Longarm - Longarm On The Fever Coast Part 3

Longarm nodded soberly. "I'm commencing to follow your drift. You don't aim to have either the local Anglo underworld or my old pal El Gato sore at you. So I'll just thank you for the warning and see what I can work out on my own."

But as he leaned his weight forward to rise, La Bruja sat up some more and insisted, "You can't be seen on the streets of Corpus Christi in broad daylight! It's true, as your enemies say, you may be on the alert for typical Anglo riders. But an enemy clever enough to think a chico mejicano might have better luck ought to be able to hire other types you might not take for a.s.sa.s.sins until too late!"

"The gang's mostly dressed sort of cow, eh?" Longarm mused as he perched undecided on the edge of that low ha.s.sock.

To which La Bruja replied with a knowing laugh, "Do not try to get it out of me with a, how you say, process of elimination. I have been questioned by serious policemen and have the scars to prove it. n.o.body gets anything out of me that I do wish them to know."

Longarm nodded soberly. "I was sort of wondering about the dim lighting in here, senora. I said I understood the bind you were in. I ain't going to try and beat the ident.i.ty of that murderous pendejo out of a lady who's offered me food, shelter, and such pleasant company. But I got my own fish to fry, and whether we savvy the same old lingo or not, another lady they shot the other night in my place was pretty as well as innocent. She'd never done them a lick of harm and it's my duty to see they're punished."

La Bruja insisted, "But the men who killed her in your stateroom have been punished! You shot them both yourself! The people they might have been working for never ordered them to kill anyone but you. Can't you see that?"

Longarm smiled thinly. "I see this mastermind told you more than I might have about our earlier transactions. If he wanted me dead before I gunned a couple of his boys, he must have thought I was already after him. So why can't we say who he might be?"

La Bruja laughed lightly, a sort of surprising sound, and archly replied, "You are as clever as they say you are. But it won't work. I will tell you frankly, it does not matter to me and mine whether you are on one Anglo's trail or another's. I only wish to see you leave Corpus Christi alive and well, should anyone south of the border ever ask. As I said, it is still broad daylight outside. You will stay here until dark. After sundown we can send you on your way to anywhere but the waterfront. They will be waiting for you along the docks, expecting you to try and board that midnight steamer."

He grimaced. "I got to board it. It's the only way I can get back down the coast to Escondrijo with a big Saratoga trunk!"

She smiled. "We can lend you a wagon and give you a map you would not be able to buy in any shop. People who deal in stolen goods along these sh.o.r.es do not wish to go through tedious customs declarations. So certain land routes that may appear more devious are somewhat safer. To begin with, n.o.body who does not know which route a traveler is taking would be in any position to ambush him, no?"

Longarm shrugged. "Your offer would be more tempting if it was only my own hide I was worried about, senora. But I'm the law and I'm paid to worry more about lawbreakers. Since I choose to doubt you and your own gang have busted any laws more serious than those of Texas and Old Mexico, we'll say no more about it. But murder on the high seas, or even a federal waterway, can't be const.i.tutional to begin with, and they were trying to interfere with a federal agent on a government mission in any case."

He frowned thoughtfully and added, "Now, that's sort of odd as soon as you study on it. Why in thunder would they be so anxious to interfere in such a mundane mission? They surely must have thought I was up to something else. That's happened before. There ain't nothing like a guilty conscience to make some crooks act guilty when it might have been smarter to just let a dumb lawman go on about his own dumb ch.o.r.es!"

La Bruja asked just what his mission might have been, if it hadn't been catching her so-called business a.s.sociate.

He started to tell her, feeling no call to lie about a simple pickup of a prisoner. But as soon as he'd studied on it, he had to laugh. "Now who's pumping whom for secrets with innocent questions, no offense? It's been grand talking you in the dark, senora. But now I'd best go see if I can shed some daylight on all this skullduggery along the Fever Coast."

She rose with him, pleading, "Please don't go! There are too many of them out there for you or even your Ranger friends to handle! None of you know what you are up against and, look, if this is all some sort of mistake, as you suspect, you ought to be able to carry out your real mission in Escondrijo and be safely on your way home before they know where you've gone!"

He picked up his hat and put it on as she moved to block his way out with her pet.i.te pale form. "Stay! Just until sundown! Is there nothing I can do or say to keep you safe down here with me?"

He had to grin as he recalled a mighty similar scene from a swell spooky book he'd read a spell back. He said, "I don't reckon you really mean to offer me a chance at eternal life in odd company, if life is what they call Miss Carmilla's disturbing ways."

"Carmilla?" the pallid brunette demanded with a hurt look. "Are you comparing me to that... creature in that horror Story by that French writer named Le Fanu?"

Longarm shook his head. "Irish, ma'am. I know it's an odd name for an Irishman, but that's what Sheridan Le Fanu is. He's written a heap of swell spooky yarns, and his story about Carmilla, written in '72 or so, is only one of 'em. His story about Uncle Silas is really creepy. You say you've read the one about Miss Carmilla?"

La Bruja suddenly looked even smaller as she sighed. "In a Spanish translation. A vicious woman in one of those endearing attempts to be humorous gave me her copy, asking if it reminded me of anyone we knew. I am called La Bruja by more simple people because I seem to have powers they do not understand. I avoid the sunlight because there is a price on my head and because I suffer a condition that runs in some n.o.ble Spanish families. Sunlight hurts my eyes and makes my skin break out in a frightening rash. I a.s.sure you I do not enjoy the taste of blood."

She hadn't said she didn't know what it tasted like, and Carmilla had told that young English gal in the book she only wanted to suck out her blood because she really liked her.

He'd read other books, there being little else to do a week or so before payday and the Denver Public Library being so well stocked. So he nodded soberly and said, "I've read about that inherited condition. I reckon it runs in n.o.ble families because rich folks don't have to go out and work by broad day whether they can stand it or not. I can see how more fortunate families, nursing their delicate skins indoors all day, and only coming out after dark to attend society doings in maybe a coach with heavy window drapes, might give rise to sillier stories about mysterious society ladies such as Miss Carmilla. But I know you ain't that sort of gal, so..."

"I'm not a lesbian vampire who turns into a black panther at will or sleeps all day in her coffin! I'm not! I'm not! I'm only a poor widow with a delicate skin condition!"

He tried not to laugh. It would have been rude to point out she had a whole gang of Mex border bandits as well. But his eyes must've twinkled, and she must've read his amused, mocking expression wrong. For she was suddenly stepping out of the satin and lace around her trim ankles, in no more than her long black socks and slippers as she grabbed him by both shirtsleeves and stared up wildly demanding, "Do you really take me for some blood-sucking lesbian, El Brazo Largo?"

He hauled her in and kissed her good, as most men would have, before he recalled how someone in that book had been about to do just the same to Miss Carmilla when he noticed the graveyard mold on her breath. La Bruja's soft parted lips smelled more like the almond cakes she'd doubtless had enough of before he'd arrived. It didn't hurt a bit to have her tonguing him so teasingly. So he tongued her back, and cupped a bare b.u.t.tock in each big palm to hug her tighter to his jeans as she rubbed her small proud cupcakes over the front of his thin shirt. But once they'd come up for air he felt obliged to ask about that chica coming back for the coffee service neither one of them had bothered with.

La Bruja puffed rea.s.suringly that n.o.body ever pestered her and her guest unless she wanted them to, and asked him to follow her lead from such faint light as there was by her coffee table.

He was able to make out her pale hourgla.s.s form, floating ghostly above the frilly lace garters of her black thigh-length socks of jet-black lisle. Then she led the way to what looked more like a bed than that coffin Miss Camilla had favored, and the next thing they knew he was driving something kinder than a wooden stake into her, further down, and she wasn't acting like Miss Carmilla at all.

The spooky lady in that story had spit blood and carried on just awful as she was getting penetrated in her coffin. But La Bruja kissed mighty sweet and moved her hips just right as he got her to come a good dozen hammerings ahead of him.

Once they both came, she agreed it would be even nicer if they both stripped down completely and started over with a black silk pillow under her ghostly but mighty warm little rump. So he didn't get to ask her about those Anglo crooks until he'd made them both come some more.

She still refused to tell him as they shared a cheroot with her disheveled head on his shoulder and free hand on his semierection. As she gently stroked his manly organ-grinder she pleaded, "Please don't try to take advantage of my weak nature, El Brazo Largo. I am already so ashamed of giving in to my own curious nature."

He hugged her bare flesh closer with the smoke gripped in bared teeth as he said, "I'm still curious about them rascals out to kill me. What were you so curious about, senora?"

She giggled and confided, "You, senor. They say La Mariposa still brags insufferably about the many times she made El Brazo Largo come in her, down in Ciudad Mejico when they were hiding from los rurales in a railroad signal tower. Is that story true by the way?"

Longarm chuckled fondly and declared, "Truer than tales of a blood-sucking lesbian who can turn into a black panther on occasion, I reckon. It ain't polite to talk about s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g ladies who ain't here to defend themselves, and I never thought you were a lesbian to begin with."

She demurely asked if he was convinced she didn't like to suck, and when he allowed he was, she proved him wrong by sliding her head down his naked belly, long hair trailing, and proceeding to suck like all get out, although it wasn't his blood she was sucking.

So what with one pleasant surprise and another, Longarm wound up spending the rest of the day in the dark with La Bruja, and while he finally learned her real name and enough to lock her away for years, he never did get her to tell him who those other crooks were, or why they were after him, Lord love her.

CHAPTER 6.

Longarm still would have done it his own way, weather permitting. But when he checked in at the steam line again that night, they told him none of their vessels would be coming or going till that heavy weather let up outside.

That sounded reasonable. The warm wet wind was blowing harder by the hour, and the heavy air smelled like spent bra.s.s cartridges, or a coming hurricane. So there was n.o.body laying in wait for him around the deserted wind-swept waterfront when he circled in silently from the lee side of some dark and shuttered warehouses with his gun out and his eyes slitted against the gathering storm.

When he got back to La Bruja's, she naturally wanted him to spend more time with her, and he was tempted. For he could likely come again if she really set her mind and lush lips to it. But he insisted on holding her to that other promise, and so it was along about quarter past midnight, with neither coastal steamers nor paid killers to be seen in the swirling darkness, when Longarm finally left by way of a clamsh.e.l.l-paved wagon trace to the south, driving a team of Spanish mules as he hunkered half sheltered by a flapping canvas wagon cover with old Norma's Saratoga trunk and some trail supplies in the wagon box behind his sprung seat.

He commenced having second thoughts about the grand notion a mile or less outside of town, when the light got even worse and he had to take the word of the mules and the gritty sounds of the steel-rimmed wheels that he was still following that sh.e.l.l path through what seemed like a mighty herd of wind-whipped palmettos flapping fronds on all sides as they strove to uproot their fool selves and take off like stampeding bats.

It got too dark to see even that much as the wind howled ever louder, and then the invisible mules out ahead balked at hauling him and old Norma's Saratoga another step, no matter how a man snapped the ribbons on their wet rumps and shouted curses into the gathering storm. So he set the brake, hitched the ribbons around its shaft, and got down to see what had gotten into the fool mules.

He said he was sorry for calling them foolish as soon as he could make out what they hadn't wanted to get into. The sh.e.l.l road ended in a wind-lashed sheet of muddy water, with no far side in sight. n.o.body with a lick of sense would pave the way to the bottom of a river on purpose. So it was safe to a.s.sume the gale-force winds had run a high tide further ash.o.r.e than usual. Winds did that some along the gulf coast. Wind surges along a low swampy sh.o.r.e made for more deaths than getting hit by flying s.h.i.t in your average hurricane.

He led the mules back up the wagon trace afoot for a ways as he told them, "I'm wet too. So the question before the house is whether we head back to town and lose Lord knows how much time, or keep going in hopes there's another route and we stumble over it before all three of us drown?"

The mules offered no suggestions. Once he had them on as high a stretch of wagon trace as there seemed to be for miles, Longarm got back up under the flapping canvas to dig out that soggy map and some fortunately waterproof matches.

Longarm favored a brand of Mexican wax-stemmed matches because you just never knew when you'd need a light in damp weather, although weather as damp as this was a tad unusual. Mexicans made really fine candles too, and the first match he struck burned more like a tiny candle than your average match. But he still had to strike three in a row above the map spread atop Norma's Saratoga trunk before he was certain there was no other wagon trace around that normally fordable tidal creek.

He refolded the map and put it away, muttering, "Well, maybe La Bruja will serve us some hot chocolate. We sure as s.h.i.t ain't going any farther south just yet!"

But as he swung his long legs over the sprung seat to brace one instep against the brake shafts while he unhitched the wet slippery ribbons, he saw a bright point of light through the flailing palmetto fronds to his west.

He called out. There was no way to tell if he'd been heard, or if anyone had answered amid all the flapping, moaning, and groaning all about. So he released the brake, but left the ribbons. .h.i.tched as high and dry as he could manage as he got down some more to take the near mule by the cheek strap and declare, "That's a house or at least a camp about a quarter mile off, pard. Even if they can't set us on another trail, they might be able to shelter us from this storm and save us a few hours when and if it ever lets up."

He started leading the storm-lashed and balky team toward the distant light. It wasn't easy because even he could see they were off any sort of beaten path and sort of floundering through palmettos, chest-high sea grape, and through eight- or ten-foot a.s.s-high sacaguista--as they called this particular breed of salt gra.s.s.

The mules perked up and began to act more sensible as they too detected human life and possible shelter up ahead. Longarm recalled what that purser had told him about the sort of humans squatting out here on the coastal plain. Moreover, it was still considered dumb, as well as impolite, to drop in on strangers after dark without any advance notice. So lest they take him for raiding Comanche or worse, Longarm drew his.44-40 and fired three times at the overhead winds. Three shots was the accepted way one shouted for help or attention out this way. One or two shots figured to be a distant hunter who'd as soon not have company as he went about his own beeswax. But three in a row meant a p.i.s.s-poor shot if it was a hunter. So folks tended to a.s.sume whatever was going on might be their own beeswax as well.

Longarm knew he was right when he heard a distant gun reply to his above the wind. As he forged on, awkwardly reloading with his chilled wet hands full of mule as well, he mused out loud, "Outlaws on the run would be more likely to douse their light and lay low than answer back. But that don't mean we're the pals they left that lamp in the window to welcome. So we'd best just tether you and Norma's Saratoga out here amid the swaying palmettos a ways. I just hate to chase after mules spooked by gunplay."

He led them another furlong, then paused by a stout clump of beach plum to tether his borrowed team a rifle shot out from what he now recognized as a pressure lamp burning inside the wet canvas cover of another wagon, this one a third bigger than the Studebaker La Bruja had lent him. So what in thunder might a fellow traveler need a full-blown freight wagon for way off the beaten path like this?

As he waded closer through the tall wet gra.s.s a chili-flavored voice called out, "Quien es? Is that you, Mathews?"

To which Longarm could only reply, "Not hardly. I answer to Custis Long and I've run out of better places to go in this storm."

There was no answer. Longarm moved closer anyway, and finally heard a cautious "Habla usted espanol, extranjero mio?"

Longarm spoke Spanish better than he wanted to let on to any Mexican who called him a stranger so sarcastically. So he called back, "If you're talking to me, speak American, boy. For I'm sorry to say this here is America, not Mexico, no offense."

There was another thoughtful silence as Longarm moved closer, a tad thoughtful himself. Then another voice called out, "We have been expecting for to meet another Anglo here. A short red-bearded hombre driving an ox-drawn carreta?"

Longarm answered easily as well as honestly, "Ain't seen n.o.body but my own fool self out in this d.a.m.ned storm since I left Corpus Christi against the advice of more sensible folk. The wagon trace I thought I was following to Escondrijo wound up underwater. Might you boys know another route by way of higher ground?"

His unseen challenger called back, "No. We are on what your kind calls the Southern Cattle Trail. It runs from Corpus Christo to El Paso and beyond, by way of San Antonio and Del Rio. It does not lead south to Escondrijo. If the regular trail to the south is flooded, we suggest you turn back. But tell us, are you alone out here, Tejano?"

Longarm allowed he was. He had no call to inform them he wasn't exactly a Texan. He didn't speak Spanish well enough to tell folks of one part of Mexico from those of another either.

Knowing how some Mexicans felt about some Texicans, he was taken aback when he was suddenly invited on in for coffee and grub before he headed back to town. But it would have been impolite to move in on such an invite with his six-gun out. So he left it holstered, and contented himself with his double derringer concealed in one big fist as he strode on over.

As he got close enough to make out three Mexicans lined up between him and their big covered wagon, he decided the young kid to his right would have to be the first target. The two older ones were more likely to act sensible once they saw he had the drop on them. But you just never knew what a kid was likely to do, as the late Joe Grant should have known when he tried to bully Billy the Kid that time in Fort Sumner. Kids just had no respect for their elders, and considered a rep like Joe Grant's a challenge.

All three were grinning at him like s.h.i.t-eating dogs, and he saw no evidence of a chuck fire on the soggy soil beside their lamp-lit wagon. Then one called out, "Come on, Tejano. We'll give you plenty of coffee before we send you on your way!"

Longarm was glad he'd elected to play dumb when the other older one asked conversationally in Spanish, "Don't you think he's close enough now?"

The friendly-acting leader replied as casually, "Why put more holes than we need to in such a nice shirt?"

Then the kid smirked and purred, "I have a better idea. Why not take him alive, make him take all his clothes off, and have some fun with him first?"

By now Longarm was within easy pistol range, so he took a steady stand in the rain with the wind at his back as he raised the over-and-under muzzles of his derringer into their lamplight and announced in no-nonsense Spanish, "I have a better idea. All three of you are going to politely unbuckle your gunbelts, let your guns fall where they may, and step clear of them right now."

It was the kid, of course, who pointed out, "He's right about there being three of us, and I only see two barrels for that wh.o.r.e pistol!"

The sly talker of the bunch sighed and muttered, "Feel free to be the first one he shoots, Juanito! I a.s.sure you I'll get him after he gets you and Robles."

Longarm growled, "I told you what I wanted you to do. I am not going to tell you again. So do it or die, right now!"

None of them wanted to die. So once he'd disarmed them with his derringer, Longarm switched to his six-gun and reached for the handcuffs riding the back of his gun rig with his left hand, telling them in the English he was more comfortable with, "First things first, we'd best make sure n.o.body's led into more temptation."

He tossed the unlocked cuffs to the kid, who caught them without thinking as Longarm commanded, "I want you to snap one of those steel rings around the right hand of Robles there. What are you waiting for, a boot in the a.s.s?"

The kid did as he was told. Once he had one of his elders cuffed, Longarm herded all three of them to a rear wheel of the big freight wagon and explained what came next. The still-uncuffed leader, whose name was something like Lamas, protested, "This is most cruel! Why not inside the wagon, or at least on the other side, out of the wind?"

Longarm smiled mirthlessly and replied, "What are you crying about? Has anyone offered to corn-hole you, or even steal your shirt? Both you bigger boys hunker down by that wheel, face to face on opposite sides of the spokes. Once Juanito cuffs your right wrists together, with the links through the spokes, even dumb b.a.s.t.a.r.ds like you ought to see the reason in my madness."

They did, b.i.t.c.hing like h.e.l.l, well before the kid had them cuffed together, squatting on either side of the wheel in the wet wind-whipped gra.s.s. Once Longarm saw he'd secured them, he turned to the kid and pistol-whipped the mean little s.h.i.t to the ground a few paces off. He kicked the downed punk in the ribs, saying, "You can get back up now. I won't smack you no more unless you offer me a whisper of your smart-a.s.s sa.s.s!"

As Juanito got back to his feet, both hands to his busted lips, Longarm asked if he had anything sa.s.sy to say.

When Juanito sobbed he'd do anything Longarm wanted, including a few offers Longarm hadn't been considering, the tall deputy laughed and said, "I like gals better. Right now I want to go to Escondrijo, and seeing you boys know this swampy range so much better, here's what we're going to do."

Waving the dripping muzzle of his six-gun at the two wet rats hunkered in windswept misery at the rear of the heavy wagon, he explained. "You're going to guide me through this stormy night to where I want to go, Juanito. I'll kill you at the first suspicion we ain't headed the right way, and Lord only knows what'll ever happen to these pals of yours. Must get hot and thirsty as h.e.l.l around here when the sun comes back in the Texas sky after a storm."

Hunkered by the wheel, Lamas b.i.t.c.hed, "You can't do that to fellow cristianos, senor! n.o.body but a Comanche would kill anyone as slow as that!"

Longarm said, "I ain't finished. So all three of you listen tight. When and if Juanito gets me safe and sound to Escondrijo, I mean to turn him loose with the key to them cuffs. If he knows the way down to Escondrijo he ought to know the way back. You'll wind up with a free set of handcuffs instead of my shirt and rosy red r.e.c.t.u.m. So I'd best take your guns and pocket money in exchange."

They protested it wasn't fair to rob them at gunpoint the way they'd been planning to rob him. He just laughed. When young Juanito asked if he might have his own pony to ride both ways, Longarm thought that was sort of funny too. He said, "It ain't too far for you to make on foot in one day, if you really put your mind to it."

When Juanito insisted it would take him at least eighteen hours, Longarm just shrugged and said, "We'd best be on our way then. For I suspicion these pals of yours will be hot and thirsty as all get out by the time you hoof it all the way back with the key to them cuffs."

CHAPTER 7.

The storm let up before sunrise. It still took longer to make it to Escondrijo by way of Juanito's longer route through higher range to the west. By then they'd spent enough time together, with nothing better to do than talk, for Longarm to have gotten a handle on what Juanito and the others had been doing out in all that rain.

They were gun runners, waiting for a load of British Enfield rifles they meant to smuggle across the border up above Laredo. Longarm had a notion he knew the unguarded stretch they'd had in mind. He knew a Mexican rebel depending on the federate troops he fought for ammunition favored the same brand of rifles most federales still used. Mexico had gotten a swell buy on Enfields, considering what they cost folks who meant to pay for them sooner or later. Old Sam Colt had known enough to demand cash on the barrel head for the horse pistols los rurales got to fire at pigs and chickens on their way through many a sullen village.

Finally Longarm spied church spires and chimney smoke against the sunrise to their east. He turned to Juanito and said, "That Scotch poet was right about the best-laid plans of mice and men, you mean little s.h.i.t. I was fixing to wire the Rangers and have 'em waiting for you by the time you hiked all the way back."

"That is not the deal we made!" protested the unhappy youth.

But Longarm replied, "Yes, it was, as soon as you study the small print. I'm a lawman and the three of you confessed right out, albeit in Spanish, you were fixing to waylay me and worse. But I ain't finished. I may be a lawman, but I suffer from this rough sense of justice, and there ain't no justice down Mexico way with that p.i.s.s-faced Porfirio Diaz calling his fool self El Presidente, as if he'd been elected, the lying son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Juanito turned on the seat they were sharing. "You know this much about my poor country and her poor people, senor?"

Longarm shrugged and replied, "Not as well as I might if I'd been born that unfortunate, I'll allow, but well enough to suspicion most any government you rebels could come up with would have to be some improvement. So getting back to the deal we made, I reckon I'm going to have to keep it the way you thought I meant it, with no small print. You can save yourself better than an hour afoot if you get off right here and get going whilst it's still cool. Grab one of them canteens in the back, and what the h.e.l.l, you ought to be able to pack along a few tortillas. A lady I know rolled some in wax paper for me back in Corpus Christi. So here's the d.a.m.n key, grab what you need and just git! What are you waiting for, a good-bye kiss?"

The kid rummaged in the wagon box for the water and trail grub as he murmured, "I do not understand you at all, senor. I mean, now that I recall our earlier conversation, I see what you mean by small print. Is true you only said you would turn me loose with this key. You never said you would not tell the Rangers we were ladrenes, or where we might be found. Pero what has changed your mind about us?"

To which Longarm could only reply, "I haven't changed my mind about you. I still think you're three mierditas who'd be a disgrace to your families if anyone could say who your fathers might have been. But you ain't the only Mex rebels I've ever met, and some of the ones I like better may need them rifles before El Presidente steps down of his own free will. So adios, s.h.i.thead, and shoot a federale for me, if you have the b.a.l.l.s."

Juanito dropped off the far side with Longarm's generous issue of water and trail grub and the handcuff key in a pocket. Then he said, "I think I know who you must be now. My people speak of a muy gringo but simpatico Yanqui they call El Brazo Largo."

Longarm didn't answer. He just snapped the ribbons to drive on to town, leaving Juanito to stand there, making the sign of the cross as he marveled, "Jesus, Maria y Jose! I threatened to screw El Brazo Largo before I killed him and I am still alive! They are right about him. The man is a G.o.dd.a.m.n saint!"