Longarm and the Lone Star Legend Page 3

  "Is this your saddle?" Maggie asked, running her fingers along the smooth leather curve of the McClellan. She'd already begun to get undressed, the two halves of her unbuttoned bodice parting like curtains before the proud swell of her fine round breasts. As Longarm feasted his eyes, her nipples stiffened to attention. "But Deputy" — she frowned, a look of puzzlement suffusing her lovely features as she stroked the front part of the saddle — "where's the — the thing?"

  Longarm had already taken off his coat and gunbelt, and was unbuttoning his shirt, which he would keep on, along with his loosened vest. That way his derringer would remain within easy reach. It was one thing to be a fool in love, quite another to be a loving fool… "You mean the saddlehorn, Maggie? This here's a McClellan saddle. It doesn't have a horn." He kicked off his boots.

  Maggie winced at the thought of a male crotch sliding along that saddle. "If there's no horn, how do you protect your… things? she asked wide-eyed as Longarm peeled off his pants. "Oh, I hope they're all right," she whimpered as he kicked off his longjohns. "Oh, they are!"

  Longarm laughed as he gathered her up in his arms for another kiss. She was still wearing her skirt and apron, but she placed a hand under each of her breasts and lifted them for Longarm's approval, as if she were right now fulfilling her waitress's role, presenting two sumptuous globes of fruit.

  "Deputy, I know just how I want to do it," she giggled. "Oh, you'll think me shameless!" She reached behind her to unhook her skin, then wiggled out of it, the pert, round cheeks of her bottom finally bouncing free and bare. She skipped over to the saddle and stood on tiptoe to drape herself belly-down across it. "I'll keep my apron on to protect my belly from all these nasty brass fittings. Deputy Longar… Oops! I almost said it." She licked her lips. "But you haven't made me yet!" With that she lowered her head and raised her bottom in invitation.

  Though Longarm did fleetingly wonder if she'd left her underwear back East, along with her folks, he couldn't remember when he'd gazed at a finer sight. Her long legs and full, soft buttocks were a lovely white and pink against the brown leather of the saddle. And above it all was the crisp white bow of her apron, its knot resting right at the small of her back, just an inch above where her buttocks began their soft, full swell. It reminded him of the twitching, white cotton-ball tail of a female bunny in heat.

  As he rushed toward her, she parted her legs and arched her back, tilting her hips in order to draw him in. He toyed his rigid member along the crevice between her thighs. "Lord, are you wet," he laughed. "Good thing you're wearing that apron, Maggie, else you'd be soaking my saddle!"

  "Soak mine!" she bawled like a cat, and before she could say another word, Longarm slid into her to the hilt, withdrawing slowly and then sliding back to set an easy, slick, incredibly pleasurable rhythm, like that which a cowpony might set as it loped along the prairie. Like that cow-pony, Longarm knew that this was a pace he could easily keep up for a long, long time.

  Maggie's cat-bawling had now become something that sounded more like a coyote howling at the moon. As she wiggled and twitched to meet his thrusts, she slipped forward across the saddle, so that her toes left the ground. She was helpless now, draped across the expanse of leather as if she were a set of saddlebags. Longarm gripped each side of her hips and impaled her again and again, each thrust making her yelp and kick her legs uselessly and wave her arms in the air, until he began to worry that someone outside the stable might think a murder was taking place.

  Her hips, beneath Longarm's fingers, began to rock and buck, while her juices gushed out of her, rolling down the sides of her legs in beaded trails. "Oh, God!" she sobbed, arching her back. "Oh Deputy, I'm dying…"

  "What's my name?" he teased, quickening his pace, driving her to her climax with short, sharp strokes.

  "Ahhh! Longarm!" she sang. "Longarm! L-o-n-g-a-r-mmm!"

  All tension left her as she collapsed limply across the saddle to shudder through orgasm after orgasm. Longarm, his muscles corded, threw back his head to growl his pleasure as he spent himself deep inside her.

  As he withdrew, she shimmied off the saddle to spin around, throwing her arms about his neck as she locked her legs about his waist. Longarm felt the wonderful wetness of her center pressing against him as she kissed him over and over, murmuring endearments.

  "Best that we start getting dressed," Longarm said gently.

  "Oh… can't we again?"

  "We can, but we won't." Longarm laughed, rubbing her torn. "Maggie, we can't expect to keep this stable to ourselves forever, you know, and I've got a train to catch."

  "But we can when you come back, right?" Maggie asked earnestly.

  "I promise, ma'am."

  Nodding happily, Maggie let go of him and began to gather up her clothes. Suddenly she stopped and, pointing at one of the stalls, called out delightedly, "Oh, darling! Look at the boy horse!"

  Longarm whirled to look at the stallion, and then began to roar with laughter. The big gray Walker was reared up on its hind legs, its nostrils flared, and its total, equine attention transfixed by Maggie's delectable form. No wonder, Longarm thought. No wonder the stallion, of all the mounts in the stable, was the one to become agitated by the approach of the mystery adversary! All the other mounts were geldings. But the big Virginia walker was a stud, and on this warm, still day, he'd focused on what it took Longarm longer to get to: a female in heat!

  "Ohhh," Maggie sighed as she stood with her legs apart, absently stroking the tousled wet fur between her legs. "Look at his thing…"

  Still laughing, Longarm walked over to her and slid his arm around her shoulder. The stallion's long, slender member stood out, a trembling, bobbing rob. "Yes, ma'am, Maggie," he mused. "Just look at it. It sort of makes a man stop and think…"

  Maggie spun around to gaze up at him with adoration in her eyes. "Some men, maybe. But not you, Longarm…"

  He scooped her up under one arm and headed for the ladder that led up to the hayloft. As Maggie giggled with delight, and squealed with certain knowledge of the joy to come, Longarm thought: What the hell, that old local to Pueblo is always late!

  Chapter 2

  Longarm stretched out as best he could across the red plush seat toward the rear of the Texas & Pacific passenger coach. The train was crowded, but there were plenty of cars. Even if there hadn't been, Longarm would most likely have kept his Stetson tipped over his eyes. He was in no mood for company. Trains had been his entire world for the last forty-eight hours, and he was feeling ornery as hell. Well, all he had to do now was get through the night. They were scheduled to reach Grassy Bow, a jerkwater town in New Mexico where the army remount Station was located, in a few hours. He'd pick up his horse, and then, by tomorrow afternoon, they'd be at Sarah, Texas.

  Longarm felt himself drifting off into a doze. He wasn't worried about being disturbed, since folks tended not to trouble fellows wearing double-action Colts. As he drifted toward sleep, his mind returned — as any man's would — to that last time with Maggie, up in the hayloft. Besides, thinking about Maggie might just serve to take his mind off the stale sandwiches he'd eaten for dinner, peddled to its captive clients by the railroad.

  "Tickets! Tickets!" droned the old conductor as he stumbled down the swaying aisle. He was dressed in his regulation blue suit and cap, with its black, duck-bill visor. This train made more stops than an old hound had fleas, and an eternity ago, when Longarm had first boarded, the conductor had grumped about how impossible it was to keep track of who had paid their fare and who had not. "Hope you stay settled in one place," the conductor had muttered as he punched Longarm's federal vouchers. He'd made it sound as if asking a man not to get out of his seat for more than a day and a night were the most reasonable thing in the world.

  Longarm had figured that the conductor probably considered him a sort of fellow civil servant. What a railroad man thought he had in common with a deputy marshal was beyond Longarm, but the old conductor had insisted on talking shop, complaining about the f
act that he was the only conductor on board, and there were just too many folks riding the trains these days…

  Fortunately the old codger had been too busy tracking down fare evaders to chew the rest of Longarm's ear off during the journey.

  Now Longarm lifted his hat just long enough to watch the conductor disappear through the door at the front of the car, which led out to the open platform between this coach and the rear of the next. Crazy old coot, he thought, and then lowered his hatbrim, letting the murmuring drone of the other passengers conversing among themselves send him back into his reverie.

  The rocking and swaying of the train on its track reminded him of the rocking and swaying he and Maggie had done up in that loft. They'd had a fine time together, but Longarm had to admit to himself that the best memory he would take from the experience came after their loving was over, and they'd descended back down to the stable floor. Longarm had dressed quickly, and Maggie had dawdled, standing slightly spread-legged, still totally nude, so that her sassy rump and proud breasts were jutting out in all their glory. She'd been standing in front of that stallion's stall. She was so transfixed that she evidently didn't hear the squeak of the rear stable door, or the soft footsteps of the stable boy across the scattered hay.

  "Deputy!" the boy had begun. "I've got your gear — holy cow!"

  Maggie'd given a little scream as she whirled around to stare wide-eyed at the boy, whose own eyes were about the size of saucers. She'd blushed about the color of a strawberry from head to toe, as both Longarm and the boy had ample time to see, as she darted this way and that, gathering up her clothing, and finally dashing into an empty stall to get dressed.

  Longarm had kept an eye on the boy. That little fellow had grown up about five years' worth in the time it had taken Maggie to find a place to hide. Longarm had pushed the youngster out of the stable, muttering something about giving a lady time to make herself presentable.

  "Yes, sir, I understand," the boy had said, doing his best to keep the top half of his face respectful, even though his mouth had been wearing a shit-eating grin wider than he was tall.

  Even now, on the train, the sight in his mind's eye made Longarm chuckle. Most likely that stable boy's interest in horses was about to shift over to another kind of filly!

  The door just behind Longarm swung open, and the deputy, out of habit, turned his head to see who was entering the coach. It was another conductor, this one much younger than the other, although his face wore a three-days' growth of glossy black beard. Now why didn't the old codger know about this fellow? Longarm wondered.

  "Hey, Conductor!" called a man sitting on the aisle two rows up from and opposite Longarm. He was a rough-hewn laborer of some sort, according to the story told by his clothes. He wore a ragged chambray shirt, bib overalls, and a straw hat. The man waved his ticket in the air, saying, "The other conductor didn't punch it."

  "No time now," rasped the conductor. "Get the other fellow to do it."

  But the man in the straw hat wasn't taking no for an answer. He reached out to grasp the conductor's coattails. "Punch my ticket!" he demanded.

  The conductor pulled away, nervously smoothing his jacket. "Shut up afore I punch you," he snarled.

  Up ahead, a matronly woman tried to ask, "What time will we…"

  "Dunno," the conductor cut her off. "Pretty soon "

  Straw Hat, meanwhile, had been looking to his neighbors for sympathy. "Didn't punch my ticket," he moped to Longarm.

  "Well, old son, I'd say he's a pretty strange bird to be a railway man."

  "Ignorant sumbitch," Straw Hat agreed.

  And he's no damned conductor, Longarm thought. The uniform was correct, right down to the man's black shoes, but a uniform was easy enough to fake. It was what was under the uniform that gave this man away. Even before the fellow in the straw hat had inadvertently lifted the conductor's coattails to reveal the snout of a protruding weapon, Longarm had spotted the bulk of iron hanging from beneath the fellow's armpit. The conductor's suit jacket had fit him funny, and that was clue enough for a lawman.

  Longarm waited until the conductor had disappeared through the front door of the car before quietly sliding out of his seat to follow. Even granted that the railroad had decided to arm their employees, no conductor would dare risk his job by walking around with several days' worth of scruffy beard. The railroad had a separate washroom where employees could shave. Most passengers, of course, did not bother.

  As Longarm trailed the conductor, hanging back about a car's length so as not to be observed, he pulled out his wallet to remove his badge so that he could pin it to his lapel. Something nasty was about to occur, and since the other fellow was cloaked in the authority of the railroad, Longarm wanted all trigger-happy bystanders to realize that he was the law.

  He caught up to his quarry in the next car. Standing as solidly as he could in the swaying coach, Longarm called out to the man's back, "Federal Marshal! Stop where you are!" Even as he spoke. Longarm saw the phony conductor — now there was no doubt that the man was bogus; a real conductor would have obeyed the order — unbutton his jacket and begin to spin around.

  Dumb bastard is going to draw, Longarm groaned inwardly, even as his Colt found its way into his own hand.

  But the conductor did not draw. Instead, in the fraction of the time pulling a handgun would take, he swung up from out of his unbuttoned jacket a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun, suspended from his right shoulder by some sort of leather loop.

  Longarm did not fire, but instead hurled himself facedown in the aisle. He stayed there, praying that the man would not fire his awesome weapon, but instead make a break for it, as all around Longarm, the coach's passengers erupted into screams. They began to rise out of their seats. Exactly the worst thing they could do, Longarm mourned.

  Fortunately the phony conductor held off pulling his dual triggers, instead choosing to back-pedal his way down the aisle and out through the end door. Longarm, breathing a sigh of relief, sprang to his feet to continue the pursuit. It had not been concern for his own personal safety that had kept him from shooting that bastard, but rather concern for the safety of the other passengers. A sawed-off shotgun was the evillest weapon on the face of the earth. It was totally unsuited for killing any sort of critter except the human kind. A blast from that shotgun would have killed or maimed half a dozen of the passengers crowded into seats between the conductor and Longarm.

  As Longarm raced through the coach door and onto the platform, he saw the man raise his shotgun to fire right through the next coach's door. As the blast thundered, punching through the door's windowpane, so that shards of glass were now added to the cloud of twelve-gauge shot coming his way, Longarm swung out and off the train's platform, so that he was hanging on only by the grip of his left hand's fingers on a grab-iron, and the leverage provided by his boot tips dancing on a greasy bolt overhanging the platform's flooring. He fought to regain the relative safety of the narrow space in between the cars, almost losing his Colt in the process, while all the while the hot, dry New Mexico wind buffeted him.

  "One barrel down and one to go," Longarm muttered to himself as he pushed through into the next car, trying to get past the confused, milling passengers blocking the aisle. He could see the blue expanse of the phony conductor's back disappearing through the far door. This was getting serious. It was only a matter of time before his quarry ran into the real conductor, and that old coot was just rambunctious enough to try and argue with a double-barreled sawed-off. And there was the little question of the whereabouts of the rest of the outlaw gang. Nobody tried to hold up a train all by his lonesome…

  As Longarm hurried along, his eyes flicked from right to left, searching the parallel rows of seals, trying to guess which of the passengers was planning on rising up as soon as Longarm had passed, in order to blast his back. But no one did rise up, and Longarm began to understand what had been the phony conductor's plan.

  Entering the next car, Longarm saw his adversa
ry waiting for him. The man was braced at the far end, but he was still close enough for his shotgun to do its dirty work, either to Longarm or the people caught in the middle between them.

  "Thought so, old son," Longarm called. "Thought you were about out of time to play around with me."

  "You — you're the one out of time, Marshal," the outlaw excitedly shouted back. "Throw down yer pistol!"

  Between them, one of the passengers began to rise, his movement attracting the snout of the shotgun. "Get back down!" Longarm commanded, and the passenger, looking into the twin stare of the shotgun's barrel, and suddenly thinking better of his initial impulse towards heroics, obeyed.

  Time for a bluff, Longarm thought. "See here now, we both got guns in our hands," he began.

  "Yeah, but mine's bigger than yours," the phony conductor leered. "You shoot me, Marshal, and this here scattergun of mine is gonna take a lot of these citizens with me."

  So much for bluffing. "Throw it down or I'll shoot you where you stand!" Longarm growled. At that moment the door behind the outlaw began to open.

  Feeling the wind on his neck, the man with the shotgun began to turn, but then paused in mid-movement, stuck in between the two distractions the way a mule can get paralyzed between equidistant piles of hay. The outlaw's head swiveled desperately from Longarm to whatever was coming in behind him, and in the couple of seconds it took for all of this to go on, two more things happened: there was a sharp report, the sound like that of a dry twig being snapped in two, and the outlaw slapped at the back of his neck, as if he'd been beestung. The squat shotgun rose up a few inches…

  …and a few inches were all Longarm needed. In one movement he swung up his .44 and fired, the round taking the outlaw just above the ear, lifting the top of his head beneath its cap in a spray of red mist as the car erupted into shouts and screams.

  The outlaw tottered on his feet, the shotgun slipping from his grasp to swing like a pendulum from its shoulder loop. Then he fell to the floor, revealing behind him the tiny form of the real conductor. The old codger was dancing in place like a randy rooster. Gripped in his right hand was a small pistol.