Every officer arriving on a post was assigned to a place in the officers' mess and had his meals docked from his pay. But their club amounted to a private lodge. There was a noncommissioned officers' club on most big posts as well. Nobody had to join up and pay dues at either, if he didn't give a shit about promotion in this man's army. Lower-ranking enlisted men and thrifty sergeants got to drink non-alcohol beer or soft cider at the sutler's store. Commissioned officers got hell or worse for hanging out there with their troopers.
Longarm glanced into the sutler's as he passed the saloon-like swinging doors. He spotted some visitors dressed cowboy or Indian at the tables inside. But none of the Rocking X riders had made it in from wherever they'd gone with those cows.
Longarm found the officers' club at the far end of the line, set on a corner angle to catch such summer breezes from the south as the fickle weather out this way allowed. As he mounted the steps to the wrap-around veranda he heard music. It sounded like a banjo, fiddle, and pennywhistle doing an Irish jig through Georgia. But when he got inside, the big dance floor was bare. The Irish-sounding trio in U.S. Army blue was jigging away in a far corner. Officers in dress blues and ladies in frilly summer dresses were seated at tables along the walls or clustered around the punch bowl and toy sandwich tray on a trestle table closer to the front. Longarm caught a couple of haughty looks as he handed his hat to a trooper by the door and approached the refreshment stand. Some of the gals looked surprised to see him too. But none of them managed to stare as snottily as your average second lieutenant. The army of a democratic republic made up for its low pay and slow promotions by allowing its officers to act like little tin gods, fooling with one another's goddesses as often as possible. Before any shavetail could ask him who he thought he was, Longarm spotted Godiva Weaver holding court at another table in the company of a saturnine civilian in a fringed white elkskin jacket, a florid gray-haired officer with the silver eagles of a bird colonel on his epaulets, and a once-pretty redhead who'd gone to fat and didn't seem too happy about the attention the younger beauty seemed to accept as her due. Godiva didn't greet Longarm as if he was the lover she'd begged to corn-hole her the other night. But she looked as if butter wouldn't have melted in her mouth as she introduced Longarm all around. The lean civilian was a liaison man from the main B.I.A. agency a day's ride to the north. His name was Fred Ryan. The colonel and his lady were the Howards of Ohio. Longarm was too polite to ask what had become of Colonel Ranald Mackenzie, who'd won the buffalo war, or Brigadier Ben Grierson, who'd accepted the Indians' surrender here at Fort Sill and had to feed them. Colonel Howard pointed to the one empty chair at the table and told Longarm to sit a spell, adding, 'We're waiting for the cool shades of evening before we risk any polkas in wool pants. Miss Weaver here just told us about you nailing those Kiowa down near the Red River.'
The B.I.A. man said, 'I'm not surprised this is the first we've heard of it. Had they lifted your hair, they'd have never been able to keep from bragging about it, and we do have some few informants among both nations. I reckon the inspired leader who led them into such a dumb fix doesn't want to talk about his spirit dreams now.' Longarm said, 'I reckon not. I understand the Comanche beat that old medicine man with whips after Adobe Walls, and would have killed him if Quanah hadn't stopped them. The medicine man's vision had assured him that nobody in that big party of professional hunters could hit the broad side of a barn with a Big Fifty scope-sighted out to a mile. Might you know a Comanche police sergeant called Tuka Wa Pombi, by the way?'
Fred Ryan frowned thoughtfully and replied, 'Can't say I do. The breed who keeps the roll for Quanah's new police force over at their sub-agency would be the one for you to talk to.
When Longarm asked where he might find Chief Quanah himself, he lost a bit of respect for those fancy fringes and Comanche beadwork, even though it was Godiva who gushed, 'You were right about Chief Quanah touring the other agencies to see how the more established tribal governments work, Custis. Mister Ryan here thinks the best place to head him off would be Fort Smith, just the other side of the Cherokee Nation. He has a great-uncle holding court there.'
Longarm cocked a brow at Ryan and demanded, 'Quanah Parker has a great-uncle working at the Fort Smith federal courthouse?'
Ryan nodded confidently and asked, 'Who did you think old Judge Isaac Parker was, his great-aunt? It's a well-known fact that after the Texas Rangers rescued Quanah's white mother from the Indians, her uncle, Isaac Parker of Texas, took her in despite her shame.'
Longarm laughed incredulously and said, 'I've seen that in print too. But it's a fine example of what we in the outlaw-hunting profession call leaping to conclusions from disconnected evidence. I can't say whether Cynthia Ann Parker had an uncle named Isaac or not. But Judge Isaac Parker of the Fort Smith federal court is only in his early forties as we speak, and comes from Missouri, not Texas. So it don't add up as soon as you put all the figures down.'
He resisted the impulse to reach for a smoke in the already damp and stuffy surroundings as he added, 'I ain't as certain as the Texas Rangers that they rescued anybody, speaking of leaping to conclusions. Would anyone here care for a glass of punch? I don't know about you all, but them cool shades of evening had better get cracking.'
Both gals at the table agreed they could go for some refreshing. But when he rose to go fetch three glasses, the colonel's lady, the plump Elvira Howard as she was called, got up to come along, saying he'd have trouble managing three glasses and that she'd been looking for an excuse to stretch her poor limbs.
Longarm didn't care. They walked over to the refreshment stand, and he ignored the toy sandwiches since he'd just had supper. But as he'd hoped, the ruby-red punch smelled of rum. For while enlisted men were forbidden hard liquor on post by the Hayes Administration, rank had its privileges and rum punch was one of them.
As he filled a glass and handed it to Elvira, she declared, for no good reason Longarm could see, 'if I were kidnapped by Indians I'd kill myself before I'd let myself be ravaged and be forced to bear halfbreed babies like that white-trash Cynthia Ann Parker!'
He filled two more glasses as he quietly observed, 'The Parkers of North Texas were considered quality, Miss Elvira. They owned land and didn't owe back taxes. As for letting herself be ravaged, that ain't exactly the way Miss Cynthia Ann might have seen it. She'd been captured as a little girl and adopted by a Comanche lady who liked children. She'd spent eight or nine years growing up amongst 'em, and it was only after she'd been initiated as a full-grown Comanche woman that the distinguished war chief Peta Nocona courted her fair and proper, playing his nose flute at her and reciting all the wondrous coups he counted. It sounds like bragging to us, but Horse Indians seldom lie about their deeds or fiches.'
He put the ladle back in the punch bowl and picked up both glasses as he added, 'Cynthia Ann could have said no. But I reckon she figured Peta Nocona was a good catch, considering. He married up with her as honorably as an Indian knows how. and by all accounts he never treated her mean. The couple had two sons, Quanah had a younger brother they usually call Pecos or Puma because his real name would be improper to say in mixed white company. Back around '60, just as the War Between the States was starting, the Rangers raided the Comanche for a change, and took back Cynthia Ann and a baby daughter called Topsannah. Her white kinfolks were happier about all this than she was. In less than five years little Topsannah had died, and the lonesome white captive who'd spent a quarter of a century as an Indian died soon after. Some say on purpose whilst others say she just pined away.'
As they headed back to the table Elvira quietly declared, 'At least she had some fun out of life before time's
