Free Longarm and the Unwritten Law by Tabor Evans

Ranger Mason, but that no apology was called for. As he joined her in the shade on the walk, he decided that her hair was a dark shade of honey under that veil and her eyes were hazel. He said, "I can see how it must have looked to a lady on her own late at night, Miss Weaver."
    She smiled under her veil and replied, "I see I wasn't the only one talking to Ranger Mason this morning. I really do feel foolish, and grateful, now that I know you really did save me from the pest back in Amarillo. Ranger Mason tells me you're on government business, bound for the Kiowa Comanche Reservation just to the north."
    Longarm nodded, since it wasn't a secret mission, but explained, "I ain't sure you could say it was just to the north, ma'am. I know the reserve of which we speak starts officially at the Red River, a fairly easy ride from here. But whilst the Red River forms a south boundary to the lands set aside for all those Indian nations, the ones I'm out to visit will be way closer to Fort Sill, a good forty miles or a hard day in the saddle north of the river."
    She said, "That's what everyone keeps telling me. I have to see old Chief Quanah of the Kiowa Comanche. Will you take me with you?"
    Longarm laughed incredulously. It wouldn't have been polite to ask a reporter for a pesky paper why anyone with a lick of sense might want to. He just said, "Quanah ain't much older than me. Folks take him for older because he's sort of weatherbeaten and he started so young it seems he's been whooping it up for ages. He ain't the chief of the Kiowa or even all the Comanche. He led the Kwahadi or one division Of the Comanche Army during the Buffalo War. He seems to speak for more of them now because he's half white and speaks good English."
    She said she'd heard as much, and had a lot of questions to ask the big chief. So he gently told her, "He might not be up at Fort Sill right now, Miss Weaver. I just read some B.I.A. dispatches. They say Quanah's on a sort of inspection trip of the older nations that were sort of civilized somewhat sooner. It reminds me of those trips Peter the Great took to other parts of Europe when he set out to civilize Russia."
    She started to say something about wanting to talk to some other Indian chiefs in that case. He started to tell her it was out of the question for her to come along. But then she headed him off with: "I have to find out if there's any truth to those rumors of corruption in the newly organized tribal police. I haven't been able to get a line on whether the ring-leaders are white or red or whether there's nothing to it at all."
    He said, "Well, seeing you're bound and determined, and seeing we both seem interested in the Indian Police, we'd best see about hiring some riding stock for you, Miss Weaver."
    She said she already had her own horse and saddle awaiting her pleasure at her own hotel. So he told her to go fetch them while he went back to that general store for a few more trail supplies.
    So she did, and they were riding north for the Red River of the South within the hour, which was between nine and ten A.M. Longarm was too polite to comment on her sitting her hired roan sidesaddle. Folks rode best the way they'd first been taught, and if she sat a mite forward, as Eastern folks were prone to, it wasn't as if he expected her to circle any stampedes between hither and yon. Lord willing and the creeks didn't rise, they'd make Fort Sill in a hard day's ride, and her livery nag would bear up better with her modest weight carried SO.
    He saw she'd lashed her own bedding across her saddlebags. She doubtless hadn't been told it was best to wrap the blankets inside a waterproof canvas ground-cloth. Folks who insisted on calling the Western grasslands the Great American Desert seemed to think rain never happened out this way.
    He had to ask if she knew how to use the Spencer repeater she'd slung from the off side of her girlish saddle. She said her father had let her practice on tin cans back East when