He led the gray over to the corral and tied it there, then stopped at a pump that he hadn't been able to see when he rode in, the well being on the far side of the main dugout from where he had been. He moistened his handkerchief and used it to cool his face and mop some of the trail dust off his neck, then washed his hands and went back around to the front, where Netty had coffee, a plate, and a knife and fork waiting for him.
She was nowhere in sight, but she quickly appeared, hurrying out of the small dugout that he had assumedâcorrectly, it seemedâwas the cookhouse. She bore a platter of small steaks swimming in dark gravy, a bowl of turnips, and a basket that held freshly baked bread and a bowl of sweet butter.
“Ma'am,” he told her, “you do know how to please a man.”
“Do you think so? Marshal, you don't know the half of it. But we can leave all that to later. Right now sit down and fill your belly. When you've had your dinner, we can talk.”
Chapter 20
“I'm here,” he said around a mouthful of bread sopped in gravy, “because of a man named Moses Arthur. I have reason to believe that you might've known him.”
“Known him? Good Lord, I would hope so. After all, he
is
my father.” She laughed and shook her head. “He must have gotten himself into an awful mess this time if there is a U.S. marshal come all the way out here to find me. But really, sir, there is not a bad bone in his dear body. It is just that he gets . . . indignant, I suppose you would call it. About any sort of wrongdoing. Then when he gets drunk, he spouts off about whatever his latest peeve is. But I promise you, whatever this is about, he means no harm. So tell me. What is it this time?”
Longarm laid his fork aside, wiped his mouth with the napkin she had given him, and cleared his throat before he went on. “Your father, you say.”
“That's right. And a very sweet man,” Netty said.
“Then I have the very unpleasant duty to tell you, miss, that your father was murdered a few days ago. Shot down on the streets of Cheyenne.”
Netty's expression crumbled from one of amused tolerance to one of painful sorrow. “Oh, my. Murdered. I cannot imagine . . .” She began to very quietly weep. “I always thought . . . I mean he was old and everything and he drank and . . . Murdered!”
Longarm stood and put an arm around her shoulders. Netty pressed her face against him. He could feel tremors of shock and pain course through her body. He stroked her back in an attempt to comfort her. The close contact and perhaps Netty's vulnerability combined to give him a hard-on, and he had to twist slightly away to keep her from feeling his dick dig into her belly. After a minute or so her sobbing subsided and she stepped back. Longarm quickly sat back down again so the tabletop would hide the protrusion that threatened to burst the buttons of his fly.
“Sit down. Please,” he said, motioning to the bench across the table from where he sat. “Can I get you something? Some of that coffee maybe?”
Netty nodded. “Thank you.”
Dammit, he thought. He hadn't been thinking when he just automatically made that offer. The gesture was genuine, but the result . . . she was sure to see the front of his trousers poking out.
Fretting about that fortunately began to relieve the problem. He stood and got the coffeepot and another mug for Netty to use.
“I'm sorry to've put that on you so blunt, miss. It's just that your name . . . a married name, of course. I should've thought.”
She wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron, took a deep breath, and peered down into the coffee in her mug. After a moment she looked up again, her eyes meeting Longarm's. “Tell me about it, please. And why would a United States marshal be involved if he was killed in Cheyenne like you say.”
“Moses was working at the courthouse,” he said. “I was there for a trial. He approached me. Said he had information. He didn't say what except that it involved his grandchild. Apparently he thought that this, whatever it is, was something that a U.S. marshal should be told about rather than the town or county authorities. Moses was on his way to meet with me about it when he was killed. Tampering with a federal witness is a federal offense, which gives me jurisdiction. Besides, he was my witness an' that just pissed me off if you will excuse the language, Miz Whorle.”
Netty's right hand crept up to her throat, and she looked like she might begin to cry again. “Daddy wanted to talk with you about my little girl, Marshal.”
“Your daughter? That would be the grandchild he meant, I suppose.”
“It has to be, since Justine is his only grandchild.”
“Justine Whorle?”
“Justine Crowne. Carl Crowne was my first husband. John Whorle was my third. Well, I called him a husband. Common law, you understand. But Carl and I were married in a church, all legal as could be. Justine, she was living with Carl's parents on a place down near Baggs. They are old folks, almost as old as Daddy, but they were good to her. Good for her too. I know that. I'm . . . The truth is that I've never been much of a mother. Wasn't much of a daughter either, I suppose. But I love Justine with all my heart. I want you to know that. It's just that it was better for her to live in a proper way, not like me. And the truth is that, well, Justine and I have been estranged. I haven't seen nor heard from her in two years or more.”
“Obviously your father was in touch with her somehow or with her other grandparents. He seems to have thought something had happened that a federal peace officer should know about.”
Netty leaned forward and clutched Longarm's arm. “Help her, Marshal. I don't know what has happened with my baby, but find out, please, and help her.”
“Then tell me whatever you can about her and her grandparents.”
“I have to start getting things ready for the boys to come in from working,” she said. “Then after that I will answer any questions that I can.”
Chapter 21
After a somewhat late supper Longarm gave his thanks and his good nights to Coon Morganâthe man did indeed have dark rings around his deeply sunken eyes, giving rise to the nameâand to his two cowhands, then returned to the table, where Netty was clearing away the last of the dishes.
“It is becoming a little chilly, don't you think?” she said. “Let me finish this and we can go into the cookhouse to talk some more. Then you can bed down in there. Nice as it is during the day, at this time of year the nights can be cold and you wouldn't want to sleep outside unless you had to.”
“Is there anything I can do? Bring some wood in or anything?”
“Gracious, what a gentleman.” She laughed, then said, “If you're serious, yes. You might bring in an armload of wood. The pile is . . .”
“I see it.” Someone, presumably the cowhands, had already split at least two cords of aspen and stacked it on the south side of the cookhouse where come winter it would be out of the prevailing north winds.
He gathered as much as he could handle and carried it inside the dugout. There was a stone fireplace at the back, but then had there been a stove he was sure Netty would have cooked on that instead of outdoors. The floor had been dug deep, giving the dugout more space and headroom than was apparent from the outside. There was a large open area with no furnishings at all, where they probably moved the table in winter, and a blanket-covered bunk pegged into a side corner.
Longarm dumped his load of wood into a box beside the fireplace and, while he was there, touched a match to the wood that had already been laid ready for lighting. The dry aspen tinder caught quickly, and just as quickly enveloped the larger chunks, until there was a good fire burning. Aspen burns well but does not give out as much heat as pine. On the other hand one tends to burn what one has, and Morgan's outfit had aspen.
Once the fire was well started, he went back out for more wood. By the time Netty joined him, the wood box was full and the fire had filled the dugout with a comforting heat and with the delicate fragrance of the wood smoke.
The woman smiled and motioned Longarm toward the bunk. “Sit down there, Marshal. I'll pull your boots off. Here, let me have your coat too. Make yourself comfortable.”
Longarm sat. Netty knelt in front of him and tugged his boots off. Then, surprising him, she started unfastening the buttons of his fly.
“Listen, I, uh . . .”
She looked up at him and smiled. “Do you mind?”
“Do I mind, um, what exactly?”
“Marshal Long, you are a lovely, lovely man. Very strong and handsome.” She glanced down toward what her busy fingers were encountering. “Oh, my.” Netty laughed again. “A very
big
, handsome man,” she said.
“In case you haven't already guessed, Marshal, I am not a shy woman and I simply like sex. I like men. I like men's dicks. I especially like for a man's dick to be inside me. Does that make me a slut? Probably. Certainly it means I am not a respectable woman, but I am not a whore. I get as much as I give and I like what I get. If this bothers you . . . if you don't want to be with a woman who is older than you or if you are being true to someone somewhere, well, just say so. You can go to sleep and I'll not bother you.” She smiled. “But I can promise you a fine ride if you don't mind me continuing here.” She released the last button and gave his cock a friendly squeeze.
Longarm smiled and said, “Lemme get rid o' this gunbelt and such whilst you shuck yourself outa those clothes”
Before he knew it, Longarm was grabbing hold of both sides of the bunk and hanging on, and Netty was on top of him, bucking and humping for all she was worth. She had promised a fine ride? Well she damn well was delivering one.
There was no way he was going to ask, but judging by the steel gray in her hair she had to be pushing fifty. Very likely pushing it down from above that age would be his guess.
Certainly she was of an age where her tits were drooping toward her belly button and her nipples spread out like a pair of tea saucers pasted to the tips of those dugs.
Her pussy hair was scant and gray and her belly protruded more than a little.
But she was one helluva woman for all of that. Handsome. And lusty.
And Lordy but she could suck a cock. She took it in wet and sloppy, making little gobbling noises all the while she slurped and suckled and damn near drove him wild.
After he came the first time, she kept on sucking until he again was hard as a cast iron poker, then she duckwalked up to his waist and planted one knee on each side of his hips. Her cunt was slimy with her juices and it gaped wide for his entry.
She lifted herself over him with practiced ease and lowered her hips to skewer herself on his pulsing shaft.
Netty moaned with pleasure as he filled her to capacity, and then she began bucking and thrusting, rotating her hips around and around as well as lifting herself high and slamming down again to punish his belly with the protruding bones of her pelvis.
All Longarm had to do was lie there and hang on to the bunk lest he get bucked off the damn thing.
He was not entirely sure, but he thought it entirely possible that he indeed
would
be bucked off the bed by this wild woman.
Not that he was complaining.
Not likely.
He closed his eyes and lay there, Netty bouncing her ass up and down on him, all the while with a small, happy smile on his face.
Chapter 22
Come morning, Netty gave him a quick blow job and a huge breakfast. She piled cold biscuits and spicy jerky into a clean flour sack for him to carry on the road and said, “I've never been to Baggs, so I can't tell you how to get to the Crowne ranch.”
“That's all right. I been t'Baggs before. It ain't so big that I won't be able to find the place.” He kissed her. “I'm just sorry I had to be the one to carry the news about your papa's murder.”
“Wasn't your doing,” Netty said. “But I hope you will be the one to catch the son of a bitch that killed my old daddy.”
“I'll do my best. You can count on that,” he promised.
From the Morgan place Longarm reined the gray gelding southeast, back to Medicine Bow, rather than heading directly southwest to Baggs. He needed to turn Birdwell's gray in at the liveryâand sign a voucher to pay for the mare that had been killed in the line of duty. From there the quickest way down to Baggs would be to hop a westbound train to Rawlins and hire another horse there for the last leg south.
It probably would be easier to take a stagecoach down to Baggs, but in the tiny town there might not be a saddle horse for hire and he purely did hate having to cover new ground in a buggy or a wagon.
Longarm napped on the Union Pacific trainâafter first making sure the conductor would wake him when they reached Rawlinsâand felt considerably refreshed when he stepped down from the passenger coach. He had not gotten much sleep the night before and needed that rest.
“Sure I got horses for the hire, mister,” the liveryman told him. “Got good ones, bad ones, and indifferent ones. Which kind would you like?”
Longarm chuckled and said, “You know your animals. You choose one of the good ones for me, please.”
The gentleman brought out a rangy dun that had a mean look in its eye. The beast took one look at the bit in the liveryman's hand and pinned its ears flat.
“Here, you son of a bitch,” the fellow snarled. He forced the dun's head down and jammed the bit hard against its teeth.
Could be there was a pretty good reason why the horse was cantankerous, Longarm thought. Not that it was any of his business, but there were better ways to treat an animal.