Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{She had to lift her veil to drink, and he could see that this woman was what a man would hope to find behind every veil. Lovely. Her cheeks were rosy and full, her lips even rosier and more lush. Her eyes were dark and her lashes long and curling. She had dimples when she smiled. She wasn’t any kid, being in her thirties at the least. Longarm didn’t get a very good look at her. But good enough. He liked what he saw there. She drank quickly, holding her veil just barely aside while she did so, and then handed the empty cup back down to him. “Thank you, sir, I—”}

_{“Hey!” the railroad boss barked. “You. It’s, uh, don’t tell me now.” He snapped his fingers impatiently, the way some people will do in an effort to jog reluctant memory. “Dammit, I know you. Oh, hell, yes. Frenchie!” He barked out a laugh and leaned forward, one meaty hand probing}

_{without warning or hesitation into the woman’s crotch.}

_{The lady cried out and shrank into a comer, but he had her trapped there. And his hand was searching now for the hem of her gown.}

_{Longarm roared and swarmed the side of the wagon rather than wasting the time it would take to go around to the steps.}

_{“You dumb son of a bitch,” the railroader protested, “this is—”}

_{He didn’t have time enough to finish his statement. Longarm’s right fist crushed his lips flat against his teeth, pulping soft flesh and sending blood flying.}

_{The woman screamed and tried to draw away, but she was already trapped in a comer of the seat. There was nowhere she could go.}

_{The man was no stranger to rough-and-tumble. And no single rap in the teeth was going to make him quit. Before Longarm was fully inside the wagon the railroader was responding with flying fists and elbows.}

_{Longarm smothered the force of the blows by throwing himself on top of his adversary, wrestling the man off the woman and onto the floor of the wagon.}

_{The two tussled there, neither able to get off any telling punches at such close quarters. Longarm was more or less on top of the railroader. Deliberately he drew back a little and got his legs under him while he waited for the powerfully built railroad boss to bull his way forward.}

_{The railroader grunted and chopped, but at that range was doing nothing except to wear himself out. Longarm stayed close and waited.}

_{As he expected, the railroader hadn’t much patience and was used to having things all his own way. The man tried to dominate the situation by placing himself on top of the struggle.}

_{Which was just what Longarm was wanting.}

_{As soon as the railroader clawed himself nearly upright, Longarm launched himself at the man, driving with all his leg strength and using his forearms as battering rams. He}

_{caught the railroader low in the chest, coming up at the man from a low angle and driving through him.}

_{The railroader flew backward. He hit the rim of the wagon box and was pushed over and beyond it, toppling out of the rig to fall heavily onto the hard gravel five feet below.}

_{Longarm leaped after him, vaulting the side of the wagon and dropping knees first onto the railroader’s gut.}

_{The breath was driven out of the railroader, and he went pale. Longarm straddled the stricken man with one hand locked at the fellow’s throat and his other fist upraised.}

_{“I think,” he gritted through clenched teeth, “you owe the lady an apology.”}

_{The railroader gave Longarm a look that was venomous. But he nodded meekly enough.}

_{“Sorry I... bumped into you,” Longarm said. He stood and helped the railroad boss to his feet, even turned the man around and helped brush off his backside. “Now,” Longarm said. “I believe there was somethin’ you were gonna say t’ the lady?”}

_{The railroad man scowled and looked like he was willing to seek a second opinion, then for some reason thought better of it. He cleared his throat, bowed in the direction of the wagon where the veiled woman was watching, and made a stiffly awkward apology that sounded every bit as insincere as it no doubt was. Still, insincere or not, it satisfied the proprieties.}

_{“An honest error, I am sure,” the lady said graciously, then looked away as if to pretend that none of it had ever happened.}

_{The railroad man gave Longarm a murderous look but said nothing. He picked up the hat that he’d lost in the tussle, then climbed back onto the wagon and went to the rear, taking the seat that the two drummers had shared until now. Longarm gathered that the seating arrangements were changing for the remainder of the journey.}

_{The businessmen, who had been staying well out of the way while all this went on, boarded the wagon again too}

_{and occupied the bench that until now Longarm and the railroader had used. Longarm’s choice for the rest of the trip would be in the back beside the railroad boss or else in the middle beside the lady.}

_{The lady said nothing, but she did simplify the decision for him by sliding over to the side of her seat and ostentatiously holding her skirts aside to make room there.}

_{“Ready, mister?” the driver asked. He too seemed to be pretending that nothing had happened during the halt.}

_{“Yes, thank you.” Longarm got back on and sat beside the woman. He could feel the warmth of her thigh close beside his leg. The seat benches were narrow on this rig. But not that narrow. He smiled and touched the brim of his hat to her again.}

_{She handed him an object that at first he couldn’t identify. What it looked like was a piece of trash, a twig or bit of half-rotted bark that someone might find littering a forest floor. Then he realized that this crushed and splintered thing was what remained of the cheroot he’d been smoking when he invaded the wagon. He had quite forgotten it.}

_{“I enjoy the fragrance of a gentleman’s cigar,” she said, placing a distinct emphasis on the word “gentleman’s” loudly enough for the railroader on the bench behind them to overhear. And again Longarm was acutely aware of the warmth of her body so close beside his.}

_{‘Thank you, ma’am,” he said solemnly as he pulled out a fresh cheroot and began the rituals of tending to it.}

_{Longarm found himself hoping that the lady was on her way through to Snowshoe just like he was.}

_{It was past noon when the wagon reached the end of the railroad tracks where they could pick up the narrow-gauge line into Glory. It peeved Longarm that there was no provision made for box lunches for the passengers. He himself could get along fine without a meal, but the railroad should have been more considerate of the lady he was traveling beside. She shouldn’t be expected to travel all day without food.}

_{Traveling beside, he reflected, but certainly not traveling with. The lady hadn’t spoken again since that stop back along the way. But Longarm hadn’t exactly been able to forget about her. By the time they reached the transfer point at the track-end, she was sitting so that her leg was pressed tight against his. As he was by now uncomfortably aware. All that jostling contact had had him in a state of erection for much of the trip, damn it, and there was nothing he could do to relieve the problem.}

_{Even so, it was with mixed feelings on the subject that Longarm climbed down and helped the lady to the ground after first allowing the railroader and the drummers to leave.}

_{By then the driver was already transferring luggage to a crudely built platform near the timbered bumper that had been constructed to block the cars from rolling off the end of the track. Longarm stayed with the lady just in case the shit-for-brains railroad boss was waiting to catch her without a protector nearby.}