The O.D. said they'd take care of Longarm's riding stock, and ordered one of his enlisted men to show their guest to the hostel set up for such surprises. It was across the dusty parade, between the sutler's store and officers' mess. The enlisted clerk inside showed Longarm to a tidy spartan room, handed him the key, and said they were already serving supper. So Longarm tossed his saddlebags and rifle on the bed, dug out his razor and a cake of naptha soap, and then got to work at civilizing himself.
It wasn't true they had running water in every guest room, but they did have indoor plumbing, with separate facilities for ladies and gents, out in the hall. So Longarm treated himself to a warm tub bath and shaved his jaws cleaner than he'd been able to manage along the trail, even in mixed company. Then he put on a fresh shirt and that somewhat rumpled but far more prissy tweed suit, with a shoestring tie. He had to tell the desk clerk who he was when next he appeared in the lobby.
They had no hotel dining room because civilian guests were such rare events. The clerk explained tidy white civilians got to grub at the officers' mess next door, and that he'd best get cracking if he expected his mashed potatoes warm.
He thanked the enlisted man for the suggestion and got right over to the officers' mess. An orderly by the door took his name down, and said the meal would cost him eighteen cents.
Longarm paid without arguing. He knew that despite the way some raw recruits bitched about rank and privilege in the army of a fool republic, the officers paid for their finer food and fancier beer all out of their own pockets. So eighteen cents was a bargain for the fine steak, mashed spuds, chokecherry pie, and extra coffee he wound up with.
He asked an orderly how come he seemed to be eating alone at such an early hour. He was told everyone had headed up the line to the officers' club, another proposition entirely.
Every officer arriving on a post was assigned to a place in the officers' mess and had his meals docked from his pay. But their club amounted to a private lodge. There was a noncommissioned officers' club on most big posts as well. Nobody had to join up and pay dues at either, if he didn't give a shit about promotion in this man's army. Lower-ranking enlisted men and thrifty sergeants got to drink non-alcohol beer or soft cider at the sutler's store. Commissioned officers got hell or worse for hanging out there with their troopers.
Longarm glanced into the sutler's as he passed the saloon-like swinging doors. He spotted some visitors dressed cowboy or Indian at the tables inside. But none of the Rocking X riders had made it in from wherever they'd gone with those cows.
Longarm found the officers' club at the far end of the line, set on a corner angle to catch such summer breezes from the south as the fickle weather out this way allowed. As he mounted the steps to the wrap-around veranda he heard music. It sounded like a banjo, fiddle, and pennywhistle doing an Irish jig through Georgia. But when he got inside, the big dance floor was bare. The Irish-sounding trio in U.S. Army blue was jigging away in a far corner. Officers in dress blues and ladies in frilly summer dresses were seated at tables along the walls or clustered around the punch bowl and toy sandwich tray on a trestle table closer to the front. Longarm caught a couple of haughty looks as he handed his hat to a trooper by the door and approached the refreshment stand. Some of the gals looked surprised to see him too. But none of them managed to stare as snottily as your average second lieutenant. The army of a democratic republic made up for its low pay and slow promotions by allowing its officers to act like little tin gods, fooling with one another's goddesses as often as possible. Before any shavetail could ask him who he thought he was, Longarm spotted Godiva Weaver holding court at another table in the company of a saturnine civilian in a fringed white elkskin jacket, a florid gray-haired officer with the silver eagles of a bird colonel on his epaulets, and a once-pretty redhead who'd gone to fat and didn't seem too happy about the attention the younger beauty seemed to accept as her due. Godiva didn't greet Longarm as if he was the lover she'd begged to corn-hole her the other night. But she looked as if butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth as she introduced Longarm all around. The lean civilian was a liaison man from the main B.I.A. agency a day's ride to the north. His name was Fred Ryan. The colonel and his lady were the Howards of Ohio. Longarm was too polite to ask what had become of Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, who'd won the buffalo war, or Brigadier Ben Grierson, who'd accepted the Indians' surrender here at Fort Sill and had to feed them. Colonel Howard pointed to the one empty chair at the table and told Longarm to sit a spell, adding, "We're waiting for the cool shades of evening before we risk any polkas in wool pants. Miss Weaver here just told us about you nailing those Kiowa down near the Red River."
The B.I.A. man said, "I'm not surprised this is the first we've heard of it. Had they lifted your hair, they'd have never been able to keep from bragging about it, and we do have some few informants among both nations. I reckon the inspired leader who led them into such a dumb fix doesn't want to talk about his spirit dreams now." Longarm said, "I reckon not. I understand the Comanche beat that old medicine man with whips after Adobe Walls, and would have killed him if Quanah hadn't stopped them. The medicine man's vision had assured him that nobody in that big party of professional hunters could hit the broad side of a barn with a Big Fifty scope-sighted out to a mile. Might you know a Comanche police sergeant called Tuka Wa Pombi, by the way?"
Fred Ryan frowned thoughtfully and replied, "Can't say I do. The breed who keeps the roll for Quanah's new police force over at their sub-agency would be the one for you to talk to.
When Longarm asked where he might find Chief Quanah himself, he lost a bit of respect for those fancy fringes and Comanche beadwork, even though it was Godiva who gushed, "You were right about Chief Quanah touring the other agencies to see how the more established tribal governments work, Custis. Mister Ryan here thinks the best place to head him off would be Fort Smith, just the other side of the Cherokee Nation. He has a great-uncle holding court there."
Longarm cocked a brow at Ryan and demanded, "Quanah Parker has a great-uncle working at the Fort Smith federal courthouse?"
Ryan nodded confidently and asked, "Who did you think old Judge Isaac Parker was, his great-aunt? It's a well-known fact that after the Texas Rangers rescued Quanah's white mother from the Indians, her uncle, Isaac Parker of Texas, took her in despite her shame."
Longarm laughed incredulously and said, "I've seen that in print too. But it's a fine example of what we in the outlaw-hunting profession call leaping to conclusions from disconnected evidence. I can't say whether Cynthia Ann Parker had an uncle named Isaac or not. But Judge Isaac Parker of the Fort Smith federal court is only in his early forties as we speak, and comes from Missouri, not Texas. So it don't add up as soon as you put all the figures down."
He resisted the impulse to reach for a smoke in the already damp and stuffy surroundings as he added, "I ain't as certain as the Texas Rangers that they rescued anybody, speaking of leaping to conclusions. Would anyone here care for a glass of punch? I don't know about you all, but them cool shades of evening had better get cracking."
Both gals at the table agreed they could go for some refreshing. But when he rose to go fetch three glasses, the colonel's lady, the plump Elvira Howard as she was called, got up to come along, saying he'd have trouble managing three glasses and that she'd been looking for an excuse to stretch her poor limbs.