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 to use it for my wicked seductions, if such was my intention?”
Durler said, “She told me you caught her in our room, making the bed, and-“
“Damn it, she makes all the beds at the same time,” Longarm interrupted. “Besides that, if I was some sort of mad rapist, Miss Prudence, here, has been all alone at my mercy without a husband to protect her. Ain’t that right, Miss Prudence?”
The missionary blushed and stammered, “What are you saying? We’ve never been improper together!”
“There you go, Cal, and meaning no disrespect to your woman, this single gal, here, is no uglier. Well, never mind. The point I’m aiming at is that I’d be too foolish to be let out without a keeper if I’d been fooling with a married-up woman under her own roof with a good-looking single gal alone next door.”
Prudence Lee added, “I can assure you, Calvin, Mr. Long has been a perfect gentleman the times we’ve been alone, and come to think of it, he’s been alone with me more often than with Nan.”
Longarm asked, “Can I let you up now, Cal?”
“Well, maybe I won’t shoot anybody just yet, but I’ve got a lot of questions to ask everybody hereabouts!”
Longarm untied his wrists and ankles and helped him to his feet as Durler muttered murderously, “Somebody’s been trying to pull the wool over my eyes, God damn it.”
“I know. Why don’t we all go over to your place and have us a pow-wow with your woman?”
But when the three of them got to the agency kitchen, they met Nan Durler with a packed carpetbag and a defiant look on her face. Durler said, “Honey, we’ve got to talk about this situation.” But his wife snapped, “I’m through talking, you mealy-mouthed nitwit! If you were any kind of a man at all, you’d have killed him for what he did to me!”
“He says he didn’t do it, Nan.”
“I don’t care who says what to anybody!” Nan Durler exploded. “I’m taking one of the ponies into Switchback. You can pick it up at the livery. I’m going where men know how to do right by a lady!”
She swept grandly out, and as Durler followed, pleading, Longarm caught Prudence by the elbow and murmured, “Stay here with me and let ‘em have it out.”
“I don’t want her to tell him more lies about you. I’ve never met a woman with such an evil tongue!” Prudence said with righteous indignation.
“I have. I’d say her mind’s made up and she’s leaving peaceably. Her notions on collecting a government pension as the widow of a federal employee didn’t pan out, but she’s on her way East and he won’t be turning her around.”
“Oh, good heavens! I didn’t even consider a pension! So that’s why she wanted you both to fight!”
“Only partly. Since Cal ain’t listening, I will confess she did try to get me to do what she said, only I wouldn’t, and she was likely moody enough about it to not care all that much which of us got buried. Since she never figured she’d have to repeat her fool tale under cross-examination, I suspicion she’s given up. He’ll be fool enough to tag along all the way to town, but she’s getting on that train. Her jaw was set for a long trip elsewhere.”