to the federal building would rather I brought Deputy Ida, here, in to thrash this confusion out with them.'
Ida Weaver protested, 'You can't arrest me! You can't! I haven't done anything wrong! That beast I just shot down, like the dog he was, did the very same thing to my poor old Uncle Dan'l.'
She must have meant it. She kicked the limp corpse, hard, before Longarm could take her gently by one arm and softly tell her to cut that out, adding, 'I'll take your word, for now, about him being a beast. What separates us human beings from the rest of the beasts is that we try to follow the law of the land instead of the law of the jungle. I know what it feels like to go after outlaws who've hurt kith or kin. So I ain't saying nothing might have possessed me to just blow away a killer I had the drop on. I wasn't standing in your shoes when you just done it. I was a good two feet away. I might have some of this situation wrong. But, right or wrong, I have to carry you over to the federal building with me, now. You ain't under arrest, unless you refuse to come along ladylike.'
So she, her still-warm six-gun, and the childishly written arrest warrant came along ladylike, and in no time at all Longarm had her seated in the only chair on their side of the cluttered desk in the smoke-filled oak-paneled office of Marshal William Vail of the Denver District Court.
Billy Vail had been younger and slimmer when he'd ridden with the prewar Texas Rangers. He was still a keen-eyed lawman despite being somewhat older and way dumpier than he'd put up with in even a senior deputy. He'd asked the lady's permit to go on smoking as Longarm, standing by her leather chair, did most of the talking. It was up for grabs whether the crusty Billy Vail would have really put out his pungent black cigar, had anyone asked him to. But as Longarm went on talking, trying to make Ida Weaver sound as kindly as he could, but all too aware she didn't have much going for her, he saw old Billy seemed almost pleased with his account of what could only add up to a murderous abuse of dubious authority.
Vail seemed to brush aside the informal deputization of a known grudge holder as he beamed at Ida Weaver to say, 'You sure tracked him good, Deputy Weaver. You say that before that rascal murdered a kinsman and inspired you to become a law lady, you were running a hat shop and just plunking at cans now and again with a late husband's old six-gun?'
She sighed and said, 'This gun belt was Ralph's, as well. When we moved out to Indian Country from Ohio, he thought it might be a good idea to teach me how to handle a gun.'
Billy Vail glanced at Longarm and chortled, 'There seems to be no argument about that. I was more concerned with how a young widow with a hat shop tracked an owlhoot rider on the run all the way down here to Denver and the Parthenon Saloon, of all places.'
She confided, 'They told me at the Tremont House he liked the free lunch at the Parthenon, and ever so many people on the streets were willing to direct me there from the hotel.'
Longarm quietly told her, 'He meant how did you track Mansfield to the Tremont House. I know the Overland Feeder Line still stops East-West coaches on Tremont Place, and you told us Mansfield stopped stages for fun and profit, but wasn't that still stretching some?'
She shook her head and answered, 'Nobody had to guess. We got a tip about him staying there, signed in as Thomas Thumb, the sarcastic thing!'
Longarm asked if she had any notion who might have tipped off the law in Wyoming when the Denver P.D. was so handy.
She said she had no idea. Before Longarm could ask any further questions, Billy Vail hushed him with a wave of his cigar and rose to his feet, saying, 'I reckon we have it figured tight enough, Deputy Weaver. The women having the vote in Wyoming Territory, it was sure to come to pass that one or more counties had to wind up with a sort of girlish complexion, no offense.'
Longarm stared thunderghasted as Vail stepped out from behind his desk to lead the way and held out a pudgy hand to help the deadly little thing from her seat, agreeing, 'Rusty Mansfield shot an uncle on you. So Justice of the Peace Edith P. Keller made out a dead-or-alive arrest warrant on him and Undersheriff Rita Mae Reynolds swore you in as a she-deputy and told you where to go to serve it on the lowlife, right?'
She said that was what she'd been trying to tell everybody all along. Billy Vail helped her to her feet and led her to the door as he called out ahead.
When old Henry, the young squirt who played the typewriter out front, came running like the eager pup he seemed to be, Billy Vail told him, 'I want you to type something up that this law lady can show any local copper badges out to make a fuss about her showdown with an outlaw here in our jurisdiction. She'll explain as you make it short and simple, Henry. I'll give you her more formal statement after I've had time to decide how she wants to word it. She ain't had as much experience writing up arrests. So as soon as you're done, out front, I want you to escort her on over to Union Station and see her safely off to Wyoming, hear?'
Henry never argued with Billy Vail. Henry was no fool. But as the two of them left, Longarm demanded, 'How come you just got so easygoing, Boss? That tale she told sounded sort of wild to me.'
Vail waved him to the vacant seat and moved around the desk to resume his own as he growled, 'You ain't heard wild yet. I get to read more reports from other parts, stuck here like a broody hen whilst you young squirts have all the fun.'
He leaned back in his own chair, blew smoke out both nostrils like a proddy bull, and continued. 'Eight, that we know of for certain. Eight known but not really famous riders of the owlhoot trail who wound up in the same dismal condition when they were tracked down by wildwomen from Wyoming. Each and every one green about the law as well as girlish. Each one packing a mail-order badge, a half-ass arrest warrant, and a personal grudge against the deceased.'
Longarm whistled softly and decided, 'I give up. Do you figure some sort of conspiracy or pure shidious luck on the part of some girlish new hands at the game?'
Billy Vail shrugged and said, 'Don't know yet. I'll just have to wait until you tell me, won't I?'
CHAPTER 2
Longarm had seldom found it profitable to argue with Billy Vail, either. But he pointed out and Billy Vail agreed it might look as if he were following Deputy Ida Weaver if he caught the same afternoon train to Cheyenne. So that gave Longarm another evening in Denver and old Billy smiled dirty as he told Longarm to give his regards to a certain pretty widow woman up to Capitol Hill.
Longarm didn't think it was anybody's business that he was in the doghouse at that address for balking at attending the same fool opera he'd escorted her to the summer before. For she was a swell playmate and they got to nibble and sip whilst sitting up yonder in her private opera box. But a man had to draw the line somewhere, and it got tedious as all get-out when the same fat lady in armor kept singing the same song in High Dutch at the top of her fat lungs.
Had he been in less trouble up to Capitol Hill, he still might have preferred the company of the best lawyer he knew by quitting time. For he'd gotten out of some more tedious courtroom duty that afternoon by boning up on all the telegrams and letters Billy Vail had amassed on Wyoming wildwomen, and he felt the need for some legal advice.
Portia Parkhurst, attorney-at-law, was neither the best lawyer nor the best-looking woman Longarm knew. But he felt no call to kiss old Judge Dickerson, and the beautiful Miss Fong at the Golden Dragon hardly spoke enough English to discuss legal matters worth mention.
Portia Parkhurst, attorney-at-law, was a tad flat-chested and a mite long in the tooth, but still better-looking than most distaff members of the Colorado Bar Association.
It couldn't be helped. There weren't that many gals in any bar association. Gals had been allowed to study law at least as far back as the Portia that Portia Parkhurst was named after. She'd told Longarm her momma had been inspired by that lady lawyer in that play about merchants in Venice. But no state bar association had accepted women, with or without law degrees, before they built the transcontinental railroad and Wyoming Territory in '69. It had taken them until more recent before the higher courts would hear a case argued falsetto by a shemale. So Portia Parkhurst had spent a heap of her professional career clerking for male lawyers, and if it showed as whisps of silver in her severely bunned black hair, she'd still read way more law books than a heap of slick-talking courtroom dandies.
He'd noticed that on courtroom duty, where they'd met whilst she was defending a train robber he was riding herd on. She'd gotten the guilty son of a bitch off, and they'd naturally gotten to talking it over afterward, having supper together at Romano's and then somehow winding up at her place over on Lincoln Street. She'd been a good sport about him not spending the rest of the weekend yonder, too.
But when he ambled over to her office before his usual quitting time, he found old Portia ready to leave for
