buildings. If they robbed a bank, they would set it on fire along with half of the town it was in. They would even burn the wagons of the stores they looted or the armed vehicles carrying bullion that they stole from the gold mines. Dynamite was another one of their trademarks. What they couldn’t burn, they blew up. For Longarm, the Gallaghers were personal, very personal.
What made them so difficult to catch was that they had friends and relations all over the several regions they operated in. As soon as they pulled a raid, they would simply melt into the general populace. The man who, the day before, had been involved in blowing up a bank and killing a half-dozen innocent people could be found the next day working cattle, or cutting hay, or shoveling manure, looking for all the world like an honest farmer or rancher. No one would turn the Gallaghers in. Part of that was because of their relations with the country folks in the area, who thought they were some sort of heroes because they would disperse a little of their ill-gotten gains among some of the poorer people. The main reason it was difficult to get information about them was that the Gallaghers had a way of finding out who it was who’d talked and then taking their retaliation.
They were a frightening bunch.
And Lily Gail was no less frightening. The thing about her was that she had the innocent primness of a young lady Sunday School teacher and the wanton lust of the most insatiable nymphomaniac. She always acted the innocent. He knew she was about as innocent as a rattlesnake. She had kept Longarm chained in a barn for four days while waiting for the Gallaghers to come and kill him, and in the meantime had teased him with views of her naked body. In the end, it had been her own overpowering lust that had allowed him to escape.
And now, perhaps, here she was again. Lily Gail Baxter this time. The last time, she had claimed to be married to a half cousin of the Gallaghers, a man named Wharton. Well, he thought, perhaps she had married another half cousin. But the thing that you wanted to remember about Lily Gail, he reminded himself, was that you didn’t want to believe a single word of what she said and less than half of what you saw her do.
But he could not keep himself from feeling excited at the prospect of burying and burrowing into that white, soft, luscious body again.
At that moment there came another knock on the door. Longarm crossed to it swiftly and flung it open. It was Chico again. He asked, “Where the hell is she, Chico?”
Chico said, “The lady say it no proper to come to your room. She say you have to come to the lobby. Marshal, I think the very pretty lady is right.”
Longarm swore softly. “Very proper indeed. This must be a different Lily Gail.”
“What do you want me to tell her, Marshal Long?”
“Quit calling me Marshal, Chico. Go on back there and tell her that I will be out in a couple of minutes. Tell me this, is she blond and real pretty?”
Chico grinned and rolled his eyes. “She plenty pretty, Marshal Long. Yes, she is blond.”
“Well, go ahead and tell her that I will be there in just a moment.” Longarm shut the door.
He sat on the bed, poured himself out some whiskey, and lit a small cigar. He knew Lily Gail hadn’t hunted him up, however she had done it, just to see how excited she could get him. She’d come from the Gallaghers, sure as hell. If she had, he wondered what he was going to do about it. There was, after all, his vacation to think about, and secondly, he was not about to allow her to lure him into another trap of any kind, luscious body or not.
With his mind firmly fixed that there was no way that she could tempt him, he finally finished the whiskey in his glass, snubbed out his cigar, put on his hat, and went out to the lobby. He spotted her immediately; it was impossible not to. Not because the lobby was so small, but by her striking head of golden blond hair and the wonderfully innocent little-girl face and wonderfully seductive big-girl’s body. She was sitting on a small settee against the far wall near the desk where guests registered.
Longarm walked across the tiled floor, his spurs going ching-ching-ching as he walked. She delayed looking at him until he was almost to her, and then, in what he took to be almost a practiced gesture, she jerked her head up to stare into his eyes, put her hand up to her mouth, and said, “Oh, you startled me, Marshal Long.”
He took off his hat and sat down beside her, laughing. He said, “Lily Gail, the last time anybody startled you was when they quit before you wanted them to. How have you been?”
She gave him one of her innocent looks. “Why, Marshal, I have been just fine, in spite of the fact that someone, who will go nameless, blew up my ranch house and my barn and killed half of my cattle and my hired hands.”
He threw back his head and laughed out loud. Lily Gail confused him. He couldn’t determine if she was smartly dumb or dumbly smart. He knew she was an awful lot smarter than she acted, but he wasn’t sure if she wasn’t also as dumb as she acted. He said, “If you will forgive me, Lily Gail, that’s not quite the way I remember it. As well as I can recall, I was chained to a post in your barn for several days, and the only relief I had from the boredom was the prospect of the Gallaghers coming to tear me apart between two horses and the occasional glimpse of you by moonlight.”
She blushed prettily. She said, giving him a slap on the thigh, “Why, Marshal Long, you’re not a gentleman to refer to that.”
“What? Me being torn apart by horses or me getting an occasional glimpse of you?”
Lily Gail gave him a shy smile. “You old silly. You know what I mean.”
Longarm said, “Well, before we go to swapping lies here, how about you telling me how you found me here, Lily Gail? I’m on leave of absence right now. I’m not even working. I’m just drinking whiskey and playing cards and having a rest. How in the hell did you get on to me?”
“Well, maybe I told a little lie,” she said with a sly smile.
“That would be the first one, correct?”
“Now, Marshal, you shouldn’t tease me.”
“Well, all right. What kind of a little lie did you tell?”
“I sort of sent a telegram to your office in Denver, Colorado. I remember many times you telling me that was your headquarters. I said that you were desperately needed on family business and asked where could you be reached.”
“And they wired you back and told you that I was in Taos?”
