Longarm 245: Longarm and the Vanishing Virgin (16 page)

Beth came back into the room carrying a cup of coffee. She handed it to Longarm and said, “I didn't know if you take cream and sugar or not, so I brought it black.”

“Black's just fine, Miz Jellicoe.” A dollop of Maryland rye would have made it even better, but Longarm kept that comment to himself for the time being. He didn't know if Beth had any liquor in the house and didn't want to be too forward about asking, not after all she done for him already.

The coffee was good, but it had a definite unexpected twist to its flavor. Longarm looked up after sipping it and said, “Chicory?”

Beth nodded. “I always put some in the pot when I brew coffee. An old habit.”

“You're from New Orleans?”

Her face lit up with a smile. “That's right. You must know the city if you recognize the taste of chicory.”

“Been there a time or two,” Longarm admitted. He didn't add that the last time, he had gotten himself involved with a voodoo queen and had almost been killed by a damned zombie.

“I lived there until I was eighteen,” she said. “Then I married Thomas and he decided to come out here and start a ranch. We had a few good years until—” She stopped short and looked down at the floor. She had been talking easily to Longarm, and he regretted that she had suddenly felt uncomfortable. He waited quietly until she took a deep breath and went on. “You'll have to excuse me. I know I'm talking too much. It's just that I don't see very many people out here, and I don't get into town very often. It gets ... lonely.”

If there was one word to describe the Texas plains, that was it, thought Longarm. He nodded and said, “I know just what you mean, ma'am.” He paused for a second, then asked, “Was that you who fired a shot not long before I came riding out of the sand hills like a crazy man?”

“That's right. I was shooting a jackrabbit.” She nodded toward the empty bowl sitting on the bedside table. “I was glad I did, so we had some fresh meat.”

Longarm swallowed hard. So that had been jackrabbit in the stew, not chicken. Well, it could have been worse, he told himself. Could have been rattlesnake.

“You run this ranch by yourself?”

“That's right,” said Beth. “I might not admit that to a strange man under normal circumstances, but I happen to know that you're a lawman, so I suppose I can trust you.”

“You found my badge and bona fides in my clothes?”

“Yes. And I have to admit that I'm very curious about why a United States deputy marshal would come galloping out of the sand hills with a bullet wound.” She shook her head. “But I won't ask. I don't want to pry into things that are none of my business.”

Longarm sipped more of the strong black coffee, then said, “I reckon you made it your business when you toted me in here and patched up that gully in my side, ma'am. You ever heard of the Heck Wallace gang?”

“Of course. Everyone in West Texas has heard of them lately, I imagine. Were they after you?”

Longarm nodded. “Yep. They've got something I want, and they didn't cotton to me trying to take it.”

“Do you think they'll come here ... looking for you?”

Longarm had asked himself that very question. He didn't want to put Beth in any danger. But it was entirely possible, even likely, that Wallace and the other outlaws had simply moved their camp and would not be coming after him. At the moment, they would be more interested in the ransom they hoped to get for Nora Canady than anything else.

“I don't think it's very likely,” he said slowly in answer to Beth's question. “Did you see anybody else riding out of the sand hills?”

She shook her head. “No. And it took me a while to catch that dun of yours, then get you in the saddle on my horse. If the Wallace gang was chasing you, they weren't very close behind you.”

That was good news, thought Longarm. It meant Beth was probably safe.

Of course, Nora was still in the hands of the gang, and he would have to deal with that, but at least he wouldn't have to worry about the outlaws showing up here at Beth's ranch and threatening her.

He said as much to Beth, leaving out any mention of Nora for the time being, and added, “If they do ride up, you'll have to turn me over to them.”

She looked offended. “I'd never do that.”

“You might not have any choice.”

“I didn't haul you in here and patch up that bullet wound and feed you rabbit stew just so some outlaws can kill you, Custis Long,” she said with a stubborn shake of her head. She stood up and came to take the bowl from the table. “Now, you'd better get some more rest.”

He drained the last of the coffee from the cup and handed it to her as well. “Don't see as how that's very likely, not after that coffee,” he said.

“Well, try anyway,” she said tartly.

“Oh, all right.” Might as well humor her, he thought. He slid down in the bed and let his head sink in the pillows.

Damned if he didn't go to sleep, coffee or no coffee. He heard the door close softly behind her, and that was the last thing he was aware of for a long time.

It was the next morning when Longarm awoke, and his bladder was hollering at him to give it some relief. He looked around for a chamber pot, and not seeing one, swung his legs out of bed and stood up to go in search of one.

That was when, despite having awakened feeling rested and refreshed, he was forcibly reminded that he had been wounded and lost a lot of blood only the day before. The room spun crazily around him. Hell, it felt like the whole world was spinning wrong. He let out a curse and grabbed one of the posts at the foot of the bed to keep from falling down.

A moment later, as his head was trying to settle down a little, the bedroom door opened and Beth Jellicoe stepped through it. “Good Lord!” she exclaimed when she saw him standing there clinging to the bedpost. “What are you doing up?”

“Needed to ... answer the call of nature.”

“Oh.” Her eyes flicked downward to his groin. “I see.” A smile tugged at her lips. “So that's the reason.”

Longarm glanced down too, and saw that his shaft was sticking out long and hard in front of him. He felt an unexpected wave of embarrassment as he realized he was standing there stark naked except for the bandages around his middle, while Beth was fully dressed. It was a hell of a lot more comfortable being naked when the person with you was naked too.

Just the thought of Beth being naked caused his manhood to give a little jump, which made the embarrassment even worse. This wasn't the time for such shenanigans, he told himself sternly. He was still weak from that gunshot wound, blast it, and anyway he had a more urgent use for his member at the moment.

“Chamber pot?” he reminded Beth, who was still standing there smiling.

“Oh. Of course.” She hurried around to the other side of the bed, reached underneath it, and brought back a porcelain pot. “Why don't you sit down on the edge of the bed, and I'll hold this—”

Longarm snatched the pot out of her hands. “Damn it, woman,” he growled, “some things a fella wants to do for himself!”

“All right.” He had a feeling she was trying hard not to laugh. “I'll be back in a few minutes with your breakfast. Flapjacks and bacon ... and plenty of coffee.”

He bit back a groan and shooed her out of the room.

He felt much better when she returned some five minutes later carrying a tray of food. He was back in the bed, the sheet pulled over him, and as she set the tray on the table, he asked, “Where's my clothes?”

“I have them, don't worry. Except for that shirt. It was so soaked with blood that it was ruined. I burned it. I have some of Thomas's shirts, though, and you can wear one of them. It might not fit perfectly, but he was a good-sized man. Like you.”

Blast it, she was looking at his groin again when she said that last, thought Longarm. He understood how she could have gotten mighty randy, being out here on this ranch by herself for the past three years, but couldn't she show a little bit of pity to a wounded man?

Beth fetched the coffeepot and a couple of cups while Longarm started on the flapjacks and bacon. She was an even better cook than Heck Wallace, he decided. He put away all the food she had brought him, and she returned to the other room for more.

While he was washing the second helpings down with coffee, Beth said, “Don't you think you should tell me what it is you wanted to take from the Wallace gang?”

Longarm hesitated. He remembered the attempts on his life and said, “It might be better for you if you don't know, ma'am.” He didn't want her to be drawn any deeper into the case than she already was.

“Then how will I know what to do if somebody shows up looking for you?” she insisted.

“I already told you—turn me over to them.”

“I won't do that,” she said bluntly.

Longarm sighed in frustration. Yet he could understand how Beth felt. She was trying to nurse him back to health, and she didn't want to see all her hard work go to waste.

“I want to take a look around the ranch,” he said after a moment. “Maybe there's someplace you can hide me if you need to.”

“All right. Are you sure you're strong enough?”

He grinned. “After everything you've done, Miz Jellicoe, I feel like a new man.”

“Call me Beth. And I'm not finished yet.”

Now, what did she mean by
that?
Longarm asked himself, then decided that he would find out soon enough.

She brought his clothes into the room, including one of her late husband's shirt. Longarm turned down her offer to help him get dressed, and when he stood up this time, the floor was good and solid under his feet.

He pulled the clothes on, noting that she had washed his trousers and socks and the bottom half of the long underwear he had been wearing. It felt good to stamp his feet down in his boots and buckle his gunbelt around his waist.

He was carrying his hat as he stepped out of the bedroom and got his first look at the rest of the adobe ranch house. It wasn't very big, just one room besides the bedroom, with a fireplace on one wall, a cast-iron stove in the corner, and a big hardwood table in the center of the room. Like the bed, it looked as if it had originally come from much fancier surroundings. He wondered if Beth had belonged to a wealthy Louisiana family before coming out here to West Texas.

She was waiting for him, the broad-brimmed hat he had seen the day before on her head. “How do you feel?” she asked. “Still all right? Not too shaky?”

“Not bad,” said Longarm. He settled his hat on his head and stepped out onto a narrow porch with her.

The morning was already warm, with the sun climbing in a cloudless sky. Longarm looked to the right, and saw a good-sized adobe barn with a pole corral behind it. There were more corrals to the left, and in front of him, on the other side of a tiny creek, was a garden. Everything looked to be in good repair, and he supposed he sounded a little dubious as he said to Beth, “You keep all this up by yourself?”

“You think I'm not up to it?” she said.

“That's not it,” Longarm assured her. “I just know how much work it takes to run a ranch like this.”

“I have a couple of
vaqueros
who work for me,” she admitted. “But they stay at a line shack north of here most of the time.”

“You and your husband didn't have any children?”

She shook her head. “I ... lost one the first year. The nearest doctor was down at Fort Stockton then. He told me later that I couldn't have any more.” She sounded pretty matter-of-fact about it, but Longarm could hear a faint note of remembered pain and grief in her voice. Some hurts stayed with a person, no matter how much time passed.

“There's a cellar in the barn,” Beth went on, sounding more brisk and businessslike now. “Thomas and the hands dug it so we'd have a place to hide in case of cyclones. They can be bad out here, you know.”

Longarm nodded. “I've seen a few twisters. A cellar's a good thing to have.”

“I store vegetables in it too, and sometimes keep buttermilk there. If those outlaws came, you could hide there.”

“They'd be liable to see the trapdoor.”

“Not if I covered it with hay after you climbed in,” said Beth.

Well, that was possible, thought Longarm. But he still hoped it never came to that. Another day, and he would be ready to travel, he told himself. Enough of his strength would have returned by then to make the ride into Monahans.

He hoped Nora was holding up all right. No matter how crazy she had acted when he tried to help her, he didn't want her coming to any harm at the hands of the outlaws, or anybody else.

Longarm and Beth walked out to the barn, where he checked on the dun. She had obviously rubbed the horse down and made sure it had plenty of grain and water.

“He's an ornery cuss,” Longarm told Beth. “I hope he didn't try to nip you while you were fooling with him.”

“This horse? Ornery?” She opened the gate and stepped into the stall with the dun. As she began rubbing his nose, she went on. “He's not a bit of trouble.”

The dun bobbed his head up and down as if agreeing with her, and Longarm thought the horse had a glint of malicious humor in its eyes. He decided that was carrying things a mite too far and told himself not to think such foolish thoughts.

Beth gave the dun a final pat and then left the stall to lead Longarm to a rear comer of the barn. A platform of heavy planks had been built there, and in the center of it was a trapdoor. Beth bent down and unlatched it, then swung the door up.