As Longarm chuckled in agreement Minerva whispered, "Waigon?"
He said, "Thunderbird. I thought you were taking down a heap of Comanche, Miss Minerva."
She sighed and said, "I keep hearing new words. Didn't you say you were a Christian, Matty?"
The little breed shrugged and said, "When they are giving presents at the agency Sunday school I am. At times like these, when I have to look out for myself, I remember your Jesus Ghost didn't know how to fight when they came to kill him. He let himself be killed without a struggle, as if he was not a man of puha! When I asked the missionary about this, he said I was too savage to understand what the Jesus Ghost was doing for me. Maybe he is right. Nothing the Jesus Ghost ever did for me would keep me dry and feed me fine beans if I was out here on my hands and knees, praying like a Saltu girl !"
Longarm put a warning hand on Minerva's knee to keep the white gal from arguing religion with a pagan breed in the middle of such a storm.
The rain seemed to be easing off as the wind, if anything, blew harder. It got dark as hell, save for the ruby glow of their wind-fanned night fire. When Minerva suggested they build the fire back up, Longarm sadly asked, "With what? Those sage brush roots and cow chips we started with were dry when I first put a match to 'em. As of right now there's nothing flammable for miles that ain't wet as a mad hen."
He patted her knee in the dark again. "We'll be warm enough under our bedding, and it ain't as if we ain't had a long hard day. So what say we all turn in with the extra tarp over us?"
Minerva took his wrist in both hands to move his hand down the inside of her thigh, under her damp summer dress, as she allowed his words made a lot of sense.
He started to ask her what in thunder she thought she was doing. But he knew little Matty could hear every word, and it was all too clear what she was doing once he discovered, with the back of his hand, she was wearing no underdrawers between those smooth and almost clammy bare thighs.
He murmured, "I didn't know you were feeling scared again, Miss Minerva. I'd be lying if I denied you're making me feel... just about as nervous. But can't it wait until all three of us make it on to Fort Sill and that swell hostel I told you about?"
She began to rub his bare knuckles along the warm crease in her fuzzy lap as she half murmured, half moaned, "I thought we were all bedding down for the night out here, Custis."
On the other side of him, Matty yawned and declared, "You two do as you like. I'm tired. I've eaten. I want to go to sleep now. I have spoken!"
Suiting actions to her words, the little breed raised her end of the casually spread bedding and proceeded to get under some of it. Longarm didn't ask how much of her own duds she was shucking as she tossed at least some yards of damp cotton atop the tarp beside him.
He just got to his hands and knees so Minerva could get under at her end. Then he wriggled in between the two of them, having removed no more than his hat, boots, and gun rig. As he snuggled down he felt Matty's bare back with one hand, and didn't explore further down her arched spine. To the other side of him, Minerva lay naked as a jay, facing him, and he didn't have to depend on accidental brushes with either hand. Minerva had his right hand gripped in both hers as she hauled it back down to her fuzzy moist groin and whispered, "As I was saying before you interrupted me, you shy boy..."
"Minerva, for Pete's sake!" he protested, not wanting to say anything less delicate.
The passionate schoolmarm seemed to follow his drift. For she was casual and innocent as she quietly asked, "Are you still awake, Matty?"
The young girl muttered, "Go away. I was plucking sweet grass to weave a yattah for my umbea, and you brought me back from the dream country. Talk to Custis if you can't sleep."
Minerva did. She whispered, "She's too sleepy to pay attention, even if the wind wasn't flapping that canvas over us. Won't you even finger me, for land's sake?"
It seemed the best way to quiet her down. But even as he started to strum her old banjo with lust-slicked fingers, he murmured, "It can't be later than six or eight. So it ain't as if this was all that desperate a situation, ma'am."
She began to move her compact hips as if she was being laid as she moaned, "Speak for yourself. This is all so deliciously sordid, and for all we know, those Indians could be creeping up on us this very minute! I want to come again before I die, and doesn't this remind you of that night we did it in that Pullman berth with those Hard-Shell Baptists sleeping just across the aisle from us, Ace?"
Longarm had a better notion what was eating her now. He'd met other gals who seemed to get a dirty thrill out of taking chances at being caught in the act. There'd been that older gal back home in West-by-God-Virginia who'd never let him have any in her hayloft unless her sister was milking the cow down below.
The sister had been more sensible about doing it out in the woods a mile from their dear old dad and his Greener Ten-Gauge. But then there'd been that French gal touring with Miss Sarah Bernhardt who'd confided she just loved to suck dick in a theatre box, with the show going on and the orchestra droning passionate sounds.
He knew he ought to be ashamed of his fool self as she proceeded to unbutton his fly while she snuggled her naked body closer. But of course he never was. Her naked body felt more tempting in the dark than it looked inside a summer-weight outfit in sunlight. So he kissed her back when she pressed her parted lips to his and hauled out his rock-hard organ-grinder. For he was made of mortal clay and when you got down to brass tacks, what in thunder was a sixteen-year-old kid going to do to them if she figured out what they were doing to each other?
As if she'd read his mind, without taking her lips from his, or missing a stroke as she pulled his pecker, Minerva begged him to put it in her, adding, "It feels so romantic out here on the wet windswept prairie with the children fast asleep!"
He fingered her faster to encourage what she was doing to him, but he still felt awkward about the other gal under the covers with them, and so he whispered, "Wait till we get to that hostel at Fort Sill and I'll romance the hell out of you across a brass bedstead with the lamp lit and the mirror tilted our way!"
To which she demurely replied, "What kind of a girl do you take me for? I could never go up to a man's rented room like some woman of the town!"
He said, "I figured we'd hire separate rooms and act sort of sly, seeing you find that exciting. But how about your own place or, hell, your schoolhouse back at your agency? That sounds sort of risky to my way of thinking."
She sniffed and stopped stroking, just hanging on, as she told him, "It would only be distasteful. The door bolts on the inside and none of my Indian pupils would dare attempt to break in. And there's no soft place to lie down, and the whole place smells of chalk dust and unwashed children and their greasy lunch bags."
He sure wanted her to move that soft hand on his hard shaft some more. He tried slowing down with his own fingers. She called him a meany and began to stroke him some more even as she pleaded, "Can't we finish right, darling?"
When he didn't answer, she murmured louder, "Matty? How are you coming with that basket for your momma?"
When there was no answer, Longarm reflected that the wind-flapped canvas and moaning prairie all around was making at least as much noise as discreet screwing. So he moaned himself and rolled atop her with his duds on, at first.
Then his naked shaft was in her to the hilt, and she was peeling his duds off for him with her hands as she moved those school marmish hips in a way that might have made her a rich woman in Leadville or Virginia City. The best part was that they didn't bounce the solid prairie under little Matty the way they'd have surely bounced any bedsprings they were sharing with her. Longarm didn't ask why Minerva tossed the top tarp aside as she wrapped her slender but surprisingly strong legs around his waist and softly begged him to thrust harder and faster. He knew full well how his bare ass would have whipped the covers back and forth across that sleeping kid's skinny naked hips. And thinking about the dark tawny Matty's younger and likely even tighter little twat, just inches away from the one he was in, inspired him to start hitting bottom with every stroke as Minerva gasped, "My Lord, you're not at all like Ace after all, and to tell the truth you may be curing my warped hankerings for that tinhorn brute!"
Longarm allowed he was about cured of some heartless gals who'd used and abused him more recently. Then they came hard, and she agreed a shared cheroot might save both their lives.
It was tricky to light up, even with a wax Mexican match. For the wind eddied in under their flapping canvas shelter. But the match cast enough light to tell Longarm he'd been right about that other gal's skinny bare ass.
As if she sensed the light, or perhaps because of the chill in the air, Matty covered her bare butt with her blanket as she muttered some sleepy Kiowa curse words without turning over to face them.
Longarm hastily shook the match out, aware of how much of them the kid would have seen as he lit that cheroot. Then he and Minerva were snuggled under the tarp, naked limbs entwined, as they shared the one smoke. He wondered what other unmaidenly vices she indulged in, but he never asked. Billy Vail hadn't sent him all this way to investigate an almost pretty schoolmarm's morals.
But being a woman, Minerva naturally wanted to hear more about those other gals who'd been this mean to him. He figured that went with Professor Darwin's notions. He'd read how Mormons, Turks, and other such harem keepers were only carrying on traditions far older than, say, Queen Victoria. Menfolk, like apefolk, wolves, elk, and such, were inclined to hog all the females they could, fighting off any other males that might come courting.
But womenfolk, descended from many a great-granny who'd been part of some caveman's herd, were more inclined to size up the competition with a view to out-screwing them. So Longarm knew the horny schoolmarm wouldn't get sore if he told her the truth about that fickle newspaper gal or the mysterious stranger who'd taken cruel advantage of his weak nature the other night at Fort Sill.
Minerva laughed sort of dirty, and said she'd wondered why he'd seemed so anxious to lure her to that army hostel. She agreed it had doubtless been some army wife with a hankering for novelty. When he said he was worried about her damned army husband finding out, Minerva said she doubted many wives were in the habit of confessing such side trips to their menfolk.
He had to tell her the whole dumb tale of Attila the Hungarian and the confession of his Magda before he could ask her opinion, as a woman, on that mess.
Minerva agreed it made little sense from a male or female position. After a thoughtful drag on their shared cheroot she said, "The only thing I can think of is that she was trying to protect her real lover. Didn't you say he'd been heard to speak Hungarian to her?"
Longarm replied, "I never said it. Neighbor gals who know way more about the lingo say this rascal claiming to be me was some sort of greenhorn from their old country."
Minerva passed the smoke back to him as she pointed out, "He might not have told anyone he was anybody. When her husband heard she'd been billing and cooing with a tall dark stranger, it was Magda herself, a greenhorn bride who barely speaks English, who told her man an American lawman had done them both dirty, remember?"
Longarm did. He said, "It's already been suggested there was this article about me in the papers about the time old Magda would have had to come up with some answers in a hurry. I'm glad you think that was what she might have been doing too. My boss has other deputies looking into it, and since all roads seem to lead to the same reasons, that's likely where they'll wind up. They'll get the real story out of the lying sass, and I'll be able to turn this other stuff over to the army and real Indian Police. Lord knows they ought to be just as good as tracking flimflam artists across their own range."
She took the cheroot from his lips and flicked it far out into the windy darkness as she cooed, "You don't have to leave just now, do you?"
So a grand time was had by all, or at least two out of three of them, and they even got some sleep, once the storm had blown itself over and it got too quiet to get dirty under the covers with little Matty snoring away.
They got up, ate a cold breakfast, and were on their way again as the sun rose off to the east in a cloudless windswept sky.
That shavetail's complaint that they'd been almost there when the storm hit had been well taken. They'd ridden less than an hour when they topped a rise to make out the fluttering flag and higher rooftops of Fort Sill to the south.
Seeing the Comanche sub-agency lay east-northeast of the actual fort, although within the sprawling limits of the military reservation, Longarm led the gals that way until they spotted the steeple of that church Quanah Parker and his band attended when they weren't beating drums for other puha. Somebody must have spotted them riding in, for old Aho Gordon came tearing out on foot to meet them, wailing at her daughter in Kiowa and saying awful things about Longarm in English until Matty calmed her down in their own lingo.
The dumpy Indian gal stopped cussing Longarm, and switched to cussing those lying two-hearts who'd endangered her only child and cost her two sleepless nights. She told Longarm she was sorry she'd called him a baby-raper, now that she'd been told he'd behaved so properly to both of his companions, and added she'd heard rumors of riders dressed as Kiowa who failed to respond to the hand signals all Horse Indians were familiar with.