Longarm and the War Clouds Read Online Free PDF

Frontier.
    â€œAnd what’s with that big eagle-feather headdress he makes me wear? Do white people really think we wear those gaudy things when we ride into battle?”
    Longarm chuckled. “I reckon they might get in the way a tad.” He glanced at Magpie. “She play in the show, too?”
    â€œMagpie was a trick rider. She was good. But she didn’t get along with Wild Bill or the other players, and she didn’t like having to play Pocahontas. Magpie has no idea who in hell Pocahontas was. Since she won’t speak English or talk in any tongue to a white man, the others made fun of her. Wild Bill tried to get frisky with her a time or two.” War Cloud kicked Longarm under the table and grinned with half of his broad, dark face. “At his own risk. You understand, amigo?”
    Longarm glanced at the girl to his right, who was slowly eating her sandwich and staring at the table. He wondered if she always looked like a wildcat about to snarl and pounce, or if she was nervous about being in a city.
    â€œI take it Wild Bill managed to keep all his body parts?”
    â€œIt was close a time or two, brother. I warned the old man. I think the last time he finally got the message.” War Cloud shook his head and took a long drink from his beer. “I had to get her out of there. When we’re finished up with whatever Billy wants us to do, I’m going to take her back to the mountains in Arizona, stake a claim, maybe build up a ranch somewhere amongst our Coyotero brothers and sisters.”
    War Cloud looked at his daughter and spoke as though she weren’t present though Longarm sensed she understood what her father was saying. “Magpie—she’s never had a man. She’s a woman now—nineteen years old. Back home, she would have been married years ago. She needs a man. A good Apache warrior. That will take some of the—what is the white man saying? Starch out of her drawers?”
    War Cloud chuckled.
    Longarm glanced at the black-eyed beauty again. Her eyes met his gaze briefly and then she jerked her eyes back down to the table and buried her teeth in her sandwich. Longarm thought a slight blush touched her fine, smooth, cherry-tan cheeks.
    Longarm cleared his throat, ignoring the pull of lust in his groin. “Yeah, that oughta take care of it.”
    â€œHey, brother, you catch this?” War Cloud said in voice so low that Longarm had barely heard it.
    â€œUh . . . yup.”
    He’d been aware of the three men at the back of the room since he and the War Clouds had entered the saloon. Now those three men had gained their feet and were donning their hats.
    One was strolling along the bar toward Longarm and the War Clouds a little too slowly, with a little too much ease. Feigned ease.
    He was whistling softly and checking the time on a pocket watch. Another of the three was just now leaving their table and walking slowly toward the far side of the room, also whistling and pretending to be staring at a large oil painting of a naked woman sprawled on a red feinting couch hanging on the wall opposite the bar.
    â€œWho you think they’re after,” Wolf Cloud said, chewing the last of his sandwich, his dark eyes dancing delightedly. “You . . . me . . . or Magpie?”
    â€œI don’t know—should we draw straws?”
    â€œI’m guessin’ you since this is your town.”
    â€œIf you keep your eyes on the one behind me, I’ll keep my eyes on the one behind you.”
    â€œOkay.” War Cloud polished off his beer while keeping a dark eye on the man appraising the canvas hanging from the wall behind Longarm and to the lawman’s right. “Magpie is watching the third man.”
    Longarm had glimpsed the third one, who now had his foot up on the chair he’d been sitting in, frowning down at the toe of his right boot, which he was rubbing with a red neckerchief, as though