He remembered saying something about having a bite with the woman and her child. But it was later than he’d figured on and it didn’t make much sense to take a lady to dinner with a rifleman skulking around out there. It sounded like they were in bed, anyway. He had the names of her Crooked Lance kin written down on an envelope she’d given him, so there was no sense pestering her further.
Longarm looked at his pocket watch. It was getting on toward nine o’clock. He put himself in the boots of the rifleman and studied hard. If the sniper still meant business, he’d be likely to wait around until… midnight? Yeah, midnight was a long, lonesome stretch and it would be cold as hell out there by then, at this altitude. Sensible move for the sniper would be to hole up for a while and make another try at sunup. He’d told lots of folks he was riding out at dawn. The livery stable? It would make more sense for him to be waiting up the trail to Crooked Lance, where nobody in town would hear a gunshot. The sniper would want to be there first, so… yes, he knew what to do, now.
Longarm stood up and got undressed, spreading his clothes and belongings with care, to be ready to move out suddenly after a few hours of rest. He was down to nothing but his flannel shirt when someone rapped softly on his door.
Longarm hauled out his.44 and slid over to the doorway, standing well to one side as he asked, softly, “Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Mabel Hanks! I’ve been so worried! I heard there was a shooting, and…”
“Nobody hurt, ma’am. I’m purely sorry we couldn’t have dinner and all but having folks shooting at me goes with the job.”
“May I come in for a moment?”
“Ma’am, I ain’t decent. I just took off my britches.”
She laughed softly and asked, coyly, “Not even a shimmy shirt? I can’t sleep and, well…”
Longarm considered, then he decided, what the hell, he’d told her, hadn’t he, and unlocked the door.
Mabel Hanks slipped in and shut the door behind her, turning her eyes away from his long, naked legs as she murmured, “You must think me shameless.” He did, since she’d let her long, brown hair down and was wearing a long pink cotton nightgown and fluffy bedroom slippers, but he said, “I’ll snuff the candle so’s we can talk without fluster. You must have something pretty important on your mind.”
As he crossed the room to drop gingerly to one naked knee and pinch out the candle with his fingertips, he noticed that she’d taken a seat on the foot of his bed. it was getting pretty difficult to take this situation in any way but a pretty earthy one, but in country matters, as in all others, Longarm moved cautiously. There was always that one chance in a hundred that a gal was simply stupid about menfolks. She didn’t look like a loose woman.
He stood over her in the almost total darkness, putting his gun away as he asked, “What’s little Cedric up to at the moment, ma’am?”
“He’s fast asleep, the poor darling. I’m afraid the long trip tired him.”
“You ain’t tired all that much, eh?”
“I’m afraid I’m not. It’s difficult to fall asleep in a strange place … alone.” Then she blurted out, “Heavens, what am I saying? I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”
Longarm moved over to the door and locked it.
She gasped, “What are you doing, sir?”
“Just making sure we don’t get shot. The key’s in the lock, when you’re ready to leave, ma’am.”
“Oh, I thought…”
“What can I do for you, ma’am? You’re purely beating about the bush like you thought a wounded grizzly was holed up in it.”
“I’ve been thinking about your offer of… well, help. This is terribly embarrassing, but I just counted out our remaining funds and, and, oh, Lord, this is all so sordid!”
Longarm fumbled for his pants and fished out a pair of ten-dollar eagles. He handed them to her in the dark, noticing how smooth her fingers were, as she suddenly took his hand in both of hers and pressed a cheek to it, sobbing, “Oh, bless you! I simply didn’t know what we were going to do!”
“Heck, it ain’t like I’m sending little Cedric through college, Ma’am. You can pay me back whenever you’ve a mind to. I don’t reckon there’s anything else you need, huh?”
Her voice was blushful in the dark as she said, “There is one thing more, but I just can’t bring myself to ask this.”
“You just ask away, Mabel. It pleasures most gents to be of service to a pretty gal.”
“WelL you know I’m a recent widow and… this is just terribly embarrassing, but my late husband used to help me out of my, um, corset.”
“Oh? Didn’t know you had one on. Not that I looked too close before. I snuffed the candle.”
She got to her feet, her scented hair near Longarm’s nostrils as she murmured, “I can’t get at the laces without help. It’s a new model with steel stays instead of whalebone and it’s cutting me in two! Would you think me shameless if I asked you to unlace me from the back?”
“I could give it a try, but I ain’t had much experience with such things. I’ve never worn one, myself.” He hesitated, wondering why his mouth felt so dry as he added, “Uh, how do I git at it?”
Mabel Hanks slipped the nightgown off over her head and dropped it on the bed, saying, “Don’t worry, I’m wearing a shift under the corset so it’s not as if… isn’t this silly? We’ve hardly met and here you are undressing me! Whatever must you be thinking?”
Longarm didn’t think it would be polite to say, so he kept his mouth shut as he ran his suddenly too-thick fingers along her spine, feeling for the knot of her corset laces. He noticed that her breathing had become rapid and shallow. He found the slip and untied it. She reached behind herself to guide his wrists as he unlaced her. The tight corset suddenly snapped free and fell to the floor. She took a deep breath and gasped, “Oh, that feels so good!” A
