She nodded. "My own lawyers explained that to me. You were right about my being probated as the rightful heir to this land. But now they have raised the issue of, well, my being born a Zuni. I was raised a Christian by converted parents, but alas, I am afraid I have pure Indian blood!"

Longarm shrugged. "That has to have impure blood of any sort beat. I got to ask you a mighty personal question if I'm to go on, ma'am. I ain't asking for exact figures, but is it safe to say you were born the other side of 1848?"

She dimpled and said, "Of course I was, you flatterer. But what difference might my age make? An Indian is an Indian, no?"

He said, "No. Under Mexican laws, left over from the Spanish, a Spanish-speaking Christian who wore shoes and got a haircut now and again was a full citizen with all the rights of any other Spanish subject or law-abiding Mexican under the republic. You do pay taxes on this rancho, don't you?"

She nodded, but said, "Those Anglo lawyers say that only proves how primitive I am, because Indians are not required to pay taxes on their lands under your laws. But my lawyers tell me they think I should go on paying my land taxes anyway.

Longarm nodded. "You've got the right lawyers, Miss Consuela. You and your folks living Christian, apart from other Zuni, if I know my Pueblo medicine men, means you were never listed as any sort of Indians by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, right?"

She nodded. "My parents were working for the parents of my poor Carlos when Mexico lost that war with your people. n.o.body ever asked us what we were until most recently. But they say I am still an Indian and that the U.S. Const.i.tution gives no rights to Indians. They showed me the paragraph, in black and white. I cried. It seemed so cruel and unjust!"

He said, "It would be if that was the way it read. But you missed the details, Miss Consuela. What may appear to exclude Indians from the Bill of Rights reads, 'Indians not taxed.' It don't recognize Indians in general as a race. Shucks, colored folks and even Swedes are fully protected by the Bill of Rights since the war, at least as far as federal law extends, and New Mexico is a federal territory."

She said she didn't understand. A lot of well-meaning folks didn't.

He explained. "When the Founding Fathers drew up the Const.i.tution, they naturally had to deal with the simple fact that heaps of Quill Indians were still lurking in the woods all the way back East. So they divided Indians up into folks like the Christian Stockbridges, a mess of Mohegans who'd fought on our side at Bunker Hill, and the wilder sorts, such as Mohawk and Shawnee, who'd traded Yankee scalps for firewater from Hair-Buying Hamilton, the royal governor up to Detroit."

She sniffed. "In other words, they divided Indians into those they thought tame and those they thought wild?"

He said, "Sure. It would have been dumb to divide them any other way.

The real point is that even then there were Indians acting like everyone else and, well, folks who had to be dealt with differently. So what that clause about untaxed Indians really means is that n.o.body can expect to have the full rights of an adult citizen as long as they're off the tax rolls, as public charges or wards of the state."

He tried another tapa, decided he'd best quit while he was ahead, and added, "Wouldn't make much sense to let men vote whilst they were at war with the government, either. So whilst Victorio or even one of those reservation Jicarilla would have a tough time voting in the next election, that clause about Indians can't apply to you. Anyone who pays taxes on property lawfully come by is by definition a taxpaying property-holder, be she white, red, or a becoming shade of lavender. I have this argument all the time with boys who've been led to believe only their kind have any rights. Not all such pains in the neck are white, by the way."

She laughed and said she'd heard Victorio could be awfully bossy. Then she asked him if he was ready for bed. He'd been ready for bed since first he'd noticed how she filled out that white blouse and cordovan riding skirt. But when he said that sounded like a mighty fine notion, she tinkled a small bra.s.s bell and that same serving gal came in to show their honored guest to his room for the night.

She led the way out back and along a long archway, holding up a candle they really didn't need until they got there. The cell-like room, furnished with a four-poster bed and an oaken wardrobe, was a bit severe but smelled of rosewater. He saw, when the chica put the candlestick on a small bedtable, that the 'dobe walls had been recently replastered.

Then he saw the pretty little Mex gal was crying, too, although she was trying not to show it as she shut the door, shot the bolt, and moved over by the bed to start shucking her duds.

It didn't take a gal starting out with just a blouse and skirt too long to undress. He had to admire what she had to show a man as she stood there resigned, crying fit to bust.

Longarm spotted his borrowed saddle and possibles, including his Winchester, in the corner on the far side of the four-poster. He took off no more than his own hat as he quietly asked her in Spanish what her patrona had told her about him.

The chica licked her lips and replied in a trembling voice that all she knew was that it would be a great honor to spend the night with such a distinguished guest.

Longarm stayed on his side of the room as he quietly questioned her to find out if she usually obeyed her boss lady of her own free will, or whether a federal law covering peonage as well as chattel slavery might be getting all bent out of shape.

He worded his questions carefully. The mean thing about peonage was that, unlike outright slavery, it was tougher for even its own victims to define. There was a mighty fine line between slavery and peonage, or what they called "the patron system." Many an Anglo boss asked his workers to do things they didn't want to. Such power went with being the boss. But peonage went over the line by allowing the services, if not the flesh and blood, of a servant bound by debt to be bought and sold.

But as he questioned the naked and increasingly less frightened young gal, it developed that Miss Consuela had sent word back to her kitchen that whichever serving gal might volunteer to take care of El Brazo Largo would have the next two days off with pay.

Longarm chuckled as he imagined the scene in the kitchen, and asked why she'd volunteered if she was so scared.

She said she wasn't scared of him. She was afraid her querido, a handsome young vaquero, would be jealous. She said it had seemed like a swell way to buy the extra time alone with her Pablo, before she had taken time to consider how Pablo might feel about it.

Longarm was thinking about jealous young vaqueros himself as he gently suggested, "I've had a very tiring day. Maybe it would be better if you just got dressed and we forgot all about this, eh?"

She brightened, but said, "The others will still tell Pablo that I gave myself to a gringo, no?"

He said, "Not if you go right to him from here. There's no good reason to tell the whole rancho where you spent the night, is there?"

She scooped up her duds from the floor, gushing, "Oh, they were right about you being most simpatico for a gringo! You are certain you do not feel scorned? You shall not suffer later?"

He a.s.sured her they were parting friends. So she got dressed almost as fast as she'd stripped, and then hesitated before leaving, saying she might manage a quick one, lest he think she thought him repulsive.

But he sent her on her way to bed down with her heart's desire and maybe save himself more trouble. Old Consuela, despite her obvious desire to please, had made it clear his kind wasn't all that popular in these parts.

Chapter 8.

Longarm felt a tad awkward at breakfast. It was ample, and served alfresco on the shady side of the main house while the morning air still tasted tangy. He was served alone at the table with the dusky lady of the house. He saw she'd changed into a black lace outfit that was likely cooler than her riding duds of the night before. Being richer than some of her own kith and kin, she ate a bit more Anglo, which is to say she ate better grub cooked more plainly. Longarm had noticed that all the really elaborate styles of cooking from Chinese to Hungarian had been invented by people who had to stretch the more expensive cuts, and spice tasteless filling up with fancy flavoring. That was likely why rich folks asked for rare steak and railroad workers fancied corned beef. You could eat a tender T-bone close to the way it came off the cow, but you needed to marinate cheaper and tougher chuck in tasty pickle liquor for a spell before you could bite into it.

Consuela Llamas fed him scrambled eggs and acorn-fed ham from her own swine herd, along with coffee strong enough to strip paint. He'd been worried about free-ranging hogs the night before, knowing how Mexican rancheros grazed more kinds of critters, from cows to poultry, than most Anglo stockmen.

Longarm knew why old Consuela was smiling like old Mona Lisa as she asked him if he'd had a comfortable night. He managed to meet her gaze with a poker face as he allowed he'd had no complaints. It was up to the ladies to say whether they'd been pure as the driven snow or had taken it all three ways more than once. He'd always thought that Casanova had been a fool, if not a liar, spelling out just when and where he'd played slap-and-tickle and the exact number of gals he'd played it with. For few believed a braggart to begin with. And the ones who'd bought your brag might hear of some other great lover who'd scored higher. So Longarm was sure his considerable rep as a h.o.r.n.y Denver devil stemmed from the simple fact that n.o.body in town could say for certain who he might or might not have slept with in such a good-sized town.

Then Consuela calmly asked him what he'd found distasteful about poor Ynez.

He wrinkled his nose and replied that if Ynez had been the handle of that lady who'd led his way to bed, he'd found her tolerable to look at.

"I haven't asked who you found repulsive last night, or vice versa, because to tell the truth I'm more worried about that John Brown, the head butler they say Queen Victoria may be carrying on with. The picture's a mite more amusing, no offense. Nice-looking folks all look about the same in bed together."

She blushed a deeper shade of chestnut as she softly said she was sorry if she'd offended him. Then she chuckled and said she saw what he meant, that she'd laughed like h.e.l.l the first time she'd pictured the fat Prince of Wales atop his skinny redheaded princess from Denmark.

Longarm didn't say he'd heard Prince Edward had been going at it hot and heavy with Miss Lillie Langtry, that actress gal, because for one thing he wasn't certain it was true, and for another he had to get on down the road. So he mentioned horseflesh instead and she said she was sorry about him having to bring that up.

They finished their coffee. He expected to follow her around to the corrals to look over her remuda, but she tinkled that same bell--it seemed to follow her about like a bra.s.s pup--and when yet another servant gal came out on the veranda, Consuela told her they wanted to see eight ponies which she reeled off by name. Then she gave Longarm permission to smoke and allowed she'd try one of his skinny cheroots herself.

A short spell later, four of her vaqueros herded what she called her eight best ponies around a corner through the wild mustard and green tumbleweed. Longarm had to take part of what she said on faith, but he decided any horseflesh she was holding back on had to be the queen bee's knees. All eight ponies were cream to palomino Spanish barbs, that beauteous cross between Arab ponies from the Barbary Coast of North Africa and the bigger and steadier chargers old-time Spanish fighting men like those El Cid had favored. Consuela said her late husband had been a big man. Longarm believed her when he saw that not one of those ponies stood less than fifteen hands at the shoulder despite their flaring nostrils and intelligent spaniel eyes. Those bright hunting dogs, as their name still hinted, were another old Spanish notion.

Spanish-speaking folks bred critters as cleverly as French-speaking folks pruned grape vines for wine.

Longarm allowed he'd settle for the two with the longer limbs, a palomino gelding and a more African-looking mare the color of that rich cream you get from a Guernsey milker. He said he was more intent on covering distance than cutting cows in chaparral, and she said she admired a man who knew just what he wanted.

She told her segundo, one of those riders he'd seen stringing wire while riding with Kinipai, to bridle both brutes, and asked Longarm which one he wanted to start out on. He said he fancied a ride on that white mare, and she told her boys to get cracking and bring the stock right back ready to go. So they did.

He and Consuela had time to jaw just a bit about her troubles and his plans. He tried to stay on the topic of her pestiferous Anglo neighbors. Not because he really expected to do anything about them, but because he didn't want to say just where he'd be headed next. It was bad enough she knew who he was. He'd told her he was on a secret job and sworn her to silence, but the less she knew the better.

When two of her riders led the stock he'd picked back again, all set up to go, he got an idea how well she meant to keep his secret. For when he brought up the delicate subject of money again, she protested that he was a guest, and added something about the value of being known for having supplied two caballos to El Brazo Largo.

It wouldn't have been polite to cuss her, or useful to warn her again not to gossip about him. So he just mounted the cream, took the lead of the palomino with a nod of thanks, and rode out.

With the sun up and n.o.body likely to be laying for him in the high weeds, Longarm headed for the coach road cattycorner through the stirrup-deep wild mustard. The air was still crisp and the tang of tiny yellow blossoms seemed to make both ponies frisky. You saw so much mustard around Spanish-speaking stock because they liked to nibble mustard about as much as humans did, concentrating instead on consuming gra.s.s down to the root crowns.

Longarm intersected the main road near the river about three furlongs south of the ranch complex, and couldn't have said just why he reined in and turned in the saddle for a last look-see. But when he did he saw at least a dozen riders loping up that same entry lane under a cloud of dust. Their hats and darker outfits said they were Anglo from better than half a mile away. It was none of his own beeswax who they were or what they might want with old Consuela. A lady raising stock on a spread as big as this one--for he was still on her land--would be expected to have all sorts of visitors, and it wasn't as if she didn't have any grown men back yonder to protect her.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Creamy," he said to his mount. "I wasted a whole day getting Kinipai squared away, and Billy Vail never sent me all this way to fight with windmills like that a.s.shole Don Quixote! I'm supposed to be down by that mysterious mesa right now. There's no mystery about Mexican land grants. Heaps of Anglo stockmen resent 'em, and it's a matter for the local law to deal with!"