Longarm tasted his marble cake, found it sweet but stale, and took a sip of coffee to help him get it down before he asked, "Then you're saying Wyoming gals will get to vote for our next president as well as the J.P. of Keller's Crossing?"
She said, "Don't be silly. I just told you they only get to vote on local matters. That justice of the peace and the very governor of the territory have to be appointed from on high."
He asked how high for whom.
She thought and said, "Washington appoints territorial governors and, as you know, federal judges and the U.S. Marshals who back them up by enforcing their rulings. Local voters elect their township and county officials. But it's usually the county board of supervisors who appoint a justice of the peace to serve each township. Circuit or presiding judges are usually elected, but this rather puffed-up crossroads J.P. of yours is probably the wife or play-pretty of somebody on the county board."
Then she polished off her own cup to add, "Can I ask you a legal question now? Why on earth are they sending you of all people all the way to Wyoming Territory to look into such girlish behavior? Don't they have a federal court in Cheyenne and haven't they any U.S. marshal's office assigned to the same?"
Longarm nodded and said, "They do. Cheyenne was asked to look into them Wyoming wildwomen after the third killing, over Nebraska way. So Cheyenne said they would. Then they said they had. They said nobody's been able to see anything wrong with Keller's Crossing, a township on the North Platte surrounded by grass and cows, save for the girlish way the trail town's been run with most of the menfolk busier out on the open range with all them cows."
He took another sip and continued. "The county and town boards are about three-quarters shemale and one quarter gents with time in town to spare. Cheyenne says nobody in them parts has any complaints about their elected or appointed officials. Things have been running smooth, save for an unusual number of outlaws from other parts passing through what amounts to nothing much. Cheyenne says it ain't unusual to have outlaws passing through a river crossing near the junction of east-west and north-south trails with a short-line railroad spur."
He drained his cup and added, "The attorney general, among others, thinks Cheyenne's been sort of casual about that many transient outlaws passing through one prairie township with such fatal results. I wish I had a nickel for every crossroads magistrate who never went to law school. But eight dead-or-alive warrants, served so strict, does seem a mite thick. But she would have the power to arraign or order anybody arrested on any charge bound over to a higher court."
Portia poured more coffee, as if it was all right for him to stay a spell longer, as Longarm continued. "She'd be in trouble if ever she tried to preside over a murder trial. But old Billy says heaps of small town J.P.s and unpaid hardly qualified town drunks with mail-order badges arrest and start the wheels of justice moving on serious outlaws. So this here undersheriff who keeps deputizing young gals is within the law as well, barely. A citizen who packs no badge at all has the legal right to arrest any felon wanted for any crime, provided he ain't afraid of getting sued if he can't make it stick."
He smiled thinly and observed, "Hard to sue a girlish deputy when she's just blown your brains out. Hard to keep her from doing that to you when you're a man on the run, braced for a showdown with somebody coming at you dressed more manly." He sipped some of his fresh serving and observed, "Neither Billy nor anybody else in pants has thought to study on what's starting to bother me. The French say a lawman should start with a cherchez la femme. But I've notice that when femmes start acting peculiar it might be time to scout for some hommes. That's what the Frogs call sneaky men, hommes."
Portia allowed she knew all about sneaky men getting her own kind in trouble and got up from the table again as she added, "It seems a bit warm in here despite the jalosie slats in my window blinds. Why don't you hang up that stuffy frock coat and clumsy gun belt while I slip into something cooler."
He allowed he would as Portia left him alone in her kitchen for the moment. He hung his coat over his cross-draw rig, next to the brass hook that was already holding his telescoped Stetson. Then he got rid of the foolish shoestring tie they made him wear on duty in town. For it wasn't as if he was on duty in Portia Parkhurst's warm kitchen. Bless her hospitable hide.
Then he saw how hospitable old Portia's hide could be as she came back into her kitchen, naked as a jay with her silver-streaked hair let down in a vain attempt to shield her still-firm breasts from his admiring view.
He rose to the occasion, both ways, but wasn't sure what he was supposed to say on such a surprising occasion. So he just took her in his arms and kissed her, French, as she shoved him back until his rump was half seated on the table. He had to hold her with both hands to keep her from falling backward as she threw first one leg, then the other, atop the table to either side of him. So she reached down between them to unbutton his fly as a cup, saucer, and some silverware crashed to the floor behind him.
He decided he didn't mind if she didn't mind what they were doing to her own tableware. Then she'd hauled out his raging erection to guide it into place as they both wound up atop the table, doing lots of things a kitchen table was hardly intended for.
CHAPTER 3
They naturally wound up in her bedroom to do more natural things in her four-poster, with all his duds off as well. Longarm felt no call to remind her who'd started it that other time. Older women who preferred to live alone but loved to screw were inclined to recall the seduction, as they liked to call it, as the man's sneaky surprise.
So Longarm wasn't surprised, within the hour, to hear Portia sigh about her own lack of willpower as she sat astride him, bouncing as bare as a horse trader's lies, whilst he just took his beating like a man.
Not wanting to be rude, Longarm grinned up at her tossing mane and bobbing breasts to observe, "You're right. There's hardly a male who wouldn't seduce a snake if he could get somebody to hold it's head. You ladies would have to be born with our mean old peckers to understand our wicked ways with a maid. Having nothing betwixt your own legs but them shy and delicate ring-dang-dos must leave you all in the dark about such feelings, huh?"
She leaned forward to brush his mustache with her nipples as she bounced faster, growling, "Shut up! I'm coming and I'll never forgive you for getting me this hot, you brute!"
That made two of them, again. So Longarm rolled her over on her back and hooked an elbow under either of her knees to spread her open wider as she protested, "I was doing just fine, my way, and you know I like to be in control, damn you!"
He growled back as friendly, "I thought you wanted to shut up and just fuck. Your way was taking too long, and it says in the Good Book that I get to be the boss!"
That pissed her off. He'd known it would. He'd meant what he'd said about folk with different plumbing having a tough time following each other's drift. But he had noticed in his travels that independent women who loved to make love seldom made it to middle-age, unmarried, and downright bossy, unless they turned a deaf ear to the usual romantical mush most men used on great lays. A farmer's daughter or overworked waitress wanted to hear a man saying he'd take her away from whatever. But a gal who'd hung her own law shingle up to charge as much or more as any other top lawyer in town needed to be reassured no mere mortal man was after anything but her swell ass. He suspected he'd let himself in for that last tongue lashing by offering to come by her office that weekend to carry her over to the beer garden for some May wine. This time she knew he was leaving town, come morning. So she'd likely take it dog style, if he just rolled her over and got her into position without saying anything too sweet.