He said, 'Sally, something about you makes me curious.'
'On account of I've chose you?' she said.
He half-smiled at her old-fashioned words. He said, 'No, it's your name. All of the other Coltons have names out of the Bible. I didn't know there was a Sally in the Bible.'
'Sally ain't really my name. My real name is Jerusha.' She made a face. 'But when I got old enough, I wanted to change it. Daddy said I couldn't, but I seen me a picture in a little picture book of a pretty little girl and her name was Sally, so I told my daddy and my mama when she was still alive that I was going to be Sally.'
'And what did they say to that?'
'They said my name was Jerusha and that's what it was going to be.'
Longarm said, 'Then how come they call you Sally now?'
'Because I told them they could call me anything they wanted, to but I was only going to answer to Sally, and that was that. It was up to them.'
Longarm had to smile. He said, 'You were a little tough, even then.'
She said, 'I ain't tough at all. I just knows what I like, and I likes you. I choose you.'
'Sally, how old are you?'
She said, 'I'm twenty-one. Gonna be twenty-two at the end of summer.'
'You're mighty young, and I think you're kind of inexperienced.'
She gave him a look. 'I may not be as inexperienced as you think.'
'I wasn't the first, was I?'
She flung her head about so that her dark hair tossed and shone in the sunlight. 'You can be the first if you want to be.'
Longarm shook his head ruefully. He said, 'It doesn't make any difference to me, Sally, one way or the other. I know women get urges just like men do, and you're a healthy girl. I'm just surprised that you haven't been caught.'
'I don't expect you to have noticed, but some of these folks around here like Mark and John are way on the other side of dumb,' she said.
Longarm said, 'I don't think I ought to be seen talking to you. They may be way on the other side of dumb, but they don't care for me at all. It's been made clear to me that you are the jewel in your daddy's crown.'
She took a step toward him. She said, 'You better be in that cornfield about mid-afternoon.'
He frowned and took a step backward. He said, 'Sally, I don't think that's a good idea.' Even as he said it, he felt the desire rising in him.
She took another step toward him. She said, 'I'm gonna be in that same row that we were in before, and I'm gonna be laying on my back with my dress up, and I ain't gonna be wearing no underclothes. You still say you won't be there?'
His mouth suddenly went dry at the picture he envisioned in his mind. He said, 'You're going to get me killed. You realize that?'
She said, 'I got a feeling it would take a fair job of work to kill you. I'd reckon the man that set out to do that had probably better bring his lunch with him.'
Longarm said, 'I'd better get away from here. Right now.'
She said, 'I choose you. You don't forget that.'
There was only himself for lunch. The stringy-haired woman who turned out to be John's wife, Rebecca, explained that the rest of the men were hurrying to get the rest of the whiskey into the jugs and then packed into the crates. She said, 'They's a time when the whiskey is called bein' on the run. That's when you've got to get it jugged up, right then and there, or she'll swell up on you. So they're a-bottlin' it right now. They'll eat once they get the chance.'
'Where are they doing that?'
Rebecca said, 'In the juggin' shed.'
'Which one is that?'
'Mister, I don't know how to tell you. I just know which one it is. Go out and look around.'
Longarm said, 'How long will it take them?'
'They ought to be comin' in for their meal at about two-thirty or three o'clock.'
Longarm finished his lunch of fried pork and grits and canned tomatoes. He got up, nodded at the lady, and went out. The men would be in the house eating just about the time Sally would be in the cornfield. He went back to the cabin that he and Frank Carson had been using and sat down in one of the straight-backed chairs in front of the table. He poured half a glass of the only whiskey available, cut it with water, lit a cigarillo, and put his mind to the problems that lay ahead. He was not going to worry about what might happen with Frank Carson and the money wire. If Billy Vail fouled it up and gave him away to Frank Carson, he'd deal with that problem when it occurred. Mostly likely, it would involve shooting, and it would no longer be a question of doing his job but of staying alive.
The main thing worrying him was that he could not quite picture at what point it would be timely to make the arrests. Money was going to have to change hands. If it changed hands while they were still on Colton's place, it could get as sticky as barbed wire. He decided that he would refuse to pay until he saw his whiskey loaded on the train. That way, he didn't believe there would be as many men with guns there, and he would have a getaway method, even though it would be a slow-moving freight train. The fact that Morton would probably be there,
