She said that was why her late husband's grandfather had built it that way to begin with. Then a small gal with a big olla of bathwater came up through the corner trap. So Longarm hauled the tub out, and she'd no sooner emptied her few gallons into it when yet another servant, this one a young boy, popped into view with even more warm water.

Folks back in Denver who'd started putting in newfangled indoor plumbing were already starting to forget how easy it was to get along without pipes when you could afford hot-and cold-running servants. They made it easier to bathe whenever or wherever you wanted, as well.

As the kids relayed his bathwater up from the kitchen, Consuela said she'd fetch him those shirts she'd mentioned. Her servants had already brought him plenty of Castile-style Spanish soap and a brace of Turkish towels.

By the time they had the copper tub half-filled, Longarm was sure n.o.body was creeping about out there in broad-a.s.s daylight. So when he found himself alone, he stripped bare-a.s.s to get right in the tub and wash away all that sticky sangria punch. It felt so good it gave him a hard-on. But he didn't think it showed above the soap suds when the lady of the house popped back up through the trap without letting him know she was coming.

She said she was sorry if she'd disturbed him, although she seemed more interested than embarra.s.sed by the sight of his bare chest and wide shoulders. She held up one of the shirts she'd fetched and said she hoped it would suit him. He figured it was big enough. But it was a shade of dusky rose he'd have picked out for a lady's dress. The other shirt was spinach green, a more reasonable color for a man, but cut from silk satin, which looked even more sissy than the rosy poplin. He told her they both looked swell, since either was an improvement on soiled or wine-stained work shirts and he didn't want to insult her by implying her Carlos had been a foppish dresser. He knew she was fixing to brag on handing the duds down to a famous lawman who'd admired them. He also knew he was admired in some Mexican circles, and disliked in others, because he couldn't stand El Presidente Dias and his brutal rurales.

When he said he liked both shirts, she scooped up his stained one to run it down to the kitchen. He finished washing, rose to his feet in the tub, and began to rinse his naked body off with an extra pot of clean water. So Consuela caught him standing there, bare-a.s.s with a hard-on, when she popped back up to ask something else. She stared goggled-eyed for as long as it took her to blush beet red under her tan, and then dropped out of sight again as he began to blush a bit himself.

The next time she wanted to come up through the trap she knocked on a stair tread and called out to him. He said he was decent, and she looked in and found him seated on a stool near a window with just a towel wrapped around the parts that mattered. He said, "You were right about cross ventilation and how warm this valley can get by noon. I figured it was all right for me to keep watch informally, seeing you've already learned all my secrets in any case."

She fl.u.s.tered that he was a naughty boy as she came all the way up with a tray of fresh tostadas and rum punch, made this time with just the lemon, sugar, and yerba buena, a sort of dry-country mint Spanish-speaking folks fancied more than some.

She set the refreshments on the wide windowsill, and closed the trapdoor as she allowed it did seem about time for La Siesta. Longarm didn't ask why she'd chosen to flop down on the bedstead instead of down below in her more private quarters. He was no fool, and even if he had been, she was sending mighty warm smoke signals with those smoldering sloe eyes.

So he poured them two tumblers of punch and sat down on the blankets beside her, saying, "I doubt anyone's out for another fuss under the noonday sun."

Then he tasted his drink and declared, "You sure were generous with the white rum this time, Miss Consuela."

She demurely replied, "I thought it would save having to go back down for more. Are you aware that towel is giving away your secrets again?"

It didn't seem to bother her. But he glanced down to see that, just as he'd thought, he was covered tolerably well. He said, "I suspect that's just a big wrinkle in this Turkish toweling, ma'am."

She made a thoughtful grab for it as she murmured, "So you say."

He laughed and said he knew how to play bego-bego as well as any Na-dene gal as he grabbed her by one big soft cantaloupe and they both flopped back across the bedding. She laughed back and said she wasn't any fool Apache as she made a more skillful grab for him and gasped, "Madre de Dios, you are a big man, aren't you!"

He kissed her and ran his free hand down her considerable curves to see what she had down yonder. Anyone who said all Indian gals were much the same had likely never felt up all that many Indian gals--or white gals for that matter. Longarm was used to finding every gal's crotch far different from every other, bless each and every one of them. But even as he commenced to strum her old banjo with skilled wet fingers, he felt obliged to warn her, "I did say I'd be riding on this side of forever, didn't I, querida?"

She began to move her bigger hips in a way far different from the smaller and younger Kinipai as she moaned, "Faster. Did you think I would have been in this much of a hurry if I had thought you were liable to stay longer? A woman has needs, but a woman trying for to maintain her dignity with her servants must give some thought to whom she wishes for to chingar, eh?"

So he kissed her again and got rid of the toweling, shoved her thin skirting up around her soft brown waist and rolled his hips between her big brown welcoming thighs to conjugate naughty Spanish verbs in her.

Consuela gasped in surprised delight, and laughed like h.e.l.l as he thrust in and out of her muttering, "Chingar, chingo, chinge, chingamos, and what else?"

She commenced to peel the rest of her white cotton off over her head as she sobbed, "La vida es breve. Vamanos pa'l carajo y vamos a joder toda la fregeda tarde!"

He said that sounded fair. He figured he was stuck there for at least the whole d.a.m.ned afternoon, and there were far more tedious ways to pa.s.s the time than strong drink and hot fornication. So once he had her spread out under him as naked as an enthusiastic jay, he hooked his elbows under her plump knees to position her even better.

She stared up at him in mingled fear and adoration and said she'd never taken it at that angle so deep before. But when he asked if she wanted him to back off, she dug her nails into his bare bouncing b.u.t.tocks and hissed, "Lo que necesito! Pero me marvillo que todavia estoy vivo!"

So he agreed he needed it just as bad, and found it just as amazing that they seemed to be living through it when he shot his wad and kept on pounding as he felt her warm wet innards responding in kind. So by the time he'd brought her to climax he was hot as h.e.l.l again, and things went on that way for a delightfully long time before they had to stop for a breather.

They enjoyed more rum punch and tobacco while they were at it. He stood tall to light up and check the sunlit horizon all around as Consuela refilled their tumblers, wondering aloud if she'd brought enough liquid refreshments for a wilder siesta than she'd planned. She didn't deny it when Longarm accused her of planning something when she'd slipped into that easy-to-slip-out-of outfit. She held out his tumbler to him, and demurely confessed she'd been curious to learn if half the things they said about El Brazo Largo could be true. When he sat down beside her to share the cheroot as well, she giggled and said she'd been expecting less.

She asked if she could count on him staying at least a week or so. He lay back across the bed and hauled her down to nestle her head on his bare chest as he set the tumbler of rum punch aside and replied, "I'd be proud to spend at least a month with anyone half as friendly, you pretty thing. But to tell the truth, my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, would have a fit if he knew I was off saving damsels in distress from dragons. So let's study on that dragon called Grayson, starting with why he's so anxious to extend his own range as far as El Rio Chama."

She began to run the cool bottom of her drink up and down his bare belly as she absently mused, "There are other cattle trails off to the east.

Perhaps he just wants more water for his stock, no?"

Longarm said, "No. There's well-watered mountains to either side of this valley with heaps of cleaner seeps and springs than the muddy main stream. You know I met some of your vaqueros stringing a drift fence on the far side of the Chama up the slope a ways. So might the original Llamas grant extend as far as the Jicarilla line?"

She said, "Pero no. Only out to the Camino del Rey, or what you now call the coach road. But you must have seen my holdings are not fenced, and your own Anglo law allows stray stock for to graze on any federal land not set aside for anything else by the government, eh?"

He nodded and dryly observed, "I'm sure lots of your cows wind up wading such a modest river all by themselves. Keeping them off that Indian land with drift wire makes sense too. Old Cyrus Grayson must have noticed the gra.s.s looks greener on the far side of the fence. I suspect he's after easier access to that ungrazed reservation range."

She protested, "Is reserved for Los Apaches, no?"

He nodded soberly, but said, "The powers that be are fixing to move the Jicarilla south and free up all that ungrazed gra.s.s and uncut timber.

Anglo stockmen such as Grayson are in closer touch with the powers that be."

He set his smoke aside and took her gla.s.s from his belly to sip some rum punch before he handed it back. "I wish I knew exactly which powers were behind such an ill-timed move. I just helped the War Department calm some other Indians down, over to the Four Corners. So I know General Sherman ain't anxious to needlessly upset peaceful Apache types whilst three or more regiments are playing tag with Victorio for Pete's sake!"

She sounded sort of prim as she observed her own Indian kin had long since learned to get along better with Mexican and Anglo neighbors who were just as tough but far easiergoing than Apache. He got the distinct impression n.o.body else in northern New Mexico, Anglo, Mexican, Zuni, or Tanoan, would shed one tear for poor little Kinipai and her Jicarilla kin when--not if--they were evicted from their big fat reservation.

He said, "You should have seen the stampede when the Lakota were forced out of the Black Hills. Prospectors and land-grabbers came from all over, along with the male and female parasites and human birds of prey such booms attract. The Dulce Agency could wind up as wild as Deadwood by the time we got things under control again."

He knew he hadn't planned on confiding more than he had to. But he figured she was apt to gossip when he'd gone on in any case. In the meantime, there was no saying what other gossip a local gal might have heard. So he confided, "I've been trying to learn more about a whole heap of armed and mysterious strangers moving into these parts, honey.

They seem to be Anglo and may be hired guns."

She polished off the last of her rum punch and got rid of the dry tumbler as she casually replied, "We've heard such talk, querido. I think that may be why Cyrus Grayson accused you of being just such a rider. He could see you were not one of my regular vaqueros, and there has been much gossip about Regulators up by this end of the territory."

Longarm whistled softly and said he hoped it was just gossip. For the Lincoln County War to the south was officially over, and that noisy confusion had commenced when one faction bought control of the elected sheriff and another, led by merchants and stockmen with less political pull, had "deputized" their own force of ad hoc "Regulators" under the posse comitatus provisions of common law.

It hadn't worked, of course. The corrupt lawmen recognized by the Santa Fe Ring had refused to recognize the private-agency badges worn by McSween riders such as Billy the Kid, and so a rooting, tooting, and shooting time had been had by all before Governor Wallace had come west to declare such s.h.i.t must cease. But the notion that private citizens could recruit and arm their own Regulator forces to enforce the law as it seemed it ought to be enforced had never faded all the way away.

He decided, "Old Cyrus wouldn't have taken me for a hired gun from other parts if he knew that much about hired guns from other parts. So I suspect you're only up against a proddy pest your ownself."

She asked if he'd forgotten that rifle ball through the window down below. He reminded her he'd already said that had likely been an eager whelp. "By now he's been whopped with a newspaper and warned to behave.

For kids don't act so foolish unless they expect to brag and be praised for their heroism. Old Cyrus is a fool, but not that big a fool. He was trying to bluff a dumb Mexican neighbor, no offense. He'd have never come up with that pathetic bluff if he'd known where to get his hands on a so-called Regulator."

Consuela rose on one elbow and groped across him for the other half-filled tumbler. It felt swell. She had great t.i.ts. She drained the tumbler, then rolled clean over him--that felt even better--to perch on the edge of the mattress and pour them both fresh drinks as she pleaded with him to at least guard her from that cruel gringo neighbor until sundown.

It would have been as cruel to say he meant to be on his way by that time. So he suggested she get on her hands and knees so he could make sure n.o.body was creeping up on them outside at the moment.

She was willing, and he really could see all around below as he got a good grip on her heroic hips to take her from behind, tall in his socks.

By this time they'd gotten to where it just felt swell instead of desperately thrilling. So he got to wondering, as he stood there calmly banging away, how many other gents had stood watch up here the same way over so many years of off-and-on Indian troubles. He doubted he was the first who'd discovered standing guard all by oneself could get tedious as h.e.l.l. It was surprising how easy it was to just stand and stare with one's old organ-grinder up inside a pal.

Chapter 9.

He rode off in that tricky light near sundown when any rider a snoop might spot at a distance would be tough to describe. He'd put on that green satin shirt and started out aboard the palomino, leading the cream this time. Not wanting to ride back to the trail town of Vado Seguro, he'd asked anyone answering those wires sent from there to reply care of Western Union at Loma Blanca, to the south and hence closer to where Billy Vail had ordered him to go in the first d.a.m.ned place.

There were others on the road that early in the evening, although they were widely s.p.a.ced as he howdied those he met going the other way. He set a fair pace for anyone going the same way to overtake. So n.o.body seemed to. He rode at a trot for an hour, and let both ponies water in the shallows of the Chama and browse some cottonwood leaves as he changed mounts by moving the shaken-out saddle blanket, and then, of course, the saddle, back aboard the cream mare. He took his time to rest them more than to water and browse them. They'd been watered and fed cracked corn before leaving El Rancho Llamas. But it seldom hurt to give a horse more water, and they couldn't bloat their fool selves on leathery cottonwood leaves. Swamp maple was about the only really dangerous browse a pony would willingly eat too much of, and you hardly ever saw swamp maple in these parts.

He remounted and rode on, making even better time because, just as he'd remembered, that mare was the high-stepper of the pair. The s.e.xless palomino came along willingly, packing nothing, at the quicker pace.

He'd swapped mounts again, more than once, by the time he rode into the sounds of a distant piano and spied pinpoints of light down the road ahead. Loma Blanca, despite its old Spanish handle, had a more Anglo feel to it as Longarm reined in near the black-and-yellow Western Union sign across from a busy-looking saloon.