“It’s new, clean water all right,” Rolf said, testing it.
“Of course it is,” Teresa said sweetly as she began to unbutton his new shirt.
“What are you doing?” Rolf said, although he was beginning to think he knew what she was doing.
“We’re going to take a bath together,” Teresa said, a big smile on her face.
Rolf felt his blood begin to surge in his ears and his tongue went thick and stuck so that he had to work up a little spittle in order to speak. “Together?”
“Sure. Didn’t you ever take a bath with your sisters?”
“Yeah, when I was little.”
“Well, it won’t be so different now.”
“Teresa, I think it will be.”
She smiled patiently. “Rolf, let’s just pretend that we’re little children again. Okay? I’m sure that will make you feel comfortable.”
Rolf wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to upset Teresa, so he nodded, and, quick as a flash, she had his clothes off and then her own and they were slipping into the warm, soapy water.
“Big tub,” he managed to say, deathly afraid to touch her even with his toes.
“It’s just the right size,” Teresa said, leaning forward and then tipping right over on top of him.
“Hey!” he cried, struggling to keep from slipping underwater. “My sisters didn’t come over to my end of the tub!”
“I know,” she said, finding his already rising manhood and encircling it with expert fingers. “But we’re going to be friends, remember?”
“I never had no friend do this either,” he gasped as her hand began to do things to his worm that made his toes tingle.
“Relax,” Teresa whispered, “everything is coming along right on schedule. We’re going to have a real good time and play lots of games tonight.”
“Oh …” he heard himself say in a voice too high to be his own. “I’m not very good at games.”
“I’m going to teach you all you need to know, honey.”
Rolf felt her legs spread and then his worm somehow got poked up inside of her and got much, much warmer. Teresa sighed and giggled in his ear as her bottom began to make little waves.
“Rolf, how do you like this game?”
“I never liked anything better in my whole life,” he panted, placing his hands on her back and them sliding them down to Teresa’s buttocks. “And you’re softer than anything I ever touched. Softer even than a furry little kitten.”
Teresa began to make a purring sound as her bottom moved around and around under the water, causing some to lap over the sides of the tub and soak the floor.
Rolf didn’t much give a damn. He closed his eyes and hoped he could die, because he knew that nothing ever again would feel so good. No matter what, there would never be anything nicer to remember than this bath with Teresa, but he was mighty, mighty glad that his dear mother couldn’t see him now.
Chapter 8
Longarm had a hangover the next morning when he slogged through the mud and pouring rain to reach the telegraph office in downtown Cheyenne.
“Whew!” the telegraph operator exclaimed as thunder crashed somewhere out on the prairie. “Marshal Long, ain’t this storm a sonofabitch though! I never saw so much rain!”
“It’s pretty awful all right,” Longarm agreed, stomping his boots and shaking water off himself. “John, how are the wife and all your kids?”
“They’re fine. Everyone is hoping that this rain don’t turn to sleet. Kinda early in the year to be putting up with this cold weather.”
“Yes, it is,” Longarm said. “And it looks like I’m going to have to start a manhunt.”
“I suspect that you’d be going after that counterfeiter.”
John Fosdick was a genial man in his early forties who liked to wear bow ties and smoke the rankest-smelling cigars money could buy. Longarm had spent quite a few enjoyable hours with the telegraph operator either sending or waiting to receive messages to and from his Denver office. Fosdick yearned to be a lawman and talked endlessly about outlaws and gunfighters. The man even kept a journal of all the Wanted posters that Marshal Huff kept in his office. Longarm knew that the telegraph operator’s dream was to capture a killer and collect the reward, but not so much for the money itself. He longed for the fame and satisfaction.
“Did you meet Nathan Cox?” Longarm asked the man.
“Yep,” Fosdick said. “He waltzed right in here and sent a couple of telegrams the day before he vanished.”
Longarm’s interest picked up. “Do you happen to remember who he sent the telegrams to?”
Fosdick began to doodle on a pad of paper. “Marshal, you know that Western Union has a policy against giving out that information.”
“I need to know,” Longarm said, emptying his shirt pocket of cheroots and laying them neatly on the counter between them.
Fosdick didn’t even glance up as he penciled in a big dollar sign.
“I’m a little short of cash, John. All I got is ten dollars and change.”
“That’d be a couple days’ income.”
“Here, dammit.”
Longarm glared at the telegraph operator, but Fosdick didn’t mind. He grinned as he folded the money and slipped Longarm’s pocket change into his coat.
“Cigar?” Fosdick asked, needling Longarm.
“Sure, why not,” Longarm growled. “Now, John, what can you tell me?”
“Only that the telegrams I sent went to Flagstaff and Prescott, Arizona.”
“Do you have any names?”
“I do.”
When John lit their cigars but didn’t provide the names, Longarm grew irritable. “For crying out loud, who’d Cox send those telegrams to!”
“There must be a large reward for any information leading to the counterfeiter’s arrest,” Fosdick said, blowing a cloud of smoke over Longarm’s head.
“Not that I’ve heard of, John. But if I hear otherwise, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks,” Fosdick said. “I might just have the key to the puzzle, and we both know that it would be worth a whole lot more than ten dollars and a handful of cheap cheroots.”
“The names!”
“All right, all right.” Fosdick bent over and began to rummage under the counter. “Let’s see,” he muttered. “I saved duplicate copies of those telegrams.”
Longarm waited impatiently until Fosdick finally found the copies. Longarm eagerly read the two telegraphs over quickly, then read them again. In both cases, the telegrams were sent to land agents and stated that Cox would be arriving in Arizona and possessed funds sufficient to buy a cattle ranch. The telegrams also stated that he would be arriving to inspect ranching properties within a month.
“Well,” Fosdick said, looking quite pleased with himself. “Wouldn’t you say that those are pretty important leads to solving this case?”
“Can I keep them?”
“Sure. They didn’t cost me anything, and I will expect you to pass my name along for at least part of that reward if Nathan Cox is apprehended in either Flagstaff or Prescott.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Longarm said. “But I have to tell you something that you won’t enjoy hearing.”
Fosdick’s smile wilted and he began to doodle again. “What would that be, Marshal?”
“I think these telegrams are red herrings. By that I mean that from everything I know about Nathan Cox, I’d say he is far too smart to leave any kind of paper trail that might assist a lawman to hasten his arrest.”
“I disagree,” Fosdick said. “At the time that he sent these, Mr. Cox was pretty loaded. He’d just lost some big bucks at the faro table and had drowned his sorrow in the best whiskey that money could buy. I can tell you this, Marshal, Cox, or whatever his name is, was in no mental shape to be acting cagey.”
“I think he was probably in excellent mental shape and that he was pretending to be drunk in order to make us both think that he really is on his way to Arizona.”
Fosdick leaned back and, for the first time ever, displayed some temper. “Now, dammit, Custis, what if you’re wrong and it costs me a bundle of money!”