Longarm and the Wendigo

“Yep, I likely would. After that, the two of you would be on your own.”

The officious Sheriff Murphy had circled back from wherever he’d hidden to take command once the smell of gunsmoke had faded away. Longarm was only too happy to leave him with the disposal of the bodies after wiring Denver where to send the reward for Fats. He knew Billy Vail would be discreet about bruiting Roping Sally’s name and address about.

Longarm, as a federal employee, couldn’t claim the reward for Curley. Jason said he didn’t want blood money, so Longarm let Murphy put in a claim. If he ever got it, he’d likely brag on shooting outlaws into the next century, but what the hell—the poor idiot needed some brag to go with his badge.

Longarm hauled the mortal remains of Spotted Beaver back to the reservation for another interesting funeral. He arrived a little after one in the afternoon to discover some changes had taken place.

Prudence Lee had set up shop in the late Real Bear’s house and was beating a drum and shaking a tambourine for some reason that Longarm didn’t go over to find out. He joined Calvin and Nan Durler in the agency kitchen after giving the body to Spotted Beaver’s kin.

He sat at the kitchen table and lit a cheroot as he told the Durlers about the interesting times he’d been having since last they’d been together. He didn’t imagine they were interested in Roping Sally, but he told them everything else.

Calvin said, “That same fool calf busted out again this morning, but some Indian kids caught it and brought it back. Where in thunder do you figure that calf wants to go? He’s got plenty of grass and water, damn it!”

Longarm thought before he answered. He had enough on his plate as it was; on the other hand, the answer to one question sometimes led to others. He took a drag on his cheroot and asked, “You feel up to hunting cow thieves, Cal?”

“Cow thieves? What are you talking about? Nobody stole the infernal calf. It just busted through the wire and took off on its own like it had turpentine under its tail!”

“You’re missing other critters, ain’t you? Come on, let’s get Rain Crow and some other police and see what’s eating your new calf. You got a good saddle gun?”

“Got a Henry repeater, but I ain’t the best shot in the world.”

“Don’t reckon you’ll have to use it, but it pays to have one along. Keeps folks from getting sassy when they see you’re armed.”

Nan Durler said, “You men can’t leave me here alone. I’m coming with you.”

Before her husband could answer, Longarm said flatly, “No, you’re not. I don’t mean to get your man shot, Miss Nan. Why don’t you go next door and help Miss Prudence whang that drum? What’s she doing over there, anyway ?”

Calvin laughed and said, “Teaching some Blackfoot the Meaning of the Word. They likely think she’s crazy, but we don’t have an opera house, so what the hell, at least it’s entertainment.”

Ignoring his wife’s protests, the agent armed himself and followed Longarm outside. They saddled up, rode to Rain Crow’s house, and got him and another Indian policeman called Two-Noses. Longarm didn’t ask why they called him that. Two-Noses really only had the usual quota, but that one more than made up for the small size of the rest of him.

Longarm explained as they rode over to the pasture, “That new calf’s not fully weaned, so he’s likely looking for his mama. I figure we can turn him loose and see where he thinks she might be. Critters are good at finding one another.”

Calvin said, “Roping Sally brought him to us. Do you think she held back on one of the cows we ordered?”

“Son,” Longarm said, “you’ve got to learn to pay attention. When Sally and her hands drove that last herd in, they told you they’d picked up a stray from here along the way, remember?”

“Oh, you mean that calf’s the same one?” Durler looked confused.

“Hell, weren’t you even looking at them when she brought ‘em in? Of course it was the same calf. Has a calico left rump as I remember.”

“Then what you’re saying is that the calf’s mother was one of the cows recently stolen, and, Jesus you must think I’m dumb.”

“You’re learning. Everybody starts out dumb. There’s the herd up yonder and, yep, old calico-rump’s over against the far fence, looking for an opening.”

Longarm led his little band around the fenced quarter-section on the outside. As they came up to the wailing calf against the fence, he dismounted and pulled down the top wire far enough for the lostling to leap over it, bawling. By the time he’d remounted, the calf was making a beeline for the southeast horizon at a dead run.

The men followed at a discreet trot. From time to time the little runaway would slow to a dogged walk, getting its wind back, then run some more. Two hours later, and nine or ten miles from the agency, Durler said, “We’re off the reservation.”

Longarm said, “I know. He’s making for that sod house, yonder.”

As the four riders approached, a man came out of the soddy with a rifle and called, “You’re on the Bar K, gents. State your business and state it sudden!”

Longarm and his companions reined to a walk but kept coming as Longarm saw the calf nuzzling a cow through the wire fence on the far side of the homestead claim. He smiled and said, “We’re on U.S. Government business, mister. You’ve got about two eye-blinks to put that weapon near your toes before I shoot you.”

The man hesitated as he considered the odds. Then he leaned the gun against the doorjamb and stepped away from it, complaining, “You got no call to threaten me, durn it! I’m a peaceable settler.”

“I can see that, now. You likely didn’t know that some of those cows that maybe strayed over here belonged to the reservation, huh?”

“What are you talking about? I ain’t got no reservation cows.”

“You’ve got one I can see from here, mister. For your sake, I hope you haven’t run any brands.” He swung around in his saddle and said, “Rain Crow, ride over there and cut out every cow that isn’t wearing a Bar K on it. If you see any marked U.S., or anything that might have been U.S. at one time, give a holler.”

The young Indian grinned and loped toward the fenced pasture with Two Noses as the settler near the soddy protested, “I ain’t had time to brand some of my critters, but I swear you got this all wrong.”

A worried-looking woman peered out through the door and the man snapped, “Get back inside, Mother. I think these men are loco or something. They’ve as much as accused me of stealing!”

The woman ran out into the dooryard and got between Longarm and her husband as she wailed, “Oh, Lordy, don’t you hang him, mister! I told him he was likely to get in trouble over them damn cows, but he ain’t a bad man. Not really!”

Rain Crow rode back, still grinning. He said, “Fifteen head. Five U.S., one Double Z. The rest have no brands.”

Longarm nodded. “Well, we’ll take ‘em all, then, after I thank these folks for their trouble.”

The cow thief shouted, “Now, you just listen here!”

Longarm’s amiable expression vanished without a trace as he turned toward the settler. “No, you listen, mister! I’ve got you dead to rights but I’ve got bigger fish to fry, so we’re taking the cows and I’m letting you off with a warning. The warning is, the next time I see you within a country mile of the reservation line, you are dead.”

“I aimed to bring them branded cows in when I got around to it. I was rounding up and-“

“You’ve got a Double Z cow in there, too. You want me to tell them about it?”

“I was aiming to return that’n, too. The ones I ain’t got to branding yet-“

“Are lost, strayed or stolen, mister,” Longarm interrupted. “You want to be friendly and call ‘em strays or are you just too foolish to go on breathing?”

“Damn it, half of them is really mine!”

“Not any more. You’re getting off light and you know it. Go ahead, Rain Crow, cut the fence and we’ll herd ‘em all back. I’ll say we found the Double Z critter mixed in with our stock, next time I’m in town.”

As the Indian started to carry out his orders, the man shouted, “You can’t do this, mister.”

Longarm said, “I just did, and, like I said, this lady’s a widow woman if I see you near the reservation or have to pass this way again.”

“Now all I have to do is find out who’s selling booze to my Indians!” said Cal Durler, feeling pleased with himself as he and Longarm sat on the back porch of the agency after riding back with the purloined cattle.

Nan was in the house, getting together some vittles, and the mission woman was still beating her drum next door. Longarm noticed that Cal was fooling with a length of cotton clothesline as they talked. He said, “Your Indians are starting to take an interest in the herd. Old Rain Crow was tickled to hunt ‘em down and sass a white man like that, but let’s not get too cocky. Some cow thieves take their business more serious than that petty thief we just threw a scare into.”

“Hell, let ‘em come!” Durler said. “We’ll dust ‘em with number nine buck!” He got to his feet with the length of clothesline and started whipping it around through the air for some reason Longarm couldn’t fathom.

He waited politely until the Indian agent wrapped it around his own shins and was frowning down at the results before he asked quietly, “Are you trying to hogtie yourself, Cal?”

The agent grinned sheepishly and said, “It looks so easy when you fellows do it. What am I doing wrong, Longarm?”

“Don’t know. What in thunder are you aiming to do?” Longarm chuckled.

Durler untangled the gray rope from his legs and answered, “I’m trying to learn to twirl a lassoo, of course. What’s so funny?”

Longarm got to his feet, saying, “You can’t twirl a throw rope put together like that, Cal.”

Durler held the length of limp clothesline out, saying, “I know I can’t, damn it. Will you show me how you’d do it?”

Longarm shook his head as he took the improvised reata, explaining, “No mortal born of woman can twirl this thing, Cal. You’ve just made a slipknot for your noose. Every kid who ever played cowboy has made a creation like this. As you can see, they don’t twirl for shit.”

“Come on, I know there’s a knack to it, but I’ve seen you old-timers do it and-“

“Damn it, Cal, you’re not paying attention. You got any bailing wire?”

“Sure. There’s a coil on that nail near the screen door.”

Longarm spotted the coil of thin iron wire and stepped over to it, saying, “We have to do something about the way you hold a gun on a gent, too. That settler would have gone for you, had you been alone.”

Durler watched as Longarm broke off about eighteen inches of bailing wire and then, not having any idea what the lawman was doing as he started fooling with the end of the rope, Durler said, “You told me you let him off easy because he was harmless, Longarm.”

“No man is harmless. He just wasn’t worth my time. Takes months to get a cow thief in front of a judge, so most folks just shoot ‘em and the hell with it. I didn’t think he was worth a killing. Not if he heeds my neighborly advice, at least.”

“All right,” Durler said in an exasperated “what did I do wrong over there with my gun?” tone.

Longarm finished wrapping the slipknot in wire before he said, “I’ll get to guns in a minute. You see what I’ve done here? Your noose runs through what we call the honda on a throw rope. It has to be heavy, like the sinker on a fish line, if YOU want the rope to follow where it’s aimed.”

Longarm shook out a modest loop of the limp line and started to twirl it. “You see? The loop part’s trailing after the heavy honda, the way smoke trails behind a locomotive’s smokestack. Most folks think the loop’s some sort of hoop, but it ain’t. You don’t twirl the loop. You twirl the weighted honda and the rest just follows natural.”

He suddenly reversed his wrist action, swinging the honda in a figure-eight as the rope drew a pretty pattern in the air between them. Longarm said, “We call this the butterfly. You can’t hardly catch anything with it, but it’s good for showing off if gals are looking.

Durler laughed and said, “You know, I think I see how you’re doing that!”

“There you go. Want to try her?”

He handed the rope to the agent and watched as Durler made a brave try. The loop stayed open for a few rotations and then, as Durler laughed in pleased surprise, wrapped itself around his waist.

Longarm said, “We’d best add some weight. Knew a Mexican fancy roper once, who used lead sinkers braided into his leather reata.”

Durler handed back the rope and Longarm started wrapping more bailing wire around the improvised honda. As he worked, the agent said, “Let’s get back to my gunmanship, Longarm. I thought I was pretty ornery-looking over at that sod house just now. Are you saying you thought I was bluffing?”

“Don’t know if you were bluffing or not, Cal. The point was, you looked like you were trying to make up your mind what you’d do if that man pushed it to a real fight.”

“Oh, hell, he was outnumbered four-to-one and you said yourself he was just a petty thief!”

“I know what I said. Know I won’t be here if he should ever steal a cow from you again, too. Rain Crow looks like he’s serious enough about such matters. So be sure you take him with you if it comes up a second time. He might have you down as an uncertain gunfighter, and even if he’s Wrong, such doubts lead to most of the trouble out here.”

“Damn it, I wasn’t afraid of him. If he’d made me use my gun, I reckon I would have.”

“Back up and go over what you just said, Cal. You said you reckoned you’d throw down. Unless a man’s certain he’s out for blood with the first shot, he’s better off not having a gun in his hands at all!”

Longarm finished wrapping the honda and twirled the rope experimentally, rolling the loop around him like a hoop as he turned on one heel, muttering, “This looks like I’m rolling it on the ground, but if you watch the wired knot, you’ll see I’m not. Wish there was something to catch around here.”

He handed the rope to Durler. “You fool with it for a while. I’ve got other chores to attend to. You got a survey map I can ruin?”

Durler took the rope but didn’t try to spin it as he frowned and asked, “A map? I’ve got some maps of the reservation if that’s what you mean. What do you mean about ruining one?”

“Pencil marks. I have to stop running in circles after this Wendigo critter. I’m going to mark out all the spots I’ve searched or know real well. Then I’m going to have a closer look-see at the blank parts. If I haven’t found anything by the time I’ve covered the whole map with check marks, I’m in trouble.”

Still holding the rope, Durler ducked inside and came out shortly with a folded survey map. He handed it to Longarm who sat on the steps and spread it out as the agent watched, idly twirling the rope. To Durler’s surprise, the loop opened and began to spin easily as soon as he stopped concentrating too hard on his own wrist.

He laughed boyishly as Longarm drew a loop of his own on the stiff paper and muttered, “If Johnny Hunts Alone, the Wendigo, or whomsoever is inside this I’m blind as a bat. Rain Crow’s searched most of these outlying settlements, so what’s this X? About five miles north of the railroad tracks?”

Durler let the loop collapse and stepped over to stare down at Longarm’s questioning finger. He shrugged and said, “That’s an old, abandoned sod house. A white homesteader built it back in the sixties. Before this land was set aside as a reservation.”

“What happened to the nesters? Government buy ‘em out?”

“No. They were wiped out by Indians. My Blackfoot say they didn’t do it. Others say they did. There’s not much left of the place. Just some tumble-down sod walls and a few charred timbers.”

“What about the well?” Longarm asked.

Durler looked puzzled. “The what?”

“The well,” Longarm repeated. “You can see there’s no stream bed within a mile. If they settled there, they had to have water, so there ought to be a well.”

“Gee, I don’t know, Longarm. I’ve only been out there once or twice. Don’t remember seeing a well.”

Longarm folded the map and put it away in a pocket, saying, “Ruined walls to cut the wind. Maybe water somewhere on the claim. Nobody living near it. Yep. I’ll have a look on my way into town this evening.”

“You’re not staying here tonight? Miss Lee’s moved into the house next door, so there’s plenty of room for you, and Nan’s expecting you for supper.”

“Uh, I’ll be staying in Switchback tonight. I’ll likely be … investigating till right late.”

“Hell, I’ll be up past midnight, Longarm.”

“I might be up even later. I’ll hunker down in town.”

“You’re on to something that will keep you up past midnight?”

Longarm managed not to grin as he said, “I’ll likely get some sleep, sooner or later.”

Chapter 9

The abandoned rains told their mute tale of frontier tragedy to Longarm’s practiced eye as he left his mount grazing on the surrounding short-grass to poke on foot through the rubble. It was late afternoon and his shadow lay long over the weed-grown tangle of charred furniture and heat-scorched metal framed by the knee-high walls of rain-washed sod. With the toe of his boot, he gently kicked a baby’s bottle, melted out of shape by fire, muttering, “Hope they had enough sense to send you away when the smoke-talk rose, little fellow.”

A dozen spent brass cartridges lay in the weeds under what had once been a windowsill. They were green with corrosion now, but they still bore witness to the desperation of a long-dead stranger who’d knelt there pumping lead as hostiles circled out there on the open prairie. Longarm wondered if he’d saved the last rounds for his family and himself as the fire-arrows landed, quivering, in the woodwork.

There were no signs of recent occupancy in the ruins. Longarm circled out until he came to the deep, grass-filled depression where the well had been. The wooden well head had been hauled away. The earthen walls, unprotected, had caved in. Longarm walked over to his grazing horse, muttering, “Not so much as a dried turd. But at least we can likely write this place off.”

He picked up the reins and mounted, shooting a glance at the low sun to his west as he swung the chestnut’s head toward Switchback.

The sun was still up, but dyeing the prairie red by the time he passed a marker indicating he was leaving the reservation. The town was just over the horizon, but hidden by the scrap line where the prairie took a sudden step into the sky. Longarm spotted a distant rider a mite to his south. The rider saw him about the same time and swung his way, coming fast.

Longarm kept his mount to a steady walk, and as the oncoming rider waved a hat, he saw it was Roping Sally.

He shook his head and swung to meet her as Sally called out, “Yaaahooo!”

As she joined him, Longarm said, “I don’t think you ought to be out here alone, Sally. I thought you’d be waiting for me at your spread.”

“I was, God damn it! You promised you’d come at sundown!”

“You’re wrong two ways, honey. I never promised and it’s not sundown yet.”

“Well, it’s almost sundown and I was getting worried. Every time I let you out of my sight you get in a gunfight and I-I’ve been hurtin’ for you, damn your eyes!”

“Honey, we’d best get something straight. I’ve got a job to do and you’re not my mother.”

“Does that mean I ain’t your gal any more?”

Longarm muttered under his breath. Then he smiled and said, “Hell, you’re the only gal worth having hereabouts. But I can’t have you riding all around Robin Hood’s barn after me. I want you to stay clear of this reservation, too. I’ve got enough on my plate without having to worry about you as well as the Indians.”

“Hot damn! I didn’t know you worried about me, too.”

“Well, I do, out in these parts. You know there’s some kind of lunatic running around out here at night, damn it!”

“I thought you’d shot all the rascals, honeybunch.”

“Well, I didn’t, and I’d rather be called late-for-breakfast than honeybunch. Those hired guns weren’t who I came up here after. I’ve got one bad breed at least to watch for, and if Johnny Hunts Alone isn’t the Wendigo, I’ve got a bad breed and God knows what else to catch. So you’re to stay clear of these parts, hear?”

“If you say so, sweet darling,” Sally murmured.

“Oh, Lord, that’s worse than honeybunch!”

“Could I call you huggy-bear, then?”

“Not hardly. Where’d you come up with all the crazy names?”

“I been thinking ‘em up all day. I suspicion I must be in love with you. Every time I think of you I get all fluttery. Let’s get on home. I’ve took a bath and bought me some fancy French perfume and, Jesus, I am purely horny as all hell!”

He noticed she wasn’t chewing tobacco, either. God! How had he gotten into this fix? More importantly, how was he to get out of it without looking like, well, the miserable cuss he probably was?

They rode side by side through the gentle evening light as Roping Sally planned their future together. Longarm didn’t try to stop her; it didn’t seem possible. She’d know soon enough what a shit he was unless he got lucky and somebody shot him before it was time to move on.

A distant voice called Longarm’s name and he turned in the saddle to see Rain Crow riding after them at a dead run. He and Sally reined in as the Indian joined them, shouting, “Wendigo! Wendigo! He has taken another!”

“In broad daylight? Who, and where?” Longarm said, astonished.

“A boy called Gray Dog went out to hunt rabbit on foot. When he did not come home for supper his people searched. They found him as we found Spotted Beaver. His gun was taken, along with his head. The other police and I looked for sign. There is nothing. Gray Dog was killed on the open prairie in broad daylight. There is no trail to follow.”

“I’d best ride back. Sally, I want you to go on home and bar your doors till I come to you.”

“Damn it, I’m riding with you! I’m a fair tracker and I can whup most men fair and square!”

“You do as I say, anyway,” Longarm insisted. “What these Blackfoot can’t track is likely tougher tracking than most stray cows, and whatever could take an armed Indian’s head off in broad daylight ain’t like most men.”

“Honeybunch, I want to help!”

“You’ll help most by locking yourself behind a good stout door. I don’t work alone because I’m a hero, I work alone because I don’t read minds, and when it’s time to move sudden, I don’t like to guess what a sidekick’s likely to be messing up.”

“You promise you’ll come to me soon?”

“Soon as I’m able, Sally,” he assured her.

“Do you really love me?”

The back of Longarm’s neck reddened as, aware that the Indian could hear, he put out a hand to chuck Roping Sally under the chin and murmur, “I ain’t all that mad at you, honey.”

Sally’s face lit up in a sparkling smile. “You get along home pronto, sweet love. There’ll be a light in the window for you and I’m taking another bath!”

She trotted east as Longarm fell in beside Rain Crow, loping west. They rode a mile in silence, then slowed their mounts to a walk to rest them in the gathering darkness. The Indian said, “The moon will rise soon. Almost a full moon, tonight.”

“Yeah. About that conversation back there, Rain Crow-“

“I wasn’t listening. Sometimes I have trouble understanding what white people are saying. So I only listen when it might be my business.”

“Sure you do, but if Washington ever allows you folks to drink, I’ll buy you one. How’d you find me, anyway? You came over the horizon like a rider who knew where he was going.”

Rain Crow shrugged. “I tracked you, of course. Agent Durler said you’d ridden to the old homestead, so I looked for you there. I saw where you’d moved things and walked over to the old well. I saw where you’d ridden east, so I followed.”

“You’re good, considering I’ve been riding over thick sod in dimming light.”

“Oh, it is easier tracking on grass when the sun is setting. The long shadows help me see where trampled grass hasn’t had time to spring back up. This time of the year many stems are dry enough to break off, too.”

“What about in green-up time, when the grass is springy?” Longarm asked.

“Easier. When the prairie is greenest, the soil is softer. Even antelope leave hoofmarks then.”

“But you didn’t find one hoofmark near that dead boy’s body, huh?”

“No. The light was perfect for looking, too. The boy had left some broken stems behind him as he walked. The grass was trampled near the body, as if by a struggle. That was all. The others think Wendigo must have flown away.”

“Maybe.” The deputy stroked his mustache with a long forefinger. “Leaving aside notions like hot-air balloons and such, how do you feel about soft moccasins? I was wearing army heels out there by the homestead, and not trying to hide my spoor. Was this murdered kid wearing boots?”

“He wore the leather shoes the B.I.A. issues us. I see your meaning. Our people are not used to the white man’s shoes, and in any case, they seldom fit right. Gray Dog may have scuffed more than a man in moccasins would have. But even so, Wendigo should have left some spoor!”

“Maybe he did. Meaning no offense, Rain Crow, a busted straw stem here and another one ten yards off ain’t hard to miss.”

“I will look some more, by moonlight. If we are lucky and there is summer frost before sunrise-Heya! Those people up ahead are gathered around the dead boy’s body.”

Longarm squinted against the sunset sky at the black knot of Indians on the horizon and made a mental note of where to mark it on his map. Then he heeled his chestnut and snapped, “Let’s go, before they trample every goddamned sign away!”

Longarm and Rain Crow loped up to the site of the latest killing and the deputy shouted, reining in, “Stand clear, damn it!” He saw Yellow Leggings in the crowd and added, “Yellow Leggings, get these folks out of here!”

The Indian policeman shouted back, “These two are the dead boy’s parents.”

“All right, they can stay. Everybody else, vamoose.”

He saw his orders were being grudgingly obeyed as he dismounted far enough away to avoid spooking his horse, dropped the reins to the grass, and walked over through the parting crowd. He looked down at the mess spread-eagled in the grass and muttered, “Jesus, I ain’t seen anyone messed up like this since the War!”

The slim, broken body was that of a boy about fourteen years old. Longarm could tell it was a boy because the body was naked except for shoes and socks. The brown flesh was crisscrossed with gaping slashes and covered by buzzing bluebottle flies as well as caked blood. The kid’s clothes hadn’t been carried off; they lay around in bloody tatters. It was likely that the shreds of plaid shirt had identified the victim to his relatives. There wasn’t any sign of his head.

Longarm saw Rain Crow was at his side, so he pointed his chin at a spatter of blood on a soapweed clump near the body and said, “You looked for blood on the stems farther off, right?”

“Of course. Anyone walking away with a cut-off head should have left a trail of blood, but we found none.”

Longarm turned slowly on one heel, scanning the horizon all around before he muttered, “Could have headed out in any direction to start with. Due south would have run him smack into the agency. There’s over thirty miles of nothing to the west before you reach some cover in the foothills over that way. A man can’t walk that far on foot in a day, packing a severed head or not. East would take him smack into Switchback, where folks would likely ask questions about blood and such. I’d say we should look north.”

He went back to his chestnut and remounted, after telling the grim-faced father standing by a kneeling, keening squaw that it was all right to move the body now. Longarm didn’t intend to take this one to the coroner. It was beginning to look like wasted effort as well as needless hardship to the victim’s kin.

Rain Crow and Yellow Leggings fell in at either side of him as he walked his chestnut slowly north, noting that the crowd had made a mess of the grass for yards in every direction. The sun was down now, but the western sky was blood-red and the big moon hung like a grinning skull to the east. They were riding over untrampled grass now, and the light was bright enough to see clearly by. Longarm spotted something shaped like a cartridge near a bird’s-nest depression in the sod and reined in, saying, “What’s that; by the rabbit’s bed?”

Rain Crow said, “I see it. Coyote turd. Coyote found the nest empty and shit because he was angry.”

Longarm allowed himself a subdued laugh. “Your eyes are better than mine, then, but I’ll take your word for it.”

“I dismounted the first time I saw it this afternoon.”

“Oh, then that pony track up ahead must be yours. I was about to say something foolish.”

“There is no sign this way. I searched for sign as far north as the railroad tracks and a mile beyond.”

“You look for railroad ballast that might have been scuffed by a horseshoe?” the lawman asked.

“I got on my hands and knees and even tasted a ballast rock I thought might have been turned over in the past few hours. I made sure it was only displaced by a passing train, long ago.”

The deputy’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell? How’d you figure all that by taste?”

“The fresh side of the rock tasted of coal smoke. The taste settles on the roadbed when the trains run in the rain. It rained two weeks ago. That was when the rock was turned over.”

“You can tell a rock that was turned over half a month back?” Longarm asked, astonished.

“Certainly. Can’t you? The trains lay a film of soot and dust on everything they get near. Everything near the tracks smells like burnt matches or spent cartridges. That is why the buffalo herds were split up by the coming of the Iron Horse. The animals are afraid to cross the tracks. Coyote, rabbit, and antelope will, if they have to. Wolf, bear, and buffalo fear the tracks. A few years ago we had a good buffalo hunt that way. We cornered a herd in a bend of the track and ate fat cow. The old men said we should let some of the buffalo live, but the younger men killed them all, anyway. They said it was foolish to leave them for the white hide hunters. I never ate so much in my life and I got sick.” Rain Crow patted his stomach and rolled his eyes upward.

By now they were approaching the right-of-way he was talking about. The railroad followed the winding grade of an old buffalo trail, since the engineers who’d surveyed it had known that buffalo follow the lay of the land better than most surveyors could. The tracks lay mostly at grade level, with filled stretches as high as ten feet over low rolls and cuts through some rises.

Longarm rode his chestnut up a four-foot bank and reined in on the gritty ballast to stare up and down the line without dismounting. A line of telegraph poles ran along the far side, and though there was no wind near the ground, the overhead wires hummed weirdly overhead. He saw the black notch of a low railroad cut to the east, and as the two Indians joined him, he said, “Let’s see how high above the tracks that cut bank is.” As they walked their mounts along the ties he explained, “I’ve studied the timetables of the railroad. No way a man could jump even a slow freight out here from ground level. But if he climbed up on the rim of a cut, and had steel nerves …”

They reined in between the walls of earth on either side of the track and Rain Crow said, “I don’t think so. The edge up there is not as high as the tops of the freight cars and it would be a ten-or twelve-foot leap even if it was high enough. Yellow Leggings, ride up to the north side and see if there are marks of running feet. I will check the south bank.”

Longarm went with Yellow Leggings, figuring Rain Crow as the better tracker. But as he and Yellow Leggings dismounted to study the grass lip of the bank above the tracks, he saw that there was nothing to see. He called across to Rain Crow, “Any sign over there?”

“No, and the ground is barren in places from runoff. To jump off here with any chance would mean a dead run, with no hope for cautious footprints.”

LongArm shrugged and said, “This was a low cut, anyway. If we could find something in the way of a higher jump-off point, not too far to walk on foot, hell, it’s too damn dark to look for sign, serious. What say we ride back to the agency and study my map some more?”

Rain Crow called, “You go and we’ll join you later. We know this range. As the moon rises the light may shift and tell us something.”

Longarm saw no harm in letting them have their head. So he climbed back aboard the chestnut and headed for the agency.

When he got there he found the Durlers and their guest, Prudence Lee, seated on the porch. He noticed that Calvin had his Henry across his knees as he sat on the steps, as if guarding the two women behind him in the porch rockers. Longarm tethered his mount to the rail in front and walked over to put a foot up on the steps as he filled them in on the little he knew.

The Durlers listened thoughtfully. Miss Lee said, “I’ve been talking to my converts. These heathens have Zoroastrian notions. According to Indian legend, the world’s a battleground between Good and Evil and this Wendigo is like our Satan.”

“We know that already, ma’am,” Longarm said. He turned toward the young agent. “Cal, the old ones were already jawing about a reservation jump afore this happened. We’d best wire Fort MacLeod and let the Canadian Mounties know they might have visitors.”

“I’m trying to hold off, Longarm,” Durler responded. “Some soldiers were by a while ago, asking about our troubles out here. I got the notion they wouldn’t be all that put out to chase some Indians and maybe earn some citations. Alerting the Canadian authorities would likely have to be cleared by Washington, who’d alert the army, and-“

Longarm cut in, “I know a Mountie at Fort MacLeod personally, I could send him a wire as one old drinking pal to another, wording it soft.”

“Do you really think you have to? Nobody’s jumped the reservation yet.”

“And when they do they’ll be headed for the Peace River country, scared and on the prod. Wouldn’t be neighborly of us to let Queen Victoria’s own Assiniboine get hit by U.S. Indians they weren’t expecting. Them old ways the elders are jawing about includes bad blood between Blackfoot and Assiniboine going back before Columbus. Even if your folks came In peace, there’d likely be some fur flying along the Peace River.”

“But if the army heard about it in time to try and head them off on this side of the border …”

The lawman nodded. “That’s why I aim to word my telegram to Fort MacLeod careful. I’ll say something about that breed I’m after being spotted in Canada or something. The Mounties will likely send out some patrols and they’ll have at least a sporting chance of heading off such trouble as might be headed their way.”

“I hope so. When did you figure to send the wire?”

“Later tonight, at the railroad station in Switchback. The wire I’ve been using at the land office is patched in to Washington, but the railroad wire’s private. I wish Western Union was in business hereabouts. Makes life Complicated, with either Washington or the Great Northern reading my mail.”

“You don’t suppose it’s possible the railroad’s behind this trouble, do you?” Durler asked.

“I’ve studied on that. Can’t see how running Off Your Blackfoot could benefit the stockholders all that much. They’ve got their right-of-way over federal lands. Washington’s stopped handing out big land grants for building new lines, and from the map, there’s no place hereabouts to want a new line built. I’ve asked about the train crews, too. There’s nobody riding through here regular with any reason to kill Blackfoot, unless he was crazy, and since there’s at least a five-man crew on every train, odds are he’d have to be crazy with at least four sane men covering up for him.” He shifted his weight and added, “I’ve considered someone hopping off and on from empty box cars, too. But that last kid was killed in broad daylight. I know folks doze off from time to time in the caboose, but a man would be taking a big chance counting on grabbing for the side of a boxcar on the open prairie with the sun shining. And who knows when a brakeman’s going to come walking along the top of the cars between the engine and caboose? Besides, there was only one train through this afternoon, and it passed before the boy was last seen alive.”

Longarm took a deep breath. He wasn’t accustomed to soliloquizing at such great length, and it tended to make him feel lighthearted.

Prudence Lee said, “The Indians think the Wendigo walks through the sky.”

“Yes, ma’am. At night. I’m going inside for a spell, Cal. I want to study my map some more before I run over to Switchback. And, by the by, I think Miss Lee, here, should bunk with you folks in my old room.”

Durler said, “Oh, I hardly think he’d hit this close …” and then his voice trailed off.

Longarm nodded and said, “That’s right. Real Bear was killed in the same house Miss Lees using for … whatever.”

Then he mounted the steps, went inside, and back to the kitchen, where he lighted a lamp and spread his survey map on the table. He marked the latest killing and put question marks on every railroad cut he could find on the small-scale map. There were a few contour lines, but the scale was too small to show every rise high enough for anyone to hide behind. He himself had once hidden from Apache behind a one-foot bump in the ground. A man in buckskins, lying flat behind a clump of soapweed, could be nearly invisible from as close as a quarter mile on what seemed featureless prairie.

The reservation was as big as some Eastern states, when you studied on it. He wasn’t ready to buy a flying spook yet. Except for that hot-air balloon he’d seen at the Omaha State Fair, he’d never seen a man up there in the sky, either!

Prudence Lee came in and sat down across from him, saying, “That Indian policeman, Rain Crow, just rode in. Mister Durler is talking to him. I don’t think he found anything.”

Longarm started folding the map as the mousy little girl added, “I have a personal problem, if you have the time to listen.”

“I’ll listen, ma’am, but if it’s about converting Indians I don’t suspicion I know how.”

“I face a moral dilemma. This is a privileged conversation, isn’t it?”

“If you’re asking if I repeat things, I don’t.”

“I supposed as much.” She cleared her throat. “As you know, I’m duty-bound to uphold the commands of the Lord, but on the other hand, as a woman I understand her problem.”

“Her problem, ma’am?”

“Nancy Durler’s. I think she’s about to run away from her husband.”

“Did she tell you as much, Miss Prudence?”

“Not directly, but I know all the signs. You see I knew a girl, once, who ran away from a man she couldn’t live with. She’s tried to atone for her sin for years, but adultery is a terrible cross to bear.”

“Oh? This, uh, other gal we’re speaking of ran off with another man?”

“Yes. He deserted her in Baltimore six weeks later and I’m afraid, uh, she went a little crazy. She took to strong drink and, well, other men. I’m afraid she sinned rather badly.”

“It’s understandable, ma’am,” Longarm said compassionately.

The girl continued, “Well, suffice it to say she found the Light in time to save her soul. You understand I only know a little of her story, but the way Nancy’s acting reminds me of when … this girl was about to ruin her life.”

“I’ll take your word for it that another woman would know such things. But there’s nobody hereabouts fixing to run off with Nan Durler.”

“Oh, I thought … well, if she doesn’t run off with anyone we know, it’ll be someone, sooner or later. She doesn’t just look coldly at her husband. She looks right through him, as if he wasn’t there. She’s told me she hates it here and, Lord, I don’t know what I’m to do!”

“You might try minding your own business, no offense intended, ma’am. I like Cal Durler. I like his wife, too. If I knew how to stop what might be happening, I’d be the first to try.”

“Perhaps if you had a word with him, man-to-man.”

Longarm smiled. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Look here, old son, your woman is fixing to light out on you?’ He’d either laugh or bust my jaw, and in the end, what could any of us do? You didn’t have a woman-to-woman with Nan yet, did you?”

Prudence shook her head, forlornly. “I’m afraid it should only light the fuse. My next-door neighbor … I mean the next-door neighbor of this poor, sinful girl I told you about, tried to warn her what a mistake she was making, and it only made her leave a couple of nights sooner than she’d intended to.”

“There you go. There’s nothing either of us can do. So let’s just hope it’s a passing notion.”

The deputy thought this might be a convenient place to change the subject, so he asked, “How are you coming with your Bible lessons?”

“I think the Indians are laughing at me behind my back. They enjoy the music and coloring books, but they don’t seem serious about learning the Word,” Prudence said, with a touch of disappointment in her voice.

“Well, you’ve only been here a short while and at least it keeps ‘em sober. If you really want to make friends hereabouts, spend a little time buttering up the older squaws. Anyone can draw a crowd of kids to a Bible meeting.”

“I’ve invited everyone. But the adults are so cold and reserved.”

“I know. They’re used to us taking ‘em for fools. You might start by asking questions, Miss Prudence. Most folks are proud to share what they know with strangers. Asking a body a question shows you think he or she might know something you don’t.”

“I see what you mean, but I don’t know what sort of questions I should ask.”

“Ask the squaws about medicine herbs. Ask them how to cook something.”

“I tasted some Indian food. It was awful.” Prudence wrinkled her pert nose.

“Takes time to develop a taste for pemmican and such. But asking a cook for a recipe beats complimenting her on her greasy stew and, hell, you don’t have to use a Blackfoot recipe.”

She laughed. Her little face was fetching in the lamplight as she said, “I’ll try it. I’m not getting anywhere with that big drum I brought.”

He grinned at her and excused himself to go out front and see what Rain Crow had to say. He found the Indian with the Durlers. Rain Crow hadn’t found anything, as the girl had told him.

Longarm asked, “Where’s Yellow Leggings? Did he go on home?”

Rain Crow shook his head and said, “No. I expected to find him here. We split up to search for sign and agreed to meet with you here for further orders. He should have ridden in by now.”

Longarm looked at the moon and said, “Getting late. We’d best go see what’s keeping him.”

Calvin Durler opined, “Yellow Leggings has always been slow-moving. He’s probably coming in at a walk. Why not give him a few minutes?”

“He’s had a few minutes. We’ll ride out and save him riding in all the way. Come on, Rain Crow.”

The Indian waited until they were well clear of the agency before he asked, “How did you know I was worried about Yellow Leggings?”

“Didn’t have to know. I worry enough myself. Any idea where your sidekick might have gone?”

“He rode east along the tracks to see if there was sign on any of the cuts you mentioned. I scouted north for a few miles until the poor light made me think I was wasting time. I thought he would be waiting for me at the agency.”

Longarm didn’t answer. They rode in silence until they regained the tracks and swung east. After a time they saw a pony grazing in the moonlight. Its saddle was empty.

Rain Crow said, “That is Yellow Leggings’s pony.” Then he called out, loudly, in Algonquin.

There was no answer, but somewhere in the night a burrowing owl hooted back at them mournfully.

Longarm followed as the Indian led, shouting for his friend. He felt as though something was crawling around in the hairs on his neck. He slid the Winchester out of its boot and held it across his thighs as they rode on. He heard a distant chuffing coming up behind them and warned, “Train’s coming, Rain Crow. Let’s swing wide so the locomotive won’t spook our mounts!”

As the Indian ahead of him did so, Longarm saw his own shadow painted on the silvery, moonlit grass by the yellower light of a railroad headlamp. Rain Crow shouted something in his own language and moved forward at a dead run as Longarm followed. Then he, too, saw something up ahead, illuminated by the beam of the eastbound train.

The train overtook them and thundered by as Rain Crow dropped to the ground, shouting, “It’s Yellow Leggings! Wendigo has him!”

Longarm’s Own Mount shied as the scent of blood reached his flaring nostrils and Longarm had to steady him before dismounting. He joined Rain Crow by the dark mass on the ground and lit a match with his free hind. Then he swore and shook it out. He’d seen enough.

But Rain Crow took a little bull’s-eye lantern from his saddlebags and lit it, cursing monotonously in Algonquin. He swung the beam over his dead friend’s body and the trampled grass around. Then he said, in English, “It’s like the others. No head. Not a drop of blood more than ten feet from the body!”

“The head could have been toted off in an oilcloth poke or something.”

“Yes, but what does Wendigo want with their heads?”

“Wants to scare you, most likely. We’re wasting time here. You know we ain’t likely to find sign. Let’s ride over to the next rise the roadbed cuts through. My map says it’s twelve feet deep.”

The Indian remounted and Longarm did the same. They were almost at the railroad cut when Rain Crow reined in and whispered, “Another pony. There, off to the south of the tracks.”

“I see him. Looks like a big buckskin-Oh, damn you, Lord! You couldn’t have let that happen!”

He loped over to where Buck stood, reined in, and almost sobbed, “Damn that gal! I told her not to come looking for me out here!”

The Indian said quietly, “Over there, near the tracks, pale in the moonlight.”

Longarm raced his mount over, slid it to a stop and leaped from the saddle to kneel at the side of Roping Sally, or what was left of her. He didn’t light a match. What he could see was ugly enough by moonlight. He pounded a fist hard against the sod by his knees and said, “We’ll do right by you, honey. If that son of a bitch is on this earth within ten miles he’s going to die Apache-style!”

Longarm walked to the lip, and got down, calling, “Shine that bull’s-eye over here, will you?”

Rain Crow did as he was asked, sweeping the rim of the drop-off with the narrow beam. After a time he said, “Nobody was up here when that train went by.”

“Let’s look over on the other side. A left-hander would have reached for a grabiron from over there.”

They rode down and across the tracks to repeat the same investigation on the north side of the track. The dry prairie straw betrayed no sign of blood or footprints, but when Longarm had the Indian swing his beam near his own boots, he saw that didn’t mean much. The drained soil up here was bone-dry and baked brick-hard. The stubble had been grazed by jacks, judging from a rabbit turd he saw, and his own heels didn’t leave tracks. Longarm took his hat off and threw it down, as he yelled, “All right, Lord! I’ve had just about enough of this shit!”

The Indian’s voice was gentle as he said, “The woman back there meant something to you, didn’t she?”

“Goddamn it, Rain Crow, shine that fool light somewhere else, will you?”

“I know what is in your heart, and there are tears in my eyes, too.”

“Well, I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me. I got a bottle in my saddlebags. Before we go for a buckboard to transport the two of ‘em, I figure we could both use a good stiff belt, don’t you?”

“Indians are not allowed to drink, Longarm.”

“I know. We’re going to kill that bottle anyway.”

Chapter 10

Longarm was still three-quarters drunk as he waited outside for the coroner to finish. He would have been drunker if he’d known how, but the numb anger in his guts had ruined his plumbing and the stuff was just going through without dulling the pain. It was bad enough to find a stranger’s body mutilated and beheaded, but he knew he’d dream a spell of nightmares about that once-shapely body he’d intended to remember with pleasure.

A trio of cowhands came over to him as he sat on the wooden steps in the wan morning sunlight. One of them said, quietly, “We ride for the Double Z. Is it true Roping Sally was killed by Indians?”

Longarm shook his head and said, “no. Whoever did it killed two Blackfoot in the process. I’d be obliged if you boys would pass the word about that. The Indians have enough to worry about without other folks after ‘em!”

“We heard about them other killings, Deputy. Heard there’s a Paiute medicine man out there, too, stirring up a rising.”

“The Indian police know about the fool Ghost Dancer. They’re keeping an eye on him. Blackfoot never had much truck with Paiute in the old days. He’s just flapping his mouth in the wind, I suspicion.”

“Army gent was telling us Washington’s worried about this here Ghost Dancing. That Paiute cuss, Wovoka, has been down in the Indian Nation selling his medicine shirts, too.”

“There you go. None of the Five Civilized Tribes has risen. We’ve got all sorts of folks spouting religion in these parts, but that don’t mean sensible folks have to take’em serious. Have you boys been converted to Mormons? Are you fixing to build octagonal houses or vote the Anarchist ticket? Hell, we got a white missionary gal out at the reservation trying to sell the Bible to the Blackfoot without much luck.”

“They say Sitting Bull’s interested in Wovoka’s new Ghost Dance notions.”

The deputy stuck a cheroot between his teeth, but made no move to light it. “I wouldn’t know what Sitting Bull’s interested in, but he’s way the hell over in Pine Ridge and he ain’t a Blackfoot. I’ve been bedding down out at the Indian Agency, and if we were fixing to have another war I’d likely hear about it before the boys in the saloon.”

Another hand asked, “What’s this Wendigo shit they keep jawing about? Did this here Wendigo kill Roping Sally?”

“The Wendigo is a spook. I’m betting on a flesh-and-blood killer. I aim to get the son of a bitch, and when I do he’ll likely die slow, gut-shot and begging for another bullet, if I have my way.”

“That’s too good for the shit-eatin’ hound! If we catch up with him he’ll die even slower. We been discussin’ whether to stake him on an anthill smeared with honey or whether we should start by stickin’ his pecker in a sausage grinder first. Roping Sally was a good ol’ gal, even if she was too stuck up to screw her pals.”

Before Longarm had to answer that, the coroner came out, wiping his hands on his linen smock and looking cheerful, considering.

He nodded to the three cowhands and told Longarm, “We’ve got a break, the last victim being white. Found a contusion just below the severed vertebrae.”

“You mean she was bruised on the back of her neck, Doc?”

“That’s what I just told you. Looks like she was rabbit-punched from behind, and if it’s any comfort to you boys, I’d say she never knew what hit her.”

Longarm frowned and said, “Doc, she was on a tall horse and likely riding at a lope! How in thunder can anyone rabbit-punch a rider from behind like that?”

“Must have ridden up behind her,” the coroner speculated.

“No, Doc, not a chance. We found the hoofprints where her buckskin slowed after she left the saddle. That bronc was loping when she fell. There wasn’t another hoofmark within a mile.”

“You must have missed something. I’m calling it like I read it. Roping Sally was knocked off her buckskin by a hard blow from behind, then slashed, gutted, and beheaded. The how and who is your department. Maybe the Indians are right and this Wendigo’s some sort of flying critter.”

“You don’t believe that, Doc. If any man knew how to fly he’d be too busy patenting the notion to go about killing folks. We’re likely missing his method, but flying ain’t it. I’ve been meaning to ask you something else about these killings, though. What in thunder do you reckon he wants with the heads?”

“Beats me. Maybe he’s taking up a collection.”

“You said you collect skulls, Doc. I don’t mean I suspicion you of being the Wendigo, for I was impolite enough to ask about where you were last night. I know about those papers you write for the Smithsonian, too. But, leaving your own Indian skulls aside, can you think of any other value a human head might have?”

The coroner scratched his head. “You mean a cash value? Not hardly. I can get old skulls for five or ten dollars from the medical supply houses. An interesting skull like Real Bear’s might be worth a little more to some museum. A white woman’s skull? Maybe ten dollars, cleaned and mounted properly. A man with a shovel could ride out along the old wagon trails and dig up all the bones he wanted without having to kill anybody. Hundreds of people died and were buried in shallow graves moving West a few years back.”

One of the cowhands nodded and said, “I know an old emigrant burial ground just a few miles away. Every time it rains some bones wash out of the ground where it’s gullied some.”

Longarm mused aloud, “No way the heads were taken to hide the identity of anyone. We know who all the victims were. Wait a minute—the killer never took Real Bear’s head! He was skinned instead of beheaded. How do you figure that, Doc?”

“Longarm, the man we’re dealing with is a lunatic! How should I know why he does the things he does? He’d have to be crazy as a bedbug to do any of it!”

The deputy shifted his unlit cheroot to the other side of his mouth, and chewed it pensively. “We both keep saying he, Doc. I keep calling the Wendigo a ‘he’ because I’ve never met a gal that ornery. Is there any chance I could be wrong?”

“You mean is the Wendigo a woman? You have been drinking some.”

Longarm pressed on, “Nobody’s seen the Wendigo. A woman, maybe smiling sweet, could get a lot closer to folks without arousing suspicion of unfriendly intentions. That young buck Gray Dog had a rabbit gun in his hand when he got jumped. Yellow Leggings was looking for the Wendigo, and packing a carbine. Roping Sally was riding armed and likely looking sharp about her. Not one of those folks would have just waited for a strange man, red or white, to announce his intentions.”

“I see what you mean,” the coroner said, “but a woman won’t wash. Not unless she was as strong as, or stronger than most men. Roping Sally may have been strong enough to cut those deep slashes and sever a spine with one cut that way, but we know she didn’t do it. You fellows know any other tomboys like Roping Sally hereabouts?”

The three hands shook their heads. One of them said, “Sally was as big a gal as we had out here, Doc. She could have whupped any gal and likely half the men in the county.”

“That’s my opinion, too,” the coroner agreed. “Longarm, your notion might work another way. What if all three victims met someone they knew? Someone they thought was a friend?”

Longarm shook his head. “The two Indians wouldn’t have been all that close with anyone Sally might have. She got along with Blackfoot, but I doubt she’d have let one get the drop on her. Besides, we found no sign near any of the bodies. I’ll allow a man could move across the grass on foot without leaving sign, walking creepy-careful, but wouldn’t you ask questions if even someone you knew came tiptoeing through the tulips at you?”

The coroner impatiently waggled an antiseptic-smelling hand at the deputy. “Let’s stay with who and leave the how alone for now. Can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who might have known all the victims too well for them to be suspicious?”

“Yeah, me,” Longarm replied. “But I didn’t do it. There’s the agent, Cal Durler, but he has an alibi for a couple of the killings. So does Rain Crow. He was at my side when Roping Sally was killed.”

“How can you be sure? You said he found you at the agency, told you he was worried about Yellow Leggings, and led you out to look for him. He could have killed his sidekick before he came for you. Could have killed the girl at the same time, as far as that goes.”

One of the cowhands said, “Hot damn! Let’s round that pesky redskin up and make him talk!”

Longarm laid a restraining hand on the man’s arm. “Hold on! He didn’t do it. He could have killed Yellow Leggings, but he was at the agency when the boy, Gray Dog, was murdered. As for Roping Sally, he didn’t know she was riding out last night in the first place, and didn’t have the time in the second. And even if my watch was wrong, I’ve ridden some miles beside Rain Crow and he leaves footprints like the rest of us mortals.”

One of the hands asked, “What was Roping Sally doing out there last night anyway?”

“She’d said something about stray cows, last time I saw her,” lied Longarm, adding quickly to change the subject, “I’m going over to the rail yards to jaw with the dispatcher. There was a train through, just before we found the bodies. Train crew might have seen something.”

To his relief, the three cowhands stayed behind to jaw with the coroner about Roping Sally’s funeral. Apparently the locals had taken up a collection to see her to the burial ground in style. It was just as well. Longarm wasn’t of a mind to attend the funeral. He felt bad enough about the way he’d treated her as it was. He knew it hadn’t really been his fault she’d ridden out there looking for him. He’d told her not to. On the other hand, if he’d kept his damned pecker in his pants … but what was done was done. Her soul would likely rest easier if he avenged her than it would if he just blubbered like a fool some more.

Longarm walked across the unfenced rail yards as a Baldwin switcher shunted a string of empties on to a siding. He spotted a man walking along the tracks toward the station with a sheaf of papers in one hand and dog-trotted after him, calling out, “Howdy! I’m a lawman!”

The man stopped and said, “I ain’t. I work for the railroad and I got some cattle cars to move.”

Longarm fell in beside him as the dispatcher walked toward a string of empty cattle cars down the line. He explained the situation and asked, “If somebody was leaving off and on your trains out yonder, would the boys in the caboose likely notice?”

The dispatcher answered, “The brakemen walk the whole train, setting the wheels for that nasty drop just west of here. How far out on the prairie are we talking about?”

“That rolling stretch just inside the reservation line. How long does it take to set the drags, headed east?”

“Well, each car has its own brake. The boys set every one unless they’re loaded heavy, but they spend some time up on the catwalk on most trips.”

“When would a fellow have the best chance of leaping for a passing grabiron without being spotted?”

The dispatcher considered the question for a moment. “Headed west, he could likely climb aboard here in the yards and if he was in an empty reefer, he might leap off without busting any serious bones or being spotted. The train climbs for the Rockies without ever using brakes. Slows down some, topping rises. Yeah, getting aboard a train out there ain’t that big a shucks.”

“How about coming back? Could a man hop aboard without being seen, anywhere along the downhill grade?”

“He’d be one boss hobo if he could,” the yardman chuckled. “Like I said, the crews start working the brakes at least twenty miles out. He’d have to pick his train—ahead of time, too. A heavy freight would have a brakeman up on dang near every car. A train hauling back a string of empties would be his best bet.”

“That train that passed me last night—the one I mentioned. Was it full or empty?”

“Empty. A string of gondolas coming back from delivering ballast to the new section they’re building in the mountains. Only thing is, it was scheduled on an off-hour. Your man could wait out there a week for a line of empty gondolas. He’d have to be a railroader who knew the business, too. We run all sorts of mixed loads at odd hours. I keep trying to tell the front office this ain’t any way to run a railroad, but will they listen?”

Longarm pulled the brim of his hat down to shield his eyes against the glare of the mid-morning sun. “You said a boss hobo could do it. I noticed some cuts out there. If a man took a long run as a train was coming, then threw himself out a good ten or twelve feet-“

The dispatcher guffawed loudly. “He’d bust his fool head before a mile of freight ran over him. The only way you could do that in the dark would be to have a flat car or a gondola under you when you came down. You’d have to know where it was likely to be when you leaped, and like I said, pick a time when the brakemen wasn’t walking along the tops of the cars.”

“He couldn’t grab the side of a passing cattle car or reefer?”

“In the dark, at that speed? Listen, mister, landing on your ass somewhere on a forty-foot flat car bed would be bitch enough! Reaching for a passing grabiron in the dark, ten feet off the grade, don’t take hobo skills. It takes suicidal lunacy, and impossible luck to do it once. Twice is impossible.”

Longarm nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. How about hoboes, anyway? You have many riding your cars of an evening?”

“Naw, not this far west. Sometimes we give a lift to cowhands or Indians who ask politely. The stops are too far apart out here for the gents of the road.”

“You’d notice, then, if the same hobo kept hanging about these yards?”

“Sure, and I’d sic the bulls on him. We got a real mean yard bull over at the roundhouse. His name is Mendez and he’s a Mex or something. You want to talk to him about hoboes?”

“Later, maybe. Does he ride the trains or just work the yards?”

“Mendez is only a yard bull. We got some private detectives on the passenger trains, and the train crews deal with free riders on the freights. Mendez ain’t on duty this time of the day, but he bunks over by the roundhouse with the switchmen and two kids he has helping him at night.”

“I’ll get around to them later. You’d know if they’d been having hobo troubles. Could you tell me the next time a string of empty flats or gondolas is due down from the mountains?”

“Nope,” the yard man answered. “Like I said, they run this railroad off the cuff. Sometimes I’m lucky if they wire me a few hours ahead. Some night we’ll have two locomotives meeting headlamp to headlamp in the middle of God-knows. Maybe then they’ll listen to me.”

Longarm frowned and said, “Hmm, a man using your trains to get about would have to be reading your orders over your shoulder, then, wouldn’t he?”

“Just about. Who did you have in mind?”

Longarm leaned toward the man conspiratorially, and whispered “He-Who-Walks-the-Night-Winds.” Then he said pleasantly, “Thanks for your time,” and turned about and walked away across the yard, leaving the dispatcher to stare after him, scratching his head.

The murder of two Indians in one evening was bad enough. The murder of Roping Sally was something else. Any sign that the so-called Wendigo might have been careless enough to leave was obliterated as parties of hard-eyed cowhands and patrols of eager soldiers rode in circles all over the reservation for the next three days and nights. Calvin Durler was worried about possible misunderstandings between the races. Longarm was worried too, but the possible bright side was that a reservation jump wasn’t likely until things simmered down. The Indian police made sure the Blackfoot stayed close to home and Longarm spread the word in town that he’d take it personally if anyone shot a Blackfoot without one damned good reason. The fact that the Wendigo had killed Indians as well as whites helped.

The third evening after Roping Sally’s funeral found Longarm seated on the agency steps, chewing an unlit cheroot, as the army scout, Jason, rode in alone.

Jason dismounted and joined Longarm on the steps, saying, “I’ve been ordered to find the Wendigo. Ain’t that a bitch?”

“No reason you shouldn’t try. Everybody in Montana’s looking for the ornery son of a bitch. What happened to your dragoons?”

“Reckon they’ve had enough exercise for now. The lieutenant said he was reconsidering his options. That’s what he calls drinking alone in his quarters. You aim to light that cigar or just gum it to death?”

“Been trying to quit smoking. What’s your pleasure?”

“I thought maybe we could throw in together. I been all over this country and you know what I’ve found? I ain’t found shit. You reckon this Wendigo’s really a haunt?”

Longarm shook his head. “I reckon we’re missing some simple trick. Whoever’s doing it isn’t completely crazy. The Wendigo’s had enough sense to lay low while half the territory’s out here looking for him. That leaves someone with a reason as well as some slick way of moving about.”

“Well, the heat’s dying down. You suspicion he’ll be doing it some more?” Jason asked.

“It’s not likely that he’ll suddenly get religion and just quit. I figure his play is spooking the Indians, which he’s done some. It’ll take some more spooking to make them jump the reservation, so, yeah, he’s likely planning his next move about now.”

“You reckon there’s a land grabber behind all this, Longarm?”

“That’s an obvious suspicion, but I can’t get it to wash. No way any of the local cattlemen could claim this land, even if the Indians light out and leave it empty.”

“How about a buried treasure, or a mineral claim, or such?”

“Studied on that, too. The Blackfoot are spread out thin here. A man slick enough to get in and out without being spotted could dig up half an acre easier than he could kill folks watching for him. As to minerals, they’ve been looked for. The prairie soil’s forty feet at the least to the nearest bedrock and it’s been surveyed by Uncle Sam. There’s some lignite coal beds to the north. Too deep to be worth mining and too poor to be worth burning, next to all that anthracite they have back East. Nope, there’s nothing here but grass and water, and like I said, no way a white man could beg, borrow, or steal rangeland. The Wendigo is after something, but I’ll be damned if I know what.”

Jason scratched his bearded jaw and said, “I hear there’s a pow-wow on the reservation tonight. You reckon the War Department might be interested?”

“You’re welcome to come along, Jason. I’m riding over with Rain Crow, my Blackfoot deputy. He says one of Wovoka’s Dream Singers is on the reservation. Rain Crow offered to run him off, but I said to leave the rascal be, for now.”

“Them Dream Singers are pretty nasty, but it’s your play. I’d go along if I thought there’d be some pretty squaws, but the old men will likely just be shaking rattles and talking sulky. So I’ll pass on your offer and get on back to the fort.”

As Jason turned to mount his bay, Longarm asked quietly, “Before you go, would you mind if I asked you a sort of unfriendly question?”

Jason swung around and stared back thoughtfully before he shrugged and said, “Ask away. I’ll let you know if I take it unfriendly.”

“Where were you the night of the three murders, Jason?”

The scout laughed and answered, “At the fort. Lucky I can prove it, ain’t it? I’ve seen how fast you can draw!”

“I had to ask. Didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know you’re just doing your job, Longarm. Hell, I won’t even get pissed when you check my story at the fort. A man with nothing to hide has no call to get pissed, and, hell, you never mentioned my mother.”

They both laughed. Longarm relaxed the hold he’d had on the derringer in his right coat pocket.

Jason asked, “Hear any more about Johnny Hunts Alone? Or do you suspicion him and the Wendigo might be one and the same?”

“I’ll eat that apple a bite at a time. If they’re the same gent, I’ll catch ‘em both whenever I catch one. If they ain’t, I’ll catch ‘em separately. I’ve been asking about for a stranger with a limp. Nobody’s seen any.”

“Could be Johnny knows you’re here and just lit out to other parts. As I see it, his only reason for hiding out here would be because you didn’t know he could pass for an Indian. You get my drift?”

“Sure. Real Bear’s the only victim who could have identified him. You’re still breathing, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Longarm?”

“If Johnny Hunts Alone killed Real Bear to keep from being given away, he’d have done better to go after a white man he’d hunted with than a mess of Indians and a gal who never knew him.”

“I see what your meaning is and I thank you for the warning. Anyone out to skin this hombre and take his head had best be good at it, though. I know the breed on sight and I can get riled as hell when folks start cutting off my head!”

Longarm rose to his feet as the scout got up, remounted, and rode away with a friendly wave. Longarm was about to go into the house, but Prudence Lee fluttered out, and whispered, “Don’t go in, they’re fighting.”

Longarm heard the sound of breaking crockery and a man’s voice raised in anger through the open doorway. He nodded and said, “Maybe we’d best go for a ride or something.”

“Oh, I’d like that. Calvin said something about riding out to an Indian ceremony, later. Could I go along?”

Longarm started to shake his head. Then he thought of his plan for enlivening the festivities and said, “It might prove interesting, at that, if a white gal was there watching.”

Fair was fair, though. So he said, “Miss Prudence, I’m going out with Rain Crow and some other Indian police to make some folks feel foolish. I don’t expect danger, but there’s likely to be some cussing.”

“Oh, it sounds exciting! Calvin said you were trying to expose the Ghost Dancers as frauds, and I’m very interested in Indian lore.”

“Yes ma’am. Some of such lore can tend to be a bit racy. You did say you were married once, didn’t you?”

“Heavens, do you expect an orgy?” Prudence asked breathlessly.

“Ain’t sure. I haven’t been to many Ghost Dances. If I let you come along, you’ve got to promise to sit there poker-faced and not say anything, no matter what.”

“I think I can manage that. If you’ll help me with my side-saddle

…”

“We’ll be taking the buckboard, ma’am. Indians don’t laugh at wheels the way they do at white ladies riding funny. I’ll be putting some bags of feed around the edges of the wagon bed. If I should say to, I’ll be obliged if you sort of flatten out behind ‘em while the lead flies.”

Chapter 11

It was sunset as the naked Ghost Dance missionary pranced up and down in front of the assembled Blackfoot elders gathered out on the prairie. His hair was long and stringy and his penis was painted red for some reason. He was about thirty years old and chanted in English as he waved the limp leather medicine shirt he held in one hand. His own Paiute dialect would have made no more sense to the Blackfoot than it would have to a white man, so as Longarm and the girl drove up to the edge of the crowd with Two Noses and Rain Crow at either side, they could understand his meaning as he pointed the gourd rattle in his other hand at them and shouted, “Behold, the white man comes with a woman and two of his Blackfoot hunting dogs. Do not listen to their words, my brothers. The whites are ignorant of the message of Wovoka!”

Longarm reined in at a discreet distance, ignoring the sullen muttering from the crowd as he nodded to the missionary and shouted back, “You just go ahead and have your say, old son. We’ve come in peace to learn, not to dispute religion with a man of the cloth—if we stretch cloth to include red paint, I mean.”

The missionary wiggled his hips, swinging his painted penis, but Prudence Lee didn’t blanch as he and even Longarm might have expected. She sat prim and straight on the buckboard seat, looking at him like he was a bug on a pin.

He held the leather garment up and shouted, “So be it! Hear me, my brothers! Wovoka has blessed this medicine shirt! These others you see by the council fire are for your warriors. When the time comes for our dead ancestors to join us in a final battle for our lands, the bullets of the soldiers will not hurt you if you wear them!”

Longarm muttered, “Stay here, ma’am. Rain Crow, you see that nobody trifles with Miss Prudence, hear? I’m gonna mosey over and take a closer look and listen.”

He climbed down and made his way to the front of the crowd, hunkering down politely on his heels and not saying anything as the Paiute shouted, “All our dead ancestors will come back from the Happy Hunting Ground to join us! All of them! The soldiers may be many, but think of our numbers if every Indian who ever lived rides at our side against the soldiers!”

Longarm called out, “Can I ask a polite question? I was wondering if you’d tell us what tribes Wovoka had in mind.”

“Tribes? Wovoka makes no distinction, white man! Our Ghost Dances shall raise all the dead!”

“White dead, too? You mean these folks have to face George Armstrong Custer and his men again? If you don’t mind my saying, Custer was a mean son of a bitch at Washita and some other places even before you boys killed him!”

“Don’t mock me, white man. Wovoka’s medicine is only intended to bring back dead Indians!”

“I suspicioned as much. Tell me, does he aim to raise the Crows, the Utes, the Pawnees?”

“Of course. Every Indian who ever was!”

The Paiute missed the worried muttering from some of the old men around Longarm. He was probably a stranger in these parts.

Longarm grinned and said, “That should be interesting. These Blackfoot get to kill their old enemies all over again, right?”

“No, when the dead rise, they shall rise as brothers. All the old fighting will be forgotten. Indian shall greet Indian, as his fellow man.”

“That sounds reasonable. Wouldn’t it save a lot of fuss if such whites and live Indians as are left just shook hands and called it quits right now?”

“You mock the message I bring. My brothers, here, are not taken in by your twisting of my words!”

“Now, that ain’t fair. I ain’t twisted word-one. It was you who said they had to make friends with a mess of damn Pawnee. How about Snakes? Does Snake Killer, over yonder, get to keep his coup feather when his dead Snake brothers come to call? What if a dead Blackfoot pops out of the ground in the middle of some Crows? Does he shake hands with them, or run off with their ponies, like in the Shining Times?”

“If you won’t let me speak, I will go.”

“I’ll be quiet, seeing as how you don’t seem to know what your message is.”

In the crowd behind him, someone snickered. Longarm didn’t know if the laugh had been with him or at him. Neither did the Paiute. He waved the medicine shirt again and shouted, “As I was saying, your young men shall be immune to white bullets in these shirts.”

Longarm asked, “How come? I mean, I don’t doubt for a minute that those raggedy buckskins are bulletproof. What I don’t understand is why in thunder you need live Indians to do your fighting if Wovoka has all these dead ghosts ready to fight the army?”

The ghosts must know our people are sincere. Would you expect the spirits to fight for weaklings afraid to stand up for their rights?”

“I don’t know what a spirit might do. I’d be scared as hell to charge a Gatling gun with nothing on but a magic shammy shirt, though.”

“That is because you have a white man’s heart. The medicine only works for those who believe.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Longarm said amiably. “Put the shirt on and let’s see how it works for you.”

“What do you mean, white twister of words?”

“Well, I thought, as long as you’ve got those magic shirts, and I’ve a gun, we’d see how good your brag is. Put on the shirt and I’ll bounce a couple of .44 slugs off it.”

The Paiute’s face clouded over threateningly, but Longarm thought he detected a quaver in the Indian’s voice as he responded, “Are you threatening to kill me, white man? I have come in peace, unarmed. The Blackfoot have extended me the protection of their hospitality!”

“Well, sure they have. I’m hospitable myself. I’d never in this world gun a man I thought was likely to die from it. But you said your shirts were bulletproof. So what say we have some fun?”

Longarm heard a murmur of agreement around him from the Blackfoot as the Paiute paled and stammered, “It would not be a fair test. I am not initiated as a warrior!”

The lawman allowed a larger-than-life expression of shock to appear on his face as he said, “You mean you’re standing there telling all these folks to go to war, and you’re not a proper soldier? Well, I did fight a war one time, and I ain’t about to tell these old Dog Soldiers or Turtle Lances whether they should go to war or get married! Hell, I’m not ashamed to admit I never had the nerve to go through the Sun Dance as a full warrior. By the way, that’s likely why I see no scars on your chest, huh?”

“We Paiute never danced the Sun Dance.”

“I know. Never did all that much fighting, either, now that I think on it. Likely that’s why Wovoka’s so hot and bothered about another Indian war. It’s the men who never fight that start our white man’s wars, too.”

An old Indian near Longarm muttered something in a jeering tone and this time, when some other Indians laughed, Longarm knew they weren’t laughing at him!

The Paiute licked his lips and said, “Don’t listen to him, my brothers. Can’t you see what he is trying to do?”

Longarm let a little scorn creep into his voice as he said, “I ain’t doing anything but saying my mind. This may be a foolish time to bring it up, but I’ll tell one and all I’ve fought Indians in my time. I mean, I’ve fought real Indians, not ghosts.” He got to his feet, threw his hat down, and pounded his chest, shouting, “Hear me! I count coup! I have killed Dakota! I have killed Cheyenne! I have taken captives back from Apache and taken Comanche alive to be hanged by the government!”

Old Snake Killer asked in an interested tone, “How many Blackfoot do you count coup on?”

“None. I don’t say this because of where I am and who might be listening. I say it because I wasn’t here the last time you rose against the army.”

“Would you have killed me, had we met in battle?”

“You’re damned right I would have, unless you’d killed me first. We’re both men, ain’t we?”

Snake Killer smiled broadly. “Ye. I think it would have been a good fight. I like a man who says what is in his heart, too. But Wendigo-“

“The Wendigo has nothing to do with Wovoka’s Ghost Dance, Snake Killer. I’m a white man, not a Dream Singer, so I’ll not insult you by disputing about spirits. I just want to see this jasper’s medicine shirt turn a bullet before any of your young men put one on to ride against the army!”

The old Blackfoot nodded and told the Paiute, “His words make sense. Why don’t you put the shirt on and prove him wrong?”

The Paiute stammered, “I am not allowed to. Only a true warrior can wear the Medicine Shirt.”

Old Snake Killer got to his feet, peeling off his old wool jacket to reveal the Sun Dance scars on his bony chest as he said, “I am a warrior. Give me the shirt.”

Longarm swore under his breath. He hadn’t planned on getting a Blackfoot at the wrong end of his Colt! The Paiute missionary saw the bind he was in at the same time. Slyly, he held the thin deerskin shirt out to the old man, saying, “Of course. Let us see what happens when the white man shoots you.”

The old Blackfoot put the shirt on and stood there, his head cocked to one side in mild interest as he waited for Longarm to test his medicine. Longarm knew that if he killed the old man there’d be hell to pay. On the other hand, even though common sense indicated that he should back down, he knew what the Ghost Dancer would twist it into. He drew his .44, but said, “I have to think about this, boys. You see, I don’t believe in this medicine!”

The Paiute jeered, “Go ahead and shoot him. Are you afraid? Behold, my brothers, the medicine is working! Snake Killer is wearing the medicine shirt and the white man can’t shoot him!”

“Damn it, it ain’t the same thing!”

“Yes it is! Wovoka says a man wearing the medicine shirt cannot be harmed by white man’s bullets! Whether you shoot or not, the results are the same! Anyone with eyes can see this!”

Longarm had to admit that the Paiute had a point. The rascal knew he wasn’t about to gun the old man and was twisting it to look like magic!

Then Prudence Lee was suddenly at his side. She held her hand out imperiously and said, “Give me the gun, Longarm!”

There was a murmur of surprise from the Indians. They were no more confused than Longarm. He said, “Miss Prudence, this gun is loaded with .44-40s and I told you to stay on the buckboard!”

“Give me the gun. I assure you I have no intention of shooting anyone with it.”

“Then what’s your play? You could miss without looking shameful, but they’d still say it was medicine, and-“

“Will you give me that damned gun and be still? You know I’m a missionary!”

Longarm let her take the gun by the barrel from his hand. She smiled prettily and held the grips out to the Paiute, saying, “The white man’s heart is not strong enough to shoot at a friend, even a friend protected by your strong medicine. You will have to fire it at Snake Killer!”

The Paiute backed away, stammering, “Not I! It is wrong for me to shoot at a brother!”

Prudence Lee followed him, holding out the gun in grim determination as they circled the council fire. She was smiling sweetly as she insisted, “But what harm can come to Snake Killer if Wovoka’s magic is stronger than a white man’s bullets? Surely you know how to shoot a pistol, don’t you? Heavens, I should think a man who preaches war would know at least a little about weapons!”

Most of the Blackfoot were laughing openly, now. The Paiute stammered obtuse theology and the little female missionary cut him up and down and sideways with sophistries of her own until it became obvious that the naked Ghost Dancer had no intention of letting her hand him Longarm’s revolver.

Presently, Prudence brought the pistol back to the tall deputy and handed it to him, saying, “Oh, dear, I suppose now we’ll just have to take his word for it about the shirt! He doesn’t seem to want to prove it one way or the other!”

Longarm grinned back at her as he holstered the .44 and said, “Yep, they’ll likely have to try those bulletproof Shirts without a demonstration.”

Old Snake Killer asked, “If nobody wants to shoot at me, can I take this thing off? It’s badly tanned and it itches.”

There was a roar of laughter, and Longarm said, “Let’s go, Miss Prudence. We’ll quit while we’re ahead.”

He led her back to the buckboard and helped her up to the seat as Rain Crow leaned over in his saddle and asked, “Do you want me to run that Paiute off?”

Longarm said, “No. Don’t make him look that important. This little lady just did quite a job taking the wind out of his sails and I suspicion that the more he preaches, the more they’ll laugh at him.”

“You may be right, for now. But what if Wendigo strikes again?”

“I see what you mean. But leave the Ghost Dancer be, anyway. If I don’t stop the Wendigo pretty quickly, we’ll be up to our chins in trouble, medicine shirts or no.

Longarm fingered a shiny new silver dollar as he stood in the saloon doorway scanning the bar in the dim light. Finally, he spotted the man he was looking for by the description the railroad workers had given him. The yard bull, Mendez, was a tall, lean man in a red checked shirt and peaked cloth cap. He wore an old Navy .36 in a battered army holster and looked like he could use a shave.

Longarm bellied up to the bar beside him and said, “I’m a U.S. Deputy Marshal, Mr. Mendez. They told me over at the roundhouse that I might find you here.”

Mendez shrugged and said, “I’m off duty. It’s none of their business if I drink or not, on my own time.”

Longarm noticed he had a slight Spanish accent. “What are you drinking, then?”

“I’m not. Already have a skinful and I have to work all night.”

“I know. What’s coming through the yards tonight?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I think they’re running a passenger train through about eight-thirty. They don’t discuss the timetable with us greasers.”

“Oh? The two boys helping you chase hoboes are Mexican, too?”

“One’s a Mex. Other’s Irish. I’m a South American, if it’s bothering you.”

“Seems to be bothering you more than me, Mr. Mendez. I have some friends who grew up speaking Spanish.”

“I know, as long as they don’t want to marry your sister, huh?”

“I figure who my sister might marry would be her own business. Did some lawman give you a hard time, once, about your accent? Or do you just hate all us gringos?”

“One time might not have bothered me,” the yard bull said bitterly. “It gets tedious being called a greaser after the first hundred times or so. Look, you don’t have to butter me up to get me to cooperate. What do you want from me, Deputy?”

“I said it already. Trying to get a line on slow freights passing through the Blackfoot reservation at night.”

“I heard someone might be shooting Indians from the passing trains. The roundhouse gang was talking about it the other evening. If any of ‘em saw anything, they didn’t let me in on it.”

“I know you don’t ride the trains. Can you think of anyone who might, aside from the regular crews?”

“Freight trains? Hoboes, if we let them. The insurance company says we’re not to give rides to Indians any more. Damn fool Shoshoni fell between the blinds a few months back and his squaw sued the line. Some free passes being given out, back East, but only to ride the passenger trains. Freight crews have enough to handle without some idiot getting in the way as they run the catwalk.”

“Don’t suppose any hobo could get by you, maybe late on a dark night in the rail yards?” the deputy asked.

“Sure, one could, once in a while. Play hell doing it regular, though. My boys and me have orders to dust their asses with rock salt, getting on or getting off.”

“All three of you carry shotguns charged with salt, on duty?”

“Twelve gauge, double barrel, sawed off. I carry a sawed-off baseball bat, too. You want to hop a freight in my yards, mister, you’d better ask the dispatcher for permission, first.”

“None of the caboose hands or maybe a friendly engineer could give a pal a lift?”

“Sure they could. I only check the cars for bums. I have a helper go up one side with a lantern while I ease up the far side in the dark to dust the rascals as they slip away from him between the wheels. I dusted one boy right in the ass that way a month ago and you should have heard him holler. But I don’t ask who is riding the caboose or up in the cab. It’s not my job.”

Longarm tapped absently on the bar with the silver dollar in his hand and the yard bull added, “This sniper or whatever would have a hard time doing mean things from the cab or caboose, though, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah. I may as well tell you, I’ve wired about the country for suggestions about crazy people working for your railroad. Nobody thinks it likely a full crew of lunatics are working out here.”

A worried expression appeared on the railroad cop’s face. “You know about that colored boy I killed in Omaha, then?”

“Yeah. Nebraska says you got off on self-defense. You said that hobo pulled a knife on you, right?”

“He did, and he had two other niggers with him. They dropped the subject when I blew his face off. I warned him twice to drop the knife before I shot him, too, God damn it!” Mendez slammed a fist down on the bar.

“Cool down, old son! You don’t have to convince me. You already got let off by a grand jury. I know you have a rough job.”

“They fired me anyway. Said I’d overstepped my authority. Ain’t that a laugh? They fire you if you let the bums ride and they fire you if you get in a fuss with ‘em.”

“There ain’t no justice,” Longarm commiserated. “I see you had no trouble getting another job out here, though.”

“Oh, a railroad bull with a tough rep can usually get hired somewhere. I don’t get paid as much, though, and the prices out here are higher than back East. If I had it to do over, those three coons could have driven the damned locomotive and I’d have looked the other way.”

Longarm shook his head and said, “I don’t buy that. The roundhouse gang has you down as a good, tough bull.”

“Well, I’ll get tougher if they don’t quit calling me a Mex. I’m from Paraguay, not Mexico, and both MY mother and father were pure white!”

Longarm nodded and said, “I suspicioned as much. How’d you get up here from such a far piece south? Merchant marine?”

“No. Worked for a British railroad down there when I was a teenager. Paraguay hasn’t got that much in the way of railroading, but I liked it better than punching cows, so I followed the trade north.”

“You’ve been here a spell, judging from the way you speak English.”

“Hell, I fought in the War for Lincoln!” Mendez said proudly. “Least I could do to get back at Texas. The first time I was called a greaser was in Galveston and I haven’t learned to like it yet.”

Longarm promised never to call Mendez a greaser and left him alone at the bar. He walked to the land office to use the federal wire. After he’d reported his lack of progress and asked a few questions that nobody in Denver had answers to, he sent an inquiry to the Chicago stock market. As Agent Chadwick came in to join him under the telegraph batteries, Longarm said, “Beef’s up a dollar and six bits a head and one of your battery jars is leaking.”

Chadwick looked at the charred black spot on the blotter next to the telegraph key and said, “Cigar burn. Them wet cell jars are glass. They leak all at once or never.”

“Doesn’t it make you nervous working with all that acid up there?” Longarm asked.

Chadwick shrugged. “The batteries have to be somewhere. That’s a pretty stout shelf.”

“I’d have ‘em on the floor if this was my wire shack. It’s good to have a box of baking soda handy, too. Met a telegrapher who saved his eyes with baking soda, once, when a Sioux arrow shattered a battery jar in his face and spattered him with vitriol.”

You’re a cheerful cuss today. How come you asked the current price of beef?”

“Still a cowhand at heart, I guess. I thought you’d be interested yourself, Chadwick. Seems only natural the land office out here would be abreast of converting grass to dollars.”

Chadwick looked annoyed and said, “Stop pussyfooting around, damn it! You heard something about that trouble I had a few years back, didn’t you?”

“Some,” Longarm lied, adding, “I’d like to hear your side, Chadwick.”

The agent smiled crookedly and said, “I might have known you were using the railroad telegraph for snooping around about us all. Did they tell you I was cleared of the charges?”

“I didn’t suspicion you’d be working for Uncle Sam if he’d caught you with your pants down.”

“Hell, everybody’s pants were down when they gave away all that money to build the railroads West, back in the sixties. They caught Vice President Colfax making money on those watered railroad bonds, but I was only a clerk in those days. I never even got a crack at all they were giving away in the way of land grants and tax money. The only reason I was called upon to testify was that my boss was grabbing land right and left! I came out of it clean as a whistle, and believe you me, they had me on the carpet for days, going over everything I’d had for breakfast for a good seven years! They investigated my bank account and made me show ‘em everything but my belly button. But what’s the use of talking? You likely got my first-grade report cards from Denver when you wired ‘em, right?”

Longarm laughed and said, “As a matter of fact, I never knew you were mixed up in that old financial mess till you just now told me.”

“You didn’t? What in hell are we raking it up for, then?”

“We’re not. You are. Folks are funny that way. They get to jawing with a lawman and next thing they know, they’re telling him about some gal they got in trouble once, or how much they hated their pa for whupping ‘em.. Had a fellow admit to incest once, and I never suspicioned him of more than murder.”

Chadwick laughed and shook his head. “All right, you suckered me into revealing my dark past. Had it been a mite darker, I’d be smoking dollar cigars in my private railroad car instead of trying to live on a piss-poor wage, considering. Do you want the name of the lady I was sleeping with the night Roping Sally was murdered?”

“It ain’t any of my business, but since you brought it up, Sheriff Murphy told me about it. Says you’re likely to get killed if her other boyfriend finds out about it.”

“Damn!” Chadwick exploded. “It’s what I get for staying late! Who told Murphy, that old biddy next door?”

“He said he saw you himself, making his morning rounds. The old biddy next door was watching through her lace curtains when you came through the back yard just after sundown. I don’t hold with small-town gossip, much, but in a way, she might have done you a favor.”

“Jesus H. Christ! You don’t mean you really had me under suspicion?”

“No more than anyone else in the territory. Let’s get back to the price of beef. We’re headed into a cattle boom after the droughts the last couple of years thinned the herds to where the price went up on such cows as are left. Everybody out here seems to want cows bad enough to steal them, lately. I’ve noticed the range hereabouts is getting overgrazed. Lots of spreads are overstocked, but they keep trailing longhorn north just the same.”

“Jesus, are you still gnawing that same bone about someone stealing reservation rangeland from the fool Indians?”

Longarm nodded and said, “Ain’t getting much marrow out of it, either. Seems odd that nobody’s made an offer on damn near virgin range. The Blackfoot have maybe a hundred and fifty head grazing more than fifteen hundred full sections out there.”

Chadwick shook his head wearily and insisted, “That’s the B.I.A.‘s problem. Who would you expect to make me an offer? I keep telling you I can’t sell government land, damn it!”

Longarm said, “You do file claims and issue range permits, though. Yet you say no white man’s approached you with any questions about all that grass going to waste.”

Chadwick cut in with an annoyed snort to explain, “Hell, of course they’ve asked about it. But I’ve told everybody the same thing. Those Indian lands are not for sale, with or without Indians on ‘em!”

“Could you give me a list of everyone who’s interested in spreading out?” the lawman asked.

Chadwick frowned and said, “Sure, if I can remember ‘em all. Let’s go out to my office and I’ll write down those I recall.”

As he led the way, Longarm asked mildly, “Don’t you keep books on such matters, Chadwick?”

“You mean, do I record the name of every man who stops me on the street to ask a fool question? No. I don’t write down the dirty jokes I hear or the names of sons they seem to think I can get into West Point, either. People suck around a man in my position, Longarm. They seem to think I’m Uncle Sam in the flesh instead of his poorly paid hired hand!”

“But you don’t take bribes, right?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had the chance. I remember how the man I used to work under retired rich, disgraced or not. It’s been my misfortune to be posted to jobs that keep most men honest through no fault of their own.”

He led Longarm out front, sat down, and started writing on the back of an envelope as he muttered darkly about the stupidity of people who thought he was Saint Nicholas. He handed Longarm a list of eighteen names and brands and said, “Here, this should keep you busy. Every one of these idiots has offered to buy at least a section of Indian land, should it ever be auctioned off.”

Longarm scanned the list, noting that most of the names on it were those of small local cattlemen with modest but growing herds and small home spreads. When Chadwick asked how he knew so much, he explained, “I haven’t just been spitting and whittling since I came here, Chadwick. One time or the other since I got here, I’ve talked to just about everybody I’ve been able to get within a mile of.”

“Any of them cowboys interesting enough to pester again?”

“Maybe. I’ll keep this with my map and check them off as I get the time. Do you get any offers from bigger outfits, like the Double Z or maybe the Tumbling R?”

“Not that I remember. Why?” Chadwick asked.

“Takes a big outfit to afford hired guns, flying machines, and such.”

“I see your meaning. Have you thought about the army?”

“Sure I have. They’re spoiling for another go at the Blackfoot and the War Department has observation balloons, too. But some officer out to start an Indian war to advance his career wouldn’t have to use spooks. He’d just dream up some incident and start blasting away.”

“If some soldiers were trying to frighten the Blackfoot into a jump, and knew the when and where of it …” the agent suggested.

“Too damned complicated. The second lieutenant out at the fort’s ornery enough to frame up some excuse to kill Indians, but why shilly-shally about with Wendigos? If he had even one man in his command willing to murder for him, he’d just have the rascal scalp some passing white, and bye-bye, Blackfoot!”

“Yeah,” Chadwick agreed, “the War Department’s never been too subtle. How about the B.I.A., as long as you suspect your fellow federal employees all that much?”

“Hey,” Longarm said, “it was you who brought up the War Department. But I’ve considered whether the Bureau of Indian Affairs might have a reason to scare their own charges off. They haven’t got one. The minute the Blackfoot are gone, Washington cuts the funds allocated for feeding the tribe and, if there’s one thing the Indian Ring doesn’t cotton to, it’s leaving money in the Treasury.”

“Some of those funds tend to stick to fingers along the way, too,” Chadwick observed. “It wouldn’t make much sense for the B.I.A. to want to go out of business, would it?”

“Not hardly. Maybe now you see why I keep chewing the same bone over and over. It’s boring the shit out of me, too!”

“So,” the land agent said, “no matter where the trail seems to take you, it keeps leading back to a crazy man, or an Indian spook.”

“I don’t like those possibilities, much, either. I’d best be on my way and see who else I can come up with.”

Longarm left the land office and headed for where he’d tethered his chestnut in front of the saloon. He saw a townie nailing up a cardboard placard and paused to read it over the man’s shoulder. It was an election poster, advising one and all to vote for Wilbur Browning for county sheriff. Longarm frowned and opined, “Seems to me your man is getting anxious, considering. The coroner tells me you’ve never held elections hereabouts, since there ain’t enough county to mention.”

The man finished hammering the last nail and said, “I know. Damned Indian reservation takes up most of the county and there ain’t enough of us whites to matter. But that fool Paddy Murphy’s not worth the powder to blow him up with. So we’re fielding Browning against the shanty son of a bitch!”

“Browning’s a rider for the Double Z, ain’t he?” Longarm asked.

“Yeah, he shot a Texan in Dodge one time, which is more than Murphy can say. The territorial governor’s given permission for elections and we aim to vote Murphy out.”

“Reorganizing the unincorporated districts, is he? That’s right interesting. They say anything about, uh, expanding the county, over at your party headquarters?”

“Hell,” the man said, “we ain’t got a headquarters. Ain’t rightly got a party, either. But since Murphy’s a Republican, the boys over at the livery who paid for these signs must be Democrats.”

“Don’t you know for sure? Seems to me a legal election has to register voters ahead.”

“Shit, nobody in Switchback’s all that fussy. We just aim to have us a real lawman. If Murphy won’t be voted out polite, we’ll just tar and feather the son of a bitch and ride him out on a rail.”

Longarm cleared his throat and adjusted the brim of his hat. “Well, as I’m a federal man, it may not be my call to tell folks how to hold local elections. But you’ll find elections work better if they’re legal. How come folks are so anxious about politics, all of a sudden?”

“It’s the killings out on the reservation. We keep telling Murphy he ought to do something about it and he keeps saying it ain’t his jurisdiction. Wilbur Browning says he’ll jurisdict the shit out of that Wendigo son of a bitch if we give him the job.”

“The Blackfoot have their own police force out there. I suspicion they won’t want your man’s help all that much.”

“It don’t matter what they want. All these Indian rascals running about killing folks have everybody spooked. Seen some more damn Indians just this morning, coming up from the railroad station armed to the teeth.”

A troubled look darkened the tall lawman’s features. “Wait a minute,” he said. Are you saying men from other tribes are in Switchback?”

“They weren’t Blackfoot. Don’t know where they were headed. I ain’t an expert on Indians, but one of the fellows over to the railroad said they were Sioux. They were dressed like white men, save for braided hair and likely needing a bath, but Wes Collins, who used to be in the army, allowed as how the lingo they were jabbering was Dakota.”

“You couldn’t say which way they rode, huh?”

“Well, they ain’t washing dishes here in Switchback, or asking for a job as hired hands, so they likely went on out to the reservation.”

“You say this morning, eh? They’ve got four or five hours’ lead on me and I doubt they’ll be reporting in to the agent. I’ll tell the Blackfoot police about it and let them take care of it.”

“How do you know you can trust your Indian police to tell you true about other redskins?”

Longarm started to say it was a foolish question. Then he reconsidered, shrugged, and said, “I don’t.”

Chapter 12

This time Longarm rode back to the reservation along the railroad tracks instead of taking the wagon trace from town. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but he’d never ridden the entire stretch and it was possible that his survey map was missing a few details.

As he topped the rise, west of town, and started across the higher prairie rolling toward the distant foothills, a calico steer with a broken left horn stared wild-eyed at him for a moment and lit out, running. Longarm saw its badly worn hide and figured it for a queer. Sometimes something funny happened to a castrated calf and it grew up thinking it was a heifer. The range bulls thought so, too, and the poor spooked animal was all worn out from trying to get screwed. Some pissed-off bull had whupped it good for fooling him, most likely, and now it was ranging alone, too scared to let anything near it.

The range between Switchback and the reservation line was badly misused in this stretch, too. The native grasses had been overgrazed and the brush was getting out of hand along the railroad right-of-way. Prickly tumbleweed, both blowing and growing, formed dense windrows between higher clumps of sage and grease wood that had followed the tracks east out of the Great Basin beyond the mountains. Some of the brush was waist-high to a man on foot and getting too woody for even an antelope to browse. It was a hell of a way to treat a country, Longarm thought, but told himself not to worry about it. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help wondering where it would all lead to. He was all for progress; the Iron Horse had opened up a continent to Europe’s hungry hordes in his own lifetime, but couldn’t people see there was a limit to what the land could take? The high plains had been grazed for thousands of years without being damaged by its indigenous wildlife. The longhorn probably didn’t hurt the buffalo grass any more than the buffalo had, head for head. But the buffalo had kept moving, giving the grass time to grow back. The Indian had been willing to live the same way, drifting across the sea of grass from place to place. The white man’s notion of staying put with his cows and crops didn’t give the range time to recover. The ten inches of rain each season and the short green-up of the native short-grasses called for at least two years of fallow for every one grazed. At the rate they were overstocking, the cattle raisers would be raising more dust than cows in a few more years.

He kept an eye on the queer. It had stopped, and was staring at him from behind a clump of greasewood, now. The critter was mixed up enough between the horns to do almost anything, he knew. Cows grazing with others were usually neighborly enough, but loners, away from the herd, tended to get odd notions. When that messed-up calico didn’t think he was a gal, he just might decide he was a Spanish fighting bull. That busted horn might make a nasty hole in his chestnut’s hide, too.

Longarm rode on, pretending not to notice, the way one rides past a barking farmyard dog. Then, as he and the chestnut came abreast of the queer, it lowered its banged-up head, snorted, and charged. “Son of a bitch,” muttered Longarm, swinging his mount in a tight circle to spoil the rogue’s aim. Something ticked the brim of his hat as, behind him, a gunshot swore at him, too!

As the steer thundered by on one side, Longarm was rolling out of the saddle on the other, dragging his Winchester from its boot as he threw himself at the dirt. He landed on his side and rolled behind a waist-high clump of sage in a cloud of mustard-colored dust, ignoring the horse running one way and the steer the other. He rolled over again and rose on his elbows with the rifle trained back the way he’d come. The second shot tore through the sage where he’d landed, and spotting the gunsmoke wafting from some greasewood near the tracks, Longarm fired back, dropped lower and snaked at an angle toward it, cradling his rifle in his arms as he walked his elbows through the dust.

Longarm heard the pounding of hooves and turned his head to see the calico queer headed his way, its good horn down and plowing through the brush as it came!

He fired a shot into the dust ahead of the charging queer to turn it. The critter didn’t even swerve, but Longarm’s unseen attacker parted his rising gunsmoke with a bullet. The lawman pulled his knees up, dug his heels into the dust, and kicked himself sideways as the calico charged blindly through the space he’d just occupied, snorting like a runaway locomotive. Longarm landed on the back of his neck, somersaulted backwards, and came up pumping lead in the general direction of the greasewood clump the shots seemed to be coming from. Then he dropped and rolled out of sight without waiting to see how good the other’s aim might be. There were no answering shots. If he hadn’t hit the son of a bitch, then his enemy was lying doggo, or had lost interest and was crawling himself, now.

There seemed to be no way to find out which, without catching a rifle ball in the head or attracting the attention of the crazy calico. So Longarm stayed prone in a clump of tumbleweed, propped on one elbow, as he took a fistful of loose cartridges from his coat pocket and thumbed them into the rifle’s magazine. He risked a look to the west and saw that his chestnut had stopped a quarter-mile away and had begun to graze as if nothing had happened. Longarm peered through a gap in the brush and observed that the one-horned calico was broadside to him, now. The lunatic longhorn had its tail up and its head down, pawing the dirt with one hoof as it regarded something hidden to Longarm’s left, closer to the railroad tracks. Longarm didn’t think the calico had spotted anyone for sure, since it wasn’t spooked or charging, but the calico had seen something, so Longarm started crabbing toward the tracks, keeping his head and ass down, moving as fast as he could. Before he reached the tracks, a double-header freight came over the rise between him and town, with both engines puffing, fore and aft. The one-horned queer lit out for Texas, bawling in fright. Longarm heaved a sigh of relief and kept crawling toward the tracks as the ground vibrated under him in time to the pounding drivers of the double-header. He saw a brakeman staring down at him, slack-jawed, from the top of a car. Then the train was past and he was kneeling behind some tall, dried sunflower stalks with a reloaded rifle in his hands and not much notion where to point it.

He worked his way east along the railroad bank for four or five minutes until he reached a wooden culvert that ran under the tracks through the embankment. He saw where human knees had carried someone under to the far side and, swearing, threw caution to the winds and ran up and over. He dropped to one knee on the north side of the tracks, and swept the horizon with his eyes. Then he ran toward the edge of the drop-off, rifle ready. He surmised the bushwhacker had crawled through the culvert after that last exchange, jumped up as the train covered his movements, and lit out.

At the edge, he looked down the slope toward the outskirts of Switchback. There was nobody on the gently inclined, bare, eroded slope to the first fence line. The bastard who’d shot at him had made it to the cover of those railroad sheds and the shanties past them. Longarm considered strolling on down to ask anyone he met what they might have seen, but it seemed a waste of time. If anyone had anything to say, Sheriff Murphy would hear about it, sooner or later.

The deputy recrossed the tracks, and after some coaxing and cussing, got back aboard the chestnut. He rode on his way again without further incident, chewing an unlit cheroot as he dusted himself off and tried to puzzle out what had happened. If whoever’d shot at him was the same one playing Wendigo, Wendigo’s methods weren’t subtle. Could those others simply have been shot?

That might explain why the Wendigo took the heads. If he was trying to spook the Blackfoot with spirit killings, he wouldn’t want corpses left about with bullets in their skulls. On the other hand, the sound of a gunshot carried for some distance, and nobody’d heard any.

Who was that fellow back East who said he’d patented some newfangled gadget that could silence the muzzle blast of a gun? There’d been a piece about it in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly. A silenced shot might explain a lot, but the shots just fired at him had sounded like a plain old .44-40. Even with a silencer, the Wendigo would have to be a fancy marksman to pick folks off in the dark from any distance. Luckily, whoever’d just been blazing away at him hadn’t been too good a shot.

Aloud, he muttered, “Shit, a man picks up a lot of enemies packing a badge. Could have been just about anyone.”

He passed a reservation marker where, though the locals trespassed their cows a mite along the edges, the brush began to thin out, replaced by the short-grass God had put there in the first place. The Blackfoot didn’t have enough stock to graze this far from the agency. The prairie hereabouts was unspoiled. The land was tough enough to take the antelope and jack’s occasional attentions. With the buffalo shot off, the virgin range was fat enough to seem indecent. Lots of last summer’s straw was still standing. He’d have to tell Cal Durler it was time they either burned it off on purpose or had a wildfire from the sparks thrown by a passing train.

He followed the right-of-way, noting a couple of cuts he considered high enough for someone attempting to get aboard a train without a ticket, but when he took the time to investigate each one for sign, he found none. He came to the place where they’d found Roping Sally and swung away to head for the agency. All he’d learned was that someone was out to kill him, but he’d known that much before.

He found Nan Durler alone at the agency. She said her husband had driven Prudence Lee into town and added, “You should have met them on the road.”

Longarm said, “Didn’t come back by way of the wagon trace. Is Miss Lee leaving?”

“No, she said she had some shopping to do. They’ll likely be back for supper in a few hours. What happened to you? You look like you’ve been rolling in the dirt!”

“I have. The dust’ll brush out of my clothes, but I could use a bath and a fresh shirt.”

“We’ve a washtub in the back shed you could use,” she offered, “if you’ve a mind to. I’ll boil some water and fetch you a towel and soap.”

Longarm left his coat and gun rig on the bed in the guest room and lugged four buckets of pump water to the tub as the Indian agent’s wife put two big kettles on the kitchen range. She served him coffee at the table while they waited for the water to heat up.

He noticed that Nan wasn’t having any as she sat across the table from him. When he commented on this, she brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and sighed, “It seems all I do out here is drink that goddamn coffee. Next thing you know I’ll be dipping snuff. I’m beginning to feel like one of those white-trash girls I used to feel so sorry for.”

“I reckon it does get tedious out here for a woman alone, but you’ve got Prudence Lee to talk with, now.”

“Good God, she’s no more company than my husband! All either of them seems interested in are these infernal Indians! Prudence prattles endlessly about their heathen souls and Calvin’s up half the night fretting about his balance sheets! You’d think it was important that they got his model farm working on a paying basis, for heaven’s sake!”

Longarm took a slow sip of his coffee. “Well, it’s likely important to Cal. He’s got a heap of responsibilities out here for a man so young.”

“So young is right! Sometimes I feel like I’m his mother. The trouble is, I never married him to be his mother.”

“Well,” he tried to console her, “you’ll doubtless have some real kids to mother, sooner or later.”

“With Calvin?” She laughed, a bit wildly. Then she stared at the spoon she was bending out of shape between her fingers on the table and muttered, “Not hardly. A woman needs a man to be a mother.”

Longarm rose from the table, leaving half of his cup filled, and said uncomfortably, “Uh, I’ll fetch my fresh shirt and such. Water’s boiling, now.”

He went to his room and dug out some clean underwear before heading for the porch shed. He noticed Nan was still at the table, fidgeting with the spoon. He went out back and closed the shed door behind him before he remembered that he’d forgotten to pour the boiling kettles into his tepid well water. He hesitated, then decided he could get as clean in cold water.

He stripped, hanging his clothes on the nails Calvin had driven in the plank walls, and gingerly got into the tub, hunkering down in the well water, which was neither warm nor freezing. He lathered himself with the washrag and turned the water chocolate-brown with trail dust. It would likely dry somewhat gritty on him, but at least he wouldn’t smell bad in his fresh shirt.

The door opened. Nan Durler was standing there with a kettle.

Stark naked.

Her voice was calm as she said, “You forgot the hot water for our bath.”

Longarm studied the brown water between his wet knees as he answered in a desperately casual tone, “Our bath, ma’am? This tub’s a mite small for two and, uh, your man might think me a mite forward if he came home to find us like this.”

“I told you they’ll be in town for hours,” she reassured him. “You just stay the way you are and I’ll put a foot on either side and sort of sit down facing you. I think we’ll both fit right nicely, don’t you?”

“Nan, you’re a married woman,” he protested.

“Come on, you know you want me.”

“What I want or don’t want ain’t the point. Your husband is a friend of mine,” he told her.

“Would to God he’d be more friendly to me! I need it, Longarm! I need a man inside me so bad I can taste it! Come on, we’ve got all afternoon. If you don’t want to do it here, let’s go back inside and do it right on the bed!”

She moved her blonde pubis provocatively and laughed hysterically. “You can have me on the bed. You can have me on the kitchen table. I don’t care where we do it, just so we do it, right now!”

“Ma’am, I wish you’d go put some clothes on. I’m done washing and I’d like to get out and put my pants on.”

“You’ve got a hard-on, haven’t you? You don’t fool me with that shy act! I’ll bet you’ve lost count of the women you’ve had.”

“Never occurred to me to keep a tally.”

He saw she wasn’t going to leave. So as she stood there, naked, watching, he got out of the tub, erection and all, and proceeded to dry himself off.

She sighed, “Oh, that’s a nice one!”

Longarm tried to keep his voice level as he said, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to, for you are one handsome gal, even with your clothes on. But we’d best forget we had the notion, Nan. I know we’ve been acting sort of silly, but no harm’s been done and let’s forget it, huh?”

As he tried to dress she dropped the kettle and threw herself against him, bare breasts pressed to his naked chest as she wrapped her arms around him and insisted, “Just one time! I’m going crazy!”

“Yep, that’s likely what’s the matter with you, gal. Lucky I got a mite more self-control.”

“Control? You must be made out of iron! What’s the matter with you? Who would ever know?”

“We would, Nan. Maybe that wouldn’t bother you, but I ain’t done here, and I’d find it sort of difficult looking your man in the eye if I was to abuse his hospitality while his back was turned.”

She suddenly stepped back, jeering, “What’s the matter with you? Ain’t I good enough for you?”

“Honey,” he said gently, “I’ve bedded down with gals who Couldn’t hold a candle to you when it comes to looking pretty. But none of ‘em were married to my friends.”

“Oh, my, aren’t we godly and pious today? Next, you’ll have me down on my knees, repenting my wicked advances!”

“Not hardly. God is one thing, fooling with a friend’s wife is another. I’m going to forget we had this conversation, Nan. But, if you don’t like your husband, have the decency to just up and leave him. It ain’t seemly for a pretty gal like you to carry on like this.”

“I just need to be pleasured, damn it! I haven’t been loved properly since I don’t know when and it’s only natural to do what needs doing!”

“Well, sure it is. But the only thing that makes us humans better than most other brutes is, well, that we ain’t brutes. The Lord gave us common sense to go with our desires. So let’s use some, and forget this whole thing.”

“I thought a real man had to have all the loving he could get.”

“No, a real man doesn’t. A bull in the field, a dog in an alley, or a kid with a hard-on doesn’t worry much about the who and how of it, but us grown-ups study on it before we go leaping at folks. I’ll tell you the truth, I’m going to have hard-ons for a month over YOU, now, and I’ll likely kick myself for being a fool someday, when I hear you’ve ran off with a passing whiskey drummer or been caught with some cowhand. But when you bust this marriage up, it won’t be with me. So, while my pecker will tease me over lost opportunities, my conscience will be clear.” He stopped to catch his breath, amazed that he’d delivered such a long-winded sermon. He felt as self-righteous as a revival meeting Bible-beater, which he took as a sure sign that his resistance was breaking down.

“Oh, shit!” Nan exploded, “you think I don’t know about that half-breed girl and you?”

“Don’t know what Miss Two-Women might have said while you and she were jawing, ma’am. So I’ll not defend myself, save to point out that I never met anyone she was married to.”

“You … bastard!” she shrilled, turning from him to flounce out of the shed. She looked as nice going away as she had facing him, and Longarm sighed wistfully as he buttoned up his shirt.

“Damn fool,” he told himself, “she’ll likely play that trick the Egyptian’s old woman pulled on Joseph in the Good Book and tell Calvin I tried to screw her, anyway!”

That was something to ponder as he finished dressing. If Nan tried to revenge herself on him by playing Potiphar’s wife, Cal would likely come after him with a gun. Damn. Maybe he’d been too hasty, as well as mean to his poor pecker. A man could get killed either way and she’d purely had one nice little rump!

He finished dressing and decided to let Nan cool a while before he went back inside. He went down the back steps and walked over to the corral. He didn’t have anything to do there, but at least if he was out here where the Indians in the other houses could see him with his pants on

…

Then he grinned as he spied a dot on the horizon and recognized it as Calvin and Prudence driving back from town. They were two hours earlier than Nan had expected them to be. He hadn’t just been decent; he’d been goddamned lucky.

Prudence Lee had purchased a box of vittles in Switchback along with her other supplies. She insisted that everyone eat at her house that night, the house that Real Bear had been murdered in. Longarm didn’t go into the bedroom, but he hoped it had been cleaned up since last he’d seen it. The front room was cluttered with a big bass drum and religious pictures she’d cut out and tacked to the whitewashed Walls. The two women went out to the kitchen to fuss over the tinned food she’d brought from town while Longarm and the Indian agent sat on the porch steps, smoking as the sun went down.

Longarm mentioned the strange Indians he’d heard about in town and Calvin said, “I know. Rain Crow said he’d try to find out if they were staying with anyone out here.”

“Isn’t he with those Blackfoot that the Paiute missionary’s visiting with?”

“No, not if I can believe Rain Crow. Tell me something, Longarm. You know Rain Crow as well as, or better than I do. How far would you trust that boy?”

“About as far as I’d trust most, I reckon. Why?”

“I get the feeling he’s hiding something from me. He doesn’t seem at all interested in catching whoever’s been selling whiskey to his tribesmen; the other day, I was sure I smelled some on his breath.”

“That was likely my fault,” Longarm said. “I shared a bottle with him the night we found Yellow Leggings and Roping Sally.”

“I’m not talking about that far back. I think he’s been drinking recently.”

“Maybe he has. I had a couple of drinks this afternoon. You reckon I’m fixing to scalp you?”

“It’s not the same. You and I are white men.”

Longarm took a drag of smoke and blew a thoughtful ring before he nodded and said, “I know. When Indians get drunk they sing funny. Most white boys sing ‘O’Riley’s Daughter,’ or ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ when they get falling-down drunk. Can’t make head or tail out of those Indian songs.”

“Come on,” Durler said. “You know how many drunken Indians have gotten in trouble.”

“Yep. Some Indian drunks are mean as hell. But the meanest drunk I ever met was a trail boss called Ben Thompson-No, come to think of it, I met a jasper called Doc Holliday last year, who was even meaner. I do so wish they wouldn’t let mean fellows drink, don’t you?”

“You’re funning me, but it’s no laughing matter. I’m not supposed to let my Indians get at firewater.”

“Hell, you ain’t been serving it to them, have you?” the deputy asked.

“No, but if it’s on the reservation-“

“There can’t be all that much of it, or, if there is, your Blackfoot hold their liquor better than most folks in Abilene or Dodge. You’ve got enough on your plate just trying to make cowboys out of them. Try and make sober cowboys out of anybody and I’ll show you an easier task, like walking on water or feeding the Blackfoot Nation on loaves and fishes.”

The Indian agent sighed and said, “I know you think I take my job too seriously. Nan says I worry more about my Indians than I do her. But, damn it, somebody has to worry about them. They’re like children. If someone doesn’t help them, they’re as doomed as the buffalo!”

Longarm shook his head wearily and said, “You’re wrong a couple of ways, Cal. They ain’t kids; they’re folks. Likely not much smarter or dumber than the rest of us. As to ‘the poor Indian, fading away like the snows of yesteryear,’ there are more Indians now, counting breeds living as whites, than there were when Columbus found and misnamed them.”

“That’s crazy, Longarm!” Durler said. “Why, there’s hardly an Indian east of the Mississippi and this whole territory used to be Indian land until-“

“Until we took it all away from them and packed them tighter on these reservations,” Longarm interrupted. “I’m talking about population figures, not land. Before we crowded them, they were wandering hunters or small farmers, scattered in bands of maybe thirty-odd souls, hither and yon. Little Big Horn never would have happened if the far-flung bands hadn’t been snowballed into a real army-sized gathering of the clans. You started here with a fair-sized reservation for Blackfoot, right?”

“Of course,” the agent agreed.

“Only now, you’ve got Bloods and Piegans on the same land, and if I know the B.I.A., they’ll be shipping you stray Shoshoni and leftover Flatheads any day now, as the cattle country expands with this beef boom. I wouldn’t worry about ‘the noble savage’ fading away on you, Cal. He’s having kids like everyone else, and getting sardined on such little land as we see fit to set aside for him in odd, god-forsaken corners.”

“All right, what would you do, Longarm?” Durler asked.

“I’d start by treating them like folks. I’d give them full citizenship and leave ‘em the hell alone.”

“You can’t be serious! Why, right this minute, the Apache are running around killing folks and-“

“I’d make Indians obey the law, like everybody else,” Longarm cut in. “If a white man or a colored man kills somebody, we call it murder. When an Indian gets mean we make a policy.”

Durler said, “Well, I don’t make the policy, and you’ve got to admit these Blackfoot aren’t enthusiastic to learn about herding or farming.”

“Why should they be?” Longarm asked. “If you were in jail and some nice warden told you he aimed to teach you a trade, would you stop thinking about busting out?”

“I see your point. But, like I said, I don’t make the policy. So there ain’t much I can do about it, here.”

“Sure, there is. You can ease off and ride with a gentler hand on the reins. I’ve smelled some sour mash on a few breaths since I came here, but what of it? Last mean drunk who came at me was as white as you are. I’d worry more about catching the Wendigo and holding the tribe this side of the border than I would about sociable drinking.”

Before they could argue further, Prudence Lee came out to tell them supper was served.

The missionary was a good cook, but the meal was uncomfortable for Longarm. He found himself facing Nan Durler across the table, and while her eyes stayed on her beans, Longarm couldn’t help wondering what she’d been saying in the kitchen to Prudence. He’d learned a long time ago, the hard way, that women were even worse than men about kissing and telling. For all the fretting and fussing about so-called fallen women, he’d noticed fallen women bragged like anything about all the men they’d fallen with. Prudence Lee said something to him, so he risked a look her way. The missionary woman met his eyes innocently as she repeated her request that he pass the salt. But that didn’t mean much; Nan hadn’t let on she’d known about him and Gloria Two-Women, until she’d tried to seduce him in the bathtub.

He wondered what Prudence Lee would say if be asked to sleep on her couch; not that he was about to ask her such a foolish thing. There was no way he was going to get out of spending another night under Nan Durler’s roof, without it looking odd as hell to her husband.

“Someone just rode up outside,” said Calvin Durler, breaking in on Longarm’s worries.

Longarm said, “I heard it. Sounds like an unshod pony. One of your Blackfoot, I suspicion.”

The two men excused themselves from the table and went out on the porch. Rain Crow was sitting his pony in the last rays of the sun. He called out, “I have found the Paiute Ghost Dancer. He told some people he was going off alone to make medicine. He told them he was calling on the ghosts in a place where Indians had fought a good fight. When I thought about it, I knew where the place had to be.”

Durler looked blank, but Longarm nodded and said, “That abandoned homestead. It’s the only battleground of the Shining Days on this reservation.”

Rain Crow nodded and said, “Yes. Long ago, the Indians won there. The legends say the white settler fought well before they overran him. The Paiute must have thought to meet the ghosts of those who fell in the old fight. Instead, he met Wendigo!”

Both white men looked surprised and Rain Crow nodded. “Yes, the man was dead when I found him. He was wearing his medicine shirt, too, but it did no good. Perhaps Wovoka’s medicine was only meant to protect us from white people.”

Longarm raised an eyebrow and said, “You sort of grin when you tell your tale, Rain Crow. I didn’t know you found the Wendigo so infernally funny!”

“Wendigo is not what I’m laughing about. When I first found the Paiute out there, I was very frightened. But it came to me, riding in, that the Wendigo didn’t want a no-good white man’s Indian like me. He came for a Dream Singer who said the spirits were his friends.”

Chapter 13

It was dark by the time Rain Crow had led Longarm and Calvin Durler out to where he’d left the body. But the Indian had his bull’s-eye lantern and Durler had brought a big coal-oil lamp from the house.

The Paiute Dream Singer’s beheaded cadaver sat propped against the sod walls of the old house in what was left of his pathetic buckskin medicine shirt. The garment had been slashed to ribbons, too, and the dead man’s entrails lay in his lap.

Longarm left the others to fiddle with the body as he circled the entire site with Rain Crow’s bull’s-eye, sweeping the prairie sod with the beam carefully and walking slowly. Then he shook his head wearily and walked back to join the others, saying, “I can see where the Paiute came in. I can see where Rain Crow came and went. I found some fresh rabbit shit, too. That’s all the sign there is.”

Durler shook his head and said, “We’re in trouble. I was just getting used to your notion about the railroad right-of-way.”

The lawman nodded. “I know. I like it too, but we’re a good three miles from the tracks, this time. If he wasn’t riding that rabbit, he must have flown in and out on a magic carpet.”

“It’s black as a bitch out here, Longarm. Are you sure you couldn’t have missed something?” Durler asked.

“Not a hell of a lot. We’ve had some wind since I was out here last.”

Durler asked what that was supposed to mean. Before Longarm could answer, the Indian snorted in annoyance and said, “There has been no rain. The dry grass is dusty. Don’t you people look at the earth you think you own?”

Longarm explained, “There’s a film of dust on the north side of nearly every stem and blade. Nobody’s been over this ground for at least a full day. When was that last north wind, Rain Crow? About this time last night?”

“Later than this. You read sign well, for a white man.”

“There you go, Cal. You’ve got two expert opinions against the simple scientific fact that what we’re saying isn’t possible.”

He shined the bull’s-eye beam near Durler’s boots and added, “You see where you just walked through this dry straw, Cal? According to all the rules of evidence, before we got here, two men came in and only one rode out. If I didn’t know Rain Crow had good alibis for other such killings, I’d have no choice but to arrest him. I’d have no trouble selling it to a grand jury, either. Anyone can plainly see no other human being came within a country mile of this dead Paiute before we got here!”

Rain Crow protested, “I did not do it! What kind of a fool would kill a man and leave his own sign? If I wanted to fool you-“

“Hold on, old son,” Longarm cut him off. “I’m not accusing you. Just reading the sign as it was left for me. Hell, I know you could have dragged some brush through the dusty grass or maybe left some false sign, if that had been your notion.”

“I don’t like to be accused, even in fun. Everyone knows I did not like the dead man. If you keep talking like that, the people will say I killed him!”

Durler asked, “You think that was the intention, Longarm? To somehow frame Rain Crow for the killing?”

The deputy pulled at a corner of his mustache. “I don’t know. Whoever killed this poor medicine dreamer had no way of knowing who’d find the body. As far as that goes, the ants and carrion crows might well have picked this old boy clean before anybody ever found him. We’re way the hell and gone out on the prairie and-Son of a bitch! That doesn’t make sense, either!”

“What doesn’t make sense, Longarm?” Rain Crow asked.

“The Wendigo’s reasons. Up to now, I’ve been working on the notion that these spooky killings were to scare the Blackfoot. All the others were killed and messed up where they’d be found quickly. This poor bastard might never have been found at all. It looks like pure, crazy spite-work, after all! You’d best see about getting this body back to the agency for burial. I hope you boys won’t take it unfriendly, but I’m riding into Switchback, straight from here.”

“You think the killer’s in Switchback?” said the agent.

Longarm shrugged. “Don’t know where he is. Don’t even know how the son of a bitch got in or out of here. Might know more if I could ask some questions. As you see, that Paiute ain’t talking much.”

Leaving the two of them to dispose of the remains, Longarm mounted and rode for Switchback in the dark. He didn’t really have his next moves planned, but at least this got him out of spending the night at the agency, and somebody might have noticed something unusual.

The moon was rising as he rode down the slope into the dimly lit streets of Switchback. It was still early and a rinky-tink piano was playing “Garryowen” in the saloon. Some old boy had probably requested it after reminiscing about old times. The Seventh Cav had marched to Little Big Horn to the strains of that old Irish jig and every time someone said “Indian” in Montana, some fool was bound to bring up Custer.

The land office was closed, but the railroad station wasn’t. He tethered his chestnut and went in to send a progress report to Denver, knowing Billy Vail was likely having a fit. Then he asked the railroad telegrapher, “When was the last train in from the west, this after noon?”

The telegrapher said, “There was one about noon. Eastbound passenger express will be coming through in an hour or so. It don’t figure to stop here, but we can flag her down for you if need be, Marshal.”

Longarm shook his head. “Ain’t going anywhere. Just asking about your timetable. Was that noonday train a slow freight, with flat cars and such?”

The telegrapher frowned. “Flat cars? Don’t think so. It was a fast freight, bound for Chicago with live beef. I could ask Dispatch if they were deadheading any flats.”

“Don’t bother. What I had in mind was no cattle train highballing downgrade.”

He took out two cheroots, offered one to the telegrapher, and thumbed a light, muttering, “Damn! Just as I was hoping I had it figured, the son of a bitch went and busted all my bubbles!”

“I thank you for the smoke, Marshal. But I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

“Neither do I, now. Is your yard bull, Mendez, patrolling out back?”

“He should be. Old Mendez drinks a mite. If you don’t find him, you’ll find one of his sidekicks. Be careful about creeping up on ‘em sudden, though. That one Irish kid is quick on the trigger as well as a mite hard of hearing. Come up on him sudden and-“

“Never mind. No sense in poking around dark tracks at night, spooky yard bulls or no. You could likely tell me if there was a work train, or something slow like that, fixing to leave the yards tonight, couldn’t you?”

“I could, but there ain’t. Next slow freight headed west will be at ten tomorrow night. Empty cattle cars, due in from the East. They’ll be dropping ‘em off for loading, all up the line and through the night.”

“Anything coming east? Say around midnight?”

The telegrapher picked up some dispatch flimsies from his table and consulted them before he nodded and said, “Yeah. There’s a string of flats, low-balling through as the other orders allow it. Flats empty from unloading telegraph poles, over in the Great Basin sage country. There’s a midnight passenger train using the tracks, first. Then the low-balling empties will likely poke on in.”

Longarm thanked his informant, and leaving his mount where it was, moseyed over to the saloon to drink while he studied on where he’d spend the night and what in hell was going on.

In the saloon, he found Jason, the army scout, talking to the piano player, who’d stopped playing “Garryowen” long enough to wet his whistle. Jason waved Longarm over and said, “I owe you a drink, don’t I?”

“Don’t know who’s ahead, but I’ll take it.”

As Jason ordered another shot for himself and a glass of Maryland rye for Longarm, the deputy asked, “Was that old cavalry tune your notion?”

“No. I just got done explaining to the professor, here, about this being a time for other songs. How soon do you figure your Blackfoot out there aim to make their move for Canada?”

“You can tell your soldier boys not to bank on any medals this summer. Somebody killed the damn fool who was trying to talk them into it.”

“Do tell? Some friends of mine likely made a long trip for nothing, then. We are talking about a Paiute named Ishiwati, ain’t we?”

“I don’t know the bird’s name well enough to say it, but that sounds close. You say somebody was looking for him?”

“Yeah, out at the fort. A posse of Crow lawmen just arrived with a warrant for his arrest. I was fixing to bring ‘em out to the reservation, come morning. You say somebody shot him?”

“That’s close enough. He’s deader than hell. These Indian police looking for the Dream Singer would sound like Sioux to folks, wouldn’t they?”

“Reckon so. Crow and Sioux both talk Dakota. Why do you ask?”

Longarm chuckled and explained, “You’ve just handed me the first good news I’ve had all day. I heard there were some strange Sioux hereabouts and I’ve had the Blackfoot going crazy trying to locate ‘em on the reservation.”

The barkeep brought their drinks and they downed them in silence. Longarm ordered them each another, and Jason said, “I’ll tell the Crows they can rest easy when I ride back to the fort later tonight. That Ishiwati was one bad Paiute, to hear ‘em tell it. Now, if someone would just shoot that damn Wovoka himself, we’d likely have some peace and quiet. What was the killing about? More of that Ghost Dance shit?”

“Sort of. You might say Ishi-whatever got into a theological dispute with the Wendigo.”

The scout whistled and said, “Another one of them things, huh?”

The piano player asked, “What’s a Wendigo?”

Longarm said, “I wish I knew, Professor. Jason, you’re a professional tracker. How would you Cross maybe two or three hundred yards of dusty stubble without leaving sign?”

“I’d ride around it. There’s no way to jump three hundred yards.”

“That’s the way I see it. When are you heading back to the fort?”

“A couple of hours, maybe. Came into town for some tail, but the professor, here, tells me French Mary’s been rented for the night by a big spender off the Double Z. I was just fixing to try my luck at Madam Kate’s. You want to come along?”

“Not tonight. French Mary’s the little redhead with the saucy mouth, ain’t she?”

“Yeah, and she does use it nicely. But I can’t wait around all night for that damn cowboy to get done and, anyway, I got delicate feelings. Don’t like to kiss a gal right after she’s been … well, you likely know why they call her French Mary.”

The piano player said, “There’s a new gal at Madam Kate’s who ain’t been used all that much. They say she ain’t more than sixteen or so and still likes her new job.”

Jason laughed and said, “There you go, Longarm. What say we go over there and get her while she’s hot?”

“You go, if you’ve a mind to,” Longarm said. “I’ve got other fish to fry.”

“What’s the matter, don’t you like tail, or are you too proud to pay for it?” the scout gibed.

“Hell, everybody pays for it, one way or another. I’ve just never liked cold cash transactions,” Longarm said.

“Shit, whores are the only honest women I’ve ever met,” Jason observed. “I’d far rather give the gal the two dollars than shilly-shally about with ‘nice girls’ who wind up with your money anyway.”

“Like I said, we all pay, one damn way or another, and I’ve often said to myself it makes more sense to just slap down the cash right off. I suspicion I must be a sissy.”

Jason laughed, and before they could continue their discussion, the land agent, Chadwick, came in to join them. Or, rather, to join Longarm and the professor, for he didn’t know Jason, except by sight. The scout, as if inhibited by the other federal man, finished his drink and left in pursuit of carnal pleasure.

The professor went back to the piano to play “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes,” for some reason, and Chadwick said, “I have a wire for you here, someplace.”

He took a folded scrap of paper from his frock coat and handed it to Longarm, who read:

WHAT’S HOLDING UP THE PARADE QUESTION STOP YOU ARE OVERDUE AND NEEDED HERE STOP REPORT TO DENVER AT ONCE STOP SIGNED VAIL

Chadwick said, “I could open up and send an answer for you.” But Longarm shook his head and answered, “He’s likely not in his office and you’re closed for the night and God knows how long, remember?”

“Won’t you get in trouble, ignoring your superior’s orders?”

“Hell, I’m already in trouble,” Longarm laughed.

“No notions about those killings last week yet?”

“Had some. They blew up in my face this evening when the Wendigo hit again.” Chadwick looked astonished and gasped, “Jesus! You must be joking!”

“Nothing funny about it. This one was really spooky. The others were almost impossible to figure, but this time the Wendigo outdid himself. Killed another Indian in what must have been broad daylight, then sashayed off at least three miles to the nearest cover, without leaving a single sign coming or going.”

“Good God, I can’t understand it!”

“That makes two of us. But I made a promise not to leave here until I caught the son of a bitch. So I’ll likely write Marshal Vail a letter in a week or so.”

“I don’t envy you. Where are you staying tonight, the agency?”

“Nope. Figured to bed down here in town after I ask around some more.”

“You’re welcome to stay at my place,” Chadwick offered. “I stay up late and I’ve got a spare room you can use.”

“That’s neighborly of you, but no thanks. It’s early, yet, and while I’m asking questions about this job I’m on, I might get lucky and meet somebody prettier than you. No offense, of course.”

Chadwick laughed and said, “Stay away from Madam Kate’s. They say a couple of her gals give more than tail. The doc’s been treating one of ‘em for the clap, and he says there ain’t no real cure.”

Longarm thanked him for the warning and left. He went to get his chestnut and mounted up, then sat there, fishing out a cheroot, as he pondered his next move.

He knew he didn’t have a next move. He was chasing himself around in circles to avoid another sparring match with Nan Durler. He rode slowly along the street toward the end of town where Roping Sally’s spread had been. The spread was still there, just outside of town, of course, but somehow he didn’t feel like it was there anymore. Had he really ever spent that wild night, just up ahead where the lights of Switchback faded into blackness? It seemed as if it had never happened, now. The poor woman was hardly cold in her grave and he remembered her as if he had known her long ago, before the War. You’ve got nothing to feel guilty about, he told himself firmly. What was done was done and the only duty he owed Sally was to find her killer. He was only feeling fretful because someone had made a fool of him. It seemed like everyone in Montana had him figured for a fool and it was getting tedious.

He rode on into the darkness toward Sally’s, running the whole thing through his head again, once more stumbling over the impossibilities of this whole infernal case. He slowed his mount, knowing he really didn’t want to pass the dark, empty cabin where he’d slept with what he now remembered as a beheaded horror. Maybe he’d just hunker down on the prairie someplace. “Damn it!” he swore. “There’s a feather bed and a warm breakfast waiting for you out there. And you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of!”

He reined in and swung his mount’s head toward the west, his mind made up to ride back to the agency and brazen it out. As he turned, something sounding like bird wings, big bird wings, fluttered past his head and snatched off his Stetson!

Longarm threw himself to one side, grabbing for his saddle gun as he heard the thing coming through the darkness again! He rolled out of the saddle and landed in the roadside ditch as it flew over him, flapping.

The chestnut had been spooked by the sound, too, and ran off a few yards, snorting nervously, as Longarm crouched in the grassy ditch with his rifle at port, ready for anything.

But nothing happened. He stayed frozen and silent as he strained his ears. He stayed that way for a very long time. For though the moon was rising now, it was still nearly pitch-black around him and that thing had swooped at him like a diving eagle who’d known where it was going!

Could it have been an owl? Too big. No owl he’d ever heard had flapped as loud and mean as that. For that matter, he couldn’t remember ever running into an eagle that size! He’d been attacked by an eagle as a kid, trying to collect some eggs for some foolish kid’s reason, and the sound of its angrily flapping wings had been a pale imitation of whatever had just snatched off his hat!

He was still wondering about it when the moon pushed an edge above the horizon and he could see the pale streak of the road better. The road was empty. The overgrazed weeds lay ghostly gray around him for at least a hundred yards, and there was nothing there to see.

After a while, he rose slowly to his feet and walked over to his hat, where it lay in the road. He examined it for talon marks, and finding none, put it on. Then he clucked soothingly to the chestnut and caught the reins. The horse was still nervous, but he soothed it and remounted. He kept the saddle gun across his thighs as he resumed his way west toward the agency.

It took him a while to get there, this time. The rising moon kept telling him he was alone as he slowly rode across the prairie, straining his ears for the sound of those mysterious wingbeats. But, though there was nothing to see and not a sound to be heard out on the lonely range, he kept swinging around to look behind him.

Longarm spent the morning at the fenced quarter-section, showing a bunch of Blackfoot kids how to twirl a throw-rope. By the time he saw that their interest was flagging a bit, he had two of them getting the knack of a passable butterfly and at least five who could drop a community loop over a fence post one out of three tries. He called a halt to the lesson. If he hadn’t gotten them at least curious about roping, by now, they weren’t like any other kids he’d ever met.

As he ambled back toward the agency buildings one of the older boys fell in beside him to say shyly, “The white man’s rope tricks are fun, but my father says the ways of the cowboy are not our ways.”

Longarm said, “I don’t mean any disrespect for your elders, Little Moon, but your daddy likely doesn’t know that the art of roping was invented by Indians. Us American hands learned roping from the Mexicans, who learned it from the Aztec, Chihuahua, and such.”

“You’re making fun of me! There were never Indian cowboys before you people came here!”

“Nope. No white cowboys, neither. The cowboy was born when the Spanish horsemen got together with the Indian hunters who roped deer and antelope, down Mexico way. The vaquero, buckaroo, or cowboy owes as much to the red man as the white. Down in the Indian Nation, there are some Cherokee and Osage cowboys few men could hold a candle to. Jesse Chisholm, who blazed the Chisholm Trail, was a Cherokee.”

“Oh, we know about the Five Civilized Tribes,” Little Moon said scornfully. “They are not real Indians. My father says they live like white men.”

“Your Daddy’s right about that point, Little Moon, but I doubt if the Cherokee would agree that they weren’t real Indians. In their day they were wild enough, and the Osage lifted their fair share of white folks’ hair in the Shining Times. All in all, though, the Five Tribes, Osage, and such Comanche as have taken to herding longhorns are living better than you Blackfoot, these days.”

The boy walked head-down, pondering, before he shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I think it was better in the Shining Times, hunting the buffalo and Utes.”

“Maybe,” Longarm concurred, “but those days are gone forever. As I see it, you’ve got two choices ahead of you, Little Moon. You can learn new ways for the new times coming, or you can sit out here on a government dole, feeling sorry for yourself while the rest of the world leaves you behind.”

“Wovoka says more Shining Times are coming. If all of us stood together we could go back to the old ways and-“

“Wovoka’s full of shit,” the deputy cut in. “I hope you won’t take it unfriendly, son, but you could gather every tribe in one place, armed and mounted, and one brigade of cavalry would be pleased as punch to wipe you out. What happened on the Little Big Horn was a fluke; old Custer only had about two hundred green troops with him. The army has new Gatling and Hotchkiss guns, now, too. So at best, that gives you three ways to go. You can learn to make your own money, or you can take the little money the B.I.A. might dole out as it sees fit, or you can just go crazy with the Ghost Dancers and die. Meanwhile, you might work on what I just showed you about roping. You’ve got to loosen up and remember to swing the loop twice to open it up before you throw. Your aim ain’t bad, but your throwing is too anxious.”

Leaving the Indian youth to ponder his own future, Longarm walked past the agency to the back door of the cottage Prudence Lee was staying in. As he mounted the back steps to knock, she spied him through the screen door and opened it, saying, “I was just brewing some coffee. I’m afraid your suggestion about asking for Indian recipes turned out pretty dismally!”

He joined her in the kitchen as she waved him to a seat, explaining, “You forgot to tell me Indians put bacon grease instead of sugar in their coffee. Uncooked white flour dusted over canned pork and beans is rather ghastly, too!”

Longarm chuckled and said, “Lucky they didn’t serve you grasshopper stew. The grasshoppers ain’t all that bad, but the dog meat they mix in with it takes time to develop a taste for.”

Prudence paled slightly. “Oh, dear, I did eat some chopped meat boiled with what I hoped was corn mush. You don’t think-?”

“No, I was funning. They only eat stuff like that when they’re really hungry, and old Cal’s been seeing to it that the rations are fairly good. There’s nothing wrong with Indian cooking. It’s just that they have different tastes. I’ve met some who hated apple pie, and Apache would starve before they tasted fish. Some tribes look on eating fish the way we look on eating worms.”

She grimaced as she put a cup of coffee in front of him and said, “I wonder if I’ll ever get used to conditions out here. The Bible Society never told me what it would be like.”

“They likely didn’t know. Folks back East have funny notions about this part of the country. It ain’t the Great American Desert Fremont said it was. It ain’t the Golden West of Horace Greeley. It’s just different.”

“I’m trying to adjust,” she said with a sigh, “but I’m beginning to see how it might drive some women, well, strange.”

He wondered if she was talking about Nan Durler, but he didn’t ask. He said, “I came by to ask a favor, Miss Prudence. You were fixing to hold some sort Of Pow-wow here this evening, weren’t you?”

“If You want to call it that. I’ve invited some of the women over for a class in infant care.”

“I’d be obliged if you could leave ‘em to their heathen ways with kids at least one more night, Miss Prudence. I’ve told Rain Crow and the other reservation Police I want a tight curfew after sundown. Some of the squaws would be riding home in the dark, even if you were to cut ‘em loose early. The moon won’t be up before nine-thirty tonight, and I aim to have every Indian tucked in good by then.”

“Oh, are you expecting trouble from those Ghost Dancers again? I thought the man behind it was just killed.”

“Yes, ma’am, and what killed him might be on the prowl tonight.”

“Oh, dear, then you do think the Wendigo may strike again tonight?”

Longarm shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t aim to leave any man, woman, or child out alone on the prairie after dark, Wendigo or no. I’m going to have to ask you to spend the night next door with the Durlers too. Rain Crow and Calvin will be sitting up all night’with the doors locked and guns loaded. The Wendigo’s been making me look like a fool—partly because I’ve been one. From now on, I ain’t waiting for him to hit so I can chase him around like a bloodhound with nose trouble. I’m making sure, no matter how he’s doing it or when he’s figuring to do it again, that there won’t be anybody out there in the night for him but me!”

“You can’t hide an entire Indian tribe from that madman forever!”

“Don’t aim to hide ‘em forever. Just until I catch the Wendigo.”

“But even if the Indians cooperate, the reservation’s so big! How can you hope to intercept anyone or anything out there in all those miles of darkness?”

“If I knew that, I’d know the Wendigo’s methods, reasons, and likely who it was. Getting every possible victim out of the Wendigo’s reach is the best first bite I’ve come up with. So, like I said, you’ll help a heap by bunking down with the Durlers until it’s safe for you to stay here all alone.”

She sipped her own cup of coffee thoughtfully, and though she finally nodded, her voice was worried as she said, “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it. You know they’ve been fighting like cats and dogs next door.”

“They’ll be keeping company manners with you and Rain Crow listening, Miss Prudence. They weren’t fussing when I came in last night.”

“You should have heard them earlier! These walls are thin, and if there is one thing I can’t abide, it’s hypocrisy-What’s so funny?”

Longarm wiped his grin away and said, “I’d be out of a job if everybody suddenly took to being truthful. We’re all a mite two-faced, Miss Prudence. I know we ain’t supposed to be, but I reckon it’s just human nature to keep our true feelings hidden.”

She stared at him oddly and licked her lips before she brazened, “Well, I certainly try to be truthful in my dealings with everyone!”

“I know you try, ma’am. But tell me something. When’s the last time you asked the lady next door why she was fussing with her man?”

“That’s different. Hypocrisy’s one thing, rudeness is another!”

“Maybe. But lies are what we call other folks’ falsehoods. When it’s our turn to bend things out of shape we generally have a more angelic reason.” He sipped his coffee and added, “I suspicion the lies we tell ourselves are the biggest whoppers of them all.”

Her eyes blazed defensively as she asked, “And just what sort of lies are you saying I tell myself, sir?”

He smiled gently and answered, “I never accused you, ma’am. It’s funny how the less I accuse folks, the more they seem to want to tell me. I’m in a nosy line of work, so I’m probably better at reading the silences between folks’ words.”

“In other words, you’re just fishing? Well, you can just fish somewhere else, then. For I’ve nothing to hide.”

He nodded as if in agreement and sipped some more coffee. He didn’t really give much of a damn about such secrets as a little sparrow-bird spinster-gal might have. He wasn’t getting paid to find out what had driven her to reading Bibles for a living. But wasn’t it a bitch how it spooked folks when you backed off just as the questions were getting close to home?

Prudence Lee said, “I suppose you think I’m as silly as poor Nan Durler, in my own way. But that really was another girl I was talking about.”

“What girl was that, ma’am?” Longarm asked innocently. “The one back East who ran off on her husband? I’d almost forgotten about her.”

“I’ll bet you have. I’ll bet you have a whole crazy story cooked up about my atoning for some dark, secret sin. But you’re wrong. It was only a girl I knew, one time.”

He nodded and said, “I know. Her story reminds me a lot of Madam Lamont, down Denver way.”

“Who’s Madam Lamont? She sounds like a—you know what!”

“Yep, that’s what she was. Ran the most expensive parlor house on State Street, for a while. The poor old gal was atoning for a terrible mix-up.”

Prudence looked shocked. “Atoning? Is that what they call being a prostitute, these days?”

“Well, some folks have odd notions on the subject of atonement. You see, Madam Lamont came West as a bride, back in the Pike’s Peak Rush before the War. Her name was something else, then, of course. Her husband was a preacher. He freighted her and a mess of Bibles to the gold camps, aiming to wash the sins of the miners away. The gal was likely fond of him, for they seemed happy. Then the preacher vanished, as did a gold camp redhead at the same time, who was said to be no better than she might have been.”

“Heavens, the poor girl was deserted by her husband for a dance-hall girl?” She shook her head sadly.

“That’s what she suspicioned, and it sort of jarred something loose inside her head. She took to drink and then, since it beat taking in washing, she started pleasuring men for pay. She must have been good at it, for the next thing anybody knew, she had the biggest fancy house in Denver. I reckon she was trying to get as far from the preaching trade as possible. But like I said, it was all a mix-up. Her husband hadn’t done her wrong at all.”

Prudence’s eyebrows knit in confusion. “Indeed? But you said he ran off with this redhead!”

Longarm nodded. “That’s what everybody thought. But a few years later someone found the redhead working in a house in Abilene, alone. Then, a short while later, some prospectors found the skeleton of a man down an abandoned mine shaft. Nobody ever figured out if he’d been robbed and thrown down it, or if he’d just fallen in, wandering about in search of souls to save.”

“My Lord! You mean it was the woman’s missing husband?”

“Yep. There were some shreds of clothing clinging to the bones and he was still packing the Bible Madam Lamont had given him with a sentimental inscription on the flyleaf. When they brought it to her, she went a mite crazy.”

The girl gasped, and her hands flew up to press on either side of her face. “Oh, what a terrible story! To think that poor girl abandoned herself to a life of sin because of a ghastly mistake about an innocent man!”

Longarm reached out and patted Prudence’s arm. “Well, it came out all right in the end. Madam Lamont ain’t in that line of work anymore, but while she was, she got as rich as Croesus. So she lives in a big brownstone house on Sherman Avenue with her new husband, these days. He’s rich, too, as well as understanding. They’re both right happy and the Madam still helps fallen women, orphans, and such. In her own way, she’s likely done more good than she ever could have as the wife of a poor wandering preacher.”

Prudence Lee tried not to smile as she said, “The moral of your tale is a bit grotesque, but I think I see it. Are you suggesting I’d do more for these Blackfoot by opening a parlor house on this reservation?”

“Not hardly. They’ve already got a mess of gals and a saloon. Old Snake Killer’s cooking sour mash over at his place, judging by the smell. Don’t tell Cal Durler, though. He frets about ‘em drinking.”

“Oh? And you approve of drunken Indians?” Prudence asked with a frown.

“Don’t approve of drunken anybody. But they’re less likely to get poisoned on their own home-brewed corn than they are on trade whiskey. Saves ‘em money, too. You see, some men are going to drink, federal regulations or no. I figure it’s better if they stick to cheap, pure bootleg, and confine it to the reservation.”

“I won’t tell on them, but I must say your ideas on law and order are rather cynical,” the missionary observed.

“I’m a peace officer, ma’am. My job is keeping the peace, not pestering folks about what they do in the privacy of their own homes. Trouble with nitpicking over laws is that those fools in Congress write so many of ‘em. When you get right down to it, everybody could be arrested if we enforced every law ever written. Lucky for us all, few lawmen have enough time keep their eyes to keyholes.”

Prudence laughed. “I’ll remember that the next time my secret lover comes to call on me with his wicked leer and French post cards.” Her face reddened fetchingly at her daring little joke. She paused, gazing down into her coffee cup. When she had regained her sobriety, she looked up and continued, “Meanwhile, I have a Bible class to teach. How soon do you think it will be safe for people to move about out here again?”

“Don’t know. I’m leaving in a few minutes for Rabbit Gulch. That’s a water stop, up the railroad line to the west. If I start this afternoon I should make it to the foothills in plenty of time.”

“You’re riding off the reservation in the other direction? What do you expect to find in Rabbit Gulch?”

“I’m not sure. But all I’ve found in Switchback is a lot of dead ends.”

“Heavens! Do you think it’s possible the Wendigo has been working out of another town we’ve never thought of?”

“Anything’s possible, ma’am. And as you see, I have thought of it.”

Chapter 14

The eastbound train of empty flat cars left Rabbit Gulch late. Nobody working for the railroad seemed to care when or where it arrived, as long as it didn’t get in the way of paying traffic.

The moon had worked its way clear across the sky and was shining down, now, from the west. The rolling sea of buffalo-grass all around was ash-gray, with occasional pitch-black clumps of soapweed here and there. Anything darker than the dry grass in the moonlight would be visible, if it was big enough and moving.

Longarm rode hunkered down in the shadow of the box cars behind the locomotive, facing backward with a string of six flat cars between him and the caboose. His chestnut was in one of the empty reefers. The brakemen m the caboose had been told not to come forward across the flats until it was time to crank the brake wheels, just west of the grade into Switchback. Longarm hoped his orders would be obeyed. Anybody he spotted on the rocking planks back there was in trouble.

The train passed through a railroad cut and Longarm tensed as the flats he was watching were plunged into darkness by the shadow of the banks. Then he saw that he was still alone out here in the middle of the night. He was going to feel foolish as hell if he’d ridden all that way for nothing. Worse yet, he knew he only had one chance with this plan. He’d boarded the train in Rabbit Gulch at the last possible moment, but once they reached Switchback, one of the crew was bound to blab about the lawman’s sudden interest in railroading. He’d known enough about human nature not to bother telling them to keep this ride a secret. He had to assume the secret would be out, after tonight, whether it was or not.

They ran through another cut, with no results. That didn’t mean much. The son of a bitch he was laying for had nearly fifty miles of leeway out here. Besides, if he’d jumped off the westbound a couple of hours earlier, he’d have found nobody outdoors to play with, and not having any real reason to cover his tracks tonight, might not even be waiting for this train. A footprint here and another sign there wouldn’t mean a thing in court, unless there was a victim found nearby.

“If I was him,” Longarm muttered, “I’d walk back along the tracks as soon as I discovered the Indians were all holed up for the night. I’d suspicion someone was on to me and want to haul ass out. On the other hand, I’d have quit after Roping Sally’s murder had the whole territory stirred up and looking for me, too.”

He spotted something loping along beside the train to the north and stiffened. Then he saw it was only a coyote pup, having fun, and after a while the animal dropped back out of sight. The train was doing about twenty on the open stretches, a bit slower up the grades. A coyote or a horse could run alongside easily enough for a quarter-mile or so. A man afoot would have to grab hold on a grade, or drop down from a cut. Yeah, he could relax for a few minutes along this stretch.

He stood and stamped his booted feet to ease his cramped thighs, then hunkered down again, bracing the Winchester across his knees as he chewed an unlit cheroot and mused, “Killing that Paiute just don’t fit, even leaving aside the distance and the missing sign on that dusty grass. Unless the others were killed for no good reason at all, that Ghost Dance missionary was playing right into the hands of—whoever. If I was the Wendigo I’d have killed almost anybody else first. Between the killings and that fool Paiute shaking his rattles, the tribe was just about ready to jump. Well, let’s study on it that way and see who’d most want that Dream Singer dead.”

Longarm suddenly brightened and said, “Hell, that’s got to be it!” as the train chuffed through another deep cut. Then the flat cars were rolling along in the moonlight once more and Longarm saw he was no longer alone.

An ink-black blob crouched on the planks, two cars back. Longarm rose slowly, the box car behind his back concealing his own dark outline, as he studied the form that had dropped from the rim of that last bank. It looked like a human being, sort of. It was on its feet now, and moving his way, as if seeking the same shadows he’d been hiding in. It walked peculiarly, on great big floppy feet, but a sudden shift of the moonlight flashed on the holstered gun it wore. It moved to the break between cars and leaped across, landing as quietly as a cat in that funny footgear. Longarm waited until it sort of danced the length of another car, jumped the gap, and was coming his way, before he called out, “That’s close enough! Freeze in place and grab for some sky, friend!”

The Wendigo threw himself prone on the weathered planks and a blaze of gunfire answered Longarm’s voice as a bullet slammed into the bulkhead of the reefer at his back. The shot was too wild to get excited over, so Longarm said, “You’ve had one free shot, you silly bastard! Now drop that fool gun and behave yourself!”

The Wendigo fired again at the sound of Longarm’s voice. The round ticked the tail of Longarm’s coat. So he swore softly and fired back. The Wendigo’s head jerked up like he’d been punched in the jaw. Then, moaning like a wounded bear, he rolled away from the pistol he’d let fall to the planks and Longarm grunted, “Oh, shit!” and ran to grab him before he could fall between the cars.

Longarm didn’t make it. Up in the cab, the engineer had heard the shots and was slowing down. But the Wendigo had fallen under the wheels!

Longarm jumped off, landing on one hip and rolling over twice in the grass beside the track as, up on the train, a brakeman yelled out, “You want us to hit the brakes?”

“Hell, yes!” shouted Longarm, as he got to his feet, rifle at the ready. Then the train had rolled on, its squealing brakes hardly slowing it until the caboose was winking its red lights at him from half a mile away. Gingerly, Longarm walked over to the tracks, shining silver in the moonlight. He found one leg on the ties, with its foot wrapped in rope and straw-filled burlap. It had been sliced off by a wheel above the knee.

Longarm fished a match from his coat pocket and thumbnailed it alight. The gentle night breeze from the mountains blew it out, but not before he’d spotted the trunk, a few feet to the west. He sighed and said, “Jesus, we had so much to talk about, too!”

The brake boss was trotting back from the halted caboose with a wildly swinging lantern, calling out, “What happened? Did you get him?”

Longarm said, “Your train helped. Wheels tore off his head, one arm, and both legs as he bounced along the ballast under it. Bring that light over here, will you? I suspicion that’s his head against that rail, there.”

The brake boss stopped and raised the lantern. Then, as the puddle of light swept over the battered human head lying on its bloody left cheek against a rail, he gagged and gasped, “My God! It’s that Mex, Mendez! The yard bull from Switchback!”

Longarm said, “He wasn’t a Mexican. He was from South America, where they rope cows different.” He bent to remove something from the belt of the mangled yard bull’s torso and held it up, explaining, “You call this thing a bolo. The gauchos use them, down there in Argentina. You hold this leather thong, whirl her around your head a few times, and let her go. These heavy balls spread out as she goes whoom-whoom-whoom through the air at you. He threw it at me one night, and it sounded like a big-ass bird.”

“I know what a bolo is. But what in thunder was he out here throwing it at folks for? He’s supposed to be tending to business in the Switchback yards!”

“Yeah, he let folks know he kept unsteady hours. Likely pretended to drink more than he really did, so his two kid helpers would cover for the times he wasn’t where everyone thought he was. Nobody notices a railroad man getting on or off a slow freight. So he’d ride out here, drop off, and lie in wait like some beast of prey for anyone who came by. Then he’d hit them from behind with that bolo, rip them up and behead them, and just wait for another train going back. He didn’t walk much, and he did it carefully in those big padded sacks tied over his boots.”

“I can see how he got about. But why was he doing it, and what in thunder did he take those heads for?”

“Well,” Longarm said, retrieving his hat from the ditch beside the roadbed, where it had landed when he jumped from the train, “I was aiming to ask him the why of it, but as you see, he doesn’t have much to say now. The reason he took the heads with him was to keep us from seeing them. When the bolo thongs hit someone about the neck, the heavy balls spin in and hammer hell out of their heads and faces. Then, too, carrying off the heads was sort of spooky. You might say he was in the trade of being spooky, and I don’t mind saying, he scared hell out of me a few times!”

The brake boss shook his head and said, “Mendez, the yard bull. Who’d have ever thought it! You reckon he was crazy, Deputy? A man would have to be crazy to do what he done, right?”

The deputy slapped his hat against his knee, raising a little puff of dust, then reshaped it with his hands and replaced it on his head, dead-center. “Maybe. I’ll know more after I figure out why he was doing it.”

The coroner couldn’t tell Longarm anything he might not have guessed about the cause of the Wendigo’s death, but the papers had to be filled out, so, leaving the coroner to deal with the mangled remains, Longarm got on the federal wire at the land office. This time, the results were more interesting.

As he finished and rejoined Agent Chadwick in the front office, Longarm said, “Mendez had a record a mile long. He told me about killing a colored hobo in Omaha, but he left out some union-breaking activities and some questions the St. Joe police wanted to ask him about a lady he left in his room when he checked out sudden, owing rent.”

Chadwick asked, “Really? What did she say he’d done to her?”

“She didn’t. Her throat was slit from ear to ear. St. Joe thought maybe Mendez could explain this to them, but as you know, it ain’t likely he’ll be able to.”

“But yoifve made the point that the man was a killer and at least a little crazy. So let me be the first to congratulate you.”

“Congratulate me? What for?”

“What for? Why, damn it, you’ve solved your case! You caught the Wendigo and everyone can breathe easy again!”

Longarm took out a cheroot and lit it, saying, “Hell, it’s just getting interesting. Did you know Mendez didn’t savvy telegraph codes? I tapped out a message to him on the bar one day, and he never blinked an eyeball when I said a dreadful thing about his mother. He was a moody cuss, too.”

“I don’t follow you, Longarm. The man was a railyard bully boy, not a dispatcher. He wasn’t supposed to know Morse code. Oh, you mean about the railroad’s schedules, right?”

“Somebody had to tell him ahead of time when the slow trains were moving across the reservation. He had no call to hang around the dispatch sheds, either.”

“Boy! I’m glad my wire’s not connected to the railroad’s! I expect you’ll be checking on that, right?”

“Already did. Our federal wire’s not tied in with the railroad’s. I hope you understand I’ve got a job to do.”

“I’m getting used to the idea. What did your friends in the Justice Department say about that scrape I got into a few years back?”

“Oh, you were telling me the truth. They said your boss had been a crook but that you’d had no way of getting at the missing money even if you’d aimed to.”

“Thanks, I think. If you’re not arresting me, these days, who do you have in mind for the Wendigo’s confederate?”

I’m keeping an open mind on that. It’s possible Mendez had some other way of knowing the schedules. It’d take forever, which seems a mite long, to check out every switchman and train crewman who might have gossiped about who was running what to where. While I was using your wire I got in touch with my boss. Marshal Vail says he’s pleased about the Wendigo, but he’s still pissed off at me for not catching that rogue half-breed, Johnny Hunts Alone.”

“You know, I’d forgotten all about that?”

“Denver didn’t forget. The warrant I pack on Hunts Alone was the only reason I came up here in the first damn place. You might say this crap about the Wendigo, Mendez, or whomsoever was a side issue.”

Chadwick laughed and said, “Some side issue! You scattered the poor bastard from hell to breakfast!”

Longarm smiled. “Well, he wasn’t too tidy while he was alive. I’m sorry I shot him, though. He died too sudden, and before he could tell me some things I wished to know.”

“You still think he had a motive, then? I mean, a sensible motive a sane person might understand?”

“There’s no big mystery to that part of it. Mendez was a killer by nature and a bully by profession. He was playing Wendigo to run the Blackfoot off their land.”

“Damn it, Longarm, we’ve been over that till I’m blue in the face from explaining. There’s no way anyone can claim that Indian land. I not only looked it up in the regulations, I wired Washington to see if there’d been any new rulings on the subject.”

“Do tell?” Longarm raised an eyebrow. “What did Washington say?”

“The same thing I’ve been telling you. Even if this particular reservation was completely abandoned for a full seven years, the land’s been set aside in trust for the Blackfoot Nation.”

“In other words, as long as one Blackfoot’s still living anywhere in the country, no white man can claim an acre of that range?”

Chadwick rolled his eyes heavenward and said, “Not even if the Blackfoot ran up to Canada and took an oath to Queen Victoria. I checked that out with headquarters while I was at it. As wards of the state the Indians are not allowed to sell, give, or even throw away a square foot of their land, once it’s been allotted to them.”

Longarm asked, “What about some other tribe being given an abandoned reservation?”

Chadwick looked blank. Then he went to the bookshelf and started rummaging through a buckram-bound book of regulations, muttering, “I can see it, in time. But that couldn’t be what the Wendigo, or Mendez, had in mind.”

“Why not?”

“Hell,” Chadwick said disgustedly, “you know how slowly the government works. And even if the B.I.A. did assign some other tribe the lands, what good would it do any white man?”

He opened the book to the regulation he’d been looking for and nodded, saying, “Seven years with no other claims, as I thought. Besides, even if another bunch of Indians were brought in, what would it mean to a white cattleman? I agree, all that ungrazed range might tempt almost anyone who might have hired Mendez, but as 1 keep trying to tell you, there’s no way on earth they can get it!”

As he put the book back, Longarm asked, “Let’s try it another way. What if someone were to just hire the range? Doesn’t the government charge a modest fee per head for running cattle on public lands?”

“Certainly. Collecting range fees is part of my job.”

“All right. What would it cost me, per head and season, if I came to you for a grazing permit on those reservation lands?”

Chadwick reached for his bookshelf, hesitated as if lost, and turned to say, “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Durler, the Indian agent.”

“I have. He doesn’t know how to rope a cow, either. I thought the Land Agency had the final say on all government lands not being used for anything else.”

“We do and we don’t. You know about interservice rivalry, Longarm. The B.I.A. would never release grazing rights to us.”

“Doesn’t your office hire out land in the Indian Nation, down Oklahoma way?”

Chadwick frowned and said, “I’ll have to ask about that. It’s my understanding the Indian Nation’s a special case. As you can see, I don’t have any B.I.A. regulations here. Doesn’t Durler have a library of his own out at the reservation?”

Longarm sighed, “Yeah. I’ve been looking through those fool books, too. I never was good at Latin and they seem to have been written by some old boys who never learned enough English to matter. Durler says he doesn’t know what the Wendigo wanted, either. Do you think he’s telling me the truth?”

Chadwick blinked in surprise before he asked, “Jesus, do you think the Indian agent himself might have been behind the killings?”

“Somebody was. I’ve been going with the notion that Durler doesn’t know too much about stealing money from the government, yet.”

Chadwick laughed and said, “It takes a while. I’m still working on my education. By the way, how long have you been in the service, Longarm?”

Longarm chewed his unlit cheroot and answered soberly, “Seven or eight years. They haven’t caught me stealing from them yet.”

“That makes two of us. Us little fellows never get to put our hands in the cookie jar, do we? You have to know those thieves in Washington pretty well before they let you at the pork barrel.”

Longarm didn’t answer, so Chadwick continued, “I don’t know Durler all that well, but I’ll stick my neck out and say he’s probably as honest as most of us field men. If he was thinking of pocketing bribes for granting range fees to any local cattleman, he’d be foolish to run his own Blackfoot off.”

Longarm frowned and said, “Keep talking. How would a crooked Indian agent go about getting rich at his job?”

Chadwick hesitated. Then he shrugged and said expansively, “Hell, we all know how the Indian Ring worked it under Grant. They didn’t chase Indians off reservations. They crowded ‘em in like sardines. If Durler was a crook, he’d want all the Indians out there he could get!”

“How do you figure that, Chadwick?”

“Jesus, I thought you said you’d been reading the B.I.A. regulations!” Chadwick said impatiently. “The B.I.A. gets money from Congress to take care of them. The money in mistreating Indians is in skimming off part of the government allotments for food, clothing, medical supplies, and so forth.”

“Then the more Indians an agent has to work with, the more loose change there is to sort of lose in the cracks?”

Chadwick laughed a bit enviously, as he nodded and said, “There you have it. If I was a crooked Indian agent I’d have ten times as many Indians out on that reservation. Then I’d divert about ten cents on the dollar and retire rich!”

Longarm nodded as if in sudden enlightenment and agreed, “You’d make more that way than selling range permits for a side bet under the table, huh?”

Chadwick sighed in open envy this time as he said, “Oh, God, yes. Cows only eat grass. There’s no way to fiddle with the price of beans and white bread, feeding cows. They don’t wear shoes or sleep under blankets, either. I’ll bet that agent Cal Durler replaced is living in a big New York brownstone, now.”

Longarm frowned and said, “Back up. Are you saying the agent young Cal replaced might have been a crook?”

Chadwick grew suddenly cautious as he answered slyly, “I don’t want you to quote me about a fellow federal man, but it’s common knowledge he was a Grant appointee. His name was McBride and the new reform administration threw him out on his ass as soon as they went over his books.”

Longarm ripped a piece of yellow paper from a pad on Chadwick’s desk and wrote the name down before he asked, “Was this McBride ever charged with anything, or are we only funning?”

Chadwick said, “I told you I have no real evidence. No, they did not put him in jail. The way I heard it, they let him resign peaceably, after he had some trouble explaining why he was collecting rations for three times as many Indians as there were in all Montana Territory.”

“They get a federal indictment on this McBride jasper, or is all this just suspicions?” Longarm asked, folding the piece of paper and putting it in his pocket.

“Oh, you know half of Grant’s boys, including Grant, were never out-and-out arrested for stealing half the country. I’ll allow the old general, himself, was just a fool who trusted too many old friends after he was President for a while. President Hayes has been taking things back gentle. Just firing or transferring boys caught with their fingers in the till.”

“I know. I’ve only been allowed to arrest half the crooks I’ve run across in my travels. Crooked or honest, politicians like to sweep old scandals under the rug. I reckon stealing from the taxpayers is a trade secret. I’d better have a few more words with the Justice Department on your telegraph, though. Some of what you just told me is interesting as hell.”

Chapter 15

When he was finished at the land office, Longarm went to get his chestnut at the livery near the railroad station. He put off his intended return to the reservation when he spotted a trio of morose-looking but well-dressed Indians, hunkered on the station platform with their backs braced against the wall.

He walked over to them, flashed his federal badge, and asked, “You boys wouldn’t be the Crow policemen from the B.I.A., would you?”

The leader of the trio nodded and said, “I am Constable Dancing Pony. You must be the one who killed the crazy man who killed the man we came here to arrest.”

“I’m sorry you boys came out here for nothing,” Longarm apologized. “Since you’re headed home, can I take it you don’t suspicion any other Ghost Dance activity out at the Blackfoot reservation?”

Dancing Pony shrugged and said, “The Paiute we were after was the only one reported in the territory this summer. We are going to Pine Ridge to talk to Sitting Bull. The Sioux are more interested in Wovoka’s nonsense than the other Plains tribes. The death of Ishiwati seems to have nipped it in the bud, here. That crazy white man did a good job in killing him.”

Longarm asked, “Did you boys by any chance have a look around out there?”

“Of course. The army scout, Jason, led us over to the old homestead where the Ghost Dancer was killed. Some Blackfoot said you had buried the fool. But from what we have been told, he answers the description on our warrant, so the case is closed.”

“Maybe. I’ve got another warrant on a Blackfoot breed named Hunts Alone. He’s said to be hiding out somewhere around here.”

Dancing Pony nodded. “The scout, Jason, told us this. We did not meet every Blackfoot on the reservation. The Crow and Blackfoot are not friends. But those We met seem to be pure-bloods.”

“Did you talk to the Blackfoot policeman, Rain Crow?”

“Yes. He seems a good man, for one of them. He does not have white blood.”

“What made you think I thought he wasn’t a good man?” Longarm asked, frowning.

“He is one of your suspects, isn’t he? If I had been in your place the night the Ghost Dancer was killed, I would have said Rain Crow did it.”

“He told you about the way the signs read, huh? Lucky for Rain Crow the Wendigo turned out to be another man.”

“Yes,” the Crow agreed. “Any other lawman would have arrested Rain Crow for the killing. They told us the crazy man wore straw-filled sacking on his feet. I think that might have hidden his tracks, most places. But I don’t see how he crossed fresh dust without leaving sign. Can you tell me how he did it?”

“No, and since Mendez is dead, he can’t, either.”

Dancing Pony stared thoughtfully into Longarm’s eyes for a long, hard moment. Then he smiled thinly, and said, “You intend to write a few loose ends off, then?”

Longarm ignored what seemed to be a leading question, saying, “You have the power to arrest any Indian for murder, Dancing Pony. Do you intend to take Rain Crow in for some serious questioning in the near future?”

The Indian chuckled and answered, “No. If somebody took advantage of the other murders to get rid of a dangerous troublemaker, even if I could prove it, I don’t think I would want to. If one of our people would only kill that damned Wovoka, before he stirs up more trouble.”

“I see we’re in agreement on some things, then. I’d say that the Wendigo was just one clever son of a bitch, wouldn’t you?”

Dancing Pony studied Longarm for a time before he said, “You have a good heart for a white man. We shall remember your name.” Then he added, “Since the case is closed, will you be leaving with us on the train?”

“Not hardly. I still haven’t caught the man I was sent up here about.” He might have added that he hadn’t really closed the books on the Wendigo, either, but he didn’t. Other lawmen tended to get in the way sometimes, since his own methods were inclined occasionally to bend the rules.

Saying goodbye to the Indians, Longarm got his mount from the livery and rode out to the reservation. As he tethered the chestnut behind the agency, Prudence Lee came out of her own place and motioned him over with a worried look.

Longarm joined her in the shade of her back porch, touched the brim of his Stetson, and said, “Ma’am? You look like you’ve just met up with a spook.”

“Calvin Durler’s out looking for you, with a gun! Thank God you didn’t meet him on the wagon trace!”