The Gunsmith 424 Page 5

  “Thank you, Father!”

  He ran off to find Caldwell, who was the man Stoll used for unpleasant tasks.

  Like hangings, and now dealing with Clint Adams.

  ~*~

  Stoll had washed and dressed by the time there was knock on his door.

  “Billy,” he said, “come on in.”

  Billy Caldwell, a big lad who wasn’t very smart, entered. Behind him little Ray was waiting outside.

  “Thank you, Ray,” Stoll said.

  “What about my candy?”

  “Go to the kitchen, tell Sister Joyce to give you one piece—but just one. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Ray said. “Thank you, sir.”

  Stoll closed the door and turned to face Billy.

  “I’ve got a job for you,” he said. “It will give you a chance to make up for what happened before.”

  “Yessir.”

  “I want you to go to the undertaker’s—are you listening to me?” Stoll asked.

  “I’m listenin’, Father,” Billy said. “I just don’t like the undertaker’s place.”

  “Well, nobody does,” Stoll said. “Now listen carefully and I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Inside the house Carol immediately took Clint’s hand and led him to her first floor bedroom. She didn’t light any lamps along the way, but he could see it was a small, tastefully furnished house that, to no surprise, smelled like tea.

  In her bedroom she turned and came into his arms, mouth open and eager for his kisses. They stood there, kissing deeply for a few moments, getting comfortable with each other, bodies pressed together. He could feel the thrust of her breasts and the heat of her body through her clothing, while she slid her hand down the front of his pants to feel his hardness.

  She started to undo the buckle of his gunbelt, but he stopped her. “Wait.” He looked around, his eyes now used to the darkness of the room, saw a wooden chair, moved it so it was near the bed, and hung his gunbelt on it. Then he turned to her so she could work on the front of his trousers.

  “I suppose it’s important for you to have you gun close by,” she said, “even at times like these.”

  “Especially at times like this.”

  She pushed him down to a seated position on the edge of her bed, removed his boots, the slid off his trousers and underwear. His hard penis sprang up at her and she quickly gathered it into her two hands, holding it, feeling it, pumping it and then, finally, leaning over him to kiss it. She peppered the tip with kisses, then licked the shaft until it glistened with her saliva. When she had it fully wet there was nothing to do but engulf it, taking it into her mouth and sucking avidly, moaning at the same time.

  “Jesus, but you’re good at that,” he groaned.

  “I told you,” she said, looking up at him, rubbing his cock against her cheek, “I’m not a prude. I like sex very much, but on my terms.”

  She took him into her mouth again and sucked him until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He grabbed her, pushed her off him, pulled her down onto the bed and began to take off her clothes. He tossed each item away until he had her naked, and then took a moment to take her.

  Her pale skin almost glowed in the dark room. She had full breasts, large, pink nipples, and silky smooth skin. He leaned over to feel her skin with his lips, while sliding one hand down between her legs, probing through her dense pubic bush until he found her, hot and wet.

  She groaned as he inserted a finger into her, at the same time nibbling and sucking on her nipples. As he inserted a second finger and began moving them she arched her back and pushed herself against his hand.

  “Oooh, yeah,” she said, “that’s good, but I need something else inside me.”

  “You don’t have to ask twice,” he said.

  He swung one leg over her as she spread her own legs wide, and he glided right into her wet pussy with ease.

  “Oh yes, that’s it,” she groaned.

  He began moving in and out, slowly at first, and then increasing the tempo little by little. She matched it with ease, and they kept going that way until he was actually ramming her hard enough to make the bed jump. He took hold of her ankles and spread her even more, and her eyes went wide every time he drove himself deep into her.

  When he felt his orgasm working its way up from deep inside—it actually felt like it was coming up through his legs—he tensed, jammed himself inside of her, and then exploded with a loud roar of pleasure ...

  ~*~

  “Mmm,” she said, “I knew this would happen as soon as you walked into my shop.”

  “Is that right?” he asked. “How?”

  “Come on, Clint Adams,” she said. “You know you don’t look like a damned tea man!”

  “I’m not.”

  “So I knew you weren’t there for tea.”

  “I wasn’t there for this, either,” Clint said. “I mean, I didn’t know I’d find you.”

  “And I didn’t know you’d walk into my place,” she said. “But I’m very glad you did.”

  “So am I.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “So what are your plans?” Carol asked, as they lay side-by- side. “I mean, if you don’t intend to kill him.”

  “I think I told you,” Clint said, “I want to prove he’s a charlatan.”

  “But what if he isn’t?”

  “That’s what Tully asked me,” Clint said, “only he doesn’t believe in Stoll. He was just being a devil’s advocate.”

  “I guess I am, too,” she said. “What if you can’t prove to people he’s a fake?”

  “Well then, I’ll get Aggie buried,” Clint said, “leave this town to its own decisions, and move on.”

  “If that happens,” she said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.”

  “Why? You have a successful business.”

  “I know it,” she said, “but Albert Stoll is not going to allow me to stay in business if I’m the only person in town who doesn’t belong to his group.”

  “What is he promising people to get them to join?” Clint asked her.

  “He says that when they die, they’ll be able to go to the Kingdom.”

  “And where’s the Kingdom?” Clint asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I just assumed it was another word for Heaven.”

  “Do you know Father Paul?”

  “The town priest? Of course. I’ve been to his church.”

  “Why can’t he rally the people away from Stoll by promising them Heaven?”

  “Because a priest can’t promise you Heaven,” she said. “He can only warn you when you’re nearer to Hell.” She rolled over and took his penis in her hand, stroked it. He immediately began to grow hard again. “Like we are right now!”

  ~*~

  Later, Clint let himself out the front door of Carol’s house, walked back to the undertaker’s office.

  “Well,” Tully said, “how was supper?”

  “Very good,” Clint said. “She took me to the Winslow Steak House.”

  “That’s an expensive place,” Tully said.

  “It was worth it.”

  “I bet.”

  “Why don’t you go and get yourself something to eat?” Clint asked. “I’ll stay here. In fact, you don’t even have to come back after you eat.”

  “What else would I do?” Tully asked. “Go and sit in my grandfather’s house. How about if I come back with a deck of cards?”

  “That sounds good,” Clint said. “It’ll pass the time.”

  “We can both stay here and take turns sleeping on the cot,” Tully said. “In the morning we’ll bury Aggie.”

  “Carol Holby wanted to come to the burial.”

  “Did you tell her when we were doing it?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Clint said. “I’m still not sure she won’t go and tell Stoll.”

  “After talking to her all evening?” Tully asked. “I mean, you did talk all evening, didn’t you?”

  �
�You better go and get something to eat while there’s a place still open,” Clint said.

  Tully laughed. “Yes, okay. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “See you then.”

  Tully left, and Clint locked the door behind him. Then he went into the back room, where Aggie Kimball’s casket was. He walked over and put his hand on it.

  “Won’t be long now, Aggie,” Clint said. “We never met, but I feel like I can call you Aggie. After all, I did cut you down from that tree.”

  Then he had a disturbing thought. What if Stoll had his men grab Tully? They could offer to trade him for Aggie. Would Stoll even think of that? Was he that smart? Or that devious? There was only one way to find out, and that was to speak with him. If they made it through tonight without a hitch, and got Aggie buried, then he’d go and talk to Albert Stoll tomorrow.

  That’s if he didn’t see some men representing Stoll first, before the burial.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Clint was relieved when Tully came back sometime later, armed with a deck of cards. They played head-to-head poker for toothpicks for most of the night, until it got so late Tully couldn’t keep his eyes open.

  “You take the cot,” Clint said. “I’m not tired yet.”

  “I’m not gonna argue,” Tully said, standing and stretching. “Wake when you want a turn.”

  “I will.”

  As Tully went to bed, Clint dealt himself hands of solitaire and played for hours, until he heard a noise from outside. It sounded like a footstep on the boardwalk.

  He put his cards down, and blew out the light. Then he moved to the window to look outside. The street was dark, although there were some street lamps across the way.

  Then he heard the sound again. Somebody was creeping about on the boardwalk out front. He saw a shadow pass in front of the window, and stop in front of the door. As he watched, the doorknob turned, then stopped, because the door was locked.

  Clint walked to the door and carefully unlocked it. As he waited, the doorknob turned again, as the person outside gave it a second try. This time the knob turned, and the door opened inward.

  Clint stood aside, waited for the man to get inside, then stuck his gun in his ribs, just for effect.

  “Stand still!” he growled.

  “P-please don’t shoot me?” the man’s voice said. There was a high squeak as he was panicky.

  “Don’t move,” Clint said. “I’m going to light the lamp. You understand? If you move, I’ll have to shoot.”

  “I understand.”

  Clint moved away toward the lamp, holstered his gun and lit it. Then he turned to look at the interloper.

  He was young, and looked frightened.

  “What are you doing here?” Clint asked.

  “Um ... ”

  “Come on,” Clint said. “Why would you be trying to break into the undertaker’s office?”

  “Well ... it wasn’t my idea.”

  “Then whose was it?”

  The boy didn’t speak. He looked to Clint to be about nineteen, maybe twenty.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Billy, sir,” the boy said, “Billy Caldwell.”

  “Billy, did Mr. Stoll send you here?” Clint asked.

  “Well ... yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  “He asked me—told me to ... to break in and ... ”

  “ ... and find Aggie Kimball’s body?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you have a gun, Billy?”

  “No, sir,” Billy said. “Father Stoll told me not to bring one.”

  Clint got it. Stoll was hoping Clint would shoot the unarmed boy, and end up in jail. He didn’t care that the boy would have died.

  “Were you here with the other two, Billy? Trying to steal the body?”

  “Y-yessir. I ran when the shootin’ started.”

  “You know I killed those other two, right?”

  “Yessir, I know.”

  “Then why would you come here unarmed?”

  The boy shrugged. “Just because Father Stoll told me to.”

  “And don’t you think he knew I’d probably shoot you?”

  Billy stared at Clint for a few moments, then his eyes widened as he seemed to get it.

  “You mean—”

  “That’s right,” Clint said. “He sent you here to die for his cause.”

  “But ... he’s Father.”

  “That’s right,” Clint said, “and he’s supposed to be looking after you, not sending you out to get shot.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What’s to understand, Billy?” Clint asked. “He’s a big fake.”

  “Father?”

  “That’s right,” Clint said. “Father.”

  At that moment Tully came out from the back and frowned when he saw Billy.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “This feller tried to break in,” Clint said. “Mr. Stoll sent him here unarmed, knowing that I’d be inside.”

  “So ... he wanted you to kill him?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Why?”

  “The sheriff would have to arrest me for shooting an unarmed lad,” Clint explained.

  “So he was ... sacrificing this kid?”

  “That’s the conclusion Billy and I have come to, isn’t that right, Billy?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” Billy said. “Father Stoll, he’s a ... a phony.”

  “But we already knew that,” Tully said.

  “Well, now Billy knows it,” Clint said. “Which means we have one more person on our side.”

  “Your side?” Billy asked.

  “Have a seat, Billy,” Clint said. “We’re going to talk.”

  “So ... you ain’t gonna kill me?”

  “No,” Clint said, “we’re not going to kill you. We’re going to give you a job.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “That’s what we’re going to talk about.” Clint looked at Tully.

  “You got a coffee pot here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Make some, then.” He looked at Billy. “Sit.”

  Billy sat.

  Clint waited until they all had coffee before he started talking. Billy got a little fidgety while waiting, but Clint could see that the news about “Father Stoll” was weighing heavily on his mind.

  “All right, boy,” Clint said, “we need help getting to Mr. Stoll.”

  “Father—”

  “You can stop calling him that,” Clint said, cutting him off. “He’s just Mr. Stoll to us, a man who has a lot more power than he should, in this town. Didn’t that ever occur to you?”

  “Well, no ... I just-just ... ”

  “You were just looking for somebody to follow, like the rest of the people in this town.”

  “I guess so,” Billy said, looking down at the floor.

  “Billy do you know who this man is?” Tully asked. “Did Mr. Stoll tell you?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “This is Clint Adams.”

  Billy looked up quickly, his eyes wide.

  “The Gunsmith?”

  “That’s right,” Tully said, “the Gunsmith. If you’re lookin’ to hitch your wagon to somebody, hitch it to him.”

  “Now, wait,” Clint said, “I’m not looking for anybody to hitch their wagon to me. I just don’t like what Mr. Stoll has done to this town, and I sure don’t like what he did to Aggie Kimball—do you, boy? Stringing her up like that? Naked?”

  “Naked?” Billy asked.

  “Weren’t you there?” Clint asked.

  “Oh, no sir,” Billy said. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with that. Honest!”

  “Well, that’s good,” Clint said, “because I’m also looking for the men who did that. Do you know who they were?”

  “No, sir,” Billy said. “I just know that Fath—Mr. Stoll told some men to take her out and lynch her. I—I didn’t want no part of that.”

  “Billy, I need to
know everything you know about Mr. Stoll and his compound. Can you tell me that?”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “How many buildings, who lives where, how many men he’s got to enforce his word—”

  “The disciples?”

  “Is that what he calls them?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Well then, yes, I need to know how many disciples he has. And how many people live there, altogether. How many followers he’s got here in town.”

  “I don’t know all that, sir,” Billy said.

  “But you know some of it.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Then start talking, boy,” Clint said. “Tell me what you know.”

  Knowing that “Father Stoll” had sent him up against the Gunsmith—twice—unarmed, seemed to convince Billy that it was okay for him to talk about these things, so he started.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Clint and Tully poured more coffee and listened to Billy spill whatever he knew about Stoll, the compound, the disciples, and the Kingdom. By the time the boy was finished talking, it was dawn and Clint knew a lot more than he had before.

  “All right,” he said, “that was good. Now here’s what I need you to do. I need you to go back there.”

  “What?” Billy said. “H-he’ll kill me, have me strung up, won’t he?”

  “You just tell him you got inside here and looked around, and you couldn’t find the body anywhere.”

  “B-but he’ll wonder why I was away for so long.”

  “You tell him we came back while you were here, and you had to hide all night until you could get out. He’ll believe that.”

  Billy looked very frightened.

  “Billy, he doesn’t know what we talked about tonight,” Clint said. “He’ll think you’re still one of his people.”

  “B-but, what do you want me to do then?”

  “I just want you to keep your ears open,” Clint said.

  “Can you come and go there?”

  “Yessir,” Billy said. “I do odd jobs in town.”

  “Okay, then,” Clint said, “if you hear anything you think I should know, you can come and tell me.”

  “H-here?” Billy looked around. He still didn’t like being there.

  “No,” Clint said, “I’ll be in the hotel down the street. You can come there.”