spasm after spasm rippled strongly through her, shaking her as if the ground itself had begun to heave and buck. Maybe it had, a part of Longarm’s lust-stunned brain told him. Earthquakes sometimes occurred in this part of Mexico, didn’t they?
The movement of the earth was only in his imagination, he realized a moment later as he slumped back against the wall of the smokehouse, drained and sated. The ground was steady underneath him. Little tremors were still running through Sonia’s body, though.
“You are ... much man ... Custis,” she was able to say after a couple of minutes. “I will ... miss you.”
Longarm cupped her chin and tilted her head back so that he could look into her eyes. Whatever tender feelings he might have had toward her were gone, driven away by the knowledge of who and what she really was. But there was one thing he wanted to know. “Back in Del Rio, just before the raid ... why did you take me into that alley?”
“Why ... because I wanted to, of course.” She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe he had asked such a foolish question. And now that he thought about it, neither could he. Sonia Guiterrez took what she wanted. Always.
Chapter 14
A few minutes after Sonia had left the smokehouse, Coffin was brought back, escorted by Deke and a couple of other men. Deke planted his hand in the middle of Coffin’s back and gave the Ranger a hard shove that sent him stumbling into the little building. Deke laughed. Coffin caught his balance and righted himself, then swung around with a thunderous scowl on his face and his hands balled into fists. He looked as if he was ready to ignore the guns pointed at him and throw himself at Deke.
Longarm stepped forward and took hold of Coffin’s arm. “No point in giving them a good excuse to ventilate you,” he told Coffin in a low, urgent voice. “We’ll stand a better chance of getting out of here if we keep our heads.”
“You won’t be getting out of here, either of you,” said Deke. “It doesn’t matter how the girl feels about you, Long, you’ll still die. I figure as soon as the boss gets here, he’ll give us the go-ahead to get rid of you. We’ve got some boys riding with us who’re part Yaqui. They’ll have a fine time working you over with their knives, and then we’ll throw your bodies in a gully at the far end of the valley. The coyotes and the zopilotes will have a good time too.” Longarm tried not to think about coyotes and buzzards and other scavengers. He tugged Coffin over to the rear wall of the smokehouse. The big Ranger went reluctantly. Longarm knew he was making an effort not to lose his temper.
The door slammed shut. Deke snapped the padlock back on the hasp and laughed again, the sound fading as he walked away from the smokehouse. Longarm let go of Coffin’s arm and asked, “What did they do to you in there?”
“Just knocked me around a mite,” replied Coffin. Longarm could see bruises starting to form on the Ranger’s face, and a small cut over Coffin’s left eye oozed blood. “It didn’t amount to much. I been hit a lot harder in friendly fights. Hell, you walloped me better’n this when we were tusslin’ over Anna Marie back in Del Rio.”
The mention of Anna Marie made Longarm think of the fiery redhead. She was a whore who worked in a border-town saloon, while Sonia Guiterrez had all the advantages of wealth and breeding and a father who was in a position of power. Yet there was no question in Longarm’s mind which of the women was more respectable.
“We got to start thinkin’ of some way to get out of here,” Coffin went on. “I’d still like to take that gal back to Del Rio, just so’s I could dump her at her pa’s feet and tell him just how low-down she really is. Or you reckon he knows already?”
Longarm thought about the things Capitan Hernandez of the federales had told him about Sonia. “No, Don Alfredo doesn’t know,” he said. “He won’t allow himself to know. I reckon that’s the only way he can handle it.”
“Well, I might feel sorry for the poor son of a bitch—if it hadn’t been him who sent us down here and got us into this mess in the first place.”
“Can’t blame the man for being worried about his daughter,” Longarm pointed out. “Remember, we thought she’d been kidnapped by El Aguila too.”
A short bark of laughter escaped from the Ranger. “You reckon wherever the real El Aguila is, he knows that this bunch has been usin’ his name?”
“No telling,” said Longarm with a shake of his head. “But if I was him, I wouldn’t be too happy about it.”
With a sigh, Coffin sat down on the dirt floor and leaned against the log wall. “Well, I reckon now we wait some more ... unless you’ve got some ideas about how we might get out of here.”
“Not yet,” said Longarm. “Besides, I’m sort of interested in finding out just who the real boss of this setup is.”
“The thought occurred to me,” admitted Longarm.
“I hope you’re right, Long. We best get out of here mighty quick-like after that, though, or else we’ll wind up with some o’ them Yaqui halfbreeds peelin’ our skin off in inch-wide strips.”
The hours passed as slowly as any Longarm could remember. None of the outlaws brought food or water to them at midday, and by late afternoon Longarm’s stomach was rumbling loudly from emptiness and his mouth was dry and parched. The heat in the smokehouse wrapped around him like a living thing and made him gasp for breath. Coffin was just as uncomfortable, but while the federal lawman suffered in silence, the Ranger gave vent to his spleen in a never-ending stream of muttered curses. Longarm got used to the sound, and actually fell asleep to it.
He woke up abruptly only a few minutes later when Coffin said sharply, “There’s somebody comin’, Long.”
Longarm sat up. He heard the footsteps approaching the smokehouse too, and a moment after they stopped right outside the door, a key rattled in the lock. The door was pulled open, and as usual, Longarm and Coffin were left squinting and blinking against the glare.
“Come on out of there,” ordered Deke, and even though they couldn’t see him very well against the brightness of the sunshine, the tone of his voice made it clear that he was holding a gun on them.
Longarm stood up and stepped out of the smokehouse, followed by Coffin. Longarm’s eyes were adjusting to
