"I guess we've both had about the same amount of practice. I'll give you this, Flo: You know what you want, and don't let anything stop you from taking it."
"I needed somebody like you, after Ramos. He was so little and so damned fat that all he could do was make me want a real man. Besides, I enjoy giving, but I don't like being taken." Flo turned her head suddenly and spat, somehow making the unladylike action a maidenly gesture of utter contempt. "Ramos! Paugh!"
"Talking about Ramos, if we don't do more sleeping and less fucking, we're not going to be much good later on."
"I feel like sleeping, now. I didn't before." She stretched like an animal. Longarm could almost see the muscles under her silken skin rippling in the starlight. What he couldn't see, he imagined.
"You move like that another time, I'm going to be all over you again," he warned her.
"Come on. Any time." When he didn't move, she asked, "Sleepy?"
"Some. A mite tuckered, too. And beginning to think about what might happen tomorrow. If I'm feeling drawn-out, you must be, too."
"I'll sleep, if you'll hold me."
"You got a deal. But pull on your drawers, and I'll button up. If we don't, we'll be starting in again."
Cuddled together, they were asleep in a few minutes.
* * *
Captain Hill woke them. It was still dark. Hill said, "It's about time for you to relieve Nate, Marshal." He hesitated, and added, "But if the lady feels safer with you here to look after her, I'm still fresh. I'll take another watch."
"No you won't. It's my job, and I aim to do it. You'll be fine as long as you know the captain's here, won't you, Flo?"
Sleepily, Flo replied, "Sure. I'm not a baby anymore." She closed her eyes again at once and was asleep again.
Longarm and Hill walked quietly away from her until they were far enough to be sure their voices wouldn't disturb her. "Looks like she's fallen for you," Hill commented. "Not that it's any affair of mine what you and the lady do, but if it comes to a fight, and she keeps clinging to you, it might get all of us killed."
"I don't think you got anything to fret over. Flo's sensible. I seen that when she was helping me tie up Ramos and Molina. She'll carry her own weight, if it comes to a scrap."
"Good. Well, I'll go back to sleep, then." Hill lay down, using his arm for a pillow, in the manner of a man used to sleeping on the ground. He grinned up at Longarm. "Tell the bugler not to bother to blow reveille. I always wake up before he does, anyhow. "
Chuckling, Longarm backtracked through the bent-down huisache growth until he found Webster. The Ranger was sitting Indian style on a boulder, his rifle across his knees.
"Nothing so far," he greeted Longarm. "We didn't really expect there'd be, I guess."
"No. Still too soon. If we're lucky, we'll pick up another half-day's lead on 'em before they get to where we are now."
"We better be lucky, then. We're outgunned about eight to one, when they do catch up," Webster said thoughtfully. "Which wouldn't spook me much, if it wasn't for Miss Flo."
"That's occurred to me too, Nate. I got a hunch we can handle Ramos's bunch, though, if we don't make a bunch of tomfool moves."
"Sounds like you been doing some thinking."
"Some. Haven't you?"
"Oh, sure. Trouble is, this deal's a little out of my line. In the old days, you know, us Rangers moved in companies, during the Indian fighting and Mexican wars. The work we do nowadays is mostly single-handed."
Longarm carefully avoided suggesting that the Ranger was old enough to've fought in the War Between the States. If Webster'd been in it, then there'd be the risk of stirring up bad memories. And Longarm knew just how bad those memories could be. He'd never rid his mind of the image of the dead rotting under summer rains at Shiloh. Then again, if Webster'd skulked out of the war, he wouldn't be proud of it. Longarm decided it wasn't a good idea to talk in military terms.
"I've got the glimmer of a scheme that might get us across the river without a stand-up fight, Nate," he said. "Tell you what, you go get your shut-eye, and give me a little more time to think. I'll come in at first light and the three of us'll powwow."
Longarm's watch wore itself along uneventfully. He spent his hour sitting on the boulder that Webster had occupied, keeping his ears tuned for sounds that might give warning of pursuit and thinking of ways to keep the rurales at bay when they caught up. He had no doubt that they would catch up, sooner or later.
When the first faint threads of gray showed across the high mesas in the east, Longarm uncoiled, stretched the kinks out of his leg muscles, and walked back to the thicket. He found Webster and Flo still asleep, but Hill, true to his promise, was stirring around.
"I've tightened the girths and put the bridles back on the mounts," the cavalryman announced. "As soon as we mount up, we can move out."
"Let's stay here a minute or two, John," Longarm suggested. "Give Nate and Flo time to duck back of a bush and pee, and wash their faces. Then we'll have a little council of war, if everybody's agreeable."
When they'd assembled, he outlined the plan he'd worked out during his hour of sentry duty.
"We got to figure the rurales will come after us," he began. "We shoved their faces in a hot cow pie when we slipped away from 'em, and Ramos can't let us go free and make trouble for his bosses in Mexico City. Now we know we can't outgun 'em in a showdown fight. Them rurales look sloppy, and sometimes they don't seem right bright, but from what I've heard, they're damn tough fighters."
"They're that," Webster affirmed. "Our only chance would be to hole up in a place where they could only come at us a few at a time. But even if we found a place like that, all they'd have to do is starve us out. Our best chance is to keep ahead of 'em."
"It's our only chance," Hill said. "Not just the best one."
"Sure, all of us know that," Longarm agreed. "We've got to take out of here running and keep running till we get to the border."
"But we can't afford to blow our horses," the cavalry officer cautioned. "They've got remounts, we haven't. Even if it loses time for us, we'll have to breathe them before they drop."
"I figured on that," Longarm said. "My scheme is for us to go like hell when we take off. When the horses need a rest, we'll stop. From there, we'll split up." He saw that Webster was about to object and held up a hand to stop him. "Just a minute, Nate. I'm not done. Far's I know, there's only one place you could call a town on the other side of the river that we'd have a chance to get to. That's Los Perros. Am I right about that, John?"
"Yes. There're a few other shanty settlements along the river, but Los Perros is the biggest one, the only place we'd have a chance to find enough men to help us. The others only have a dozen or so people living in them."
"That's what I'd guessed," Longarm said. "Now, then. When we split up, we'll do it someplace where two men can hold back Ramos's bunch for a while. It don't have to be for too long, just enough cover to stop the rurales for an hour or two. If the ones that leave ride hell for leather, they oughta get to Los Perros in time to pull some kind of crew together to beat the rurales back."
"What about the two who've fought rear guard?" Hill asked. "Do you think they can outrun the rurales all the way to the river?"
"If they make a sneak and get a start before Ramos's men know they've gone, I figure they can," Longarm replied.
Webster and Hill thought about the idea for a moment, then the Ranger said, "It's about the best we can do, I'd say. We're sorta between a rock and a hard place."
"I'd give a lot to have just one squad of my men at the river," Hill said grimly. He smiled and added, "But I'd give a lot to have a Gatling gun along with us right now. All right, Marshal, it looks like we agree that your plan's our only chance. Nate and I will take the rear guard job, you and the lady ride ahead."