Longarm and the Diamondback Widow

by Tabor Evans

  She smiled as she lowered her arms, her hair knotted beguilingly atop her head. A few light freckles were sprayed across the edges of her temples.

  She placed her hands on his. They looked like creamy silk against the callused, scarred saddle leather of his thick, brown paws. She caressed his knuckles with her fingertips, dipping her chin toward her chest, smiling down at their hands pressed together atop her breasts.

  Longarm pressed the heels of his hands against her shirt, felt her shirt slide across them. Her breasts moved beneath his manipulations, rising and falling as he caressed them. She wore only a thin garment beneath the shirt. He could feel her nipples beneath his thumbs.

  The girl lifted her gaze to his and drew a long, deep breath. Color touched the nubs of her cheeks. Slowly, she moved her hands away from his to press them against his chest. She slid them just as slowly down across his belly and over his cartridge belt to his crotch.

  She pressed her fingers against his hard-on angling down against his right leg. Pressing gently, she slid her hand from the base of his cock to the bulging head. He drew a sharp breath at the fire that the touch started in his cock, making it feel as if the rock-hard mast were going to tear through his tight, tweed trousers.

  She unbuckled his cartridge belt.

  Longarm took the belt and set it across the log behind him, not so far gone with lust that he wouldn’t keep the .44 near to hand. He still wasn’t sure he hadn’t walked into a trap, but as he watched the girl expertly unbutton his trousers and slide them down his legs and then reach into the fly of balbriggans, he thought, oh, what a sweet trap it was.

  A man wouldn’t mind dying in a trap such as this . . .

  Her gentle hands reached into his fly. She angled her left hand toward his right thigh, wrapped it around the long, thick gooseneck of his raging hard-on, and closing her upper teeth over her full lower lip and using her right hand to pull his balbriggans out away from his thighs, she gently slid the heavy snake from its hole.

  The swollen purple head emerged and rose to angle back against his belly, free at last. It bobbed with each hammering thud of his heart.

  She stared down at it. She swallowed.

  Her nose only an inch away from the throbbing head, she looked up at him from beneath her brows, lifted her mouth corners, and blinked once, slowly. Her eyes were catlike, glinting in the firelight as the rain washed down around them and drummed loudly on the tarpaulin over their heads.

  “That’s some axe handle you got there, mister,” she said just loudly enough that he could hear her raspy voice above the rain. Still looking up at him, she held his cock by its base with one hand, cupped his heavy balls with her other hand, poked her tongue out of her mouth, and touched the tip to the end to his hard-on.

  He gritted his teeth and rocked back on the heels of his boots.

  She kept her eyes on him as she held her tongue against the tip of his cock for about ten more excruciating seconds. As though she was well aware of the torturous effect, her cheeks dimpled slightly. Very slowly, she swirled her tongue around the end of his dong until, after he thought his heart would explode in his chest, her cheeks dimpled deeply and then she closed her lips over the entire swollen head.

  Her cheeks bulged; her lips compressed against the sides of his member.

  Her mouth was hot and wet.

  His loins thudded. His heart beat heavily, ramming itself against his sternum.

  She slid his mouth down lower on his cock and then pulled it back. She slid it down again and pulled it back, enswathing its entire length with her hot, wet tongue.

  Her head bobbed harder and harder in front of him. She slid her mouth off of him and rose until she stood before him. Longarm reached toward her and unbuttoned her blouse while she watched his hands. He tossed the shirt away and lifted her lace-edged chemise up over her head and tossed it over the log.

  Her breasts jutted toward him, tan and full. She obviously spent a lot of time naked in the sun, because they were only slightly lighter than the rest of her. They were rich and full, cone-shaped, the pink nipples jutting slightly out to each side.

  Longarm lowered his head and nuzzled them, licked them until the nipples stood out like April cottonwood buds about to burst. The girl groaned and sandwiched his head in her hands, grinding his face against her bosoms until she stepped back abruptly and kicked out of her boots.

  Longarm kicked out of his low-heeled Cavalry stovepipes. He shrugged out of his coat, jerked the knot free of his string tie, and tossed the tie on the log with the coat.

  The girl was faster than he at getting undressed. By the time he’d finally kicked free of his right balbriggan leg and stood naked by the fire, his cock standing up like a pump handle before him, the girl was already naked and had spread her clothes out on the ground by the fire.

  She lay down quickly at his feet, spread her legs, and reached toward him, groaning, the folds of her snatch peeling back from the silky hair at her crotch and opening like a mouth, its tiny pink tongue extended.

  Longarm took a cursory glance around to make sure no one was drawing a bead on him, and then dropped to his knees. He leaned forward between Connie’s knees, and as she raised her legs high, opening herself wider for him, she grunted and groaned and reached down to grab his cock. She ground it against her pussy until she’d worked up a good lather, and then she slid the bulging head inside her.

  “Oh, God!” she said, throwing her head back and hardening her jaws, squinting up at the tarpaulin roof as the rain continued to hammer it. “Oh, fuck me! Damn you, fuck me!”

  Propped on his outstretched arms and his toes, Longarm slowly slid his cock into the girl’s hot, sopping snatch. She groaned and cursed like an Irish sailor, and when he’d gotten all of his shaft that he could deep inside her, she ground her heels against his rump, wrapped her arms around his neck, and drew him even deeper.

  He drew his butt up and down, sliding in and out of her, in and out, gradually building to a faster and faster rhythm until he was pistoning like a locomotive’s drive shaft, and working up a hot sweat as he toiled. He could feel the girl’s sweat ooze beneath him as their hips and bellies slapped together loudly, wildly.

  When he came, it was like the rain hammering down around him and on the lean-to. He groaned and shuddered, propped on his arms and toes, seed jetting deep into the dark, boiling depths of her womb. She’d turned her head to one side and squealed as she bit down hard on the knuckles of her right hand.

  As he and Connie finished together, she drew a ragged breath. She turned to him, her eyes smoky and slightly crossed. She sandwiched his head in her hands and pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him passionately, deeply, grinding her breasts and hips against him as though terrified that now that he’d spent himself he’d leave her.

  He didn’t leave her. He merely rolled to one side and tossed another log onto the fire, building the flames back up again, for the damp air owned a definite chill. Then he glanced outside the tarpaulin. The rain had relented slightly but was still coming down.

  Neither Longarm nor the girl was going anywhere anytime soon.

  He rolled toward her and she enfolded him in her arms and kissed her, liking the way her young, tender lips felt against his. Soon, he’d become hard again, and she gave a sexy little titter and scuttled down beneath him until his cock was lying up snug in the valley between her breasts.

  “Fuck my titties,” she said in a voice pinched with passion. It sounded like a little girl’s voice, enflaming him even more.

  As she squeezed her full breasts together around his cock, he slid the shaft up and down, up and down, until he’d brought himself to the edge of his passion once more. He tumbled on over the edge, his seed spurting against the underside of Connie’s chin. She lowered her chin and he finished with the last streams spitting across her lips, which she lapped clean with her tongue.

  Th
ey slept spooned together after that, him holding her from behind. He’d drawn his bedroll over them both. Distantly, he heard the pitter-patter of the lessening storm on the ground and on the tarpaulin. The thunder rumbled into the distance.

  The fire kept him and the girl warm. The piney smell of the wood smoke was a nice complement to the cool breeze and the rain.

  When he woke sometime later, she was gone. It was as though she’d never been there at all.

  Chapter 5

  Longarm yawned and fisted sleep from his eyes.

  He looked around for signs of Connie. The strange feeling that he’d merely dreamed her lingered.

  The surreal feeling that clung to him like sticky cobwebs did nothing to help the matter. He’d probably slept only a couple of hours, but as groggy as he remained, he felt as though he’d slept as long as Rip Van Winkle. The fire had nearly died, only a few flames licking up from one charred log that had not totally burned to gray ashes.

  The rain had stopped. It was dusk. Moisture dripped from the tarpaulin and from the trees around it.

  All around him the dripping forest was quiet save for the distant, intermittent hooting of an owl.

  It was a peaceful sound but also an eerie sound at this time of the day, in a strange place on the lee side of a storm at dusk. The trees were dark against the dark gray sky. The stream was charcoal gray, white where it bubbled over rocks.

  Sitting up with the blanket draped over his shoulders, Longarm looked around. He could see no sign of Connie. No bare footprint in the dirt around the fire. The cup she’d drank from was no longer where he remembered that she’d dropped it. And he had absolutely no memory of her leaving.

  By necessity, Longarm was a light sleeper. When the girl awoke, he should have felt her move out from under his arms and heard her stirring. His ears were keen. But he had no memory of feeling or hearing anything.

  True, it had been a long trip and he’d given Connie quite a workout, but he hadn’t been so exhausted and slept so deeply that he wouldn’t have awakened when a girl left his arms.

  Puzzling.

  He shook his head, blinked, raked a hand down his face. She’d been here, he told himself. She hadn’t been a dream. He remembered her in detail—every beautiful inch of her. A man didn’t dream in such detail as that. Besides . . .

  He lowered a hand to his cock. It felt tacky, the way it usually did after he’d coupled. It was also a little chafed.

  Of course, a wet dream could explain the residue on his dong. And he could have chafed the member by grinding it against the ground while dreaming he’d been fucking an auburn-haired, green-eyed forest sprite.

  Doubtful.

  Oh, well. If she’d been a dream, then she’d been one hell of a dream. He couldn’t wait to go back to sleep and have the same dream again . . .

  He looked around once more, skeptically. The bay stared back at him from thirty yards downstream, and then went back to gazing off over the water. The horse was soaked from the rain but otherwise seemed no worse for the storm.

  Longarm gained his feet, shed the blanket, and walked naked to the stream’s edge. He stepped into the water, sucking a sharp breath against the cold sliding up his legs. After a quick bath, he returned to the camp, dressed, and then built up the fire again, and went to work warming up the leftover beans and rabbit he’d had for the previous night’s supper.

  While the food warmed on the hot coals, he made coffee and then sat back and drank a cup spiced with his beloved Maryland rye. He smoked one of his three-for-a-nickel cheroots and stared out over the creek, still wondering despite himself if he’d actually made love to the girl named Connie, or if she’d merely been a dream.

  For some damned crazy reason, he just couldn’t be sure!

  When he’d eaten and had cleaned his cooking utensils in the stream, he vowed to stop thinking about the rendezvous. He had bigger fish to fry—namely, his current assignment, which had him riding up to the town of Diamondback on the eastern edge of the Wind River Range. Apparently, a lawman friend of Billy Vail’s had requested help from the chief marshal’s office, and Billy had sent his seniormost deputy, Longarm himself.

  That, too, was strange. Not in the same way his experience or non-experience with the girl had been strange, but strange in the fact that the town sheriff of Diamondback, Des Rainey, had sent such a cryptic note, which read only:

  Billy,

  If you can spare a man, I could use some help up here. Can’t go into detail. Rest assured, it’s serious.

  Thanks, Des Rainey.

  Longarm’s boss, Chief Marshal Billy Vail, had sent a note back asking Rainey to go into at least a little more detail, but the message had gone unanswered. In the two weeks since Rainey had sent the note, Billy had not heard another word from the man, whom he had worked with more than twenty years ago, when they’d both ridden for the Texas Rangers.

  It was Longarm’s job to find out what in the hell was going on up at Diamondback and to render assistance where needed. This was not officially a federal matter, but deputy U.S. marshals were often sent to the aid of local lawmen who called for it. Especially to the aid of local lawmen who were close friends of chief marshals.

  Darkness fell down like a thick, black glove over the valley. The sky cleared and the stars shimmered like sequins in the treetops.

  Longarm built up his fire against the post-storm chill, and, gently sliding the puzzle of the girl from his mind one more time—hopefully for the last time—he evacuated his bladder into the stream and then rolled up in his blankets by the fire.

  It took a while, but he finally went to sleep, and woke fairly well rested the next morning at dawn. He was saddled and mounted and back on the trail after a quick cup of coffee and three or four bites of jerky. He wasn’t sure exactly where he was on the government survey map he’d picked up at the outpost near Chugwater, but he thought he still had a good half a day’s ride ahead of him.

  Continuing west through the valley, by mid-morning he crossed a low divide. Riding down the other side, he shucked his brown frock coat and wrapped it over his bedroll. The sun was heating up. Sweat was popping out on his forehead and dripping down his cheeks and into his shirt. He rolled his sleeves up his forearms and tipped his hat brim low as the sun continued to climb and grow brassier and hotter.

  Longarm followed the next broad, high-desert valley for another two-and-a-half hours, stopping frequently to rest and water his horse and to give his own backside a breather.

  Ahead, the Wind Rivers rose, dark and brooding against the western sky. To the north jutted the Bighorns. To the south were the Laramies. This was a big, mountainous country relieved by broad valleys and scored by deep canyons, with massive mesas jutting for as far as the eye could see.

  A man riding through such terrain felt no larger or more significant than a spider.

  Somewhere near the base of the Wind Rivers was the town Longarm was heading for, though he wasn’t able to see Diamondback until he was a mile away from it. Looking little larger from that distance than a postage stamp, the settlement was lost on the floor of a bowl-shaped valley hemmed in on all sides by forbiddingly rugged peaks. It sprawled atop a low bluff, some of its outlying dwellings spilling down the bluff’s sides.

  Diamondback looked little different from most isolated ranch supply towns Longarm had seen in the past. The trail he was on became the town’s main drag, cleaving it in two from east to west. There appeared to be about a two-hundred-yard section of false-fronted business buildings constructed of wood or adobe brick. None looked significant enough to withstand the brutal winds known to howl through this rugged country, but apparently they were.

  As beaten and weathered as they appeared, they’d been standing for a good dozen years or so.

  Outlying shanties and stock pens dropped back on both sides of the trail as Longarm entered Diamondback. On his left was a buil
ding whose large shingle identified it as the WYOMING STAGE COMPANY with smaller signs announcing TELEGRAPHER and U.S. MAIL. It was a low-slung, mud-brick structure with a brush-roofed front veranda.

  A man stood atop the veranda, leaning up against a roof support post at the top of the steps, arms crossed on his chest. He was an old, gray-bearded gent wearing a green eyeshade, a blue wool vest with gold buttons, and sleeve garters.

  Longarm’s bay clomped along the main street, approaching the front of the stage line’s local depot building, its hooves lifting a fine, powdery dust that glowed like copper in the harsh sunshine. Scowling suspiciously at the stranger astraddle the bay, the old man in the green eyeshade lowered his arms and stepped slowly back from the porch post. He kept his scowling gaze on Longarm as he edged back and over toward the door propped open behind him, as though hoping he hadn’t been noticed.

  Longarm pinched his hat brim in a friendly greeting at the oddly behaving old-timer, who slipped through the dark doorway behind him to disappear into the dingy bowels of the depot building. Longarm stared, frowning, at the dark open door.

  Apparently, someone in Diamondback wasn’t all that happy to see him. It wasn’t all that uncommon for folks to shy away from lawmen. Such leeriness was natural even in folks who weren’t guilty of any crimes. Longarm wasn’t wearing his badge, for nothing made a better target in open country, but he supposed his attire—he obviously wasn’t a cowhand—and the .44 holstered for the cross-draw on his left hip, might have given him away.

  He shrugged off the depot agent’s reaction and continued along the street. There wasn’t much traffic. It was probably too hot for most folks to be out. Longarm could see at least three saloons, and a few horses had been tied to the hitchracks fronting each.

  As he passed the Dragoon Saloon on his right, a man inside stepped up to look over the batwings, a beer held in one hand. Hatless, he was a crude-looking hombre, with stringy hair and a thick, brushy, sand-colored mustache hiding his mouth. He glanced behind him, canted his head toward Longarm, and the lawman saw another man sidle up to the first. He was taller, and he, too, stared over the batwings and into the street at the newcomer.