He snuggled her closer and asked how she felt about that so far. She chuckled and said, "Depraved. I'm supposed to be locked in my bath, weeping in shame because I let you touch me in such vulgar ways. But since you ask, I do find it odd that this rather drastic lady's club seems to be dominated or even partly dominated by a woman who has her own division of her county named after... whom? Her father or her husband?"
Longarm said, "I don't know. That's one of the things Billy Vail wants me to look into. As far as we know, none of the younger gals sent out of the territory to gun men down in cold blood in other parts of the country are married up. I for one would be mighty surprised to learn any man with hair on his chest would allow his woman to pin a badge on and go chasing after other men with any aim in mind."
Portia sniffed, allowed that was how come she preferred to remain a spinster, and pointed out by asking, "Then it's safe to assume none of the male officials of this remote rural community are too opposed to whatever that small clique of gun-slinging bloomer-girls may be up to?"
Longarm shook his head, put the smoke back to her lips, and told her, "Nobody in Wyoming Territory seems to give a hoot, male or shemale. Like I said before, crime is down, it's an election year, and no registered voter's ox has been gored. So what the hell."
She passed the cheroot back, lightly asking, "What the hell indeed? I can see why the Cheyenne District Court doesn't seem half as interested as your own nosy Billy. Speaking as a lawyer, and don't you dare think I want you to spend even one more night with me, you brute, I can tell you what you're going to find when you arrive up there in that tightly knit community. You're going to cast your questions in deep water and reel in bare hook after bare hook. If even Cheyenne had received one complaint from one concerned citizen of the town or county, male or female, Billy Vail wouldn't have to send you all that way on such a fool's errand, Custis!"
Longarm sighed and replied, "I told you it wasn't Billy Vail's grand notion. He's passed on orders from higher up. I don't doubt the federal lawmen out of Cheyenne reported just what they'd seen and heard, after they'd seen and heard nothing much. I've been places where nobody talked much to outsiders about the comings and goings of insiders. I've usually discovered that when anything really dirty was going on, I could get somebody to tell me about it, off the record."
Portia took the cheroot away from him and snuffed it out in a bed table ash tray as she pointed out, "What might you and your Denver District Court be able to do about it if you do uncover some sort of fiendish female plot against wanted criminals? People want killers killed, Custis. The double-jeopardy hanging of Jack McCall for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok was unconstitutional but just, as far as anyone ever cared!"
To which Longarm could only reply, "Jack McCall must have cared, and I'm sworn to uphold that constitution. I don't hold with lynch law or vigilante justice, Miss Portia. So I reckon I'd best get on up yonder and file a full report on just what's been going on, constitutional or otherwise. I'll come by to tell you which, as soon as I get back."
Portia forked a long bare leg across him to once more impale her lean but tender flesh on the boner she was gripping with such skill. But even as she took his latest inspiration up inside her to the roots, she sternly warned him, "Don't you dare come mooning around my office like a love-struck schoolboy! What do you want my neighbors to think of me? They're sure to gossip if the same man escorts me home more than once in the same month."
So he asked if she thought it might be safe for him to come around for more legal consultation after harvest time, and she allowed that sounded a tad soon but that she'd risk it, seeing he was able to touch bottom with every stroke whenever she got on top.
CHAPTER 4
There was much to be said for self-supporting women, but waking a man gentle wasn't one of them. So Longarm found himself out on a deserted Denver street in the cold gray light of dawn with no more than black coffee for breakfast.
He reflected wryly that some might consider that his own fault as he headed over toward the Union Station, walking funny. For Portia had given him his choice of hasty scrambled eggs or more of herself when she'd literally jerked him awake at cock's crow and told him she'd have to hang herself if any of her neighbors spied him leaving after daybreak.
It was way too early to catch any train, if he'd had his saddle and possibles with him. He went to catch some eggs over chili con carne at the all-night beanery next door. The pleasantly plump waitress filled his order and confided she'd be getting off for the day in just a few minutes. Women were like that. Longarm knew that had he been forced to lay over between trains with a raging hard-on a long way from home, she'd have had a boyfriend coming to pick her up after work.
He ordered a slice of mince pie with his third cup of coffee and left a dime on the counter by his empty plates to show her he didn't think she was too fat. Then he ankled across the Larimer Street bridge to his furnished digs on the less fashionable side of Cherry Creek.
Neither President Rutherford B. nor Miss Lemonade Lucy Hayes were going to know he was in violation of their prissy dress code for government employees whilst he was out in the field in high summer. So he changed into a faded but clean denim riding outfit to separate his well-broken-in cavalry boots from his coffee brown Stetson. He strapped his cross-draw rig around his more comfortable lean hips and filled the pockets of his lighter duds with the usual clutter he packed in the more capacious pockets of his tobacco tweed suit, including the double derringer clipped to one end of his gold-washed watch chain with a plain but accurate timepiece at the other. Having a concealed weapon handy could be as important as knowing for certain what time it might be.
Longarm got down his McClellan army saddle and draped it over the footrail of his seldom-slept-in bed to pack more possibles in the saddlebags. You could carry a heap on a McClellan. Poor old George McClellan had been a failure as a general but one hell of a saddle designer when he'd adapted an Austro-Hungarian cavalry saddle to be issued to the U.S. Army just in time for the War Betwixt the States. It rose higher fore and aft than the English flat saddle, and that open slot running the length of the seat was meant more to cool the horse's spine than to castrate a rider with carelessly loose pants. One of the general's slicker improvements had been studding his new army-issue saddle with brass fittings just right for threading cord or harness straps through. What amounted to a dotted line of such flattened brass loops ran along the leather rim ahead and behind the stirrup leathers. So Longarm always wound up with extra fittings despite all the shit a rider had to carry along when he wasn't certain where he'd be headed or how long it might take.
Seeing it was high summer, the bedroll lashed behind the cantle had been packed more waterproof than for warmth, with extra cans of grub forming the core of the roll. You seldom needed more than two canteens of water where he'd be riding this time. So he removed a pair. Weather could be tricky up around the North Platte any time of the year. So he added a sheepskin jacket and some woolly chaps to ride under his oilcloth slicker, hoping not to use any of the same but certain it would rain fire, salt, and snowballs if he wasn't ready for 'em.
He packed extra.44-40 rounds for both his six-gun and Winchester '73, chosen with matching loads in mind. He'd scouted for the army often enough to know what a pain in the ass it could be to fumble for a.45 short and wind up with a fist full of.45-70 rifle rounds, albeit, to be fair to the general staff, you sure could hit a man-sized target harder and way farther off with a swamping.45-70.