Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{It was past noon when the wagon reached the end of the railroad tracks where they could pick up the narrow-gauge line into Glory. It peeved Longarm that there was no provision made for box lunches for the passengers. He himself could get along fine without a meal, but the railroad should have been more considerate of the lady he was traveling beside. She shouldn’t be expected to travel all day without food.}

_{Traveling beside, he reflected, but certainly not traveling with. The lady hadn’t spoken again since that stop back along the way. But Longarm hadn’t exactly been able to forget about her. By the time they reached the transfer point at the track-end, she was sitting so that her leg was pressed tight against his. As he was by now uncomfortably aware. All that jostling contact had had him in a state of erection for much of the trip, damn it, and there was nothing he could do to relieve the problem.}

_{Even so, it was with mixed feelings on the subject that Longarm climbed down and helped the lady to the ground after first allowing the railroader and the drummers to leave.}

_{By then the driver was already transferring luggage to a crudely built platform near the timbered bumper that had been constructed to block the cars from rolling off the end of the track. Longarm stayed with the lady just in case the shit-for-brains railroad boss was waiting to catch her without a protector nearby.}

_{The railroader was glaring first at his pocket watch and then down the tracks in the direction of Glory. Apparently}

_{the train that was to meet them was late in arriving at this end. Longarm wouldn’t have wanted to be in the shoes of that engine crew when the boss got done with them tonight. The man didn’t look at all happy about being kept waiting there.}

_{“We made good time,” the wagon driver offered. ‘The train isn’t due for another fifteen, twenty minutes, sir.”}

_{The boss gave the driver a nasty look that shut the poor man up right quick. Apparently that train was due when the boss damned well wanted it, not when the crew previously had been told to be there, Longarm guessed. Nice guy.}