Longarm 397 : Longarm and the Doomed Beauty (9781101545973) by Tabor Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

the direction of the narrow-gauge rails and depot building.
    Still, Longarm saw no one except the shooters out and about. Obviously, the shacks weren’t abandoned, as smoke twisted from chimney pipes and horses and other stock milled in pens and corrals.
    Longarm urged the horse around privies and pens and finally pulled up near the rear of the large, unpainted frame building he’d figured to be a saloon and from the front of which the brunt of the gunfire issued, echoing around the near ridges. Behind a two-hole privy, he leaped down from the roan’s back. As he made his way toward the main drag, he saw three brightly dressed and feathered girls crouching behind the unpainted building fronting the privy.
    A man stood near the girls—a short gent in a pinstriped shirt, sleeve garters, and a green apron. He was casually smoking a cigar while the girls crouched anxiously, one sneaking a look around the rear of the building toward the front, where the guns were popping.
    Longarm approached the group. The man narrowed a skeptical gaze at him, puffing smoke around his stogie. One of the girls turned toward Longarm, then gasped and fell back against the building with a start. The other girls saw him, then, too, and they nearly leaped out of their high-heeled shoes and low-cut gowns and corsets as they cast fearful gazes at the imposing figure in the snuff-brown hat and three-piece suit, and holding the Winchester on his shoulder.
    Longarm touched two fingers to his mustached mouth, and dug his moon-and-star federal badge out of his vest pocket, holding it up for all to see. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Who’s flingin’ lead at who?”
    The man, who was obviously the bartender of the saloon behind which he and the girls had taken refuge from the dustup, removed the stogie from his mouth, and said, “Younger’s boys are flingin’ lead at the hotel and that Pritchard gal and Marshal Scobie.”
    â€œFigured as much,” Longarm said as he pinned his badge on his vest. “How long the lead been flyin’?”
    â€œâ€™Bout a half hour. Haven’t heard much shootin’ from the hotel, though. Might be that old Scobie finally bought it.” The barman scowled in disgust. “I told ’em they shouldn’t hold the trial up here. Not without enough lawmen to keep that girl from gettin’ perforated.” His scowl deepened. “Where the hell you been? I hope you ain’t alone !”
    â€œHow many of the Younger gang are out there?”
    â€œJust three,” said one of the girls—a pale, green-eyed redhead. She looked scared as she huddled low against the saloon’s rear wall. “But there’s plenty more where they came from just down the canyon at Miss Barbara’s place.”
    â€œJust three, huh?”
    â€œThree of the worst of Babe’s whole gang,” warned the barman, grumpily puffing his stogie. “Damn near wrecked my place this mornin’, before they started pepperin’ the hotel with their pistols and rifles and howlin’ like banshees, scarin’ the whole damn town into heart strokes! Me—I been to the dance before. But the hoopleheads around here like things quiet !”
    â€œYeah—me, too.” Longarm lowered his rifle and peered around the saloon toward the main street. “You all just stay here, mum as church mice. I’ll go see if I can’t quiet things down a bit.”
    He stole out from behind the saloon and headed through the break between the saloon and another building toward the thundering guns at the front.

Chapter 6
    As Longarm made his way up along the saloon’s east wall, a man shouted from ahead, directing his voice toward the hotel on the other side of the main thoroughfare.
    â€œHey, Scobie. I got me a feelin’ you’re outta bullets, old fella!” The man gave a wild, coyote howl. “You wanna throw that little bitch outta there