Longarm and the War Clouds by Tabor Evans Page B

reason I’m here . . .”
    She stuck one of the cheroots between her pretty teeth and struck a match on the top of the table. She lit the one cheroot, blowing smoke around her lovely head, and then lit a second one. When she had the second one going, she gave it to Longarm, letting smoke trickle out her fine, long nostrils.
    â€œThanks,” Longarm said. He felt the cool dampness of her saliva on the cigar end, and it vaguely aroused him further. “And now to the reason you’re here.”
    She retook her position on a corner of the desk, one leg dangling. Despite the black skirt she wore to her ankles, he could tell that her legs were fine and long. He had a brief, imagined glimpse of them wrapped around his back, and winced at the pleasant burn in his lower belly.
    She stared at him obliquely, and then the corners of her mouth rose slightly, as though she’d read his mind.
    â€œYes, to why I’m here.”
    She puffed the cigar. She did not choke on the pungent smoke but turned her head and blew it out at the door. “I’d like you to ride out and fetch my sister back, Longarm. I’m sure she must have had a change of heart by now. She is a mercurial girl. But I want you to promise me that you won’t force her to come if she doesn’t want to. If she really wants to stay with Black Twisted Pine, she should be able to. Lucy should be able to do anything she wishes.”
    Longarm leaned back in the tub.
    â€œHere,” Leslie said, extending the glass of brandy to him.
    He took the glass and threw back a third of it. He took one more sip. Then he gave the glass back to the young woman and took a drag off his cigar, blowing the smoke at the rain-splattered window.
    â€œYou have no doubt that your sister is in love with Black Twisted Pine?”
    â€œOh, I don’t really know what to think. Maybe Lucy doesn’t, either. She was always rather impetuous in matters of love. What I know, Longarm, is that her marriage is a bad one. The marriage was more or less arranged by our parents and Anson’s parents. My father has business interests back East, and he’s partners in several of those interests with Anson’s father. In fact, my grandfather and great-grandfather were in concert with the grandfathers of Anson.”
    â€œOld, rich families.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œHow would they feel about Lucy staying with Black Twisted Pine?”
    â€œHow do you think Lucy would feel about being hauled back here . . . to Anson . . . against her will? How do you think that she would feel if Anson does as he wishes and kills Black Twisted Pine? If Anson has his way, that’s exactly what he’ll do, you know.”
    Longarm rolled the cigar around between his teeth and sighed. He stared at the door, pensive. Lightning continued to flash in the windows but the thunder had become less loud. The brunt of the storm was passing.
    â€œThe major seems to have restrained himself so far,” Longarm said.
    â€œOnly because none of the scouts here at McHenry can lead him into the Shadow Montañas. None of these Apaches—they’re Lipans—have been there before. Their work has mostly been done in New Mexico. I’m told that one of the few scouts who can lead a patrol into those mountains is your friend, War Cloud, one of the few Coyotero trackers still around.”
    Longarm knew that was true. The Shadow Montañas were a sacred range, off-limits to all Apaches who hadn’t gone through a sacred rite. That rite itself had rarely been practiced in the last twenty years, as the Apaches have had other, more important things on their mind. Namely, scouring the White Eyes from their homeland.
    War Cloud was one of the few scouts—maybe the
only
scout still available to the U.S. Army—who could lead Longarm into that craggy, wild, mysterious range eighty miles south of the border. War Cloud had once fought the