midnight steamer.'
He grimaced. 'I got to board it. It's the only way I can get back down the coast to Escondrijo with a big Saratoga trunk!'
She smiled. 'We can lend you a wagon and give you a map you would not be able to buy in any shop. People who deal in stolen goods along these shores do not wish to go through tedious customs declarations. So certain land routes that may appear more devious are somewhat safer. To begin with, nobody who does not know which route a traveler is taking would be in any position to ambush him, no?'
Longarm shrugged. 'Your offer would be more tempting if it was only my own hide I was worried about, senora. But I'm the law and I'm paid to worry more about lawbreakers. Since I choose to doubt you and your own gang have busted any laws more serious than those of Texas and Old Mexico, we'll say no more about it. But murder on the high seas, or even a federal waterway, can't be constitutional to begin with, and they were trying to interfere with a federal agent on a government mission in any case.'
He frowned thoughtfully and added, 'Now, that's sort of odd as soon as you study on it. Why in thunder would they be so anxious to interfere in such a mundane mission? They surely must have thought I was up to something else. That's happened before. There ain't nothing like a guilty conscience to make some crooks act guilty when it might have been smarter to just let a dumb lawman go on about his own dumb chores!'
La Bruja asked just what his mission might have been, if it hadn't been catching her so-called business associate.
He started to tell her, feeling no call to lie about a simple pickup of a prisoner. But as soon as he'd studied on it, he had to laugh. 'Now who's pumping whom for secrets with innocent questions, no offense? It's been grand talking you in the dark, senora. But now I'd best go see if I can shed some daylight on all this skullduggery along the Fever Coast.'
She rose with him, pleading, 'Please don't go! There are too many of them out there for you or even your Ranger friends to handle! None of you know what you are up against and, look, if this is all some sort of mistake, as you suspect, you ought to be able to carry out your real mission in Escondrijo and be safely on your way home before they know where you've gone!'
He picked up his hat and put it on as she moved to block his way out with her petite pale form. 'Stay! Just until sundown! Is there nothing I can do or say to keep you safe down here with me?'
He had to grin as he recalled a mighty similar scene from a swell spooky book he'd read a spell back. He said, 'I don't reckon you really mean to offer me a chance at eternal life in odd company, if life is what they call Miss Carmilla's disturbing ways.'
'Carmilla?' the pallid brunette demanded with a hurt look. 'Are you comparing me to that... creature in that horror Story by that French writer named Le Fanu?'
Longarm shook his head. 'Irish, ma'am. I know it's an odd name for an Irishman, but that's what Sheridan Le Fanu is. He's written a heap of swell spooky yarns, and his story about Carmilla, written in '72 or so, is only one of 'em. His story about Uncle Silas is really creepy. You say you've read the one about Miss Carmilla?'
La Bruja suddenly looked even smaller as she sighed. 'In a Spanish translation. A vicious woman in one of those endearing attempts to be humorous gave me her copy, asking if it reminded me of anyone we knew. I am called La Bruja by more simple people because I seem to have powers they do not understand. I avoid the sunlight because there is a price on my head and because I suffer a condition that runs in some noble Spanish families. Sunlight hurts my eyes and makes my skin break out in a frightening rash. I assure you I do not enjoy the taste of blood.'
She hadn't said she didn't know what it tasted like, and Carmilla had told that young English gal in the book she only wanted to suck out her blood because she really liked her.
He'd read other books, there being little else to do a week or so before payday and the Denver Public Library being so well stocked. So he nodded soberly and said, 'I've read about that inherited condition. I reckon it runs in noble families because rich folks don't have to go out and work by broad day whether they can stand it or not. I can see how more fortunate families, nursing their delicate skins indoors all day, and only coming out after dark to attend society doings in maybe a coach with heavy window drapes, might give rise to sillier stories about mysterious society ladies such as Miss Carmilla. But I know you ain't that sort of gal, so...'
'I'm not a lesbian vampire who turns into a black panther at will or sleeps all day in her coffin! I'm not! I'm not! I'm only a poor widow with a delicate skin condition!'
He tried not to laugh. It would have been rude to point out she had a whole gang of Mex border bandits as well. But his eyes must've twinkled, and she must've read his amused, mocking expression wrong. For she was suddenly stepping out of the satin and lace around her trim ankles, in no more than her long black socks and slippers as she grabbed him by both shirtsleeves and stared up wildly demanding, 'Do you really take me for some blood-sucking lesbian, El Brazo Largo?'
He hauled her in and kissed her good, as most men would have, before he recalled how someone in that book had been about to do just the same to Miss Carmilla when he noticed the graveyard mold on her breath. La Bruja's soft parted lips smelled more like the almond cakes she'd doubtless had enough of before he'd arrived. It didn't hurt a bit to have her tonguing him so teasingly. So he tongued her back, and cupped a bare buttock in each big palm to hug her tighter to his jeans as she rubbed her small proud cupcakes over the front of his thin shirt. But once they'd come up for air he felt obliged to ask about that chica coming back for the coffee service neither one of them had bothered with.
La Bruja puffed reassuringly that nobody ever pestered her and her guest unless she wanted them to, and asked him to follow her lead from such faint light as there was by her coffee table.
He was able to make out her pale hourglass form, floating ghostly above the frilly lace garters of her black thigh-length socks of jet-black lisle. Then she led the way to what looked more like a bed than that coffin Miss Camilla had favored, and the next thing they knew he was driving something kinder than a wooden stake into her, further down, and she wasn't acting like Miss Carmilla at all.
The spooky lady in that story had spit blood and carried on just awful as she was getting penetrated in her coffin. But La Bruja kissed mighty sweet and moved her hips just right as he got her to come a good dozen hammerings ahead of him.
Once they both came, she agreed it would be even nicer if they both stripped down completely and started over with a black silk pillow under her ghostly but mighty warm little rump. So he didn't get to ask her about those Anglo crooks until he'd made them both come some more.
She still refused to tell him as they shared a cheroot with her disheveled head on his shoulder and free hand on
