Longarm woke up, groggy and fuzzy headed. He had no idea what the time was or, for that matter, where he was. Gradually the fog cleared and he realized that he was in his own bed in Hettie’s whorehouse.
He had left Elizabeth about two in the morning. It was still dark beyond the small window in his room. Hettie’s girls must still be working, he assumed, because some inconsiderate son of a bitch kept pounding on his door.
That, he belatedly realized, was what woke him.
Longarm yawned and rubbed his face and eyes. The inside of his mouth tasted foul and his eyes were gritty, glued nearly shut with sleep.
“Go ’way,” he grumbled aloud.
“Marshal. Marshal Long,” a voice at the door persisted. “Wake up.”
Longarm sat up and blinked a few times trying to clear the cobwebs in his skull.
“Marshal! Come quick!”
That did it. He jumped out of bed and grabbed his britches and his gun belt.
He threw the door open to find a worried-looking man in sleeve garters and an apron. “He’s killing them, Marshal. It’s awful. You got to stop it.”
“Where’s this?” Longarm snapped.
“At the saloon. You got to come, Marshal. We can’t control him.”
Longarm thundered down the stairs. Hettie’s whores, most of them anyway, stood in the parlor doorway staring out at the excitement.
When he reached the street outside Hettie’s he automatically turned toward Jacob Potts’s saloon. Behind him the bartender who had delivered the frantic request screamed, “No, Marshal, it’s across the way in Stonecipher. It’s in Jason’s place.”
He changed direction and charged across the wide street toward the glaring lamplight showing at Jason Potts’s establishment. Once there he slowed and took a moment to catch his breath and steady the rhythm of his breathing.
He did not know if he would need a gun to handle this, but one thing he knew for certain sure: A man needs a steady hand on those rare occasions when it takes gunplay to resolve a situation, and a man whose chest is heaving for air is in no shape to reach for his gun.
Longarm took a deep breath. And pushed through the batwings.