And she was insatiable. She could reach climax in a matter of a very few moments and then continue to reach the top of the mountain for as long as he could last. It shamed Longarm how early he often had to quit. He resolved that he was going to cut back on his drinking and smoking and get in better shape so as to be more worthy of a woman like Lila Spinner. He also resolved that this border matter was going to get settled a hell of a lot quicker than anyone reckoned, and that included Austin Davis. He was not going to be separated from this incredible woman any longer than need be. He knew she loved and missed the circus and the job of being an acrobat. His greatest fear was that a circus might come through Denver and she’d join up with a troupe before he could talk her out of it.
As the train rumbled down the grade from Colorado and crossed into Oklahoma, Longarm let his mind wander over the infinite variety of Mrs. Spinner’s pleasures. On their third or fourth assignation she had invited him to come up to her room after dinner to take “tea.” He had been quite surprised, since he’d expected something else, to discover her fully dressed in a severe frock that buttoned to the neck, and an actual tea service laid out on a small table. For the first fifteen minutes he’d been off balance and not quite certain what to do. Finally he had moved his chair around next to her and made a small advance. It had been immediately repulsed. She had even said, “Why, Marshal, what kind of girl do you think I am?”
Since he’d had ample proof on their previous engagements of just what sort of girl she was, he’d been confused and unsure what to do. But she had turned coy and flirty and, encouraged, he made another sally in the direction of her breasts. Once again he was rebuffed, only this time with much batting of her eyelashes and coy looks and little slaps on the back of his hand. It had finally dawned on him what the game was. He assaulted her then with vigor and determination. She’d resisted sometimes to the point where he thought he might be following the wrong trail, but he had kept on. The frock, though intended to cover all, buttoned all the way down from neck to hem. Button by button he had slowly won his ground, fighting for every inch of it over her breathless protests and feeble cries and faint attempts to push his hands away. After the dress it had been a succession of petticoats and then a chemise and finally an underbodice and bloomers. When he finally got her stripped down naked and felt and tasted her, he knew she was as ready as any woman he’d ever had. She’d lolled back in her chair, arms outflung, and said, “Then take me if you must, you cad.”
He had picked her up, carried her to the bed, and laid her down gently. She lay on her back, legs spread wide, gently massaging herself through the silken wheat-colored hair with one long, slender finger. She was making soft little outcries as he frantically tried to tear off his clothes so he could join her before it was too late. She was starting to heave her hips up when he finally covered her and entered the soft, warm vagina. She had climaxed the instant he’d taken himself fully into her, and his excitement had been such that he had followed only a few seconds later.
Longarm suddenly became aware of a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. It was June, and warm in the passenger car, but not warm enough to sweat. The heat was being generated from within and he reckoned it would be a good thing for his health, as well as his general appearance, if he put Lila Spinner’s infinite variety of pleasures out of his mind for the time being. His assignment could last a week; it could last a month. He certainly didn’t want to be tormenting himself with a slice of pie he couldn’t have because it was out of reach. Better to think of the job ahead and think of Mrs. Spinner at such time as he might be able to take her in hand.
It was early afternoon. On the floor next to Longarm’s feet was a sack of biscuits stuffed with ham that his landlady had made up for him. There was also a bottle of his good Maryland whiskey sitting in the seat between him and the side of the coach. Having had nothing to eat since breakfast, and that had come at Six A.M., he dug into the sack of biscuits and began to eat the ham sandwiches one after another as he stared out the window at the countryside rolling by at forty miles an hour.
They had slipped only briefly through a corner section of Oklahoma and were now running due south through the northern part of Texas. The train had just stopped at Lubbock to drop off some passengers and take on some new ones. Still, the car wasn’t very crowded and Longarm had had a seat to himself all the way. Usually it was his luck, if he rode the passenger coaches rather than accompanying his mount in the stock cars, to draw some stout old lady who crowded him and objected to his cigar smoke. He knew that lady was waiting at some station between here and San Antonio, but, so far, his luck had held. Outside, the landscape was bleak and arid-looking. Longarm didn’t reckon a man could raise ten cows to a thousand acres. Now and again they passed the cabin of a sodbuster. Usually the wife and children would be standing out in front of the weatherbeaten cabin staring at the train with big eyes while the farmer was out behind a plow hoping like hell to make a crop of wheat or corn or cotton before weevils or wind and rain or hail, or just plain bad luck, took it. Longarm always thought the women, especially, had such a hopeless look about them. He wondered how they felt, alone on a great prairie, no neighbors, no pretty things, nothing but hard work and bearing children and waiting for the next crop to fail so they could load the wagon and move on to another piece of soil in an equally unwelcoming place so another crop could go down and then wither under the killing sun and lack of rain. He guessed that was why they had so many kids. There wasn’t much else to do. And, as the train passed, he could pretty well figure how long a couple had been married by the number of kids they had. The children always stood in a rank, the youngest next to the mother, who generally had a baby in her arms, and then they stair-stepped upwards to the oldest. You could tell that there was usually just about a year between them.
He yawned and took a moment to unplug his bottle of whiskey and take a short drink. He still had a long way to go. Even though they were well inside Texas, it would be about eight hours more before they reached San Antonio. Texas, Longarm reflected, was just too damn big. You could travel and travel and still be in the same damn state. A man liked a little variety. Texas was like making love to a fat woman. More was not necessarily better.
Austin Davis was supposed to meet him when the train got in, but Longarm had his doubts on that score. Most likely, Davis would get captured by a bottle or a poker game or a woman or all three and completely forget about meeting the senior deputy marshal. It made him mad just to think about it.
He had met Austin Davis some fourteen or fifteen months back, in Mason County, Texas. Longarm had been called in to run down a gang that the local authorities couldn’t seem to handle. Davis had shown up with some wanted paper on several of the supposed bandits and claimed he was there doing a little bounty hunting. Given the quality of the local law, Longarm had sworn him in as a provisional deputy. No one had been more surprised than Longarm himself when Davis had panned out pretty well. In a rash moment Longarm had recommended him for the Marshal Service, and then damned if he hadn’t been accepted.
Longarm calculated Austin Davis to be in his mid-to late-thirties. He was as tall as Longarm—a little over six feet—but wasn’t built quite as heavy in the shoulders and arms. He figured Davis was probably a pretty good man in a hand-to-hand fight. He knew he was good in a gun fight, but he reckoned he could also use his fists. The man was deceptively strong. When they were setting up an ambush in front of the mercantile in Mason, Longarm had seen him lift an eighty-pound bag of feed like it didn’t weigh anything. Besides, Davis’s face was virtually unmarked, and for a man with his turn of tongue that was a sure sign he could handle himself. Austin Davis was a smart aleck. No, Longarm thought, reluctantly trying to be fair, that wasn’t quite true. Davis was smart. Plain and simple smart. But he knew it, and he didn’t mind letting folks around him know it. That was where the “aleck” part came in, and that was what irritated the hell out of Longarm. He didn’t mind Davis being right once in a while, but he hated to hear him announce it.
And, on top of everything else, Davis was just close enough to being handsome to be certain that all the ladies were standing in line waiting to get a piece of him. Longarm looked out the train window, brooding on his new partner’s defects. Some things were going to have to change and he, Longarm, was just the man to adjust matters. For a moment Longarm let himself speculate on what Mrs. Spinner would think of Austin Davis, but he quickly
