GUN TROUBLE AT DIAMONDBACK (Bear Haskell, U.S. Marshal Book 1) Read online

  Funny—she hadn’t looked like the type. But, then, he’d been totin’ a badge long enough to know you couldn’t judge anyone—man or woman—by their face.

  Emma Kramer’s face had been long ever since he’d found her sitting on a rock near the dead outlaw, her pallor decidedly jaundiced, but Haskell didn’t know what had caused her to carry a chip on her shoulder. He’d been too busy until now to worry much about it.

  He took another sip of his coffee, set down the cup, set his elbows on the table, and entwined his fingers. “Miss Emma, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so, you seem a might piss-burned. Have I done somethin’ to offend you somehow?”

  She looked up from her plate, curled a nostril. “You were showing off.”

  “What’s that?”

  “With that shot. You were showing off. Trying to shock me. That’s how men are.”

  Haskell snorted. “Shock you? Showin’ off? Hell, I was tryin’ to save your life!”

  “You could’ve done it another way. You were showing off.”

  “You could have done it another why by not standing right out in the open in the first place!”

  “I was trying to see if you were still alive!”

  “What if I hadn’t been?”

  “Then I would have seen that you weren’t, and I would have galloped away!”

  “That’s not what I told you to do.”

  “Told me to do? Well, if that isn’t just like a man—trying to tell a woman what do on her own land!”

  “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal!”

  “You’re a man first and then a marshal!”

  Haskell sat back in his chair, befuddled. “Look,” he said, “I understand if you’re embarrassed about losin’ your lunch when my bullet caught up to that feller right in front of you. But if I hadn’t shot him with that Sharps, you and him would likely be a long way away from here by now. In fact, he would probably have already had his way with you more than a few times, shot you in the head, and dumped you in a wash!”

  “There you again,” Emma said, rising from her chair and snarling like a bobcat. (She sort of looked like one, too, with her hair hanging down and uncombed.) “Trying to shock me again. Typical man—just showing off!”

  She grabbed his plate and her own plate off the table and dumped them into the wreck pan simmering on the range behind her.

  Haskell watched her, pensive, as she cleared the rest of the table. She didn’t look at him but just went about her work angrily, keeping a nostril wrinkled and one half of her upper lip curled. With her unkempt clothes and hair, she resembled nothing so much as a bobcat. An angry bobcat, to boot.

  Haskell plucked one of his favored Indian Kid cheroots, which he bought by the handful, six for a quarter, in a little smoke shop on Colfax Avenue in his hometown of Denver, out of his shirt pocket, and bit off the end. “How many suitors you got?”

  Standing at the wreck pan, she looked at him over her shoulder. “How many what do I have?”

  “Suitors? You know—gentleman callers?”

  She looked at him again, tossing her tangled hair. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Humor me.”

  “No.”

  “Come on.”

  “You’re being impertinent, Marshal.”

  “I bet you don’t have a single one, do you?”

  She glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Haskell grinned knowingly as he rolled the cheroot around between his lips, and pulled a lucifer from his shirt pocket. “You got three old men in the bunkhouse, one middle-aged half-breed with a bad leg, a dog”—he indicated the spotted mongrel sleeping in a tight, comfortable ball on the braided rug fronting the cold fireplace in the parlor to his left—“and a half a dozen cats. There’s not one male around here under the age of forty.”

  Haskell struck a match to life on the heel of his cavalry boot and touched it to the end of his cheroot, puffing smoke. “And that’s just how you planned it, ain’t it?”

  She blinked. “Planned what?”

  “Your life. Free of men. Free of any chance of ... love.”

  “You’re crazy,” she said. “You must have taken a blow to the head in the old trapper’s cabin.”

  “Why are you so afraid of it?”

  “Of what?”

  “You know.” Haskell set his cigar down on the table so that the smoldering coal hung over the edge, and rose from his chair. He walked around the table and stood beside her. “Of love.”

  She looked up at him towering over her. “I am not afraid of ... love ... Marshal Haskell.”

  “There—you see. You can hardly even say the word. Why?”

  “Don’t you think you’re overstepping your jurisdiction just a little?”

  “Yeah, maybe a little. But don’t change the subject.” With his left hand, he tucked a stray, tangled lock of her tawny hair back behind her left ear. “How come you don’t brush your pretty hair? How come you don’t change your clothes, wear somethin’ that flatters you instead of makes you look like some undershot grubline rider?”

  “I have a lot of work to do every day. I don’t have time to dress in the silks and taffetas of a parlor queen.”

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Miss Emma. Once of the prettiest I’ve ever seen. Yet you do nothin’ to show it off or even just display it, and right now, with me standing a foot away from you, you’re trembling like a newborn fawn. Why, you’re getting all flushed. I do believe you’re startin’ to sweat.”

  Haskell reached up to touch her cheek but she jerked her head away and stepped back. “How dare you?” She grabbed a chair back as though to steady herself. She glared up at him. “How dare you! This is my house!”

  “Have you ever had a good old-fashioned tumble, Miss Emma?”

  Her anger turned to hang-jawed, bug-eyed astonishment. “Wh-what?”

  “Have you ever bumped fuzzies?”

  “Have I ... ? That is not the kind of question—!”

  “Your old man was a rabble rouser. He was many things, ole Coyote Kramer was, plenty of them bad, but one thing he was not was a coward. He believed in living life with his dick out. That’s how he himself put it. Now, I know your ma was a city girl ... high-bread ... but I gotta believe you got some of your old man in you, as well. Maybe you got so much of ole Coyote Kramer in you that you’re scared. Is that it, Miss Kramer? Are you afraid of the kind of feelin’s you have—is that why you surround yourself with men who don’t kindle any of those feelings like I am now?”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Emma crossed her arms on her breasts.

  “Answer the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Have you ever made love, Emma? Have you ever lain with a man?”

  Emma stomped her foot down hard on the puncheon floor, waking the dog who turned toward the kitchen and gave an inquisitive moan. “That is none of your business!”

  “Do you mean to tell me you’ve lived for twenty-one years and you’ve never had the pleasure of ... ” Haskell let the question trail off into the ether. She was staring up at him wide-eyed, her full blouse rising and falling heavily, sweat glistening on her forehead, a flush in her perfect cheeks.

  Haskell stepped toward her, wrapped his right arm around the small of her back, crouched over her, and pressed his lips to hers.

  She tried to pull away, but Haskell held her fast, kissing her hungrily. She stiffened her lips, turned her face to one side, struggling against him. But then she met his mouth head on. Her lips parted and she welcomed his tongue, pressing her own against it. She moaned, reached up to wrap her arms around his broad back, stepped forward to press her swollen bosom against his chest.

  He trailed his hands down her back, brought them around to her sides, placed them over her breasts. They were warm and full and swollen, expanding and contracting as she breathed. He raked his hands across her nipples, which he could feel pebbling against the fabric.

  She pulled back abruptly, breaking free
of his embrace.

  She turned away, giving him her back, and brushed the back of her right wrist across her mouth. She was breathing hard, as though she’d run a long way. She took another step away from him, placed one hand on the table, another on the counter to her left as though to steady herself.

  She said nothing for nearly a full minute but then, without turning to face him, she said, “There was one.”

  “One what?”

  “One man.”

  “Go on.”

  She turned to him, frowning, incredulous, exasperated. “Why should I tell you?”

  Haskell gave her a gentle smile. “Because you want to.”

  Chapter Four

  Emma again turned away from Bear Haskell.

  She studied the far wall for a time and then she said, turning toward him but unable to meet his gaze, “There was one. Before Pa died of his heart stroke. He worked here at the ranch. He was a few years older than me.” Her voice hardened to bitterness. “He seemed very nice. Pleasing to look at. A hard worker. He picked me flowers. We met ... we met a few times at the old trapper’s cabin.”

  “Go on.”

  Emma lifted her eyes to Haskell’s. Her cheeks were beautifully flushed, her eyes sad. “We met there three times, Jason an’ me. And then he left the ranch. Just asked Pa for his time, took the money, saddled his horse, and rode toward town. I was devastated. I couldn’t believe he’d just leave me like that ... after ... after what we did. After what I thought we’d come to mean to each other. I couldn’t eat or sleep. Figuring out the cause of my heartbreak, Pa ... he rode to town.”

  “Coyote rode to town and did what?” Haskell gently urged her.

  Emma drew a deep, calming breath. “Pa rode to town, found Jason gambling in one of the saloons. Drunk. He had a pleasure girl on his knee. He was bragging to the other men at the table about ... me.”

  Emma dipped her chin. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  “Pa got so mad ... ” she said, sniffing, angrily brushing the tear away and lifting her heated gaze again to Haskell, “that he took his rifle and shot Jason dead.”

  That surprised even Haskell, who didn’t think he could be surprised by anything Coyote would do. “Whoa!”

  “Yeah, well ... he shot him, all right.” Emma dipped her chin and sobbed, then brushed the tears away and cleared her throat. “Pa spent a few days in jail but several of the other men in the saloon were friends of Pa. They lied and testified that Jason had drawn first. So the marshal let Pa go.”

  Emma sobbed again, no doubt in memory of the boy she’d loved and who’d betrayed her. Obviously, she still lamented his death. But she couldn’t blame her father for killing him. Old Coyote had only been exacting revenge for his daughter, whom he’d loved.

  Haskell walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her, pressed her head to his chest, hugging her. “No wonder you guard your heart so. And everything else.”

  Emma’s body jerked as she sobbed against him.

  “I’m sorry, girl.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just bein’ plumb silly.”

  Haskell kissed her forehead, then pulled away from her. He walked around the table, plucked his cigar up off the edge, poked it into his mouth, and retrieved his saddlebags and bedroll from the floor by the door.

  “I reckon I’ll be sayin’ good night.” Bear winked across the table at Emma, who watched him dubiously. “Thanks for supper.”

  He pulled his hat off a peg and opened the door.

  Emma frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “Out to the bunkhouse.”

  “You can throw down in Pa’s old room.”

  “Nah, the men-folk belong in the bunkhouse.” Haskell drew the door wider.

  Emma strode resolutely around the table and closed the door. “Old Riley snores like a mountain lion with the winter crud. Wilfred walks in his sleep. Sometimes he runs outside and fires off his old cap-and-ball pistol at Injuns that aren’t there! You take Pa’s old room. You’ll get a better night’s sleep there than out in the bunkhouse with those old reprobates.”

  She canted her head toward a door in the rear wall of the parlor.

  Haskell shrugged. “All right, then. Obliged.” He pegged his hat again and started for Coyote’s old room.

  “I’ll heat some water so you can wash up a bit before you turn in,” Emma called behind him.

  Haskell stopped at the door, half-turned back to the girl still standing by the table, watching him. “It’d feel good to wash off some of the trail dust. Thanks, Miss Emma.”

  “Don’t mention it, Marshal.”

  “You think you might call me Bear?”

  She gave a shy half-smile. “All right. Bear.”

  He went into the room and dropped his saddlebags and bedroll on the floor by the door. He lit a lamp and looked around.

  The room looked just like what he would have imagined Coyote would have slept in. Small and neat and rustic, with a four-poster bed constructed of pine, and a pine headboard Coyote himself had likely built. A couple of sewn-together cougar hides served as a spread. Several more hides decorated the pine-paneled walls.

  There was a stout dresser and an armoire, a washstand beside a curtained window that looked back into woods and a creek. The window was partly open, and Haskell could smell the creek. A braided hemp rug adorned the floor. Haskell sagged wearily onto the bed and removed his grizzly claw necklace. He unbuttoned his calico shirt, shrugged out of it, and tossed it onto a ladderback, hide-bottom chair.

  He was kicking out of his boots when Emma nudged wide the door he hadn’t fully closed, and glanced tentatively into the room. “You decent?” She had a pot of steaming water in her hands, and a wash cloth and a towel draped over one arm.

  “That’s a matter of some debate,” Haskell said.

  She came in and poured the hot water into the washbasin on the stand. She hung the cloth and the towel on a wooden bar beneath a small, chipped mirror. “There’s a little lye soap here on the stand.”

  Turning to Haskell, she said, “Is there anything else you need? A chamber pot should be under the bed.”

  Haskell kicked it with the heel of his right foot. “It is. That should do me.”

  She watched him from the door.

  “Thanks again, Emma.”

  She looked somehow troubled. She moved her lips as she watched him, as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.

  “That’s everything I need, Emma,” Haskell said. “Thanks again.”

  Emma nodded. “All right, then. Good-night, Mar ... I mean, Bear.” She glanced at him once more as, holding the empty pot in one hand, she drew the door closed with the other.

  Haskell skinned down to his birthday suit, and took a sponge bath with the hot water and soap. It felt good to get clean. He hadn’t had a bath in weeks. When he’d toweled dry, he sat naked on the bed, letting the cool air from the open window finish drying him, and smoked the rest of his cheroot.

  While he smoked he thought about Emma living in this big, rambling house alone, with only the dog and her cats and the memory of her father and the young man old Coyote had shot. She was awfully young to be living with such snaggle-toothed demons tearing around in her brain.

  Haskell had to give a chuckle at what old Coyote had done, however. It was just like the old frontiersman to shoot a man who’d treated his daughter so shabbily. It was just like him to have friends who’d help him get away with it, too.

  Haskell walked over to the washstand and poured a glass of cold water from the pitcher. He drank it down, set the glass back down on the stand, and looked at the door. There was a bolt on it. He walked over, stared at the door for a minute, deciding, and then slid the bolt across the frame, locking the door.

  He turned down the lamp’s wick and crawled under Coyote’s sheets and cougar hides. He knew he’d start thinking about the girl he’d shot earlier—the preacher’s daughter—the minute his head hit the pillow. And that’s exactly what happened.r />
  He was almost glad for the distraction when the knock he’d been half-expecting sounded on the door. He lifted his head. “Go back to bed, Emma.”

  She rattled the doorknob. “Let me in.”

  “Go back to bed.”

  “Let me in, Bear.”

  “I’m not gonna be the one, Emma. I’m sorry I got you thinkin’ about it, but I’m not gonna be the one.”

  For nearly a minute there was silence on the other side of the door.

  Then, softly: “Please.”

  “You go to town. Find someone who’ll treat you right.”

  Again, silence. Footsteps retreated into the parlor.

  Haskell released a held breath. He’d just closed his eyes again, when a loud crash! jerked his head up off the pillow. There was a secondary bang! as the door bounced off the wall.

  He could see Emma’s silhouette standing in the open doorway, holding a heavy wooden footstool, which she’d used to bust open the door. She tossed the footstool out into the parlor.

  Somewhere, the dog gave an excited bark.

  “Everthing’s all right, Buster,” Emma called to him.

  Weak lamplight slithered into Haskell’s room from the parlor, silhouetting the girl as she moved to the dresser. She turned up the wick on the hurricane lamp. She wore only a blue and white striped quilt about her shoulders. Her tawny hair hung down, glistening in the lamplight. She’d brushed it until it shone.

  Her long, pale legs were bare beneath the blanket. Haskell could see the tangle of dark hair at her crotch.

  She moved to the bed, stared down at him, holding the blanket around her shoulders. She grabbed the edge of Haskell’s covers, drew them slowly down, exposing his broad, hairy chest, his flat belly, and then his cock, which was fully engorged and angling back over his bellybutton.

  Staring at the impressive member, she drew a deep breath.

  “I’m gonna be gone in the morning,” Haskell told her, his voice thick.

  She dropped the towel then reached forward and wrapped her left hand around his manhood in which a tiny heart was beating insistently. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  “All right, then.” Haskell swung his legs over the side of the bed, facing her. He drew her between his knees and massaged her breasts, licking and sucking her nipples.