Ruthie held up the glass. “I guess I ought to say something, a sort of toast, but I can’t think of the right words.”

  “Let’s just forget about things like that.” Longarm tilted the bottle to his lips and took a swallow of the smooth whiskey. He got a cheroot from one vest pocket and a match from another. As he lit the cheroot, he reflected that as much as he hated being a slave to tobacco, the combination of a pretty woman’s company, a glass of rye, and a good cigar was unbeatable for sheer comfort.

  Ruthie was sipping the whiskey. Longarm studied her through the veil of smoke that billowed between them from the freshly lit cigar. She’d put on a street dress before leaving the saloon, and he’d been too busy watching Fred to pay much attention to her earlier, but now he recalled the low-cut, sequined knee-length dress she’d been wearing then. He tried to remember, but all that came to his mind was a vague impression of full breasts, a small waist, and flaring hips emphasized by the cut of her working garb. The drab brown full-cut garment she was now wearing could hide almost any kind of shape under it, he thought.

  As he looked closely at Ruthie’s face, he realized that she was younger than most saloon girls; her heavy makeup didn’t hide the smooth, unlined skin of her face. He saw in it the freshness of a girl in her early twenties, and guessed her teens weren’t too far behind her. She’d combed her light brown hair straight back, instead of leaving it in the high puff that he remembered from their earlier encounter. Her brown eyes looked wise, despite some puffy traces of the tears he remembered that she’d shed, tears of fright mingled with relief, but they were only slightly reddened. Her nose was small and straight, her upper lip short, but the rouged lips themselves were full, almost pouting. Her chin was round and firm, her neck as smooth and unlined as her face.

  Suddenly Longarm became aware that Ruthie was studying him almost as closely as he was studying her. The little bubble of tension that had been forming between them broke as they both smiled.

  “I guess you’re wondering what sort of a girl I am,” she said. “That’s what seems to interest most of the men I meet.” Somewhat defiantly, she added, “My customers, if you want to put the right name to them.”

  Longarm took his time replying. He said, “You know, Ruthie, all I care about is what I see in you right now. You’re an honest girl with enough backbone and spunk to look at the world the way it is, instead of trying to fool yourself, the way most folks do. If you’re trying to find out if I think any the less of you because of the line of work you’re in, the answer’s no. You’re a girl called Ruthie, and that’s good enough for me.” Longarm reached across the narrow gap that separated the bed from the chair where she sat and patted her arm.

  She cocked her head to one side and looked at him curiously. “You don’t act like other men do. You look at me like I’m a real woman, not something you’ve paid to use for a little while. I still feel like I owe you a lot for saving me the way you did.”

  “Now, we settled that when you first came in,” he reminded her. “Thing is, you’re all nerved up, after what you went through. Here.” He refilled her glass. “Take some more of this. It’ll settle your nerves down.”

  “I don’t usually drink anything, you know. The older girls, the ones that’ve been around a while, they always tell me that if you lay off liquor, the other—you know what I’m trying to say—the other doesn’t hurt you.”

  “Let’s just call this a special time,” Longarm suggested. He held up the bottle in salute. Ruthie raised her glass in response, and when Longarm drank from the bottle, she gulped down most of the whiskey in one convulsive swallow.

  When she’d stopped shuddering, she asked, “Can I tell you something? You won’t get mad if I talk to you, will you?”

  “’Course not. Tell me anything you want to get off your mind.”

  “I guess I was mostly to blame for what happened there tonight, in the saloon. You see, Fred wasn’t like most of the men I run into. He was—well, sort of like you, treated me like a human being. And I guess I fell for him, a little bit. Led him on.”

  “Fred’s probably a nice enough young fellow, when he ain’t a lot drunker than a man ought to get.”

  “But it was wrong, don’t you see? I shouldn’t’ve done it. If I’d just treated him like I do all the rest, he never would’ve acted the way he did.”

  “I suppose so. But you’ve got to remember, Ruthie, it’s a woman’s nature to act that way when a man’s interested in her.”

  She smiled sadly. “Oh, I’ve learned that, Longarm. You might say that was my first lesson. How do you think I got started out?”

  “Like most young girls, I’d imagine. You let some randy young rooster sweet-talk you into bed with him. Somebody found out about it, and told you that you were ruined for good just because you did what’s humanly natural, and you weren’t old enough to know different, so you believed it.”

  “You’re a pretty good guesser, but you missed part of it. I was the one who was randy, and it was me who did the sweet-talking. And it didn’t seem to me I was ruined at all. I enjoyed every minute of it, after the first time, when it hurt like I suppose it does all girls who never have been with a man before. But even that didn’t bother me much. And nobody found out; it was him who got tired of me after a little while, and told me I was ruined for good, then he went and found himself another girl.”

  “You ain’t old enough for that to’ve happened very long ago,” he said.

  “Long enough. I’ve been in the sporting life over three years.”

  “Hell, that ain’t so long. You can always quit, if you don’t like it.”

  “It’s a funny thing.” Ruthie drained her glass before going on. “I do like it, for a little while, now and then. When I meet some man who’s not a pig, and I can let myself go with him, and not just go through the motions without feeling anything.”

  She stood up, fumbled for a moment at the neck of her dress, then shook her shoulders sharply from side to side. The drab brown dress slid to the floor. Underneath it, Ruthie wore nothing except her shoes and long net stockings held by fancy red garters at mid-thigh. In the soft warmth of the yellow lamplight her body glowed like a symmetrical pillar of alabaster.

  For a moment she stood quite still, inviting Longarm to look at her as the slanting rays of the lamp revealed full, high breasts with warm pink rosettes that were beginning to pucker and push pink tips from their centers. Her tiny waist flared into generous, fully rounded hips; between them, a small, flat belly showed its oval center dimple. Below her lustrous, light brown tangle of pubic hair that caught the lamp’s glow in mysterious highlights, slim thighs tapered into slimmer legs.

  “You’re the kind of man I know I can let myself go with,” Ruthie said. Her voice was a husky whisper now, not the light voice of the girl who’d been speaking moments earlier. “And not just because I feel like I owe you anything.”

  Somehow, Ruthie’s words relieved Longarm’s mind. He no longer felt that she was offering herself to repay a debt. They could now be simply a woman and a man coming together.

  With a single long step she crossed the space that separated them. Her hands brushed lightly over Longarm’s cheeks, her fingers crept around his neck and pulled his face to nestle in the warm valley between her breasts. He felt her shiver with anticipation as the rough stubble on his square jaw brushed the tips of her nipples, and he felt himself respond as the warm, perfumed woman-scent of the valley into which his head was being urged filled his nostrils.

  For a moment, Ruthie held Longarm’s head firmly against her soft breasts, then she moved her hands and began working at the buttons of his longjohns. Longarm pressed against her, nibbling at the waiting flesh with hardened lips. Her hands were busy pulling at his only garment, and the night air was cool on his shoulders and back as the rough underwear dropped to his waist, He stood up. Ruthie pushed the balbriggans down below his hips, freeing his erection to rise, then swiftly she slid a hand down to bring the throbbing shaft between her thighs.

  They stood clinging together, Longarm’s hands smoothing her back and hips with long, caressing strokes while he rubbed his lips and face over her smooth shoulders and throat. Her cheek slid across his chest and over a shoulder; her warm, moist tongue darted into his ear. Her hips were moving slowly against him, pressing downward.

  “Take me standing up,” she panted into his ear, her breath hot against his cheek. “Now, right now.”

  Longarm spread his legs to brace himself and grasped her firmly fleshed buttocks with his strong, callused hands. He lifted her, and as he picked her up, Ruthie spread her legs to encircle his waist, as her hand reached down at the same time to guide him into her. She whimpered softly as he penetrated her, and locked her legs around him to pull him in more deeply.

  For several minutes, Ruthie seemed content merely to let him fill her. She kept her legs clasped tightly around him, sighing, now and then, but moving very little. Longarm made no attempt to thrust; he was willing to let her set the pace.

  “Am I too heavy for you?” she whispered. “Can you hold me this way as long as I need to come?”

  “Take your time, Ruthie. I can hold you up all night; you don’t weigh all that much.”

  She fell silent then, and began to devote all her attention to finding the pleasure she was after. She locked her hands behind Longarm’s neck and let her legs relax a bit to settle herself more firmly against the rigid male flesh on which she was impaled. Pressure alone soon failed to satisfy her, and she began to shift the weight of her hips from side to side, gently at first, then so rapidly that Longarm had to dig his fingers into the yielding flesh of her buttocks to keep her from slipping out of his hands.

  When Ruthie felt the increasing pressure of his fingers, she asked, “Are you getting tired?”

  “Not a bit. Like I told you, take your time.”

  “I’m never fast anymore,” she said, beginning to work her body back and forth between periods of sidewise gyration. “I guess it’s because I’m always thinking about getting my customers off as fast as I can, before I really start feeling anything. Oh, Longarm, you don’t know how wonderful this is for me! I’m starting to feel like a woman ought to feel.”

  “Go on and enjoy yourself all you want to,” he told her. “I’m feeling pretty good right now, myself.”

  “You’re not about to come, are you? Because I’m not ready yet.”

  “I’m good for a long time yet. You just wiggle along however way makes you feel best. I’ll hold out, don’t worry.”

  “Can you hold me under my arms for a while? Sort of let me swing free?”

  “Sure. Whatever you like.” He shifted his hands to her armpits, and she stretched her arms, letting her body lean away from him, but still keeping her legs around his waist. He said, “Let go with your legs, if you want to. I can hold you as easy that way.”

  “God, but you’re strong!” Ruthie exclaimed as she released her legs from around Longarm’s waist and let them dangle. “And long and big, too. Most men couldn’t handle me this way,” she said between gasps of pleasure. “But you’re better than most men.”

  Longarm didn’t answer. Praise always embarrassed him. Ruthie’s body was hanging free now. She wriggled and writhed like a snake on a catcher’s hook, gyrating in midair, opening and closing her legs scissor-fashion as she swung, now back and forth, now from side to side. Longarm, his elbows braced on his hips, held her easily.

  He’d not yet begun to tire when Ruthie’s body began to tremble; he felt her ribs heaving in his hands, and her panting breath was warm on his shoulder, where her head rested. He felt rather than heard the throaty cries that she began to utter, and decided the time had come to help her. Still in full control of himself, Longarm began thrusting, timing his lunges to meet her swings toward him. Her cries grew louder and burst from her throat at shorter intervals. Her quivering increased, and her body’s gyrations took on a wilder tempo.

  Longarm felt himself building to a climax as Ruthie’s reactions showed that she was also reaching hers. He kept control, though, until at last she brought her legs up once again and clamped them around his body. As she pulled him to the deepest possible penetration, Longarm responded with short, hard, rapid thrusts while she clung to him and trembled in what seemed to be an unending, quivering release.

  With a throaty sigh, Ruthie relaxed completely. “Lay me down on the bed, please, Longarm,” she whispered. “I’ve never been so pleasured that I can remember!”

  Gently he put her on the bed. She lay sprawled and limp, her eyes closed. Longarm fumbled a fresh cheroot from his vest pocket and moved to the bureau, where he leaned over the lamp to puff the cigar into life at the mouth of the lamp chimney. Then he picked up the bottle of bonded rye from the floor by the bed, and sat down in the chair. He’d savored one long swallow and was tilting the bottle for another when he saw the girl watching him. He held out the bottle, but she shook her head.

  “I don’t need a drink now,” she told him. “You just gave me what I needed more than anything in the world.” She studied him as he sat in the chair, his legs extended in front of him, and sighed, “If all my customers had what you’ve got there, I might enjoy my work more than I do.”

  “No, I don’t think you would,” Longarm said. “There’re some girls who like the kind of work you’re doing, and there’re others who don’t.”

  “It’s the only kind of work I’m fit for,” she told him bitterly. “I can’t expect any decent man to marry me. Not now.”

  “Why not? Men have married saloon girls before. They’ll marry ’em again.”

  “And have a husband who’d throw up to you the kind of life you used to lead?” she countered. “No thanks, Longarm.”

  “There’s not any law I know about that makes a woman tell a man her whole life history before they’re married,” the lawman observed.

  She shook her head adamantly. “I won’t lie to any man I’d want to marry.”

  “Who said you had to? All you’ve got to do is not say anything.”

  “That’d be dishonest,” she replied in a shocked tone.

  “That’d be sensible,” he retorted.

  “But how would I find a man, way out here on the Kansas prairie?”

  “Damn it, Ruthie, you don’t have to stay here. Save your money and go someplace else. Get a job, let on you’re a widow or something. If you’re patient, you’ll meet a man after a while, somebody you’d want to marry.”

  “Oh, I’ve got enough money put away. And I’ve thought about doing that, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to do it.”

  “Well you think about it some more. I ain’t trying to tell you how to run your own life, but if I didn’t like any job I was doing, I’d get out of it.”

  She stretched luxuriously. “Maybe I will, at that. Right now, I don’t really care what’s going to happen. I haven’t felt so satisfied for a long time.”

  “Wish I could say that,” Longarm said. He realized how Ruthie might take his remark and added hurriedly, “I didn’t mean that about you and me, don’t get me wrong. I was talking about this case I’m on.”

  “Can you tell me about it, or is it something secret?”

  “Hell, there ain’t anything secret about it. I got sent down here from Denver to make sure there’s nothing crooked about the election.”

  Longarm’s statement didn’t seem to surprise the girl. She nodded and said, “I’ve heard a lot of talk about how the ranchers are going to gang up on the nesters. But I didn’t pay any special mind to it because I couldn’t vote even if I wanted to, which I don’t.”

  “You remember anything about what you’ve heard, besides that?” Longarm was immediately interested.

  “Well—” she frowned thoughtfully. “The sheriff’s Clem Hawkins’s man, in case you haven’t found that out yet. And the nesters have put up one of the foreigners to run against Grover. That’s what started everything, I guess.”

  “I’ve heard Clem Hawkins’s name before. Who in hell is he, anyhow?”

  “He’s about the biggest man in this part of the country,” Ruthie replied. “Has the biggest ranch, hires the most men, ships the most cattle. All the other ranchers do pretty much what he says. So does Sheriff Grover.”

  “Not much reason for me to ask you how Hawkins feels about farms and Glidden wire fences coming in, I’d say.”

  “Or nesters, either,” Ruthie added. She waited for a moment before she said, “I’ve heard some of Hawkins’s hands talking in the saloon. None of them’s ever come right out flat and said so, but I got the idea that Hawkins has told them to carry wire nippers in their saddlebags and snip every fence they run up against out on what he calls his range.”

  “Just how big is Hawkins’s spread?” Longarm asked.

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell you that, and I don’t suppose anybody else can. Maybe not even old Clem himself. He just lays claim to every acre of prairie that he’s sure doesn’t belong to one of the other ranchers.”

  “What kind of man is he?”

  “That’s another thing I don’t know, Longarm. I don’t think he ever comes to town. When he wants to see somebody, he sends one of his men to fetch him, and they go out to his ranch. I’ve been here two years now, and as far as I know, I’ve never seen him.”

  “Tell me about the foreigners, Ruthie. How do they get along with the people in town? I already know there’s no love lost between them and the ranchers.”

  “There’s not much to tell. They don’t come into the Cattleman’s. I guess it’s against their religion or something to drink. I’ve seen them on the street, when they come in for supplies. They don’t act like they’re out looking for trouble, if that’s what you mean.”