think he must have been a very good war leader who knew what he was doing when he led his blue sleeves to their last fight.'
Longarm started to make an obvious objection to her odd line of reasoning. Then he followed her drift and started moving in time with her twisting as he declared, 'You're saying an experienced veteran of many an almost one-sided victory could get in a whole lot of trouble because he was so used to winning he never considered how he might lose! Custer rode to disaster that sunny summer day because it just never occurred to him that enough Indians to override a cavalry column could ever be gathered in one place and mounted up all at once. He knew all about fighting Confederate Cavalry and traditional bands of Horse Indians, no offense. Just like many a rider of the Owlhoot Trail may know, or thinks he knows, how to bust the law and evade the usual consequences. Jailbirds hardly talk about anything but what the two of us are doing, or how to put one over on the law. But they consider womankind when discussing pleasure and mankind when discussing how to get away with most anything else.'
She moaned she was coming. That made two of them, but Longarm was still able to mutter, 'I figured right off they were overconfident enough to let a girl-child get the drop on them. But how could even an overconfident crook leave a trail for the sweet little thing to follow without help?'
Then they were too busy to talk for a spell as Longarm rolled her on her back to finish right with her firm breasts plastered to his naked heaving chest and her open lips panting puppy-like in his face, Horse Indian style, while he came in her all the way down to his curled-under toes and quickly bent them the other way as his calves commenced to cramp.
As he lay soaking in her, with some of his weight politely on his elbows, Sue smiled up at him and said, 'They had some man helping them.'
He kissed her, his way, and asked if there was any point to what she'd just said. The Lakota gal replied, 'To scout those outlaws so some wasichuweya witko could shoot them while they were wondering how to fuck her. Don't you see how easy that would be?'
He started to object, nodded, and kissed her some more before he said, 'I think somebody may have just pulled something like that on yours truly. Somebody who knew me on sight, just as I'd know him, went pussyfooting around until he knew I was in town and could make some educated guesses as to where I'd pass through rifle sights. If some less than heroic bounty hunter or professional informant could track down a wanted desperado from a safe distance, then send for a pretty little thing to carry out the execution, a lot of pieces do fall into place. But to tell the truth, that theory leaves a whole new bunch of questions unanswered.'
She switched her twat teasingly and asked what a theory was.
He said he was sorry he used big words when he was studying hard on a case and explained, 'A theory is a line of educated guesses that might or might not add up to a proven fact. The jury is still out on Professor Darwin's theory about us evolving out of clams or something worse. The theory that there were Seven Golden Cities down New Mexico way has been proven false for certain.'
She asked what the quests of Darwin or Coronado had to do with the case he was working on. Then she decided, 'Never mind. I don't really want to know. I'm getting hot again. How do you feel about that?'
He said he had noticed a certain hardening in his attitude toward her. So they were going at it, slow and sensuous in the cooling draft from the open window beside them as they both knew without discussing it that they were really going to have to stop and rest a spell after this one.
It felt nice to just keep it hard enough to stay interesting in her as he reclined on one elbow, gazing out the window through the lace at the same time. The first stars were out and somebody had lit a streetlamp whilst they'd been too excited to pay attention.
That was something to study on. Even a familiar figure in a white hat and suit could slip in or out of a hotel entrance he was supposed to be watching in the time it would take to light a damned streetlamp.
He said so and she dreamily replied, 'I don't care. I just want to keep doing this hunkesni, owihankeshni! Would it be better if I got on top?'
He sighed and said, 'Nothing lasts forever and I dasn't let you get on top because I'm trying to keep one eye on that hotel entrance across the way.'
She told him in that case to move faster, adding, 'The Wasichu in ska may never come back. Or he may have already come back and you didn't see him.'
Longarm growled, 'I just said that. If he knows I'm still paid up at the Pilgrim he could be staked out, his ownself, anywhere on the premises! I ought to be whipped with snakes for carrying on this way whilst I'm supposed to be watching for Deacon Knox!'
Then he suddenly spotted a big blur of white moving along the far walk in the gathering dusk and paused in mid-stroke to declare, 'If that ain't a paid-up member of the Ku Klux Klan after somebody else, it looks as if we guessed right about that son of a bitch scouting around town for this child in vain. Suppertime is clearly over, and he may figure I'm doing something like this, with somebody else, up in my vacated room across the way!'
She asked who else he had in mind. Then she wrapped her tawny legs around him and groaned, 'I don't care. Finish what you have started with me! Don't tease me! Hi-yey! Hi-yey! Faster! Faster!'
He knew it would be faster to finish than to try to take it out, even had he wanted to. So he pounded her hard to glory and enjoyed it so much he almost passed out beside her when she suddenly went dishrag limp and let her arms and legs fall free from him.
He rolled off her instead, feeling light-headed as hell when he sat up to start dressing. When she blearily asked what he was doing he didn't answer. She murmured, 'Onsika, you men are all the same. You would rather fight than fuck.'
Then she'd dozed off again and Longarm was on his feet in his old army boots, strapping on his.44-40 as he smiled down wistfully at the voluptuous tawny curves he might never see again and murmured, 'What can I say, Miss Sue? What can any man say at times such as these? When you're right you're right.'
She called him something dirty in Lakota as he gently but firmly removed his Winchester from under the pillow her head was half dozing on. As he backed toward the door in the gloom, he could still make out the play of light through the fluttering curtains on her smooth warm skin.
As he eased out into the hall he muttered to himself, 'There really must be something wrong with me. For this ain't the first time I've passed on a whole night of fine screwing in favor of one son of a bitching get-together with another asshole with a gun!'
CHAPTER 11
Longarm circled wide in the gathering dusk to enter the Pilgrim Hotel by way of its connections to the stable out back. He snicked his Winchester off Safe as he eased up the back stairs to the dark upper hallway. They hadn't lit the hall fixtures yet. But there was enough light from outside to see the pale match stem on the darker hall runner near the bottom of his hired room.
He didn't try to open the door. He eased on by and used a certain blade of his pocketknife to open the cheap lock of the room next door he'd hired for little Daisy.
He followed the muzzle of his Winchester inside, crouching low, to see her room was empty. He moved through the gloom to the bath shared by both rooms. Daisy had naturally left the door on her own side unbolted because the bolts were on the insides of both doors for the sake of private bathing.
He glided across the tile floor on the balls of his feet to find that Daisy, bless her, hadn't bothered to bolt the door leading on into his hired room. She'd offered right out to fuck him, thinking back on such free-and-easy bathing. The asshole-puckering part came next. There was no better way to manage. So Longarm set the Winchester on the floor tiles and drew his six-gun for close-quarters chores as he gingerly reached for the bolt with his left hand.
He took three deep breaths, held the last, and hunkered down to charge into the room beyond in a crouch, crabbing to one side as he snarled, 'Drop your hardware and grab some ceiling you son of a bitch!'
There came no answer. The room was empty. Longarm put his six-gun away with a sheepish grin, muttering, 'Shit, just as I was starting to enjoy myself!'
He moved back the way he'd just come, picking up his Winchester and leaving by way of Daisy's door. He didn't bother to lock her door with his pocketknife. The hotel's keys were where he'd left them to be found by the chambermaid. He wondered idly what that one looked like as he moved down the front stairs, this time wondering why a man who'd just shot his wad in one chambermaid cared what yet another one might look like.
As any experienced housefighter knows, sneaking up a flight of stairs is way safer than sneaking down one. Because when anyone might be laying for you up or down, your head popping suddenly into view offers a poorer
