“All right,” Megan said, as agreeably as possible. “We’ll camp out here by the side of the lake. My horses hobble well and won’t wander. We’ve got grain for them and food for us. It’ll be just fine.”
“Glad you agree,” Longarm said, only slightly mollified.
“Why don’t you gather some driftwood for the fire and I’ll lay out things.”
“Sounds good.”
Longarm wandered over to the edge of the lake. It was big, but not very scenic because most of the surrounding trees had been chopped down by travelers. Topaz Lake was ringed by barren, sagebrush hills, and nestled at the base of the imposing Sierra Nevadas. A late afternoon wind had risen, and it was coming off the mountains cooler and refreshing. The blue surface of the water was marked by whitecaps, and Longarm saw plenty of driftwood for the fire. He began to gather up an armful, and when he had all that he could carry, he trudged on back to their camp.
“That’ll do nicely,” Megan said. “I’ll get a fire going and we’ll see if we can get ourselves fed before sundown.”
“That would be great,” he said, flopping down on his back with a groan of contentment.
“Are you tired or something?” she asked with a half smile.
“Tired? Megan, tired isn’t a big enough word for how I feel right now. My butt is on fire and I feel as if I’ve ridden to hell and back.”
“Tsk, tsk,” she clucked. “Apparently, you’ve been spending way too much time in an office chair and not enough in the saddle.”
“They don’t pay me to ride a horse all over creation,” he snapped.
“Then why is it so important that you go down and try to sort things out with Marshal Ivan Kane? I mean, it’s not what you are paid to do, is it?”
Longarm sat down cross-legged, facing what was shaping up to be a rather spectacular sunset. “No,” he admitted after a moment of deliberation, “it’s not what I am paid, as a deputy United States marshal, to do.”
“Then, why-“
“Ivan Kane was once a United States federal officer. He was once a federal prisoner. He’s been a lot of things, including an inspiration to some of us in the profession. You see, Megan, he’s a man who had to overcome a lot of bad things in his life to become a legend.”
“But now that the legend is crumbling,” Megan ventured, “it’s ever so important to restore its luster or … or else take care of the problem. Is that it?”
“Sort of.” Longarm extracted a half-smoked cheroot from his vest pocket. “Kane saved my boss’s life once. He saved three other lawmen by busting up an ambush.”
“Oh. So that’s it. Your boss owes a debt and he’s asking you to repay it for him.”
“I wouldn’t put it that way exactly,” Longarm said, scowling as he lit his smoke. “I’d just say that Ivan Kane is a man greatly admired by some of us. If he’s in trouble, I want to be the one that helps him.”
“But what if, as the telegraph operator said, he’s just plain dishonest? That he’s been in the job so long that he’s tossed out the law books and become a law unto himself’?”
Longarm watched as the clouds begin to turn salmon and the sun exploded against the highest Sierra peaks. He smoked for a minute, and then he said, “I’ll just have to do whatever is necessary. I can’t see into the future.”
“I can,” Megan said, starting to prepare their spartan meal of beef and beans. “And I see big trouble.”
“I hope you’re wrong.”
“I’m not,” she said.
Longarm thought about that all through dinner. Sundown was as brilliant as a bouquet of pink roses. It was nice to sit and watch the sky go through those spectacular changes and then see the first evening stars appear. The heat was swept away in the cool, stiff wind and Longarm, despite his aches and pains, almost felt restored.
“I’m going to take a bath in the lake,” Megan said after she’d washed their plates and packed everything neatly away in the saddlebags. “I feel gritty.”
“So do I,” Longarm said. “Mind if I join you?”
He could not see her face, and therefore her reaction, clearly because of the failed light, but he thought he saw her smile. No matter, because she said, “It’s a big lake, Marshal Long. Why don’t you find some more of it?”
He didn’t have to hide his disappointment. “I guess that means I’ll have to wash my own back tonight, huh?”
“I guess it does,” Megan said.
“You’re a strong woman,” Longarm told her. “A real pillar of virtue. Your father sure didn’t have anything to worry about, did he.”
“Shut up and go for a swim. Don’t drown, because then I wouldn’t have any excuse to see Bodie, which I’ve been wanting to do for years.”
“It’s not so much.”
“Neither are you,” she said, poking him in the ribs and then hurrying off toward the water.
Longarm couldn’t see a lot, only her silhouette, as Megan peeled out of her men’s clothes and stood beside the shore. The damned moon was behind the clouds, or he might have gotten a far better view of her lovely body. As it was, he could see just enough to realize that the top half of Miss Megan Riley was every bit as perfect as the bottom half. Her breasts were large, firm, and high. Her waist was very small and her hips, maybe because she spent so much time on horseback, were almost as slender as those of a man.
