by Tabor Evans
Longarm nodded soberly and suggested, "Bricks Without Straw by a new writer called Tourgee would surely qualify as a good book, Miss Portia. But Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad might make you laugh more."
"Where do you think you're going?" Portia demanded as she locked her front door, turned away from the same, and found him in step with her.
He answered, simply, "We both have to go down the same hall and take the same steps down to Wazee Street, don't we?"
She sniffed and said, "I suppose so. But I frankly don't want to be seen in public with you any more, Custis. I know I lost my head that time and I know what you must think of me, but I didn't know about you and that runaway orphan girl, then, and... Don't you have any shame?"
He steadied her elbow on the steep stairs whether she wanted him to or not as he replied in a tone of sincere indignation, "I never told you I was no angel when I said I admired the way you sucked up Eye-talian noodles, Miss Portia. But that runaway I took away from a more shameless cuss after I'd whupped him fair and square wound up out to the Arvada Orphan Asylum, supervised and chaperoned more than most young gals her age. That's because I took her out there and signed her in, pure as I found her, even though she kept trying to tempt me with mighty shocking suggestions, coming from a twelve-year-old."
The lawyer gal who'd never see forty again sniffed and dismissed his defense with, "It's so good to hear you didn't think you could fit that thing in a twelve-year-old. I meant what I said, at the time, when you put it in me! But that was then and this is now and I'll be damned if I'll let any man use me as no more than a slight improvement on his own hand."
Longarm sniffed back and tried, "I don't know what gives you gals the right to take so much for granted. Where do you get off thinking I came all the way across town to play slap and tickle with you, just because I let you have your wicked way with me that one time?"
She laughed, despite herself. But by then they were out on the walk and she insisted, "I have to be on my way, and I don't want you to follow me, Custis!"
He shrugged and said, "Suit yourself. I reckon I can find another lawyer to tell me about death warrants issued by a justice of the peace."
That worked. She turned to stare up at him with a puzzled smile as she replied, "That's ridiculous. No J.P. has the right to try a criminal case. So how could one sentence anyone to more than the fees and fines allowed under civil codes?"
Longarm said, "I was hoping you might be able to tell me. I came to you with the problem because there's this shemale justice of the peace handing down arrest warrants, directing the server to bring the defendant in dead or alive."
Portia shook her black silk roses wildly and sounded sincere as she said, "The presiding judge of a federal district wouldn't word an arrest warrant that way. Lord knows I've read enough of them, and more than one poor cowboy gone wrong has been shot by the law when he wouldn't come quietly. But a J.P.? Before trial in any criminal court? You say another woman has been trying to issue such ridiculous court orders, Custis?"
He said, "Edith Penn Keller, J.P. and she ain't been trying. She's been doing it, and so far eight men have wound up dead instead of alive. I know you'll say they doubtless had it coming, but-"
"We'd better talk this over." Portia sighed, adding, "Let's hail a ride and go to my place. I meant what I said about being seen with such a rascal in public, but I'll whip us up some supper while you tell me more about this crazy woman who thinks she's a J.P."
So that was where they went, and Portia served him some swell pork chops and hash browns along with collard greens that he shoved around in the plate to be polite as he told her, "I came to you about her because a he-lawyer I just talked to back at my office seemed to be as fuzzy as myself on this women's suffering up Wyoming way."
She rose to produce some marble cake from a bread box on a side board as she dryly remarked, "Suffrage is the word I hope you meant, and I suspected all along you came to me because I was a she-lawyer. What's wrong with women being allowed to vote and even hold public office in Wyoming Territory? A republic that denies the vote to over half its adult citizens is by definition not a republic!"
He held up both hands in surrender as he protested, "Don't look at me! I'm only paid to enforce the laws as others write 'em, and I read what Miss Susan B. Anthony wrote about them fining her and them other ladies for trying to vote for or against Grant in seventy-two! If it was up to me a gal who could read and write would have the vote over any man who couldn't, and vice versa. But, like I said, it ain't up to me, and what I was hoping you could tell me was how come Miss Susan B. got arrested for voting in seventy-two if women have been allowed to vote and hold office since sixty-nine up Wyoming way?"
She served the cake and poured more coffee as she sighed and told him, "You just answered your own question, Custis. Whether they were listening to their wives or bucking for statehood by registering all the voters they could manage, the founding fathers of Wyoming Territory extended the franchise to all adult white women as far as township, county, and territorial elections and public offices go. Susan B. and her fellow sufragettes didn't try to vote in Wyoming. They weren't exactly arrested for trying to vote anywhere. They registered to vote at various polling places by signing in under just their initials or in some cases assumed names. They were arrested when poll watchers spotted them standing in the voting lines in their skirts."
Longarm tasted his marble cake, found it sweet but stale, and took a sip of coffee to help him get it down before he asked, "Then you're saying Wyoming gals will get to vote for our next president as well as the J.P. of Keller's Crossing?"
She said, "Don't be silly. I just told you they only get to vote on local matters. That justice of the peace and the very governor of the territory have to be appointed from on high."
He asked how high for whom.
She thought and said, "Washington appoints territorial governors and, as you know, federal judges and the U.S. Marshals who back them up by enforcing their rulings. Local voters elect their township and county officials. But it's usually the county board of supervisors who appoint a justice of the peace to serve each township. Circuit or presiding judges are usually elected, but this rather puffed-up crossroads J.P. of yours is probably the wife or play-pretty of somebody on the county board."
Then she polished off her own cup to add, "Can I ask you a legal question now? Why on earth are they sending you of all people all the way to Wyoming Territory to look into such girlish behavior? Don't they have a federal court in Cheyenne and haven't they any U.S. marshal's office assigned to the same?"
Longarm nodded and said, "They do. Cheyenne was asked to look into them Wyoming wildwomen after the third killing, over Nebraska way. So Cheyenne said they would. Then they said they had. They said nobody's been able to see anything wrong with Keller's Crossing, a township on the North Platte surrounded by grass and cows, save for the girlish way the trail town's been run with most of the menfolk busier out on the open range with all them cows."
He took another sip and continued. "The county and town boards are about three-quarters shemale and one quarter gents with time in town to spare. Cheyenne says nobody in them parts has any complaints about their elected or appointed officials. Things have been running smooth, save for an unusual number of outlaws from other parts passing through what amounts to nothing much. Cheyenne says it ain't unusual to have outlaws passing through a river crossing near the junction of east-west and north-south trails with a short-line railroad spur."
He drained his cup and added, "The attorney general, among others, thinks Cheyenne's been sort of casual about that many transient outlaws passing through one prairie township with such fatal results. I wish I had a nickel for every crossroads magistrate who never went to law school. But eight dead-or-alive warrants, served so strict, does seem a mite thick. But she would have the power to arraign or order anybody arrested on any charge bound over to a higher court."
Portia poured more coffee, as if it was all rig
ht for him to stay a spell longer, as Longarm continued. "She'd be in trouble if ever she tried to preside over a murder trial. But old Billy says heaps of small town J.P.s and unpaid hardly qualified town drunks with mail-order badges arrest and start the wheels of justice moving on serious outlaws. So this here undersheriff who keeps deputizing young gals is within the law as well, barely. A citizen who packs no badge at all has the legal right to arrest any felon wanted for any crime, provided he ain't afraid of getting sued if he can't make it stick."
He smiled thinly and observed, "Hard to sue a girlish deputy when she's just blown your brains out. Hard to keep her from doing that to you when you're a man on the run, braced for a showdown with somebody coming at you dressed more manly." He sipped some of his fresh serving and observed, "Neither Billy nor anybody else in pants has thought to study on what's starting to bother me. The French say a lawman should start with a cherchez la femme. But I've notice that when femmes start acting peculiar it might be time to scout for some hommes. That's what the Frogs call sneaky men, hommes."
Portia allowed she knew all about sneaky men getting her own kind in trouble and got up from the table again as she added, "It seems a bit warm in here despite the jalosie slats in my window blinds. Why don't you hang up that stuffy frock coat and clumsy gun belt while I slip into something cooler."
He allowed he would as Portia left him alone in her kitchen for the moment. He hung his coat over his cross-draw rig, next to the brass hook that was already holding his telescoped Stetson. Then he got rid of the foolish shoestring tie they made him wear on duty in town. For it wasn't as if he was on duty in Portia Parkhurst's warm kitchen. Bless her hospitable hide.
Then he saw how hospitable old Portia's hide could be as she came back into her kitchen, naked as a jay with her silver-streaked hair let down in a vain attempt to shield her still-firm breasts from his admiring view.
He rose to the occasion, both ways, but wasn't sure what he was supposed to say on such a surprising occasion. So he just took her in his arms and kissed her, French, as she shoved him back until his rump was half seated on the table. He had to hold her with both hands to keep her from falling backward as she threw first one leg, then the other, atop the table to either side of him. So she reached down between them to unbutton his fly as a cup, saucer, and some silverware crashed to the floor behind him.
He decided he didn't mind if she didn't mind what they were doing to her own tableware. Then she'd hauled out his raging erection to guide it into place as they both wound up atop the table, doing lots of things a kitchen table was hardly intended for.
CHAPTER 3
They naturally wound up in her bedroom to do more natural things in her four-poster, with all his duds off as well. Longarm felt no call to remind her who'd started it that other time. Older women who preferred to live alone but loved to screw were inclined to recall the seduction, as they liked to call it, as the man's sneaky surprise.
So Longarm wasn't surprised, within the hour, to hear Portia sigh about her own lack of willpower as she sat astride him, bouncing as bare as a horse trader's lies, whilst he just took his beating like a man.
Not wanting to be rude, Longarm grinned up at her tossing mane and bobbing breasts to observe, "You're right. There's hardly a male who wouldn't seduce a snake if he could get somebody to hold it's head. You ladies would have to be born with our mean old peckers to understand our wicked ways with a maid. Having nothing betwixt your own legs but them shy and delicate ring-dang-dos must leave you all in the dark about such feelings, huh?"
She leaned forward to brush his mustache with her nipples as she bounced faster, growling, "Shut up! I'm coming and I'll never forgive you for getting me this hot, you brute!"
That made two of them, again. So Longarm rolled her over on her back and hooked an elbow under either of her knees to spread her open wider as she protested, "I was doing just fine, my way, and you know I like to be in control, damn you!"
He growled back as friendly, "I thought you wanted to shut up and just fuck. Your way was taking too long, and it says in the Good Book that I get to be the boss!"
That pissed her off. He'd known it would. He'd meant what he'd said about folk with different plumbing having a tough time following each other's drift. But he had noticed in his travels that independent women who loved to make love seldom made it to middle-age, unmarried, and downright bossy, unless they turned a deaf ear to the usual romantical mush most men used on great lays. A farmer's daughter or overworked waitress wanted to hear a man saying he'd take her away from whatever. But a gal who'd hung her own law shingle up to charge as much or more as any other top lawyer in town needed to be reassured no mere mortal man was after anything but her swell ass. He suspected he'd let himself in for that last tongue lashing by offering to come by her office that weekend to carry her over to the beer garden for some May wine. This time she knew he was leaving town, come morning. So she'd likely take it dog style, if he just rolled her over and got her into position without saying anything too sweet.
As he rolled off her to roll her over, she asked what he thought he was doing, even though she didn't really resist as he proceeded to do it, saying, "I've been thinking of the other wildwomen up Wyoming way and how some other long-donging brute might be leading them down the primrose path. I mean, you're a woman, Lord love you, and would you just grab a gun and traipse over to the county sheriff's to get deputized and light out after any outlaw without even changing to a sensible riding habit?"
Portia raised her still girlish rump as she grasped the full intent of his hands on her hip bones and his questing shaft parting her moist pubic hair, observing, "You said all those distaff volunteers were deputized to track down men who'd wronged them or someone in their own families. You're not going to try and put it in the wrong hole, are you, dear?"
He said, "Not unless you ask, polite. Billy and me don't find it logical to deputize inexperienced young ladies to send poking after wanted men."
She said, "Oooh, I want that man right where you're shoving him! But why are we talking about poking anywhere else?"
He got it all the way in and began to play her pussy like a trombone in three-quarter time as he demanded, "What makes them gals such good trackers? I mean, sure, anybody can see how a gal might want to go after the man who gunned her dear old uncle. I was there. So I can tell you how easy it is for a gal wearing skirts and a girlish smile to get the drop on a man who'd been running from other men. But then she told me and Billy Vail she'd tracked Rusty Mansfield all the way to the Tremont House in Denver and from there to his favorite saloon. How in blue blazes do you figure she did that without no help from an experienced manhunter?"
Portia moaned, "Oh, Lord, I know I could sure use more help from an experienced manhunter they call Longarm! I have no idea how some silly cowgirl or schoolmarm might go about tracking down a wanted man. I want you! All of you! For I told you the last time you abused me this way that your arm isn't the only thing about you that seems to be unusually long!"
He laughed and pounded her to glory with his bare feet braced on the rug beside the bed, then hauled back on her angular hip bones to hold her firm buttocks against him as he tried to sort of wipe her ass with his belly hairs while she reached back to fondle his puckered balls until he was suddenly draining them inside her. She called him a bastard for not waiting for her when she felt his discharge seeping out over her turgid clit. Then she was calling him nicer things as they lay sideways with him still spooned inside her while he strummed her love-slicked banjo from behind with his skilled right hand in her lap, murmuring in her ear, "One of them Wyoming wildwomen might have gone this far with an outlaw before she shot him point-blank in a Santa Fe posada. That report allows they reported him taken dead in his long underwear. The Mex posadero who hired them both the room was unable to give further details."
Portia arched her spine to swallow another half inch or so of his semi-flaccid shaft as she murmured, "Ooh, don't stop and don't do it
any faster. That feels just lovely and I want it to last forever. I'd have to come and cool off quite a bit before I shot you, right now, if you were a wanted man and I was after you with a dead-or-alive warrant from some silly Wyoming J.P."
He kissed her behind one ear and went on pleasuring her as he replied, "I know I'd deserve it, taking up with a strange gal when I knew I was wanted dead or alive and then not keeping an eye on her. But how do you reckon you tracked me all this way from Wyoming, you sentimental little deputy gal?"
The lady lawyer giggled and said, "I'd be a big fibber if I told you I've never had a man pet me so sweetly down there. But I must say I'm not used to speculating on law enforcement, or the lack of the same, at times such as this! You really do value my opinions as a lawyer as well as my weakness as a woman, don't you?"
He nibbled her earlobe, her well-kept hair smelled she-male as hell, then assured her, "I cannot tell a lie. I mostly wanted you the way I'm holding you right now. But I told you over to your office I needed a natural woman with a law degree, remember?"
She murmured, "I remember, and I'm so glad, right now, that is. I know I'm going to hate myself in the morning. But you did say you'd be on your way to Wyoming's Cow Country by then and... Could we do this right some more, Custis? I can always play with that thing myself."
He said they sure could, and they sure did, with two pillows under her shapely but sort of lean hips as she locked her ankles around the nape of his neck and warned him she'd never forgive him if he ever stopped.
Of course, there came a time when he had to, because he couldn't come any more. So whether she forgave him or not, Portia seemed as willing to share a three-for-a-nickel cheroot and let her throbbing flesh cool off a spell as they cuddled atop the covers in the lamplight spilling in from the front room.
Longarm blew a thoughtful smoke ring at the open doorway before he asked her how she'd go about defending someone such as Deputy Ida Weaver when, not if, she got her fool self arrested by shooting the wrong man in cold blood.