He smiled. “We done been through that, Hannah. The law doesn’t allow a federal officer to get married on account of his work.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. I don’t reckon it makes no difference. Daddy says my second husband is going to have to have a pile of money.” She blew a strand of hair away from her face. “And now that you are helping educate me in bed, I’ll make somebody a fine wife. Maybe marry a banker or a lawyer or a senator or something.”
He sat, sipping at his whiskey and admiring what he could see of her across the table. The wrapper had fallen open, and her fresh, firm breasts were revealed to the strawberry-sized nipples. Someday they would be sagging and old, but now they were so firm and erect you could see the rounded bottoms of each. Longarm was a connossieur of women’s breasts, and he was hard pressed to remember when he’d seen a pair to match Hannah’s in perfection and symmetry. He was also trying to think of some way to probe her about the men who had come to her father’s place without making her suspicious. He said, “Hannah, you talked about Dan Hicks, Rachel’s husband, showing up. Weren’t you at the wedding?”
“Naw. One morning Daddy loaded her up in a buggy and they drove off. Daddy came back two days later without her. She wrote and said she was married and just happy as a lark.”
“Do a lot of men come around your daddy’s place?”
“Well, laws, yes. Daddy’s in politics, don’t you know, and they got to come out and talk to him over a jug of whiskey.”
“What do you mean your daddy is in politics?”
She looked prim. “Well, he says who gets to be representative and go up to Austin. And I think senator too. Though I ain’t real sure about that. And the mayor and the sheriff. Why, even the banker comes out to talk to him. My daddy is mighty important.”
“What about this place?” He raised his hand and made a circle to include the cabin. “Didn’t you think it was kind of odd Mister Summers dying right when he did? I mean, you were going to marry Gus Home and he needed a place. I bet he got it cheap. What’d you think?”
She shrugged. “Why, I never thought nothing at all about it. Daddy says we all got to go sometime and that old man was being foolish living this close to a river. Daddy says the river most likely got on a rise and swept him plumb away.” She suddenly frowned. “But how come we are talking about all this? I thought you was gonna tell me about your first time. And when are we gonna get back in bed?”
He held up his glass, which still contained about an inch of whiskey.
“Let me finish this first. Hell, girl, I got to rest. I’m the one doing most of the work. By the way, how old is your daddy?”
“Daddy?” The question caught her off guard, and for a second her face was blank. Then she frowned. “Oh, he’s old. I’d guess he’s fifty. Somewheres in there. Why?”
“No reason.” He took a sip of his whiskey. “And there’s just you girls. Ten of you?”
“That’s right. Daddy says he should have worn his boots to bed. That’s the way you get boys.”
He said, making his voice casual, “Funny thing. Not too long back, I run into a Vince Diver. Wondered if he might be some kin of yours.”
He was watching her eyes. For a second he saw a furtive shrinking of her pupils, but then it passed and her face went back to its open and innocent self. She said, shaking her head, “No relation that I know of.”
“It ain’t exactly a common name.”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I never even been out of the county. No, I take that back. Daddy took us all to Llano for the fair one time. Ain’t you through with that whiskey yet?”
He had not meant to spend the night, but Hannah was so demanding and voracious that he finally fell asleep during one of the few times she let him rest. He awoke with the weak light of the false dawn leaking through the windows and Hannah curled up in a ball next to him sound asleep. He eased out of bed as quietly as he could, gathered up his clothes and his boots and his gunbelt, and stole silently out the door of the cabin, closing it quietly behind him. As a general rule he was a morning man when it came to a little fun, but he didn’t have anything left and the last thing he wanted to do was fight Hannah off.
He dressed standing out in the cold dimness, shivering as he buttoned up his shirt and then got his jeans and socks on. He pulled on his boots, strapped his gunbelt in place, and then stole quietly around the cabin and got his horse saddled and bridled. The horse wanted to nicker at him, but he covered the horse’s nose with his hand and led him out of the pen and about twenty yards up the path before he mounted. When he had a mile between himself and the cabin he let out a breath and shook his head. Never in his life could he have figured on some little slip of a girl doing him down and causing him to cry Uncle, but that was damn near what had happened.
As he approached town he wondered about Austin Davis and how he had made out. But the first thing he wanted was some breakfast and then maybe a nap. He didn’t know what time he had finally fallen asleep, but he knew it was late. He rode straight to the hotel and put his horse in the livery, and then walked around to the front and passed through the lobby on his way to the dining room. As soon as he stepped into the lobby Austin Davis got up and came to him. “I got to talk to you,” Davis said.
“Let’s eat some breakfast.”
“I already ate, but I’ll drink a cup of coffee. Something has happened and I don’t know what to make of it.”
They were going into the dining room. Longarm sat down at the first empty table he saw. He said, “Let me get some food in me and then fire away. What are you doing in town? Didn’t you see Rebeccah?”
“Yeah, and I need to talk about that with you. But that ain’t all.”
They didn’t speak again until Longarm had put away a half-dozen fried eggs, a ham steak, and half-a-dozen biscuits. When he was through he wiped his mouth on his napkin and said, “Now. What’s the big news.”
“Well,” Austin Davis said, “for openers, Amos Goustwhite’s body is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“I mean up and disappeared. Horse too.”
