Longarm thought back and silently nodded as that meshed with what had once been a henna-rinsed barmaid who'd doubtless changed some in the past few summers. Since this one dismissed a lieutenant as a john, it was safe to assume her man was at least a captain.
That was all he needed, after being sent all this way to avoid a showdown with a coal miner over a wife he'd never trifled with. He told himself this was as far as he wanted to go with any fool captain's wife, but then they were coming and, try as one might, it was tough to keep from saying stupid things and making empty promises while you pounded the rolicking rump of the most beautiful gal in the universe against the rosy clouds of heaven with a host of angels singing dirty to the both of you. He realized he'd been humming in time with their humping when she began to croon in his ear, to the same frisky tune:
Oh, some folk'l say he is a knave, Some folk say he can't behave, He screwed a virgin to her grave, With that old organ-grinder!
Then she pleaded for him to screw her to death because she was coming some more, and so he did his best until, as all good things must, it ended for now in a great gasping shudder of painful pleasure and they just floated down from the stars like thistledown, too satisfied to say anything until, still soaking in her, he asked her if she smoked.
She murmured, "I dip snuff too. But I don't want you to strike a match, darling. I've been thinking about what you said about magic."
He kissed her soft throat and gently protested, "That's not fair. You tracked me down to commit premeditated fornication knowing all my secrets, and I don't know your name or even what you look like!"
She kissed him back and moved her hips languidly as she murmured, "Just think of me as your fairy godmother, you good little boy. I'm not sure I'm ready to tell you who I really used to be. I'm afraid you may have just turned me into somebody else."
He said he didn't follow her drift.
She hugged him tighter with her crossed legs and softly told him she wasn't certain what she meant either. Then, before he could ask or she could explain further, some other gal was screaming fit to bust and all hell seemed to be busting loose out in the hall!
Longarm rolled from between her bare legs to land on his bare feet between the bedstead and one window. As he peered out into a mess of swirling gloom his mysterious visitor hissed, "Come back here and don't get into it! It sounds as if they're fighting over some other army wife, and it's not as if anyone will be looking for this one, darling!"
But Longarm was already hauling on his pants as he told her, "I wouldn't bet any eating money on that. I'm a peace officer, and at least a dozen others are disturbing the peace considerably right outside that hardwood door!"
As if to prove his point, something at least as large and solid as a human head thunked against the far side of the door, followed by an anguished moan of, "Take it easy, for Gawd's sake! You know I can't hit back, you crazy old goat! And I haven't done a thing a lot of your other junior officers haven't done, damn it!"
Then the brawl rolled down the hall in a series of loud thuds as Longarm shucked into his shirt, pinned his badge to the front of it, and strapped on his six-gun, muttering, "Bolt the door after me and don't open up to another soul, hear?"
She started to protest as, somewhere in the night, a voice rang out, "Corporal of the Guard! Post Number Nine and all is not well by a long shot!"
Knowing the military police were surely on the way, the half-dressed federal deputy stepped out in the hall to spy other guests gaping at nothing much. The action had apparently spilled down the stairs while he was getting up.
He moved down the stairs in his bare feet, his.44-40 undrawn on his left hip as he eased in on all those loud voices ahead. A voice of authority had just assured one and all that it was in full charge. But a sardonic Irish brogue replied, "Faith, and begging the major's pardon, me darling, general orders say that after Guard Mount and until I've been relieved as Corporal of the Guard, I'm to be after taking orders from the Sergeant of the Guard, the Officer of the Day, and nobody else, with the possible exception of the Regimental C.O. I forgot to ask about that. But sure and since you can't be any of the officers just described, I'll be placing you under arrest, sir. By this time Longarm had moved down far enough to take in the sad scene. A muscular stark-naked man reclined on his rump in a far corner, covered with bruises and bleeding from the nose and mouth as a half-dressed fellow officer tried to help him with a damp kerchief. The obvious Corporal of the Guard and two other enlisted members of his interior guard had a little old gray-haired and fully dressed major against the lobby desk. He seemed twice as mad and three times as confused as a gamecock caught by one leg in a rat trap. When the Irish noncom spotted Longarm and his badge, he nodded and told him, "The O.D. told us you'd checked in here and ordered us to keep an eye on you. So who might you have slept with after that dance, and what's the story about you and that darling Quirt McQueen?"
Longarm laughed lightly and replied, "I can promise you that shotgun messenger never walked this child home from any dance. I take it these other gentlemen were fighting over somebody else just now?"
The corporal shrugged and said, "I ordered one of me boyos to sneak her out the back and escort her home for now. It will be up to the colonel to decide whether she and the major here still have a home on this post."
The elderly field-grade officer protested, "See here! I was the one who was wronged by that smooth-talking Casanova I had every right to shoot down like a dog!" Whirling on the younger man still bleeding in the corner, the outraged major half sobbed, "You know you deserve to die, don't you, Chalmers! My Meg and me had been married for nearly fifteen years, and you spoiled it all for a few moments of lust, you two-faced hound!" The battered lover looked up and snorted impatiently, "Aw, shove a sock in it, you old fool! Your precious Meg has been giving it away since the two of you hit this post, if not before, and I only did my duty by taking pity on an aging beauty who was begging for some!"
The poor old major tried to go for his jeering junior officer. But the others stopped him and Longarm, seeing his own services weren't needed, eased back up the stairs, muttering to himself about beauties of any age who got poor weak-willed men in trouble. Then he felt a whole lot worse about them as he saw that room clerk and a couple of the interior guardsmen had lit up the hall to fling open each and every damned door along the damned hall!
Pasting a self-assured smile across his own face, Longarm strode to join them, trying in vain to come up with a damned good story in a damned short time as, sure enough, the fool clerk was opening the door he'd told that fairy godmother to bolt on the inside!
But as he joined them, the clerk just nodded at him and explained, "The Corporal of the Guard said to check every room, Deputy Long."
Longarm gravely allowed that he understood. His fairy godmother, like all the others, had obviously slipped into her duds and down the back way with a skill born of some practice.
As he bade the enlisted men good night and shut the door after them, he couldn't help feeling a mite tense about his fairy godmother's married name.
For that damned unwritten law could be a bitch when a man knew who might be gunning for him. He was going to feel dumb as hell if he'd come all this way to avoid one jealous husband, only to be totally surprised by some outraged total stranger!
CHAPTER 11
After a breakfast of bacon and flapjacks with butter and sorghum molasses, Longarm went across to the stables to see about getting to that Comanche Agency. The livery ponies he'd hired in Spanish Flats had been ridden some since then. So he asked the remount sergeant to lend him a cavalry mount that could use the exercise. The sergeant showed him a big gray gelding they kept as a spare for their mounted band. Cavalry bandsmen always rode grays, and doubled in battle as litter bearers. Nobody had ever explained the part about gray mounts to Longarm's satisfaction.