He opened their drinks carefully, aiming the warm beer bottles at the aisle as he uncapped them. Then he handed her one and sat back to say, “I was born in West-by-God-Virginia and came West after the War. I fought at Shiloh …” Longarm’s voice trailed off.
“You were doing fine. What made you stop?” Gloria asked.
“Reckon both our tales get a mite hurtful, later on. We’re both full-grown, now, and some of the getting here might best be forgot.”
“You know about my mother deserting me once she was among her own people, then? How could you know that? How could anyone know so much from mere appearances? Is that orphanage written on my breast in scarlet letters, after all?”
“No. I never met your mama, but I know the world, and how it treats a white gal who’s ridden out of an Indian camp with a half-breed child. You ought to try to forgive her, Miss Gloria. She was likely not much older than you are right now, and her own kin likely pressured her some.”
“My mother had a white husband waiting for her. I wonder if she ever told him about me. Oh, well, they treated us all right at the foundling home and I did win a college scholarship on my own.” She sipped her beer and added in a bitter voice, “Not that it did much good, once I tried to make my way in the white man’s world. I was nearly nine when the soldiers recaptured us, so I remembered my father’s language and could identify with that side of my family. You were right about my reading about the new reservation and running back to the blanket, but how did you figure out my widow’s weeds?”
“Generally, when folks are wearing mourning, they mention someone who’s dead. On the other hand, one of the first things I noticed was that chip on your shoulder and your hankering to be treated with respect. I’ll allow some folks who should know better can talk ugly to any lady with your sort of features, but widow’s weeds and a wedding band gives a gal a certain edge in being treated like a lady.”
“It didn’t stop those two cowboys you put off the train.”
“They were drovers, not cowhands, ma’am. And neither had much sense. Most old boys think twice before they start up with a lady wearing a wedding band, widow’s weeds or no. They were likely drunker than most you’ve met. So ‘fess up, that’s the reason for the mournful getup, ain’t it?”
She laughed, spilling some of her beer, and answered, “You should run away with a circus! You’d make more as a mind reader than a lawman!” Then she sobered and added, “You’re wrong about the ring, though. I am married, sort of.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. She’d tell him in her own good time what she meant by “sort of” married. From the smoke signals he’d been reading in her eyes, she couldn’t be married all that much.
Chapter 2
They had to lay over in Billings for a grotesquely routed train that promised to take them close enough to the Blackfoot reservation. Gloria said they’d be able to hire a buckboard for the last few miles, and Longarm’s saddle, Winchester, and other possibles were riding with him to where he could commandeer a government mount from the army. The local train connecting up with the line north wasn’t leaving Billings before morning and they got in a little after nine-thirty. They spent an hour over steak and potatoes before Longarm had to deal with the delicate matter of hotel accommodations.
It wasn’t checking in with a woman he was worried about. He had enough cash to pay for separate rooms. But even in the dim light of a gas-lit town, Gloria’s Indian features drew stares, and some of them weren’t friendly. Billings was only a few miles from the old battleground of Little Big Horn and the local whites had long memories as well as buried kinfolk in the vicinity. As they entered the lobby of the Silver Dollar Hotel he murmured, “Should anyone ask, remember you’re a Spanish lady from Sonora.”
“I’ll do no such thing!” she murmured, adding, “I’m a Blackfoot and proud of it!”
“Maybe, but I’ve got to do the fighting, so I reckon you’d just best hush and let me do the talking, hear?” He strode over to the hotel desk and flashed his federal badge at the night clerk. “We need two rooms. I’ll take one with a bath.”
The clerk nodded impassively and shoved the registration book toward the deputy. “I can fix you up with adjoining rooms, bath between. This lady, uh, your missus?”
“Of course not. What would I want with two rooms if we were married up? Do I look like a sissy?”
The clerk laughed as Longarm registered for them both, signing Gloria in as “Miss Witherspoon.”
Unfortunately, the girl glanced over his shoulder to protest, “That’s not my name, damn it!”
A couple of sleepy-looking gents lounging among the potted ferns of the lobby sat up to stare with greater interest as Longarm sighed and said, “Now, Miss Gloria, let’s not make a fuss about it. You said your mama’s name was Witherspoon, and-“
“I am Gloria Two-Women. My mother abandoned me and I’ll not bear her name, even for a night.”
The clerk raised an eyebrow. Longarm quickly touched the side of his forehead and confided, “She’s a federal witness I’m taking up to Fort Benson. She’s a mite, uh, confused.”
“She says her name is ‘two women,’ Deputy.”
“There you go. I told you how it was. She’s only one woman at a time as anyone here can plainly see.”
One of the lobby loafers got slowly to his feet as he said, “I can plainly see she’s Indian, too! What are you, mister, a squaw man?”
“Paying for two rooms, friend, I don’t reckon it’s your concern. I am also a U.S. Deputy Marshal and you are stepping on the tail of my coat, so why don’t you go back yonder and warm your seat some more?”
“I rode with Terry in ‘76 and I don’t give two hoots and a holler who you work for, mister. You got no call to bring Indians in here!”
Longarm saw two others rising, now, and the desk clerk was muttering unfriendly things about the town marshal. He took Gloria’s elbow in his free left hand, nodded, and said, “We’ll be on our way, then, gents.” He half-dragged the girl outside, as behind them the lobby rang with jeering laughter. He started up the boardwalk with her, chewing his unlit cheroot, too steamed to say much.
She marveled, “You just let them run us out like we were trash!”
“Nope, it was your hankering to see a fight that got us run out. If you aim to sleep this night, you’d best stuff a sock in that pretty mouth of yours next place we try!”
“Why didn’t you stand up to them back there? I thought you were a man!”
“Was, last time I looked. I likely could have whupped the whole lobby, if it had made a lick of sense. But I was looking for a couple of rooms, not another Little Big Horn.”
“Oh, you know you could have backed them down!”
“Maybe, but then what? You like to sleep in hotels angry folks are throwing rocks at all night, Miss Gloria? Suppose I had bullied us a brace of rooms? Then suppose those browned-off vets had gone looking for some help? I’m supposed to be a peace officer, not the biggest boo in Billings. We’ll try a block up the street and maybe this time you’ll have more sense.”
“I can’t believe it: You were so brave when those men were annoying us on the train.”
“Yeah, I can see I made a mistake back there. You like to see white men humiliated, don’t you?”
“I just have to stand up for my rights, damn it.”
“What rights? They were going to give us two rooms and a bath, weren’t they? Where does it say in the Constitution you have a right to be a pain in the neck?”
“I’m not ashamed of being what I am.”
“Like hell you ain’t. Look, I know the sort of sassing you’ve had to take off white folks in your time. You want to put feathers in your hair and do something about it, it ain’t my never-mind, but let’s eat the apple a bite at a time, huh? Your daddy sent you to fetch a U.S. Deputy Marshal to bail him and his folks out of a fix. Suppose you let me get there peaceably before you start another uprising!”