Escondrijo was on this side of Corpus Christi, and a day's ride away in a straight line from that more important stop. But moving along the Fever Coast by horse took longer, thanks to all the inlets and swamps there were to go around. By an ironic trick of geology, as the post office riders had known before coastal steamers got so common along the inland waterway, a rider could move much faster along the back dunes of Padre Island, an otherwise mighty lonely string bean of white sand and sea gull shit the winds and waves had piled a few miles out extending from Corpus Christi Pass all the way south to Matamoros in Old Mexico. They said it was healthier as well as a bit cooler out along the barrier sands. It was too bad nobody had yet come up with any way to make a living off no more than white sandy beaches and sunshine.
"What are these things that look like lengths of broomstick boiled in oil?" the blonde across the table was asking as Longarm tried in vain to make out what sort of hardware the sinister strangers had behind him. He adjusted the mirror as he assured her hot tamales were sort of big hollow noodles made of cornmeal and stuffed with spicy ground meat.
When she asked what kind of meat, he decided she'd feel better if he said it was likely beef. Beef was possible, and some folks felt odd about eating goats, cats, dogs, and such. The idea of all that red pepper in a hot tamale was to assure that the meat was safe to eat as well as impossible to identify by taste.
He knew he'd said the right thing when Lenore took an experimental taste, followed by a bigger bite and a sudden grab for her coffee to put out the fire, then a smaller but more relaxed nibble as she decided it was a tad spicy but good.
He dug into his own chili con carne to look busy, with his back to those jaspers in her mirror as he casually replied, "That's doubtless because we've a Texican chef on board, ma'am. Mex grub is peppered more along the border than anywhere north or south of it. I suspect Mexicans and Texicans are trying to prove something to one another. Left to themselves--say as far off as Durango, Mexico, or Durango, Colorado--cooks pepper just enough to make a dish sort of interesting. Further south in Old Mexico they cook lots of other ways, with bananas, rice, and such. I had a chicken basted with hot bitter-sweet chocolate down Mexico way one time. Reckon that's what they call an acquired taste and... I see that one in the lighter-gray Carlsbad is packing a two-gun buscadero rig, with the one gun I can make out from here a nickel-plated Schofield."
She said, "These beans are less spicy. What's a Schofield?"
He explained, "A revolver gun, ma'am. Mostly made by Smith & Wesson, but named after Brevet Colonel George Schofield of that Colored Tenth Cav. The colonel wasn't colored. He was the baby brother of General John M. Schofield, in charge of the U.S. Army Small Arms Board during the Grant Administration. Colonel George was stuck with a gross of Model 3 S&W horse pistols left over from an order for the Russian cavalry. It wouldn't be charitable at this late date to guess what the general got out of the deal. The younger Schofield, stuck with using the bargain six-guns in the field, made some improvements on the originals, rechambering 'em for army ammunition to begin with. So by the time they'd sold the first three thousand remodeled Russian cavalry guns to their own army, they were so delighted they renamed the gun the Schofield."
She was too polite to indicate she was sorry she'd asked. But he knew women would rather talk about clothes and such. Hence he added, more tersely, "Let's just say the Texas Rangers are issued the Colt.45 Peacemaker one at a time. A man packing two Schofields in tie-down holsters is showing off or expecting some serious fighting. Either way, I doubt they could be Rangers, and I'd be likely to recognize any well-known outlaws in these parts."
She suggested, "Maybe the one glaring at you just arrived from other parts. He certainly seems to recognize you!"
He volunteered to just get up and see what the cuss was so sore about if such rude staring was getting on the lady's nerves. But she pleaded, "Please don't! I can't stand public scenes, and it's not as if he's done or said anything wrong to either of us!"
So Longarm just went on eating, and a few minutes later, having started earlier, the two mysterious strangers finished, got up, and sauntered out of sight. But not before Longarm had made certain they were both loaded for bear. Neither looked dumb enough to carry six in the wheel on either hip. But assuming they, like him, preferred the hammer of a six-gun riding on one empty chamber, that still tallied out to twenty rounds for them and five for him in the first exchange. He'd left the derringer he usually carried in a vest pocket with his other possibles back in his stateroom. So maybe it was just as well he hadn't yelled at them over their dessert.
By the time he and the willowy blonde were having their own, a raisin pie fresh from the oven, the sun was setting in full glory and he'd learned she was a Boston gal headed home after attending the reading of a distant relative's will back in Brownsville. She said she meant to get off their coastal steamer and catch herself a train at Houston once they got there.
He didn't feel up to going into the details of moving between the offshore stop at Galveston and the inland rail yards of Houston. He tried not to sound wistful as he said, "I'll only be spending the one night ahead aboard this slow but steady tub if I'm lucky. Might get in in the wee small hours if the skipper keeps his word about putting on some speed."
She sipped the last of her coffee, her hair glowing as pretty as old gold in the fading light from her left as she replied she was sure they'd have been moving faster by this time had the skipper really cared about getting anywhere in a hurry. She added, "At least I booked a stateroom on the seaward side this time. I almost steamed myself to clam chowder coming down this coast a week ago."
He didn't say anything. But it was a good thing he wasn't playing poker with such a keen-eyed gal. For she demanded, "What did I say wrong, ah, Custis? Don't you think I should have booked myself a stateroom on the cooler side?"
To which he could only reply, since she'd asked, "If seaward was the cooler side, Miss Lenore. Winds blow from where it's cooler to where it's warmer. Come daybreak the sun-baked plains to our west will send hot air rising to suck in cooler air off the gulf to our east. But the gulf ain't all that cool as seawater goes. So once the plains cool off a tad under starlight, the warmer waters of the gulf ought to suck land breezes out to sea through such portholes as might be open on the landward side."
The Eastern gal stared across at him like a blue-eyed owl as she insisted, "But I was on that side, coming down the coast just a week ago, and as I said, I got steamed like a clam baked in seaweed!"
He chuckled at the memory of some clams he'd had that way the time he'd spent back East on Long Island with another blonde. He said, "I never told you the landward staterooms would be cool. I only meant they wouldn't be as hot and stuffy as the ones catching no breezes at all. You don't have to answer if you find this too indelicate, ma'am. But may I take it you were trying to sleep in a steamer stateroom this far south, at this time of the year, in, ah, modest attire?"
She blinked and said, "Well, of course I had my nightdress on, if that's what you mean! Would you have a lady retire under her sheets as bare as some sort of tropical savage?"