He followed her through the door and into the Higginses’ quarters, and then through the second door and the bedroom. There was a small door off to the right that he had never noticed before. She led him into a little shack that he guessed had been added on to the main building. It was half bathroom and half kitchen, separated by a blanket curtain. The kitchen had a big cast-iron range and a sink set in the middle of drainboards and sideboards that ran the length of the little room. She led him over to the sink, which was armed with a water pump. With a lithe motion she reached up in a cupboard and came down with a box of salt and another of baking soda. To that she added a glass. While she pumped the glass full she turned to him with a smile and said, “How did you sleep last night, Mister Long?”
He said dryly, “I had the feeling something rousted me out around midnight. I can’t be sure because it came and went so fast.”
She handed him the glass. “I didn’t think it came so fast. Maybe left quick.”
He gave her a look, and dipped his toothbrush in the water and then in the soda and the salt. She was standing very near him, with the both of them facing each other while turned sideways to the sink. Without looking, she reached down and unbuttoned the middle buttons of his jeans and thrust her hand in. He had the toothbrush in his mouth, and could only jerk and make a muffled sound in surprise. Still looking him straight in the face, she began to fondle him. He could feel himself becoming aroused, feel the swelling starting like a rutting bull. He took the brush out of his mouth and said, “Rita Ann, are you crazy? Mrs. Higgins could come in at any second.”
But she paid him no heed. All of a sudden she dropped to her knees and took him in her mouth. He gasped and almost bit the end off his toothbrush. His mouth was full of soda and salt and he was suddenly gasping for breath.
Holding him firmly by the backs of his thighs, she began to piston her head back and forth, taking his whole member inside her mouth with each stroke. He gasped and flung his toothbrush on the counter and looked down. Her blouse had gaped open, and he could see her firm breasts tipped with the small nipples like raspberries. He put his hands on her head, making a halfhearted attempt to stop her, but it was too late. He could feel the crescendo of passion rising and rising in him until there was no way to stop it. He was gasping for air, clutching at her fine, silken hair. He said, “Rita Ann—you’ve got to-” He never finished. The fire she had set blew out of control and the whole mountain went up, erupting as the streaks of red and yellow and orange flames flashed in front of his eyes. He sagged sideways, clutching at the counter for support, too weak to stand on his feet.
A time passed. It could have been a moment, it could have been ten minutes. He didn’t know. The next thing he knew she was standing up, putting him back in his jeans, and buttoning him up. She said, as he gasped and hung on to the counter, “You better hurry up and wash up or you’ll be late for breakfast. I’ve got to get these biscuits out of the oven and out to the table.” Then she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. While he hung on, his breathing gradually returning to normal, he heard the oven door clang and then she was calling out as she left, “Hurry up now, Mr. Long. They got honey to go with the biscuits. I sure hope it has cooled off in there.”
When he could, he straightened up and looked toward the door through which she had disappeared. She was, he thought, the damnedest woman he’d ever run into. She left him completely flummoxed. What she’d done to him had been done before, but never in the kitchen, and never when he was trying to brush his teeth, and never with two other people waiting breakfast. “Son of a bitch!” he said out loud. “Between carrying in the bacon and the biscuits.”
It was still too hot, and they had to eat at the far end of the table down near the door. It was just coming daylight as they sat down to the meal. They had something Mrs. Higgins called “egg loaf.” It was a lot of eggs mixed with some flour and baking powder and a little milk and then baked. It was served by the big spoonful. Longarm thought it was good, though he could have done just as well with plain fried eggs. But Higgins raved about it, so Longarm figured that was why it was on the menu. They had thick slices of bacon and biscuits with honey. There was also cream for their coffee. Mrs. Higgins said, “We keep three milk cows, but it’s so hard gettin’ the company to send down enough of the right kind of feed and hay that one or the other of ‘em is always going dry.
Longarm ate, but he also spent a good deal of time staring at Rita Ann. Mrs. Higgins said, “I tell you, this girl is just a joy. Help around the kitchen? My goodness, you have no idea how good she is in that kitchen.”
Oh, yes I do, Longarm thought silently. But he said, staring at Rita Ann, “Is that right?”
“Just like the daughter I never had.”
“Daughters can be just full of surprises,” Longarm said, still looking at Rita Ann. She smiled back at him, and then reached over and poured his coffee cup full.
When the meal was over, Longarm took his coffee and went over to the bar and drank off enough to where he could put a fair amount of whiskey in it. Then he returned to the table. The women were up and clearing away. Higgins was relaxing with his own cup, sweetened with honey. He said, nodding toward Longarm’s coffee, “I can’t take the whiskey right off. It goes agin my stomach.”
Longarm took a sip. It had become clear daylight outside and the sun was already making its presence felt. If Higgins’s fire didn’t die down soon, the combination of the two would make it mighty warm in the room. Longarm said, “It’s a bad habit. But I’ve got myself so stove up over the years, takes a little doing to get my old bones to moving. guess I use the whiskey about like you’d use liniment. Or a switch to a mule.”
Higgins looked toward the door. “Going to be a hot one.”
“Now when exactly is that northbound stage due?”
“Supposed to get in here tomorrow at three in the afternoon. Course they never do. But they generally run pretty close, half an hour, give or take.”
Longarm studied his coffee cup. “Mr. Higgins, I want to ask you a question I know you are not supposed to answer, but I got to ask it and you got to answer because it is government business. Does your stage line carry gold bullion?”
Higgins laughed. “I can answer that easy enough. Lord, yes. Don’t you see, that was the whole purpose why the line was set up. Passengers is just a kind of extra freight. Not that we don’t carry considerable freight. We do. Sometimes they’ll hook up two stages in tandem and put maybe twenty mules on and carry a passel of freight.”
“So they ship bullion? Pure bullion?”
“Yessir. Smelted down right there at the mine so’s to make it as small a load as possible. They tell me they even get the silver outten it so’s it be pure gold.”
“How long has this been going on?”
Higgins shook his head. “Wa’l I can’t say prezactly, but a good little while. Three, four years. Soon as them mines down there in them mountains close to the border commenced paying off, why, the company went to thrashing around to find a way to get the gold north to the mint to sell it to the government. I believe they first off tried sending it in armed caravans, but that never worked. Might as well have held up a sign tellin’ the world they was transporting gold. Mexican bandits liked to have got fat off such stunts. Lot of men got killed. Finally the company set up this stage line. Course they’d of much rather had a railroad, but ain’t nobody got the money to lay track across some of that country. So they started in the stage business.”
Longarm said, “And the idea is that nobody knows which run is carrying the gold, is that about right?”
The old man nodded. “Ain’t no flies on you, Marshal. But that ain’t the biggest trick. The strongbox they send it in is what is the tough nut to crack. Why, they ain’t a chisel made can get through that hardened steel. Hell, the safe itself weighs near five hundred pounds, and you add a half million dollars worth of gold to that and you got yourself a load. Ain’t ten men, if everyone of ‘em could get a holt, could lift it. And ain’t no way to get past the lock. Nosir. They got a key down yonder they lock it with and one up yonder in Buckeye they unlock it with. In between times she stays shut tighter’n an old maid’s cookie jar.”