by Evans, Tabor
Longarm nodded curtly and said, ‘That ranger never mentioned Mister Pantages by name. He only said he’d heard they had a Greek boy riding with the D Bar L and asked what I might know about him. I told him I had never been closer to any such outfit than I am right now and had no idea how many Greeks, Dutchmen, or Eskimos they might have riding for them. He intimated I was a liar, too. But he said it more polite and I never throw down on a lawman if I can possibly avoid it.”
The two local riders exchanged puzzled glances. Greek Steve seemed more puzzled and less outraged as he demanded, “What did that fucking ranger accuse me of? I know he was accusing me because I’m the only Greek for miles. Texas Greek, that is. My folk talked Greek at home when I was a boy. I remember they called it Elliniki, but that’s one of the few Greek words I still remember. My momma used to take me to the Greek Orthodox services whenever we got over to San Antone. But there ain’t no Greek churches nor other Greek riders along the lower Pecos. So he must have meant me and what do you reckon that means?”
They both looked at Longarm. It wouldn’t have been wise to mention that Greek Orthodox church up in Denver, where everybody standing on the steps crossed themselves different from Roman Catholics when they held their Easter Procession on a different day and tied up traffic all around. So he simply said, “You’re asking the wrong man. I told that ranger he was asking the wrong man, too. He said he knew I was here to hire on at that D Bar L just down the valley. When I told him I’d done no such thing, that was when he called me a liar. He said he knew for a fact some lady was taking on extra help, and he called me a liar some more when I said that if I wanted to hire on as household help I’d have asked Miss Sally Chisum for a job without having to leave New Mexico. She’s the lady as keeps house at the Long-Rail and Jingle-Bob home spread at South Spring and...”
“Nevermind that range pirate and his famous play-pretty!” Chongo cut in, turning to Greek Steve to demand, “Are you sure you ain’t got anything to tell Miss Connie about you-know-who? There ain’t no way a stranger to these parts could make what this one’s saying up out of thin air, even if he was a lawman, himself.”
Longarm growled, “Aw, if you’re going to keep insulting me, I’ll thank you both to leave my damn table and let me drink in peace. I only fetched one extra glass from the bar in hopes they’d have some gals in this surly saloon. Since anyone can see it’s just a piss-poor excuse for a dog-fighting pit, I’ll just drink alone ’til it cools off enough to ride on.”
Chongo said, “I wish you’d both cool off! That trouble-making tin star, combined with this noonday heat, has us all at loggerheads when we may be on the same side. It had to be that ranger asking all those questions about you and that trail-drive Miss Connie’s been planning, Greek Steve. They must have you down as a schoolmate of you-know-who and they wouldn’t know Miss Connie had us rounding up for that drive well before that... family emergency. I’d say the rangers have put one and one together to come up with seven or eleven!”
Greek Steve was staring at Longarm as he told Chongo, “I’d say you sure talk a lot in front of total-ass strangers, too. We don’t know this saddle tramp from the Czar Of All The Russians and folk here in the valley don’t talk about Miss Connie’s personal problems amongst each other!”
Chongo started to argue, nodded, and told Longarm, “When he’s right he’s right. Greek Steve has a short fuse because he takes a little rawhiding about Greek Loving.”
Greek Steve scowled and snapped, “Where I come from they say it’s the Spanish who prefer ass fucking and the Irish who fuck their dear old mothers when they can’t get the pigs to put out!”
Chongo sighed and said, “One of these days you’re going to push me a tad too far, Greek Steve. But let’s get cooled down some before we all blow up like cartridges in a frying pan.”
He got back to his feet, adding, “I don’t know about you sweating buscaderos, but I’m off to Rosalinda’s for a cold shower and a naked flop on cool sheets until that fucking sun outside let’s up for the day!”
Greek Steve allowed he could go for a siesta at Rosalinda’s as well. So Longarm asked if they were talking about some nearby cooler posada.
The two local riders exchanged amused looks. Chongo said, “Come on along and judge for yourself if you have three dollars to spare. That’s what it costs to spend La Siesta at Rosalinda’s.”
Longarm smiled dubiously and replied, “I dunno, that’s a lot of dinero for an afternoon flop, ain’t it?”
Greek Steve laughed and said, “It sure is. It’s a good thing we don’t get to town that often. But whenever we do, three dollars ain’t such bad value for a whole afternoon at Rosalinda’s.
Longarm smiled sheepishy and confessed he’d been slow at arithmetic as a schoolboy, too. Then he said, “You gents go on and... cool off all you like. I’m really looking for a job and I have to husband my pocket jingle until I get one.”
Chongo insisted, “Come on, Crawford. I’ll put in a word for you at Rosalinda’s. I’ll ask Miss Connie about you, too, the next time I see her. You did say you know how to rope and throw, didn’t you?”
Longarm gathered up his gear as he replied in a disgusted tone, “What does rope and throw mean, Mister? I just got out west from a finishing school for young ladies and I’ve never been too clear about which end of the bull the bullshit comes out of.”
So the three of them headed down the way to a thick-waited ’dobe wrapped around a shady patio with no windows facing the sun-baked streets of Sheffield-Crossing. Longarm knew before he could see the house of ill repute that Chongo was aiming to fix him up with a local gal paid extra to pump a strange rider’s mind as she took care of his carnal needs.
He didn’t care. He could lie just as swell to anyone and, after all that time by rail and trail since he’d parted with Miss Bubbles, his needs were commencing to hurt.
Thick ‘dobe walls were popular with everybody in West Texas who knew what was good for them. By warming and cooling way slower than wood frame or even baked bricks, adobe tended to even things out, indoors, betwixt the scorching sunny days and the cold starry nights of the usually cloudless Southwest. The patio’s lily pond, shaded by fig trees and a big old weeping willow, had it close to ten degrees cooler off the streets of Sheffield-Crossing. It seemed even cooler in the dark cavernous tap-room beyond, where earlier arrivals lounged with the mostly Mex gals who worked there. The few that didn’t look Mex seemed more colored or pure Indian. One was either Chinee or that odd blend of blood lines the Mexicans themselves called “Chino.” All of ’em were a tad younger and prettier than the average soiled dove in an Anglo whorehouse of the day. Latin gals in general took up whoring with less pissing, moaning, and strong drink. So they tended to offer a greater selection to choose from and some of them even seemed to enjoy their work.
Chongo and Greek Steve led Longarm over to the corner bar and introduced him as their old pal, Duncan Crawford. Then Chongo allowed he’d be back as soon as he had a word with Madam Rosalinda, her fat self. So Longarm and the cooled-off Greek Steve had their tequila in the border manner, with a lick of salt and a lemon-half chaser. It was fair tequila. The gal tending bar in her chemise insisted they gaze on the clear glass bottle she’d poured from, anyhow. She seemed proud to work in such a high-toned place. Longarm agreed that pickled worm bobbing around in the genuine tequila proved her point, even if it would have been easy enough to drop a maguey worm in a bottle full of grain spirits, as was often the case down Mexico way, where only a hundred proof, distilled from maguey or century plant, was supposed to be sold as tequila. Longarm had often wondered how there’d be enough worms to go around, boring through the average maguey heart.
Chongo soon rejoined them, along with that pretty whore with Chino features, wearing no more than a thin silk chemise that barely covered half her shapely sallow thighs. Her raven’s-wing hair was cut sort of short and worn in bangs, Chinee or perhaps Apache Style.
She never looked higher than Longarm’s
fly as Chongo introduced her as Miss Perfidia and added, “She says she don’t take it Greek Style. So, I reckon she’s with you, Crawford.”
Greek Steve muttered, “Fuck you!” into his tequila.
The oddly oriental looking Mex gal smiled shyly without meeting his eyes and asked, “¿Babla ’spañol, Querido?”
To which Longarm felt it best to reply, “Muy poco, ma’am. We’re in Texas, now. We’ll get along better if you can manage Texas talk.”
She shrugged her bare shoulders and said, “Yo comrendo. You wish for to fuck me instead of for to chinge me, correcto ?”
Longarm laughed, allowed that was about the size of it and drained his stemmed glass of tequila to follow her upstairs where it was even cooler. He would have been more hesitant if he hadn’t been able to tell his nagging conscience that bedding a whore in the line of duty, free, wasn’t the same as patronizing a whorehouse like a simp. The way she swung that shapely behind under one layer of thin silk as she strode up the stairs and down the hall ahead of him made his sacrifice seem a tad easier to contemplate. He knew she was walking that way on purpose. It sure beat all how Mexicans named gals Dolores, Perfidia, and such. You hardly ever met Anglo gals named Sadness or Astray. This strayed slanty-eyed one had likely changed her name for business reasons, like Silver Heels, Snake Hips, or Squirrel Tooth in more Anglo houses of ill repute.
The chamber Perfidia led him too was small and dark enough to qualify for a nun’s cell. There was even a grimly realistic crucifix nailed to the ’dobe wall above the head of the bed. But after that the bed was a tad bigger and softer than you’d find in most convents and the window slit was glazed with rose colored panes to make everything inside look sort of like fresh meat.
As she shut and barred the door behind them Perfidia said, “Bueno! We are free to talk, now. For why have you come to Sheffield-Crossing, Querido? Do you search for Don David El Diablo? Those rangers who came by told us they were seeking, too.”
Longarm said, “I don’t know who you’re talking about and I’m only a poor but honest cow hand, looking for a damned job. Who’s this Diablo gent and do you want to fuck or gossip?”
Perfidia laughed girlishly and said, “Si, ahora mismo, ” in a casual tone, considering the way she peeled her chemise off over her head to face him bold as brass without a stitch.
Her tawny torso betrayed some European ancestry by curving in and out more than Indian or Oriental shapes that short usually managed.
But like many Indian or Oriental gals, Perfidia sported way less body hair than your average white gal and Longarm’s needs grew one hell of a lot more urgent when she calmly sat down on the bed covers, leaned back on her elbows to spread her thighs wide as she raised her bare feet from the floor.
He made a point of hanging his sixgun handy on a bedpost and draping his duds neatly over the one chair and it’s rail back as he undressed casually enough to prove he wasn’t an eager kid with an uncontrollable hard-on. He did have a hard-on and he suspected he was only showboating as a smooth Don Juan for himself. For despite all the bullshit about how you were supposed to treat ladies like whores and whores like ladies he knew most gals, even schoolmarms, knew way more about men than they let on. For whether a young gal wanted to study men or not, men commenced to study gals and make total assholes out of themselves long before young gals were allowed to receive flowers, books, and candy from any of ’em.
So, knowing how dumb it was to walk a picket fence for a schoolgal or pretend you were in charge to a whore, Longarm rose from that chair in his own naked glory, stiff as a poker, to move over to the bed and take Perfidia up on her kind offer.
Her slant eyes opened wide and she gasped, “Ay, que grueso!” as he dropped to his knees on the rug to enter her, pleasantly surprised by her tightly pulsating, wet warmth, even before she began to move her hips in time with his thrusts. He found himself really thrusting, after all that time without a woman. It felt sort of silly to enjoy even a pretty whore that much. But she was one hell of a lay, and he was sort of proud of himself for not proposing to take her away from all this and make her his own forever by the time he’d come in her hard enough to feel it all the way down to his clenched toes.
If he hadn’t known better, he’d have believed her when she moaned she’d come, too. Neither one of them felt all that cool, now. So when she suggested they get into a less awkward position to smoke and sip sangria, Longarm allowed that sounded like a swell notion.
But she didn’t seem to have a pitcher of wine punch on hand, and it got even less comfortable when, after she’d let him light them a cheroot to share as they leaned against the headboard side by side, Perfidia suddenly said, “Bueno. Now tell me what it is you really want here in Sheffield-Crossing and my other friends and I will help you all we can.”
Longarm blew smoke out both nostrils like a pissed-off bull and told her, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You seem to have me mixed up with somebody else.”
She began to toy with his limp organ grinder as she sighed amorously and said, “I do not have you mixed up with someone else. I knew as soon as you took your pantalones off you had to be El Brazo Largo!”
Chapter 8
It didn’t work. Longarm took a thoughtful drag on his cheroot, blew a smoke ring, and tried to sound only mildly confounded when he said, “I told you I don’t speak much Mex. Are you complaining about my old organ grinder being too bulky or my arms being too long? You should have said so if I was hurting you, just now.”
She commenced to fondle his dong more fondly as she insisted, “I was not certain until you had this in me. Then I was. The muchacha who pointed you out to me in San Antonio said it came in her eight times in one night!”
He didn’t bite. He blew another smoke ring and said, “She must have been might prettv. Or she was surely out to flatter this rascal you mistake me for. You say they call him El Brazo Largo in San Antone?”
She sighed and said, “Is San Antonio, no matter what you Americanos say, and we both know El Brazo Largo is more famous south of the border.
He pretended to yawn, patted her bare shoulder with his free hand and answered, “How come, and don’t stop doing just what you’re doing, Miss Perfidia.”
She began to stroke his half swollen member faster as she insisted, “We both know for why. But if this is some sort of test, we both know how those ladrones stole our revolución when our Benito Juarez died. We both know how the people have suffered under El Presidente Diaz and how some patriots from the high-born El Guto to a woman of the fields called La Mariposa wage LaGuerrilla against his cruel Federales and even worse Rurales!”
Longarm suggested. “Why don’t you roll over and let me shove this to you dog style? It’s warming up in here and dog style would be way cooler. I’ve never been able to keep up with all that feuding back and forth down Mexico way. Like I said. my Spanish is limited and sometimes I doubt your countrymen. themselves, know what in blue blazes they might be fighting about. no offense.”
She let go of his re-inspired erection to roll on her hands and knees as he asked, even whilst she pouted. “I am most pained that you will not trust me! My only desire is for to help! I would be honored to be able to say I once helped El Brazo Largo Famoso!”
Longarm rose with one knee on the sheet betwixt her brown calves as he braced the other foot on the floor to take a dusky hemisphere of shapely ass in either extended palm to let his old organ grinder find its own way as he assured her, “You’re helping this wayfaring stranger get through this siesta just fine and. in days to come. there’s nothing to stop you from saying you came eight times with this nine-day wonder you have me confounded with. You have my word I’ve never tried to overthrow the recognized government of Mexico.”
She reached down to guide the head inside and stroke his balls for encouragement as she insisted with a cheek of her face on a pillow “Nobody ever said you had. except those unjust Rurales who became so enraged when you simply refused for to let them
rob and rape while you were riding through. after some of your own banditos. I know who you are after, here in Sheffield-Crossing! Why won’t you let me and my own friends help you?”
He assured her she was helping him relax a heap. after over a week without any. He added. sincerely. “I was getting horny enough to do this to a real dog, or an ugly woman, least ways. I never dreamed I was saving this up for a gal as friendly and pretty as you, Miss Perfidia!”
She arched her spine and moaned, “Ay, que hermoso! I am enjoying it, too! You may not believe this, but there are times I do not enjoy this at all with a parroquiano.”
He shoved teasingly and allowed he doubted he’d enjoy it with a parrot, either. He pretended not to get it when she laughed like hell. It made her innards ripple swell around his shaft and there’d have been no jest at all if he’d admitted he’d understood her to mean there were times she didn’t enjoy it with a customer.
From the way she was offering up her sweet meat Longarm doubted the warm-natured little gal hated it all that often with most anybody. They all said they were only in the trade for the money, and there had to be some customers who really disgusted them. But for all their talk about men being beasts and their having no other way to make a living, whores bragged on who they would and wouldn’t service and it only stood to reason that a self-respecting whore who didn’t enjoy fucking at least as much as a top hand enjoyed riding would settle for some other line of work, like waiting tables or minding kids for rich ladies.
He rolled her on her back to finish right with that pillow under her rolicking rump and her tawny legs wrapped around his waist whilst he found himself kissing her, to his mingled surprise and distaste. It sure beat all how a man could walk the straight and narrow for days at a time and then wind up wallowing in sin and degradation like that Ben Hur in Governor Wallace’s book, enjoying every vile wriggle and jiggle.
