“I don’t know if the Brazos Devil had anything to do with Mrs. Thorp’s disappearance or not,” he replied honestly. “There’s a chance that an outlaw I brought in and one I had to kill a couple of days ago might be to blame for it. But somebody killed at least three men in a mighty bloody fashion quite a while before Mrs. Thorp ever vanished. Somebody—or something.”
“Saw me a critter like that once,” said Catamount Jack, his voice more slurred now by the rye. Longarm hadn’t drunk much from the bottle, and Lucy hadn’t touched it at all, he realized now. Catamount Jack went on. “Sasquatch, some o’ the tribes call it up yonder in the Northwest. Ugly critter. Never heard tell of ‘em hurtin’ nobody, though. Injuns say the critters are more scared o’ people than people are o’ them.” He lifted the bottle for another drink, swaying a little as he did so. He was sitting cross-legged, so that kept him from toppling over, but Longarm could tell he was getting quite drunk.
“This fella Thorp,” Lucy said, “what’s he done about findin’ the Brazos Devil ‘sides postin’ a bounty?”
“He and his ranch hands have searched all over his spread and on the other side of the river,” Longarm said. “The marshal deputized some men and led a posse out too. They never found hide nor hair of the varmint.” Longarm hesitated, then went on. “Thorp’s brought in some fancy Englishman, a big-game hunter. They’re going out after the Devil tomorrow. I’m supposed to go with them.”
The last of the rye gurgled out of the bottle and down Catamount Jack’s throat. “Ahhhh!” he said as he lowered the empty bottle. “Well, we sure don’t want no damned Englisher gettin’ to the critter ‘fore we do. We’ll just have to beat ‘em to the punch. We’ll ride west an hour before sunup, daughter.”
“All right, Pa,” Lucy said.
As drunk as Catamount Jack was, Longarm doubted if the man would even be capable of consciousness an hour before dawn, let alone going in search of the Brazos Devil. In fact, Catamount Jack was swaying back and forth even more now, and he suddenly slumped over on his side. Almost instantly, loud snores began to issue from his mouth.
At the same time, Longarm thought he heard some shouting coming from the town, which was about five hundred yards distant. He wasn’t sure about that, however, and besides, Mal Burley was in town. If there was trouble, it was the business of the local law to handle it. Longarm felt that he’d done his share for the night.
He inclined his head toward the slumbering Catamount Jack and asked, “Does he do this very often?”
“Now and again,” admitted Lucy. “But don’t you worry, Custis, he’ll be sharp as a tack come morning. Nobody bounces back from a drunk as fast as my pa.”
“You sound like you’re a little proud of him too.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I be?” she asked sharply. “He’s taken mighty good care of me. Maybe he never raised me the way most folks think a gal ought to be raised, but I always done just fine. And we’ve been happy. Ain’t that worth somethin’?”
Longarm nodded solemnly and said, “Yes, ma’am, Miss Vermilion, it is. It surely is.”
“You can call me Lucy.” She stood up and went to one of the packs they had unloaded from the mules. As she bent over it, Longarm couldn’t help but notice the way the tight buckskin pants hugged her hips and thighs. She took a buffalo robe from the pack and came back to the fire. “Pull his feet around so they’re not so close to the flames,” she told Longarm.
He did as she requested, and she spread the robe over the sleeping form of her father. As she straightened and put her hands on her hips, she smiled down fondly at him. “He’ll be all right just like that.” Then she looked at Longarm and said, “You about ready to give me some lovin’, Custis?”
He blinked in surprise, but managed to recover before he begged her pardon and asked her to repeat the question. Nodding toward Catamount Jack, he said, “In case you ain’t noticed, Lucy, your daddy’s sleeping right there.”
“Hell, I know that. We’ll go off in the trees a ways so we won’t bother him. Anyway, Pa wouldn’t care. I can tell he likes you, and he’s a mighty good judge of what a fella’s really like. Pa knows too that sometimes a body’s just got to have some lovin’.” She smiled down at Longarm and held out her hand toward him. “Come on, Custis. Don’t make me hogtie you. ‘Less, o’ course, that’s the sort o’ thing you like.”
Longarm growled, shook his head, and reached up to take her hand. He came to his feet in one lithe movement and pulled her into his arms. The evening had been much more eventful than he had thought it would be, and obviously it wasn’t over yet.
“Reckon I’d better just show you what I like,” he said.
They found an even smaller glade about seventy-five yards from the clearing where Catamount Jack slumbered peacefully. Longarm was a mite doubtful about leaving the older man there alone when a monster was supposed to be prowling the countryside, but Lucy assured him her father would wake up if the mules began raising a ruckus. And knowing mules the way he did, Longarm was sure no wild beast, not even one that was half-man, could come anywhere around without the mules pitching a fit.
There was only a tiny patch of moonlight in the glade, but it was enough for Longarm to watch appreciatively as Lucy pulled the buckskin shirt over her head and dropped it on the ground. Her breasts were gentle mounds crowned with dark, surprisingly large nipples. She took off her boots and slipped her buckskin trousers down around her hips, leaving herself naked. “The night air’s cold,” she said softly. “You’ll have to keep me warm, Custis.”
Longarm had brought along two more buffalo robes that Lucy had taken from the packs. He spread one of them on the ground. The other one they could pull over them. He had to shed his clothes first, though, so he hung his hat on a nearby bush and took off his coat.
“Let me,” Lucy said, stepping closer to him. She reached out for the buttons of his vest and shirt.
Just looking at her while she was dressed, a fella might have thought it had been a while since she had gotten seriously acquainted with some soap and water. Now, though, divested of the smelly buckskins, she smelled clean and sweet, and Longarm wanted to plunge his face into her blond hair and breathe deeply of its fragrance.
He settled for standing there and looking at her as she commenced to undress him. She quickly removed his vest and shirt. Then her fingers moved to the buttons of his trousers. He was already hard and ready, and she made a little noise in her throat as she ran her palm over his groin, feeling the length and heft of him.
“My, oh, my, Custis,” she said in a half-whisper. “I was right about you. I figured you for a big man.”
“Was it my ears or my feet that gave it away?” he asked.
Lucy laughed. “Shoot, I don’t put any stock in those old stories. I look in a man’s eyes. I liked what I saw in yours, Custis, and I’m not just talking about this.” She gave him another quick squeeze as she finished unbuttoning his pants.
Longarm gave her a hand, and it didn’t take them long to get his trousers and boots off him. That left him in his summer-weight long underwear; autumn wasn’t far enough advanced to switch to the heavier undergarments yet. Lucy peeled them off him, letting his erect shaft spring free. She reached for it with both hands this time, trapping it in her soft, warm grip.
Longarm’s hips instinctively flexed forward as Lucy wrapped her fingers around him. She sank down to the buffalo robe, still holding on to him. Longarm had no choice but to go with her.
As if he would have rather been anywhere else at this moment!
The night air was chilly, as she had said, but Longarm didn’t really notice it. The heat from Lucy was more than enough to warm him. She drew him down on the robe beside her, then released him to reach for the other robe. As she spread it over them, she twisted around so that her face was pressed against his belly. Her tongue licked out into the mat of hair that covered most of the front of his torso, tracing a wet, white-hot trail across his stomach and abdomen to his groin. The top of her blond head bumped teasingly against his erection.