It wasn’t checking in with a woman he was worried about. He had enough cash to pay for separate rooms. But even in the dim light of a gas-lit town, Gloria’s Indian features drew stares, and some of them weren’t friendly. Billings was only a few miles from the old battleground of Little Big Horn and the local whites had long memories as well as buried kinfolk in the vicinity. As they entered the lobby of the Silver Dollar Hotel he murmured, “Should anyone ask, remember you’re a Spanish lady from Sonora.”
“I’ll do no such thing!” she murmured, adding, “I’m a Blackfoot and proud of it!”
“Maybe, but I’ve got to do the fighting, so I reckon you’d just best hush and let me do the talking, hear?” He strode over to the hotel desk and flashed his federal badge at the night clerk. “We need two rooms. I’ll take one with a bath.”
The clerk nodded impassively and shoved the registration book toward the deputy. “I can fix you up with adjoining rooms, bath between. This lady, uh, your missus?”
“Of course not. What would I want with two rooms if we were married up? Do I look like a sissy?”
The clerk laughed as Longarm registered for them both, signing Gloria in as “Miss Witherspoon.”
Unfortunately, the girl glanced over his shoulder to protest, “That’s not my name, damn it!”
A couple of sleepy-looking gents lounging among the potted ferns of the lobby sat up to stare with greater interest as Longarm sighed and said, “Now, Miss Gloria, let’s not make a fuss about it. You said your mama’s name was Witherspoon, and-“
“I am Gloria Two-Women. My mother abandoned me and I’ll not bear her name, even for a night.”
The clerk raised an eyebrow. Longarm quickly touched the side of his forehead and confided, “She’s a federal witness I’m taking up to Fort Benson. She’s a mite, uh, confused.”
“She says her name is ‘two women,’ Deputy.”
“There you go. I told you how it was. She’s only one woman at a time as anyone here can plainly see.”
One of the lobby loafers got slowly to his feet as he said, “I can plainly see she’s Indian, too! What are you, mister, a squaw man?”
“Paying for two rooms, friend, I don’t reckon it’s your concern. I am also a U.S. Deputy Marshal and you are stepping on the tail of my coat, so why don’t you go back yonder and warm your seat some more?”
“I rode with Terry in ‘76 and I don’t give two hoots and a holler who you work for, mister. You got no call to bring Indians in here!”
Longarm saw two others rising, now, and the desk clerk was muttering unfriendly things about the town marshal. He took Gloria’s elbow in his free left hand, nodded, and said, “We’ll be on our way, then, gents.” He half- dragged the girl outside, as behind them the lobby rang with jeering laughter. He started up the boardwalk with her, chewing his unlit cheroot, too steamed to say much.
She marveled, “You just let them run us out like we were trash!”
“Nope, it was your hankering to see a fight that got us run out. If you aim to sleep this night, you’d best stuff a sock in that pretty mouth of yours next place we try!”
“Why didn’t you stand up to them back there? I thought you were a man!”
“Was, last time I looked. I likely could have whupped the whole lobby, if it had made a lick of sense. But I was looking for a couple of rooms, not another Little Big Horn.”
“Oh, you know you could have backed them down!”
“Maybe, but then what? You like to sleep in hotels angry folks are throwing rocks at all night, Miss Gloria? Suppose I had bullied us a brace of rooms? Then suppose those browned-off vets had gone looking for some help? I’m supposed to be a peace officer, not the biggest boo in Billings. We’ll try a block up the street and maybe this time you’ll have more sense.”
“I can’t believe it: You were so brave when those men were annoying us on the train.”
“Yeah, I can see I made a mistake back there. You like to see white men humiliated, don’t you?”
“I just have to stand up for my rights, damn it.”
“What rights? They were going to give us two rooms and a bath, weren’t they? Where does it say in the Constitution you have a right to be a pain in the neck?”
“I’m not ashamed of being what I am.”
“Like hell you ain’t. Look, I know the sort of sassing you’ve had to take off white folks in your time. You want to put feathers in your hair and do something about it, it ain’t my never-mind, but let’s eat the apple a bite at a time, huh? Your daddy sent you to fetch a U.S. Deputy Marshal to bail him and his folks out of a fix. Suppose you let me get there peaceably before you start another uprising!”
“I don’t have to put up with insults, just because of my race.”
“Yes, you do. No matter what your race is, somebody don’t figure to like it. I was chased from hell to breakfast by Apache last summer, just for being white. When we get where we’re going, you’ll likely see me catching a few dark looks from your daddy’s folks, too. The thing is, there’s enough trouble in this world for all of us, even when we don’t go looking for it. I see a hotel sign up ahead. This time, damn it, I’ll thank you to be that Mexican lady I told you about!”
“They take a lot off your kind, too.”
“That’s true. If we were checking into a hotel in Texas I’d say you were a Blackfoot. Hereabouts, they ain’t mad at Mexicans.”
He escorted her into a smaller, shabbier hotel and this time there was no incident at the desk. There was no adjoining bathroom to their two small rooms upstairs, either, but Longarm didn’t comment. There were chamber pots under the beds and he supposed it might be a good lesson for the young woman.
