Later she got up and, with dark coming fast, cooked them both a steak along with some fried eggs. He slipped on his jeans, not bothering with anything else, and she wore the wraparound housedress with the sash loose. They didn’t talk while they ate. When they were finished, he had a few drinks of whiskey while she washed the dishes, and then, without a word being spoken, they went back into the bedroom. They made slow, careful love for a long time. He was as tender and caring as he knew how, working her gently, bringing her up and then letting her ease back down before he brought her up again higher. When he finally entered her and brought her all the way up, she was already trembling and heaving and gasping. Her climax was so strong that the headboard of the bed banged into the wall and broke half loose from the frame. He looked down at her in wonder as she finally relaxed, bathed in sweat, her pink mouth half open and gasping for air.
He left her the next morning. His last memory was of her kneeling on the bed naked, putting up her mouth to be kissed and then cupping her breasts in her hands and holding them up for his lips. He was reluctant to leave, both because she would again be alone, and because he would be too. He went back many times, but he was never going to forget that first time.
He asked her to marry him many times, but she always smiled and shook her head no. She said she could never again marry a lawman. “Chances are too good I’d lose you,” she said. “I couldn’t take it again.”
He suddenly came to himself, conscious that a lot of time had passed.
He’d been so deep in his memory of Molly that anything could have happened. He glanced up at the moon. It was almost dead overhead, a sure sign that more than an hour or two had passed. He’d been wide awake, staring at the cabin, his eyes occasionally roving over toward the part of the corral that he could see, but he had no memory of anything transpiring during that time. For all he knew, Jack Shaw had made a getaway out the back of the cabin and was five miles away. It was amazing. Longarm had thought of Molly to keep himself awake, and he’d ended up taking a two-hour sleep with his eyes wide open.
He looked carefully from one side of the cabin to the other. Nothing was stirring. Next he looked toward the corral. Besides the packhorse, he could see the whole of one horse and part of another inside the corral. That didn’t mean anything. Jack Shaw could have ridden out on one horse, leading another, and left the balance to keep Longarm none the wiser. He glanced back toward the packhorse, trying to see what he was doing. The horse had his head all the way to the ground as if he were grazing, but the only thing around the corral to graze on was sand and rocks. Yet the packhorse kept on as if he had found something to eat. He’d raise his head every few moments and then stand there as if he were chewing. The distance was too far and the light not good enough for Longarm to see if he was or wasn’t chewing, but the animal still kept dipping his head down like a horse eating and then raising it back up like a horse chewing. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense, but Longarm wasn’t going to learn any more by staring into the night. The main problem at hand right then and there was Jack Shaw. Longarm thought of calling out, but it would be just like Shaw to keep still and play possum. Longarm knew that he would do the same if the situation were reversed.
He gazed at the cabin, calculating the distance. It was, he reckoned, about sixty to seventy yards away. A pretty good distance. He took a shell out of his pocket and hefted it. It wasn’t quite heavy enough for his purposes, and besides, he needed every shell he had. He put the shell back in his shirt pocket, buttoned the flap, and then began feeling around in the bottom of the wash for rocks or anything he could throw. His hand finally came across a dried clod about the size of his fist or a little smaller. He kept on searching until he’d found another one and a rock about the same size.
As carefully as he could he worked himself around, without raising above the level of the wash, to where he had his legs under him. He peered at the cabin for a long second and then, half rising, drew back his arm and threw the larger of the clods in a high arc toward the cabin roof. To his great surprise he threw it across the angle of the roof so that it landed on the prairie at the left side of the cabin.
He hadn’t known he could throw so far. With the second clod he stayed more down in the ditch, exposing less of himself. He threw and ducked down, watching as the clod arced across the light sky and landed on the tin roof with a satisfying metallic clatter. The sound of the clod was, very shortly, followed by the sound of three gunshots, the shells making a clatter as they ripped through the tin roof. To Longarm’s ear it was a revolver. A handgun made a much shorter report than a rifle.
Besides, neither Shaw nor anyone else could fire a rifle that fast.
Well, he thought, at least he knew where Jack Shaw was. He called out, “Sorry to wake you up, Jack. Thought you’d be gone by now.”
Shaw sounded angry. “Longarm, you sonofabitch, that wasn’t a damn bit funny. Sounded like the damn roof was falling in. I nearly shot myself in the foot getting at my handgun.”
“So you was sleeping, was you?”
“Hell, no. I was thinkin’ was all.”
“Jack, you dozed off. Ain’t no crime in admitting the truth.”
“I didn’t do no such thing. How would you know?”
“Because you fired so fast. You fired like a man was startled awake. If you’d really been awake, you wouldn’t have fired at the first sound. You’d of waited to see if it was me or just what. You wouldn’t of committed yourself so damn quick.”
“Aw, go to hell, Longarm. You ain’t so damn smart.”
Longarm laughed. His quarry was still at hand. Well, he thought, he’d managed several things in the last little while. He’d killed a pretty good piece of time, he’d startled Jack Shaw, and he’d developed a powerful, powerful longing for Molly Dowd. It had gotten very cool, but he wiped his brow and was surprised to find it was covered with a light sheen of sweat. He resolved not to let himself start thinking again about Molly until he was within at least an hour’s travel of Wichita Falls.
Shaw called out. “You ain’t so very damn smart, Longarm, as you think. I got way the best of it. I can sleep if I want to because you can’t take the chance of exposing yourself to find out if I’m awake or not. Maybe next time you chunk a rock on the roof, I’ll do a little possum-playing my own self. I got time on my side, Custis. And don’t you forget it. Gonna be dawn in a few hours, and back will come that old sun. I’m fine here in the shade of this cabin. I ain’t got to make a break for it. I don’t have to take a single chance. The situation will do you in. All you got is a hole wouldn’t hide a lizard, a piece of a half-gallon canteen, damn little ammunition, and that sun on your head. Hell, you can’t even wear your hat. All I got to do is sit here until your tongue swells up and you go out of your mind with the heat. Then I can go on my way without a care in the world. So don’t sound so damn cocky, Longarm. Looks to me like you are the one in the mess.”
Longarm thought that that was a fair assessment of the situation. With the exception of the Arizona Rangers. They’d arrive sooner or later.
They would come. They couldn’t help but follow all of the sign he’d left. Every one of them was a capable tracker in his own right. With him pointing the way they’d make it. The only question was time. He said aloud, “Why can’t we figure us out a deal, Jack? Looks like two old friends like us could scheme us a way out of this mess. I got to admit I ain’t looking forward to tomorrow. I imagine it will seem like it’s forty hours long.”
“Of course they’s a way out, Custis. You stand up, drop all your firearms, and walk on up here to the cabin. I’ll give you a drink of whiskey and something to eat and all the water you want. Got plenty of cool, cool water. That old windmill keeps on spitting it out. Fill your belly with it. I imagine that stuff in your canteen is hotter than my first pistol. Probably tastes of alkali. This here is deep well water. Cool as saloon beer.” Longarm said, “Much obliged, Jack, but I reckon not. Fact is, I been drinking too much water lately. Getting a right bad rust problem according to the doctor.”