“Nope. Ain’t finished hereabouts. Oh, I could hide out for a day or so, but it’d make my job tedious, and in the end, he’d likely catch up with me when I wasn’t set for a showdown. I think it’s best we get it over with as soon as possible.”
He led her inside and started piling furniture against the wall facing the agency next door, saying, “I hope he doesn’t just start shooting through the wall when Nan tells him I’m in here, but you never know. When we see him coming, I want you flat on the floor behind this stuff.”
“Oh, my God, I don’t believe this is happening! I must be having a bad dream! You can’t mean it, Longarm! You can’t just ambush that poor boy like this!”
“Miss Prudence,” he said, laying a firm hand on her shoulder, “I ain’t all that happy about it myself. You do as I say and I’ll do what I have to. He’ll be coming back before the sun sinks enough to matter.”
Longarm was right. It was an hour before sunset when Calvin Durler rode in at a lope, his pony lathered and his face red with rage. He swung out of the saddle with a double-barreled shotgun in his free hand and ran into his own house, shouting.
A few minutes later he was out the back door again and headed next door, yelling, “I know you’re in there, you son of a bitch! Come out and fight like a man!”
There was no answer. Calvin strode, grim-faced, toward the back porch entrance, all caution thrown to the winds as he searched for the man his wife had accused. He stopped a few paces from the roof overhang and called again, “don’t hide behind a woman’s skirts, you bastard! If you won’t come out, I’m coming in! Defend yourself, sir!”
And then a loop of throw-rope dropped around his head and shoulders, snapping tight to pin the enraged husband’s elbows to his sides as Longarm, standing on the roof above, yanked hard.
Durler was lifted off his feet, sputtering in surprised confusion, as Longarm ran the length of the eaves and spilled Durler on one side. Then he dropped to the ground, still pulling the rope. He dragged Durler, kicking and screaming, away from his fallen shotgun, then came in hand-over-hand down the rope, and as Durler struggled to rise, kicked him flat, jumped on top of him, and proceeded to hogtie him with the pigging string he’d been gripping between his teeth.
The back door flew open and Prudence Lee flew out, shouting, “Don’t hurt him, Longarm! It wasn’t his fault!”
Longarm finished binding his victim securely before he looked up with a grin, and still kneeling on Durler’s thrashing body, he said, “I told you I’d try to take him without gunplay, ma’am.”
The other back door opened and Nan Durler peered out, looking almost as confused as her husband. Longarm slapped Durler a couple of times to gain his undivided attention before he said calmly, “She wasn’t expecting to have to repeat her fool story to both of us, Cal. Let’s see if she was trying to get you or me out of the way, huh?”
He called out amiably, “Which one did you think it would be, Nan? I know you were pissed at me, but on the other hand, you likely figured I could take your man. I know divorce is frowned on, but wouldn’t it have been more Christian?”
Nan ducked inside without answering, but her husband grunted, “Get off my back, God damn you! You’re killing me!”
“Not as dead as she figured I would be. What in thunder’s wrong with you, old son? Even if you bought that fool tale she must have told you, did you really think you had a chance against me? Meaning no offense, the last time I rode through Dodge, Ben Thompson and John Wesley Hardin both stayed out of MY way.”
“You just untie me and let me at a gun, you son of a bitch, and we’ll just see how good you are!”
“I know how good I am, Cal,” Longarm said calmly. “Likely your wife does, too. I don’t aim to let you up till you’ve had time to reconsider a mite. You’ve been fighting with her for days. Ordinarily, I don’t ask what married folks are fighting over, but she’s been talking about leaving you, hasn’t she?”
There was a long silence before Durler said grudgingly, “That’s between me and her. She said you trifled with her while my back was turned, God damn you!”
“Well, she’s a handsome woman and I’m no saint, so I can see how you might have been fool enough to buy that shit. But you missed a point or two. If I’d been at her while you were out tending your chores, don’t you suspicion she’d have sort of wanted to keep it a secret? Most gals do. How’d she get you so riled? Did she say I had a bigger prick?”
“You bastard! How did you know that?”
“I’m a lawman. This ain’t the first time I’ve ran across such action, though I’ve usually been the arresting officer. Ain’t it a bitch how gals get us poor idiots to fight with that old taunt about our peckers? I don’t care if you believe this or not, but Nan ain’t in a position to say all that much about my anatomy. She only saw me once in my birthday suit and it wasn’t up enough to mention.”
From the sidelines, Prudence Lee gasped, “Mr. Long! I’ll thank you to remember I’m a lady!”
“Can’t be helped, ma’am. This is man talk. You’d best go inside if it’s too rich for your ears.”
She didn’t move. Interested in spite of himself, Calvin Durler asked, “She saw you naked? When was this?”
“When she came in on me as I was taking a bath. She likely meant to scrub my back or something.”
“She told me you’d had her in our own bed. She said she’d tried to resist, but you were so strong and she was so weak, her flesh betrayed her into going all the way.”
“Sure, she told you that,” Longarm said. “Next to being told the other man is bigger and better, nothing steams a man like hearing it took place in his own bed. She didn’t miss a trick, did she?”
“God damn it, she must have been telling me the truth! How could any woman admit to such a thing if it wasn’t true?”
“To get her husband killed, most likely. Just think a mite, damn it. Even if I was fool enough to trifle with a man’s wife under his own roof with miles of open country all about, why would I take even more of a chance than I had to? Hell, you’ve given me a guest room with a lock on the door, old son! Don’t you think I’d have sense enough
