Her hand came up and boldly caressed his groin as she laughed and said, “Hold on where? Here?”
Longarm gritted his teeth together and tried to tell both his brain and his body that this wasn’t a good idea. The way Helene was toying with him, he wasn’t going to be able to think of anything in a minute. He reached down, took hold of her wrist, and moved it away, despite the fact that it was a difficult thing for him to do. It took a great deal of willpower.
“Now look here, ma’am-“
“Helene! You said you’d call me Helene.”
“Ma’am,” he insisted, “you’re a married woman. If that ain’t enough, your husband is right up the hill there, and he’s an English lord at that.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Custis,” she said as she tried to grope him again and he fended her off. “What’s your point—no, wait, I think I’ve found it.”
Longarm cussed under his breath and disengaged her hand again as firmly as he could without hurting her. “I’m no prude,” he told her, “and I reckon I’ve had a few married ladies in my bed at one time or another, but this just ain’t right. You’d better let me go on back to Cottonwood Springs whilst you go back to your husband, ma’am.”
Abruptly, she pulled loose from his grip and moved away a step. “You are a most exasperating man!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you find me attractive?”
“I sure do,” he replied honestly, “but that’s got nothing to do with it.”
Helene laughed again, and the sound was full of scorn. “My God,” she said. “John comes here hunting for some mythical beast, and I find something I thought was equally fanciful: a moral man.”
“Most folks wouldn’t call me that,” Longarm said, also honestly.
“Yes, but they’d be wrong. They just don’t know you well enough. Tell me, Custis, what would you be doing right if I wasn’t married?”
Longarm took a deep breath. “Well, ma’am, I reckon I’d have that pretty gown of yours up around your hips and we’d be getting a whole heap better acquainted, if you get my drift.”
She laughed again, but this time she sounded genuinely amused. “Indeed I do get your drift, Marshal Long.” She sighed. “But I fear that’s all I’ll be getting from you tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am, I expect that’s true.”
“All right. Go on back to Cottonwood Springs. I know when I’m wasting my time.” Helene hesitated, then added, “But I warn you, Custis … I regard you now as a challenge. And I have always adored challenges.”
Longarm didn’t like the sound of that at all, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He tugged on the brim of his hat one more time and backed quickly out of the trees. “Good night, ma’am.”
“Good night, Marshal.”
He started walking toward the barns again, puffing out his cheeks and then blowing out the air in a sigh of relief as he went. That had been a close call. Chances were, nothing would have happened if he had gone ahead and given Lady Beechmuir what she wanted. But he was damned if he wanted to go monster-hunting the next morning with a man he had cuckolded the night before. Especially since Lord Beechmuir would probably be carrying one of those big old elephant guns …
Something made Longarm pause suddenly and look over his shoulder. He thought he caught a glimpse of movement on the hill between the trees and the house. It might have been Helene going back in, he thought.
Or it might have been something else, and he wondered where that slippery-footed servant Ghote was right about now. Could the fellow have been spying on his mistress and seen and overheard what had happened in the grove? Longarm didn’t much like that thought, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He walked on quickly toward the barn, anxious to put the Rocking T behind him for the time being.
Longarm had told Benjamin Thorp that he wanted to get some sleep, but he wasn’t really tired enough to go up to his hotel room when he got back to Cottonwood Springs. The sound of piano music floating past the batwing doors of the town’s only good-sized saloon drew his attention, and Longarm realized that what he really wanted was a drink of good rye whiskey and maybe a hand or two of cards in a friendly poker game. That would relax him enough so he could get a good night’s sleep. He angled the Appaloosa toward the saloon, which was just up the block from the hotel.
The only trouble with his plan was that all hell broke loose before he got where he was going.
A scream suddenly overrode the strains of the piano, and a man hurtled out through the batwings to sprawl limply in the street in front of Longarm. There was a sound like a mountain lion’s howl inside the saloon, and it took Longarm a second to realize that the awful screech had come from the throat of a human being. Shouted curses and more screams filled the air, followed by the crashing of furniture and the unmistakable thud of fists against flesh.
Longarm reined in the horse and thought for a moment about turning around and going back to the hotel. He had seen probably a hundred saloon brawls in his time, and had participated in too damned many of them. With any luck, Mal Burley would be along pretty soon to break this one up before it got too serious.
But then a gun went off a couple of times inside the saloon and the screaming got worse. Longarm bit back a curse and sent the Appaloosa forward again. He had carried a badge for too blasted long to start turning his back on trouble now.
Longarm had heard only two shots, but there was no telling if that was a good sign or not. He swung down from the saddle, paused just long enough to loop the Appaloosa’s reins around the hitch rack alongside a dozen other horses, then stepped up onto the saloon’s porch with one stride of his long legs. His right hand reached across his body to make sure his Colt was loose in its holster before he slapped the batwings aside and stepped into the melee.
The first thing Longarm saw was a chair flying through the air at his head. He ducked frantically. The chair missed him and smashed into the batwings behind him, tearing one of the swinging doors loose from its hinges. Longarm heard that hideous howl again, and then a deep voice bellowed out over the confusion, “I’m Catamount Jack, and I’m a ring-tailed wonder!” The man the voice belonged to threw back his head and howled again.
Longarm could see that because the man stood taller than any of the knot of struggling figures around him. As
