Longarm - Longarm. Part 14

"I'll stand pat for now, thanks."

"Longarm, they're going to kill you. Even if they don't shoot to kill from up there, you're taking foolish chances. We can't control things from down here. Once men get to shooting..."

"I know. Why don't you ride out with the gal before you both get in deeper? I can promise you one thing, Mountie. You won't make it back to Canada with a dead U.S. Deputy to answer for!"

"I can see that, d.a.m.n it! That's why I'm willing to compromise! If you'll come back to civilization with me now, I'll abide by a legal ruling in Cheyenne about the prisoner. If they say he's mine, I take him. If they give him to you, I give up. Agreed?"

"h.e.l.l, no! I got the jasper and possession is nine-tenths of the law. I don't need no territorial judge to say who he belongs to. The prisoner belongs to me!"

"Longarm, you're acting like a fool!"

"That makes two of us, doesn't it?"

Kim Stover called over to Longarm, "Please be reasonable, Deputy Long. I don't want my friends to get in trouble!"

"They're already in trouble, ma'am! This ain't coffee and cake and let's-pretend-we're-vigilantes! You folks wanted the fun without considering the stakes. I'll tell you what I'll do, though. You and any others who've had enough of this game can ride out peaceable, and I won't press charges."

"What are you talking about! You're in no position to press charges! We're trying to save your life, you big idiot!"

"Well, I thank you for the kind thoughts, ma'am, but I'll save my own life as best I can."

Foster yelled, "I'm moving Mrs. Stover out of range, Longarm. You're obviously crazy as a loon and the shooting will be starting any minute now!"

Longarm watched them go back to their boulder, then rolled over on one elbow to gaze up at the cliffs above him. The prisoner's face was pale and cold, now, and the eyes were filmed with dust. Longarm pressed the lids closed, but they popped open again, so he went back to watching the skyline.

His eyes narrowed when, a good ten minutes later, a human head appeared as a tiny dot up above. Another, then another appeared beside it. Longarm suddenly grinned and waved. One of the figures staring down at him waved back. Longarm went to the still-smoldering shale-oil smudge fire and, keeping his head down, used his saddle blanket to break the rising column of smoke into long and short puffs. The next time he looked up, the dots on the rim rock had vanished.

He crawled back to the breastwork, tied his kerchief to the barrel of his Winchester and waved it back and forth above the wall until Foster hailed him, calling out, "Do you surrender?"

"No, but you're about to. Tell the folks around you not to get spooked in the next few minutes. Some friends of mine are moving in behind you and some old boys shoot first and ask questions later when they see Indians. Tell 'em the ones coming in are Utes. They won't kill n.o.body, 'less some d.a.m.n fool starts shooting!"

"What in the devil are you talking about? It's my understanding the Utes are not on the warpath!"

"'Course they ain't. They're on the Ouray Reservation, about a ten-hour ride from here, when they ain't investigating smoke on the horizon. The Ouray Utes are wards of the U.S. Government, so I thought I ought to send for 'em. Some of 'em don't speak our lingo, so make sure n.o.body acts unfriendly as they come in to disarm YOU."

"Disarm us? You can't be serious!"

"Oh, but I am, and so are they. I just deputized the whole d.a.m.n tribe. You said eighteen-to-one was hard odds? well, I figure I now have you outgunned about ten- or twelve-to-one. So don't act foolish."

"My G.o.d, you'd set savage Indians against your own race?"

"Yep. Had to. Only way I could do what I aimed to be doing."

"What's that, get away from us with my prisoner?"

"h.e.l.l, I could have done that days ago. The reason I led you all down here was to put you under arrest."

"Arrest? You can't arrest me!"

"If you'll look up the slope behind you, you'll see that I've just done it."

The Mountie turned to stare open-mouthed at the long line of armed Indians on the skyline and the others coming down the trail on painted ponies. He saw white men getting up from behind rocks, now, holding their hands out away from their gunbelts as they tried to look innocent. A pair of Ute braves had Timberline on foot between their ponies and to avoid any last-minute misunderstandings, Longarm got up from behind his little fort and walked over to them, waving his Stetson.

An older moon-faced Indian on a stocky pinto rode it into the creek and waited there, grinning broadly as Longarm approached. He said, in English, "It has been a good hunt. Just like the old days when we fought the Sioux and Blackfoot in the high meadows to the north. What is my brother from the Great White Father doing here? Do you want us to kill these people? They do not seem to be your friends."

"My blood brother, Hungry Calf, is hasty. Is the agent over on your reservation still my old friend, Caldwell?"

"Yes. He is a good man. He does not cheat us as the one you arrested that time did. We did not bring him. Agent Caldwell is good, but he says foolish things when we ride out for a bit of fun."

"I'd like to have all these people taken to the reservation, Hungry Calf. I'm arresting them in the name of the Great White Father."

"Good. We will take them to Agent Caldwell, and if he gives us his permission, we will hang them all for you."

"Tell the others not to harm them in any way. Most of them are not bad people."

"Ah, but some of these saltu have broken the white father's law. Can we hang them?"

"You won't have to. You Ho have herds of longhorns, now. You know how a hand cuts the critters he wants from a rounded-up herd?"

"Of course. Herding longhorns is less fun than hunting, but we are now fine cowboys, if what Agent Caldwell says is true. We shall drive them all in together, then my brother can cut the bad ones out for the branding. It should be interesting to watch. I have never herded white people before."

CHAPTER 20.

It took Longarm and his Ute allies most of the day to get the outraged whites over to the Ouray Reservation, to the east. One of them was kind enough to pack the dead prisoner in, wrapped in a tarp across a pony. When they rode into the unpainted frame buildings at the government town called White Sticks, as the sun went down, a tall man in a rusty black suit came out with a puzzled smile.

Longarm rode up to him and smiled back, saying, "Got a dead man with me, Mister Caldwell. Can I store him in your icehouse for a few days?"

"G.o.d, no, but I'll bury him under ice and sawdust in a shed 'til you want him bac! Who are all these other folks, Longarm? What have you and my indians been UP to?"

"I'm citing them for helping me make some arrests. They'll be bringing in some others before morning. I deputized some of Hungry Calf's young men to round up the others headed this way by now."

Foster rode over to protest, "See here! I am on Her Majesty's business under an agreement with the State Department!"

Longarm said, "He don't work for the State Department, Sergeant. You're on land controlled by the Department of the Interior and they don't like State all that much. Ride back and take charge of the others, if you're all so anxious to help. Tell 'em to make camp and sort of stay put, for now, while I make arrangements with my friends. You do have your own grub, don't you? These Ho friends of mine don't have all that much to give away."

Interested despite his outrage, Foster asked, "Why do you call them Ho? This is the Ute reservation, isn't it?"

"Sure it is. Ute is what others call 'em. They call themselves Ho 'cause it means folks, in their own lingo. They call you saltu meaning strangers, for reasons you can likely figure out. So don't mess up and n.o.body will get hurt."

Caldwell said, "Longarm is delicate about indian niceties. He calls Apaches by their own name of Na-dene. Calls a Sioux a Dakota."

"All but the western Sioux," Longarm corrected. "They say La-ko-tab."

The Mountie sniffed and said, "All very interesting, I'm sure. Do you have a telegraph connection here, Agent Caldwell?"

"Sure. Wired into Western Union."

"May I use it to notify Her Majesty's Government I've been abducted by Ute Indians?"

Caldwell glanced at Longarm, who nodded and said, "Why not? He's a guest."

Longarm saw that the Mountie wasn't going to explain things to the others, so as Foster and Caldwell went inside the headquarters building to send the message, Longarm ambled over to the large group of whites around the Indian campfire they'd helped themselves to. Longarm saw that his Ho friends had given them back their sidearms, as he'd told them to, and had hidden their horses someplace as he had instructed.

Timberline had been squatting on his heels next to Kim Stover, who sat crosslegged on a saddle blanket near the small fire. The foreman smiled thinly and said, "I'd better never see you anywhere off this reservation, Longarm. You've pushed me from obliging a lady to personal!"

Longarm figured Timberline was just showing off for the redhead, so he ignored him and announced for all to hear, "I'm holding the bunch of you overnight on what you might call self-recog. The Indians won't pester You less you try to reclaim a horse."

The midget, Cedric Hanks, piped up from across the fire, "You've no right to hold us here! We're white folks, not Utes! Your writ don't apply to us here! The Bureau of Indian Affairs has nothing to say about the comings and goings of such as we."

"You may be right, Hanks. When that Mountie's through, I'll wire my office for a ruling. Meanwhile, you'd all best figure on a night's rest here in White Sticks. I'll see, later, about some entertainment. Hungry Calf likes to put on shows for company. By the way, I got some Ho out looking for your wife and the others. We'll sort it out once all the interested parties are together."

"You say they have a telegraph line here? I'd like to send some wires."

"You don't get to. Reservation wire's for government business only. The Mountie rates its use because he's a real peace officer with a government. Private detectives are just pests. As for the rest of you, since some of you put all that effort into keeping the Western Union line to Crooked Lance out of order, you got no reason to send messages into a busted line."

Kim Stover asked, "Do you have any idea who among us might have cut the wire to Crooked Lance, Deputy Long?"

"Got lots of ideas. But I'm trying to work out proof that would hold up in court. There's more'n one reason to cut an outlying cow town off from communications. Friends of the prisoner one of you shot might have wanted things quiet while they made a private play to spring him. Then again, the eastern meat packers might not want folks with a hard-scrabble herd in rough range to be abreast of the latest beef quotations back East. I'll save you asking by telling you. When I left Denver, range stock was selling for twenty-nine dollars a head at trackside."

The girl smiled for a change, and said, "Oh, that is a good price! We had no idea the price of beef was up!"

"I figured as much. We're going into a boom on beef after the bad times we've been having. They've been having bad crops and politics over in the old countries. Queen Victoria and Mister Bismarck are buying all the tinned beef they can get for their armies. France is bouncing back from the whopping the Prussians gave them a few years back and is carving slices out of Africa with an army that has to be fed. I'd say the hungry days are over for you cow folks."

Timberline's voice was almost friendly as he finished counting on his fingers and observed, "Jesus! Figuring all our herds consolidated, we got near fifty thousand dollars worth of beef up in our valley!"

"I know. You'll be able to build your schoolhouse without obstructin' justice and such. As long as we're on the subject, that prisoner of yours ..." Then Longarm caught himself and decided he'd said enough, if not too much, for now.

He was saved further conversation by the arrival of Hungry Calf at the fire. On foot, the chief looked much shorter than he had while astride a pony, for the Ho were built like their Eskimo cousins in the northlands they'd wandered down from before Columbus took that wrong turn to India. Hungry Calf's arms and legs were a bit shorter than most white mens'. Yet his head and torso were bigger than Longarm's. Given legs in European proportion to his body, he'd have been as tall as Timberline instead of being a head shorter than Longarm. It was just as well he was friendly. A hand-to-hand set-to with the bear-like Hungry Calf would be one hard row to hoe.

The Indian said, "The people are happy to have something new to talk about. The maidens would like to have a fertility dance to entertain our guests."

Longarm nodded and said, "That's right neighborly of my brother's people. You tell 'em it's all right. Then come back. I'd like a few more words with my Ho brother."

As the indian waddled off in the darkness Longarm turned back to the crowd of mostly-young male cowhands and said, soberly, "I want you all to listen up. The Indians are trying to be neighborly, and some of them young squaws can be handsome-looking to a healthy man, so I'd best warn you, Indians on a reservation are wards of the state and you're not allowed to trifle with 'em."

One of the Crooked Lance riders snorted, "That'll be the day! This whole d.a.m.ned camp smells like burning cow... excuse me, Miss Kim."

"Burning cow pats is what you're smelling, sure enough. I don't want anyone here to get close enough to smelling any squaws to consider himself an expert on the subject. If the Indian agent catches you at it, it's a federal charge. If the squaw's old man does, it can get more serious. So you let 'em flirt and shimmy all they want, and keep your seats till the entertainment's over, hear?"

As he started to leave, Kim Stover asked, "Is this... fertility rite liable to be... improper?"

"You mean for a white lady to watch? No, ma'am. You'll likely find it sort of dull, considering the message."

He excused himself and walked a few yards toward the cl.u.s.tered outlines of the agency. Hungry Calf materialized to say, "The one in the red coat is standing around the ponies. Can my young men kill him?"

"No. Just have them watch him, without hindering him in any way. I want to know whatever he does, but he's allowed to do it."

"What if he steals ponies? Can we kill him then?"

"No. The Great White Father will pay you for anything he steals from my Ho brothers."

"Hah! I think my brother is baiting some kind of trap! Can Agent Caldwell tell you the message he sent on the singing wire?"

"He doesn't have to. I know."

"Longarm has strong medicine. He knows everything. We know this to be true. When that other agent was cheating my people, none of us suspected it, for the man was cunning. Longarm's medicine unmasked his trickery, even after his written words on paper fooled the other agents of the Great white Father. The red coat is a fool. We shall watch him, cat-eyed, through the night, until he does what Longarm knows he will."

Longarm thanked his informant and went over to the agency, where he found Caldwell seated at a table with his vaguely pretty white wife. As Longarm remembered, her name was Portia.

Portia Caldwell remembered him, too. She literally hauled him inside and sat him in her vacated chair, across from her husband, and began to putter with her cast-iron stove, chatting like a magpie about fixing him something to go with his coffee.

Longarm grinned across the table at his host and said, "I'll settle for maybe a slice of that apple cobbler you're famous for, ma'am. What I came to ask about was the disposition of the remains I had packed in."

Caldwell grimaced and said, "I might have known you'd want to talk about it at the table. Is it true the dead man was kin to Jesse James and wanted in Canada on a very ugly charge I'd as soon not repeat in front of my wife?"

"You read the sounds of the Mountie's key as he was sending, huh? Who'd he wire, Washington or Fort MacLeod?"

"Both. He said he'd gotten his man, whatever that means."

"It's Mountie talk. You got the--you know--properly guarded?"

"Couple of Utes are keeping an eye on the shed it's stored in. You don't expect anyone to try and steal preserved evidence?"

Portia Caldwell shoved a big bowl of apple cobbler in front of Longarm, saying, "For heaven's sake I know there's a corpse in the smokehouse! I'm an army brat, not a shrinking violet. I saw my first body when my mother took me to visit my Daddy, three days after Gettysburg!"

Caldwell grimaced again and said, "she says the worst smell was when they burned the dead horses. Ain't she something?"

"You're lucky to have the right women for your job. The Shoshone try to steal any of your charges' ponies, lately?"

"No, we're having trouble with a few Apache bands to the south, as always, but I'd say the day of real Indian Wars is over, wouldn't you?"

"Maybe. I filed a report from a breed informant a few months ago. If I was you, I'd keep an eye peeled for a wandering medicine man called Wava-something-or-other. They say he's a Paiute dream-singer who has a new religion."

"Paiute? n.o.body's ever had much trouble from that tribe. They maybe shot up a few wagon trains back in '49, but, h.e.l.l, every young buck did that in them days just for the h.e.l.l of it. Most of the fighting tribes despise the Paiute."

"Well, this one young jasper I've heard of bears watching, just the same. He ain't trying to stir up his own people. He wanders about, even riding trains, selling medicine shirts."

"Medicine shirts? What kind of medicine?"

"Bulletproof. Not bulletproof iron shirts. Real old buckskin shirts with strong medicine signs painted on 'em. I ain't certain if this young Paiute dream-singer's a con man or sincere, but, like I said, we're keeping an eye on him."

Portia Caldwell asked, "If you know who he is, why can't you just arrest him, Longarm?"