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Authors: J. Roberts

BOOK: The Bandit Princess
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They walked in silence for a half a block or so and then she said, “I suppose that’s fair.”
“You bet it’s fair,” he said.
They found a small café and went inside. Something was burning in the kitchen, but Clint didn’t want to walk all over town looking for another place.
“Doesn’t smell very encouraging,” she said as they sat.
“Order something safe.”
“Like what?”
“A steak,” he said. “Even if a steak is burned, it’s still edible.”
A man wearing a dirty apron and a scowl came over and asked them what they wanted.
“Steak,” Clint said.
“Got no steak.”
“What do you have?” Clint asked.
“Beef stew.”
“Okay,” Clint said, “we’ll have two beef stews.”
“Comin’ up.”
“You got coffee?”
“Sure we got coffee,” the man said. “What kinda restaurant don’t got coffee?”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s hot,” the man said.
“Okay,” Clint said dubiously, “bring two coffees.”
“Comin’ up.”
“What are we going to do after we eat?” Alice asked.
“We’ll go see the local law, see what he knows about Pearl Starr.”
“If this is the area where her mother used to live, do you think the people here would give up her daughter?”
“Maybe not,” Clint said, “but I hope the lawman will feel a little different. Of course, he might be crooked, so we’ll have to wait and see.”
“How will we know?”
“I’ll feel it.”
“You can do that? How?”
“Takes many years to build up that kind of sense about people,” Clint said.
“And you trust it? That feeling, I mean?”
“Every time,” Clint said. “For instance, I got a bad feeling about these two men at the livery, got there just before I did.”
“What did they do?”
“Nothing,” Clint said, “but they will.”
“Shouldn’t we check on them?”
“Whatever they’re going to do, it might have no connection to Pearl Starr. But if they do it today, we’ll know about it.”
“How?”
As the waiter came back with the coffee, Clint said, “The whole town will know.”
 
“That was some horse,” Tate said.
“What horse?”
“The one that fella just brought into the livery,” Tate said. “Big one.”
“Oh, yeah . . . where’s that damn whorehouse?” Del complained. He was hoping they could get a woman and a bottle of whiskey at the same time.
“Sure would like to have a horse like that,” Tate went on.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Del said. He stopped walking and put his hand on Tate’s arm to hold him back. “We ain’t stealin’ no horse.”
“I didn’t say—”
“We’re gonna have a hard enough time explainin’ ourselves to Pearl when we get back,” Del said. “If we come back with that horse—”
“I know, I know—”
“—and besides, if she sees that horse, she’ll just take it for herself.”
“You’re right about that.”
“Let’s get us some whiskey, a woman, and then those supplies and get outta here. We still gotta get across the river to Whitfield.”
“I said okay,” Tate said, “I heard ya!”
“Yeah, but I want you to really hear me, Tate,” Del said. “We don’t need no trouble, and tryin’ ta steal a horse—especially a horse like that—is trouble.”
“Okay.”
They started walking again, and after a few steps, Tate said, “Sure would like to have a horse like that, though.”
“Yeah, I know,” Del said, “I know.”
“Wonder who that fella was?”
“That don’t matter,” Del said, “’cause we ain’t gonna steal his horse.”
FIFTEEN
 
 
 
The beef was burned, the vegetables tasteless, but the coffee was hot and strong—too strong for Alice, who asked for water, but exactly the way Clint liked it.
“Tastes like your trail coffee,” she complained, shaking her head.
“I make the best trail coffee of anybody I ever rode with,” he said.
“Must be why you ride alone so much.”
Clint enjoyed the stew because he was hungry. Alice consumed some of the vegetables, but picked at the meat until Clint asked if she was going to finish it.
“You want it?”
“Sure.”
“Be my guest.”
He grabbed her bowl and dumped the remaining stew—easily half of it—into his own bowl. He covered it with onions (you can’t ruin onions) and polished it off.
They had pie to complete the bad meal, apple for Alice and peach for Clint. He finished his; she ate half of hers.
“There’s something else you’re going to have to learn,” he told her.
“What’s that?”
“When you get a chance to eat,” he said, “you’re going to have to do it. It doesn’t matter what the food tastes like. You don’t know the next time you’ll get a hot meal.”
“You call this a hot meal?”
“It’s what was available,” he said.
She stared down morosely at the remainder of her apple pie, then picked up her fork and finished it.
 
Tate had the woman’s hips in his hands, her big butt slapping him in the groin as he fucked her from behind. He was paying for the pleasure, but he found himself still thinking about that horse.
“Come on, mister!” the whore yelled. “Harder, damn it! You said you ain’t had a woman in months, and that’s as hard as you can do it?”
She jarred him out of his reverie and her words stung, so he slapped her on the ass a few times so that the skin became rosy. Let her sting a little!
“That’s it!” she said. “Hit me harder . . . fuck me harder . . . come on!”
He frowned, began to slam his dick into her as hard as he could. If he’d known she had such a big mouth, he’d have picked somebody else.
Then he stopped, thinking maybe he could put that big mouth to better use.
He slapped her ass again, then pulled out of her and said, “Turn around, you dirty bitch!”
 
Del had chosen a little blonde, very slender and young looking. He doubted she was sixteen, like the madam had told him, but she sure looked sixteen. When he had her naked, he saw that her little teats were firm, with big, hard, brown nipples, and the hair between her legs was as golden as the hair on her head.
He got her on her back right away and stuffed his dick into her. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he pounded away at her. She stayed with him, even drummed her heels on his butt, so she sure as hell wasn’t no sixteen years old—but she was good.
 
Del and Tate stood at the bar at the nearby saloon. The whorehouse didn’t have any whiskey for them, so they were sharing a bottle along with two beers, and comparing whores.
“Mine wouldn’t stop talkin’ until I stuffed it in her mouth,” Tate said.
“Mine was quiet,” Del said, “didn’t make a sound even when I pinched her nipples. The madam wanted me to believe she was sixteen, but she was too damn good to be that young.”
“I don’t know what you see in them young ones,” Tate said.
“I like ’em to look young,” Del said with a grin. “They don’t gotta be young.”
Tate didn’t believe Del. He’d seen the man beat up on too many thirteen- and fourteen-year-old whores to believe him.
“You still thinkin’ about that horse?” Del asked.
“Yup,” Tate said.
“Goddamnit,” Del said, “then let’s go and take another look at the animal. Maybe he’s worth stealin’, after all.”
Tate knew it was the whiskey talking now, but he was hearing the same words.
SIXTEEN
 
 
 
Clint led Marshal Eads over to the sheriff’s office, stopped just outside the door.
“Put your badge on,” he instructed.
“I can wear it?”
“Yes,” Clint said. “I want him to see it, but I’ll do the talking. Got it?”
She pinned her badge on proudly and then said, “I understand.”
“No matter what,” Clint said, “unless he asks you a direct question, just let me talk.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m not going to say anything stupid.”
“Don’t say anything,” Clint said.
“Right.”
He opened the door and they stepped in. The office was as run down as the town, dust everywhere. There even seemed to be a layer of dust on the man who was sitting behind the desk.
“Help ya, folks?” he asked.
“Sheriff,” Clint said, “we’d like to talk to you about Pearl Starr.”
The man sat back in his chair and regarded them. He was in his early fifties, built square and solid. He turned his head to the right, looked at his gun belt, which was hanging on a peg on the wall.
“You don’t have to worry about your gun,” Clint said. “This is Deputy Marshal Eads, from Judge Parker’s court. I’m Clint Adams.”
“Adams . . . the Gunsmith?” the man asked, surprised.
“That’s right.”
Alice turned so she was facing the man head on, and he could see her badge.
“Deputy,” he said with a nod. “My name’s O’Neal. What do you think I can tell you about Pearl Starr?”
“Whatever you know that we don’t,” Clint said. “When was the last time she was seen around here, who’s in her gang, do they ever come into town for supplies?”
“We have a small mercantile store here,” the sheriff said. “There’s a bigger one in Whitfield, across the river. That’s where they’d go to pick up supplies, not here.”
“Is there anything else that might attract them to your town?”
Sheriff O’Neal gave it some thought then said, “The whorehouse maybe.”
“No whores in Whitfield?”
“There are, but here, too. If Starr and her gang are camped on this side of the Canadian, this would be the closest place for whores.”
“What about Belle Starr?” Alice asked. “Has she been seen lately?”
“I haven’t seen Belle or Pearl in months, maybe more.”
“So you know them on sight?” Clint asked.
“Yes.”
“Why is that?” Alice asked.
“I used to be friends with Sam Starr.”
“Not with Belle?” Clint asked.
“No,” O’Neal said, “Sam.”
“I didn’t know Sam had any friends on the side of the law,” Clint said.
“You know Sam?”
Clint nodded. “I know Sam and Belle, but I haven’t seen Belle in years.”
“And Pearl?”
“I’ve never seen her.”
“What about Pearl’s men?” Clint asked.
“What about them?” O’Neal looked uncomfortable.
“Do you know any of them on sight?”
O’Neal fidgeted in his chair.
“Sheriff?”
“I might.”
“Like who?” Clint asked. “Know any names?”
“She rides with a man called Hunter Holcomb,” O’Neal said. “He’s her right hand.”
“I don’t know the name,” Clint said.
“He’s young, and very tough.”
“And the others?”
“They tend to change.”
“No idea who’s riding with her now?” Clint asked, pressing the man.
“Not for sure,” he said. “Might be a man named Randy Green.”
“What do you know about him?”
“He’s a rank-and-file type, follows orders. Hunter’s the only one you’d really have to worry about.”
“So you’d suggest we go to Whitfield?” Clint asked.
“That’s where they’d go for supplies.”
“There are two men in town, got here just before me today,” Clint said. He described them. “Know them?”
O’Neal hesitated just too long to suit Clint.
“No, can’t say I do.”
Clint nodded.
“Okay, Sheriff, thanks for your help.”
“You stayin’ in town?”
“Overnight at the hotel,” Clint said. “We’ll be leaving in the morning.”
O’Neal nodded.
“Sheriff, I don’t know you, so don’t take offense at what I’m about to say.”
“Say your piece, Adams.”
“I’d take it personal if anyone sent word to Pearl Starr that we were looking for her.”
O’Neal looked at Alice.
“That somethin’ you’d take personal, too, Deputy?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “very personal.”
“I see,” O’Neal said. “So you think I’m lyin’ to you.”
“We didn’t say that,” Clint said.
“So what are you sayin’?”
“I think we were very clear in what we said,” Clint replied. “All I’m asking is that you keep it in mind, Sheriff.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Adams,” O’Neal said. “I’ll do that.”
SEVENTEEN
 
 
 
Just outside the sheriff’s office they stopped.
“You think he was lying?” she asked.
“Part of the time.”
“Which part?”
“That’s the question,” Clint said.
They started walking.
“He told us about Hunter, and Randy Green. But he lied about the two men in town. He recognized my description of them.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re Pearl Starr’s men, does it?” she asked.
“Why would he lie otherwise?” Clint asked.
“So what do we do?”
“We find them,” Clint said.
“Where?”
“The whorehouse is as good a place to start as any,” he said.
“The whorehouse?”
“Sure,” he said, “haven’t you ever been in a whorehouse?”
She didn’t answer.
He hadn’t expected her to.

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