dress. He also noticed that she noticed his gaze. She smiled.
He leaned back, muscular arms on the sides of the tub, closed his eyes. This was a pleasure a wandering man like himself didn’t experience all that often. He might as well enjoy it.
She even began to sing, which relaxed him all the more. She had a sweet voice. Too bad he couldn’t understand the Italian lyrics.
“What’s the song about?”
“Two lonely people who meet on a street in Rome one summer night.”
“Do they stay lonely?”
Her laugh was as sweet as her singing voice. “Not for long. That’s what the song is really about. How they meet and come together.”
“I think I like that song.”
“It’s one of my favorites, too.”
“Does the desk clerk know you favor certain guests?”
“Very few guests,” she said sadly, “for very few appeal to me. And anyway, he is sleeping with the owner’s wife. I keep his secrets and he keeps mine.”
“That’s a decent arrangement.”
“But he sees her many times more than I choose to favor guests with my body.”
“Maybe you’re too choosy.”
“I’ve thought of that. But it’s like that song I sing. How two people meet and come together. They must be the right people. Now let me pour more water in the tub.”
“I can’t figure out if you’re trying to scald me or drown me.”
“You will see what I am trying to do in very short order.”
Ten minutes and a bucket and a half later, Fargo found himself sinking into sleep. The song had become a kind of lullaby and the hot water was making him want to doze off. But he was surprised to find that she had a very satisfying way of getting his attention again.
She had slid her hand under the sudsy top of the water and taken hold of his manhood. Her mere touch had brought him to full alert.
“You are as big as I had hoped.”
Fargo laughed. “You like them big?”
“I am an Italian girl. We are a sensual country. We take our pleasure seriously. Why not have a lover who can fill you up and make you gasp?”
Her words were making his lance even stiffer. The blinding tension leading up to lovemaking was on him. His breath came in short animallike gasps. But he knew there was no way he could fit her into this small tub.
Her mouth found his, her tongue driving him up from the tub, dripping soapy water as he rose. But she arched herself away from him as her tongue flicked through his entire mouth, making him even harder. “It wouldn’t be right to get my dress wet. Let me spread towels out for us. And then I will undress.”
Fargo stepped out of the tub, his spear leading the way. Watching her undress only made his lust more urgent. She was a ripe woman with beautifully turned breasts and sumptuous curves. The curly hair at the top of her legs was as dark as her flashing eyes. He watched her bend over spreading the towels and could no longer hold himself. He eased up behind her and pressed himself against her. His entire body lurched as she gasped, “Oh, God!” Her breasts spilled over his hands. He held them tight and then began playing with one of them between his thumb and forefinger. She began insinuating herself against his manhood with greater passion than before.
They sank to the towels slowly, her turning in his arms as they did so. When he knelt between her he spread her legs and eased down to part her thighs and bring his mouth to her. When his tongue tasted her she writhed upward with her hips and then grabbed his hair with such ferocity it was a wonder she didn’t tear some of it out by the roots.
He kept her dancing on the tip of his tongue until she screamed with enough savagery to be heard by everybody on the floor. In the last stages of thrashing wet joy she said, “Now, now be in me!”
Fargo didn’t need more of an invitation than that. He drew himself up and let her guide him in.
“You are so big!” she cried.
He put himself in very deep and then began to twist and wriggle out a furious rhythm they were both comfortable with. He’d been right about those hips. He used them to steer their passion, slipping his hands now and then to her ample buttocks to slam himself deeper and deeper into her. After a time he varied his strokes, short stabs, long lances, almost teasing her. Her legs were over his shoulders now and she brought them together as a vise behind his neck.
When they were both working their way toward mutual frenzy, he eased himself out of her and then turned her over. She positioned herself on her palms and knees as he drove himself inside her. Once again he used her hips as a way of steering the sex and she was happy to let him drive their mutual satisfaction.
By the time he finished, he’d given up counting the number of her explosions. It had to be more than ten.
Her eyes shone like stars as she lay there looking up at him. He was on his haunches now, grabbing his makings from his clothes.
“I will never forget this.”
“Neither will I,” he said. A harmless lie.
“You know what is funny?”
“What is funny?”
“The way you sweat. You know what must happen now, don’t you?”
“No, I guess I don’t.”
“I will have to give you another bath. The water will be cooler now. But I am sure you will be much more relaxed this time.”
“You may have something there, you know that?”
She stood up. She was lacquered with sweat, too. She grabbed one of the towels from the floor and began drying herself. “Antonia will sleep well tonight. I am sure of it.” She pointed to the tub. “Now my well-hung friend, sit in the water again and I will wash the hair and the body the way I should have. But I was too distracted with my own lust to do a good job.”
“You didn’t hear me complaining, did you?”
“Nor I,” she said. “You did not hear Antonia complaining either, did you?”
Fargo pushed through the batwings of the Gold Mine ready for some whiskey now that he’d had a romp with the accommodating woman who worked for the hotel.
At this time of night, a saloon like this one should have been crowded with men wanting to get drunk and have a good time with cards, tall tales and a few of the soiled doves who prowled the large smoky room.
Tonight though, harsh voices told of tension and anger.
The three girls in their low-cut blue taffeta dresses sat at a table talking to one another. Apparently none of the customers were much interested in them right now. The discovery of Clete Byrnes had put a pall on any fun.
Fargo strode to the long bar, found an empty space and asked for a shot of whiskey and a schooner of beer. The bartender was a fat man in a dirty white shirt and red sleeve garters. He kept right on talking to another customer, his only recognition of Fargo’s request a curt nod. Then he stopped talking to the other man and stared at Fargo.
“You’re the fella that found Clete, ain’t ya?”
“Guess I am.”
“The Trailsman.”
“That’s what some folks call me. Just as soon be called by my real name.”
There was so much conversation that only the men at the bar heard the exchange between Fargo and the bartender. They all angled around so they could see the man who’d found the Byrnes boy. One of them shouted to a table of drinkers, “Here’s the man who found Clete!”
So much for having a few peaceful, solitary drinks. Fargo never liked the limelight. Being the center of attention often meant trouble of one kind or another, especially in a saloon full of drunken, sullen men.
