Once he and the shop clerk had loaded all his purchases aboard the two horses, Longarm led them on up the street until, as he'd hoped, he spied a pawnshop.
He was coming out of it a few minutes later with an older but well-kept Winchester Yellowboy, the original model with its receiver cast brass instead of machined steel. Most Indians and some cowboys still favored the Yellowboy over newer models because its rust-proof receiver made up for its loading a tad slower in a setting where a gun might be tougher to strip, clean, and oil very often. The Yellowboy, like the Henry all Winchesters were based on, would shoot as fast as any other saddle gun when fast shooting was called for.
Longarm was lashing the antique weapon to his hired saddle by its stock-ring when a familiar figure in a tan travel duster and veiled hat paused on the nearby walk and declared in a self-possessed tone that she believed that she owed him an apology.
Longarm finished what he'd been doing, tipped his hat to the lady, and told her he was pleased to see she' been talking to Ranger Mason, but that no apology was called for. As he joined her in the shade on the walk, he decided that her hair was a dark shade of honey under that veil and her eyes were hazel. He said, "I can see how it must have looked to a lady on her own late at night, Miss Weaver."
She smiled under her veil and replied, "I see I wasn't the only one talking to Ranger Mason this morning. I really do feel foolish, and grateful, now that I know you really did save me from the pest back in Amarillo. Ranger Mason tells me you're on government business, bound for the Kiowa Comanche Reservation just to the north."
Longarm nodded, since it wasn't a secret mission, but explained, "I ain't sure you could say it was just to the north, ma'am. I know the reserve of which we speak starts officially at the Red River, a fairly easy ride from here. But whilst the Red River forms a south boundary to the lands set aside for all those Indian nations, the ones I'm out to visit will be way closer to Fort Sill, a good forty miles or a hard day in the saddle north of the river."
She said, "That's what everyone keeps telling me. I have to see old Chief Quanah of the Kiowa Comanche. Will you take me with you?"
Longarm laughed incredulously. It wouldn't have been polite to ask a reporter for a pesky paper why anyone with a lick of sense might want to. He just said, "Quanah ain't much older than me. Folks take him for older because he's sort of weatherbeaten and he started so young it seems he's been whooping it up for ages. He ain't the chief of the Kiowa or even all the Comanche. He led the Kwahadi or one division Of the Comanche Army during the Buffalo War. He seems to speak for more of them now because he's half white and speaks good English."
She said she'd heard as much, and had a lot of questions to ask the big chief. So he gently told her, "He might not be up at Fort Sill right now, Miss Weaver. I just read some B.I.A. dispatches. They say Quanah's on a sort of inspection trip of the older nations that were sort of civilized somewhat sooner. It reminds me of those trips Peter the Great took to other parts of Europe when he set out to civilize Russia."
She started to say something about wanting to talk to some other Indian chiefs in that case. He started to tell her it was out of the question for her to come along. But then she headed him off with: "I have to find out if there's any truth to those rumors of corruption in the newly organized tribal police. I haven't been able to get a line on whether the ring-leaders are white or red or whether there's nothing to it at all."
He said, "Well, seeing you're bound and determined, and seeing we both seem interested in the Indian Police, we'd best see about hiring some riding stock for you, Miss Weaver."
She said she already had her own horse and saddle awaiting her pleasure at her own hotel. So he told her to go fetch them while he went back to that general store for a few more trail supplies.
So she did, and they were riding north for the Red River of the South within the hour, which was between nine and ten A.M. Longarm was too polite to comment on her sitting her hired roan sidesaddle. Folks rode best the way they'd first been taught, and if she sat a mite forward, as Eastern folks were prone to, it wasn't as if he expected her to circle any stampedes between hither and yon. Lord willing and the creeks didn't rise, they'd make Fort Sill in a hard day's ride, and her livery nag would bear up better with her modest weight carried SO.
He saw she'd lashed her own bedding across her saddlebags. She doubtless hadn't been told it was best to wrap the blankets inside a waterproof canvas ground-cloth. Folks who insisted on calling the Western grasslands the Great American Desert seemed to think rain never happened out this way.
He had to ask if she knew how to use the Spencer repeater she'd slung from the off side of her girlish saddle. She said her father had let her practice on tin cans back East when she was little. He shrugged and refrained from pointing out a.51caliber Spencer was hardly meant for a kid's backyard plunking. He doubted they'd have any call to shoot at anything between here and the river, and once they were on the Kiowa Comanche hunting ground beyond, shooting was reserved for hunters of the Indian persuasion.
As they followed the dirt wagon trace north across overgrazed and unfenced range, even a gal from back East could see a considerable herd of beef had eased in from their right to avoid the town but make for the same river crossing up ahead. He didn't tell her how he figured the trail drive was only an hour or so ahead. She could read how suddenly cowshit dried as the sun rose high.
He found it more interesting that some outfit was still driving beef north this far east. As settlement spread westward, so the cattle trails kept shifting. All but the most westerly counties of Kansas had been closed to cattle drives by now, and most cows were following that new Ogallala Trail further west these days.
Godiva Weaver broke into his train of thought by asking him out of the blue if he could answer a question about cowboys that nobody else had been able to. He said he'd try.
She said, "I know everyone seems to feel you Westerners ride at least twice as good as the Queen's Household Guard, but it seems to me you all ride with your stirrups too long and seated too far back for your poor mount's comfort."
Longarm smiled thinly and said, "I hope you told the others you talked to you were a reporting gal. I've seen some riders act mean because someone asked them their right name."
He stared up the trail to see that there did seem a haze of dust on the northern horizon as he continued. "I've never ridden with Queen Victoria's outfit. I know professional jockeys get more speed out of a racehorse by leaning their weight forward on a flat straight course. For just like a human being carrying a pack on his back, a horse can run a tad easier with the weight across his shoulders."
She said that was what she'd meant.
He said, "There's more to riding a pony than tearing sudden and straight, Miss Weaver. To begin with, you want to stay in the saddle. That's way easier if you're balanced over the critter's center of gravity when it spins to the left or right, sometimes without your permission. Cowhands ain't the only ones who ride back a ways with a boot planted firm down either side. Cavalry troopers, polo players, and others inclined to ride more zigzaggy than some tend to sit their mounts in the same unfashionable way. It's true your mount would no doubt like to carry your weight further forward. But you see, a man who makes his living riding a horse ain't as likely to fret more about horses than his own neck."
She sniffed and said, "I've seen the way you all treat cattle out this way as well."