It didn’t take a gal starting out with just a blouse and skirt too long to undress. He had to admire what she had to show a man as she stood there resigned, crying fit to bust.
Longarm spotted his borrowed saddle and possibles, including his Winchester, in the corner on the far side of the four-poster. He took off no more than his own hat as he quietly asked her in Spanish what her patrona had told her about him.
The chica licked her lips and replied in a trembling voice that all she knew was that it would be a great honor to spend the night with such a distinguished guest.
Longarm stayed on his side of the room as he quietly questioned her to find out if she usually obeyed her boss lady of her own free will, or whether a federal law covering peonage as well as chattel slavery might be getting all bent out of shape.
He worded his questions carefully. The mean thing about peonage was that, unlike outright slavery, it was tougher for even its own victims to define. There was a mighty fine line between slavery and peonage, or what they called “the patron system.” Many an Anglo boss asked his workers to do things they didn’t want to. Such power went with being the boss. But peonage went over the line by allowing the services, if not the flesh and blood, of a servant bound by debt to be bought and sold.
But as he questioned the naked and increasingly less frightened young gal, it developed that Miss Consuela had sent word back to her kitchen that whichever serving gal might volunteer to take care of El Brazo Largo would have the next two days off with pay.
Longarm chuckled as he imagined the scene in the kitchen, and asked why she’d volunteered if she was so scared.
She said she wasn’t scared of him. She was afraid her querido, a handsome young vaquero, would be jealous. She said it had seemed like a swell way to buy the extra time alone with her Pablo, before she had taken time to consider how Pablo might feel about it.
Longarm was thinking about jealous young vaqueros himself as he gently suggested, “I’ve had a very tiring day. Maybe it would be better if you just got dressed and we forgot all about this, eh?”
She brightened, but said, “The others will still tell Pablo that I gave myself to a gringo, no?”
He said, “Not if you go right to him from here. There’s no good reason to tell the whole rancho where you spent the night, is there?”
She scooped up her duds from the floor, gushing, “Oh, they were right about you being most simpatico for a gringo! You are certain you do not feel scorned? You shall not suffer later?”
He assured her they were parting friends. So she got dressed almost as fast as she’d stripped, and then hesitated before leaving, saying she might manage a quick one, lest he think she thought him repulsive.
But he sent her on her way to bed down with her heart’s desire and maybe save himself more trouble. Old Consuela, despite her obvious desire to please, had made it clear his kind wasn’t all that popular in these parts.
CHAPTER 8
Longarm felt a tad awkward at breakfast. It was ample, and served alfresco on the shady side of the main house while the morning air still tasted tangy. He was served alone at the table with the dusky lady of the house. He saw she’d changed into a black lace outfit that was likely cooler than her riding duds of the night before. Being richer than some of her own kith and kin, she ate a bit more Anglo, which is to say she ate better grub cooked more plainly. Longarm had noticed that all the really elaborate styles of cooking from Chinese to Hungarian had been invented by people who had to stretch the more expensive cuts, and spice tasteless filling up with fancy flavoring. That was likely why rich folks asked for rare steak and railroad workers fancied corned beef. You could eat a tender T-bone close to the way it came off the cow, but you needed to marinate cheaper and tougher chuck in tasty pickle liquor for a spell before you could bite into it.
Consuela Llamas fed him scrambled eggs and acorn-fed ham from her own swine herd, along with coffee strong enough to strip paint. He’d been worried about free-ranging hogs the night before, knowing how Mexican rancheros grazed more kinds of critters, from cows to poultry, than most Anglo stockmen.
Longarm knew why old Consuela was smiling like old Mona Lisa as she asked him if he’d had a comfortable night. He managed to meet her gaze with a poker face as he allowed he’d had no complaints. It was up to the ladies to say whether they’d been pure as the driven snow or had taken it all three ways more than once. He’d always thought that Casanova had been a fool, if not a liar, spelling out just when and where he’d played slap-and-tickle and the exact number of gals he’d played it with. For few believed a braggart to begin with. And the ones who’d bought your brag might hear of some other great lover who’d scored higher. So Longarm was sure his considerable rep as a horny Denver devil stemmed from the simple fact that nobody in town could say for certain who he might or might not have slept with in such a good-sized town.
Then Consuela calmly asked him what he’d found distasteful about poor Ynez.
He wrinkled his nose and replied that if Ynez had been the handle of that lady who’d led his way to bed, he’d found her tolerable to look at. “I haven’t asked who you found repulsive last night, or vice versa, because to tell the truth I’m more worried about that John Brown, the head butler they say Queen Victoria may be carrying on with. The picture’s a mite more amusing, no offense. Nice-looking folks all look about the same in bed together.”
She blushed a deeper shade of chestnut as she softly said she was sorry if she’d offended him. Then she chuckled and said she saw what he meant, that she’d laughed like hell the first time she’d pictured the fat Prince of Wales atop his skinny redheaded princess from Denmark.
Longarm didn’t say he’d heard Prince Edward had been going at it hot and heavy with Miss Lillie Langtry, that actress gal, because for one thing he wasn’t certain it was true, and for another he had to get on down the road. So he mentioned horseflesh instead and she said she was sorry about him having to bring that up.
They finished their coffee. He expected to follow her around to the corrals to look over her remuda, but she tinkled that same bell—it seemed to follow her about like a brass pup—and when yet another servant gal came out on the veranda, Consuela told her they wanted to see eight ponies which she reeled off by name. Then she gave Longarm permission to smoke and allowed she’d try one of his skinny cheroots herself.
A short spell later, four of her vaqueros herded what she called her eight best ponies around a corner through the wild mustard and green tumbleweed. Longarm had to take part of what she said on faith, but he decided any horseflesh she was holding back on had to be the queen bee’s knees. All eight ponies were cream to palomino Spanish barbs, that beauteous cross between Arab ponies from the Barbary Coast of North Africa and the bigger and steadier chargers old-time Spanish fighting men like those El Cid had favored. Consuela said her late husband had been a big man. Longarm believed her when he saw that not one of those ponies stood less than fifteen hands at the shoulder despite their flaring nostrils and intelligent spaniel eyes. Those bright hunting dogs, as their name still hinted, were another old Spanish notion. Spanish-speaking folks bred critters as cleverly as French-speaking folks pruned grape vines for wine.
Longarm allowed he’d settle for the two with the longer limbs, a palomino gelding and a more African-looking mare the color of that rich cream you get from a Guernsey milker. He said he was more intent on covering distance than cutting cows in chaparral, and she said she admired a man who knew just what he wanted.
She told her segundo, one of those riders he’d seen stringing wire while riding with Kinipai, to bridle both brutes, and asked Longarm which one he wanted to start out on. He said he fancied a ride on that white mare, and she told her boys to get cracking and bring the stock right back ready to go. So they did.