Longarm smiled. “Pretending such things sometimes gives a man an advantage. Speaking of which, you’ve got a pretty good head on your own shoulders. I can see you’ve been educated.”
“I graduated from Wellesley. Does that surprise you?”
“Why should it? You had to go to school someplace to talk so uppity. I know those big Eastern colleges give scholarships to bright reservation kids. It’d surprise me more if you’d said you’d learned to read from watching smoke signals.”
“You are unusual, for a white man. By now, most of your kind I’ve met would have demanded my whole history.”
“Likely. Most folks are more curious than polite.”
“You really don’t care one way or the other, do you?”
“I likely know as much about you as I need to.”
“You don’t know anything about me! Nobody knows anything about me!”
Longarm took a drag on his cheroot and said, “Let’s see, now. You’re wearing widow’s weeds, but you’re likely not a widow. You’re wearing a wedding band, but you ain’t married. You were born in an Indian camp, but you’ve been raised white and only lately come back to your daddy’s side of the family. You’ve got a big old chip on your pretty shoulder, too, but I ain’t about to knock it off, so why don’t you quit fencing about with me?”
Gloria Two-Women stared open-mouthed at him for a time before she blurted, “Somebody gave you a full report on me and you’ve been the one doing the fencing. Who was it, that damned agent’s wife?”
“Nobody’s told me one word about you since we met, save yourself. You knew I was a lawman. Don’t you reckon folks in my line are supposed to work things out for themselves, ma’am?”
Before she could answer, the candy butcher came through with his tray of sweets, fruits, sandwiches, and bottled beer. Longarm stopped the boy and asked the girl what she’d like, adding, “We won’t stop for a proper meal this side of Cheyenne, ma’am.”
Gloria ordered a ham on rye sandwich, a beer, and an orange for later and the deputy ordered the same, except for the fruit. When the candy butcher had left them to wait on another passenger, she insisted, “All right, how did you do that?”
“Do what? Size you up? I’m paid to size folks up, Miss Gloria. You said your mama was a white lady, and since you’re about twenty-odd, I could see she must have been taken captive during that Blackfoot rising near South Pass in the ‘fifties. When the army put ‘em down that time, most white captives were released, so I figured you likely went back East with your mama when you were, oh, about seven or eight. You may talk some Blackfoot and you’ve got Indian features, but you wear that dress like a white woman. You walk white, too. Those high-buttoned shoes don’t fret your toes like they would a lad’s who grew up in moccasins. You sure weren’t riding with the Blackfoot when they came out against Terry in ‘76, so I’d say you looked your daddy up after he and the others settled down civilized on the reservation just a while back. Here, I’ll open that beer for you with my jackknife. It’s got a bottle opener and all sorts of notions.”
He opened their drinks carefully, aiming the warm beer bottles at the aisle as he uncapped them. Then he handed her one and sat back to say, “I was born in West-by-God-Virginia and came West after the War. I fought at Shiloh …” Longarm’s voice trailed off.
“You were doing fine. What made you stop?” Gloria asked.
“Reckon both our tales get a mite hurtful, later on. We’re both full-grown, now, and some of the getting here might best be forgot.”
“You know about my mother deserting me once she was among her own people, then? How could you know that? How could anyone know so much from mere appearances? Is that orphanage written on my breast in scarlet letters, after all?”
“No. I never met your mama, but I know the world, and how it treats a white gal who’s ridden out of an Indian camp with a half-breed child. You ought to try to forgive her, Miss Gloria. She was likely not much older than you are right now, and her own kin likely pressured her some.”
“My mother had a white husband waiting for her. I wonder if she ever told him about me. Oh, well, they treated us all right at the foundling home and I did win a college scholarship on my own.” She sipped her beer and added in a bitter voice, “Not that it did much good, once I tried to make my way in the white man’s world. I was nearly nine when the soldiers recaptured us, so I remembered my father’s language and could identify with that side of my family. You were right about my reading about the new reservation and running back to the blanket, but how did you figure out my widow’s weeds?”
“Generally, when folks are wearing mourning, they mention someone who’s dead. On the other hand, one of the first things I noticed was that chip on your shoulder and your hankering to be treated with respect. I’ll allow some folks who should know better can talk ugly to any lady with your sort of features, but widow’s weeds and a wedding band gives a gal a certain edge in being treated like a lady.”
“It didn’t stop those two cowboys you put off the train.”
“They were drovers, not cowhands, ma’am. And neither had much sense. Most old boys think twice before they start up with a lady wearing a wedding band, widow’s weeds or no. They were likely drunker than most you’ve met. So ‘fess up, that’s the reason for the mournful getup, ain’t it?”
She laughed, spilling some of her beer, and answered, “You should run away with a circus! You’d make more as a mind reader than a lawman!” Then she sobered and added, “You’re wrong about the ring, though. I am married, sort of.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. She’d tell him in her own good time what she meant by “sort of” married. From the smoke signals he’d been reading in her eyes, she couldn’t be married all that much.
Chapter 2
They had to lay over in Billings for a grotesquely routed train that promised to take them close enough to the Blackfoot reservation. Gloria said they’d be able to hire a buckboard for the last few miles, and Longarm’s saddle, Winchester, and other possibles were riding with him to where he could commandeer a government mount from the army. The local train connecting up with the line north wasn’t leaving Billings before morning and they got in a little after nine-thirty. They spent an hour over steak and potatoes before Longarm had to deal with the delicate matter of hotel accommodations.
