Longarm squirmed in his seat feeling trapped. Mrs. Addie might be part of the royal family of England, but her perfume was strong enough to kill swarming Montana mosquitos at sixty paces.
“Custis Long?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What a quaint name? English, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
Addie looked curiously at him. “You don’t even know your family tree?”
“Nope.”
Mrs. Addie looked appalled. “How … how tragic!”
“Why?” Longarm asked. “I know that my folks had nothing and that I’ll not inherit anything. And as for being English or Irish or French, who cares?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure I am.”
“My God,” the woman said, shaking her head and looking upset, “you Westerners certainly do have queer attitudes about your origins and bloodlines.”
“Bloodlines don’t mean anything in the American West,” Longarm said with conviction.
“I don’t believe that!” Mrs. Addie fell silent, but when her champagne arrived, she looked up at Arnold and said, “Bring us the entire bottle, you ignorant fool.”
Arnold’s cheeks reddened and he stomped up the aisle.
“You had no right to speak to Arnold that way,” Longarm admonished. “Arnold isn’t a fool, and people out in this country won’t stand being insulted.”
“Humph!”
“It’s true,” Longarm said. “And you can also forget about bloodlines and pedigrees. Out here, most of us are a bunch of mavericks.”
“What, pray tell, are ‘mavericks’?”
“They’re unbranded calves,” Longarm explained. “They’re free and tied to no one. They don’t carry any markings or respect any boundaries. Those men who aren’t mavericks probably consider themselves mustangs.”
“Those are your wild scrub horses,” Mrs. Addie stated, looking quite pleased with this bit of knowledge, probably gained from one of the colorful and totally sensationalized travel brochures put out by the Union Pacific and other railroads to promote travel into the untamed American frontier as an adventure. “I’ve heard of those.”
“And what have you heard?”
“That they are indeed running wild but that they are unfit for a rider who expects even a little quality.”
“That’s not true,” Longarm said, “I’ve ridden a great many mustang ponies an-“
“And who are you?” the young woman who had suddenly appeared asked.
“I’m Custis Long,” Longarm said, his eyes filled with the radiance of her beauty. “And you must be the princess.”
“I’m afraid that my title is much less impressive than a princess. I am Lady Caroline, but please just call me Caroline. May I join you?”
Longarm jumped out of his seat. Caroline was stunning, with long, light brown hair, blue eyes, a flawless complexion, and a perfectly radiant smile.
“He’s a United States Marshal,” Mrs. Addie announced proudly.
“Sit down,” Caroline said happily as she took a seat beside Longarm. “I wanted to hear what you had to say about wild mustangs. We are so hoping that we might be able to see a few from the train.”
“Not very likely,” Longarm said. “Mustangs are too smart to come near our towns or railroads. Those that did have long since been shot or captured.”
“What a disappointment,” Caroline said. “And just a few minutes ago the conductor told me that I could not really hope to see any wild Indians riding across your vast but hostile American plains, mountains, and deserts.”
“You might see a few Indians,” Longarm said, not wishing to completely disappoint the woman, “but they’ll be anything but wild. You’ll see plenty of them in Cheyenne and most all the rail towns we pass through. Some of them even work for the railroad and the freighting companies.”
“But … but there are no more free-roaming ones?”
“Only a few Apache are still free to come and go as they wish,” Longarm explained. “Geronimo is still raising hell down in the Arizona Territory, but he’s on his last legs and General George Cook is about to tighten the noose and drag him back to the reservation.”
“That’s a place where they are kept?”
“A reservation is land that the government has given the Indians to live on.”
“But didn’t they already own all this land?” Caroline asked innocently.
“Yes,” Longarm admitted, realizing his poor choice of words, “but now the government is giving pieces of it
