by Evans, Tabor
The dusky blonde stared into the last rays of the sunset on the dead-flat western horizon as she said in a matter-of-fact voice he suspected she was putting on, “It must have taken a lot of words to convince her. They tell me you spent the whole night with her.”
Longarm picked up his cup and sipped some coffee as he thought back and chose his words with care before he replied, “That ain’t so, ma’am. Whoever told I spent the night there is a liar and I’d be proud to say so to his face. Miss Irene served me some refreshings and sheltered me from the cruel sun during the worse afternoon heat but ...”
“I stand corrected. It was the long cozy siesta time you spent in bed with that Greek cow!” the more petite Tejana blazed.
Longarm sipped more coffee, put his cup down betwixt their hips, and calmly said, “I didn’t know Chongo was peering through the keyhole. What Miss Irene and me might or might not have done in the privacy of her own home ain’t nobody else’s beeswax, no offense. So what do you care whether I spent a night, a siesta, or a whole blamed year sipping tea or rutting like a hog with another lady entire?”
Connie grimaced and decided, “That’s a disgusting picture to contemplate. I don’t really care what you and that sheep-herding dressmaker might have done, as you just said, in private. But her cousin did ride for me. He does seem to be missing, and she must have thought you knew something about it. Was that why she seduced you, to make you talk, you poor thing?”
Longarm started to deny the whole affair. Then he wondered why a man might want to lie when the truth might work out in his favor. So he smiled sheepishly and confessed, “She thought I might be a lawman.”
The dusky blonde turned to him with a puzzled frown to demand, “She suspected you were the law? We all know Greek Steve thought you’d said something to the rangers about him.”
Longarm nodded and said, “That, too. Miss Irene told me Greek Steve told her he had to get out of town because he was in trouble with the law. She sent for me because I’d been seen talking to a ranger just after Greek Steve left town and just before the rangers rode out after him, or perhaps Victorio. That’s who they told me they were after. Do you reckon Greek Steve rode off to join the Apache Nation, ma’am?”
She seemed to be choosing her own words when she answered in a way too casual tone, “I’ve no idea what Stavros Pantages was worried about. Might his cousin have offered any suggestions?”
Since, for all he knew, the two gals had been comparing notes on him, which had happened in the past, Longarm truthfully replied, “She did say he’d told her he’d done something unlawsome, and been asked to do something worse. He never told her what he’d done or who was after him to do worse.”
She sipped some of her own coffee in the gathering dusk whilst she studied that. Then she demanded, “That was it? That was all either of you knew and you wound up in bed together?”
Again Longarm smiled sheepishly and confessed, “Both of use were young and healthy. But if the full truth be known, somebody had told Miss Irene I wouldn’t even kiss her if I was really a lawman. So she may have had that in mind, too.”
The dusky blonde was getting tougher to see by then. So he couldn’t read her pretty face as her voice grew sort of husky as she asked if that could be true.
Longarm honestly replied, “What are we talkling about, ma‘am? Lawmen not being allowed to make love to gals they meant to arrest or even call to testify? You’d have to ask a lawman or a lawyer about that, ma’am. Miss Irene seemed convinced I couldn’t arrest her after a little slap-and-tickle, and I can’t deny I never arrested her. Does that make me an undercover lawman a pretty gal can wrap around her finger, or saddle tramp who got lucky?”
Connie laughed and said, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, you big goof. What has that Greek cow to offer that I can’t top with room to spare?”
Longarm said, “I can’t say. Are you offering?”
She didn’t answer. She jumped up and ran off in the dark. A lot of gals were like that, damn it all to hell.
Chapter 20
The last sunset on the trail found them on the banks of the San Antonio River with the lights of San Antone winking on the horizon. So they bedded the herd early to graze a mite, got ’em up early to do that some more, and drifted them on in along the river, watering them a heap all the way.
Of course, once they’d run all but the half dozen they’d lost on the trail into the yards of the meat packer who’d ordered them, he allowed it was too close to siesta time to weigh that much beef and said he’d be proud to settle up with Connie that evening, after everyone had rested up and those water-logged steers had time to sweat off a few tons under the West Texas sun.
Connie didn’t argue. That was the way things went in West Texas. She’d over-watered her stock with just such bargaining in mind.
On longer trail drives with pick-up crews of extra drovers it was the custom to pay the hands off at the end of the drive. But seeing they all worked steady for the D Bar L and it wasn’t the end of the month, she had Slim stand everyone a drink at the Eagle Saloon and tell them they were free to spend the rest of the coming weekend as they saw fit. So Longarm finished his needed beer and drifted off as if to take a leak, then leg it over to the Western Union on Military Plaza.
They were holding a night letter from Billy Vail for him. They’d located Greek Steve Pantages, hanging out in a pool hall in El Paso, where he seemed to be winning enough sober to get drunk more often. El Paso was awaiting their pleasure on whether to pick up Greek Steve or not. Longarm hadn’t been too clear on what he wanted Greek Steve for because he hadn’t been too sure when he’d sent out his query. As far as anyone could tell, Greek Steve had lit out from Sheffield-Crossing alone and didn’t seem to be doing anything that awful over in El Paso. Marshal Vail had wired about for anything anyone had on that mysterious Hogan riding with Devil Dave. If Hogan had a serious record, it was likely under another name.
Longarm wired back that he didn’t haven anything on Greek Steve beyond some mighty suspicious moves inspired by what seemed a guilty conscience. He suggested that as long as they knew where Greek Steve was they keep an eye on him but leave him enough rope, for now.
Leaving the Western Union in the dazzle of the late morning sun, Longarm considered a certain chambermaid who liked to be made in bed at a nearby posada. He was in desperate need of such siesta time after all those lonesome nights in a bedroll on the cold, cold ground.
On the other hand, the three fastest means of communication known to current science were said to be telegraph, telephone, and tell a woman. The pretty little thing was not only Tejana but knew he was known south of the border as El Brazo Largo and north of it as The Law. Swearing her to silence would be chancing too much for the possible pleasures of her company.
Meanwhile La Siesta was coming on and they’d be shutting down the town in his fool face if he didn’t find some cool place to hole up for the next four hours.
A familiar voice called his name, or it called to Dunk Crawford at any rate. Longarm squinted against the glare of the almost overhead sun and made out El Moro and his two pals, Pablo and Latigo, coming out of the bank near that big Cathedral of San Fernando all the Papist quality folk went to these days, because the original mission of San Antonio de Alarcon, or The Alamo, was now a shrine to a different way of thinking.
As he strode over to them El Moro asked, “What are you looking for over here on Military Plaza, amigo? There ain’t no pussy to be found at high noon, even in La Villita by the river.”
Longarm said, “I noticed. I was looking for a posada to spend my siesta in a real bed for a change. I don’t want to bed down out by the chuck wagon any sooner than I have to!”
El Moro chuckled and agreed, “La vida del Vaquero is no bed of rosas. One of these days I am going for to have my own rancho down in Chihuahua and when you all come to work for me La Siesta will begin an hour early with the tequila on me.”
His pals laughed when he added, “You got
to get your own woman. I would rob a bank before I would pimp. But come with us and see if you like what you see, eh?”
So they wound up in a cantina across from a more sedate posada in the Villita, or old quarter of San Antone.
It was darker inside, if not much cooler, where the air hung heavy with the mingled smells of life near the border. Longarm had been far enough south as well as north of the border to have noticed there was a sort of Anglo-Mex contest going on, with both sides bragging on how hot tamales ought to be, what proof tequila ought to be, how high a rider’s boot heels ought to rise under him, and so on. It wasn’t too clear why there ought to be overtones of cactus candy and corn husks in a serious drinking establishment, but he wasn’t surprised.
As the four of them bellied up to the bar, without any gals at all to be seen, El Moro asked if Dunk Crawford recalled another New Mexico rider called lago Casas.
When Longarm had to allow the name meant nothing to him, the Tejano insisted, “Wiry little mestizo. Looks as if he could be a muchacho in his big brother’s vaquero costume. He says he might know you from Fort Sumner. I told him about you saving my life and those droll arguments we shared with those Anglo townsmen along the trail, and he said you sounded like a pistolero he rode with a few summers ago.”
Longarm truthfully replied, “I’ve been through Fort Sumner a time or two since the Maxwells bought it off the army and converted it to their private trail town and homespread. But I’d remember riding with a Mex who looks like a kid, no offense. I’ve never ridden with that Anglo runt called Billy the Kid, despite what some seem to think when you tell ’em you’ve rid for the Jingle Bob. What’s this Iago Casas up to, here in San Antone?”
El Moro looked away and murmured, “¿Quien sabe? A man does what he must to get along. He said he did not want us talking about him if you were not the tall Anglo he knew in Fort Sumner, carrying his .44-40 cross-draw.”
Longarm had no call to care about every tough-talking saddle tramp in the Southwest. He wasn’t serious about that bounty on The Kid, if body had to brag on bad men around Fort Sumner, and he’d never heard of a want called Iago Casas.
He suppressed a yawn and asked, “Have any of you ever tried that posada across the way? I admire thick ’dobe walls and small windows when it’s this hot outside.”
El Moro sighed and said, “Is not for us to say what is like inside. La Patrona Consuela sometimes stays there, with her segundo, Gonzales. They don’t pay vaqueros pobre pero honesto enough for to spend our siestas in such lujuria. Are you sure you don’t know Iago Casas? Is a very good deal we could cut you in on, if only you were known to a man of empresa!”
Longarm finished his drink, set the glass on the bar upside down and said, “Never heard of him and it’s going on noon. I’ll see you boys back in camp when it’s time to head back to the Pecos. In the meantime I aim to get out of these sweaty duds and perhaps catch me forty winks.”
El Moro dryly remarked they were all looking forward to riding as far the other way. Longarm told him to consider the bright side, adding, “You won’t have to worry as much about cow shit as you spread your bedrolls after a day in the saddle.”
Then he left to see how much they charged for a fancier flop on the other side of the street.
The motherly old Mex gal who seemed to run the posada said he could have an upstairs room overlooking the patio for four bits and seemed flattered an Anglo rider with no puta on his arm wanted to stay with them. As she led him up to his hired room he told her he’d heard her place was good enough for the likes of a cattle baroness and her ramrod. But the old gal never told him where Connie and Slim might be shacked up. She said they got lots of Tejano folk of quality but few visitors with gray eyes. Then she left him in a clean but spartan room with the bedding on the floor and a washstand in one corner to spend the next few hours as he damn well felt fit to.
He made sure of the barrel bolt on the thick oaken door, admired the fig and mimosa trees shading the patio and window shutters, and then he took off his gun rig to coil it like a snake near the head of the floor pallet with the gun grips up like a cobra’s head before he hung his hat on the wall and sat down to haul off his boots.
He’d gotten down to just his shirt and jeans when there came soft tapping on the heavy door. Thinking the landlady might have fetched him extra towels or more water for the washstand’s olla, he felt it safe to go to the door with no more than his derringer palmed down at his side as he threw the bolt and opened up.
Connie Deveruex slid through the inquisitive gap and bumped the door shut behind her with a firm horsewoman’s hip as she said, “I don’t want anybody to know I’m in here.”
He smiled down at her uncertainly to reply, “They’ll never hear it from me. But to what might I owe this honor, Miss Connie?”
She turned to throw the barrel bolt and lock herself in with him as she said, “Family trouble. The propietaria just told me you were staying here. She feared you might have followed me to her door. Did you know I was staying here, Dunk?”
He answered, truthfully, “Not before El Moro told me. We were in that cantina across the way and I asked what sort of posada this might be. He said it was too luxurious for poor but honest cowboys and threw in the fact that you and Slim stayed here now and again when the two of you were in San Antone.”
She frowned and said, “I’ll have to speak to him about that. Nobody riding for me has ever stayed anywhere with me. It’s not that I’m a prude or a lesbian. It’s simply not done!”
He nodded soberly and said, “Servants and enlisted men will get sort of uppity if you let ‘em, ma’am. You say you’re having family troubles?’
She nodded and said, “More than I can tell you, until such time as I can be sure I can trust you!”
Then she commenced to unbutton her blouse as she added, “I never had much respect for Irene Pantages as a business-woman. But I’d have never thought of such an easy way to test a man with tailored gun grips if she hadn’t been so forward first.”
Longarm gulped and said, “Hold on, Miss Connie, are you trying to seduce me to make sure I ain’t no lawman?”
She tossed her blouse aside, having no call to be ashamed of her proud tawny tits, proportioned more for appearance than size, and he had no complaints about the firm but feminine torso they sprouted out from, either, as she calmly replied, “I’ve thought all along you were a hired gun or maybe a bounty hunter. I once served coffee and cake to a polite but impish older man called Buckshot Roberts. You knew him up in Lincoln County, of course.”
Longarm tried to converse as matter-of-factly as possible. It wasn’t easy. She unbuttoned her riding skirt and let it fall to the floor around her ankles as Longarm was saying, “Heard tell of him, ma‘am. They do say he was a bounty hunter, hired by the Murphy-Dolan faction. Are you serious about this, ma’am?”
She stepped out of the skirt in nothing but her Justin boots, with spurs, dusky blond all over as she moved over to the pallet and sank down atop the covers, saying, “They told us Buckshot Roberts killed Dick Brewer and wounded some of the other McSween riders as he went down in a thirteen-to-one gunfight. I’m not asking you to face such odds for my mother and me. But first I have to know you will never be able to testify against us in court.”
She lay back on the pallet with her eyes closed and her bared teeth clenched as she gritted, “Come have your way with me. I don’t really mind.”
Of course, and as any married-up gal could have told her, there is nothing short of throwing a bucket of ice water over a man’s naked ass that could possibly discourage an erection better than a gal saying she didn’t really mind, in that superior tone young boys heard, all the time they were growing up, from mothers fixing to wash their fresh mouths out with soap, or schoolmarms fixing to give them a few good licks with a ruler.
He knew Billy Vail wouldn’t want him messing with her in any case. She was so right about it being mighty unwise for a man who might have to arrest a gal even staring
at her turgid nipples and inviting ring-dang-doo in broad-ass daylight, like so!
On the other hand, he had seen all she had to offer, and she’d be as able to say so whether he did more than peek or not. He was still a tad undecided as he absently unbuttoned his own duds, considering how he’d likely never get her to talk unless he made just a few sacrifices in the name of the law.
She’d been peeking, too, despite the way she was pretending to have her eyes closed. For as he dropped his jeans to stand over her in all his own bare glory she gaped and knocked her knees together, pleading, “Please be gentle, Dunk. I’m not pretending to be a convent girl, but I haven’t had that much experience!”
He dropped to the pallet beside her to take her in hand, both ways, with his free hand softly strumming her Spanish guitar as their lips met for the first time.
They were both surprised by how sugar and spicy an almost innocent kiss could feel betwixt two experienced adults who’d been sleeping all alone after a day in the saddle.
So it seemed to warm her up considerable when he commenced to explore her pearly teeth with his tongue while he fingered her crotch in three-quarter time. For her thighs had suddenly been flung wide, and she reached down between them to grope for his old organ grinder.
As she grasped it, they both gasped, because she grasped good and because she’d seldom grasped anything she wanted that much.
As she guided it into position and Longarm simply settled into her love saddle to touch bottom with his raging erection and let fly the wad he’d been saving up for days, she sobbed, “Oh, no! Not so soon!”
Then she saw he had no intention of taking it out, or even stopping, and so, as he churned their mingled body juices inside her whilst she moved her hips to help, Longarm couldn’t resist remarking, “I’m sure glad you’re being such a sport about all this, ma’am. I know it must feel disgusting as all get-out, but you know what brutes we menfolk are to you fastidious little things.”