed, Tommy-John, was givin’ me the eye all night. I was just sittin’ downstairs in front of the fire, mindin’ my own business and darnin’ a sock while the other men played cards, and he wouldn’t take his eyes off my titties. I’m afraid of him, Gus, and I can’t sleep!”

“Hell, Johnny’ll protect you from Tommy-John.”

“Ha! Him and them two old codgers are up there sawin’ wood so loud they’re like to wake the dead! I don’t know how Mrs. Fridley and Miss Willa can stand it!”

“Ah, shit. I suppose you’re wantin’ to sleep out here.”

Rye stepped toward him and began fiddling with the open buttons on the V neck of his wash-worn longhandles. “Would you mind?”

Longarm cursed under his breath. It was going to be damn hard to get any sleep with Rye out here in all her comely, sexy beauty. And to be wide awake on the trail tomorrow necessitated a good night’s rest. But he knew when he was beaten.

“All right, all right.” Longarm gestured at the cot. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks, Gus.”

“Don’t mention it.”

When Rye had undressed down to her underwear and slipped under the cot’s two wool blankets, Longarm looked at her for a moment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.