He blushed so girlishly and refused the offered smoke so primly that Longarm shot a thoughtful look at his thin white shirtfront. But although he'd met up with gals getting by in a man's world that way in the past, Hino-Usdi had no tits worth mentioning.
Lighting his own smoke, Longarm patched himself through to the main line, and after some argument with a Western Union section manager who didn't recognize his fist and required some bragging, Longarm got through to their Denver office and had them take down a long wire at day rates, collect, to be delivered to his home office.
He brought Billy Vail up to date on his situation so far, using as few words as possible but still spending many a nickel. Then he pointed out that Quanah Parker seemed to be off the reservation on other business, and that Homagy had tracked him this far after all, and asked his boss whether he was supposed to come on home or just have it out with the fool grudge-holder.
The Cherokee breed told him, admiringly, he hadn't been able to follow a quarter of those dots and dashes, even thinking dirty.
Longarm took a thoughtful drag on his cheroot and said, "It's sure to take them the better part of the next hour to get Marshal Vail's reply back to me. Whilst we wait, I may as well send some more, and whilst you're at it, could you dig out any files you have on those made-to-order uniforms you ordered for old Quanah?"
The kid said he could. So Longarm started sending shorter direct messages to other sub-agencies and other main agencies in the Osage, Choctaw, Creek, and Cherokee Nations.
By the time Rogers rejoined him with a file folder, Longarm was able to declare, "Fort Smith says a newspaper-reporting gal I know seems to be on a wild-goose chase. Quanah never went there to visit Parkers he ain't related to. They couldn't tell me just where the gal and old Fred Ryan spent the last few nights."
Rogers blushed like a gal again as he opened the file on the table by Longarm, saying all the business correspondence they'd handled for the busy Quanah Parker was somewhere among all those carbon onionskins.
Longarm was careful with his ashes as he leafed through the pile. The records showed the progressive chief had ordered, received, and paid cash for one gross of police uniforms, cut to the same pattern as those worn by the so-called Sioux Police. That jibed with what the sincerely sober Sergeant Tikano had told him.
Billy Vail had never sent him to look into the business dealings of Chief Quanah Parker himself. But seeing he had the files handy, and recalling what they said about that process of elimination, Longarm nosed around enough to see Quanah didn't have any of his uniformed police collecting fees or even recovery rewards from anyone.
Longarm made sure by asking the B.I.A. clerk what some of the obscure typing meant. Rogers said Quanah naturally reported tribal income to his own agent, Conway, who relayed it on up to Anadarko by way of the wire here in the liaison office. The breed added that the B.I.A. had felt little call to rein Quanah all that tight, seeing he had a rep among red and white folk for honest dealings and gave the B.I.A. a lot fewer problems than old sulks like Pawkigoopy or even Necomi.
Longarm saw by the wired bank statements how Quanah could afford new blue serge and brass buttons. Aside from leasing tribal grass to white neighbors, Quanah bought and sold riding stock on and off the reservation at a handsome profit. For being a product of both cultures, he knew which end of a pony the shit dropped out of. He'd already taught his Comanche wranglers to saddle-break stock to be mounted from the near side so cowhands could get more use out of them.
It got downright spooky when you got to the real-estate deals a man who could pass for Comanche or Texas Parker was capable of pulling off. For thanks to having been accepted by his late mother's kin all over North Texas, he was in a position to put on some pants and make a profit from any proven homestead he could get off some greenhorn cheap.
A mean thought crossed Longarm's mind when he came to that. But he'd have heard about any recent Comanche scares down the other side of the Red River. Meanwhile, two out of three homesteaders went bust with no help from anyone but the grasshoppers and fickle climate out this way. He noticed most of the part-time Indian's cropland deals had been just east of Longitude 100', where dry farming or dairy herds had more of a chance. He wondered who in thunder had ever taught a Comanche war chief you needed just over ten inches of rain before you dared to bust your sod. Poor Cynthia Ann Parker had only been nine when she'd had to learn more about weaving baskets and tanning hides than agriculture. One suspected that in spite of his long braids, old Quanah had to be another sneak who reads books when his pals weren't watching.
The papers he was reading inspired Longarm to send other questions to the outside world. When he contacted Anadarko again to see if they had anything on Colonel Howard's column yet, they wired back that the cav had stopped for a trail break at the dinky sub-agency at Elgin, meaning Howard was really taking his own good time and that he'd be lucky to make it up to Anadarko by sundown.
Then the main agency wired that they'd been getting other scattered reports, or complaints, after putting out their own wires about those mysterious riders.
Few had been hurt or seriously shaken down, but now that they all thought back, there had been some Indian Police chasing a bunch of Kiowa stock thieves, and as a matter of fact the Indian Police had been given food, fodder, and some travel expenses they said Quanah would repay, in his own good time, as they wandered the big reserve.
A more recent report from an Indian settlement along Beaver Creek, east of Fort Sill, said about a score of riders, dressed more like Saltu cowhands than either police or a warrior society, had skirted to the north a sunset back, despite the wind and rain they'd been riding through with night coming on.
Longarm grinned up at the Cherokee breed as he took the last of that down and said, "They're running for it. They knew the army had caught up with me and thought I knew more than I really do."
Hino-Usdi batted his lashes like an admiring schoolgal and asked what all that really meant.
Longarm replied, "From my very first words with that Sergeant Black Sheep they've been out to clean my plow, as if they suspected I suspected something the moment I laid eyes on them."
The Cherokee breed suggested, "What if that one who speaks such American English could be wanted by the law? Wouldn't he be afraid you might have recognized him? You did tell him you were a federal lawman, didn't you?"
Longarm nodded thoughtfully and said, "That only works partway. If we'd ever met before, I'd have really recognized him. That Ben Day process that allows you to print photographs on paper is too new for older wanted posters to enter the equation. And he'd know better than to front for the outfit if he was on any recent ones."
Rogers shrugged and said, "You did say they went right to war with you, didn't you?"
To which Longarm could only reply, "Damn it, kid, I just now said I didn't know why they were so scared of me. Suffice it to say, they were. They tried more than once to gun me out on the range. When that didn't work they just ran for it. Hold on. I want to wire some other Indian Police I know in Atoka."
As he started to, Rogers said, "That's way off this reserve."
Longarm said, "I know. Ed Vernon picks up his private liquor there. That's the best place for sneaks with Indian features, no offense, to board a railroad train. They'll expect me to wire Spanish Flats, but hardly another Indian agency by a handy railroad."
Rogers marveled, "It's no wonder they were afraid of you! They'll take ever so long to ride all those miles between here and Atoka, and your Choctaw friends will have plenty of time to set up an ambush!"
Longarm said, "Not if I don't wire them sometime today. I might as well get word to Fort Washita, halfways there, whilst I'm at it. Lord knows Colonel Howard wouldn't be able to head 'em off now, even if I could tell him which way they seemed to be headed!"