Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{He laughed. Now that she was speaking he liked her all the more. She acted like a lady, but could talk blunt and honest too. “I think that’s within reason, Leah.” He touched his Stetson to her and turned his back. He could hear her scurry away into the brush to relieve herself.}

_{•There wasn’t anything to do but stare straight ahead, which happened to be in the direction of the mountain stream and the hillside opposite it. Leah took long enough peeing that Longarm got a very good look at that bit of empty country.}

_{A mildly odd little bit it was too, once he thought about}

_it.

_{There was the fact that a path led down there to begin with. Not that it was much of a path, and it sure hadn’t}

_{been used very often. Still, he could see where people had passed back and forth along it for no obvious purpose.}

_{Yet when he looked closer he could see that there were some flat stones laid in the creek bed. Creating a sort of ford there? He couldn’t be sure.}

_{And on the hillside opposite him there was a place that looked kind of like an avalanche chute, an area where it looked like rock had fallen, gouging the red earth bare like a footpath, except much, much too steep there for anything, even a goat, to walk. But much too narrow for it to be a winter avalanche zone. Those were always fairly broad and easily spotted from miles away. This was much smaller than that. And anyway, there wasn’t any rock scree nor fallen timbers at the base of the hillside to account for it being an avalanche site.}

_{Odd, Longarm thought.}

_{He might have suspected it was a path used by prospectors leaving the train at the end-of-track platform, except that it was so steep. Couldn’t be any sort of path, he concluded.}

_{What it came right down to, he finally determined, was that he had no idea what in hell could’ve caused it. Or why.}

_{He quit pondering it when he heard Leah’s footsteps approaching him from behind. She came up beside him and linked her arm into his.}

_{“I’m impressed, Longarm. You didn’t peek even once.” Her veil was thrown back, and this time he could get a good look at her. The sight had been worth waiting for. She was even prettier than he’d thought.}

_{“Reckon I’m a little too old t’ be satisfied with a glimpse o’ petticoat, Leah.”}

_{Her smile turned into a grin, and that into a laugh. “Oh, Longarm. You can’t know.”}

_{“Know what, Leah?”}