Longarm and the Missing Husband (9 page)

Longarm was not sure his dick would ever get over that shock and disappointment. Lordy, it had not been that long since he and a slender and lovely Spreading Dawn had snuggled up in her lodge. They had spent four nights together—or five, he could not remember for sure—and she was a wonderful fuck.

Surely it had not been
that
long.

The dumb cunt must have spent every day since that time stuffing her face. And now it looked like she had a kid, too. Not that Longarm had anything against children. Hell, he had been one himself once.

But . . . Spreading Dawn! Incredible.

That woman he'd first talked to must have been laughing, too, sending him to Spreading Dawn's lodge to ask for . . . Spreading Dawn.

But . . . Jesus. The woman was hog fat now. And ugly. He would not have believed it had he not seen it for himself.

Poor, poor Spreading Dawn.

He had pretended he looked her up to give her a present. Gave her a five-dollar gold half eagle and made like that was what he'd intended all along. He hoped she did not suspect different.

He thought rather wistfully about Bethlehem Bacon with her pert little tits and wonderfully rounded little ass. What he wouldn't have given to get into some of that!

Still, dammit, they had come here for a reason. It was about time, he thought, that he start paying attention to business and not dwelling on being so horny he was afraid he would honk.

“Washakie?” he asked at the next lodge he came to. “Where is Washakie?”

If there was anyone on the Shoshone reservation who could tell him about Hank Bacon and what had happened to the man, it should be the tribe's greatest chief.

“Where can I find Washakie?”

He had trouble finding anyone who could speak English so he went back to the administration building and asked Agent Payne for some help. Payne summoned one of the young soldiers who was standing guard duty outside the agency.

“Find Adams. Tell him I need him over here,” Payne ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

Longarm and Payne waited on the headquarters building porch until the soldier returned. Straggling behind him was a buckskin-clad man with long, gray hair and a beard that covered his chest and a good bit of his belly.

“Whadda ya want, Tommy?”

“Deputy Marshal Custis Long, Bull Mathers. Bull is a trapper who's lived with the Shoshone for years. Married to an Indian gal. He knows the language. Bull, the marshal here needs to speak with Washakie. Would you help him out?”

“All right, but it will cost you, Tommy. I get two nights of pinochle with you.”

To Longarm, Payne said, “That is the man's standard fee. He takes his pay in pinochle games. Loves to play. The pity is that he's such a terrible player.”

Mathers roared. And Payne laughed. “We play at least one night a week,” the agent said.

“He cheats,” Mathers claimed, smiling. “I don't know how he does it, but he cheats. You want to see the chief? Come with me.”

The trapper and squaw man Mathers led Longarm to a small, ordinary house set among the several buildings that made up the agency.

“This is where Washakie lives? Not in a teepee?”

“No, he wanted to live civilized. God knows why,” Mathers said. Then he chuckled. “You wouldn't know it by the way he has it furnished. He turned the house into a sort of wooden teepee. Rugs and blankets and Injun stuff hanging on the walls. There's no chairs in there, just wicker seat backs. If you're invited inside—you won't be, by the way—you sit on the floor and lean against one of those things. Has a pile of furs instead of a bed. Personally I prefer a house I can pack up and move whenever the dung gets too deep.” He laughed. “One way or another.”

A half-dozen brown curs greeted them outside Washakie's house. Their barking announced the presence of visitors.

A small woman with gray hair and deep wrinkles met them at the door. She and Mathers exchanged some comments, then the woman went inside and Mathers motioned for Longarm to follow him onto the porch.

There were four ordinary chairs set out there. Mathers put Longarm in the one at the far end. They waited for ten minutes or so, long enough that Longarm wished he had stopped at the sutler's and bought some cigars before coming over here. Finally Washakie emerged from the house.

He did not have to be introduced. It was clear from his presence that this was a leader. There was some indefinable something about him that set the great chief of the Shoshone apart. And above.

He sat at the other end of the line of chairs and folded his arms over his chest. He and Mathers exchanged pleasantries, then after several minutes, Longarm was allowed to pose his question.

Again there was a rather lengthy exchange between Washakie and Mathers.

Mathers turned to Longarm. “Yes, he knows of Hank Bacon. Bacon let him look through, um, he doesn't have a word for it, but he means the surveyor's transit. He does not know where Bacon is now.”

“Ask him if some of the young men could have robbed Bacon or killed him,” Longarm said.

Mathers and Washakie spoke for a time, then Mathers said, “The chief knows that young men do foolish things, but if any of the young ones had done such a thing, he would have heard of it. This did not happen. No.”

Longarm nodded. “At least I know that much now. Please thank the great chief and tell him the great white father in Washington is pleased with him.”

“Yeah, I'll tell him that for sure—never mind that the great white father in Washington never heard of Washakie or anybody else out here.” Mathers screwed up his mouth and spat. Longarm got a clear impression that the mountain man did not have a terribly high opinion of the folks back in Washington.

But then there were times when Longarm agreed with him about that.

Longarm thanked both Washakie and Bull Mathers and made his way back to the hotel, where Beth was napping.

“I . . . I should have knocked. I'm sorry.” Longarm felt his cheeks flush.

He had walked in on Beth while she was washing. She was naked, slim and beautiful and bare-assed.

She snatched up her towel as soon as the door opened but not before Longarm got a glimpse of what she kept hidden from him. He thought not for the first time that Hank Bacon was one lucky son of a bitch. And a stupid one to wander off away from Bethlehem.

If Longarm had a woman like that, she would be kept in bed twenty-three hours a day and her pussy would be permanently sore as a boil from fucking day and night.

“I'm really sorry,” he said. “I just, um, don't you want t' go have some lunch?”

“Wait for me outside,” she said, glaring at him, still holding the towel in front of her. Even so he could see the side of one tit, soft and pale and lovely.

He was fairly sure his hard-on was going to bust the buttons on his fly.

“Sorry,” he repeated yet again and beat a hasty retreat to the front porch.

Beth took her time about finishing her bath and dressing. When she finally did join him, she was wearing a new dress, a plain shift made of heavy linen. It was the sort of thing a warrior might buy for his squaw knowing she could decorate it to her liking with beads or shells or anything else that took her fancy.

Beth looked stunning in the simple garment. It fit her curves wonderfully well and got Longarm's dick to throbbing again.

“Can we set here an' relax for a few minutes?” he said. He did not particularly need any relaxation, but he definitely needed time for his dick to go soft again.

“Of course.” She perched on a chair next to his. The dress was shorter than what white women generally wore. Her calves were bare almost to the knee. That did nothing for the state of his erection.

“You've been shopping,” Longarm said, looking away from the tantalizing sight of Beth's legs.

“I bought a few things, yes.”

“So I see. Learn anything?”

“Not really. You?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I need t' buy some things, too, if we're going on from here. An' we need horses and a pack animal. We got t' outfit ourselves complete.”

“I have money,” she said.

“So does the United States government,” Longarm told her. “We'll let Uncle Sam pay this time.”

“Does that mean I can buy whatever I like?”

“No, but you can get a few things that you're needin'. I don't think Uncle will mind that overmuch.” He grinned. And thought about the cigars that the sutler surely would have in his store. Longarm was completely out of his cheroots. And they needed matches. Food. Everything.

He would have to sign a voucher for it all. The sutler would have to accept a government chit. His license to do business on the reservation depended on the goodwill of the Federal government, after all. You don't want to bite the hand that is feeding you.

“Ready?” he asked, rising.

“Whenever you are.”

Longarm held a hand out to help Beth up, but she ignored it. He gathered that she was still angry that he'd walked in on her like that.

“We had a run of trouble south o' here,” Longarm explained. “All our things was lost, so we need t' completely resupply, right down to an' including horseflesh. Two animals t' ride and another to pack.” He showed his badge. “I'll give you a voucher for it all.”

“All right,” the sutler, a man named Johnson, said. He called, “Pierre, help this man.”

Pierre was a half-breed, part French and part Ottawa. Longarm did not know how the man was with other languages, but his English was fine.

“What you need, mister?”

Longarm smiled. “Everything.”

Pierre grunted and laid out food, blankets, saddles, hackamores rather than bridles, cooking utensils, a water bag, ropes, tarps, and iron stakes.

“I don't s'pose you'd have a good rifle, too,” Longarm asked.

“Got trade muskets. No Sharps or Winchester, though. You want a musket? Sixty-two caliber. Muzzle loader.”

“No, thanks,” Longarm said. “What about a revolver? Cartridge only.”

Pierre looked at the Colt on Longarm's belt.

“Not for me. Something for her,” he said, pointing toward Beth, who was on the other side of the store looking at yard goods and sun bonnets.

“I got an Ivor Johnson thirty-eight. Breaktop. Very nice. Almost new. Be just right for the lady.”

“That sounds good. And cartridges. A couple boxes for the little gun, I would think, and a couple more forty-fives for me,” Longarm said.

Pierre nodded. “Boss says you want horses, too?”

“Two saddle horses and something to carry packs. Pack saddle, of course, and panniers. Those can be whatever you have. I'll want a good hatchet. And a folding saw, the best you have.”

“Where you going with all this?” Pierre asked.

“North,” Longarm said. “That's as close as I know. We'll be heading north from here.”

Pierre grunted and went about filling their order. When it was all put together, it made an impressive pile of merchandise.

“What do you need, Mrs. Bacon?” Johnson asked, obviously wanting to fill her needs himself rather than delegate that task to Pierre.

Beth bought another linen shift, a sunbonnet, and some soft cloths. Longarm supposed those would be for her time of the month although he did not ask.

When they were done, Longarm filled out a government voucher, dated and signed it. He handed it to Johnson. “There you go, mister. Paid in full.”

The sutler grunted and tucked the paper away in a cigar box along with a stack of other, similar forms he had already taken in from the agency and the soldiers at the nearby post.

Longarm spent the afternoon sorting out their collection of new gear and separating it into equally balanced packs for the lop-eared mule to carry.

One of the riding animals was a mule as well. Longarm had some experience with riding mules. And liked them. Unless Beth had some objection, he would take the mule to ride and let her have the fat little pinto gelding that Pierre had found for them.

When he was satisfied with the distribution of their gear, he went back to the hotel. This time he remembered to knock before he opened the hotel room door.

“Ready for supper?”

“Oh, I already ate. Sorry,” she said, obviously not sorry at all. “Were you planning on me?”

“No, just tryin' to make sure you got fed.”

“I already did that,” she said.

“All right then. I'll be back later sometime.”

Longarm bought a chunk of stringy boiled meat—it could have been any sort of meat although Johnson claimed it was bighorn sheep—and a baked yam at the sutler's and ate them by the corral, where their horse and mules were munching hay. He was not sure but the hay might have tasted better than his meal. Still it was filling, and that was enough for the moment.

Come sundown, he began to hanker for a shot or two—or three—of whiskey. Purely medicinal, of course. Over the years he had found that a little rye whiskey was good for the stomach and helped induce sleep. Right. Medicinal.

White River being an Indian reservation, though, there was no whiskey sold here. At least none that the sutler would admit to—Longarm asked—and none that he could find elsewhere around the agency headquarters.

Eventually he gave up and returned to the hotel. Carefully knocked before entering. Beth was already in bed.

Longarm stripped down to his balbriggans and washed at the basin then stretched out on the floor with his lonely blanket.

*   *   *

The girl was slim with pale, pert breasts and tiny, dark-hued nipples. She had a waist no bigger than a minute and hips that flared nicely below that waist.

Her pussy hair was dark and curly. Soft to the touch and lightly scented with powder or perfume.

Her skin tasted of wood smoke and rose water. And her lips were sweet.

She smiled at him and took those lips down, kissing and licking her way down his chest and his belly. Took his swollen cock into her mouth, deep and hot, pulling at him, taking him into her throat.

Longarm cried out and pressed his face against the softness of her belly while she continued to suck him.

*   *   *

“Marshal Long. Wake up.” Strong fingers prodded his shoulder, shaking him awake.

“Wake up, Marshal. You were talking in your sleep, and . . . I couldn't repeat the words you said. You were being quite lewd.”

Longarm blinked and looked up from the floor to Bethlehem Bacon on the bed above him.

“What?”

“You were saying terrible things in your sleep. I will thank you to refrain from language like that, if you please.”

Longarm scowled at the bitch and rolled over, turning his back to her. Dammit, he couldn't get laid even in his dreams while she was around.