Once she had, he was reminded once more of old Sandy, back at the museum in Denver, while he showed the tawny and more muscular Tupombi how some Taibo went at it dog-style, atop a feather mattress.
She found the novel position exciting. He made up for the workout she'd given him before breakfast by closing his eyes to picture a bigger redhead's paler rump as he thrust in and out a spell, then opened his eyes to stare fondly down at the renewed novelty of such a friendly Comanche ass.
So what with one position and another, the morning passed all too quickly, and then it was time to mount something less frisky, in this case his hired paint, as they all rode out to the north under a blazing noonday sun, the poor dumb sons of bitches.
Chapter 11
It could have felt worse, a lot worse, at other times or places that far west of the Big Muddy. Even those parts of Idaho Territory defined as true desert were high desert, with the thin dry air all around sucking the sweat out of you suddenly enough to give you a sort of chill whenever a cloud passed between you and the purely white afternoon sun, and that was in high summer.
This late in the year old Tanapah couldn't really get his back into his shining, even on the dusty Snake River Plains out ahead. So things just felt shirtsleevey as they followed the trail over rolling, partly timbered, but mostly grassy range, as long they kept moving and let their duds flap some. A lot of the grass was cheat closer to town, where the range had been overgrazed by old Lukas and other gentile stockmen who raised scrubbier beef more casually than your average Saint. The few cows they encountered naturally scattered at the sight of that many riders headed their way. Longarm doubted cows really knew what happened to them after they'd been cut from the herd to be cut up into handier portions. But it hardly mattered to any critter with Hispano-Moorish ancestry. For the Mexican-Texican longhom had been bred to stay alive until its owner was damn well ready to slaughter it and running like hell from anything it didn't aim to eat or fuck was a good way for a cow to stay alive on open range.
After no more than three or four trail breaks they saw fewer cows and far more real grass, mostly buffalo, bunch, and grama, sun-dried to rib-sticking straw for grazing critters. Longarm had been told some buffalo had roamed this side of the Continental Divide in the Shining Times. There were old Indian tales of longhom buffalo, bigger, meaner, and dumber than the regular kind. Longarm hadn't seen any this far west since he'd first come West just after the war. For some reason the pronghoms the more western tribes liked to hunt instead seemed to prefer the sagebrush country ahead, on somewhat lower and flatter ground. He figured he'd know better which kind of hunting ground old Pocatello had for sale when he saw some of it. The best land for farming wasn't always the best kind for hunting, and vice versa. But it figured to be piss-poor land for anything if the Indians were willing to let it go so cheap. Pocatello wasn't exactly a poor dumb Arawak, watching Columbus wade ashore. So it might be interesting to know whether the Shoshoni thought they or Uncle Sam was taking it up the ass.
It happened both ways. The old boys who'd sold Manhattan Island for twenty-odd dollars' worth of perfectly good trade goods hadn't been the only Indians who'd sold land they didn't happen to own to the paleface and nobody would have ever invented the term "Indian giver" if at least some Indians hadn't wanted their swaps back after they'd used up the salt or drank all the liquor in the jug. Pocatello was supposed to know how to read his own copy of the Book of Mormon, and he'd been smart enough to demand solid silver. So what was really going on, and why was that smoke rising over to his left? Those cowhands had said they'd spotted smoke talk above the far higher ground to his right.
Longarm had been riding point with Tim McBride, a quarter mile out ahead of the others. When McBride saw the same smoke and commenced to rein in Longarm muttered, "I see it. Don't let on you do just yet."
McBride kept pace with Lx)ngarm and his hired mount— since the last watering it had been the roan—and said, "I don't savvy that smoke talk at all."
Longarm said, "Neither do I. We're not supposed to. It ain't a regular code, like Morse. Different series of puffs mean whatever the puffer and puffee agreed on earlier. But for openers I'd say someone over to our west is telling someone else to our east about where we are, how many we are, mayhaps even who we are."
The Indian agent snorted and said, "That part ain't what I don't savvy. What I don't savvy is why they seem to be scouting us from low ground and signaling our whereabouts to somebody else on high ground!"
Longarm nodded. "I follow your drift, and for once the B.I.A. seems to have hired a white man with brains, no offense. I doubt they could be signaling anyone who already has a better view of us from those hills to our east. How do you cotton to the notion of them signaling ahead, say to someone just as low-down, over the horizon to our north?"
McBride agreed that made more sense, and asked what they ought to do next. So Lx)ngarm suggested, "What if you was to just keep following this same beaten path, at the same pace, with no shift in the dust column keeping pace behind us, whilst I sort of eased my way out around that smoke talk to jump 'em from behind and have a little talk with 'em?"
McBride demanded, "How? I'm pretty sure they must be on that one lone swell rising a few dozen feet above the others all about."
When Lx)ngarm agreed he had the same location in mind McBride pointed out, 'They'll surely see you peeling away from the party and be long gone before you can get within miles of'em!"
Longarm said, "We're edready within miles of 'em. I make it no more than two miles out, unless they're on another swell entirely, in which case they can't see us at all, so what are we arguing about?"
McBride laughed dryly and said, "Well, you might be able to drop out as we're crossing the next draw, if it's deep enough. But they'll still spot you again the moment you ride close enough to matter."
Longarm said, "I know. That's why I mean to dismount in the first deep draw we come to, tether this pony smack by the trail, and sort of pussy-foot out and around. I wear these low-heel boots with a certain amount of pussy-footing in mind."
They heard faster hoofbeats overtaking them. As they glanced back they saw Senator Rumford and Shoshoni Sam coming fast with worried expressions. Longarm called back, "Don't point out any smoke talk to us, gents. We were just talking about 'em. Someone could be out to spook us. So don't act spooked cuid farther along, as the old song says, we'll know more about it."
As the two other riders joined them Longarm added he was glad they had, explaining, "Human eyes, like crow birds, only count as high as three for certain without actually counting. That's how come we say three or four. When we dip below the line of sight from yonder whatever, I'll drop out, you three will just ride on naturally, and they might not notice. It's an old crow-hunting trick. You've all no doubt hunted crows as kids by having four or five old boys go into some cover near a roost, having all but one come back out, and giving that one old boy the chance to blast the wise-ass birds when they decide it's safe to flutter down and roost some more?"
He wasn't too surprised to learn the crusty New Englander knew more about hunting crows than Shoshoni Sam. The four of them rode on another few furlongs. Then, where the trail swung down through an alder-choked draw, Longarm announced that had to be the place and reined in to haul out his Winchester and dismount while the others just kept going.
He tethered the roan to a handy alder, gave it an assuring pat, and said, "I know you'd like cotton wood leaves better, if these were only cottonwoods in leaf instead of bare-ass alders. But I reckon we all got to take