Longarm knew her reason. Everyone imagined sex was even better than it really felt when they could only feel it with their frantic paws. He went back to the file. One of those purloined treasury notes had been cashed in Durango just before Calvert Tyger had died in yet another rooming house fire, and that seemed sort of suspicious as soon as you read the same line over. It was easy to read the same line over, then over some more, with a naked lady jerking herself off in the same room with him.
Longarm sighed and said, "I wish you'd do that in the bedroom, Miss Elvira. This other case I'm reading about is serious."
She left her hand in place between her naked thighs as she told him she was serious too. But he went on reading, so she tried it another way, demurely observing, "I'll bet that lady you're meeting later has to be the bee's knees in bed. Is she pretty? Does she let you shove it up her ass for a change now and then?"
Longarm read on about how the three known ringleaders, Tyger, Flanders, and the mysterious Chief, had all deserted General Pope's column during that Santee rising back around '63. But that wasn't what Uncle Sam wanted them on. Sibley's Sixth Minnesota had already broken the back of Little Crow's ill-advised attempt to turn the clock back by the time Pope finished organizing his bigger force of limited-service Union vets and paroled Confederate prisoners. Some said Pope had mopped up after Sibley so thoroughly because of the piss-poor showing he'd made at Bull Run.
"Does she suck it hard for you when you get tired?" the material witness demanded as Longarm read on about the two Galvanized Yankees, or rebs released from Fort Sandusky to fight the Sioux, who had lit out in the company of an Indian scout and three officers' thoroughbreds in the summer of '64. They'd headed West with the war still raging in the East, then lost out on the general Postwar amnesty by stealing yet more army mounts and hitting both a post office and a federal payroll shipment between spates of more local rampaging.
"I'm wild and wanton and I'm not ashamed to say so!" yelled the buxom blonde as she threw herself naked on the rug near his feet, bracing her heels to either side of his own so she could thrust up and down at him with her raging crotch as Longarm mildly observed, "So were the three young rascals I'm trying to read about in this folder, till more recently least ways. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since we were all young and foolish enough to think them banners and bugle calls were really going to make this world a better place. It says here the ones we know best as Tyger and Flanders took to pulling better-planned jobs for a lot more money at a time, with the times spread ever wider apart."
She sobbed, "I can't spread my thighs any wider. You're either made of iron or they cut off your balls in that war you're so fond of bragging about!"
He sighed. "I never did much in the war worth bragging about. I feel sort of foolish now about some of the chances I took as a fool kid. I wonder if Tyger and Flanders were starting to wise up at the last. Nothing here to indicate whatever happened to Chief or lesser members of their gang."
She rolled over on her hands and knees to wiggle her bare and shapely rump at him. "Nobody takes it brown as good as me. If you're not man enough to stick your dick up my ass, I'd be proud to show you how I can puff on a smoke if you'd like to stick the end of that cheroot in me."
He chuckled and replied, "Lord love you, I pay more for these here cheroots than I can afford on my salary, Miss Elvira."
He had to look away as he softly added, "This afternoon I seem out to earn every penny Uncle Sam pays me!" For while her winking rosebud rectum was only interesting, the bawdy bitch had a downright pretty pussy, and she must have known how rare that was, judging by the way she was winking that at him as well, in alternate contractions of her obviously well-trained love muscles.
He lowered his eyes back to the file in his lap, but it was tough to make much sense as he sat there reading with a raging erection while Elvira begged him to let her take care of it for him.
Then somebody knocked on the door and the big blonde was running into the bedroom, snatching up her summer frock as she tore past the arm of that sofa. So Longarm rose to answer the knock on the hall door as she slammed the door behind him.
It turned out to be Smiley and Dutch from his own outfit. Deputy Smiley never smiled. Smiley was the family name of the otherwise morose breed.
Nobody could pronounce the High Dutch name that went with Smiley's shorter, more cheerful-looking, but deadly sidekick. So everyone called him Dutch, and he didn't seem upset about that. Longarm knew Marshal Vail always sent them out as a team to get the work of one well-balanced deputy out of them. Smiley was a good tracker who tended to walk into traps with his eyes on the trail, while Dutch, who could have doubtless shot his way out of the Alamo back in '36, seemed to need the guidance of an older and less ferocious pard to keep him from gunning the wrong folks.
Longarm allowed he was a mite surprised to see them so soon in his own tour of guard duty. Smiley said, "The boss has something else for you to do back at the Federal Building. He said you're not to stop off at the Parthenon on your way back."
Longarm said, "I won't. Did old Billy say what he wanted me for?"
Smiley shook his head. "Nope. He gets pissed when you question his orders. He just told us to take Over for you here and send you back to him on the double. Is there anything me and Dutch ought to know about this witness gal we're supposed to be riding herd on?"
Longarm started to say she was just a whore with unusually wild ways. Then he frowned thoughtfully and said, "I'll tell you better in a minute. After I present you to the lady."
It wasn't that easy. Longarm had to knock more than once before the big buxom blonde came out, fully dressed with her hair piled more primly atop her head, and demurely howdied Smiley and Dutch in turn. She sat back on that sofa and behaved as if butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth as Longarm explained the change in plans.
Then Longarm grabbed his hat and coat and signaled Smiley to step out in the hall with him as he was putting them on. He warned the hatchet-faced breed, "Something's up. She was just now offering me all three ways for free. Yet now she's gone all ladylike, or at least like a whore who ain't about to give nothing away just to be friendly."
Smiley shrugged and grumbled, "It's no secret you're more of a ladies' man than me, or even Dutch."
Longarm modestly but sensibly insisted, "I ain't that pretty. I just told you she's On record as a trail-town whore, and I repeat she was offering to take me on a heap for nothing. Meaning she had something in mind. You know why I don't expect her to make you two gents the same kind offer?"
"You don't have to rub it in," Smiley said.
"It ain't that the two of you are too ugly for a trail-town whore. It's because there's two of you!"
Smiley looked doubtful and remarked, "Oh, I dunno. They say Silver Heels used to take on a dozen or more men a night, and Silver Heels was more refined than your average whore."
Longarm nodded. "She ain't reluctant to take on the two of you because it would be undignified. She'd likely feel it would be a waste of frigid effort because there's no way to get the drop on two separate gunfighters screwing one gal in turn."
Smiley scowled and demanded, "Who in thunder do you suspect of having that sort of sneaky stunt in mind, pard?"
Longarm shrugged. "She never told me. But try her this way. Say she made that deal with the prosecution just to get her own sassy ass out of the sling. Say that now that she's had time to calm down and size up the situation, she's decided she'd as soon not bother with appearing in court against her pals. So say she and some other pals we never caught are planning for her to leave the prosecution one less witness?"