LONGARM AND THE BRAZOS DEVIL
By Tabor Evans
Jove Books New York Copyright (C) 1996 by Jove Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 0-515-11828-1
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A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
Printing history Jove edition / March 1996
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
DON’T MISS THESE ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith.
LONGARM by Tabor Evans The popular long-running series about U.S. Deputy Marshal Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.
SLOCUM by Jake Logan Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
McMASTERS by Lee Morgan The blazing new series from the creators of Longarm. When McMasters shoots, he shoots to kill. To his enemies, he is the most dangerous man they have ever known.
Chapter 1
Clods of dirt hitting him in the back of the head woke Longarm up. He tasted dirt in his mouth too, and it took an effort on his part not to gag and spit it out. He didn’t want Lloyd and Rainey to know he was conscious again, not until he was sure what was going on, anyway. Longarm already had a pretty good idea.
He figured he was lying facedown in the grave the two polecats had made him dig, and that dirt pattering down around him meant they were filling up the hole.
They were burying him alive.
Longarm repressed a shudder at the thought. His theory was confirmed a moment later when a harsh but familiar voice said from somewhere above him, “Hell, Mitch, I thought sure he’d wake up by now. How hard did you hit him with that shovel anyway?”
“Not hard enough to kill him,” Mitch Rainey replied. Another shovelful of dirt thudded down on Longarm’s back this time.
“It’d be a lot more fun if he knew we were puttin’ him in the ground like this. Reckon if he wakes up in time he’ll start screamin’ and beggin’ for his life?”
“I doubt it, Jimmy. He said his name was Long, so I figure he’s the one they call Longarm. He’s got quite a rep.”
Longarm heard a spitting sound. Jimmy Lloyd said, “Shoot, he didn’t look so high-an’-mighty to me, not the way we got the drop on him and made the poor bastard dig his own grave ‘fore you clouted him.”
More dirt hit Longarm in the back of the head.
“We were lucky,” Mitch said. “If he hadn’t been so sick, we wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him like that.”
That was damn sure true, Longarm thought bitterly. If he hadn’t eaten that bad beef last night over at Pickettville, none of this would have happened. If he hadn’t been on his hands and knees puking his guts out, a couple of two-bit owlhoots like Rainey and Lloyd would never have gotten within a hundred yards of him without him being aware of it. Longarm didn’t know what tasted worse in his mouth: Texas dirt, leftover vomit—or failure.
But he wasn’t dead yet, he reminded himself … just half-buried.
The dirt was piling up around his head and shoulders and torso, filling the narrow gaps between his body and the sides of the rough grave. Longarm lifted his head a fraction of an inch, not enough to be noticed by the two killers standing above him. That allowed him to breathe a little easier, although the air was still dense with the smell of damp earth. He had fallen with his right arm underneath him when Rainey belted him from behind with a shovel, which was as close to a lucky break as he was likely to get. He could move his hand a little without Rainey and Lloyd seeing what he was doing.
Trouble was, that hand and arm were more than half numb from the weight of his body lying on them. He couldn’t be certain his muscles were going to do what he wanted when he called on them for action. He flexed his fingers against his belly, trying to work some feeling back into them.
He had heard the two outlaws coming earlier, but not in time to do much more than straighten up from his undignified position. Lloyd had rammed the muzzle of a Winchester into his back and Rainey had grabbed his arm, then reached over and plucked Longarm’s .44 from its cross-draw rig. Hauled unceremoniously to his feet, Longarm had had no choice but to go along with the two outlaws for the moment, in hopes of finding an opportunity to turn the tables on them.
The opportunity hadn’t come. Rainey and Lloyd might not be any great shakes as outlaws, but they were careful. They had both stood well back and covered him with their rifles while they forced him to dig a hole with one of their shovels. They had laughed and hooted at him while they discussed what they were going to do to the no-good law-dog they had captured. Longarm had seethed, but that had been all he could do. Then, while Lloyd kept jabbering, Rainey had come up behind Longarm with the extra shovel and whacked him a good one on the back of the head. He was lucky the blow hadn’t caved in his skull, Longarm knew. But as Rainey had just admitted, he hadn’t intended to kill the deputy United States marshal. He and his companion wanted Longarm alive so that they could savor his death.
They had made a mistake, though. They had gotten his handgun, but they didn’t know about the little two-shot derringer attached to his watch chain and hidden inside his vest. The derringer around which Longarm’s fingers had just closed.
Cautiously, he worked the weapon free from the pocket of his vest and tightened his grip on it. Pins and needles shot up and down his arm, but at least he could feel something again in that extremity. He would have a chance—maybe not a fair shake, but at least a chance—and that was all he had ever asked for in life since he had left West-by-God Virginia all those years ago.
“Don’t cover up his head all the way,” Lloyd said with a cackle of laughter. “I still want him to wake up. Put some dirt on his feet instead.”
No point in postponing things any longer, Longarm decided. He was as ready as he was going to be. He flipped over as fast as he could in the narrow grave and said, “I’m alive, Jimmy.” His fist came up out of the loose dirt with the derringer clutched in it. He hoped like blazes that all the grit hadn’t fouled the firing mechanism.
The scene above him was imprinted on his brain in an instant. Jimmy Lloyd stood to his left, holding the Winchester loosely as he gaped down open-mouthed at Longarm. Mitch Rainey was to the right, the shovel he had been using to throw dirt on Longarm still gripped in both of his hands. The derringer gave a spiteful little crack as it sent a bullet through the open mouth of Lloyd. The outlaw was thrown backward as the slug bored up through his brain and burst out the back of his skull.
“Shit!” Mitch Rainey yelled as he flung the shovel aside wildly and grabbed for the pistol holstered on his hip. However, Longarm had tracked the derringer to the right by the time Rainey’s fingers slapped the butt of his Colt. The little weapon spat its second lead pellet.
Longarm was aiming at Rainey’s balls. That seemed to be a good target from his angle, and the shot would have sure as hell put the outlaw on the ground if it had gone home. Instead, though, Rainey’s contortions as he struggled to draw his gun turned his body just enough so that Longarm’s bullet merely clipped him on the outside of the right hip. Rainey staggered back, yelling in pain.