richer than some of her own kith and kin, she ate a bit more Anglo, which is to say she ate better grub cooked more plainly. Longarm had noticed that all the really elaborate styles of cooking from Chinese to Hungarian had been invented by people who had to stretch the more expensive cuts, and spice tasteless filling up with fancy flavoring. That was likely why rich folks asked for rare steak and railroad workers fancied corned beef. You could eat a tender T-bone close to the way it came off the cow, but you needed to marinate cheaper and tougher chuck in tasty pickle liquor for a spell before you could bite into it.
Consuela Llamas fed him scrambled eggs and acorn-fed ham from her own swine herd, along with coffee strong enough to strip paint. He’d been worried about free-ranging hogs the night before, knowing how Mexican rancheros grazed more kinds of critters, from cows to poultry, than most Anglo stockmen.
Longarm knew why old Consuela was smiling like old Mona Lisa as she asked him if he’d had a comfortable night. He managed to meet her gaze with a poker face as he allowed he’d had no complaints. It was up to the ladies to say whether they’d been pure as the driven snow or had taken it all three ways more than once. He’d always thought that Casanova had been a fool, if not a liar, spelling out just when and where he’d played slap-and-tickle and the exact number of gals he’d played it with. For few believed a braggart to begin with. And the ones who’d bought your brag might hear of some other great lover who’d scored higher. So Longarm was sure his considerable rep as a horny Denver devil stemmed from the simple fact that nobody in town could say for certain who he might or might not have slept with in such a good-sized town.
Then Consuela calmly asked him what he’d found distasteful about poor Ynez.
He wrinkled his nose and replied that if Ynez had been the handle of that lady who’d led his way to bed, he’d found her tolerable to look at. “I haven’t asked who you found repulsive last night, or vice versa, because to tell the truth I’m more worried about that John Brown, the head butler they say Queen Victoria may be carrying on with. The picture’s a mite more amusing, no offense. Nice-looking folks all look about the same in bed together.”
She blushed a deeper shade of chestnut as she softly said she was sorry if she’d offended him. Then she chuckled and said she saw what he meant, that she’d laughed like hell the first time she’d pictured the fat Prince of Wales atop his skinny redheaded princess from Denmark.
Longarm didn’t say he’d heard Prince Edward had been going at it hot and heavy with Miss Lillie Langtry, that actress gal, because for one thing he wasn’t certain it was true, and for another he had to get on down the road. So he mentioned horseflesh instead and she said she was sorry about him having to bring that up.
They finished their coffee. He expected to follow her around to the corrals to look over her remuda, but she tinkled that same bell—it seemed to follow her about like a brass pup—and when yet another servant gal came out on the veranda, Consuela told her they wanted to see eight ponies which she reeled off by name. Then she gave Longarm permission to smoke and allowed she’d try one of his skinny cheroots herself.
A short spell later, four of her vaqueros herded what she called her eight best ponies around a corner through the wild mustard and green tumbleweed. Longarm had to take part of what she said on faith, but he decided any horseflesh she was holding back on had to be the queen bee’s knees. All eight ponies were cream to palomino Spanish barbs, that beauteous cross between Arab ponies from the Barbary Coast of North Africa and the bigger and steadier chargers old-time Spanish fighting men like those El Cid had favored. Consuela said her late husband had been a big man. Longarm believed her when he saw that not one of those ponies stood less than fifteen hands at the shoulder despite their flaring nostrils and intelligent spaniel eyes. Those bright hunting dogs, as their name still hinted, were another old Spanish notion. Spanish-speaking folks bred critters as cleverly as French- speaking folks pruned grape vines for wine.
Longarm allowed he’d settle for the two with the longer limbs, a palomino gelding and a more African- looking mare the color of that rich cream you get from a Guernsey milker. He said he was more intent on covering distance than cutting cows in chaparral, and she said she admired a man who knew just what he wanted.
She told her segundo, one of those riders he’d seen stringing wire while riding with Kinipai, to bridle both brutes, and asked Longarm which one he wanted to start out on. He said he fancied a ride on that white mare, and she told her boys to get cracking and bring the stock right back ready to go. So they did.
He and Consuela had time to jaw just a bit about her troubles and his plans. He tried to stay on the topic of her pestiferous Anglo neighbors. Not because he really expected to do anything about them, but because he didn’t want to say just where he’d be headed next. It was bad enough she knew who he was. He’d told her he was on a secret job and sworn her to silence, but the less she knew the better.
When two of her riders led the stock he’d picked back again, all set up to go, he got an idea how well she meant to keep his secret. For when he brought up the delicate subject of money again, she protested that he was a guest, and added something about the value of being known for having supplied two caballos to El Brazo Largo.
It wouldn’t have been polite to cuss her, or useful to warn her again not to gossip about him. So he just mounted the cream, took the lead of the palomino with a nod of thanks, and rode out.
With the sun up and nobody likely to be laying for him in the high weeds, Longarm headed for the coach road cattycorner through the stirrup-deep wild mustard. The air was still crisp and the tang of tiny yellow blossoms seemed to make both ponies frisky. You saw so much mustard around Spanish-speaking stock because they liked to nibble mustard about as much as humans did, concentrating instead on consuming grass down to the root crowns.
Longarm intersected the main road near the river about three furlongs south of the ranch complex, and couldn’t have said just why he reined in and turned in the saddle for a last look-see. But when he did he saw at least a dozen riders loping up that same entry lane under a cloud of dust. Their hats and darker outfits said they were Anglo from better than half a mile away. It was none of his own beeswax who they were or what they might want with old Consuela. A lady raising stock on a spread as big as this one—for he was still on her land—would be expected to have all sorts of visitors, and it wasn’t as if she didn’t have any grown men back yonder to protect her.
“Goddamn it, Creamy,” he said to his mount. “I wasted a whole day getting Kinipai squared away, and Billy Vail never sent me all this way to fight with windmills like that asshole Don Quixote! I’m supposed to be down by that mysterious mesa right now. There’s no mystery about Mexican land grants. Heaps of Anglo stockmen resent ‘em, and it’s a matter for the local law to deal with!”
Then he saw those distant riders reining in but not getting down in front of old Consuela’s casa. Nobody seemed to be shooting at anyone yet. But Longarm sighed and said, “All right, just this once, but we really ought to watch this shit.”
It took a bit less time loping back than it had taken to trot off. But as he closed in on the tense scene he saw the argument had had time to build up some steam. Consuela and half a dozen of her ranch hands were on her front veranda afoot. None of the riders had dismounted, and one scrawny old cuss was waving a paper at the Indian gal as if he wanted her to take it.
