He figured they’d been posted there because that boulder overlooked the trail below. He knew he was moving so slowly because you weren’t supposed to move at all near Jicarilla without getting spotted.
But his luck seemed to hold. It wasn’t always clear whether Indians had spotted you or not. Then he’d made it back down to the schoolmarm’s borrowed pony, and he’d run it over a mile before he reined in to pat its warm neck, saying soothingly, “I know. You had to have been up there with me to savvy why we left so fast. But let’s just set this rise and listen for a spell.”
They did, but all Longarm heard was the panting of his mount and the pounding of his own heart. So a million years later he decided they’d best get it on back to town.
He was tempted to lope the spunky mount some more. But he never did. He knew Trisha would have to answer for any needless wear and tear on a borrowed pet. So he trotted it down slopes and walked it up slopes as they made good enough time. They hadn’t gone near as far as he’d told Trisha they might. For while a lone lawman might or might not be able to sneak up on outlaws, he wasn’t about to try it on Quill Indians in canyon country without a cavalry column backing his play.
They soon saw the lights of Camino Viejo ahead of them, and by now the winded pony was breathing naturally and the dry night winds had blown most of that sweat away. He knew he could get by with just watering it before Trisha took it back if he walked it the rest of the way to cool it down easy. So he did, remembering that cautionary poem about mistreating borrowed horseflesh as they poked along. He recited it to the pony:
“I had a little pony, its name was Dapple Gray. I lent it to a lady, to ride upon one day. She whipped it and she lashed it, She rode it through the mire. I wouldn’t lend my pony, now, for anybody’s hire!”
When the pony he was riding didn’t seem to notice, he confided, “I’ve known gals who ride like that. I reckon it’s because they let us fool men worry about the rubdowns, whiplash wounds, and loose shoes. But we won’t be returning you too stove in, considering some of the other little ponies you met on the trail tonight!”
There was no other stock at that hour in the small corral out behind his hotel. But there was water in the trough along the north rails. So he tethered the saddled mare there for the moment, and snuck himself and his Winchester up the back stairs.
Trisha answered his second knock. As he stepped into the dark room she said she’d thought he was gone for the night. So she’d gone to bed. He could see she hadn’t wanted to wrinkle her underwear in the very short time it took him to strike a light, say he was sorry, and shake it out. She hadn’t seemed quite as blonde down yonder, but few men would have complained. Like a lot of gals who seemed a tad skinny with their duds on, Trisha Myers had a body that would have worked fine cast in plaster for one of those Greek goddess gals.
She stammered, “Shame on you! Or should I say shame on me? I’m all confounded and still half-asleep. What time is it and what did you find out, Custis?”
He rebolted the door and leaned his carbine against the wall, and tried to tell her it was time to get dressed so they could take that pony back. But she somehow sat him down beside her on the rumpled bedding. He said, “It ain’t midnight yet, but your schoolmarm chum may be asleep already. So with any luck we’ll be able to put her pony safe in its stall out back without disturbing her.”
Trisha moved his hand to her bare lap with both of hers as she demurely replied, “Never mind how disturbed Meg Campbell needs to feel right now! I’m so disturbed I’ve been feeling myself down here, and they say too much of that can make a girl go crazy or blind!”
Longarm put his other arm around her, and stretched them both across the mattress so he could finger her more friendly as they kissed. But when she took his hat off and commenced to fiddle with his gun rig he said, “What about that mare out back?”
To which Trisha replied, bumping and grinding, “Screw the silly pony. Let her get her own swain. Or better yet, screw me, for I’ve not had any since I first came up from Santa Fe last winter and I’m a naturally warm-natured woman, as you may not have noticed.”
As a matter of fact he hadn’t. But seeing a lady he’d mistaken for a mousy small-town waitress was slithering all over him while she flat out begged for it, he figured it wouldn’t hurt that pony to loiter in the moonlight out back for a few more minutes.
The wise and doubtless French philosopher who’d said no human being is ever more sane than right after they’d enjoyed some good food and a satisfying screw had doubtless met up with someone like Trisha Myers in his travels. Because she’d no sooner come, begging for him to do it faster and swearing she’d kill him if he dared to stop before they were both old and gray, than she commenced to stew about what her friend, the schoolmarm, was going to say if they didn’t get her pony back to her before midnight.
Longarm reminded her she’d borrowed the mare for the night, and added it was hardly likely to turn back into one of Cinderella’s mice at one minute past midnight. But she pleaded with him to pull his pants back up as she got dressed with an economy of motion that might have inspired rude questions about other hotel rooms from a man less considerate of adventurous blondes.
They encountered nobody else on the dark back streets as they walked the mare to its owner’s modest cottage and carriage shed near the more barn-like public schoolhouse. Longarm unsaddled and rubbed down the pony in the darkness of the shed, while Trisha tapped on the kitchen door and had a few words through the slit with a mighty sleepy Meg Campbell, who didn’t invite her in.
Trisha rejoined Longarm in the shed, giggling, to report she’d just been called an infernal sex-crazed night owl. Longarm warned her not to hoot too much when her friend woke up all the way and really wanted to know about the other sex-crazed night owl.
Trisha assured him his secrets were safe with her, as long as he meant to escort a lady to her own back door and treat her right.
So he did, and Trisha agreed it was even nicer to just get all the way undressed by candlelight, as if they were old pals, and start all over without the awkward fumblings of that first desperate desire to come before the other one changed his or her mind.
She said she’d never watched herself taking it that way in the mirror before. She said it made her feel like a total whore. But when he said he didn’t consider her a whore, she wiggled her tailbone and demanded, “What am I doing wrong, then? You just tell me what any whore has done for you that you liked better and I’ll just bet I can do it at least as well!”
