Harmony Drake’s voice chilled ten degrees as he quietly asked her just how he was supposed to take that last remark.
Goldmine Gloria probably saved her blond head as she turned from the slot instead of shoving the gun muzzle out of it. She saw the sweaty but pale-faced Harmony was staring at her, rather than out the window, and she smiled wanly and said, “Honey, you’re letting him get to you! Our only chance calls for our sticking together! Be a good boy and shoot the bad man for Mommy and Mommy will give you a nice blow job. He’s whittled us down to where it’s only two to one. But that’s still two to one, if we don’t lose our heads.”
It wasn’t going to work. Goldmine Gloria was good at her chosen criminal career because she could almost read the mind of a mark from his or her words and expressions. Like all good confidence artists or poker players, Goldmine Gloria knew it was when words and expressions didn’t quite match up that things were about to go to hell in a hack. So as her partner in bed and crime smiled boyishly and softly allowed he’d yet to see her lose her own head, Goldmine Gloria fired from the hip and spun Harmony away from the other window with a round of .44-40 lead in his chest.
She watched numbly as her fellow plotter and paramour twitched his last on the dusty floor amid shards of busted glass and some spatters from the more thoroughly shot Centerfire. Then she rose to move over to that wall mirror while, outside, Longarm called out, “It’s commencing to get awfully hot out here.”
The sole survivor didn’t answer. She knew how much time she had. She knew Longarm was alone out there and had no way of seeing in. So that gave her time to strip off her sweated-up and pissed-in shift, rub a damp rag over her flushed skin, and run a comb through her limp hair before she moved over to the front door, opened it a crack, and tossed the Yellow Boy out before calling, “It’s over. You won. Come on in and have some sangria I just made.”
Longarm called back, “I have a better notion, Miss Gloria. I want you to step out on the veranda with your hands polite. Then I want the others to follow suit before we talk about any cooling drinks this here sunny afternoon.”
Goldmine Gloria stepped outside, in nothing but her high-button shoes. Longarm knew they were miles from the nearest neighbor, but it still surprised him some to see a stark naked gal with a figure like that by broad day.
Staying put in the ruined orchard behind its cactus hedge, Longarm ordered her to move clear of the gaping doorway behind her. Goldmine Gloria moved mighty interestingly as she sauntered to one side, calling across to him, “You got all three of them, Custis. There’s nobody left but little old me, and I hope you understand they made me do it that night aboard the train.”
Longarm sighed and shouted, “I saw how they had you covered. I have you covered better. So what say you come on across to me and all our ponies now.”
She demurred girlishly. “Without any clothes on, Custis?”
He thought, then decided, “Go back inside. Put on some duds. Then I want you to do me a little favor before you come back out.”
She asked what that might be.
When he told her, she said he was a big meany. But just the same, she piled all the furniture together and poured lamp oil over it before she struck a match, tossed it on the pile, and came out once more, just ahead of a whole lot of smoke.
As she joined Longarm in the meager shade of the dried-out trees behind the hedge, Goldmine Gloria archly asked if he was satisfied at last, smoothing her thin gingham shift in a manner to suggest she stood ready and able to satisfy most any other commands he meant to issue.
He stared soberly across the way at the ‘dobe. The smoke now issuing from all doors and windows would have been tough as all get-out to breathe, had anyone been trying. Then he nodded and said, “You must have been telling the truth. It happens, I’ve been told. We’ll let the smoke clear. Then I’ll see about loading the three of them aboard the ponies I led over this way earlier and getting all four of you to town.” Goldmine Gloria shyly said, “I have a teeny-weeny question to ask. You promise you won’t fuss at me?”
He smiled thinly and replied, “I ain’t mad. You shooting the last of them makes for a neater report on my part. My boss can be such an old fuss when he sends me after a want and I wind up having to kill the cuss. If you’re asking whether you’ll be entitled to the bounty money on old Harmony, you’ll have to take that up with the powers that be. I’m a lawman, not a lawyer, and it beats me whether a gang member is entitled to claim the reward on another or not. Worth a try, I reckon. Lord knows you may need the money for your golden years by the time you get out.”
Goldmine Gloria blanched and gasped, “Surely you jest! I did it for us, not the reward money! He was about to crack up and kill both of us, honey.”
Longarm nodded at the half-dozen ponies tethered back from the hedge in the meager shade of the dried-out orchard, and took one of her arms to steer her that way as he said, “Don’t be so formal. Call me Deputy Long. I ain’t taking you in on any federal charge. I have better things to do, and it ain’t as if you met up with me the other night as pure as the driven snow. What makes you so mean, Goldmine Gloria?”
She tried in vain to pull free as she protested, “You can’t turn me over to the Pinkertons. They’ve made up all sorts of awful lies about a poor orphan girl who was only trying to get by. I’d do anything, anything you could possibly desire of a woman, if only you’d try to see things my way!”
Longarm chuckled softly and replied, “I know you would. But I ain’t sure I could think the way you do. Thanks to you, most of my regular stuff went on to Deming without me. So I had to borrow this pony and such from the Yuma law.”
She gasped again in horror as he calmly produced a set of handcuffs and had her fastened to a small dead tree before she knew it.
He said, “Wait here whilst I gather up your playmates and get us all set to ride back to town. What sort of fruit did your late husband have in mind before you let this spread go back to pure desert?”
She sobbed, “How should I know? He said it would take seven long years before they’d bear fruit, and time’s cruel teeth give a woman so few years to spare! I wanted to enjoy my youth and beauty while I had them. I still want those few short years, Custis! You know I’ve never been really wicked. Let me help you catch crooks! I know a lot of crooks I’ll bet you’re looking for and we’d make a great team. I can help you track crooks by day and make your nights sheer paradise because I’ve read this Hindu love book and memorized every page!”
Longarm began to untether three of the ponies as he wistfully remarked, “This pretty widow lady I know up Denver way has a copy of that Kama Sutra some mighty imaginative Hindu wrote. Some of the positions are uncomfortable, and we found more than one just plain impossible. I’ll be back directly and we can see to your comfort in the Yuma jail.”
As he started to turn away, the brassy blonde demanded in a colder tone, “Wait. Won’t you at least tell me how you found out I owned this remote homestead in the middle of nowhere?”
Longarm smiled thinly and shook his head, saying, “Not hardly. I paid for my education and you’re already too smart by half. But I can give you a hint. A smart-ass little birdy told me.”
She nodded wearily and said, “We were afraid you might have gotten something out of Sam Ferris when the two of you were locked up together down in Puerto Periasco.”
Then Longarm spoiled it for her by soberly shaking his head. “If it’s any comfort to you, I tried in vain to get old Sam to talk. He seemed to be sore at me for some reason. He wasn’t the one who as much as told me all about this spread outside of Yuma.”