Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

She insisted it wasn't the same. Men could be like that when you argued religion with them too. So he said soothingly "Let's just say I only meant the sun was mighty low in the west and talk of things that might have answers, such as how high could up go or how long might forever last."

She laughed and confessed she'd never figured those puzzles out either. They saw the general store had been shuttered against the gathering dusk as they sat down on the warm plank steps. But Longarm decided not to reach for a smoke in such a public place, with or without any Mormons in sight.

Tupombi locked her tawny fingers around her upraised although modestly skirted knees as she leaned back, saying, 'The sunset is beautiful, no matter who or what is painting the clouds so many colors, many. You were telling me why Fort Hall is not an army post. Is it still a trading post?"

He thought before he went on. "Well, there's a trading post to be found there, across from the Indian agency and such. Think of it more as a sprawl that busted out of its original stockade back in wagon train days before the war. Sited as it was, where the Oregon Trail met the Shake River, Fort Hall might have grown into as big a town as Fort Boise, another Hudson Bay trading post over to the west. But it never did, because it was handier to the strongholds of the Bsmnock-Shoshoni bands that worried travelers along the Oregon Trail whether they did anything worrisome or not."

Tupombi sighed and said, "We heard about the army killing all those men, women, and children near the big bend of the Bear River. It seemed very cruel to us."

Longarm stared off into the sunset as he quiedy replied, "Well, some of us took some Indian pranks sort of serious as well. I'd as soon argue religion as figure out who first did what, to whom, with what. Miss Tupombi. Can't we forget the self-seeking tales told by mean rascals on both sides and

agree most folk, red and white, act about as decent as others might let 'em?"

She said it was easier for him to say, adding, "You don't know the bad things, many bad things, some of your people have done."

He shook his head. "You're wrong. I still got this fool badge pinned to my vest and I've been toting it six or eight years now. I won't offend your Comanche ears with half the tales of blood and slaughter I could fill 'em with. So suffice it to say I've seen lots of bad things done to folks, red and white, by human monsters, or just plain folks, as red or white. Folks can sure act scary when they're scared of one another."

She agreed it might be friendlier to gossip about less bloodthirsty topics. He said he had no idea whether Dame Flora or her maid, the plainer but sort of shapely Jeannie, took care of the gruff but rather virile-looking Angus after dark. She said she'd walked in on Shoshoni Sam and Madame Marvella in the middle of a crime against nature. But he told her he didn't want to hear about it before she could say just what they'd been up to, or down on.

He was sorry he'd gotten her off the subject of the older couple as soon as she shifted her attention from their private lives to his own. Most gals he met seemed content to learn he wasn't married up or seriously spoken for. But Tupombi wanted to know how he satisfied his natural feelings if he didn't have any lady friends.

He told her a deputy on duty in the field just had to grin and bear it, unless he got lucky. So she naturally asked if he thought it really changed a man's luck if he dallied with ladies of color.

He laughed, sort of red-eared, and allowed he'd seldom heard a Comanche breed described as a lady of color. Which inspired her to blush even harder and protest she hadn't been suggesting any such thing.

Before he could ask what she had been suggesting with all this suggestive talk, they both heard the thunder of hooves

and rattle of wheel rims and tie rods to the south. So they turned as one to spy the Overland stage coming in, fast, through the gathering dusk.

The six-mule team hauled the swaying Concord coach past them at full gallop. Neither the driver nor shotgun man seemed to pay much attention to anything around them. As Longarm and Tupombi watched the rear boot of the coach fade north behind all that dust, Tupombi observed they'd come in as if Quanah Parker, in the flesh and wearing paint, was right behind them.

Longarm got to his feet and held out a hand to help her do the same as he replied, "Great minds run in the same channels. I was about to say supper could be almost ready by now, and either way, that coach just came up the trail that missing government team was supposed to be following."

As they legged it back to the Overland stop faster than they'd left it, Tupombi brightened and said, "Oh, I see. You want to ask the coach crew whether they passed your friends on the trail or not."