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“Aw, hell, I was aiming to brag on it some,” Sally said disappointedly. “Lots of folks in this county treat me like a sissy!”

“You’re all man, Roping Sally, but let’s not build you a rep as a gunslick if we can help it. It can make for nervous nights. Believe me, I know!”

“I’ll do as you say. Where you heading now?”

“Hadn’t thought about it all that much. I doubt if anyone else is likely to creep into this web tonight. I gave my bed at the agency to a guest of the Durlers. Hmm, I’d best carry you and this jasper back to town and try for some shut-eye at the hotel.”

“You can stay at my spread, if you’ve a mind to. It’s just to the northwest of town.”

“Uh, I figure to get up with the chickens, Sally.”

“Hell, don’t we all? You come on home with me and I’ll fry you some eggs before we turn in.”

Longarm didn’t answer. Roping Sally punched him on the shoulder and asked, “What’s the matter, are you scared of me?”

“Not hardly. But what’ll folks say about it in Switchback?”

“Who gives a hoot and a holler? I don’t keep any hands on my spread. The boys I was riding with before live with their folks in town and I hire ‘em as I need ‘em. Ain’t nobody there but me and a mess of critters. I got dogs and cats, Shanghai chickens, a Poland China hog, and my remuda and herd keeping me company, but not one of ‘em ever gossips about me worth mention.”

Longarm laughed and said, “We’ll talk about it along the way.”

Chapter 7

Roping Sally’s house was a large one-room soddy with a lodgepole roof and a cast-iron kitchen range sharing space with a fourposter bed and enough supplies to stock a general store. They’d stored Fats in the smokehouse and put the mule in with Buck. Longarm sat at an improvised table made of planks laid across two barrels. He smoked as he watched Sally putter at the range with her back to him. He noticed that the seat of her pants was tight and worn shiny between the wings of her flapping chaps, and though she was a mite broad across the beam where she sat a horse, her waistline was as trim as if she’d been cinched up in a whalebone corset. The hickory shirt she wore was tight enough for him to see she wasn’t wearing a corset, or much else, under it. She was one handsome woman—considering she chewed cut plug—but Longarm couldn’t figure her out. He was either getting into something too good to be true, or just as likely, about to make a terrible mistake.

The girl turned with a grin and plopped two coffee mugs and a pair of tin plates down in front of him, saying, “There you go. Wrap yourself around those eggs before you tell me I can’t cook.”

“Uh, don’t we use some forks or something, Sally?”

“Oh, Lordy, I’m so flusterated I clean forgot the silverware! You’ve likely suspicioned I don’t entertain all that much.”

He waited until she’d put some oversized cutlery on the planks before he said cautiously, “You told me, coming in, you didn’t have any fellows sparking you.”

“Hell, there ain’t a man in Montana worth spit on a rock. Present company not included, of course.”

“Sally, you can’t tell me somebody hasn’t tried,” Longarm said skeptically.

“Sure they have. Sissy little things who have to sit down to pee, most likely. I knew they were just after my daddy’s cows.”

“Oh, you got a daddy hereabouts?”

“Dead. Got thrown and busted his neck, summer before last. He raised me to be a cowhand and he likely raised me right, for I’ve done right well here, without him. What’s the matter with the eggs? You ain’t eating ‘em.”

Longarm put a forkful of rubbery, over-fried eggs in his mouth and chewed hard. He swallowed bravely before he shook his head and said, “You got ‘em just right, Sally. I’m a mite tuckered after such a long, hard day, is all.”

“Why don’t we go to bed then? Which side would be your pleasure?”

“Sally, I’d best spread my bedroll out in the wagon bed, out back.”

“What in thunder for? I took a bath last Saturday. Besides, that fellow in the smokehouse tore shit out of your blankets with that old express rifle.”

“Sally, how old are you?”

“I’m old enough, I reckon. My daddy and me ran just about the first longhorns north from the Powder River Range to this here territory and I shot my first Sioux before I lost my cherry!”

Longarm brightened and said, “Oh? I was, uh, wondering how soon we were likely to get to that subject.”

“My daddy said I wasn’t a virgin anymore when I told him about it. He was sore as hell, but there wasn’t all that much he could do about it, since the cuss who cost me my cherry was long gone. You want to hear about it?”

“Not really. Just wanted to know where this trail was leading me. You take the right side and I’ll take the left and we’ll likely wind up in the middle. You want me to blow out the lights?”

“What for? There’s stuff all over the floor and we’d likely bust a leg finding our way.”

“Suits me. Most gals like to undress in the dark.”

Roping Sally looked puzzled and said, “You reckon we ought to take our clothes off just to sleep two or three hours? It’s going on four, and my old Shanghai rooster starts crowing any minute now.”

“Well,” Longarm said, “you’re right about it being late, but I sleep better raw, so I’d best blow out the lights.”

“I’ll do it. You just climb over those boxes and I’ll join you.”

He did as she told him and had his boots off about the time Roping Sally doused the last lamp. He undressed, frowning and puzzled, then got under the covers as Sally climbed in on the other side, saying, “I took my britches and boots off, but I don’t like the way these old blankets scratch when I don’t wear my shirt.”

Longarm reached for her and snuggled her head against his shoulder as he asked mildly, “You ever think of using sheets?”

“They just get dirty and torn up when I’m too tired to shuck my boots after a hard day’s ride. What are you hauling on me like that for?”

“Don’t you want me to cuddle you some, first?”

She moved closer and nestled her body into the curve of his as she said, “It sure feels nice. I like the way you run that hand up and down me, too. Feels like you’re petting me right friendly.”

Longarm slid his hand to her face in the dark, turned her chin up, and kissed her lips. Roping Sally’s lips were a mite wind-chapped and her breath smelled like a tobacco shop, but she responded after a moment of hesitation. Longarm wondered why women always seemed to want to back off at the last minute after damned near running a man all around the corral to rope and saddle him. He kept his lips against hers as he moved the hand downward. Sally stiffened as he cupped her mons in his palm and rubbed her lightly through her shirttail. She rolled her mouth aside and whispered, “Are you getting dirty with me?”

Longarm was finding it difficult to keep his amazement concealed. He said levelly, “Honey, there ain’t anything dirty about this. It’s why the Lord made men and women different, is all.”

“I don’t know if you ought to do that, though. You’re getting me all mushy and funny-like.”

But she had her own free hand on the back of Longarm’s, now, and when he asked if she wanted him to stop, she pressed it closer and murmured, “Don’t know what I want. It feels nice as anything, but I ain’t sure I ought to let you keep going.”

“Sally, it’s going on four, I got a long day ahead of me, and this palaver must cease. We’ve got no time for any more games!”

Suiting his actions to his words, Longarm cocked a leg over her, parted her ample thighs with his knee, and climbed aboard, moving her damp shirttail above her navel as he guided himself into her. Her matted pubic hair was wet with her own desire and though she was tighter than he’d expected, he sank full-depth into her on the first thrust.