The Treasury bunch, as Longarm had begun to call them in his mind, had finally departed, taking the money and Earl Combs with them. Longarm had seen Combs off at the train. He hoped he never saw the man and a train at the same time again so long as he lived. Combs was still in some pain. The burns on his feet forced him to wear slippers and he had splints on three fingers as well as severe burns on one hand. Longarm had tried to cheer him up by saying, “Well, Earl, at least they won’t hand you a sledgehammer, not right off anyway. Look on the bright side of it.”
Combs gave him a sour look and boarded the northbound train.
Then there had been Sarah to get straightened out. Her wound had shocked her more than it had hurt her. It had gone through the fleshy part of her shoulder and she had bled quite a bit, but in the end it was a trivial matter. The doctor had made her stay in bed for three days, and her arm was not to be used so that the wound would heal faster. She had been relieved that it was all over, but like a man suddenly let out of jail after a long term, the free world looked frightening and unreal to her. She asked Longarm, “What will I do? I don’t know anything to do. I have no family left and I’m not trained for anything. Perhaps I can get a job at the hotel.”
Longarm laughed. He had already arranged matters. During a break with the bank people, he’d paid a visit to Richard Harding’s lawyer, who turned out surprisingly enough to be an honest man. Harding had not made a will and Sarah, being his legal spouse, was entitled to inherit everything he owned. Longarm and the lawyer had paid a call on the attractive young woman who was presenting herself as the second Mrs. Harding. She was a showgirl from New Orleans and she took the news in good humor. She’d said, “Yeah, I guess it was too good to last. It was really nice living with a rich man and not having to go to bed with him. That part I liked. It’s been a good vacation, but I guess I’m about ready to go back to work anyway.”
Within three days, she had moved out, bag and baggage, and was never seen again.
While investigating Harding’s assets, Longarm discovered he had $21,000 in cash at the bank, another $20,000 in municipal bonds as well as the deed to the big house in town that was completely paid for and which Longarm thought would fetch a considerable sum. He also owned in full the hacienda in Mexico and the cabin. Sarah was going to be well provided for.
He let her worry just for his own amusement for about half a day. Then when she was able to be up and around, he’d hired a carriage from the livery stable and driven her out to the house she had once occupied for a short time as the wife of Richard Harding. It had frightened her, going to the house, and it took quite a bit of persuasion on his part to get her out of the carriage and up the walkway and onto the porch. But there she balked. She said, “There’ll be someone in there. That woman is in there. We can’t go in.”
At that point, faced with her absolute reluctance, he’d had to tell her that the house belonged to her and that the woman was gone, that she was now mistress of the place.
They’d gone in and he’d stood and watched as she ghosted through the big house, seeing it, he supposed, for the first time with completely new eyes. She wandered around for the better part of two hours. When she finally came back to Longarm, she said sadly, “It’s a wonderful house but it has a bad feel about it. It feels like he’s still here. I don’t want to live here.”
Longarm shrugged. He said, “Me and the lawyer done figured that much. He’s got a buyer already lined up who will give you forty thousand dollars for the place.”
Her eyes got big and her lips parted slightly. She said, “Forty thousand dollars! That’s a fortune.”
Little by little, he had let her find out about the rest of her assets. When he finished, he said, “My lady, you’re a very rich woman. Some handsome young man is going to come along and sweep you off your feet and you’re going to wonder if it’s you or the money. Let me tell you right now, it’ll be YOU.”
She’d looked at him and said, “Do you ever think about marrying, Custis?”
He shook his head and smiled. “It ain’t good policy to marry U.S. deputy marshals. It’s not the kind of work that makes for a happy home life. It doesn’t make for a good marriage if the husband is always gone or getting shot at.”
She smiled at him again. “I knew you were going to say that but I couldn’t help but ask.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “You do know that you are very special to me. Not just because you saved my life, not just because you gained me my freedom, I learned a lot from you.”
He leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips. “You are very special to me also, Sarah, and I’ve learned a lot from you. I know now that everything in life doesn’t have to be hard and rough and hurtful. You’re quite a lady.”
She had been unsure of her plans, but she did know that she was going to leave Laredo and the border country. Longarm said, “I think that’s a good idea. This ain’t no place for a gentle woman. This place is bad. If you stay here long enough, you go bad.”
She looked up at him. “Do you think that’s what happened to Richard?”
He shook his head. He said, “No, I think Richard Harding just brought more evil to an already bad place, like so many others who have come here. No, the border didn’t corrupt Richard Harding. He was meant for this strip of ground.”
She had thought perhaps with the money she now had that she would go back to Kentucky. Maybe even live in the town she had grown up in.
Longarm said, “At least that way you will meet the kind of man you should have.”
Even with her shoulder to be careful of, they’d still managed to have three wonderful nights together. It was the kind of sex that Longarm had almost forgotten about. She was so unknowledgeable, so fresh, so new, so virgin-like. It was a pleasure for him to lead her slowly through the erotic paths of passion and ecstasy and climax. With his lips and his tongue and his penis and his fingertips, he had taught her about her body, slowly drawing her out until she would almost quiver with the power of her excitement. He had stood her naked in front of a full-length mirror and showed her what a beautiful woman she was, showed her how perfectly shaped her full breasts were with their big nipples, showed her on the bed how perfectly they fit together. Now, it took him only a few minutes to bring her to a warm, moist readiness, ready to receive him as he thrust into her. It had been three nights he didn’t suppose he would ever forget. Neither would he forget the sight of her body in his mind’s eye. She was as close to being the perfect woman as he guessed he had ever seen. He knew part of that was because when he’d first seen her, she’d looked so dowdy and lumpy in the blanket-material robe with her tangled and tousled hair. To have such a butterfly emerge from an ugly cocoon had something to do with it, he was sure. But yet, simply lying in bed and looking at her as she stood before him with her lips slightly parted and her big gray-blue eyes and her light brown wavy hair curving down around her shoulders, he had to admire her small waist, the slight mound of her stomach, her straight, shapely legs joining in the downy thatch of light brown silken hair. No, she was truly one of the most perfect women he had ever met, and it was with more than a trace of sadness that he had told her good-bye when he left the hotel. She had wanted to come with him to the train to see him off but he wouldn’t have it. He had explained to her in the room that he wanted to tell her good-bye properly and leave with that kind of good-bye as a memory, not some hurried kiss among a flock of strangers beside a train hissing steam.