Tabor Evans - Longarm on the Border

"There. I guess that'll fix me up," she told Longarm. "Now let's get out of this damned room. I don't like the things it makes me remember."

Chapter 15

Longarm stayed in the bedroom long enough to blow out the kerosene lamp on the dressing table. He told the gagged rurales, "It just wouldn't do if one of you was to work your chair over and manage to knock that lamp off. Setting fire to this place'd be a sure way to bring your gang kiting up here, now wouldn't it? So, you'll just have to put up with being in the dark, I guess."

He followed Flo into the sala. She'd dropped her portmanteau and was making a beeline for the liquor cabinet. "I need something to wash the taste of that rye whiskey you favor out of my mouth." She found a bottle of Otard and looked at the label. "This is the best liquor I've seen since a rich stage-door Johnny took me to supper after the show at the Astor House, a week before I left to come down here."

"I'll stick to my own," Longarm told her, lilting the bottle of rye. Flo was using the corkscrew on the brandy bottle; Longarm idly began looking into the other cabinets that lined the room's walls. He found one packed with small valuables of various kinds: rings, watches, bracelets, table silver; his idea that the rurales under Diaz behaved very much like the bandit gangs they were supposed to control was confirmed by the sight of the loot. The next cabinet he opened was packed with clothing, and the garment that lay on top of the heap was the frock coat that had been taken from him the day before. He slid his hand into its pockets. Except for his wallet, their contents were untouched.

Flo said, "Unless you just want to keep on looking around, we might as well go in and sit down at that fancy table in there. It's going to be a long wait, isn't it?"

"Times when a couple of hours seems like a week," Longarm said. "But you're right, we might as well be comfortable."

They moved back into the sala. Flo set the bottle of brandy on the big table and pulled a chair up in front of it. "I'm not a lady drunk," she told Longarm. "But this is a time when a girl needs a little comforting. Don't worry, I won't overdo."

"I ain't worrying." Longarm sipped from the rye. "Talking about drunks gives me an idea, though. I'll just step outside and see how that bunch is doing with the liquor we sent 'em."

He tossed his coat on the table and, more as a precaution than because he thought he'd need it, picked up his Winchester. As he stepped out the door, Longarm heard music coming from the direction of the barracks, and saw the bare ground between the headquarters and jail flooded with firelight. He slid along the headquarters wall until he could get a clear look. The fire at the barracks had been rekindled. Its dancing flames spread over the entire outpost area. Around the fire, an impromptu fiesta was being held. The lavanderas had joined the rurales at the barracks; men and women were dancing around the fire to the music of guitar and concertina. The flames glinted on bottles being passed, lifted, waved.

Longarm watched for several minutes. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see that the liquor had already taken a number of the rurales out of action. A half-dozen sprawled forms lay beside the barracks wall, or were propped against it. While he was watching, another man who'd overestimated his capacity, or underestimated the potency of liquor strange to him, staggered and went down. His dancing partner helped another rurale to drag the drunk man to the wall, then she and the man who'd helped her rejoined the dancers around the fire.

Things ought to quiet down soon, Longarm told himself, when there's just enough men left sober to pair off with the women.

He slid back along the wall and into the sala. Flo had given up her chair and was sitting on the edge of the big table. She was sipping from the brandy bottle again. Longarm could see from the smile she turned to him when she took the bottle from her lips that she was feeling good, not from the lift of the liquor, but the euphoria of having her freedom again. It occurred to him that he felt pretty much the same way she did.

"How's the orgy going?" she asked him.

"Oh, they're whooping it up, if that's what an orgy is. Makes me sorta wish I could join 'em, they're having such a good time."

"How long before things will be quiet enough for us to sneak your friends out of the pokey and get away?"

"About another hour, I'd guess. Maybe a little longer. I'd go get Nate and John right now, except that they've built up their fire, and the damn place is just about as bright as noontime outside. Can't risk moving around, they might notice us."

"You might as well have another drink, then," Flo invited.

"I was just going to." Longarm stepped to the table, picked up his bottle of rye and sipped. Flo raised the brandy bottle in salute and sipped, too.

"I don't remember even saying thank you for getting me out of this mess," she said.

"You better save your thanks. We ain't out yet. Most anything could happen after we leave here, and it's still a long ride to Los Perros after we get started."

"Where in hell's Los Perros?"

"About a two-day ride. You never heard of it, Flo. It's a little shantytown on the border. I still got unfinished business there, so has Nate Webster. And John's cavalry post's not too far from it."

"Is there a train I can take out of it for New York?"

"Flo, there's no train tracks inside of two hundred miles of Los Perros. There's a stagecoach that passes by Fort Lancaster, though. I'll see you on a stage that'll get you to San Antonio. You can take a train back East from there."

"How far's San Antonio?"

"About a week on the stage."

Her eyes widened. "You know, God must've had one hell of a lot of spare space on His hands when He created Texas."

Longarm grinned. "There's been some questions asked whether it was God or the devil that's responsible for Texas. Me, I don't take either side. I get along wherever I might happen to be."

Flo looked at him narrowly. "You know, I believe you do. You're quite some man, Marshal."

"Thanks. But I'd feel better if you'd call me by my name, which I guess we been too busy for me to tell you. It's Custis Long."

"Sure, Custis. Look, before we get off the subject, I was starting out to thank you for getting me away from Ramos and all the rest of this."

"I didn't do it for thanks."

"You've got mine, whether you want them or not. And just to show you I mean it~" She broke off, threw her arms around Longarm's neck, and pulled him to her. Before he knew what was happening, she was pressing her lips on his. He thought it was going to be a friendly thank-you kiss until he felt her tongue pressing his lips apart.

Longarm responded predictably. Flo hadn't yet changed clothes, and the gauze-thin nightgown she wore could hardly be felt when he brought his hands up to cup her generous breasts. His fingertips were hard on her budding nipples as he caressed them. The scent of her body, all aroma of woman not lately soaped or perfumed, filled his nostrils. He broke the kiss and bent to take her nipples in his lips, nipping them gently, pulling them into his mouth and feeling them roughen, swell and grow firm as his tongue's tip flicked them through the thin nightgown.

Flo leaned back, bracing herself with her arms, hands flat on the tabletop, her body upthrust to give Longarm free access to it. His face still buried in the soft flesh of her bosom, he rubbed a hand slowly down over her voluptuously rounded stomach and caressed her blond pubic hair. She gave a dancer's kick to send the skirt of her gown flying upward, baring her legs and thighs. Longarm let his fingers stray deeper; she opened to them and he felt her beginning moisture on the soft lips between her thighs.