“An interesting distinction.”
“Useful.” Crockett looked close to swooning with the pleasure of his cigar. He blew smoke rings into the air, a dozen or more of them that hung over his head like so many errant halos drifting on the still air inside the marshal’s office.
“You’ll recall that I don’t want anyone to know that I work for Marshal Vail,” Longarm said. “Far as the civilians, or even your officers, are concerned I’d prefer to be thought of as just another one of the ball players from Texas.”
“I thought of that, but you and me aren’t so far apart in age. And I’ve spent some time in Texas, too, which folks here know about but have mostly forgiven me for. I intend to introduce you as an old friend from Bexar, which is where I used to work back before I learned that a man can sometimes make more by sitting on his ass than he can by letting a string of bad horses pound it or a herd of mossy-horn cows try and puncture it.” He grinned. “You know something, Longarm? I haven’t thrown a rope nor wrestled a calf since the day I figured that out. Ever been to Bexar?”
Longarm nodded. “Enough to tell a convincing lie if anybody questions me on it.”
“That’s who you are then. What’s the name you said you’re using with those overgrown children in tight pants?”
“Chester Short. But my friends call me Chet.”
“Right. Chet it is, old pard. You and me rode together for Dad Waters at the Rafter D.”
“I remember it well,” Longarm said.
“Good. That settles that.” Crockett pulled an onion-shaped watch from his pocket and consulted it. “We got a mite of time to kill,” he said. “Tell you what. We’ll have supper at my place. My old woman always cooks enough that there’s extra in case company comes by. Then later on we’ll stop in the saloons and have a beer or something at each one. To see if there’s any new faces there. If there are I’ll put one of my boys to keeping an eye on them. Once it’s late enough then we’ll go have that little talk with Belinda Joy Love and find out for certain if there’s a bunch of strangers in town and if they are, what they’re up to.”
“Or what they claim to be up to anyhow,” Longarm said.
“Which sometimes is good enough,” Crockett said. “Sometimes you can learn about as much from a man’s lies as you can from his truths, just so you know when it is that he’s lying to you. You know what I mean?”
Longarm nodded.
“You hungry, friend Chet?”
“I feel about as empty as a bee tree with the hive smoked out of it.”
Crockett stood and reached for his hat. “Let’s go see what my old lady has on the stove, Chet.”
Chapter 28
Boone Crockett’s old woman was enough to melt a man into a puddle of steaming sweat. Or at least she made Custis Long feel like that.
He guessed her age at seventeen or thereabouts, a Mexican girl with a somewhat selectively slim body. Slim, that is, in selected portions. And anything but small in others. She had a chest that would have served admirably for any smith’s furnace bellows and a round and pretty butt that looked stony cold perfect for the birthing of babies.
She had a pert and lovely face, cheekbones high enough to suggest more than a smattering of Indian hiding high in the branches of the family tree and lips that looked so hot it was a wonder there weren’t brand marks all over Crockett. Or hell, maybe there were. But in places he didn’t show around for just everybody to see.
Her hair was sleek and glossy and fell to someplace south of her waist. Which Longarm suspected could be spanned by a pair of warm hands.
Not that he would ever find out.
“Miz Crockett.” He bowed and swept his Stetson off, which drew a dimpled smile from the town marshal’s old lady. “Mister Short,” she said in response as Crockett was going along with the fiction of Longarm’s identity even at home now. “Welcome.”
Longarm glanced sideways toward his new friend and saw something of a sparkle in the man’s eyes. Crockett knew what he had here and was damned proud of it. Well, no wonder. Longarm reckoned he would have been, too, if he’d gotten himself a new play-toy as fine as this one.
“I hope you’ll settle for potluck,” Crockett said.
“Whatever you have,” Longarm answered, knowing that Crockett’s pleasures at home need have nothing to do with food.
“Juana, put a plate on for Mr. Short if you please.”
“It is already done, cara. Mama saw you coming up the street with your guest. She had the place fixed before you reached the door. Go wash now. You too, Mr. Short. Hurry or everything will be cold and ruined before it reaches your plate, no?”
When they went into the kitchen, Longarm saw what Crockett meant earlier when he said there wouldn’t be any danger of them running out of food even if a guest hadn’t been announced ahead of time.
There were pots, platters, and steaming plates enough to feed half the town and still have scraps left over to throw to stray dogs.
And there were more than enough folks on hand to get around it all. He got lost midway through the introductions but in addition to Boone and Juana Crockett there were Juana’s father and mother and sister—not but ten or eleven now but with a dark-eyed beauty whose appeal might someday rival her sister’s—and three younger brothers and four or so cousins and … hell, Longarm gave up trying to figure out who they all were. He put the total number somewhere above twenty, the total only a rough estimate due to the ambled comings and goings through a busy back door, and left it at that.
No wonder Crockett hadn’t been concerned about adding a mouth at the table.
Besides, he probably liked having someone around who spoke English. Crockett claimed to have no Spanish, and most of Juana’s people either had no English or hid the knowledge right well if they did understand it.
Crockett and his guest were given places at the kitchen table along with Juana and her parents. Everyone else seemed to wander in, fill a plate and saunter back out again. It was purely amazing the quantities of food that disappeared over the course of the meal.
“That was good,” Crockett said at length, reaching out to give his wife a pat on the backside as she carried a bowl of refritos to the table. People were still coming and going, and Longarm wasn’t sure but that some of the faces belonged to fresh visitors. Juana beamed and paused long enough to wiggle her pretty butt at him before completing her task. Shy she was not. Happy though. Longarm guessed that Crockett and his child bride got along uncommonly well despite the presence of the army of relatives that came along with the package.
After supper, seated in rocking chairs on the front porch with a pair of Longarm’s excellent stogies providing some stomach-soothing smoke, Crockett leaned back and explained, “Best damn thing that ever happened to me, finding Juana.”
“So it looks like,” Longarm agreed.
“I never had much family. My ma died early, giving birth to what would’ve been a brother. After that there was just me and my daddy and the stories he’d read to me about all the old-time heroes. I’m not complaining, mind. My daddy was a good man and he did his best for me. But I like having a big family. And they like knowing I want to take care of them all. Anyway, we get along pretty good, all of us.”
“Nice folks,” Longarm said diplomatically, “and your wife is lovely.”
“She is, isn’t she. Been married almost a year now.” He winked. “Time we start thinking about having a kid of our own to add to the stew.”
Longarm wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that so he settled for pulling some smoke out of his cheroot. Damn, but this was an uncommon fine batch of cigars he’d blundered into.
“Juana!” Crockett raised his voice only a little, but within seconds the girl was at the door to see what her husband needed. “Yes, dear?”
“Me and Chet will be going over to the cathouse soon as we’re done smoking. You wanta ask that brother of yours if he’d like to get laid tonight?”