Free Longarm and the Cry of the Wolf (9781101619506) by Tabor Evans

sayin’ you’re goin’ in one.”
    â€œYou want me to do it or shall I take him down there myself. Or maybe we oughta just shoot him right here and be done with it,” suggested the lawman, who seemed to be enjoying himself. “Why waste food and manpower on ’im?”
    â€œCan’t argue with your logic, but since I’m a lawman and not a hangman, I reckon we’ll have to feed him till I leave here, which I hope is soon.” Longarm helped Goldie out of the saddle. When the man stood slumped before him, sort of leaning against the dun, the federal lawman added, “Don’t like the idea of gettin’ caught up here for the winter.”
    â€œOne good snowstorm is all it’d take to seal the passes,” the local lawman warned.
    â€œAny strangers in town?”
    â€œI ain’t seen none but the folks who rode in a half hour ago—the mucky-mucks over yonder. Said they was part of some general’s party. Don’t recollect the name. Just that one was a right well put together young lady.” The local badge toter grinned, showing large, yellow teeth beneath his mustache.
    Longarm gave Goldie a shove toward the porch steps. “Let’s go, Goldie. You know the drill. Any fast moves and I blow out your spine.”
    â€œI wanna know what hole I’m bein’ dropped into,” Goldie complained as he walked heavily up the porch steps.
    The lawman opened the door and stepped back, grinning his malicious grin around the quirley in his teeth. “Come on, son. I’ll show you.”
    Holding his rifle on Goldie, Longarm followed the outlaw into the dingy, smoky office. As the local lawman stepped in behind him, a man sitting at a desk against the front wall dropped his clodhopper boots to the floor with a
boom!
A big man to go with his boots, he jerked a shotgun up with a start, eyes blazing in deep, fur-mantled sockets.
    â€œEmil!” The local lawman admonished the man, his deep voice echoing off the office’s rock walls. “Put the greener down and fetch the doc!”
    The big man in the chair eyed Longarm and Goldie suspiciously. His eyes were as gray as the window above the cluttered desk before him. He wore a fur hat from which curly, light brown hair curled. His face was the size of a serving tray and weathered as raw as the local lawman’s. This man’s was also bearded, with strands of gray showing among the sandy brown. Still awakening from the nap he’d apparently been enjoying, he set the greener across the desk and rose from the chair.
    He kept on rising until his head would have smacked the seven-foot ceiling if he hadn’t stooped. Longarm had seen smaller bears. This man smelled like a bear, too—fresh from his den in his ratty bear coat that hung to the tops of his worn black boots.
    The giant again scrutinized the newcomers, his nostrils working as though sniffing prospective prey.
    â€œGuests, Emil,” the local lawman said wryly. “We have guests.”
    Emil pointed at Goldie’s bloody shoulder. “What happened?” he said in a voice deeper than the local lawman’s. It came out like a growl, the giant sort of grunting the oddly accented words. He was likely one of the original Romanian settlers.
    â€œWolf-bit,” Longarm said.
    The giant’s anvil-sized lower jaw started to sag before he caught it, his eyes brightening with apprehension as he looked at the town marshal flanking Longarm and Goldie.
    â€œThe doc, Emil!” his boss repeated.
    Emil jerked with a start. He was like a mountain moving in an earthquake. He stepped wide around Longarm, Goldie, and the town marshal, keeping his eyes on Goldie as though afraid the outlaw would try to tear his throat out. He fumbled the door open and went out, drawing it closed behind him.
    â€œWhat the hell is his problem?” Goldie said.
    The local lawman curled his nose at the outlaw as he stepped around him and