Longarm and the Horse Thief's Daughter (13 page)

They lay in bed, the two of them twined together on a mattress meant for only one. Longarm did not know about Kat, but he was damn near exhausted. The woman was vigorous in the sack, he had to give her that. She climaxed four times to his one and would have happily gone for more if Longarm had only asked.

“So tell me what brings you to this distant part of the landscape, Custis Long?” she asked, her lips tickling his chest hair when she spoke.

“Well, first off, I'm a deputy U.S. marshal. And I'm up here hoping to find out what happened to a girl that was kidnapped somewhere hereabouts.”

“Really?” She began licking his left nipple.

He told her. About Frank and Jane Nellis and about their missing daughter, Sybil.

While he was talking, Kat was licking her way across his chest, down his belly, and onto his cock.

Longarm's pecker began to rise to the occasion. He was fairly sure he could make it one more time before he collapsed in utter exhaustion.

Kat lifted her head, spittle glistening on her lower lip. She said, “Did you say Sybil?”

“I did,” he grunted.

She shook her head. “That isn't a very common name.”

“No, it isn't.” He wished she would get back to what she had been doing, running her tongue around and around the head of his prick.

“There is a girl two drainages over. Her name is Sybil. She and her man and his two friends. They are newcomers up here. Only been there a month or so.”

Longarm sat upright, dislodging Kat. She nearly fell off the bed. Did fall off him.

His erection faded and he jumped up off the bed completely. He began pulling on his clothes.

“Where are you going?” Kat asked. She sounded disappointed.

“That could be them, Kat. The bunch I'm after. That could be them over there. I have to go at least find out.” He stamped into his boots and pulled his gunbelt around his middle. “You got to tell me how to get there.”

“Is that more important than . . . Oh, of course it is,” she said. She got up, naked as a pile of bones, and headed for the stove. “At least I can send you off with something warm in your belly.” She smiled. “If you can stand my cooking one more time, that is.”

“I'll just grab some o' those leftover flannel cakes and go,” he said. He did not mention that he only wanted to make her feel that she had helped. Those pancakes would find some hungry birds somewhere along the trail.

Longarm dressed quickly, went out and saddled the mare and loaded the burro, then led them up close to the cabin. Kat came out, still bare-ass naked, and gave him a sloppy wet kiss good-bye.

“You're welcome here anytime, Custis Long.”

He pinched her nipple, then turned to the mare. “Two drainages, you said?”

“That's right. Due west from here. Sybil's place is on a bench above a dry creek bed. Look for the smoke from her fire to guide you in.” Kat laughed. “I ate lunch there just four days ago. The child is an even worse cook than I am.”

Longarm kissed the woman again, then swung into the saddle.

There could not possibly be more than one girl named Sybil running around the mountains up here, he thought. This had to be the outfit he was looking for.

It took him that day and half of the next, but he found what he was sure had to be Frank Nellis's diggings. It was, like Kat had said, on a bench lying above a stream and consisted of a tent and a hole being dug into the side of the mountain.

“Hello,” Longarm called from a good distance out. “Is anybody there? Hello?”

A girl with long, unkempt hair came out of the tent. She looked like she had been napping in there. She wore a shapeless shift that looked more like a slip than a dress. If this indeed was Sybil Nellis, she was sixteen years old, but she looked more like fourteen.

“Hello,” Longarm said, approaching her. “I haven't had a soul t' talk to for days. I wonder, could I buy a meal from you? I can pay.”

“Cash money?” a man's voice called from inside the hole in the ground.

“Cash money,” Longarm affirmed, stepping down from the mare without waiting for an invitation. “I can pay you a dollar.”

The man stepped out of his adit and said, “Let's see your money then.”

Longarm smiled. He found a silver dollar in his pockets, walked over to the diggings, and handed the coin to the man, who then leaned to the side and called out, “Give him something to eat, Sybil.”

“Sybil, huh? Unusual name.”

The fellow ignored that, so Longarm added, “Is she your daughter?”

That brought the man's head snapping around toward Longarm again. “She's my woman, and don't you be messing with her.”

“Whoa. No offense intended,” Longarm said. “I was just makin' conversation.”

“We don't need no conversation. You paid for a meal, not to talk.”

“Of course,” Longarm said. “My name, by the way, is Long, Custis Long.” He held a hand out in an offer to shake. The man ignored it.

Longarm smiled anyway. He led his animals down to the creek and allowed them to drink, then tied them to some nearby brush and went back up to the tent where Sybil—he was convinced she had to be Sybil Nellis, but he had no proof of it—was frying some pan bread over a folding sheepherder stove.

He hunkered down close to where she was working and took out a cheroot. He nipped the twist off, struck a match, and lighted the cigar. Exhaling a puff of smoke, he said, “Sybil, huh? Nice name. What is you folks' last name?”

She looked at him. She had a small, pouty, little girl mouth and bushy eyebrows. “Are you always this nosy?”

Longarm smiled. “Matter o' fact, I am. I'm just curious about most everything. That's what brings me out into these hills. Curiosity, that's what. So what is y'all's last name, anyhow?”

“Not that it is any of your business, but my name is Nellis. My man in there is Harry Carver.”

And there it was. Nellis. Out of her own mouth, it was confirmed.

Longarm glanced around to make sure none of the three men had come out of their diggings. He lowered his voice and said, “Your mother sent me, Sybil. I'm here to rescue you from those fellas.”

She stood upright, forgetting her pan bread. “You . . . Is that the truth? My mother sent you to get me away from Harry?”

Longarm nodded. “It's true, girl. Now, gather up anything you want to bring with you. I'm taking you to your mama, and I'm promising you that those men that kidnapped you won't bother you no more.”

Sybil Nellis took a step forward. Then she drew in a deep breath. And just as loudly as she could she screamed, “Harry! Come quick. This man is the law.”

Harry and two others, all of them blond—and big—came boiling out of the mouth of the diggings.

They were carrying sledgehammers and looked like they intended to use them.

Longarm threw himself backward. He lost his footing and went tumbling end over asshole down the slope toward the creek and his animals.

He hit the creek with a splash and came onto hands and knees shivering—the damned water was ice cold—then crawled out before the men could come down with those hammers. A sledgehammer applied to the skull, or to any part of the body for that matter, could ruin a man's whole day.

If appearances were anything to go by, those three up there on the bench were brothers. They all looked very much alike. And they all looked thoroughly pissed off.

Longarm came up with his .45 in hand.

“Stop right there,” he barked.

The rear two stopped. The first man who had come out, the one Longarm took to be Harry, was too angry to have any sense left in his head. Assuming he had had some in there to begin with.

That one kept coming, sledgehammer upraised ready to strike. Ready to crush Longarm's skull if he allowed Harry to get that close.

“Stop, I'm tellin' you.”

It was breath wasted. Harry charged down the slope with blood in his eye.

And soon enough with blood all over his face. Longarm shot him. The heavy slug took him just to the side of the bridge of his nose. Harry's face crumpled inward on itself, and his body no longer had anyone up there controlling it.

He fell in a tangle of arms and legs, the sledgehammer flying off to the side, and his lifeless body slid down into the water.

The other two spun on their heels and ran back inside their hole in the ground.

Sybil stood staring down at the man who had taken her.

Before the girl had time enough to gather her wits, Longarm ran up the slope and onto the bench and grabbed her by the wrist to keep her from running away.

“It's all right now,” Longarm said, trying to soothe her. “He can't hurt you now. You're all right. Come with me, Sybil. I'll take you to your mama.”

Instead of acquiescing, Sybil Nellis began slamming her fists against Longarm's chest and trying to kick him in the shins.

“You bastard, you. You killed Harry. You killed my man.”

“Let me go, you big ape.” Sybil continued to try to hit Longarm, battering his chest with her fists and stomping on his toes.

Finally he had had enough of her shit. He slapped her—hard, across the face—then turned her around and spanked her butt.

While he was so thoroughly occupied with Sybil, he was watching over her shoulder to see if the other brothers were going to come out after him, perhaps this time with guns.

“Settle down, damn you,” he snapped at her. “What's the matter with you? Don't you
want
to be rescued?”

“No, you stupid shit. I wasn't kidnapped to begin with. Harry is my man. Was, I mean. We were going to be married someday. When we struck it rich,” she bawled.

“What about your father and mother?” Longarm asked.

“Well what about them? My mother, the bitch, ran away. My father,” she shrugged, “it wasn't Harry's fault what happened to my father.”

“Do you mean you were with these bastards of your own free will?” Longarm said.

“Of course I was. Harry loved me. Really loved me. Oh, my parents used the word a lot, but they didn't know what love is, neither one of them. I'm surprised I was able to get born. I mean, I know my parents must have done it, but I can't imagine them doing that.”

Longarm snorted. No kids, it seemed, could imagine their father in the saddle, rutting there between their mother's legs. It was something most kids could not visualize, did not
want
to see in their mind's eye.

Hell, Longarm himself could not imagine his father pounding his mother's belly like that, never mind that he knew it had to have been done.

Sybil Nellis was no different from anyone else in that regard.

But the little bitch's tiny fists felt hard as stones, and she kept on throwing them.

“Will you please calm down?” he said. He tried to be patient with her, but it was not easy. “Tell me what happened to your parents.”

“Harry and Ross and George didn't mean anything by it. They just thought it would be fun to make like, um, like they were kidnapping me. But they really didn't. I mean, I wanted to come with them. Then we could all live off the land. You know, like the Indians used to do.”

Longarm had heard bullshit stories before in his day. This, he thought, was one of them. “So how'd your father come to be dead and your mother scared half to death?”

“That was just . . . like an accident, sort of. My father came out of the tent all mad and giving orders like he always did, except Harry and the fellows didn't have to take his orders, and he snapped at them and so . . . and so they shot him.”

“Which one did?” Longarm asked.

“All of them.”

“And your mother?”

Sybil shrugged. “She ran away.”

“Where are their guns now?” he asked.

The girl shrugged again.

“In there?” He hooked a thumb toward the entrance to their diggings.

At least the girl had settled down for the moment. But Longarm still kept his left hand clamped firmly around her wrist. And his eyes locked just as firmly on that hole where the brothers had disappeared.

“What did you do with your father's body?” he asked. He had not seen any signs of a grave anywhere near.

Another shrug. “They pitched him in the creek. I mean, it wasn't like he cared anymore. He floated downstream. I don't know what happened to it after that.”

To “it” she had said, not “him.” The faithless little bitch did not even care that much about her own father.

Some children, Longarm thought, should be drowned at birth. This was one of them.

“Let's go, Sybil,” he said, tugging at her wrist.

“I'm not going anywhere with you. I'm staying right here with the boys. They'll take care of me.”

“You are going with me to—”

He did not have time to finish the sentence, because the remaining two Carver brothers chose that moment to come out into the sunlight again.

Except this time the sledgehammers had been left inside, and they had rifles in their hands.

Longarm dragged Sybil down out of the line of fire and dropped to the ground beside her.

Both brothers fired, their bullets sizzling over Longarm's head.

He already had his Colt in hand. It spat twice, then twice more. The brother on the left fell sprawling onto the rocky ledge of the diggings he had stolen from Frank Nellis. The brother on the right—Longarm had no idea which of them was which and at the moment did not really care—staggered but came on.

Longarm triggered his .45 again.

And got a metallic click in response. His five shots were gone, and he did not have time to reload. He let go of Sybil and sprang toward Carver, startling the man into a wild shot that did not even come close enough for Longarm to hear the bullet's passage.

Before the man had time to crank the lever and seat a fresh cartridge, Longarm was on him.

He wrenched the Winchester out of the man's hands and swung the rifle like a club. It caught Carver under the ear and knocked him off his feet.

He still had fight in him. He tried to come at Longarm, driving up from his knees, only to be met by the butt of the Winchester. The wood of the stock splintered from the force of the impact. The blow probably broke Carver's jaw, but Longarm did not take time to investigate the damage that had been done.

He turned the rifle around, levered a cartridge into the chamber, and at point-blank range fired a .44-40 slug into Carver's chest. Then another just to be sure.

Finally he dropped the rifle and turned back to Sybil, who was making a run for the picket line where they had tied their horses and the mules that had belonged to her parents.

Longarm ran slipping and sliding down to the horses. He reached them at the same time as Sybil and once again grabbed for her.

The girl turned on him with a knife in her hand. Whether she had had it with her to begin with or snatched it up as she started to run he would never know.

He defended himself, acting virtually on instinct, grabbing her wrist and turning it back away from his body.

And into hers.

The knife jabbed deep into Sybil Nellis's belly.

Longarm had not intended any such thing, but the simple truth was that he did not regret it. It had been her life or his, and to his mind there was no conflict there. He had done what he had to do. The girl was responsible for her own actions, to live or to die by them.

In this instance, it was to die.

She did, however, die slowly and in agony. Longarm placed her on the mat she had shared with Harry Carver and sat with her for three days and two nights before she finally expired.

And good riddance to her was his private thought. Not that he would ever say that to the girl's mother, but it was true.

When she was gone, he buried her—a small gesture she had denied her own father—close to the creek-side graves of the Carver boys, and planted a small marker to serve for all three of them.

Then he gathered up all the livestock and took them back to visit with Katherine Jennings for a few days.

He needed the rest, he told himself. After all, he was on vacation here.

Besides, maybe Kat could use some of the spare animals to haul supplies in while she studied the wildlife up here. Any she did not want to keep she could sell to help finance her dissertation.

The mare and burro had to be returned to Silver Plume, of course. He would deal with Jane Nellis then. Although just exactly what he would tell her . . . He could come up with something before the time came. Something other than the truth, of course, but something.

In the meantime . . . he smiled, thinking of Katherine and her wild, wicked ways. Who knew that not all academics were stuffy creatures, eh?