“And what if it ever makes me feel pukey?”
Longarm barked a laugh. “That’s a surefire sign that you’re kissing someone that you shouldn’t.”
Megan marched along beside him a few more steps, then looked up and blurted out, “Kissing you makes my toes curl and my insides feel weak.”
“Hmmm. Anything else?”
“Made … never mind.”
He looked down at her. “I got an idea what it did to you, Megan. And you had just better watch yourself or you’ll get to liking it and even wanting more.”
“Like a mare in heat, huh?”
“Something like that, but with all kinds of other things going on in your head and your heart.”
“Sounds to me like it could really mess a girl up.”
“It can, and it does when you get involved with the wrong kind of man.”
Megan didn’t say anything more after that. Longarm had given her plenty to think about, and she looked both excited and worried when they stepped onto the train station platform and then entered the station itself.
“Good evening,” a lone figure seated beside a telegrapher’s keys said. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” Longarm said, quickly explaining about his baggage. “I’m here to see if you’ve still got it or if it’s mistakenly been sent east.”
The telegrapher, a thin, balding man in his mid-forties with wire-rimmed spectacles, stood up and reached for a key that was hanging on the wall. “And your name?”
“Long. Deputy United States Marshal Custis Long.”
The telegrapher smiled. “Oh, yes. Marshal Long. Not only have we retained your baggage, but I have a very important telegram for you. Figured you’d come around soon enough.”
He turned to Megan with a warm smile. “Top of the evenin’, Miss Riley.”
“Evening, Carl.”
“Now,” Carl said. “Which do you want first? The telegram or the baggage?”
“I know what I’ve got in my bags, but I sure am curious about that telegram. I guess it’s the second one I received today.”
“Yes,” Carl said, “the first one was pretty short, wasn’t it.”
“It was.”
Carl rummaged around in a file and then retrieved the new telegram, which Longarm read immediately.
BIG TROUBLE IN BODIE STOP KANES MAYBE GONE BAD STOP UNOFFICIALLY CLEAN IT UP AND REPORT BACK IMMEDIATELY STOP “What’s wrong?” Megan asked.
“There’s some trouble in Bodie that I have to take care of,” Longarm said, thinking about Ivan Kane and judging he had not seen the old lawman in a good dozen years. Kane was a legend in the West, but like Wild Bill Riley, a man past his time. He’d started out as an outlaw and then had gone to prison, but had come out reformed and determined to redeem himself. And had he ever! Kane had become a one-man crusader against lawlessness, first in the California gold fields, and then on the Comstock Lode and in a slew of other notorious Nevada and Arizona mining towns.
“I know Marshal Kane personally,” the telegraph operator said. “And it disturbs me to hear the talk about what he’s been doing down in Bodie.”
“What exactly has he been accused of doing?”
Carl sighed. “They say he’s become more than a lawman. They say he is too quick on the trigger and ready to shoot down anyone who so much as looks crossways at him.”
“He always had a short fuse,” Longarm agreed, “but he’s not bloodthirsty.”
“He might have become that way,” Carl said, clucking his tongue. “I’m sure that you realize that power … real power … corrupts the morals of even the strongest man. Marshal Kane has ruled Bodie for at least eight or nine years. When the town fathers hired him to clean out the bad element, he did it without a badge, and anyone will tell you that he basically ambushed and backshot the outlaws. Those that he didn’t kill fled. Furthermore, we hear that he’s extorting protection money from Bodie’s merchants, mine owners, and professional people.”
“That can’t be true!” Megan exclaimed. “My father and Marshal Kane have been friends for the last twenty-five years. Kane is tough, but honest.”
“Well,” Carl said, “if you throw a good apple in a barrel of bad, it’ll turn rotten too. What I hear is that the good people of Bodie are about ready to do Marshal Kane in, one way or the other.”
“I’d better head out for Bodie first thing in the morning,” Longarm said. “Carl, when is the next eastbound train leaving?”
“Next Monday at three in the afternoon. The train after that leaves a week from today, same as always.”
“I’ll need at least a full week to ‘unofficially’ wrap this up,” Longarm said.
“I’m coming with you,” Megan announced.
“No,” Longarm said, “your father needs you here.”
“The next house down from us is owned by an old widow woman named Mrs. Appleton. She’ll look in on Father and feed him better than I could. He’ll be happy because he has sort of taken a shine to her since he found out she’s got a lot of money in the bank.”
“What would your father do with the money if-“
“I don’t know,” Megan interrupted. “He can’t take it with him. But anyway, I’m coming.”
“That’s okay with me as long as it’s okay with your father. I sure don’t want Wild Bill after my hide. I’m going to have enough trouble in Bodie.”
“You want your baggage now?” Carl asked.
“That’d be good,” Longarm said.
In a few minutes, he had his baggage and they were trudging back down Virginia Street.
“Where are you going to stay tonight?” she asked a little shyly.
“How about at your place, Megan?”
“Sure,” she agreed. “I’ll pitch some fresh straw in a stall and you’ll be plenty comfortable.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he told her.
“I know, but we can talk about that on the way to Bodie.”
Longarm grinned. “At least now I’ll have something to look forward to.”
Megan shot him a look that held a lot of promise, and she hugged his arm. Boy, Longarm thought, what I wouldn’t give to have this lusty virgin in the hay tonight!
Chapter 4
Early the next morning, Longarm, still half asleep and covered with wisps of straw, was awakened by Megan, who stood before him looking bright-eyed and holding a cup of steaming-hot coffee.
“Rise and shine, Marshal Long!” she said, kneeling down beside him and extending the cup.
Longarm raised one droopy eyelid and glared at her. He could see but a faint light shafting through the rafters of the barn. “What time is it?”
“Five-thirty,” Megan announced.
Longarm moaned. “What’s the big hurry?”
“It’s better than a hundred miles to Bodie, and some of it is pretty rough traveling. We need to get a move on if we’re going to get into California by tonight.”
“I take it you’ve some pretty decent saddle horses?”
“About a thousand times better than the one you rented yesterday,” she replied. “I love all horses, but I only own horses of quality.”
“All right,” Longarm said, taking a sip of the coffee. “Why don’t you go along and I’ll come up to the house in a few minutes after I’ve sort of gathered my wits.”
“That’s fine. Father and I have been up for an hour and he’s got breakfast about ready.”
“You people are really something. By the way, what did Old Wild Bill say when you told him that you were planning to accompany me to Bodie?”
Megan squatted down on her boot heels. She looked young and eager and prettier than any woman had a right to be at this awful hour in the morning. Right now, however, her blue eyes reflected worry.
“Well, my father wasn’t too happy about the idea,” Megan admitted with a sigh of resignation. “In fact, when I woke him up this morning and told him that I was leaving with you, he was pretty damned mad.”
“I’ll bet.” Longarm blew steam from the coffee. It was almost scalding hot. “And now he’s going to be mad at me because he’ll think it was all my idea.”