Longarm 245: Longarm and the Vanishing Virgin (15 page)

A few minutes later, he spotted some of the diminutive trees and angled the dun toward them. They clustered in a narrow, low place between two dunes, and a little grass even grew around the trunks of the trees. Longarm brought the horse to a stop and slid off its back, holding tight to the mane to keep himself from falling all the way to the ground. He took several deep breaths, the hot, arid air burning his lungs. When he felt strong enough and steady enough, he stepped away from the dun and lowered himself to his knees beside one of the oaks. Using both hands, he began to dig around its base, scooping out the sand and flinging it behind him. Digging should have been easy, he thought, but somehow it wasn't. It seemed like more sand fell into the hole from the sides than he was taking out of it.

But gradually, the hole deepened, and when Longarm plunged his hands into the sand at the bottom of it, he thought the grains felt slightly damp. They seemed to cling together more.

That was enough to give him a burst of renewed energy. He dug faster, trying not to let himself become frantic. Pawing at the dirt like a madman would just waste energy, and he couldn't afford to do that.

Suddenly the dun was beside him, sticking its nose in the hole and butting at him. Longarm swatted the horse's muzzle and shooed it away. That confirmed what he had thought. The dun smelled water; otherwise it wouldn't have acted like that.

“Hang on, old son,” he rasped, his voice sounding strange to his ears as it came from his dry throat. “Maybe in a few minutes there'll be water enough for both of us.”

Longarm leaned forward and reached down into the hole. The sand was mud now. He pushed it aside, making a little hollow, and watched in fascination as a little water seeped into the depression, forming a tiny pool a few inches wide. A sound that was almost a sob came from deep inside Longarm. With fumbling fingers, he pulled his bandanna from the pocket of his trousers and lowered it into the hole, letting it soak up the water. Then he lifted it, tipped his head back, and squeezed the precious drops from the cloth into his open mouth.

Dirty water had never tasted so good.

Longarm repeated the process several times, pausing to dig down a little deeper when the water stopped seeping into the hole. Then, when he felt stronger, he took the wet bandanna and stood up, using it to swab around the dun's dust-caked nose and mouth. He soaked up more of the water and squeezed it into his hat, then held that so the horse could drink.

“I reckon maybe we'll both make it out of here yet, old son,” he said to the horse.

The sound of a shot split the air.

Longarm almost dropped his hat. The horse had finished sucking up the water in it anyway. Longarm clapped the Stetson back on his head and looked around, trying to figure out where the shot had come from. It had sounded close, but not right on top of him. Had the outlaws split up, and was the shot a signal from one of them to the others that he had found Longarm?

Longarm grabbed the dun's mane again and swung up onto its back. “Come on, hoss,” he said hoarsely. “I'm sorry as hell about it, but we got to run again.”

He urged the horse into a run, still heading west. At least, he hoped it was west. With the sun overhead now, it was harder to tell which direction he was going. He wished he could think more clearly. He didn't want to ride right back into his pursuers.

There hadn't been any more shots, only the one. Longarm had no idea what that fact meant. The horse plunged up the side of a dune, half-ran, half-slid down the far side. Longarm leaned forward, clutching the horse's mane, urging it on. Only gradually did he become aware that the dun was moving at a smoother gait, not lurching back and forth as it had to do in the grip of the sand. Longarm looked down at the ground in amazement, saw that the dun was running now over land that was still sandy, but not like before. This ground was harder and had more vegetation growing in it. Longarm twisted his head to look behind him. The dunes rose there, a few hundred yards back.

He was out of the sand hills!

He looked ahead of him again, and movement caught his eye. He saw a horse, a figure in a broad-brimmed hat standing beside the animal. He saw something in the figure's hands ... a rifle.

And it started to come up and point toward him.

Not now! thought Longarm as he reached for his Colt. He couldn't have escaped from Wallace and the others only to run smack-dab into the mysterious man who had tried to kill him up in New Mexico Territory....

Longarm had barely touched the butt of his gun when something crashed into his head and flung him into a darkness so deep that even the bright West Texas sun was no match for it.

So this was what heaven was like, thought Longarm. A soft bed to lie in, a cool cloth bathing his brow, gentle hands lifting his head so that cold water could be trickled into his mouth and down his throat. He had halfway expected to wake up in the other place, but since it wasn't hot and he didn't hear the fiendish, cackling laughter of demons and imps, he supposed Saint Peter had taken pity on him and let him in through the Pearly Gates after all.

Then he choked on the water and came up off the bed, gagging and coughing. Red waves of pain coursed through him.

Now
it started. He was in Hades after all, and the eternal torment was about to commence.

“It's all right,” a voice said as Longarm's coughing fit diminished. “Take it easy, mister. Just lie back there and catch your breath.”

That was a woman's voice, thought Longarm.

Satan was a
woman?

He dragged his eyes open, and saw a face looming over him. It was a woman's face, all right, with wings of dark hair framing it. At the moment, lines of concern were etched on her forehead, but Longarm could tell that under better circumstances, she would be mighty attractive.

“You're too ... pretty to be ... the Devil,” he croaked.

She blinked in surprise; then a faint smile curved her lips. “Thank you ... I think,” she said.

“Wh ... where am ...” Longarm was too weak to finish the sentence.

“You're in my bed,” she told him bluntly. “Just lie still and rest. You've been through a lot.”

“The fella who ... shot me ... where is he?”

“I don't know anything about that. All I know is that you came thundering out of the sand hills at me on that fire-eyed dun, and I was afraid you were going to ride me down. Then you acted like you were going to shoot me. You might have if you hadn't fallen off your horse.”

Longarm looked past her and saw a hat hanging on a nail driven into the wall. It was a broad-brimmed hat, sort of like the one that had been worn by the bushwhacker with the Spencer carbine in Ashcroft, but not identical. Close enough, though, that Longarm had taken it for the same hat.

“I saw you ... lift your rifle....”

“Well, what would you do if some crazy man was riding straight at you like a bat out of hell?” The woman was starting to sound a little impatient now. “But I never shot you, mister. You fell off your horse, plain and simple, and knocked yourself out when you hit the ground.”

Longarm let his head sag back against the pillow under it. His eyelids were so heavy that he couldn't hold them up any longer. But even as they slid shut, he asked, “Did you ... see anybody else ... out there?”

“You mean somebody chasing you? The same somebody who put that bullet crease in your side?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn't see hide nor hair of them. Now, are you going to shut up and get some sleep? If you do, I'll have some food ready when you wake up.”

Longarm's stomach lurched. Food was the last thing in the world he wanted right now. Sleep, though, that sounded pretty good. He opened his mouth to tell the woman he would try to sleep.

He was out like a blown-out lamp before he could even form the words.

 

Longarm had no idea how long he had been asleep when he woke up again. He blinked several times and looked around the room. There was a small table beside the bed, and on it burned a lamp with the wick turned down low. The tiny flame gave off enough light for him to see that the walls of the room were adobe. The bed was big, a four-poster that took up nearly all the space in the room. It looked like it would have been more appropriate in a Southern plantation house, rather than some adobe hacienda in West Texas.

The room's single window had a curtain drawn across it. Longarm suspected it was night, because no light leaked in around the edges of the curtain.

Now that he had acquainted himself with his surroundings, he took stock of himself. He realized with a shock that he was naked except for some bandages wrapped tightly around his middle. The wound ached, but it didn't hurt too badly, even when he shifted around in the bed and sat up. Obviously, the woman had cleaned it and bound it up. She seemed to have done a good job of it too, which indicated that she'd had some experience in patching up bullet wounds.

An earthen pitcher sat on the table next to the lamp. Longarm reached over and picked it up, dipped his finger into the liquid in it, and tasted it. Water, sure enough. He lifted the pitcher to his mouth and took a long drink. That helped his thirst some, but he still felt as if he would never again be able to get enough to drink. He forced himself to set the pitcher back on the table anyway. Guzzling down a lot of water right now might make him sick.

He became aware that, contrary to his feelings earlier, he was hungry now. Ravenous, in fact. And the woman had promised to feed him if he got some rest. Well, he was rested now, and he wanted that food. He was about to call out for her when the door near the foot of the bed opened and she stepped into the room.

“Oh,” she said as she paused just inside the door, holding a tray with a bowl on it. “You're awake. I was going to wake you if you weren't.”

This was Longarm's first really good look at her, and he liked what he saw, enough so that her beauty even distracted him from the savory aromas drifting up from whatever was in that bowl.

At first glance, most men would have taken her for being in her early twenties, but Longarm added a few years onto that. She was less than thirty, though, he judged. Lean but not skinny, with ample curves in the right places. She wore a plain gray dress that was clean but old, with several patches on it. Her face had the deep tan that spoke of a life spent mostly outdoors, and as she came closer, Longarm saw that her hands were strong-looking, with nails cut short and blunt. Working hands, he thought.

Yet she did not have the haggard, worn-out look of a woman who had spent her entire life on the frontier. She had grown up somewhere else, he decided, but had been out here long enough for the hardscrabble life to begin taking a toll on her.

And her eyes were the blue of a deep mountain lake.

“I'm afraid all I have is stew,” she said, dragging Longarm's attention back from her eyes.

“Stew sounds mighty fine,” he told her.

“So, you have your appetite back now?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

She smiled. “That's a good sign. I thought I was dragging you back from death's door, but maybe you weren't really quite that bad off.”

“Bad enough,” said Longarm. “I'm much obliged to you for helping me.”

Carefully, she placed the tray across his lap. “Can you feed yourself?” she asked. “Or should I help you?”

“I'll give it a try,” Longarm said as he reached for the spoon lying next to the bowl.

“Be careful. It's hot. If you spill it, you're liable to burn your ... yourself.”

He wondered if that was what she had really been about to say. And he reminded himself that he was naked under the sheet spread over him. If she was alone here, as she gave every sign of being, that meant she was the one who had taken his clothes off, cleaned him up, and gotten him into bed. Her bed, he recalled.

“My name is Beth Jellicoe,” she blurted out.

“Long,” he told her. “Custis Long. I'm mighty pleased to meet you, Miss Jellicoe.”

“It's Mrs.,” she said.

“Oh.”

“I'm a widow.”

That was information Longarm hadn't asked for, but she had been quick to volunteer it. He wasn't quite sure what to say in response, so he played it safe. “I'm sorry about your loss.”

“It's been a while. Three years, in fact. Thomas was a good man. A horse kicked him, caved in his ribs. I couldn't save him.”

“Sorry,” Longarm said again.

She gestured at the bowl. “You'd better eat your stew while it's hot.”

Longarm dug in, savoring the delicious blend of flavors. The chunks of chicken that floated in the stew were a little tough and stringy, but the vegetables were tender enough. As he ate, he could almost feel strength flowing back into him.

Beth Jellicoe sat down in a ladder-back chair with a cane bottom to watch him eat. She seemed to be enjoying it. She smiled in satisfaction when Longarm scraped up the last of the stew and spooned it into his mouth.

“I'm sorry I didn't have any bread for sopping. I have some biscuits cooking now. We can have them next time.”

“It was mighty good, bread or no bread,” Longarm told her honestly.

“What about coffee? Could you use a cup of coffee?”

He nodded. “That sounds plumb wonderful, ma'am.”

She stood up and said, “I'll be right back.”

He watched the sway of her hips with admiration as she left the room. Once she was gone, Longarm piled up the pillows behind him and leaned back to wait for her.

He wondered what this place was. A ranch, more than likely, he decided. And it was also likely that Beth's late husband had owned the ranch. After his death, she had stayed on for some reason. He wondered if they had had any children. He knew he hadn't heard any kids since he'd woken up, and it was difficult to keep youngsters that quiet for very long at a time.