He put the glass down on the bedside table and curled his fingers around the butt of his .44-caliber Colt revolver, He might be on vacation, but he still had plenty of enemies who weren’t.
Over his shoulder he asked, “Who is it?”
He heard muffled words that he could not distinguish. He said, “Come in!” and drew the revolver partway out of the holster. He turned around to see it was one of the young boys who worked around the hotel.
Longarm said, “Hey, Chico. You coming to knock on my door? What for?”
The young man said, “Mr. Long, there is a lady here to see you. She waits in the lobby.”
Longarm furrowed his brow. “A lady? To see me?”
“Yes, a very pretty lady.” The boy was about fifteen years old, so consequently he put a great deal of emphasis on the word “pretty.”
Longarm thought. In the week that he had been in Taos, he hadn’t met any women who would come calling on him. He asked, “Are you sure that you have the right man, Chico?”
The boy nodded vigorously. “She asked for the Marshal Custis Long. The United States Marshal Custis Long.”
Custis frowned. “Nobody is supposed to know that I am a deputy marshal, Chico. I explained that to you when you saw the badge. They might try to put me to work. Let’s be trying to keep that to ourselves.”
Chico said, “I didn’t tell the lady, Marshal Long. She asked for you like that. I don’t know how she know you’re a marshal. I don’t know how she know you’re here, but she came in asking for you. She is dressed very nice.”
Longarm got up. “Well, go tell her that I will be right there. it beats the hell out of me who it could be. Did she give a name?”
As if it had suddenly came to him, Chico said, “Oh, yes. She is a Missus Baxter. A Missus Lily Gail Baxter.”
Longarm almost staggered at the name. The last time he had seen her, her last name hadn’t been Baxter. She had claimed that it was Wharton, but it could have been anything. He doubted that it was Baxter this time, if it was the same Lily Gail, and if it was the same, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see her. But if it was the same, maybe he did want to see her. If there was ever a woman who could create mixed emotions in him, it was Lily Gail.
Longarm said, “Chico, give me about five minutes and then bring her on back.”
Chico asked, “You going to have her here in your room?”
Longarm smiled. He liked that choice of words. “Yes, Chico. I just might have her here in my room. You comprende? Run and tell her.”
“Okay.”
Longarm busied himself putting on a clean shirt and new socks, pulling on his boots, and brushing his hair. He had shaved that morning and he’d had a bath recently, so he was in pretty presentable shape.
As he prepared to wait for her arrival, he let his mind run back over his memories of Lily Gail, if indeed it was the same one—although it would be a strange coincidence if there was another Lily Gail. It had been over a year since he had seen her. She was without a doubt the most luscious piece of goods that he had ever encountered. She was about twenty-five or twenty-six, with startling blond hair that was like silk, and she was the very personification of sex as far as Longarm was concerned. A man seemed to melt into her while she seemed to envelop him. Longarm could still picture her erect breasts, which he always thought were about the size of a grapefruit, although shaped different. They were topped with nipples like big red strawberries. He thought the most appealing thing about her was that she didn’t know how desirable she was. Just thinking about her made his jeans get tight around the crotch.
The last time he had seen her, she had almost gotten him killed. She’d been attached to a gang that had been terrorizing Arkansas, Oklahoma, and parts of Texas and Kansas for several years. At the center of the gang had been three brothers, Rufus, Clem, and Vern Gallagher. Almost a year had passed from the time Lily Gail had successfully lured him into a trap. He had managed to extricate himself with the help of a couple of dozen cases of dynamite. In his escape, he had killed Vern Gallagher and had scattered the gang for a while. But Longarm, as well as every other lawman, knew that Rufus and Clem and their cousins and half cousins and friends were still very much in business.
He supposed he hated the Gallaghers about as much as any other outlaws he had ever come in contact with. They were murderers, they were rapists. For him they were a personal crusade, seeing that there was nothing that they wouldn’t stoop to. They seemed to have no morals, no principles, no stopping place. If cruelty, if viciousness, if mere brutality was called for, then the Gallaghers were your men. Their trademark was leaving no witnesses and their hallmark was fire. If they robbed a ranch of cattle and horses, they would burn the ranch house and all of the 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.