She insisted it wasn't the same. Men could be like that when you argued religion with them too. So he said soothingly "Let's just say I only meant the sun was mighty low in the west and talk of things that might have answers, such as how high could up go or how long might forever last."
She laughed and confessed she'd never figured those puzzles out either. They saw the general store had been shuttered against the gathering dusk as they sat down on the warm plank steps. But Longarm decided not to reach for a smoke in such a public place, with or without any Mormons in sight.
Tupombi locked her tawny fingers around her upraised although modestly skirted knees as she leaned back, saying, 'The sunset is beautiful, no matter who or what is painting the clouds so many colors, many. You were telling me why Fort Hall is not an army post. Is it still a trading post?"
He thought before he went on. "Well, there's a trading post to be found there, across from the Indian agency and such. Think of it more as a sprawl that busted out of its original stockade back in wagon train days before the war. Sited as it was, where the Oregon Trail met the Shake River, Fort Hall might have grown into as big a town as Fort Boise, another Hudson Bay trading post over to the west. But it never did, because it was handier to the strongholds of the Bsmnock-Shoshoni bands that worried travelers along the Oregon Trail whether they did anything worrisome or not."
Tupombi sighed and said, "We heard about the army killing all those men, women, and children near the big bend of the Bear River. It seemed very cruel to us."
Longarm stared off into the sunset as he quiedy replied, "Well, some of us took some Indian pranks sort of serious as well. I'd as soon argue religion as figure out who first did what, to whom, with what. Miss Tupombi. Can't we forget the self-seeking tales told by mean rascals on both sides and
agree most folk, red and white, act about as decent as others might let 'em?"
She said it was easier for him to say, adding, "You don't know the bad things, many bad things, some of your people have done."
He shook his head. "You're wrong. I still got this fool badge pinned to my vest and I've been toting it six or eight years now. I won't offend your Comanche ears with half the tales of blood and slaughter I could fill 'em with. So suffice it to say I've seen lots of bad things done to folks, red and white, by human monsters, or just plain folks, as red or white. Folks can sure act scary when they're scared of one another."
She agreed it might be friendlier to gossip about less bloodthirsty topics. He said he had no idea whether Dame Flora or her maid, the plainer but sort of shapely Jeannie, took care of the gruff but rather virile-looking Angus after dark. She said she'd walked in on Shoshoni Sam and Madame Marvella in the middle of a crime against nature. But he told her he didn't want to hear about it before she could say just what they'd been up to, or down on.
He was sorry he'd gotten her off the subject of the older couple as soon as she shifted her attention from their private lives to his own. Most gals he met seemed content to learn he wasn't married up or seriously spoken for. But Tupombi wanted to know how he satisfied his natural feelings if he didn't have any lady friends.
He told her a deputy on duty in the field just had to grin and bear it, unless he got lucky. So she naturally asked if he thought it really changed a man's luck if he dallied with ladies of color.
He laughed, sort of red-eared, and allowed he'd seldom heard a Comanche breed described as a lady of color. Which inspired her to blush even harder and protest she hadn't been suggesting any such thing.
Before he could ask what she had been suggesting with all this suggestive talk, they both heard the thunder of hooves
and rattle of wheel rims and tie rods to the south. So they turned as one to spy the Overland stage coming in, fast, through the gathering dusk.
The six-mule team hauled the swaying Concord coach past them at full gallop. Neither the driver nor shotgun man seemed to pay much attention to anything around them. As Longarm and Tupombi watched the rear boot of the coach fade north behind all that dust, Tupombi observed they'd come in as if Quanah Parker, in the flesh and wearing paint, was right behind them.
Longarm got to his feet and held out a hand to help her do the same as he replied, "Great minds run in the same channels. I was about to say supper could be almost ready by now, and either way, that coach just came up the trail that missing government team was supposed to be following."
As they legged it back to the Overland stop faster than they'd left it, Tupombi brightened and said, "Oh, I see. You want to ask the coach crew whether they passed your friends on the trail or not."
Longarm sighed and replied he'd just said that. He knew why she was talking so much and saying so little. He'd once caught himself being sort of windy in the company of a gal he really wanted, before he'd learned it was a dead giveaway and more likely to spoil a good chance than advance it. Women of experience, the best kind to experience, were inclined to shy at would-be lovers who came at them acting sort of silly. He'd learned to be wary of silly gals for the same practical reasons. The game was confusing enough when you played it with other sensible grown-ups.
Indians were not considered grown-ups, even when they seemed to be acting sensible, under current federal law. So a foolish white boy could get himself in a whole lot of trouble acting silly with silly little Comanche gals who might or might not be listed as government wards by the B.LA.
He didn't ask Tupombi if she was as they strode up the dusty street together. He knew some breeds were while others were not. Just as he knew the only thing that lied worse
than a man with a hard-on was a woman feeling "unfulfilled." That was what gals said they were when they were feeling homy, "unfulfilled."
The Concord with its mule team had naturally swung around to the back by the time Longarm and Tupombi joined the new arrivals in the main waiting room, along with Shoshoni Sam and the manager.
The manager said he'd just come from the kitchen and that supper would soon be ready, provided everyone there called scrambled eggs and fried venison a supper. So it was just as well the coach had come up the delta carrying plenty of mail and only four passengers, all male and two of them Mormons who meant to sup with kith or kin in town.
The jehu, a grizzled peg-leg who'd been driving the same route a good spell, warned the two Saints not to hurry, saying, "If we're running late we're running late. I don't meant to leave here till well after daybreak in the morrow, after hearing Mister Lo is off the reserve this fall again!"
He wasn't the only one there staring sort of pensively at the obvious Indian Longarm had come in with. So Longarm quietly told the jehu, "She's with me and other mild-mannered folks here. Before you tell us about wild Indians, might you know anything of a party of white government men headed this way from Ogden for way longer than it should have taken 'em to crawl on their hands and knees?"
The somewhat younger shotgun man volunteered, "That's who warned us about the Indians. We met up with 'em this very afternoon, forted up beside the trail where it fords Club Creek."
Longarm consulted his mental map, located the dumb place they'd picked, and decided, "Indians or no Indians, they could have made it in to town by now from that close!"
The jehu nodded and said, "We just did. Allowing for my swell driving, they could be coming in anytime now. Only they won't be. They 're scared. I mean, there must be over a dozen of the timid souls, with plenty of shooting irons and no women or children along. But they told us they mean to stay
put there for the night, the yellow-bellied greenhorns."
His shotgun man hesitated, then decided, "Fair is fair and their scouts J/V/tell 'em to stay put whilst they rode on ahead."