She conducted him through the kitchen, insisting that he look in the beehive oven for the missing gold ore. He had a sudden thought as she led him through another room. He asked, “Your people make these ’dobe bricks by mixing clay and straw with sand, gravel, rocks, and such, right?”

  “Of course.” She turned to him, one eyebrow cocked. “Are you suggesting the missing high-grade ore has been built into the walls of my house?”

  “Not hardly. Not this house. But I mean to sniff around the county for new construction. No trace of the missing ore’s turned up, but ore is bulky stuff to hide. Building a wall or a barn with it and just leaving it there until the search wore off might not be a bad notion.”

  “My God,” she said with amazement, “you have a lively imagination. Do you want to know what I think? I think there is no gold at all. My people owned the land the mine stands on for generations. If there had been gold they would have known it.”

  “You’re wrong, ma’am. You folks had California for generations, like you said, but you never knew the gold was up here in these hills. It was a gringo who found the first nugget at Sutter’s Mill. Your folks were cowboys, not prospectors, so they likely never looked for color. I’m a jump ahead of you on the Lost Chinaman. I checked the records down in Sacramento. It’s a real mine. They shipped over a million dollars’ worth of color to the mint in one year alone, back in the seventies.”

  “Perhaps, but it has been closed for years. MacLeod and his wife are fools. They should have accepted my offer.”

  They were in a bedroom now. Longarm said, “MacLeod’s turned down bigger offers than yours, ma’am. Besides that, I saw the stuff he’s digging tested and it was real. You see—”

  Then he noticed the way she was standing there, looking up at him with her eyes limpid and confused. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to just reach out, haul her in, and kiss her full on her trembling lips.

  For a moment she responded, running a hot tongue between his firmer lips. Then she stiffened and tried to pull away, murmuring, “What is happening? I don’t want you to touch me! I hate you and everything you stand for!”

  He said, “Sure you do,” and kissed her again before drawing her closer to the bed and running his hand down her back. She wore no corset under the black lace and her buttocks were quivering like a nervous colt’s. He pressed her closer to him. Her feeble struggles threw them off balance, so he rode with gravity and let it deposit them across the mattress of the old fourposter. They wound up with her half under him. He had a hand between her thighs, now. She churned her knees and one of her slippers flew across the rug to a corner as she gasped against his lips, “We have to stop! You’re acting like a monster!”

  But he noticed she had her arms around his neck, so he didn’t answer. He unbuckled his gunbelt before he started inching her skirt up a fold at a time. She was kissing him with a fervor to match his own, but every time they came up for air she told him how much she hated him, so he decided it might not work if he took time to get undressed. He got her skirt up around her waist and she tried to cross her naked thighs as he slid his hand between them. But he was too strong, or she wasn’t trying as hard to stop him as she was pretending. She was wearing no knickers under the skirt. Her sex was as moist as a ripe, sliced-open fig. He fingered her and kissed her until she started moving to meet his thrusting hand. Then he braced a boot on the rug, lifted himself up and over her, and unbuttoned his trousers. The respite gave her time to twist her head away, wild-eyed, and moan, “Please don’t. I am not that kind of woman!” But she opened her thighs wide to him as he plunged into her.

  He pinned her to the mattress with his pelvis and stayed like that long enough to rid himself of his frock coat. And then, as he started moving, she sighed, “Oh, you are a monster!” and dropping the maidenly notions, started pumping back.

  She wrapped her legs around him and groaned, “Oh, querido, it’s been so long since I felt this way!”

  He said, “Can’t we get out of these duds? This tweed must itch you some.”

  “Don’t stop. I like it. You feel like a big, woolly bear and I’ll never forgive you, but, Madre de Dios, don’t stop! It’s happening!”

  For a woman who hated him, Felicidad nonetheless seemed to be taking great pleasure from this encounter as she heaved, plunged, and bucked beneath him. When their movements quieted for a moment after their first climax, Longarm was surprised to notice that they had managed to get fully undressed. Her hips began to gyrate under him once again before his erection had had a chance to wilt very much. He felt himself growing hard again. He felt purely sorry for her poor husband, dying young with so much to live for, but one man’s misfortune was another man’s bliss. As he stopped to get his breath back after a second climax she said, “You are a terrible man and I hate you. But as long as you’ve defiled me—” Then she started kissing her way down his moist chest and belly on her way to further glory. They made love for a good two hours before she lay quietly in his arms, her lips against his chest, and murmured, “If you tell anyone about this, I will kill you before I kill myself.”

  He patted her bare back and said, “I ain’t given to talking about such things. Your secret is safe with me.”

  “You must think I am a terrible slut. I suppose you’d laugh if I told you there has been no one in me like that since my husband died?”

  “Hell, I believe you. I could tell you’d been saving yourself for me.”

  She laughed in spite of herself, and asked, “How could you tell? I didn’t know how much I needed that, myself.”

  “I know. That’s likely what had you acting so ornery. Maybe some day gals will be allowed to admit that they get just as randy as us men.”

  She giggled and snuggled closer, saying, “I thought I hated you that first day on the stage. But you were so brave about those bandits. You moved like such a beautiful big cat and you were so much braver than any man I’d ever known. I started feeling butterflies inside me, in a most indecent place for butterflies to be, and I told myself I was overexcited because of the shooting. You knew, even then, didn’t you?”

  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I was thinking more about not getting shot. You likely think I came out here with this in mind, but I really wasn’t expecting to make love to you.”

  She smiled. “I am glad. It would shame me to think I’d been so transparent. But why did you seduce me, if you never planned it?”

  “Honey, if I knew the reasons for half the things I do, I likely wouldn’t do them. I did what I did because you’re pretty as a picture and, well, because I could read the smoke signals in your big brown eyes.”

  “What are we to tell everyone?”

  He frowned and said, “I just heard you ask me not to tell anyone at all.”

  “I wasn’t thinking. If you are going to stay with me, the servants must be told something.”

  He’d been afraid she’d say something like that. He knew what she’d say if he explained that he wasn’t the marrying kind, too. So he just said, “We have to keep it a secret for your own protection, Felicidad. I wouldn’t want the men I’m after thinking they could get back at me through my woman.”

  She gasped with pleasure and said, “Oh, mi caballero! You are so gallant, but I am not afraid to share your dangers.”

  “You may not be scared, but I sure am. We’re up against somebody who’s as slick as goose grease. I’d fight hell and high water for you if I knew who or what was likely to come at us. But I can’t do my job and guard your pretty little body at the same time. So we’ll have to playact that we’re only friends until I catch the rascals.”

  “I understand. And after you catch them, querido, I shall never let you out of my sight again!”

  * * *

  The county seat of San Andreas was a lot closer than Sacramento, but still a long ride from Manzanita. There was a library near the San Andreas courthouse, and it was stocked with more books on mining than Longarm cared to read. The librarian was a little sparrowlike woman, but she had a sweet smile and he noticed her well-turned ankle when she climbed up a ladder to reach him down some books.

  He took them to a table and started reading. Every time he looked up, the librarian was staring at him. Immediately, she’d duck her head and pretend she hadn’t been looking. The womenfolk in Calaveras County sure are friendly, Longarm thought.

  He skimmed through local history without finding out much except that there had never been a frog-jumping contest in the county before Mark Twain made that story up. Some of Bret Harte’s tales of the forty-niners, however, turned out to be true. Calaveras had really been a humdinger in the gold rush days. Now it was withering on the vine as the mines played out. People here were raising cows and cutting timber for a living, for the most part, and it was hard-scrabble living at that. The country was pretty enough, but you can’t feed scenery to cows and what timber was left was mostly second growth or tough old twisted oaks that had been passed over in the first place. Canyon oak burned well, but it didn’t mill worth a damn.

  He looked for someone opening a new mine more recently than the Lost Chinaman. He couldn’t find one, so there went one good idea. He’d thought some tricky cuss might have thought to sell the stolen high-grade as his own, using a dummy mine as a front. But it didn’t pan out. The nearby mine being operated by George Hearst shipped ore of the wrong composition. He intended to stop off at Sheep Ranch on the way back to Manzanita, but it was likely to prove a waste of time.

  He cracked open a high school chemistry book and boned up on aqua regia. The book, like everyone else, said it was nasty stuff to spill on your pants and that it dissolved gold. He already knew alkali neutralized acid, so it was easy to see how the test worked. The acid picked up the invisible molecules of gold and they floated around in it until you poured in alkali, which turned the acid to some sort of brine that wouldn’t hold the gold in solution any more. So it formed heavy crystals of pure gold and sank to the bottom along with other sludge it wouldn’t mix with. Being heavier than lead, the gold settled faster than any other crystals. That accounted for the color he’d seen—the color that hadn’t been there when the ore reached Sacramento. The damned book didn’t make any mention of the part where the gold disappears without a trace. Once again, the possibilities flitted through his mind. Could he have dozed off? Could he have been knocked out somehow for a spell without his knowing?

  It’s impossible, he thought. But so is stealing a carload of ore out from under a man with a Winchester, damn it!

  He walked back over to the desk and asked the librarian if she had any books on magic tricks.

  She had a couple, and this time when she climbed the ladder he got to see even more of her legs. He wondered if she was doing that on purpose, and decided not to find out.

  He sat down and started reading about false bottoms, mirrors, black silk strings, and such. He found out how to make a rabbit come out of his hat, but not a clue to the shell game the high-graders had played with at least four ore cars, with him watching.

  He was about to give up when he stopped to go back over a paragraph he’d skimmed: “Misdirection is the basis of most good stage magic. It is hard to perform before children because they allow their eyes to wander. Adults can be counted on to keep their eyes fixed where the skilled magician directs them. If one is certain everyone is watching one part of the stage, many things can be done with impunity in full view of the audience. Those watching know they are being tricked, therefore they are so intent on watching the magician’s more obvious moves that they are oblivious to less subtle happenings, often in plain view.”

  Longarm nodded and muttered, “That’s for damn sure.”

  The librarian smiled over at him and called, “Did you want something else, sir?”

  He shook his head and thanked her. She looked disappointed. As he carried the books up to her counter, she asked, “Are you coming to the dance tonight, Marshal?”

  He said, “I’d have asked you to save a dance for me if I was, ma’am. But I’ve got other chores.”

  She blushed from her hairline to her lace collar, but grinned like the Cheshire cat. He hoped he had made her day a bit brighter. He thanked her and went out into the bright sunlight.

  As he walked out to his gelding, a hard-eyed, thoughtful-looking fellow leaned away from the awning post he’d been holding up with his shoulder and asked, “Are you Longarm?”

  “I’ve been called worse. What’s your pleasure, pilgrim?”

  “The sheriff wants to see you. Over by the courthouse.”

  Longarm nodded and said, “I’ve been meaning to see him, too. Just lead the way.”

  The stranger pointed down the street with his chin, his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt, and said, “His office is just past that church steeple yonder. You can’t miss it.”

  Longarm decided to walk, since it was less than a city block and there was no sense fooling with the gelding’s reins twice more than he had to. He nodded and started toward the steeple. Then he remembered he’d ridden in from the other direction, and remembered what he’d seen down the other way. He crabbed sideways, going for his gun as a bullet buzzed through the air he’d just been walking through!

  Longarm reversed his direction with a firmly dug-in heel and whirled about, gun in hand, as the man who had tried to set him up fired a second time. The misdirected slug went through the space the gunman had thought Longarm was headed for. Then the deputy fired.

  The stranger was apparently not experienced enough to take on an old hand like Longarm. He stood in one place as he pumped lead. Longarm’s first round took him just under the belt buckle and folded him up neatly as it knocked him down. Longarm saw that he’d dropped his weapon, so he held his fire and walked slowly back, covering the man he’d shot and keeping wary on all sides. The librarian came out, saw the man lying almost at her feet, and screamed. Other people boiled out of other doorways, ran halfway over, then stopped uncertainly as Longarm stood over the groaning gunslick.

  Longarm kicked the man in the ribs to gain his undivided attention and asked, “All right, old son. Who are you working for?”

  The gutshot gunman groaned and said, “Fuck you.”

  A man wearing a tin star and a worried look came down the center of the dirt street with a shotgun. He saw that Longarm was keeping his six-gun trained in a neighborly fashion at the dirt, so he called out, “What’s going on?”

  Longarm said, “Don’t know. I’m a deputy U.S. marshal and this jasper just tried to shoot me in the back.”

  The man came closer, staring down at the wounded gunslick, and said, “He’s a stranger to me, too. I’m Sheriff Marvin. My office is just up the street.”

  “I know. He told me you wanted to see me, but he pointed the wrong way. I don’t know if it was ignorance or a better field of fire for him. Lucky for me I passed your sign riding in and remembered in time to ponder his words.”

  The sheriff frowned and said, “I never sent for anybody. Hell, I don’t even know you!”

  “I figured as much. I’m Custis Long.”

  “The one who shot the Calico Kid and his gang? Jesus, I want to buy you a drink, son!”

  “I’ll buy you one too, as soon as we figure out why this son of a bitch was gunning for me.”

  He kicked the downed man again as the sheriff walked over and picked up the revolver the man had dropped in the dust. He said, “Sonny, if you ain’t aiming to die, you’d best tell me the facts of life and I’ll see about a doctor.”

  The gunslick groaned and said, “Stuff it up your ass, lawman.”

  Longarm said, “Suit yourself, but it’s going to smart like hell when the first shock wears off.”

  A man wearing a white apron had been watching and listening from the crowd. He came forward and said, “I served him in my saloon one night. He said he was with the Calico Kid.”

  Sheriff Marvin grinned and said, “There you go, Marshal. He was one of the gang you missed before, but now it looks like you’ve made a clean sweep of the rascals!”

  Longarm swore softly and said, “Damn! I was hoping he was somebody important. I ain’t got time to trifle with saddle tramps.”

  The sheriff said, “Just the same, you did the county a favor and the drinks are on me.” Marvin pointed to a pair of town loafers and called out, “Luke, you and old Bill drag this skunk over to the jailhouse and send for Doc Cunningham. Mind you don’t put him on a bunk. I don’t want blood on my furniture.”

  Then the sheriff slapped Longarm on the back and, together with the bartender, they crossed over to the saloon, where half the town seemed bent on getting Longarm drunk.

  As they bellied up to the bar, Longarm told the sheriff of his misadventures. Marvin knew about the high-grading over in Manzanita, but had no suggestions. The only thing Longarm learned was that he might owe other local lawmen an apology or two. Both the sheriff’s department and the California marshals had gone over much the same ground before abandoning the case as embarrassing as well as impossible to crack. His notion of guarding the train from loading to delivery had been tried before, with the same results.

  Longarm said, “We’ve missed something. I was just reading about the way magicians trick folks. The high-graders are doing something we just ain’t thought of.”

  Marvin said, “Hell, tell me something I don’t know! You know what they did to me? It was purely spooky. I had a man watching every likely suspect—and I had a long list, too. I put two deputies aboard the cars; I staked out every Mex who works at the mine; I threw a cordon around the whole durned spread, then sat on MacLeod’s porch with my own gun handy till the train pulled out with a load of ore. None of us saw even a pack rat near that ore. But it got stole just the same. Ain’t that a bitch?”