Looking at him, you would say he was of an indeterminate age. His weathered face was marked by cold winds and hot summers, sandstorms and blizzards, and lined with worry and concern and fatigue and desperation. It could have been the face of a man at least forty, but his strong muscular body with his big arms, shoulders, and hands was more like that of someone in their thirties. He was about six feet tall, although he wasn’t sure exactly because he had never taken the trouble to measure himself. He weighed, depending on how he had been eating, somewhere around 190 pounds. He had a friendly face and hazel blue eyes that could go agate-hard on certain occasions.
Longarm was a deputy United States marshal, both by vocation and by conviction. He was a sincerely honest man who cared about his neighbor and who did not at all care for people who broke the law or who would harm those weaker than themselves. He was relentless in pursuit, merciless in a fight, and never willing to concede defeat so long as he was still breathing. Criminals and bandits and desperados knew him from the badlands of Kansas to the Mexican border in Texas, in Arkansas and Louisiana in the east, and in Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada in the west. There was nowhere he would not pursue wrongdoers, and once on that trail he would not stop until justice, in whatever form it took, had been done. He had fears, he was mortal, but they never showed. They only took their toll inside. Longarm was a man who, in the right circumstances, laughed easily, liked a good time, loved women, liked to gamble, loved to trade horses. But he loved his job more than anything else.
But sometimes he had to have a rest, and this was one of those times. It was with luxurious delight that he contemplated three more weeks of lying around, drinking and gambling, and satisfying to the best of his ability whatever female companionship chance might throw his way.
He sat up on the side of the bed, deciding that it was time for an afternoon drink. He poured out three fingers of the Maryland whiskey into a mostly clean glass, and was on the point of sipping it when there came a light rapping at his door.
He put the glass down on the bedside table and curled his fingers around the butt of his .44-caliber Colt revolver, He might be on vacation, but he still had plenty of enemies who weren’t.
Over his shoulder he asked, “Who is it?”
He heard muffled words that he could not distinguish. He said, “Come in!” and drew the revolver partway out of the holster. He turned around to see it was one of the young boys who worked around the hotel.
Longarm said, “Hey, Chico. You coming to knock on my door? What for?”
The young man said, “Mr. Long, there is a lady here to see you. She waits in the lobby.”
Longarm furrowed his brow. “A lady? To see me?”
“Yes, a very pretty lady.” The boy was about fifteen years old, so consequently he put a great deal of emphasis on the word “pretty.”
Longarm thought. In the week that he had been in Taos, he hadn’t met any women who would come calling on him. He asked, “Are you sure that you have the right man, Chico?”
The boy nodded vigorously. “She asked for the Marshal Custis Long. The United States Marshal Custis Long.”
Custis frowned. “Nobody is supposed to know that I am a deputy marshal, Chico. I explained that to you when you saw the badge. They might try to put me to work. Let’s be trying to keep that to ourselves.”
Chico said, “I didn’t tell the lady, Marshal Long. She asked for you like that. I don’t know how she know you’re a marshal. I don’t know how she know you’re here, but she came in asking for you. She is dressed very nice.”
Longarm got up. “Well, go tell her that I will be right there. it beats the hell out of me who it could be. Did she give a name?”
As if it had suddenly came to him, Chico said, “Oh, yes. She is a Missus Baxter. A Missus Lily Gail Baxter.”
Longarm almost staggered at the name. The last time he had seen her, her last name hadn’t been Baxter. She had claimed that it was Wharton, but it could have been anything. He doubted that it was Baxter this time, if it was the same Lily Gail, and if it was the same, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see her. But if it was the same, maybe he did want to see her. If there was ever a woman who could create mixed emotions in him, it was Lily Gail.
Longarm said, “Chico, give me about five minutes and then bring her on back.”
Chico asked, “You going to have her here in your room?”
Longarm smiled. He liked that choice of words. “Yes, Chico. I just might have her here in my room. You comprende? Run and tell her.”
“Okay.”
Longarm busied himself putting on a clean shirt and new socks, pulling on his boots, and brushing his hair. He had shaved that morning and he’d had a bath recently, so he was in pretty presentable shape.
As he prepared to wait for her arrival, he let his mind run back over his memories of Lily Gail, if indeed it was the same one—although it would be a strange coincidence if there was another Lily Gail. It had been over a year since he had seen her. She was without a doubt the most luscious piece of goods that he had ever encountered. She was about twenty-five or twenty-six, with startling blond hair that was like silk, and she was the very personification of sex as far as Longarm was concerned. A man seemed to melt into her while she seemed to envelop him. Longarm could still picture her erect breasts, which he always thought were about the size of a grapefruit, although shaped different. They were topped with nipples like big red strawberries. He thought the most appealing thing about her was that she didn’t know how desirable she was. Just thinking about her made his jeans get tight around the crotch.
The last time he had seen her, she had almost gotten him killed. She’d been attached to a gang that had been terrorizing Arkansas, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas and Kansas for several years. At the center of the gang had been three brothers, Rufus, Clem, and Vern Gallagher. Almost a year had passed from the time Lily Gail had successfully lured him into a trap. He had managed to extricate himself with the help of a couple of dozen cases of dynamite. In his escape, he had killed Vern Gallagher and had scattered the gang for a while. But Longarm, as well as every other lawman, knew that Rufus and Clem and their cousins and half cousins and friends were still very much in business.
He supposed he hated the Gallaghers about as much as any other outlaws he had ever come in contact with. They were murderers, they were rapists. For him they were a personal crusade, seeing that there was nothing that they wouldn’t stoop to. They seemed to have no morals, no principles, no stopping place. If cruelty, if viciousness, if mere brutality was called for, then the Gallaghers were your men. Their trademark was leaving no witnesses and their hallmark was fire. If they robbed a ranch of cattle and horses, they would burn the ranch house and all of the
