“Would you do that?” Todd asked, looking quite relieved.
“Sure,” Longarm promised.
“And … and talk to the marshals in Reno, Carson City, and Virginia City. If they seem like good men, tell ‘em to write or telegraph me and we can take it on our own from there. They’ve got to be first-rate, though. I won’t leave this town unprotected or at the mercy of someone who isn’t.”
“I understand. And what about you? Do you have a pension or any savings?”
“I’ve squirreled a few thousand dollars up and it’s gathering interest in the bank. Comes time, I’ll either buy the house I’m in now or buy another. I’m a pretty damn good gunsmith, and I know I can pick up ten or fifteen dollars a month repairing firearms. I’ll be just fine and dandy.”
“Why don’t you find some rich old gal to marry,” Longarm teased.
“I’m looking for a rich young girl to marry,” Todd said with a broad smile.
“Aren’t we all,” Longarm said with amusement, “aren’t we all.”
“Who is that beautiful woman?”
“Irma?”
“No, the young one that has an English accent.”
“She’s Lady Caroline.”
“What are they doin’ out here?”
“Traveling across the West on a train. They’re going to stay awhile in Reno, then go on over the Sierras to Sacramento and on to San Francisco.”
“Is she as rich as she is pretty?”
Longarm laughed. “Hell, I don’t know, Mike. Why don’t you ask her?”
“I would if I was you,” Todd said. “Damn right I would. I’d be after her like a bird dog after a wounded duck.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said, “I’m sure that you would be.”
He started to say more, but the shriek of the distant steam whistle changed his mind. “So long, Mike. I’ve got to run.”
“Stop by when you come back through,” the old lawman said. “We’ll have a few snorts and talk about guns and outlaws.”
“I’ll do that,” Longarm promised.
He was already moving down the boardwalk at a run when Todd called, “And don’t forget what I asked you!”
“I won’t!”
Longarm barely made it onto the train. In fact, it was rolling when he swung on board.
“You’re cutting it awfully close, Marshal Long,” the conductor said with a frown of disapproval. “But then I heard about you gunning down those two mean bastards who tried to rape that pretty girl you’re traveling with.”
“Yeah,” Longarm said. “They were bad ones.”
“What do you think gets into that kind?”
“I don’t know,” Longarm said, “and I don’t much care. If they break the law, I just arrest or shoot them.”
“It’s easier and cheaper to shoot that kind,” the conductor said.
“I agree.”
Longarm went back to his compartment and changed his shirt, which had gotten dirty when he’d had to roll in the street dodging bullets. He was furious about the hole in his new Stetson, but he figured that someone could fix that up without a great deal of trouble. Maybe he could find a gal to sew a little piece of black felt inside so you would hardly notice. He sure wasn’t going to throw away a thirty-three-dollar hat because of one little bullet hole.
“Marshal Long?”
Longarm opened the door to see Lady Caroline standing in the aisle. “Well, hello. Can I help you?”
“I’d like to speak to you in private for a moment, if you don’t mind.”
“No, of course not.”
Caroline stepped into his compartment and closed the door behind her. She filled the room with the scent of roses, and Longarm suddenly felt the temperature rising again, just like before he’d wrecked the furnace. He had never been alone with this woman before, and now they were packed into a space small enough that it brought them into physical intimacy.
Mopping his suddenly perspiring brow, Longarm said, “What would you like to talk about?”
Lady Caroline’s blue eyes were flecked with gold dust, and Longarm thought he had never seen eyes so large or beautiful.
“I wanted to apologize for how stupid I acted after the shooting.”
“Stupid?”
“Yes,” she said with a firm nod. “I was shocked almost senseless by the savage violence that took place between you and those two awful men. I reacted bad-“
“Have you ever seen men die suddenly before?”
“No, and I hope never to again.”
“I feel the same way,” he said. “There’s nothing good about killing. Every time I’ve had to shoot and kill, I’ve felt hollow inside.”
“Never victorious or … or joyful?”
“Only in the sense that it was the other person who died instead of me. I’ve always felt it was a tragic waste. Every man I’ve killed was once an infant in his mother’s loving arms. Later a kid with a hoop and stick, laughing and doing all the things that kids do. Then a man, dying in the dust with his blood pumping out of his veins and wondering if there really is a heaven or a hell, or just nothing but an eternal, cold, and absolute blackness.”
Caroline took a deep breath. “You are a remarkable man, Mr. Long. I’ve never met anyone remotely like YOU.”
He forced a smile. “I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
“Please do.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “I wish … I wish that I was Irma.”
“Why?”
Her eyes dropped and her cheeks flushed with color. “So that I could know you like she does.”
Longarm sucked in a deep breath and surprised himself by blurting out, “Caroline, I’m not sure that that would be such a good idea.”
“Why not?” she asked, suddenly looking up at him and placing her hands on his broad shoulders.
“Because I’m not the gentleman you think I am,” he confessed. “I’ve a lot of the animal in me. If I didn’t have that, I would have been killed years ago.”
She swallowed hard, and he knew that her next words were difficult and came from the heart.
“And what if I told you that even aristocratic women have a little bit of the ‘animal’ buried deep inside of them? And that they aren’t ashamed of it and even desire it at times.”
Longarm reached out and pushed the door shut. He took Caroline in his arms and kissed her deeply, passionately, and she reacted like any healthy young woman who had ever been attracted to him. Caroline’s lips were soft and her body was even softer. Longarm heard a moan escape her and he reached down to unbutton her dress, but Caroline suddenly broke away.
“No,” she whispered.
“Why not?”
“Because of Irma. She’s my friend.”
Longarm expelled a deep breath. “Yes,” he said, “and mine. I care for her.”
“Then … then there is nothing more to say, is there?”
“I don’t think so,” he reluctantly agreed. “But you must have known this would happen if you came to my compartment.”
“I was hoping just to apologize.”
He took her into his arms and kissed her mouth again, only this time gently and without a great hunger surging up in his loins. “I don’t believe that for a single moment, Lady Caroline. I think you wanted to make love, but had a sudden and massive attack of guilt.”
She smiled. “Are you always so brutally honest with ladies who find you irresistible?”
“No.”
“I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad that you were with me, but I’m glad to have kissed you, Marshal. After I’ve long been back in England and most of the memories of this great adventure have faded, I’ll still remember and treasure these moments. And if I someday have children, when I am old and they are courting, I’ll tell them about the handsome and brave United States marshal who risked his life for us and whom I kissed and desired with all my heart.”
Longarm smoothed his mustache. “You had better get out of here while you still can.”