Longarm on the Fever Coast (9 page)

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 screwing 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 brass cartridges, or a coming hurricane. So there was nobody 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 clamshell-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 shell 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 shell road ended in a wind-lashed sheet of muddy water, with no far side in sight. Nobody with a lick of sense would pave the way to the bottom of a river on purpose. So it was safe to assume the gale-force winds had run a high tide further ashore than usual. Winds did that some along the gulf coast. Wind surges along a low swampy shore made for more deaths than getting hit by flying shit 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 shit 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 hitched 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 ass-high sacaguista--as they called this particular breed of salt grass.

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 piss-poor shot if it was a hunter. So folks tended to assume 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 grass 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 nobody but my own fool self out in this damned 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 shit-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 whore pistol!"

The sly talker of the bunch sighed and muttered, "Feel free to be the first one he shoots, Juanito! I assure 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 nobody'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 ass?"

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 bastards like you ought to see the reason in my madness."

They did, bitching like hell, well before the kid had them cuffed together, squatting on either side of the wheel in the wet wind-whipped grass. Once Longarm saw he'd secured them, he turned to the kid and pistol-whipped the mean little shit 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-ass sass!"

As Juanito got back to his feet, both hands to his busted lips, Longarm asked if he had anything sassy 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."