“No, not if you’re normal. I guess maybe a woman might. But I ain’t ever going to get worn out with it.” He smiled. “Though I’d like to die trying. No, it’s just that the first few times are special. Kind of like opening up a present that’s all wrapped in bright paper and ribbon. You don’t want to rush it.”
When he was finished eating, he poured himself a glass of whiskey and lit a cigar. When he had gone out to get the bottle of whiskey, he had unsaddled and taken the bridle off his horse and turned him into the little catch pen behind Hannah’s cabin where he knew there was feed and water. He had no plans to spend the night, but he figured he might be quite late, and he had not wanted his horse to stand tied for several hours.
He looked at Hannah through the cloud of blue smoke, wondering just how much she knew. She did a good job of playing a simple half-woman, half-girl, but he wondered if it was all true. He knew that women married men back in the woods without ever really knowing the men, but it appeared that Dalton Diver had brought the practice to a fine art.
He said, “Hannah, when I rode up with Gus Home’s body, you never so much as turned a hair. He was your husband. Didn’t you feel anything?”
She gave a half shrug. “I never knowed the man. Never so much as touched him. Why should I feel sad ‘bout somebody I didn’t know? Hell, I never felt like he was my husband. I never even got the piece of paper that said so. Daddy’s got it, I reckon.”
“Well how did you meet this man, this Gus Home?”
She shrugged again. She said vaguely, “I don’t know. He just showed up out at Daddy’s place. There was still about five or six of us girls still living there, and he just kind of walked around and looked things over. Then he and Daddy went in his office and I guess they talked and whatnot. What are you askin’ me all these questions for?”
Longarm gave her a disarming smile. “Because I’m a federal marshal, honey, and they don’t pay me if I don’t ask questions.”
She reached across the table and slapped his hand. “Oh, you silly. Let’s not be talkin’ ‘bout these old things. Why don’t we get in bed. Startin’ to get all nippy in here.”
He laughed. “I reckon it could be summertime and you’d still say it was nippy. Listen now, you don’t want to rush a good thing. Let’s let the pot stew a little while. I kind of find it hard to believe that four of you married members of that gang.”
“Well, hell, like Daddy said, they was the only ones had the money, or the way to get it. Listen, you ought not to be talkin’ bad ‘bout that bunch. Daddy says the county is mighty grateful to them. They go outside and bring money back, money that is sore needed around here.
Nosir, I ain’t ashamed of marryin’ Gus Home. What I’m ashamed of was he left me a widder woman without no marriage-bed ceremonies. A girl ought not to have to go lookin’ on her own, especially when she’d done already got herself a husband.”
Longarm said patiently, “You told me once that Lester Gaskamp was supposed to be a Mason County boy. Did you know him before?”
“Before he married Rebeccah? Before he went to robbing and banditry?” She pulled a face. “Tell you the truth, Marshal, I never set eyes on the man. I’m just goin’ on what I was told. He might have been from the moon for all I know.”
“Four of y’all married into the gang.”
She furrowed her brow. “Well, I’m not all that sure about that. Could have been my sister Rachel got her one too. She married right after Rebeccah, but she moved off. Clear to Rock Springs. And that’s a good piece away.”
“What makes you think he might have been an outlaw?”
She made a motion in the air with her hands. “I don’t know. About six months ago he come to the house—that was when I was still livin’ with Daddy. And he was just bristlin’ with pistols. Him and Daddy talked, and then Daddy said he wanted to show me something’. So me and Daddy got in the buggy, and this man followed us on his horse, and we come down here.”
“Here where?”
“Here. Right here. Right to this house. This cabin. Of course it belonged to ol’ Man Summers then. He was a old man who’d moved down here a couple of years ago after his wife died.”
“What then?”
She pulled a face. “Then nothin’. Daddy asked me how I liked the place and I said fine. Then we went on back to Daddy’s house. Wasn’t that much longer till ol’ Man Summers died. Must have fallen in the river an’ drowned. Didn’t find his body for a month. It had washed down the river clear to Llano, nearly.”
“What was the name of Rachel’s husband?”
She frowned and bit at her lower lip. “What was that boy’s name?” She frowned harder, furrowing her brow. “Well, Dan was his first name. I know the other. It was the same as some folks used to live here but they moved away. He wasn’t no kin to them, though. Laws, I got it right here on the tip of my tongue.” As if to illustrate, she ran the pink thing around her lips. The sight caused a stirring in Longarm’s crotch, but he quelled it. He had heard her very distinctly when she had talked about the old man named Summers who so conveniently drowned after she told her daddy she liked his place.
He had not said anything because he was far more interested in this man she was talking about, this husband of Rachel’s, the man just “bristling with pistols” and living in Rock Springs, the town where Austin Davis had said he’d run across a man named Vince Diver.
“Hicks, it was!” she said triumphantly. “I knowed I’d get it. Momma always said I was smart as paint and argued with Daddy about marrying me to any outlaw.”
“But she didn’t get her way.”
Hannah made a swipe at her hair. “Huh, Momma always got her way. Daddy told her the first marriage didn’t count. That was just to help the family out. He told her not to worry, he’d see me right in the husband department. Say, you ain’t married, are you?”
