Longarm and the Diamondback Widow (5 page)

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.

They 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.

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 building 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.

Longarm turned his head forward. He saw the shingle for the sheriff's office and jail ahead and on his right, around a slight bend in the street. Across from the jailhouse, on Longarm's left, was a three-story hotel of pink brick called the Diamondback Hotel. Just up the same side of the street were a law office and a bank.

Between the two buildings was an alley, and in the mouth of the alley were two well-dressed men—one tall and slender; the other, short and wiry, with pewter hair and matching mustache. They were standing close together talking, but as Longarm passed them the taller man nudged the shorter man, and they both turned to watch Longarm angle over toward the sheriff's office.

Something told Longarm that one of the well-dressed gents was the lawyer; the other, the banker.

As he pulled the bay to a halt in front of the sheriff's office—a small, mud-brick affair with a woven-brush roof, set behind a narrow wooden stoop, he glimpsed movement in a third-story hotel window. He narrowed his eyes to scrutinize the window more closely. It was hard to tell in the harsh, midday light, but he thought he saw a woman in a red dress look out at him before drawing her head back quickly behind a white lace curtain.

Longarm swung down from the bay's back. He glanced again toward the alley in which the well-dressed gents were still standing, staring toward him. Under his return gaze, they both jerked slightly as though startled, and turned to each other. They both muttered a few words and then parted, the shorter man walking into the bank, the taller man disappearing into the law office.

Longarm glanced at the third-story hotel window in which he'd seen what he thought was a pretty woman in a red dress. She was no longer there.

He cleared his throat dubiously. It was still best to not make too much of the reactions his presence had evoked. This was a remote town, and strangers of any stripe were often met with suspicion.

The rangy lawman threw his reins over the lone, weather-silvered pine pole that served as a hitchrack, walked up onto the jailhouse's front porch, tapped once on the door, and tripped the steel and leather latch. He pushed the door open and squinted into the dense velvety shadows.

The man who'd been sitting in front a rolltop desk on his left jerked his head up so quickly from where it had been tipped toward his chest that he spilled the coffee he'd been holding in one hand and dropped the thin book with a yellow pasteboard cover that he'd been holding in the other hand.

The man jerked his red face toward Longarm, scowling. “What the . . . ?” His right hand slid toward the pearl-gripped revolver holstered low on his right thigh clad in striped broadcloth.

His dark brown eyes glinted angrily, his nostrils flared, and his black mustache twitched. “Just what in the fuck do you think you're doin', asshole, bargin' in here like you own the damn place!”

Longarm watched the man's right hand close over the pearl grips of his holstered Peacemaker. “If you draw that hogleg, sonny, you best be right good with it.”

He paused as the man continued to glare at him.

“And right sure that that's what you want to do,” Longarm added, arching his brows and splaying his right hand on his belly, near his own Colt .44.