“No!”
The moment he heard the denial, Longarm suspected otherwise. Sophie’s denial was just too strenuous. Too emphatic. “Miss Bean did pay you, didn’t she?”
“No!”
“You’re a lovely woman … but a very bad liar,” Longarm told her. “Is Ford Oakley anything to you personally?”
Sophie turned away and began to gather up her clothes. Longarm went over to her and said, “I asked you a question. Turn around and give me an answer.”
Sophie spun around and all the pretense was gone now. Her eyes were no longer soft, but instead very hard and angry. “Paul Smith is my brother!” she cried. “Is that good enough for you?”
“Yes,” he told her. “And I am sorry. Sorry for what happened to your brother, and sorry for thinking that you had other, less noble motives for coming here.”
Sophie inhaled slowly and then expelled with a shudder. “You think I wanted to kill you?”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s exactly what I thought.”
“If killing you … never mind.”
“Let me finish for you,” he said. “If killing me could insure that Ford Oakley was going to die, it would be worth it. Isn’t that what you wanted to say?”
“Yes,” Sophie finally answered, tears springing into her eyes.
Longarm drew her close. “You don’t have to be here and you certainly don’t have to kill me, Sophie. I swear to you that I’ll deliver Ford Oakley to the hangman. Why can’t you and Miss Bean believe that I won’t fail?”
“I want to believe that but..”
“But Oakley is so evil that you can’t. Is that it?”
She nodded.
Longarm bent and kissed her mouth. It was a long, lingering kiss and it stirred both their passions. Longarm felt her arm encircle the small of his back, and his own hand slipped down over her bare buttocks.
“Right now I can only pay you with a promise,” he said as he eased her down on the bed. “I won’t fail.” Sophie moaned when Longarm’s finger slipped into the moist heat of her body, and she nodded when he said, “Do you believe me?”
From that moment on, everything went very fast. Longarm tore off his holster and then, with Sophie’s help, his clothes. She even yanked off his boots, almost tossing one of them through the window.
There was no foreplay. Sophie Flanigan, or whatever her name was, opened herself wide, and Longarm plunged into her much like a man dying of thirst would throw himself into a pond of warm, desert water. Sophie engulfed him, wrapping her long, lovely legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. She was strong and eager, and Longarm could not get enough of her as he thrust and lunged, driving his thick root deep into her womanhood.
“Yes!” she cried, clutching him tightly, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut tightly. “Oh, yes!”
Longarm couldn’t stop pistoning. The room was hot and stuffy and their bodies made wet, sucking sounds as they groaned and grunted, each trying to reach the pinnacle of passion. Finally Sophie cried out, and when her entire body began to spasm uncontrollably, Longarm planted his seed, bucking and shouting as he emptied himself in hard, jolting torrents.
It was at least ten minutes before either of them spoke, and then Longarm said, “Just believe in me, Sophie.”
“I believe in you,” she told him. “But I still wish you would kill that bastard.”
“For Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Did he … did he do anything to you?”
Sophie hugged him tightly and then she began to sob. And sadly, that was all the answer Longarm really needed.
Longarm was yawning about ten o’clock the next morning when he finally stumbled into the marshal’s office to find Wheeler sitting behind his desk with a cup of coffee.
“For cripes-sakes!” the town marshal exclaimed. “Marshal Long, you look awful! Did you get crazy drunk last night?”
“Not exactly,” Longarm said.
“Well, you look like you been dragged sideways through a damned knothole.”
“He looks like a woman done screwed him half to death,” Oakley crowed from his cell. “Who was she? If she was young and pretty, I’ve screwed her already.”
“Shut up,” Longarm snapped.
“Well,” Oakley said, chuckling, “I guess that tells me that she was young and pretty. Just tell me her name and I’ll tell you how she likes it best.”
Longarm managed to ignore the prisoner. “Marshal Wheeler,” he said, “do you have any more coffee and an extra cup?”
“Sure, it’s right over there on that little table. I have a pot brought over from the cafe next door every morning and then another every afternoon.”
Longarm drank his coffee in silence, one eye on the old marshal and the other to his prisoner.
“My deputy,” Wheeler said, “told me that you agreed to help us guard Oakley.”
“That’s right,” Longarm said. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Brave man,” Oakley crowed from his cell. “Marshal Long, do you really think you can handle it?”
Longarm ground his teeth in silence, and the town marshal said, “Ford is a real asshole and he’ll ride you all the time, if he thinks he can get your goat.”
“Well,” Longarm said, “he can’t. And the sooner we leave the better.”
“You can say that again!” Oakley called. “How come we’re waiting around? Why don’t you just rent some horses and let’s hit the trail?”
When Longarm ignored the question, Oakley said, “There’s only one reason we could be waiting around, and that’s to take tomorrow morning’s stage. That’s how you’re going to do it, isn’t it, Marshal Long!”
“I expect so,” Longarm said, already deciding that he might be better off not to take the stage. Oakley was too confident, and that made Longarm think he might have friends waiting somewhere along the road to ambush the stagecoach.
“Good! I got scores to settle with Ray and Ernie too!” the prisoner crowed. “Might as well settle with everyone at once. More efficient that way.”
Longarm motioned for Wheeler to follow him outside. When they were alone and could not be overheard, Longarm said, “He’s too confident for MY liking. Does he have friends who will try and ambush that stagecoach?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” Marshal Wheeler asked. “Of course he has friends, and you can bet they’ll be camped out beside the road to Elko just waiting to spring him.”
“Then I’ll just have to think of some other way to get him to Elko,” Longarm said.
“That might not be possible,” the marshal allowed. “This town has a lot of wagging tongues and Ford Oakley has a few IOU’s to collect.”
“I’ll need a wagon and horses,” Longarm decided. “I’ll need a wagon that won’t draw any attention and will have sides on it so I can lay that man down and he can’t be seen or heard.”
“Sounds like you need more than a buckboard.”
“I do,” Longarm said. “I’m thinking that I need something much bigger.”
“How about an ore wagon?”
“Too big.”
“I suppose a good-sized supply wagon or … how about a medicine peddler’s wagon?”
“That sounds good,” Longarm said. “How big and heavy is it?”
“It’s light enough to be pulled easily by two horses and it’s all enclosed. I had a peddler come through selling a cure-all elixir, and he drank so much of his own medicine that he died.”
“Where is this wagon?”
“It’s around behind the jail. Been sitting there about a month now, and I expect that it’s in pretty good shape. I locked it up tight so that it wouldn’t be vandalized. There’s still a couple of boxes of that fella’s elixir inside that I haven’t gotten around to pouring out yet.”
“Let’s take a look at it,” Longarm said, “if I can do that without attracting too much attention. But I can’t pay you for it and I can’t even buy horses.”
“For crying out loud!” the marshal exclaimed. “Doesn’t the federal government even give you expense money on these kinds of deals?”