Tabor Evans - Longarm on the Border

He lay still as she'd requested, except for the movements of his hands over her breasts and belly and along her hips and down them, to knead and squeeze her soft cheeks. The caresses she gave him in return, long deep kisses, sharp nips on shoulders and chest, had their effect. Longarm could feel himself building to a tremendous orgasm. He moved his hips experimentally, questioningly. She relaxed the grip of her thighs enough to let him make a few short beginning thrusts. He moved to rise on top of her, but she pushed her hand against his chest.

"Please, Custis. The way we did the first time. Be my stallion again while I'm your mare. Only slower, take longer."

Cynthia went to her hands and knees again and Longarm mounted her as she had asked him to. He went in fast, with one single, brutal stab. She whimpered and shuddered and came almost at once, but Longarm was in full control of himself now, and so of her. His back arched over her quivering body and he gave her no time to relax from her first quick orgasm, but set a rhythm, easy at first, pounding home hard, neither slowing nor stopping, until her limp muscles tightened and she came to life again beneath him. He felt no urge to hurry; she'd asked him to take longer. Even when Cynthia began moaning, her juices flowing freely, running down his thighs as well as hers, he neither hurried nor stopped. He was holding her tightly, as he had the first time, a hand clamped on each hip, but when she started to whimper again, deep in her throat, he leaned forward and grabbed her full breasts, using them like reins to ride her hard, to pull her back against him. Groans began to pulse from her throat, and Longarm felt himself getting close. Cynthia's writhing stopped, her body tensed under his, and now he went faster for a few tremendous lunges, before his own spasm took him, lifting him out of awareness of anything but the woman under him and the flow he was gushing deep inside her.

Awareness returned as they lay curled together, spoon fashion, on the rough blanket, her back to him. The sun was red and low, and could be seen only through the treetops now as it neared the horizon.

"If you're going to get home tonight, we better be stirring," Longarm said. "It'll be dark in another little while."

"What're you going to do, Custis? Travel on tonight?"

"Nope. I aim to camp right here and start fresh at daybreak."

"Then I'll stay with you. If you'd like for me to, that is. All I've got to go home to is an empty house and a lonesome bed."

"I'll be real proud if you want to stay. It'll be a dark camp, though — no fire, and hardtack and jerky for supper."

"Who cares about food? We'll be too busy to miss supper."

Cynthia proved as good as her word. They slept when they'd exhausted one another, and awoke to come together again in the bright silver light of the full moon. The night passed quickly. When false dawn showed, Longarm got up, leaving Cynthia asleep, and groped into his clothes in the half-light. His movements woke her, and when he came back from the edge of the grove, where he'd gone to check the horses and relieve the pressure on his night-filled bladder, he found her lying on her back, gazing at the sky.

"Why didn't you wake me up one last time?" she asked.

"Figured it'd be better if I didn't. It's time I left."

Cynthia sighed. "I guess I knew you'd say something like that. Damn you men, anyhow. You've always got some kind of duty that spoils a woman's pleasure."

"It's how the world was made. Nobody's been able to change it."

"Will you be coming back this way?" Cynthia stood up and walked to the tree where her clothes hung. "And when?"

"Can't say to either one. When I do come back, I'll find you."

"No good-byes, now, Custis. You go ahead. No kisses, no last waving. Look back at me if you want to, but that's all. I'm superstitious about saying good-bye."

While they talked, Longarm had been folding and rolling his bedding, a tight, neat roll of blankets protected by a waterproof ground cloth with his slicker on the outside, where it'd be handy. He stood up and threw the roll over his shoulder. At the edge of the clearing, he turned once to look back. Cynthia stood with her shoulders squared, breasts high and proud in the dawn light. He smiled, and she smiled in return. Then Longarm turned and pushed through the high, whipping growth of chinaberries to where the dapple stood, saddled and ready to ride.

Tordo was feisty with morning freshness, and Longarm let the animal trot, stepping high, until he'd settled down to the day's work, and slowed to a walk. The sun grew warm on Longarm's back and sent the shadows of man and horse in long black streaks ahead of them. They moved across the rising lip of the saucerlike depression in which San Antonio lay. The long, hot days in the saddle that lay ahead were as far as Longarm planned. There seemed no use in making schemes until he got to Los Perros, the town that was still a mystery to him, and found out more about the border jumpers.

Chapter 3

Dusk found Longarm a long ten miles from the Butterfield stagecoach station at the Medina River, where he'd planned to spend the night. He hadn't wanted to push Tordo on his first day out, and the big dapple was still stepping high when Longarm decided to make a dry camp instead of stumbling through the dark until moonrise to reach the river. In rattlesnake country, he'd learned it wasn't a good idea to choose a sleeping place in pitch-blackness, and he'd seen plenty of big rattlers sunning themselves that day. He scouted around to make sure there weren't any rattler dens close by before hobbling the gray and spreading his bedroll.

After he'd fed Tordo, he sat Indian style on his blankets while he chewed leathery jerky and crumbly hardtack and washed it down with a few sips of water. While he puffed the one cigar he was allowing himself every day, he used the last remnants of light to read the ordnance map, memorizing his route and studying the area of the Rio Grande where he was going. Before turning in, Longarm changed the plan he'd framed in Denver. Instead of going to Fort Stockton and backtracking from there, he'd bear farther south and go directly to the outpost from which the soldiers had departed — Fort Lancaster. Satisfied that he was on the frail at last, Longarm crawled under the top blanket. At least, he told himself as he dozed off, he wouldn't have to fight bedbugs all night, as he'd probably have done in one of the bunks at the stage station.

Midmorning breakfast at the Butterfield station on the bank of the Medina, and a good ration of grain for the dapple, set Longarm and Tordo back on the frail in high spirits. He pushed the horse into a lope for a mile or two, then nudged it into a run, testing its gait and wind and responsiveness to his commands. This was something he hadn't taken time to do the day before, while he was still getting acquainted with the animal. When he'd re-affirmed his opinion that he didn't have to worry about the gray, Longarm slowed their pace to a walk. He got to the Sabinal stage depot in time for a twilight supper, and pushed on across the stream before stopping for the night.

On familiar ground now, thanks to intensive study of his map, Longarm began cutting his time by leaving the road when it made curves and zigzags and pushing across country. In this way he could beat the time the stagecoaches made. The vehicles had to swerve to avoid hills and valleys; he could cross them. On the afternoon of the third day, with the Frio River behind him and the Edwards Plateau looming against the skyline to the northwest, Longarm rode into Uvalde. As he'd suspected it would be, the sheriff's office was in the back of the courthouse. He walked in and introduced himself to Sheriff Frank Purdom.

"I know your backyard don't exactly reach to the border," he told the sheriff, "but I was wondering if you'd heard anything about a little town right on the Rio Grande, somewheres close to the mouth of the Pecos. It's called Los Perros."