Initially Fargo had intended to use his room. It was why he undid the latch, so she could sneak in through the window. But Jugs wanted to use hers.
No sooner had she closed the door and thrown the bolt than she pressed herself to him with a fierce hunger.
“I've been thinking about you all night,” Jugs said when they broke for breath.
“You're taking a chance,” Fargo reminded her. The last thing he wanted was to get her into trouble with the town's outrageous excuse for the law.
“I don't care. It's been too damn long. I want it. I
need
it.”
Fargo cupped her bottom and she squirmed in delight. “I won't tell if you don't.”
Jugs started to laugh, and caught herself. “We have to be quiet about it,” she said with a nervous glance at the door. “The walls aren't that thick and the couple who owns the place likes to snoop.”
“We could ride out of town,” Fargo suggested. “Find a grassy spot.” He didn't need a bed to do the deed.
Jugs shook her head. “Anyone who saw us leaving at this time of night might be suspicious and report us to the marshal. I'm pretty well known, thanks to all the men who come into the saloon. Their wives don't like me one bit.”
“Why in hell do you stay?”
“Like I told you before, the work is easy and I don't mind not having the other as much as I thought I would.” Jugs grinned and nipped his chin with her teeth. “Now and then, though, I just have to.”
“So you keep saying. But words are cheap.”
“Big man, I'll show you a lot more than words,” Jugs teased.
And with that, her mouth was on his. She inhaled his tongue as her fingers pried at his belt buckle with an urgency that wouldn't be denied.
She removed his hat and his bandanna, then pushed him toward the bed with one hand while working at her dress with the other.
“I will drain you dry,” Jugs breathlessly promised, flush with desire.
“I'll believe it when I feel it,” Fargo said.
Grinning, Jugs pushed him onto the bed, climbed on, and straddled him. She had undone a dozen of her buttons and commenced to peel out of her dress with an alacrity born of experience.
Fargo reached up to help and she playfully swatted his hand.
“Put them to better use,” Jugs scolded.
Fargo did. He hiked her chemise and pressed his palms to nipples as hard as tacks. She arched her back and gasped. He pinched and pulled, eliciting a moan.
As he went on kneading, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yesssss.”
Fargo believed her claim that she hadn't done it in a while. She wanted him, wanted him badly, and she wasted no time in sliding his buckskin shirt over his head and tossing it to the floor.
“All these muscles,” Jugs said in awe as she ran her fingers over his chest and the washboard knots that were his stomach. “I had no idea.”
“Like them, do you?”
“Love them,” Jugs said throatily, and to prove it, she bent and lavished hot, wet kisses from his shoulders to his hips.
Fargo grew hot all over. He got her dress off and added it to the growing pile. The chemise she slid off herself.
Finally Jugs was naked.
He drank in her charms: her full, round breasts, her flat belly, the triangle of her bush, and creamy thighs that went on forever.
“Like what you see?” she teased back.
“Love it.” Fargo mimicked her.
They caressed and stroked and kissed.
Fargo lost all sense of time, all sense of everything, save the heady sensual sensations she provoked. And Lordy, she was good at provoking them.
Experience, folks liked to say, was the best teacher. Judging by her performance, Jugs had more experience than most ten women. She knew just what to do to bring him to a fever pitch. Each time she brought him down again before he exploded. She was a master at prolonging their mutual pleasure.
Fargo didn't mind. He had all night. Or most of it.
Jugs stayed on top of him. She seemed to like that. It was her, not him, who fed his manhood into her velvet sheath. When he was all the way in, she became perfectly still for all of a minute, her full lips spread in a smile of utter contentment. “You feel so good, handsome. You have no idea.”
“Less talk and more fucking,” Fargo said.
Jugs laughed lightly, and got down to it. In rising excitement she pumped and pumped.
Fargo fondled her mounds and her thighs and wherever else he could reach while she licked and bit his neck and stuck the tip of her tongue in his ear.
Her gush preceded his. The bed shook but didn't thump and neither of them cried out. She did open her mouth as if she was going to scream, but the only sound she made was a tiny mew.
Then it was his turn.
Afterward, Jugs lay on his chest and played with his hair. “Give me a minute and I'll be raring to go again.”
“A whole minute?”
Jugs giggled and nuzzled his throat. “How many helpings am I allowed?”
“As many as you want.”
She wanted three. The last took the longest. They built to it slowly and when the flood was over she collapsed and closed her eyes and was out to the world.
Fargo was drowsy, himself. He eased her onto her side, stretched out, and drifted off. He hoped he wouldn't oversleep. His habit was to wake at the crack of dawn; today he wanted to be up earlier.
Fate smiled on him. A barking dog woke him a full hour before daybreak. He slipped out of bed and dressed without disturbing her.
The boardinghouse was quiet. So was the town. The dog had stopped yapping after an angry shout, presumably from its owner.
Fargo wondered if barking dogs were against the law, too.
Hardly anyone was out and about. A milk wagon clattered down the main street, the driver half dozing in the seat.
A block over, hooves thudded and faded.
Soon Fargo was where he wanted to be, a recessed doorway that gave him a good vantage of the barracks.
Not until a rosy blush touched the eastern sky did sounds come from the marshal's office. The back door opened and out shuffled Deputy Brock, scratching himself. He carried a set of keys. Yawning, he had to try twice to open the padlock on the barracks door. “Rise and shine, you miserable bastards,” he hollered. “You know the routine.” He closed the door but didn't lock it and went back into the marshal's office.
The barred windows lit with light. There was coughing, and voices, and someone sobbed.
About ten minutes went by and Deputy Brock reappeared. Deputy Gergan was with him, toting a rifle. They went into the barracks and after a lot of yelling and cussing, Gergan reappeared and moved to one side.
Their chains rattling and clanking, the prisoners filed out. The sixteen men first, the three women after. Their clothes needed washing. So, for that matter, did they.
Deputy Brock snarled for them to halt and they stood still as he went down the line, checking that their leg irons were secure. He leered at Carmody and she stared at him as if he were a disease.
The young woman with the freckles had her fists balled and looked ready to tear into him if he gave her cause.
Out of the office strode Marshal Luther Mako, trailed by Deputy Clyde.
“Morning,” the lawman said.
None of the convicts responded.
“We're splitting you up like we did yesterday,” Mako announced. “Some of you will work on the irrigation ditches, some of you on the planting.”
A man muttered something.
“I didn't catch that, Thomas,” Marshal Mako said. “What did you say?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I won't ask you again.”
“I said,” the man angrily replied, “another day in hell.”
“Who's to blame for that? You're the one who was caught stealing.”
“We both know the truth,” Thomas said bitterly.
“Which is?”
“No, you don't,” Thomas said. “I'm not saying anything that will add to my sentence.”
“You shouldn't say anything at all,” the lawman said. “What's the rule?”
“No,” Thomas said. “Don't.”
“What's the rule?” Mako asked again.
“We're not,” Thomas said, and gulped, “we're not to speak unless spoken to.”
“Yet you did.”
“Please, no.”
“Add another week,” Marshal Mako said. “I'll have to clear it with the mayor, but I reckon he'll agree.”
Thomas tried to move toward him and was stopped by the chain. “Damn you to hell! How can you do this to people?”
“Two weeks,” Mako said.
“Bastard,” Thomas cried, shaking a fist. “I've had itâdo you hear me?”
“Tom, don't!” Carmody Wells yelled.
Deputy Brock started forward but stopped when Marshal Mako gestured.
“Let him speak his piece.”
“You're damn right I will!” Thomas said, his voice cracking. “You're crooked, the whole bunch of you. You trump up charges. You run sham trials.”
“You were caught red-handed,” the lawman said.
“I never laid eyes on that money before your deputy pulled it from my saddlebags,” Thomas said, glaring at Deputy Clyde.
“So you say,” Marshal Mako said.
“You're scum. Vermin through and through.” Thomas laughed a near-hysterical laugh. “Do you know the only difference between you and a cockroach?” He didn't wait for an answer. “Cockroaches don't wear tin stars.”
Marshal Mako smiled slowly. He slowly walked over to Thomas, and nodded slowly. “You're right. Two weeks wouldn't be fair. But a broken nose would.”
“What?”
The lawman's hand blurred. The heavy
thwack
of the revolver barrel brought a spurt of scarlet.
Thomas shrieked and folded, his hands over his face.
Mako wasn't finished. His revolver rose once, twice, three times. Then he calmly wiped his revolver on Thomas's shirt. “Take him back inside. He's to spend the day chained in his bunk. No food, no water. You hear me?”
Fargo had seen enough. He got out of there. If he'd had any doubts before, he had none now.
He was about to stick his head in a bear's mouth and hoped to hell it didn't get bit off.
Fargo slept until noon. He would have slept longer, but some kids playing and shouting woke him and he couldn't get back to sleep. Reluctantly he got out of bed. He filled the china washbasin with water from a pitcher and washed up. He dressed and opened his door and stopped short. “Miss Emily?”
The old woman stood there with her hands on her thin hips and accusation in her eyes. “You didn't come back last night.”
“So?” Fargo said.
“You paid for a room, but you didn't use it. I find that peculiar.” Miss Emily waited, and when Fargo didn't say anything, she went on. “I happen to know for a fact that you straggled in about six o'clock this morning.”
“Sounds about right,” Fargo said.
“Where were you?”
Controlling his temper, Fargo replied, “I don't see where that's any of your business, ma'am.”
“A person pays for a room, usually he uses it.”
“Usually,” Fargo said.
Miss Emily jabbed a finger at him. “I think you were up to no good. And we don't abide shenanigans in Fairplay. Not at all.”
“It's some town.”
“You don't like us. I can tell. But that's all right. I don't like you much, either.” Miss Emily shot him a glance of disapproval and walked off.
Great way to start the day, Fargo reflected, and ambled outside. The glare of the summer sun caused him to pull his hat brim low.
His stomach growled, so he made his way to the Tumbleweed for his breakfast. “A bottle of Monongahela,” he told the bartender.
At that hour few of the tables were taken. He was pouring his first glass when in came Deputy Clyde, who did a strange thing.
Clyde saw him, stopped dead in his tracks, smiled slyly, and wheeled and walked back out.
“What the hell?” Fargo said. He tossed off the drink and gave a slight shake as the whiskey took effect.
Miss Emily was right. He didn't like Fairplay. In all his travels, there had been few towns he liked less. It was a nest of vipers, and the hell of it was, the vipers ran things.
Rather than sit there, Fargo decided to check on the Ovaro. He took the bottle and pushed on the batwings.
“Watch it,” a sultry voice snapped. “You almost hit me in the face.”
Fargo peered over. “Well, now,” he said. “The day is looking up.”
“I beg your pardon?” Gwendolyn Stoddard said. She was dressed in finery that would have drawn stares in Kansas City or St. Louis, including a pink parasol.
Fargo stepped out. “The lady from the carriage,” he said.
Gwendolyn looked him up and down, and her face softened. “Mr. Fargo. I remember you from yesterday,” she said.
“I recollect those lips of yours.”
Gwendolyn gave a throaty laugh. “Aren't you the bold devil? Most men hereabouts are too afraid to even speak to me.”
“You bite their heads off?”
“My father might.”
“Fairplay's illustrious mayor,” Fargo said. “And most everything else.”
Gwendolyn twirled her parasol. “You'd better not let him hear you say that. He wouldn't like it even a little bit.”
“Ask me if I give a good damn.”
Gwen studied him. “Is it that you're braver than most or that you have no brains?”
“I'll let you decide.”
“You interest me, Mr. Fargo,” Gwendolyn said. “Walk with me a spell.” It was a command. She sashayed past, her perfume enough to entice a monk.
Fargo fell into step. “What do you want to talk about?”
“You,” Gwendolyn said. “My father thinks you're a troublemaker. He says he could see it in your eyes.”
“I'm as law-abiding as the next gent,” Fargo said.
“I hope so. Father asked the marshal to keep an eye on you.”
“Did he, now?” Fargo said. That explained the deputies following him around.
“You'd be wise to be on your best behavior.”
Fargo saw that people were quick to get out of her way and more than a few cast fearful glances. “I always am,” he lied.
Gwen did more twirling. “My father isn't to be trifled with. He likes to control those around him, and he can be mean when he's crossed.”
“You don't say.”
“I'm an adult, as anyone can plainly see,” Gwen continued as if she hadn't heard him. “Yet he treats me as if I'm still his little girl. I can't stand that.”
“Poor you.”
Gwendolyn stopped. “Are you being smart with me?”
“I saw your house, your carriage,” Fargo said. “You have it better than most.”
“I can't help it my father has money. Not that he cares that he does.”
“A rich man who doesn't care that he's rich?”
“Money is like everything else to my father. A means to an end.”
“What end?” Fargo was curious enough to ask.
“Power.” Gwendolyn said the word in the way a parson might say “God.” “My father craves it more than anything. The power to do as he pleases. The power to make others do as he pleases.”
“I'm surprised you'd admit it.”
“Why wouldn't I? We all have our abiding passions, you might call them. My father's is power.” Her eyes narrowed. “What's yours? I wonder.”
“I like to see what's over the next horizon,” Fargo confessed.
“Wanderlust?
That's
your passion?”
Fargo ran his gaze from her lustrous hair to the tips of her new shoes. “I have others.”
Gwendolyn coyly raised the parasol so only her twinkling eyes showed. “Aren't you the wolf in buckskins?”
“Would you like to hear me howl?”
She gave him the same lustful scrutiny he'd given her. “You tempt me. You truly do.”
“I have a room.”
Gwendolyn stopped and lowered the parasol, her mouth agape. “
Now?
Why, it's not even the middle of the afternoon.”
“That matters?”
“You bet it does. Someone might see us.”
“And you're worried word will get to your pa.”
“You're damn right I am,” Gwendolyn declared. “You don't know him like I do. He expects me to be a prim and proper lady. I dare show an interest in a man and he calls me a hussy.”
“What does he call you if you let one poke you?”
“You needn't be so blunt about it,” Gwendolyn said. “But to answer your question, he'd disown me and hang me out to dry.”
Fargo felt little sympathy. He had a feeling she pretty much got whatever she wanted. The signs were all there; she was as spoiled as they came.
They neared the general store just as two men strolled out.
Gwendolyn abruptly halted. “Oh God. Not them. Not now.”
Her father had on the best clothes a lot of money could buy. He was smiling, but his smile faded and was replaced by anger.
Marshal Mako had been listening to something the ruler of Fairplay's roost was saying. He didn't look happy to see Fargo and the girl together, either.
“What's this, daughter?” Horatio Stoddard said. “I leave you alone for half an hour and who do you take up with?”
“It's not what you think, Father,” Gwendolyn said archly. “We've barely passed the time of day.”
“What are you doing with my daughter?” the mayor demanded.
“She was telling me how much she adores you,” Fargo said.
“She what?”
Fargo nodded. “She wouldn't stop jabbering about how you're the kindest, nicest, most considerate hombre who ever lived.”
“Are you pulling my leg?”
“I'm pulling something,” Fargo said.
Marshal Mako shifted his pudgy hands close to his pistols. “You'll treat His Honor with respect.”
Fargo knew he shouldn't, but he said, “I would if I had any.”
Horatio Stoddard sniffed. “I don't think I like you very much, young man.”
“I'll try not to lose sleep over it.”
Gwen appeared shocked that anyone would dare talk to her father that way. “Please,” she said. “Don't be mean. He doesn't like it when people are mean.”
“Has he looked in a mirror lately?” Fargo said.
“
Enough
,” Marshal Mako barked.
To Fargo's surprise, Horatio Stoddard smiled and motioned. “That's all right, Luther. Let him have his fun. It's good to know where he stands on things.”
Fargo had said too much already. But just being near the man was enough to make him want to kick his teeth in. “How about if I go my way and you go yours?” He touched his hat brim to Gwen and headed across the street. Once on the other side, he looked back.
The mayor and the marshal were glaring.
Gwendolyn was twirling her parasol and distinctly unhappy.
“That was dumb,” Fargo said to himself. He continued on to the stable. He'd only intended to check on the Ovaro, but now he threw his saddle blanket and saddle on and rode out of town along the road he had entered by.
It wasn't long before he came on the men in stripes, digging another irrigation ditch.
The same wagon was parked at the side of the road, and the same stubby driver with a shotgun was perched on the seat.
Drawing rein, Fargo said, “Afternoon. Who might you be?”
“Go away,” the man said. To stress his point, he pointed the shotgun.
“Not very friendly, are you?”
“Not even a little bit.”
Fargo kept riding. At the turnoff to the ranch house, he saw more stripes; several men were planting in the mayor's garden.
He didn't see the women anywhere. Which was unfortunate. He'd like to let Carmody Wells know what he was up to.
After his little run-in with His Honor, he was more determined than ever to go through with it.
Even if it got him killed.