a kid story. The wheels of the pony cart ahead sank in sort of ominously here and there. But then they were on the willow bar and the terra was not only firma but covered with lush green grass between the twisted tree trunks. As he dismounted and they tethered the critters on long leads to nibble, he already felt a lot cooler in the dappled shade. He said so, and told her she was smart to know of such an eden in a land that was mostly hell. She dimpled and told him, “Our swimming hole is yonder, through the trees. I mean to swim in my shimmy shirt, of course. I hope you’re wearing underdrawers as well.”
He assured her he had to, under tweed pants, if he wanted to ride at all. So she took a checked cloth from the cart, spread it on the grass, and placed her picnic hamper on it before she calmly tossed her hat aside and proceeded to shuck her dress.
Longarm had to gulp as he viewed the results. Her thin cotton chemise was so short it left little to the imagination. And for a gal who was no longer young, Myrtle had a body few teenagers could have matched. The same hard life that had hardened her features had kept her slim body and shapely limbs firm and limber. Without waiting for him, she laughed like a kid and ran across the grass to dive headfirst into what looked as shallow as the stretch they’d just forded. But she dove deep, stayed under a few strokes, and came up laughing, with her blond hair plastered to her skull and hanging down with a lot more shine and color now.
He wondered what he was doing with his duds still on and made haste to shuck and join her, naked save for his summer long-johns of somewhat more substantial cotton. The water felt just right as he dove into it. The long trip across the summer prairie had taken all the mountain sting out of it. It was just too warm to drink and a hell of a lot cooler than the air. He opened his eyes below the surface to see that, sure enough, the bottom he was gliding across was mossy gravel, and that Myrtle was blond all over. She was standing on the bottom with her chemise fluttering with the current above her waist and even her belly button was cute as hell.
He surfaced beside her to take his mind off such matters, splashed her, and swam about some more to explore the limits of the gravel pit and get his mind on something—anything—but the way that sassy chemise of hers refused to stay where it was supposed to. She swam some, but not as much, and it seemed that no matter where he swam in the modest-sized leeway he kept seeing her bare behind or exposed front ahead of him. He was suffering a raging erection when she called out, “I’m cooled off enough to eat, now. How about you?”
As they climbed out he could only hope he was bent over enough to keep from giving her the notion he wasn’t really thinking about food.
But once they were stretched out side by side on the checked ground cloth, enjoying the sandwiches she’d made, as they let the warm shade dry their bare skin and soggy underwear, he was surprised at his own appetite. He’d forgotten until just now that he’d not eaten since morning, and it had to be mid-afternoon by now. The butter she’d spread on the wheat bread had melted and soaked in. The cold meat she’d placed between slices tasted cooked and the iced tea she’d brought to wash the eats down with tasted fresh from the pot after soaking up all that sun on the trail. But he said he couldn’t recall a grander picnic spread, and he meant it.
She thanked him and looked sort of wistful as she added, “I guess a widow woman with nothing better to offer has to work more than most on her cooking, huh?”
He smiled reassuringly at her. “Don’t mean-mouth yourself, ma’am. You can’t be any older than me and you don’t hear me bemoaning my lost youth, do you?”
“You’re joshing but I love it, you sweet child. We both know I was a woman grown and married before the War.”
“Well, that was only about fifteen years ago, and I was in the War, too. I disremember which side I rode for. We was all young and foolish, once.”
“You must have been a baby if you were in the War. They should have been ashamed of themselves for letting anyone so young join up.”
He shrugged a bare shoulder. “I thought they was sort of taking advantage of me, too, before it was over. My point is that even if you was old enough to go to war that long ago, you can’t have more than a couple of years on me.”
She sighed and said, “More like ten. Don’t you think I look in the mirror when I pin up my hair? It’s just not fair. It hardly seems yesteryear since I was young and pretty.”
“Oh, hell, you ain’t that bad. I’m more tanned and beat-up than you are and you don’t hear me crying about it, do you?”
She said, “It’s different for you men. Time doesn’t treat a man as cruel as it does a woman.”
“You’re wrong, no offense. Time treats us all about the same, and it’s human notions that’s cruel. You poor gals is supposed to look like teenagers forever, whilst us brutes just get mature or, if we’ve really been beat- up, distinguished. A gent can sport a saber scar and gray sideburns and still be considered good-looking. You poor little things ain’t allowed to have one laugh wrinkle if you still want men to admire you and women to hate you.”
She sighed. “Do you think you have to tell any girl over thirty that? If I was a man, right now, they’d say I was just in my prime instead of an aging innkeeper. But I must say you’re awfully understanding, Custis. How come you understand us women so well?”
He said, “Some of my best friends is women. Maybe I talk to them more than some gents. That ain’t saying I understand them. All any man can do is try.”
She favored him with a sort of motherly smile. “You do, don’t you, you sweet boy.” Then she laughed, perhaps at herself, and said, “I’ll bet you don’t go swimming with many as old as me, though.”
He looked sincerely blank. “Hell, I’ve kissed gals older than you in my time.”
She answered, “Oh!” and moved the hamper from between them to lie back and murmur, with her eyes closed, “Prove it!”
He did. It didn’t hurt and, from the way she responded to his almost brotherly attempt at reassurance, she liked it even better.
He wasn’t sure he ought to go farther. His life was already complicated enough and he felt sure the gal wanted to feel pretty again. So he kept his hands polite as she wrapped her bare arms around him and pulled him down half atop her. He knew he’d been right about how young and firm her breasts looked as he felt them pressed wetly to his naked chest. He decided it was time to stop while they were both ahead. But as he came up for air she moaned, “Oh, you will be gentle, won’t you? It’s been so long and you seem so big and strong.”
He saw he was in trouble, now, no matter how he answered that. So, choosing the lesser of two evils, he
