Longarm and the Arapaho Hellcats by Tabor Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

Oklahoma. If the hotel was any indication of prosperity, he’d heard right.
    Intending to check on the women as well as McIntyre, Longarm took the broad porch steps three at a time. He stopped on the porch as Mrs. Schimpelfinnig came out, cheeks flushed crimson, eyes wide as saucers. Her big picture hat was nearly hanging down one side of her head, causing what appeared a landslide of hair, pins, and small barrettes.
    â€œMarshal!” the old woman intoned. “Cynthia!”
    Longarm’s heart thudded. “What about her?”
    â€œShe rented a horse from the livery barn and rode off after Miss Summerville and those . . . those . . . 
kidnapping savages
!”

Chapter 6
    Longarm’s jaw hung to his chest as he gaped at Aunt Beatrice.
“Huh?”
    â€œShe said she was going to pick up their trail and wait for you! Oh, the silly girl! I ordered her not to! I begged her! I pleaded! I am her aunt and her chaperone, after all!” Mrs. Schimpelfinnig stomped a foot and shook a fist in frustration. “I said, ‘Cynthia, you must listen to me!’ She merely kissed my cheek and ran off in her riding clothes. I even saw her dropping a ­pistol—­
a pistol!
—into her satchel!”
    â€œWhere’s my gear?” Longarm meant his rifle and saddlebags. He hadn’t brought his McClellan saddle, which he usually hauled with him wherever he went, because he hadn’t been expecting to ride in anything but the Larimer carriage.
    Pressing a hand to her chest and staring south along the side street, Mrs. Schimpelfinnig said in a thin, quaking voice, “Cynthia secured a room for you. We had your gear stowed in there. Room nineteen, I believe. The key’s at the front desk.”
    â€œChrist!” Longarm brushed past the woman and into the lobby.
    He quickly picked up his key at the front desk, pausing to inquire with the elegant clerk in a black suit and foulard tie about the sheriff’s condition. The man only shrugged and said the doctor was tending McIntyre in the sheriff’s room.
    Longarm cursed under his breath and ran up to his room. His mind was swirling. He couldn’t believe that Cynthia had ridden off after that passel of cutthroats led by the notorious killer and bank robber Colt Drummond. But then, knowing Cynthia and how headstrong she was and how worried she’d been about her friend, Casey Summerville, the realization that Mrs. Schimpelfinnig hadn’t been spouting gibberish hit Longarm like a rock to the forehead.
    She said she’d wait when she’d picked up their trail. Longarm had a hard time believing that Cynthia could wait for anything. Once she got on the killers’ trail, she was liable to keep riding until she’d ridden right up on them.
    Or suppose Drummond had held some men back along the trail to wipe out a possible posse? Cynthia, like her friend Casey, would fall right ­smack-­dab into Drummond’s hands!
    Longarm dug into one of his saddlebag pouches and took a pull from his bottle of Tom Moore Maryland Rye, calming himself down a little to figure out a plan. Like Cynthia, he’d have to rent a horse from the barn across the road. He opened his old nickeled railroad turnip. The Ingersoll announced it was nearly four o’clock. He had about two hours of good light left, which meant he had to run Cynthia down as fast as possible.
    He took another pull from the bottle of rye, then corked it and returned it to his saddlebags. From the opposite pouch, he withdrew his canteen and filled it from the pitcher on the ­well-­appointed room’s washstand. He donned his frock coat, slung the canteen over his shoulder, picked up his rifle and saddlebags, and headed back downstairs to the broad, dim lobby.
    Mrs. Schimpelfennig was pacing the lobby like a horse at the head of an approaching storm, holding a lacy white handkerchief up close to her mouth to catch her sniffs and