Longarm said, "No, I don't. You never said who told you Pryce & Doyle bought stolen beef on the hoof. Would you care to illuminate me on that?"
Baldwin hesitated and then said, "Well, lots of greasers are called... Chino. So I reckon it won't hurt to admit it was one of the boys I met here in Texas, the lying son of a never mind."
Longarm cocked a brow and demanded, "Chino, or might it have been Gordo? I've a good reason to ask."
But Baldwin insisted he'd heard Pryce & Doyle peddled stolen beef from another drifter called Chino, and he was right about that being a common enough Mex nickname. So Longarm turned to Norma and suggested they go see about some supper. But she insisted on hauling out some gauze and hunkering down by the prisoner again, observing that his lip should have stopped bleeding by this time if it meant to without any help. So Baldwin allowed, and Longarm agreed, she wasn't such a bad old gal after all.
She was curious as well, asking question after question as they supped together alone in the wardroom after she'd paid another call on young Gilbert and declared him weak but likely on his way to recovery.
As they supped on officer's fare, in this case steak and mashed potatoes with cabbage, Longarm answered her questions until he got tired of talking in circles. "Sure he did," Miss Norma. The man's dishonest by definition. Hardly anyone else knew I was on my way down here, even before that storm blew the telegraph lines down. The gunslicks I've nailed down as dead facts seem cut from the same outlaw cloth as Baldwin. There must have been more than two in his gang if they cut out enough stolen beef to matter. So that'd account for some leftover and even more cowardly sniping."
She poured some canned cream in her coffee, asking if he'd like some before she mentioned that Mexican angle again.
He said, "No, thanks. I like mine black, and I mean to question a Mex called Gordo before our boat leaves, when and if we can book our passage out. It works more than one way. A man running a shop next door to a meat packer might know better than most whether they were crooks or not. But why would anyone tell saddle tramps they could sell beef on the hoof there if he knew they couldn't?"
She suggested, "What if he wanted to see them arrested?"
Longarm replied, "I just said that. Only Gordo would know for certain, if he had anything at all to do with it. There's nothing I can do about that tonight. How are we coming with your mysterious plague in town, Miss Norma?"
She sighed and said, "I feel like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, running fast as I can to stay in one place. You were awfully sweet to put me to bed like that this morning, by the way. I felt ever so much better after just a few hours of rest and it's just as well. That naughty Ruby seems to have quit on us for reasons of her own, while that Mexican girl, Consuela, seems to be turning into a great little nurse. She's been a godsend with our Spanish-speaking victims, and we seem to be getting more of them now."
The mess attendant they'd sent to the brig with Baldwin's pork and beans came back to ask if they were ready for dessert. As soon as he went into the kitchen, Longarm said, "I've been studying on that fever going round. It reminds me of an ague they were having down Mexico way when I was tracking another owlhoot rider sort of unofficially. It was up on the central mesa in late fall. They were holding that festival they call the Day of the Dead as I recall. Nobody I was interested in at the time came down with anything. It was just something you heard folks talking about as they ran all over town acting spooky in skull masks, eating candy skulls and such. They seemed to feel it was unusual to have chills and fever going around at such a time and place."
She sipped her weaker coffee thoughtfully, then mused, "Late autumn in such high, dry country doesn't go too well with the usual outbreaks of ague or malaria. You're certain the victims suffered alternate bouts of high fever and night sweats, followed by aches, pains, shivering, and feelings of utter misery?"
He nodded. "That's about the size of it. Hold it, I think they called it something like malted fever. Like I said, I had other things on my mind at the time."
Norma frowned down at her empty plate. "Malta or Mediterranean fever won't work, I'm afraid. It's true the symptoms are much the same. But you were so right about it being confined to Old Mexico."
He asked, "Is there any law saying a sick Mex suffering this Malta ague couldn't jump the border some dark and windy night to spread it up our way like the pox?"
She sighed. "There is. We've yet to isolate the exact microbe causing Malta fever, but we know it's not transmitted from one human being to another. It's a livestock plague, like hoof-and-mouth. It's endemic to Latin America, like hoof-and-mouth, and so it can stay there the same way. You know no Mexican stock is allowed north of the border unless it's been inspected a lot. The repeated inspections make it hardly worth the effort of trying to compete with beef raised on this side of the border, Custis."
He tried some black coffee. It was good. He said, "I could tell you a tale of cows crossing borders along an outlaw route called the Laredo Loop. But let's stick to real puzzles. How could a human come down with a cow ague if humans can't pass it on to one another?"
She smiled across the table at him. "From cows, of course. We're not sure how cows, goats, hogs, and other cloven-hoofed creatures pass Malta fever back and forth. But they do, at least in Mexico and the Mediterranean basin it originated in. Infected stock doesn't seem to suffer quite as much from it, which doubtless keeps it spreading throughout Latin America from some unknown port of entry. Humans somehow catch it from infected stock, and either die or slowly recover from an intermittent fever a lot like the one we've been having up this way. But it can't be Malta fever, Custis!"
He asked, "Why can't it? Because you mean to stamp your pretty foot and say so three times?"
She smiled wearily. "I see you read Alice in Wonderland too. I'll have to read up on Malta fever. At least it's possible, if you can show me someone running infected stock all the way up from Old Mexico. Cows infected with Malta fever don't run so well, and we're at least a hundred miles from the nearest crossing, right?"
Longarm nodded. "About a week's drive, not counting at least some driving to the border from further south. How do you go about catching the fever from some infected cow, Miss Norma?"
She said nobody knew, then gasped, "My God. Clay Baldwin did come down with some fever, after he drove some purloined stock into Escondrijo, just before the town's fever broke out!"
Longarm said, "I noticed. But everybody keeps telling us Baldwin and his boys stole the stock from somewhere closer. How are you at cross-country riding, and can you tell when a critter instead of a human being is coming down with any sort of ague?"
She replied, "I guess I ride all right. I'm not sure how you can ask a cow how it feels. I might be able to diagnose a really sick one, though. What's the plan?"
He finished his coffee. "I got to arrange steamer passage out with the telegraph wires still dead. So I'd best ride back to town early, leaving Gilbert and Baldwin out here for the time being. So seeing I got to ride anyways, I figured I'd get an early start and get there a tad later, after swinging wide across the higher cow country just to the west. I want to ask about the brands that meat packer spotted on Baldwin's stolen herd. If you'd care to tag along, you might want to ask how many cows have been feeling poorly in the last few weeks or months."
She grinned like a kid who'd been invited along to swipe apples. "I have the pony and sidesaddle I hired in the stable beyond the brig. When do we start?"
He said, "Crack of dawn. Texas rancheros either shoot at you or insist on feeding you something when you come visiting after sunrise. Show up at this hour and they're more likely to just shoot."
She rose from the table, saying, "If we aim to ride out before breakfast, we'd better turn in early. The lift I got from that nap in town is already wearing off."
He got to his own feet and they went outside. He naturally had to escort a lady across the parade ground in the gathering dusk. So Norma just took his arm without comment, and he had no call to discuss his other plans for the evening with her.
He had to ask the O.D. or somebody where they wanted him to turn in. If push came to shove, he figured he could flop in that empty cot next to Gilbert's again. He wanted to talk some more to Gilbert as well as the officers still up in the wardroom. For while a fairly clear picture was starting to form, there were still some fuzzy details some damned body might have some answers to.
They got back to Norma's door at the end of the officers' quarters' veranda. He didn't expect her to invite him in, and he hadn't taken her to a paid-for supper and vaudeville show. So he figured he'd better not try to kiss her good night, no matter how tempting she was smelling in the balmy night air. So he was more than surprised when it was Norma who hauled him on inside and husked, "Don't strike a match. We don't need any lamplight, and I'd as soon not have anyone gossiping about us, Custis."
Before he could ask what there might be to gossip about she was on tiptoe against him, kissing him in a far from motherly way. So there was plenty to gossip about as soon as he'd swept her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed.
But as he lowered her Junoesque form to the bedspread Longarm felt it only fair to murmur, "You did hear me say I'm fixing to pay three passages south on the next coastal steamer, didn't you?"
She murmured back, "I did, and I'll be headed the other way as soon as they repair the telegraph and I can wire for a real medical team to fight that plague. Did you think I'd be this bold with any man if I thought we had time for the usual flowers, books, and candy?"
So seeing she seemed to share some of his own ideas on grabbing life's few brass rings while the merry-go-round was still going, he just helped her out of her white linens, shucked his own duds, and took her up on her fine offer.
She hissed in mingled anxiety and pleasure as he spread her big thighs and entered her tighter-than-usual but unusually hairy ring-dang-do. The nice thing about gals with big firm butts was that you didn't need to shove a pillow under them to ride just right in their love saddle. She seemed to think they fit together just right too. She commenced to move under him with a skill that belied her girlish remarks about never having met a man so big before. He felt no call to swear she was his first and only. So he just got an elbow under each of her plump knees and proceeded to pound her good as she moaned, "Oh, Jesus! Yes! But I'm not going to fall in love again! I'm not! I'm not! I'm just going to fuck like a rabbit till I can't fuck you anymore, you lovely fucking machine!"
But that wasn't what they were doing a half hour later, according to the orderly who reported in to Lieutenant Flynn, hit a brace, and barely managed not to grin as he said, "Begging the lieutenant's pardon, that civilian lawman you sent me to escort to his guest quarters doesn't seem to need any... of his own."
Flynn stared up from his desk thoughtfully and coldly replied, "Don't beat around the bush with me, Yeoman. Whose quarters did you find him in, if not the ones I just assigned him? There's only one woman on this post and... are you sure?"
The orderly said, "Ay, ay, sir. They couldn't see me as listened through her jalousie slats to make sure. I didn't know she had company, of course, before I heard them in passing as I was searching for that deputy as the lieutenant ordered."
Flynn smiled slightly, a rare sight in the yeoman's experience, and asked, "You're certain she hadn't just invited him in for, say, a nightcap, Yeoman?"
His informant said simply, "Begging the lieutenant's pardon, it sounded like she was sucking him off. Would the lieutenant like me to call out the guard now?"
Flynn shook his sandy head without hesitation and purred, "Belay that. They're both civilians, albeit both federal employees. So why don't we give them all the rope they want, and report them to their own superiors as soon as those damned wires are back up."
CHAPTER 12
So a good time was had by all, and Norma said it was a good thing she was riding sidesaddle as they rode out at the crack of dawn after hardly any sleep. She'd changed into a more practical riding habit of tan whipcord from her Saratoga trunk, although she said she hoped to have a fresh white uniform from the laundry in town on tap as soon as they got her back to her fever ward.
Longarm was right about the country rising drier on the far side of that inland trail he'd followed down from Corpus Christi. He was right about them being forced to have coffee and cake, at least, at the half-dozen spreads they managed to visit along the way. But all the stock they passed seemed fit enough in the bright morning light.
Then, just as Longarm was about convinced the lying Baldwin must have trailed sick stock up out of Old Mexico, they met two rancheros in a row who said they'd had their own branded stock returned to them by Constable Purvis after that surprisingly honest Mister Doyle had thrown down on that cow thief.
Longarm let it go the first time, but asked the second stockman with the same story why he'd been so surprised to hear Pryce & Doyle were honest meat packers.
He was told, "Oh, nobody never said they was outright crooks. But few of us like to do business with such hard bargainers. We ain't no ignorant greasers raising cows for hides and tallow. We read the market quotations in the newspapers the same as everyone else, and it's no secret the price of beef is up, way up, this year."