LONGARM AND THE APACHE PLUNDER

By Tabor Evans

Synopsis:

U.S. Deputy Marshall Custis Long is in the New Mexico Territory trying
to stop a band of renegade Apache indians.  But is it really indians who
have been robbing, killing and generally causing trouble?  189th novel
in the "Longarm" series, 1994.

A Jove Book

published by arrangement with the author

Copyright (C) 1994 by Jove Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or
any other means, without permission.  For information address: The
Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

ISBN: 0-515-11454-5

Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison
Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

JOVE and the "J" design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications,
Inc.

Printed in the United States of America

Printing history: Jove edition / September 1994

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
this book is stolen property.  It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."

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Chapter 1

A man had to study on his drinking money when he didn't have a job.  But
while the Parthenon Saloon, near the place he used to work, asked an
extra nickel for a needled beer, it also offered the best free lunch in
town.  So the former Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long was down at that
end of the bar, nursing a needled beer while eating pickled pigs' feet
and potato salad, when his recent boss, Marshal Billy Vail, caught up
with him.

The older and shorter Vail bellied up to the bar, snapped a
German-silver badge upon the polished mahogany between them, and
demanded in an injured tone, "What in blue blazes did I do or say, old
son?"

Longarm, as he was better known away from the federal building he'd just
stormed out of, coldly replied, "At the risk of sounding like your fool
echo, you told me you wanted me to sneak down the other side of the
Colorado-New Mexico line and ride herd on a heap of storm clouds hoverin
over La Mesa de los Viejos, which is ominously close to Jicarilla
country."

Billy Vail nodded his balding bullet head.  "I thought I said something
to that effect just before you threw your badge in my face and lit out
like a schoolmarm seven unwashed sheepherders were out to screw."

Longarm washed down some potato salad with a carefully measured swallow
of expensive beer and replied, "The government signed with the Jicarilla
in ink after making them move twice before, speaking of screwing."

Vail seemed sincerely puzzled.  "What in thunder do those Mountain
Apache have to do with the chore I was assigning you when you went loco
en la cabeza on me?"

Longarm sounded really disgusted as he replied.  "The Jicarilla have
kept the peace since '73.  They have more in common with their Navaho
cousins than they have with Victorio's mixed band of bronco Mescalero
and Chiricahua.  Yet the Great White Father, in his infinite wisdom,
wants me scouting the hornet's nest he just heaved a rock through.  I
swear, the War Department must have dozens of congressmen's kids who
just made second lieutenant and want that pretty red-and-blue campaign
ribbon, even though so many Quill Indians have sued for peace.  I
suppose you hadn't read about the BIA fixing to move the Jicarilla down
to Tularosa Canyon, eh?"

Vail shrugged.  "Sure I read about it.  I read everything.  The powers
that be feel the army will have a better handle on the really
treacherous Mescalero Apache if they move 'em over to study war no more
with their Chiricahua allies at San Carlos, under tighter rein from Fort
Apache just next door."

When he saw he was getting no argument from Longarm about that, he
continued with a bemused frown.  "Moving the Mescalero out of Tularosa
Canyon leaves an established BIA agency with nobody to agent for.  So I
reckon that's why they're fixing to move the far smaller Jicarilla
nation south from that marginal mountain reserve and teach them real
farming in-"

"Bullshit!" Longarm said, scowling like hell.  "It's a pure and simple
land grab!  The Jicarilla gave us a hell of a fight, surrendered under
honorable terms, and were ceded barely more than a hundred square miles
of mountain scenery nobody else had any use for at the time.  But
well-watered and half-timbered high country is still a far cry from the
desert scrub the Mescalero keep running away from because there's no way
even Na-dene could get by on hunting and food-gathering alone.  That's
what the folks we call Treacherous Apache call themselves, Na-dene."

Vail snorted, "Don't tell your granny how to suck eggs, or offer an
ex-Texas Ranger lectures on Mister Lo, The Poor Indian.  You won't get
no argument from this child if you want to pine the U.S. Army has enough
on its plate with Victorio and his bunch this summer.  But you're wrong
if you think I'd fib about Indians to any deputy who's been riding for
me six or eight years.  I don't know who told you the Mesa de los Viejos
is within thirty miles of the Jicarilla agency at Dulce by crow, but-"

"Now who's teaching whose granny to suck eggs?" Longarm said with a thin
smile.  "It ain't as if New Mexico Territory is stuck to the back of the
moon. How many times have we been asked to help the new territorial
government clean up after the Santa Fe Ring left over from poor old
Grant and his political bandits?"

Vail sighed.  "'Political bandit' is a redundancy.  I told you I read a
heap.  They call it a redundancy when you use two words to low-rate the
same thing.  Calling a politician a bandit is as needless as calling a
woman of the town a whore, or an Apache an ornery Quill Indian.  Man
will cure the clap and fly to the moon before he ever gets the banditry
out of politics.  But speaking of bandits, I was trying to tell you
about such shit down around La Mesa de los Viejos when you got all
excited about your pet Apache."

"La Mesa de los Viejos ain't no thirty miles from that Jicarilla
reserve!" Longarm stated.  "I keep telling you I know that country.  The
hunting grounds those Indians signed for in good faith straddle the
Continental Divide down yonder.  So Stinking Lake, a whole lot closer
than Dulce Springs, lies inside the reservation line just a lope west
from where you keep saying you want me scouting somebody else."

He bit a boiled egg in half, washed that part down, and insisted, "There
ain't nobody else but Indians, dead or alive, up the canyons of that big
slab of bedrock.  They call it La Mesa de los Viejos because Viejos
means 'Old Ones' in Spanish and the early Mexican rancheros were the
first to notice all the cliff dwellings full of old dead Indians.  Then
they backed off to let the Old Ones be.  Mexicans ain't as superstitious
about dead bodies as Na-dene. Nobody could be.  But anyone with a lick
of sense could see they had no business settling canyonlands too mean
for cliff-dwelling Indians to dwell in. Some Pueblo I know laugh at our
professors who say the ancient cliff dwellers were from ancient Egypt or
mayhaps Atlantis before they went extinct.  The Zuni, Hopi, and such say
their own ancestors started out in canyon strongholds before they just
got numerous enough to move out on more sensible cornlands and hold
bigger pueblos against all corners."

Vail nodded down at the deputy's badge that still lay on the bar between
them.  "I asked you not to lecture me about Mister Lo.  If I gave a
tinker's dam about abandoned cliff dwellings, I still wouldn't fathom
how all this Indian bullshit has a thing to do with the situation
Governor Wallace of New Mexico Territory asked us to look into for him.
He asked for you by name, by the way.  Seems you handed in the most
impartial report on that Lincoln County war they were having a spell
back."

Longarm tried some more pickled pigs' feet as old Ginger, the barmaid,
shot them both a dirty look in passing.  He told Vail, "You'd better
order at least a schooner of draft, lest that sassy redhead reports us
for taking unfair advantage of this free lunch."

Vail growled, "There's no such thing as a free lunch, and you've had
your tantrum for the day, damn it.  Those Mexicans you just mentioned
have been growing their own corn and grazing stock along the Rio Chama,
betwixt the Jicarilla you're so worried about and that mesa New Mexico
is even more worried about.  The established settlers in those parts
report heaps of sinister strangers camped up many an old dry canyon,
loaded for bear and reluctant as hell to tell anyone what they're doing
there.  Couple of locals have wound up drygulched, by a person or
persons unknown.  The closest thing they have to a full-time sheriff in
such thinly populated country has declined the honor of riding anywhere
near that mysterious mesa in search of answers. How do you like it so
far?  Like I said, they asked for you by name."

That redhead was hovering too close for Longarm to grab another egg
without asking her to refill his empty schooner.  So he nodded at her
and held up two fingers as he told Billy Vail, "I can hazard a mighty
educated guess without having to go all the way down to New Mexico.  A
land rush always attracts hired guns.  There's one heap of timber and
Lord knows what mineral rights to be fought over once the Jicarilla are
moved south willing or otherwise."

"There ain't going to be any Indian fighting," said Vail in a
dead-certain tone.  As the barmaid slid two fresh beers across the
mahogany at them Vail explained.  "I told you I read.  Things cross my
desk you never see in the Rocky Mountain News.  So I can assure you that
me and Interior Secretary Schurz agree with you and General Sherman that
the army can win all the medals it needs chasing Victorio and his
glorified horse thieves to the south.  The government's hoping your
Jicarilla pals will move down to the Tularosa Agency without any serious
fuss.  The BIA is sending extra allotments and some Apache-talking
agents to negotiate."

Longarm reached for another egg to go with his fresh beer as he said,
"Nobody talks any lingo called Apache.  Not their Pueblo pals who first
called 'em Apachu, meaning 'Enemies' in another lingo, nor the mixed bag
of Na-dene speakers.  They don't see why we divide 'em and dub 'em
Navaho, Mescalero, Chiricahua, and such, by the way.  They call
themselves names such as Na-dene, N'de, Dene, Tinde, Inde, and Lord
knows what-all."

Billy Vail said something mighty dirty.

Longarm blandly continued.  "The BIA might or might not be able to move
the ones we call Jicarilla off that prime mountain real estate without a
fight.  Those not-so-mysterious strangers will doubtless get out of
those dry canyons to the east and into the greener pastures of that big
old reserve as soon as it seems halfway safe to plunder it.  So why not
wait and simply ask 'em who they are and where they came from, once they
start filing homestead or mining claims?  You got to tell the government
things like that as soon as you file either."

The older man reached for his own beer as he wistfully replied, "I used
to come up with easy answers before Sam Houston and me got nowhere
trying to keep the Rangers on the winning side and I married up with a
member of the unfair sex.  If you and the ostrich bird would take your
fool heads out of that Apache reserve and listen up, both that Indian
land and the surrounding territory of New Mexico are the beeswax of the
federal government, which don't want to wait for drygulching gunslicks
to volunteer full confessions.  Like I said, they asked for you by name.
So can I wire Santa Fe you're on your way or not?"

Longarm told him to hold the thought as he headed back along the bar.
Billy Vail had noticed the head barkeep sending that sassy little
redhead into the back rooms with that tray, of course.  Ginger was the
sort of gal even a married man kept an eye on.  But she was nowhere to
be seen at the moment, and if Longarm meant to take a leak he didn't
have to be so downright rude!

Then Vail saw Ginger coming back out with her empty tray, and sure
enough, that tall, tanned drink of water was saying something that made
her blush and cork him on one sleeve with her free little fist.

Then Ginger moved back behind the bar and Longarm ambled back to rejoin
Vail, asking, "Are you sure you and General Sherman ain't out to tangle
me up in Indian trouble just to wrangle a sneaky report on the poor
Jicarilla out of me?"

Vail sniffed primly and declared, "I work for the Justice Department,
not the War Department, and as far as me and Santa Fe can say, the only
Indians up those spooky old canyons have been dead for quite a spell."

Longarm picked up his beer schooner to drain it as Vail asked again,
"How about it?  Are you riding for us or not?"

Longarm sighed, put down the empty schooner, and picked up his old
silver badge to polish it some against the front of his tobacco-colored
tweed vest. "Reckon I am.  Lord knows I sure can use the money this
weekend."

Vail smiled.  "Bueno.  I'll have Henry get right to work on your travel
orders."

But Longarm quietly suggested, "Don't hurry old Henry just on my
account, Boss.  If I thought I'd be fixing to leave before Monday or
Tuesday, I doubt I'd be needing that much money."


Chapter 2


It sure beat all how a gal could get off work on a Saturday as pretty as
a picture and wind up so puffy-eyed and shrew-tongued on a cold gray
Monday morning.  But Longarm took her downstairs for a decent breakfast
in the Tremont House dining room, and tried to be a sport as she counted
the ways he'd used and abused her, all the while stuffing her face with
pork sausage and waffles.  A few cups of coffee later the little redhead
had forgiven him and wanted to know if they'd be coming back to this
same hotel when she got off work that evening.  So he lost back all the
ground he'd gained, and had to listen to some mighty unladylike remarks
when he confessed that though it burned like fire, he had a train to
catch.

He really did board the Durango combination later that same day.  Old
Henry, the priss who played the typewriter for Billy Vail, had naturally
scheduled him to get off the D&RG Western at the town of Chama, New
Mexico Territory, just south of the Colorado line near the headwaters of
the Rio Chama.  But Longarm figured others might be just as slick about
train rides from Denver as old Henry.  He had discovered to his sorrow
that riders of the owlhoot trail tended to expect a federal deputy to be
coming their way sooner or later if they were up to any serious sinning.
So he stayed aboard to the next jerkwater stop at Dulce, where the
tracks crossed one corner of the Jicarilla reserve.

This made sense in more ways than one, assuming his boss and Governor
Lew Wallace were on the level with him about those mysterious gents a
good day's ride to the southeast being white men the BIA didn't know
from Adam's off-ox. For one thing, he was getting off where a lawman on
his way to La Mesa de los Viejos had no call to get off.  In addition,
he was wearing a faded denim outfit instead of his usual three-piece
suit and packing a stock saddle borrowed from the Diamond K near Denver
instead of his usual army McClellan. And finally, a federal rider would
be in better shape to dragoon himself some federal riding stock there
without the whole world having to hear about it.

The D&RG Western locomotives stopped to fill up with boiler water at the
Dulce Indian Agency because, as the Spanish name for the place would
indicate, the springwater there ran sweeter there than anywhere else for
miles around. But Longarm didn't care.  As the train he'd gotten down
from filled up on sweet water, he was already legging himself and his
borrowed roper and saddlebags to the whitewashed agency complex, nestled
between the broad, flat railroad right-of-way and the eroded cliffs of
striped sedimentary rocks to the south.  The higher peaks of the
Continental Divide rose hazily to the east.  Dulce already lay way above
sea level, and while the Divide rose even higher, the mountains down
this way, while still considered a stretch of the Rockies, didn't stick
up quite as high as, say, the Front range west of Denver.

A brown-faced gent in a dark blue uniform came out of the Indian Police
guardhouse as if to see what the tall, strange pindah lickoyee, or
"white eyes," wanted.  Sentimental reporters who paid a bit too much
attention to that schoolmarm who claimed to have lived with the Lakota
long enough to translate their bellyaching, wrote a heap of bull about
the Indian Police being made up of trash whites instead of real Indians.
Longarm knew the Indian Police were run by white men, just as the rest
of the country was.  But it would have been impractical as all get-out
to have any police force staffed by underpaid white boys who didn't
savvy the lingo of the folks they'd been armed and equipped to ride herd
on.

Lots of Indians seemed anxious to join the Indian Police.  Almost all
their nations had traditional notions of warriors appointed to keep
their own versions of law and order.  And a chance to wear a
quasi-military uniform and pack a gun had the more usual occupations,
such as beating on drums and lining up for government handouts, beat by
a country mile.  So Longarm was surprised when the Jicarilla police
sergeant strode over to stick out his hand like a white man expecting to
shake like an equal, announcing in fair English, "I am Joseph Doli.  I
am a Christian.  I am Nada of Those Who Make Everyone Behave at this
agency.  I welcome you if you come here in peace.  If you are running
away from your own kind, I think it would be better for us all if you
got back on that train before it leaves."

Longarm said, "I ain't running away from anybody.  But I ain't sure I
want somebody to know I'm coming.  Before we get into who I am and where
I'm headed, might you know a hatali of your own kind known as
Cho'chibas?"

The Indian nodded soberly and said, "Everyone has heard of that powerful
medicine man, as you people say, hatali.  What is Cho'chibas to you,
White Eyes?"

Longarm modestly replied, "He calls me his Tsoi Belagana."

The somewhat older Indian blinked and let fly a whole string of
rapid-fire Na-dene.  So Longarm waved him down with his free hand and
sheepishly admitted, "I don't speak your tongue and only savvy a few
words at baby-talk speed.  Cho'chibas told me Tsoi Belagana meant
something like 'American Grandchild,' right?"

Doli nodded.  "Belagana is the more polite term we use for you people.
It comes from the sound of American, not the funny eyes so many of you
seem to have.  What did you do to make a real person like Cho'chibas
call you his grandchild?"

Longarm shrugged.  "It wasn't all that much.  I just ran off some other
white eyes who were searching for yellow iron in one of your holy
places. They had no right to be there.  They were trespassing on
reservation land your folks and mine had agreed on.  So it only took a
little pistol-whipping and-"

"You are the one called Betagana Hastin!" the Jicarilla said without
hesitation.  "The Nakaih call you Brazo Largo.  Your own people call you
Longarm.  Have you come to do something about the trouble we are having
here this summer?  Our white-eyed agent is getting ready to have supper
with some others sent all the way from Washington, if you want to scold
them for us."

Longarm shook his head morosely and replied, "I'd like to.  But I don't
have that much medicine and if the truth be known, I'd as soon not have
too many others, your kind or mine, knowing more than they need to about
my passing this way."

The Indian said, "I understand.  I am a lawman too.  I think you should
come home with me for supper and we can talk about it where others need
not worry about what we are saying."

Longarm said that sounded like a swell notion, and let the Indian steer
him around the back of their guardhouse to what looked like a regulation
BIA frame cabin, even though Sergeant Doli called it his hogan.  The
more famous Navaho hogan was a kind of home, which was what the word
meant in Na-dene. Along the way, Doli told Longarm, not unkindly, that
Jicarilla pronounced Na-dene somewhat closer to N'de.  Only sometimes
they said Tinneh, because nobody ever said their lingo was simple.

All the Indians Longarm had ever had supper with seemed to admire a haze
of smoke instead of flies around them as they ate.  Doli's moon-faced
asdza--you never called her breed a squaw--had been expecting her shasti
home for supper and whipped up a heap of alta nabi, the Jicarilla
version of Irish stew, with blue corn substituting for the spuds, and
juniper ashes instead of salt.

If they had any kids, she'd sent them out back so the two grown men
could eat in peace.  She served them generous bowls of her stew, and
shyly asked Longarm if he wanted honey in his own coffee, but didn't sit
down to table with them as her man waited for Longarm to dig in.  So he
did, and he was glad he'd been polite and accepted the strong but overly
sweet coffee when he decided her juniper ash seasoning had to be an
acquired taste.

Doli must have been more used to it, because he washed some down with
his own ash-flavored coffee and asked Longarm if juniper grew along the
rimrocks of that Tularosa Canyon to the south.

Longarm said truthfully he doubted there could be as much of anything
green around Tularosa, but quickly added, "They do say the reserve at
San Carlos is hotter and drier by far.  It was moving old Victorio over
to San Carlos that seems to have inspired his latest reservation jump.
He kept bellyaching that he wanted to go back to the Tularosa Agency
before he just went wild some more.  So Tularosa has to be nicer than
San Carlos, right?"

The Indian chewed sullenly, swallowed, and said, "An ant pile on a salt
flat, covered with ashes, would be nicer than San Carlos!  People who
have run away from San Carlos have told us about the fine place our BIA
chose for our Chiricahua cousins near Fort Apache.  The land is too
barren for the black goats of the Nakaih to graze.  In the dry moons
there is barely water to drink and the children must go to bed with dust
in their hair.  The agent there told the people to plant crops, like
Pueblo.  But only greasewood and cactus grows well where it rains so
seldom, and the hunting around San Carlos is poor, very poor.  The
people were asked to just bake there, under a crueler sun than they had
known before, with nothing to do but get drunk and hit one another while
they waited for another allotment.  Can you blame a real man like the
hacki you call Victorio for running away?"

Longarm didn't want to get into the distinctions between leaving a place
you might not cotton to and raiding total strangers who'd had no idea
you were coming.  He said, "Be that as it may, nobody here at the Dulce
Agency has been asked to go to San Carlos, and even if they had, I don't
have any more say in the matter than you all.  Counting on a fellow
federal lawman's discretion, Sergeant, I've got orders to investigate
other matters over by La Mesa de los Viejos on the far side of the
Divide.  Can you lend me some riding stock and have you or your local
folks heard anything about what's been going on over on the far side of
the mountains?"

The Indian said, "Choose any ponies in our police corral and they are
your own from this day forward.  I have heard nothing, nothing, about
trouble around that distant mesa.  It used to lie on Jicarilla range, or
on range we disputed with others, at any rate.  But now we hold nothing,
nothing-much farther east than Stinking Lake.  Once the medicine waters
of the lake drain eastward toward the Rio Chama they are lost to us
forever.  Do you think it is right for Nakaih farmers to grow all that
corn and squash with water they get from us without paying for it?  Hear
me, those Nakaih are not real farmers like the Zuni we used to have so
much fun with.  Like your own kind, the Nakaih came in from far away
with their guns and iron tools to claim the best places for themselves.
Why don't you white eyes make them go back to Mexico, where they belong?
Didn't you have a good fight with them, and didn't you win?"

Longarm smiled wearily and replied, "You'd be surprised how many white
eyes might agree with you.  But the peace treaty we signed at the end of
the Mexican War gave Mexicans already settled in country taken from
Mexico the right to hang on to their property and just go on acting
natural, whether some of their new Anglo neighbors liked it or not."

The Indian scowled.  "I have been told this before.  But I still don't
understand why Washington keeps that one old treaty with the Nakaih when
it has broken so many, many with my kind!"

Longarm was far more interested in that riding stock.  But supper was
still being served, in the form of a sweeter corn mush the lady of the
house called ta'nil'kan, so he sighed and said, "Mexico, for all her
faults, ain't never gone back on that treaty of '48.  If she was to,
say, grab Texas back or send her marines to raid the California gold
fields, all bets would be off and we'd feel free to be mean as hell to
the Mexicans or, as you call them, Nakaih."

"You treat us with scorn because we don't look as much like you as the
Nakaih!" the Indian complained.  "Hear me, we are men, not children!
Why does the government keep treating us as if we were unruly children?
Do we look like your white-eyed children?"

Longarm had to smile at the picture.  Billy Vail back in Denver looked
more like a big pink baby than the lady serving supper, and there was a
hard black mountain gemstone called "Apache tears" with good reason.
But since he'd been asked, he had to say, "It ain't that many Indians
look like children, no offense.  But you can't expect to be treated like
responsible adults when you're living on handouts as wards of the state
and are inclined to throw tantrums that would get a white schoolchild
sent to reform school."

The Indian gaped at Longarm, turning a redder shade of brown as he took
a deep breath, let it out, and said, "Your N'de name fits you, Belagana
Hastin. You do seem to be an American-people-have-to-listen-to.  I know
some of our young men like to steal horses.  I am a police sergeant.
But I don't think it is fair for you to say we live on charity, as if we
had a choice.  Hear me, back in our Shining Times, before you people
came to change our world forever ..."

"Spare me the violin music," Longarm said.  "it ain't as if you and me
are having a powwow on the shores of Old Virginee at this late date.
You're an English-speaking government employee who wouldn't have made
those stripes unless he could read a mite.  So grow up and face the
facts.  I just told you why Mexican folks are allowed to just be
themselves as long as they obey the same laws as the rest of us.
Sometimes Mexicans steal horses.  When they do they go to jail, or to
the gallows in more than one Western state.  But nobody sets aside
reservations for Mexicans, or does a thing for them when they go broke
through their own fault or just bad luck."

The Indian said, "That's different.  They knew how to live more like the
rest of you when they came up this way."

Longarm nodded.  "Then try the recently freed colored folks on for size.
They couldn't have been much more advanced than your average Indian when
they were marched aboard slave ships and dumped on a strange shore to do
chores they'd never heard of on their own side of the main ocean.  You
likely heard of the big fight we had over slavery and other differences.
Some of the fighting took place out here, as close as Santa Fe.  A heap
of Indians got into it on one side or the other, or just raising hell in
general whilst the army was too busy to ride herd on 'em."

The Jicarilla nodded soberly.  "Your Eagle Chief Carson fought our
Navaho kinsmen during that same war.  I don't see what that had to do
with the black white eyes getting loose."

Longarm said, "I doubt, if he was still around, Kit Carson could tell
us. My point is that them colored folks did get loose, all at once, with
no Bureau of African Affairs to treat them wisely or foolishly, and they
were allowed to just sink or swim like everyone but you poor mistreated
children of nature."

The Indian called him a son of a bitch in plain English.

Longarm smiled easily and replied, "Anglo folks, colored folks, Mex
folks, and even self-supporting and law-abiding Indian folks are allowed
to own property, sign contracts, and even vote in most states because
they act like grown-ups and get treated like grown-ups.  I know you
Jicarilla feel the BIA ain't treating you fair right now.  I said as
much when I heard they were talking about moving you all again.  I told
you there was nothing I could do about it.  But would you care for some
friendly advice?"

The Indian said, "You are called the American-people-have-to-listen-to.
How do you think we can stop the government from moving us down to the
Tularosa Agency, Belagana Hastin?"

Longarm finished the last of his coffee, placed a palm over his cup to
keep his hostess from refilling it, and said, "Don't go.  Get off the
Great White Father's blanket and stand on your own two feet.  Not the
way Victorio has ridden.  We both know that trail only leads to the dark
world of the chindi.  But you speak English.  You can read it well
enough to pass a sergeant's examination.  That leaves you miles ahead of
many a colored field hand who woke up one morning to find himself stuck
with making his own living. I know dozens of gents around Denver, some
of 'em working at good jobs for more than I make, who used to be
Arapaho, Cheyenne, Ute, and such."

Doli grimaced.  "I know others who have gone to Santa Fe to live off the
blanket.  Hear me, a lot of them are begging drunkards, or living off
the quarters their wives and daughters make by selling themselves to
white eyes!"

Longarm shrugged.  "Men that worthless come in all shades from ivory to
ebony.  Always have.  Always will.  You asked me what any real man ought
to do when he had the choice of running his own life or letting some
pencil-pusher in Washington run it for him."

Doli pleaded, "Can't you at least talk to those government white eyes
over at our agent's hogan right now?  They might listen to another
government man who knows this country so much better!"

Longarm sighed.  "I would if I thought it would do you a lick of good.
I'd try just for the hell of it if I wasn't trying to sneak into the
Mesa de los Viejo canyonlands by way of a side entrance I hope nobody's
watching. What if I was to stick to the high country most of the way,
then ease through such cover as I can find, say, south of Stinking
Lake?"

The Indian shrugged.  "There is plenty of aspen, juniper, and pine along
the ridges.  You will find a high chaparral of pinyon and scrub oak as
far east as the reservation line.  I can't answer for the goat-loving
Nakaih or cow-herding Pindah Lickoyee grazing right up to the line and
sometimes crossing it.  Nobody grazes the canyons the Anasazi used to
dwell in.  There is nothing there for a full-grown rabbit to eat."

Longarm nodded.  "So I've been told.  Yet others say all them strangers
have moved in among them long-deserted cliff dwellings and seem to be
guarding them from all corners.  I'd sure like to know why.  You say you
had some riding stock to show me?"

The Indian rose from the table.  "We have many fine ponies, many.  Come.
I will show you and you can have your pick.  But I don't think you will
find anyone over in those canyons you just spoke of.  Not anyone alive.
In our Shining Times, some of our hunters entered those dry canyons to
see what might be there.  Some came out excited, to say they had seen
chindi!  Others never came out at all.  The shades of dead people can be
cruel, and a lot of people must have died when all those old empty ruins
were still young!"


Chapter 3


Longarm rode out of the Dulce Agency just before sundown.  He didn't see
any Indians.  That didn't mean a hundred or more pairs of dark sloe eyes
weren't watching his every move, So whether it would be passed on or
not, Longarm moved westward along the railroad tracks, as if headed on
toward Durango for whatever white-eyed reason.

He was riding a black-and-white paint and leading a buckskin, seated
astride a double-rigged roping saddle made by the Mullers.  His denim
duds, like his borrowed saddle, were meant to pass him off at any
distance as a cowhand riding to or from some outfit not too far away.
Most riders north of, say, Santa Fe telescoped hats of any color the
same way because it would take a fancy Mexican chin strap to keep a
high-crowned hat on when the mountain winds got frisky all of a sudden.
Longarm had felt no call to change his sepia Stetson, which was overdue
for some steaming and blocking in any case.

Despite the fool descriptions of him printed by reporter Crawford in the
Denver Post, and despite the likelihood a lawman of some rep might be
heading toward his real destination, Longarm knew lots of old cowhands
sat tall in the saddle with a heavy mustache, and even more wore a
double-action Colt on their left hip, cross-draw with the tailored
hardwood grips forward, loaded with the same S&W .44-40 rounds as the
Winchester '73 booted to the off side of the roping saddle.  He had iron
rations for maybe three days on the trail packed hidden in the bedroll
and personal saddlebags he'd lashed to the roping saddle's cordovan
skirts.  For when strangers rode by packing lots of trail supplies, a
body could get curious as to just how far they'd come or how far they
meant to go.

He'd left the well-broken-in manila throw-rope buckled to the off swell
to add to the picture, since far more cowhands than lawmen rode as if
they might be chasing cows.

It was an even-money bet he was wasting time and effort as he rode on
into the golden sunset with the mountains he meant to ride over rising
blood-red behind him in the lavender eastern sky.  For it was one thing
to swear a Jicarilla police sergeant to secrecy, and another to assume
neither he nor his moon-faced wife would confide a bit to their own kith
and kin.

But half a chance was better than none and well worth the taking when it
wasn't costing more than a couple of extra hours on a cool clear-weather
trail through pleasant scenery.

Though the glowing light made it tougher to make out all the details, he
could still see why the Jicarilla might not want to leave for any
uncertain surroundings to the south.  That fool report he'd read back in
Denver said the BIA wanted to move the Jicarilla for their own good.
The government was always moving Indians somewhere else as a way to
improve their condition, and the Cherokee were still cussing Andrew
Jackson for it after all these years. The report on the Jicarilla failed
to mention the New Mexican cattle interests who'd cussed poor U. S.
Grant for setting aside all this mountain greenery for Apache rascals
who'd fought the New Mexico militia to a draw.  Both Anglo and Mexican
settlers had been fuming and fussing over all that swell range being
wasted on fool Indians who didn't know how you made real money on
marginal range and semi-arid woodlands.  The scenery along the way was
too pretty for high country being managed for real money.

He was well out of sight from the Dulce Agency when he turned in the
saddle to see a big fat star winking down at him from a purple sky.  He
kept riding away from it as he recited to his ponies:

"Star light, star bright, Same star I saw last night. Wish I may, wish I
might, See a different star some night."

Then he swung south, away from the track, saying aloud, "We'll see where
this shallow dry wash leads us by moonrise.  Ought to be able to circle
Dulce and make her up around the eagle nests without too many Jicarilla
spotting us in the moonlight.  They don't find moonlight as romantic as
us white eyes. They won't even go raiding after dark before they work up
a powerful medicine against the evil eyes most folks call stars."

Longarm had more than one good reason to follow the southward-trending
wash as darkness fell all around.  The broad sandy bottom was easier for
his eyes to make out, even as the steep, brush-rimmed banks on either
side screened anyone moving along it.  Best of all, since the snakes
preferred twilight time for supper, neither the critters they hunted nor
the diamondbacks themselves had any call to be scampering about in the
open with two full-grown ponies crunching sand their way.  High
Apacheria got too cold for a sand-loving sidewinder on many a night, and
the critters only bred where they could make it through the whole year.

Longarm figured they'd worked at least three miles south of the Dulce
Agency when the big full moon popped up from behind the crags to the
east as orange as a pumpkin ready for pie.  So the next time they
crossed a deer trail headed the right way, he reined in, changed mounts,
and took it.

There was much to be said for mankind's way of laying trails the way men
wanted to go and to hell with a few dips or rises.  But riding a strange
mount in unfamiliar territory, Longarm preferred to work his way along
trails laid out by other four-legged critters.  Deer, being in less of a
hurry and having no call to work harder than they needed to, tended to
wind along contour lines a man would have a tough time following even in
better light.  So neither pony gave him any trouble as they wound their
way ever eastward with the light improving as the rising moon got whiter
while appearing to be getting smaller. Longarm had won cow camp bets on
that optical illusion.  You proved your point by aiming at the moon,
high and low, with a calibrated gunsight.  It still looked all wrong,
but measurement was measurement.

The Continental Divide wasn't always where the mountains rose highest.
The uncertain dotted line on the map indicated where the falling rain
wound up running down to sea level one way or the other.  So while
Longarm had to get over the official Continental Divide, it wasn't
nearly as high in these parts as in the Sangre de Cristos on the far
side of the upper Rio Grande.  Geology courses wouldn't take four years
if this old earth had been stuck together simply.

They still had some climbing to do before midnight and, deer not really
caring which way the rivers might flow to the seas, they had to cut
straighter and steeper as the rises got more serious.  Few of the
scattered crags and none of the passes rose above the timberline in this
stretch of the Divide, but the juniper and pine thinned out to where the
moonlight lit up plenty of open shortgrass, and Longarm was pleased to
see they were making good time, considering he was riding strange ridges
with no map but the more familiar stars up yonder.

It was a shame, or a blessing, that the folks called Apache had never
yet learned to eat fish or admire stars.  For mountain trout stuffed
with onion-flavored blue-eyed grass and baked in 'dobe on the coals were
fit to serve Queen Victoria, while the stars at this altitude made the
black velvet sky seem spattered with diamond dust, at least where bigger
fireflies weren't winking their asses down at you.  It sure beat all how
every nation seemed to pick some damned harmless thing to worry about.
Pawnee just loved to stare up at the sky at night, and thought all the
stars had names and medicines for anyone smart enough to ask the right
star the right way.  Most Indians looked at the stars the same as most
whites.  So why in thunder did the notorious night raiders of the
Na-dene persuasion think moonlit or even starlit nights were so unlucky?

A couple of furlongs on a big fat star near the skyline winked out on
him, and he reined in to reach thoughtfully for his saddle gun before he
decided aloud, "Rocky outcrop on the next ridge.  Ask a foolish question
and Mother Nature just might answer.  Of course you'd worry about stars
giving your position away if you were running a ridge in search of
harmful fun.  But did the medicine men make up cautionary tales about
evil stars just to make sure their young men raided on really overcast
evenings?"

Mother Nature didn't answer.  So he set the question aside, not being a
fool Indian who had to worry about it.  As gents reputed to delight in
blood and slaughter--or maybe because they did study war so
much--Na-dene speakers sure gave themselves a lot of things to worry
about.  Like the unrelated Cheyenne, the so-called Apache seemed to have
a horror of death all out of proportion to their delight in dishing it
out.  Nobody mutilated fallen enemies worse than those two nations,
because nobody was as worried about their victims coming back from the
dead.  Longarm could see a certain logic in the otherwise spiteful
practice of maiming and laming a fallen enemy after you'd killed him
deader than a turd in a milk bucket.  The Cheyenne admired cut-off bow
or trigger fingers, while the Apache went for the eyes and feet. They
called ghosts of any dead folks chindi, and just hated it when they met
a chindi with its eyes and feet intact.  For there was no way to kill
somebody a second time, and how did you outrun or dodge a spook when it
had its full power to play hide-and-seek with a poor mortal?

Longarm figured he'd made it over the Divide when they came on a
streamlet purling toward the east in the moonlight.  He reined in and
let the ponies water themselves as he swapped saddles again.  Then he
took off his hat and belly-flopped in the stream-side sedge to water
himself just upstream. Nothing from a canteen or even a pump ever tasted
half that refreshing.  He'd heard of a spring back East, maybe in York
State, where they bottled the water and sold it to rich folk in the
cities like it was beer, for Gawd's sake.  The odd notion made a tad
more sense as he sipped such fine water after a spell of canteen water
on the trail.

He sat up but didn't rise, seeing the Indian ponies were
ground-rein-trained and seemed to be enjoying that lush sedge along the
stream so much.  He plucked a juicy green stem to chew.  It tasted all
right, but he felt he'd enjoy a smoke better.  So he felt for a cheroot
and his waterproof Mex matches as he sat up straighter, with the intent
of lighting up before they moved on.

But he never did.  Striking a match after dark in Apache country had
been known to take years off a man's life, even when there wasn't
somebody singing soft and sad in the middle distance!

Longarm put the cheroot and matches away as he eased to his feet, moved
over to the ponies, and slid the Winchester out of its saddle boot.
There was already a round in the chamber, adding up to sixteen if you
counted the regular magazine load of fifteen.  A Winchester '73 cranked
sort of noisy, and that first vital round could ride fairly safe in the
chamber with the hammer eased down to half-cock.  He knew a pony trained
not to drag its grounded reins could only be relied on to a point.  So
he quietly led the pair of them back upslope to a pine they'd passed
earlier, and made certain neither would run off when or if it got
noisier in these parts.  Then he took a deep breath and cocked the
hammer of his saddle gun all the way back as he eased in the general
direction of that eerie singsong chant.

A friendly Na-dene singer he'd had fun with during a spell of ceremonial
drumming had tried to explain the difference between the different
"ways," or what he pictured as Indian psalms.  But when you didn't savvy
the lingo and the chanters only seemed to know one tune, they tended to
sound a lot alike as well as sort of tedious.  A Chinese gal he'd
befriended out Frisco way had informed him just as certainly that she'd
be switched with snakes if she could hear any difference between "Dixie"
and "Marching Through Georgia."  So it was likely all in the way your
ears had been brought up.

He worked close enough to get a surer line on the direction that sad
singing was coming from.  It sounded like a gal, and she seemed to be
sounding off in a spooky way, in that inky patch of juniper or whatever
growing between two massive moonlit boulders.  He felt no more desire to
call out to her than he might have had moving in on any blind alley in
Ciudad Juarez.  He'd read about this place where cruel-hearted gals
called Sirens called out to passing strangers just to get them in an
awful fix.  So he had a better notion, and crabbed sideways to ease in
on one blank wall of moonlit granite instead of sticking his paw smack
in the bait pan.  There was no practical way to scale the slightly
sloping rock quietly with his Winchester.  But that was one other good
reason for packing a side arm.  He placed his Winchester against the
clean bare rock and, leaving his six-gun holstered, he took a deep
breath and went mountain-climbing.

He could hear the singing better as he scraped his denim-clad belly over
the top.  The words didn't make a lick more sense to him, of course.
But the gal singing alone down there--he hoped she was alone--sure
sounded hopeless and resigned as he slithered forward to peer over the
edge at her.

He could see she stood alone, her hands up as if she was holding herself
erect by gripping a sapling to either side.  Longarm recalled the
notorious Arapaho solution to caring for sick or elderly kin.  He wasn't
sure the Na-dene made a habit of abandoning old ladies to die of
starvation if the wolves failed to get them first.  It sure looked as if
the poor old gal had been left all alone down there by somebody.

He let himself back down the outside surface, partly to give a white man
on a mission time to think.  He knew he'd never been sent all this way
to play nursemaid to some sick old Jicarilla asdza her own medicine man
had given up on.  Such medicine men weren't all just rattles and
dust-puffing.  They cured sick Na-dene at least as often BIA surgeons
did, and it sounded as if the old gal was resigned to becoming a chindi
in the mighty near future.  So there was no sensible reason for him to
act like some fool Samaritan.

Then he had both feet on the ground.  So he called himself a fool,
picked up his carbine, and moved around to enter the cleft, trying to
sound soothing, the way you talked to a critter, as he called out, "It's
out of my way, ma'am. But I got a spare pony you can ride as I get you
back to Dulce for some proper attention."

Then he almost shot the ghostly apparition staring at him with big black
hollows as she pranced like hell, both arms held high and shouted,
"S's'suhah, Litcaiga Haltchin!"

But Longarm only half believed in chindis, so he struck a wax-stemmed
match and saw that what he'd been looking at was a stark naked gal,
smeared with clay and wood ash, with a wrist tied to a springy aspen
sapling to either side of her as she did a sort of barefoot Irish jig on
a good-sized ants' nest.  She must have seen what he was by the same
flickering light, for she hissed in English, "Put the light out before
they see it and you find yourself in the same sort of trouble!"

Longarm shook the match out and reached in his jeans for his penknife as
he moved closer, warning, "Try not to bust the crust of the ant pile any
more if you can, ma'am.  I know the feeling.  I've been nipped by red
vinegar ants. But they only bite more if you rile them up."

He was sure she was cussing him sarcastically as he got to work on the
rawhide thongs binding her wrists.  He said soothingly, "Step atop my
toes whilst I free you.  The little buggers can't quite bite through
that much leather, ma'am."

The naked Indian lady followed his suggestion, getting white ash all
over the front of his denim as she plastered her naked body to his, a
bare instep across each of his stout cavalry stovepipes.  He wasn't sure
he wanted to feel that way about a gal that spooky-looking.  But he'd
told her to do it.  So he could only be a sport and cut both wrists
free, even though she grabbed him like a long-lost lover with the first
arm he got loose.

Then she was hugging him with both arms, and legs, as he backed off the
ant pile with her, saying, "I got some aloe lotion amongst my possibles.
Lucky for us both, red ants don't act as wild after dark as they can in
daylight."

But she didn't seem to be listening.  She'd already unwrapped her
ash-plastered form from his to run bare-ass down the slope and
belly-flop in that whitewater rill.  The water was only inches deep and
maybe a foot across. But she still managed a heap of splashing as she
wallowed like an overheated pig set free in a mud puddle.  She was
already tougher to make out in the moonlight as she washed all that ash
and clay from her saddle brown naked skin.

Longarm knew that, unlike true desert Indians such as Pima or the
Paiute, some called Diggers, Na-dene set more store in modest dress.  So
while she dunked herself in ice water from head to toe, he went over to
the tethered ponies to break a Hudson Bay blanket out of his bedroll and
a lead-foil tube of aloe-and-zinc ointment from a saddlebag.  As he
ambled back to the naked asdza sitting upright in the rill with the
moonlight glinting off her wet hair and hide, he told her, "You'd best
get out and wrap yourself in this blanket before you catch cold, ma'am.
I got some salve here I packed in case of burns.  It ought to sooth them
ant bites some."  She said she'd been stomping like that to kill as many
of the red vinegar ants as she could while they were bedded down for the
night inside that big mound.  He didn't ask why.  She allowed she had
managed to get her bare feet and ankles nipped enough to matter.  So he
helped her out of the rill, wrapped her in the blanket, and sat her on
the grassy slope to hunker down and rub salve all over her nether
extremities as she told him her sad story.  She said her name was
Kinipai and that her maternal uncle had been a powerful hitali, or
medicine man.  She swore four times she'd never lain with her own uncle,
making it so, unless she was risking the wrath of all the spirits and
holy ones by lying four times. When she said four times that neither she
nor her uncle had even robbed the dead, he began to follow her drift.
He'd been told by others that incest and grave-robbing were the first
steps to bahagi'ite, or witchcraft.  Kinipai went on to explain how
she'd been the victim of what a white man of the cloth might have called
"a theological dispute."  Her uncle had taught her many "ways" or chants
before he'd been struck dead by a diamondback he was chanting with.  It
was thought a bit odd for women to take part in some of the way
ceremonies, but it was not forbidden.  So when they'd heard Little Big
Eyes in Washington was sending white eyes to see whether the N'de would
have to move or be allowed to stay, Kinipai had decided to hold the
Night Way, a mighty powerful ceremony.  But older folks, best described
as some sort of chanters' guild, had protested that everyone knew the
Night Way was supposed to be held in wintertime, between the first
freeze and greenup thaw.  Then they'd argued that the Night Way was
meant to cure the really sick, and only when all the other ways had
failed and only strong bishi or dangerous spirit lore might save them.

But Kinipai had argued that their whole nation was on its deathbed and
so they had to use strong medicine, without waiting for the right
season.  So she'd won out, for the time being.

Longarm could picture it, having sat in on such powwows in his own time.
Indians could argue the finer points of religion and tradition with the
fervor of preachers or lawyers debating, with neither a Good Book nor a
law book to be found.  Oral tradition depended entirely on human memory,
and all humans tended to remember things the way they should have been,
whether they'd been that way or not.

So Kinipai had held one Night Way, and then another, and the officials
had still gotten off the D&RG Western to start working out the details
of a mighty long walk.

They'd let her hold one more.  When that hadn't set the white eyes
packing, they'd drawn the line on a fourth mystical try.  Failing four
times was much worse, for some medicine reason.  But as those vinegar
ants had just found out, the small but strong-willed Kinipai could act
determined as hell for a gal.  So she'd put on her black-and-red paint,
black for protection and red for victory--or sorcery, as some chanters
believed--donned her black antlered mask, and picked up her basket drum
and medicine stones to drive the white eyes away.  She'd barely started
before the others grabbed her and hauled her up the slopes to execute
her the safe way.  For the only thing her kind feared worse than a haunt
was the haunt of a witch.  It was likely to pop right out of her mouth
the moment she was dead!

Longarm asked if the Indian Police knew anything about her being
declared a witch.  When Kinipai told him she'd been performing her Night
Ways far upslope from any reservation settlement, he saw he could forget
about reporting fellow officers and bade her to go on.

He had a better grasp on the unusual situation he'd just found her in
when she explained how some wise old hitali had decided they could best
avoid her chindi chasing them down the mountain in the dark by fixing it
so she'd die after sunrise, after they were all holed up behind their
prayer sticks and such.  They'd bound her above that big ant pile,
knowing the ants wouldn't really get to work on her naked flesh before
the warm sun and some of her sweat inspired them to really buckle down.
They'd smeared her with clay and wood ash to mask her protective paint
and make her gray, the color of evil spirits and spooks.  He had to
allow she'd looked spooky as any chindi to him, over yonder in that
cleft.  He agreed with her that it seemed hardly likely that any of the
witch hunters who'd left her to a slow agonizing death were likely to
come back by moonlight.  He already knew why you didn't start night
fires in Apacheria, where a night watch was kept on every high point and
the flare of a match could be made out at three miles when the moon
clouded over.

He said, "That Hudson Bay blanket is four beaver skins' worth of
thickness.  I was planning to bed down on top of it, not under it, this
time of the year.  So I doubt you'll freeze, wrapped up in it till we
can find you some more formal wear.  How are your feet now?"

She said, "That was strong medicine you rubbed on them for me.  I am too
strong to scratch the bites and make them worse.  Why have you been so
good to me, Belagana?  Are you an outlaw those pindah lickoyee are after
too?"

Longarm said, "I hunt outlaws for the same Great Father.  But I think he
is wrong about you Jicarilla.  Hear me.  I have nothing to say about the
move to the Tularosa Agency.  I have been sent on other business.  I was
only passing through here on my way to La Mesa de los Viejos.  My fight
is with other white eyes, not your nation."

The Indian girl sat up straighter, eyes wide in the moonlight, and
flatly warned him, "You will find neither your kind nor mine in the dry
canyons of the Anasazi.  Nothing lives there but the chindi of the
long-dead Old Ones. Haven't you been told that the mere sight of a
chindi will make a living person drop dead on the spot?  That is why the
chindi prowl the nights this side of the gray spirit world.  They want
to take us back there with them. They are lonely--lonely--in the ashen
world of the dead because the grayness stretches out in many directions,
forever, and one can never make it seem less empty!"

Longarm smiled thinly and said, "All in all I'd as soon take my chances
with the limbo land the Papists tell of.  I still got to get on over to
that mesa and, seeing I got two ponies, is there anywheres I can drop
you off where you might be safer?"

She sighed and said, "I have no place to go.  I have nothing.  The very
clothes I wore this morning have been declared ahidahagash and burned to
nothingness.  I suppose I had better go on with you to take my chances
with the chindi of the Old Ones.  They could hardly be any crueler than
my own people will be if they ever catch me!"


Chapter 4


In good times or bad it was best to travel at night and hole up by day
in Apacheria, lest neighbors six or eight miles off gossip about your
every move. So they watered the ponies good at a wider creek a ways down
the eastern slope, and made day camp atop a pinyon-covered ridge beyond.
For it was best to hole up on high ground, away from natural campsites,
in Apacheria.

Pinyon was pine that grew about the size and shape of crab-apple trees,
and offered fair cover and shade.  Kinipai agreed that the many
chewed-up scattered cones they saw meant none of her own folks harvested
pine nuts along this ridge that often.

She was the one who spotted smoke-talk as Longarm was tethering the
ponies deeper among the trees, with canteen water and cracked corn in
their feed bags.  Being Na-dene, she didn't call out to him.  She joined
him and the riding stock, silent as a shadow wrapped in a
cream-and-black striped Hudson Bay.  He'd been noticing for quite some
time she had a pretty little face, by the standards of either race.  For
while different sorts admired somewhat different marks of beauty,
everyone found regular features and a healthy young appearance pleasing.

She was letting some of her other charms show, now that her bare body
had warmed up enough to feel a tad stuffy under that thick wool blanket.
Jicarilla were more modest than Paiute, but not as worried as their
Navaho cousins about unavoidable flashes of flesh.

He lost considerable interest in that one perky nipple when she calmly
told him, "They already know I got away in the dark.  They do not know
about you helping me yet.  If you mount up again and ride like the wind
you may get away.  If they catch you with me I don't think they will be
as worried about your chindi.  I'm afraid they will kill you faster on
the spot."

As he followed her back through the trees, Longarm smiled dryly and
said, "You're afraid?  I've seen the carved-up remains of old boys your
hackis had killed about as sudden as they felt like.  But I reckon we'd
best stick together for now, seeing you've got on my best blanket."

They were near the western edge of their pine-needle screen by then.  So
Kinipai pointed that way and told him to see for himself as she dropped
the big blanket to the pinyon duff, revealing every bare inch of her
short, finn, tawny body.  He decided she'd likely wind up fat by the
time she was thirty, but she sure curved swell at the moment.  Then he
saw she'd been asking him to look at the far-off puffs of white smoke
hanging over the higher ridges to the west.

It wasn't true, as some whites thought, that Indians sent a sort of
Morse code in smoke.  To begin with, few Quill Indians knew how to read
or write in any alphabet.  Moreover, they didn't want strangers reading
their mail.  So they worked it more like white military men who agreed
beforehand on passwords and countersigns.  So many puffs in a row meant
one thing or another that could change as the situation called for.
Knowing this, Longarm wasn't too surprised when he asked Kinipai just
what that smoke-talk said, and she told him she wasn't in that thick
with the hacki, or warrior society, of her own nation.

He stared thoughtfully at the meaningless, drifting smoke puffs for a
time.  Then she hissed and said, "Over that way, to the north!"

He said, "I noticed," as they both stared in total ignorance at far more
distant smoke rising from a higher crest in the morning sunlight.

He finally said, "When I cut you loose, that bare gravel betwixt the
rocks had already been churned up by your prancing feet.  After that, we
both moved across green grass that'd had time to gather a new dusting of
dew and spring backup by now."

She protested, "Those agency police ponies are shod.  They will have
left hoofprints, many hoofprints."

He nodded but said, "Not too near that cleft they'd left you in.  And
would you be tracking down even Indian lawmen if you'd just put a witch
to death?  How do you know they are chasing you?  Mayhaps they're trying
to get away.  I don't know about you, but I'd be scared skinny if I tied
up a wicked witch on an ant pile and came back the next morning to find
her gone and the ants in dreadful shape!"

It didn't work.  The frightened young gal threw herself against Longarm
to bury her face in the front of his shirt and bawl, "I am not a wicked
witch! I have no bishi to protect us, I have nothing--nothing--not even
the medicine stones handed down from my poor old uncle, and how much
bishi did he ever really have if that snake he was dancing with could
kill him with just one bite?"

Longarm held her soothingly.  It seemed only natural to pat such a
pretty bare buttock as he replied, "I'm sure it was a big snake, knowing
how modest your medicine men act.  I told you we'd get you some more
duds to wear.  And those scared folks who took you for the real thing
ain't likely to assume you've lost any powers you ever had, seeing they
failed as full-fledged way-chanters to kill one pretty little thing."

She sniffed and said, "Thank you.  I think you are pretty too.  I wish
we weren't going to die so soon.  To purify myself for that Night Way I
had to avoid womanly pleasures, even with my own hand, for four whole
nights.  Last night was the fifth and I was rubbing--rubbing--as I sat
that pony bareback with its spine teasing me but never quite enough!"

Longarm got a better grip on her bare behind and snuggled her a bit
closer as he replied in a desperately casual tone that he hadn't been
getting any since leaving Denver.

So the next thing they knew they were down on that blanket, spread on
springy pine needles, with her on top and bouncing up and down like a
delighted kid on a merry-go-round while he was still shucking out of his
duds. Like many an Indian or Mexican gal used to sleeping on floor
pallets, Kinipai bounced with her haunches, with bare heels braced to
either side of his hips as she braced her little palms against his hairy
chest to slither up and down his beanpole in a delightful but sort of
teasing way.  So once he had his torso as bare as her own, with his
jeans down around his booted ankles, he rolled on top to hook one elbow
under either of her chunky brown knees and finish right.

She gasped that he was fixing to rupture her innards, but begged him not
to stop seeing that they were both about to get killed in any case and
this seemed a far nicer way to die.

After they'd both climaxed more than once and she found herself still
alive and well, sharing a three-for-a-nickel cheroot with him as they
lazed naked on the blanket in the shade, Kinipai giggled and confided,
"I have never had anything that big in me, unless you want to count the
time some of us were acting silly with corncobs when we were locked away
to await the Pollen Dusting Way."

Longarm just chuckled and enjoyed another deep drag.  He didn't need to
be told how silly kids acted when they first found out why boys and
girls had been built differently.  Na-dene gals who'd started their
first monthly period got locked up in a dark brush lodge to get over it
together so their elders could throw them a fine dance and sprinkle them
with corn, bean, squash, and tobacco pollen to make them strong and
fertile women now that they were grown. Like the Pueblo they'd likely
learned from, Na-dene set great store by pollen. It was never burnt as a
sacrifice to the Holy Ones.  To burn pollen was to destroy hope.  But
dusting a young gal's hair and making her sneeze with such powerful
medicine was meant as one hell of an honor for her.  It wasn't true
Na-dene knowingly mistreated women.  They just treated them unusually,
by a white man's standards.  It was usually Anglo or high-toned Mexican
gals who went insane after they'd been captured by so-called Apache
raiders.

Of course, all bets were off when dealing with a witch.  So they'd
barely smoked that cheroot down before Kinipai was nagging him some more
about that smoke-talk.  She'd doubtless learned, while learning English,
how white eyes put up with much more nagging before they hit a grown
woman.  Hitting children for any reason was considered sort of unmanly
by most Indians.  But any Indian could see a grown woman had no call to
carry on like some bawling baby.

Longarm told Kinipai so, adding firmly but not unkindly, "Whether
they're looking for us or trying to get away from you, I doubt they have
the least notion where we are right now."

She whimpered, "Hear me, my people are the best trackers this side of
the gray spirit world and we were riding ponies, steel-shod ponies, all
this way!"

He stretched out his free arm for another smoke, saw that his duds lay
an unhandy distance away on the pinyon duff, and reached down to feel
her up some more instead as he replied, "You're bragging a mite, no
offense.  Nobody tracks better than Papigo, as some of your Chiricahua
cousins learned to their sorrow a spell back."

He began to treat her friendlier down yonder as he added, "Don't ever
stop running once you raid Papigo.  They can track a sundial's shadow
and cut its throat after sundown."

She reached down for his private parts as he assured her, "I'd be able
to brag on scouting and being scouted by heaps of nations, including
your own, if I hadn't been raised so modest.  I made sure we rode across
all the dry sod and slickrock I could find for us as we made her this
far.  We left that creek to cross gravel scree and mummified pine
needles getting here."

She laughed and said, "This is crazy, crazy!  We are playing with one
another and carrying on a calm conversation at the same time!"

Having risen to the occasion some more, Longarm rolled his naked hips
between her welcoming brown thighs and let her guide it in for him again
as he grinned down at her and observed, "I know, and it sure seems
friendly.  I hardly ever go back for seconds with a pretty half-wit, but
there's some gals I really enjoy talking to like this."

She hugged him down against her with her strong arms and chunky legs as
he continued in the same tone.  "There's this one old gal I know down
Texas way and another up around Bitter Creek who both like to jaw with
me about my work for the Justice Department.  So every time I find
myself that far afield, either direction from my home office, I seem to
find myself having a conversation much like this one and ...  Never
mind, that's two other stories, and right now I'm fixing to shoot my wad
in a wicked witch!"

She bit down tight with her innards and pleaded with him to make it last
and take her with him.  So he tried his best, and managed to make it
almost a mutual orgasm while they both made promises nobody born of
mortal woman would ever be able to keep.

This time he really made it to his tobacco and matches.  So as he sat on
the blanket beside her lighting up, Kinipai sighed and told him, "I
still say I would ride with you forever in the dark desert grayness of
the dead.  But there is a bare chance we could make it if we are not
more than one good run from the reservation line to the cast!"

Longarm took a drag on the cheroot and held it out to her as he said, "I
know where we are.  My kind ain't as afraid to look up at the stars as
your kind, no offense.  I've been studying on a downhill dash for the
Chama Valley. You'd know better than me whether your hacks are sore
enough to spill blood off their official reserve."

Kinipai took a luxurious drag to give herself time to consider.  "I
don't know.  The BIA has my people very cross.  Some of the younger
hackis want to stand their ground and fight.  But our older nadas, who
have fought the blue sleeves already, think it may be better to move to
Tularosa Canyon and live poorly than to give the pindah lickoyee the
excuse to see we do not live anywhere forever."

Then she asked, "What has this to do with you and me?  You are not N'de
and I have been banished as a witch, to be killed even slower!"

Longarm said, "Your kind as well as mine will suffer considerable if
armed and dangerous so-called Apache make any reservation jumps whilst
the BIA is meeting with their chiefs to discuss their future!  I told
you why I doubt anyone's hot on our trail.  But sooner or later
someone's sure to take you up on even one steel-shod hoofprint, and it
might be best to leave him inside the reservation line as we work our
way down past Stinking Lake.  I told you why I have to work at least
that far south.  Others may or may not figure you're riding with me
aboard a police pony.  They're just as likely to dismiss any police pony
tracks as the sign of a routine patrol by Sergeant Doli and his boys.
Witch hunters with a guilty conscience might be a tad more interested in
avoiding such patrols than tracking them.  But in any case, once we're
south of Stinking Lake, we can beeline for the haunted canyons of La
Mesa de los Viejos, and what the hell, would you be tracking a wicked
witch into chindi country if you believed in either witches or haunts
that could kill you with a dirty look?"

She said she hoped he was right, but asked if they could screw at least
one more time before they wound up as chindis themselves.

He was willing.  Most men would have been.  But he suggested they do it
dog-style this time, so he could keep an eye on that smoke-talk from an
upright kneeling position just in case.

She thought that was a grand notion, and gave him back his lit cheroot
as she rolled over on her hands and knees.  So he gripped the smoke
between his grinning teeth and got a good grip on Kinipai's bare brown
hips to pound her hard from behind in the cool ridgetop breeze.
Meanwhile, off to the west, others were whipping wet blankets or
deerskins on and off smoldering piles of green brush to dot the blue sky
with white puffs.

He knew it would only upset the gal he was dog-styling if he told her
there were three sets of smoke signals now.  It unsettled him enough as
he tried to read their meaning.  The new smoke was rising more to the
south, not too close, but in line with the very direction he'd been
planning on heading as soon as it seemed safe to move out.

As she arched her spine to take him deeper, Kinipai moaned, "Hear me!  I
don't want them to kill you too.  I think you should make a run for the
Chama Valley alone.  I do not think they would attack you if they saw
you were not helping a condemned witch!"

To which Longarm could only reply, "Neither do I.  But we get out of
this together or nobody gets out at all, you pretty little thing."


Chapter 5


They spent the day smoking, screwing, eating canned beans and tomato
preserves, but mostly talking.  Longarm wound up learning more about
Jicarilla medicine ways, or witchcraft, than he'd have ever bothered
looking up in any library.  But he listened tight because you just never
knew when some bit of useless information could come in handy.

Kinipai confirmed what he'd already thought about the Jicarilla being as
close to Navaho as the other official Apache nations.  The Mexicans to
begin with, and the Anglos coming afterwards, had accepted the Pueblo
classification of Na-dene-speaking strangers who'd never known they were
different nations. "Apache" came from the Pueblo word for any sort of
enemy.  The Jicarilla qualified as Apache by hunting and raiding a tad
closer to the Zuni and Tanoan pueblos down the east slopes of the
Continental Divide.  "Navaho"or "Navajo," the Mexican term came from the
Pueblo word for a cornfield, Navaho.  But none of the Na-dene involved
gave a damn.  The ones who were an inconvenient distance away for
raiding corncribs had gotten captives to show them how to grow their
own.  The so-called Navaho had raided with almost as much glee until Kit
Carson and the U.S. Cavalry, with some field artillery tagging along,
had shown them the error of their ways back in '67.  The Jicarilla had
gone on raising hell as late as '73, making them Apache raiders instead
of the domesticated Navaho.  But Kinipai seemed to talk the same way
about the same spirits as a friendly Navaho gal he'd met up with a spell
back over in the Four Corners country.  But when he allowed he'd heard
that the Chiji, as they called Chiricahua, worshipped White-Painted
Woman instead of the Navahos' Changing Woman, the condemned witch
laughed and told him his kind wrote things down silly.

She explained, or tried to, that neither term was exactly what an Indian
meant in evoking the friendly Holy One known to them as Asdza Nadle'he,
or Asdza Nadle'che.

When he said both names sounded much the same to him, she smiled and
said, "The Chiji speak with a different ... accent?  When white eyes
with pencils come to put down the names of the Holy Ones on paper, my
people try, but the words do not come out the same in English.  I wish I
could explain this better, but I can't, even though I have been taught
both ways of speaking."

Longarm nodded.  "I follow your drift.  Sort of.  A French Canadian once
assured me the worst thing you can call somebody in French is a camel, a
critter with a hump on its back and an evil disposition.  But try as she
might, and speaking English almost as good as me, she just couldn't say
why it was dirtier to call a Frenchman a camel than, say, a dog or pig.
She said those were insults too.  But nothing to compare with 'camel.'"

Kinipai nodded.  "When one of my people is so cross that killing would
not be enough, he may say, 'Yil tsa hockali!'  And if anyone has one
shred of honor, they must kill him for cursing them that dirty.  Yet
there is no way to translate the curse into English, Spanish, or even
Zuni.  You have to be N'd and think N'de to understand the terrible
thing that's been said about you."

He nodded.  "Son of a bitch loses a lot of its bite in Spanish too.  We
were talking about Changing Woman?"

She said, "Asdza Nadle'he, or Asdza Nadle'che, is the mother of the Hero
Twins who killed all those evil spirits, and sees that all things change
as they should change, from birth to death.  Her name can be written
down in English as Changing Woman or White-Painted Woman if you change
one sound a little.  Our tongue is not easy for others to learn.  Your
tongue is as simple as baby talk.  A pony is always called a pony,
whether someone is riding it or not, whether it is in sight or off on
the range somewhere.  Do you wonder that sometimes we have a hard time
explaining why we have to fight your people, whether you can see why we
are cross with you or not?"

He had to admit his own kind had managed to get mighty cross with others
speaking the same lingo.  But that war he'd run off to once was water
under the bridge now too.  So along about noon, seeing those smoke
signals didn't seem to be rising to the west anymore, he got dressed and
carried the nose bags and his Winchester back down to the creek.

Nobody bothered him as he filled them and lugged them back upslope to
the tethered ponies, while wishing they were mules.  For though it
wasn't too hot and dry that afternoon, horseflesh still needed far more
water than either human beings or mules did.

As he was putting the nose bags back on the two ponies, Kinipai came
over bare-ass to tell him it seemed dumb to take such chances.  She said
both brutes were N'de ponies who didn't get watered as often as the fat
pets of his kind.

He said, "I've an extra shirt in my saddlebags.  We'd best see how it
fits you if I'm not to spend the whole fool day with a hard-on.  As to
fat pet ponies, I'll tell you a dirty little secret of the U.S. Cav if
you promise not to tell your treacherous Apache pals."

As she said with a sigh, she had no friends among her own people,
Longarm moved over to the grounded roping saddle to rustle up that pale
blue workshirt, saying, "All that guff about noble Indian steeds in
those Street and Smith dime novels by Ned Buntline is off the mark by a
country mile.  Us white eyes don't worry about stud books, horseshoes,
and proper care because we're stupid.  We invented horsebackriding, long
before the first Indian ever saw the first horse on this side of the
main ocean."

He handed her the shirt, and Kinipai put it on, saying, "Oh, this is so
pretty, it is blue as the hair of Turquoise Woman.  But hear me, I still
say our ponies are tougher than your ponies!"

He showed her how to button up as he dryly observed, "Let's hope we can
keep your boys from tangling on horseback with those troopers at Fort
Marcy, then.  Your boys can hide amid the rimrocks just fine on their
glorified billy goats.  But no Indian pony can outrun a real horse on
open ground.  Do you know how many Pony Express riders the Indians ever
caught up with between Omaha and Sacramento?  None.  Not a single sissy,
oat-fed pony.  The company lost one rider, arrowed in the back as he
rode through an ambush.  But his pony, and the mail, got through.  It
was the transcontinental telegraph that finished off the Pony Express.
This Jicarilla riding stock I got off your agency police would make an
army remount sergeant cry, but they're in better shape than your average
grass-fed Indian pony.  So if we baby 'em just a tad more, they might
just save our lives in a running gunfight.  You do know how to shoot a
pistol, don't you?"

She sniffed and said of course.  So he got out the double derringer he
usually packed in his more formal tweed vest and unsnapped it from his
watch chain, saying, "We'll have to figure some way for you to pack
this.  I know; we can use one of my spare socks as a sash, and you'll
not only show less ass in that shirt when the wind blows, but you'll
have a handy place to pack a gun.  Mind you don't lose it, and expect it
to kick like a mule if you really have to fire it."

She seemed more delighted by that kind offer than by the magical blue
shirt.  He cinched her up, and when they found they could improvise a
sort of holster from one toe and the hole in the sock's heel, he issued
her some spare cartridges and showed her how to reload the simple
two-shot belly gun.

Then, seeing how friendly all this had made her feel, they both took off
all their duds to get friendlier on that blanket for quite a spell.
They even managed some sleep, taking turns on guard.  And then it was
dark again and they ate more canned grub, watered their ponies and
grazed them a mite nearer that creek, and mounted up to move on.

They followed the mostly north-and-south grain of the mountains, and
made good time by moonlight.  When the sun rose again they were south of
Stinking Lake, after circling the fair-sized and not-all-that-smelly
body of water in the wee small hours, when the Jicarilla camped around
it had been trying to sleep and not listen to the owls all around.

Kinipai, being more educated than most of her kith and kin, was only
scared, rather than terrified, whenever a screech owl cut loose in the
timber they were riding through.  Owl was one of the totems of Mister
Death.  When he asked Kinipai if she'd ever really heard any owl calling
out somebody's name, she demurely replied, "Of course not.  Only the
person Owl is calling can hear Owl pronouncing his or her name.  If I'd
ever heard Owl calling my name, we wouldn't be talking about Owl like
this.  I'd be dead and you'd be talking to my chindi!"

Then she assured him that if ever she met up with him as a haunt she'd
try to remember they'd been pals.  She didn't know whether chindi gals
got to spare old pals or not.  She said she'd never been one or talked
to one.  He had to agree a chindi might not talk or think like a real
live gal.

An owl who wouldn't quit as the sky pearled ever lighter led Longarm to
a swell campsite in blackjack oaks on a rocky rise.  But Kinipai didn't
cotton to their avian neighbors at all.

The owl kept screeching because it had holed up for the day close to a
crow rookery, and the crows were mobbing it with some mighty noisy
remarks of their own.  But when he explained the natural noises to the
Jicarilla gal, she said Crow was almost as wicked a spirit as Owl.  She
naturally meant the "were-crow" ogre of her nation's religion.  She knew
the big black birds mobbing that real owl were only critters.  But she
said they still gave her the creeps as he insisted on making camp under
nearby trees.

He told her that was the reason they were doing it.  He figured none of
her own folk would want to poke around close to owl or crows without an
urgent reason, and he'd been careful about the path they'd been riding
over slickrock and gravel.

By the time they'd tended the ponies and spread his bedroll upwind
between two boulders, that owl had given up and flapped off to a quieter
neighborhood with the crows calling insults after it.  Longarm opened
one of their last cans of beans as he asked an expert on the subject
what she'd think if she heard an owl hooting in broad daylight with no
crows as an excuse.

Her sloe eyes widened as she stammered, "I would run away, as fast as I
was able, before I heard it call my name!  Everyone knows only Real Owl
could behave in a way Changing Woman hadn't meant all living things to
act.  Why are we talking about the Holy Ones?  Don't you want to ravage
me anymore?"

Longarm chuckled and said, "Let's eat first.  I can give a fair
imitation of an owl.  You know how country boys fool around as they're
growing up around critters.  So what you're saying is that if I hooted
at some Jicarilla heading this way to gather acorns or-"

"Nobody gathers the acorns of this sort of oak," she said with a wry
expression.  "They are bitter, bitter."

He said, "I know.  Try some of these beans.  My point is that I'd as
soon not hurt or even swap harmless shots with any already peed-off
Jicarilla during the current political crisis."

She dug into the beans with two fingers and handed the can back as he
continued.  "I don't want either of us getting killed by them, either.
So any edge I can come up with might prove useful."

She washed down her beans with canteen water, and pointed out it was his
grand notion to play tag with her people inside the reservation line.

He nodded and said, "I know where we are.  Wasn't planning on a longer
stay.  We're almost due west of that mesa on the far side of the Rio
Chama. One beeline after dark ought to see us there.  I ain't sure
you're socially presentable to the Mex settlers along the bottomlands
between, no offense.  It ain't that you look more Indian than a heap of
Mestizo Mexicans, now that we've washed your pretty face.  But I wish we
had more seemly duds for you to wear.  I'll allow that shirt of mine
fits your bitty figure like a nightgown, but you still show a heap of
leg on or off a pony.  I wish I knew somebody in the Chama Valley well
enough for a late-night visit and the loan of a more Mexican-looking
outfit for you."

She scooped more beans from the can in turn as she thought hard and
finally said, "I have a distant kinswoman who married a Nakaih she met
off the reservation one time.  It is the custom of our people to live
near the bride's mother.  But this one's mother would have nothing to do
with a son-in-law who was not a real person, and for some reason he
didn't wish to dwell among N'de either.  So they now live on a Nakaih
rancho, where he works as a herder of the owner's cows."

Longarm washed down the last of their slim breakfast with the same
canteen, and got out a smoke to share as he asked whether Kinipai's
kinswoman was likely to know she was a condemned witch.

She said she doubted it, since that N'de gal who'd married a Mexican had
converted to the Papist Way and been written off as a lost soul by both
her kin and the BIA.  Indians who drew BIA allotments had to be numbered
and listed on government rolls.  Indians who went wild again after
applying for BIA handouts were listed as renegades.  But Indians who
simply gave up acting either way and preferred to live as natural as
anyone else were simply crossed off, as if they'd died.

As Longarm lit their cheroot the pretty Jicarilla allowed she'd hoped to
enjoy a smoke with him afterward.

He told her, "We got a whole twelve hours or more to kill up here.  It's
best to study on other notions while you've got them on your mind.
Might you know where this rancho your long-lost relation lives on might
be?"

She said, "I've never been there, of course.  But somebody told us it
was too close to those old Anasazi ruins for comfort.  I think they said
they branded their cattle with a drawing of one of those big straw hats
Nakaih wear.  But it was upside down, like so."

He watched as she traced a fingernail in the dust between her upraised
bare feet.  He said, "That could be meant as a simplified sombero upside
down, or a chongo-horned cow's head, right side up.  Mexican brands are
more artistic than our own."

She said that was the best she could do.

He said, "It has to be one or the other, and I speak enough Mexican to
ask once we get down where it's safer to talk to folks on open range.
Do you reckon your kinswoman's Mexican husband would take you in for a
few days if we asked politely?"

The Na-dene gal looked sincerely puzzled.  "What would he have to say
about it?  A man can ask his asdza to offer food and shelter to his own
friends.  But everyone knows she has the final say."

Then she scowled and demanded, "Why do you want to leave me alone among
Nakaih strangers?  I knew you were tired of me after all the nice things
you said about my body!  You men are all alike.  You go through life
like that wicked Holy One, Begochidi!  You grab us poor trusting things
by our privates when we least expect it, then you run away crying,
'Bego!  Bego!' as if you had done something brave!"

He handed her the cheroot.  "Folks who say your kind and mine have
nothing in common have surely never played slap-and-tickle with a lady
of either persuasion.  I ain't tired of screwing you, honey lamb.  I
just don't want to have to worry about another backside they might shoot
at as I poke about those canyons on the far side of the Chama Valley.  I
told you why I'd been sent down this way to scout them, remember?"

The tawny little gal began to unbutton the front of his borrowed blue
shirt as she lay back on the summer-cured grass between those rocks,
replying mockingly, "I thought it was just to see me.  Do you like what
you see, Belagana Hastin?"

Most men would have, as she spread her chunky thighs wide in the dappled
morning sunlight.  For while all such sights were inspiring, some were
prettier than others.  She said she admired his dong too, when he
dropped his jeans to show it was already hard.

So the day would have passed quite enjoyably, had they had just a tad
more to eat as they screwed, smoked, and lazed the sunlit hours away.
Then it was dark enough to move on, so they did, both ponies a bit balky
now, and their own rumps feeling less rested than usual.

It was still fairly early after moonrise.  So the other riders they
heard first could have been on less pressing business than
witch-hunting.  But as the riders were moving past the cottonwood grove
Longarm and the girl were hiding in, that blamed police buckskin
neighed, inspiring the Indians in the middle distance to rein in and
discuss the situation.

Longarm could only cock his Winchester and hope for the best for now.
But Kinipai naturally understood what those old boys were saying about
odd noises in the dark.  So she suddenly let loose with what Longarm
considered a rusty imitation of a great horned owl.

He said so with a chuckle as the Indians lit out at full gallop.  When
he told her she'd have never fooled any West-by-God-Virginia
ridge-runners with such odd hootings, she demurely explained that she
hadn't been trying to imitate any old owl.  She said she'd heard one of
them call another by name. So she'd wondered what they might do if Owl
called out that name.

He laughed harder and said he'd always thought she was smart as a
button. She sighed and said, "I've picked up some terrible habits since
I met you. Pretending to be a Holy One is as bad as burning pollen.  Our
Pueblo enemies hold dance ways where masked elders act out the parts of
their spirits.  But I was taught by my uncle how disrespectful that
would be to our own Holy Ones. I don't know how I shall ever be pure
enough to conduct any blessing ways now!"

He said, "I don't see how, either.  No offense, but ain't you in the
position of one of those Salem witch women, if she'd got away and run
off to live with the Mohegans or Pequoit?"

She didn't know what he was talking about.  That didn't surprise him.
He said, "I mean that, seeing you've been drummed out of your old
chanters' guild as a tried and convicted witch, your best bet now would
be a total change of position."

She said she liked some of the positions he'd taught her.

He laughed and said, "For Pete's sake, we're both dressed and on
horseback.  So pay attention.  I've had this same conversation with a
heap of disgruntled folks of various nations.  I'm sorry as hell about
that wrong turn Columbus took on his way to India, but he took it, and
you folks wound up Indians, whether you wanted to be or not, at least as
long as you kept on behaving like Indians."

She pouted.  "Hear me, what is wrong with the way my N'de people behave?
We have always been this way, ever since Spider Woman showed us the way
to these sunny lands from the dark caves we used to live in."

He said, "That ain't true.  Your own Changing Woman tells you that
nothing stays the same, without changing, unless it's dead, and even the
dead keep changing, sort of disgustingly, until nothing's left."

She said she wouldn't know about that, having been taught from her
girlhood to avoid the dead and to speak about them as seldom as
possible.

He shrugged and said, "I got to see more of dead boys in blue and gray
at more than one battleground back East.  So I see why a Jicarilla who
didn't have to watch 'em bloat up and turn all sorts of ugly colors
might not want to.  My point was that living folks can cling to their
old ways after their old ways don't work no more, or they can follow
Changing Woman's advice and take up ways that do work.  That kinswoman
living Mexican on that ranch we're looking for ain't being asked to move
clean down to the Tularosa Agency against her will.  She's likely
eating, drinking, sleeping, and so on as good or better than she ever
did.  And meanwhile, there's no BIA agent telling her to line up and
sound off her allotment number."

Kinipai protested, "Hear me, she's no longer N'de since she wed that
stranger and accepted the strange ways of his cruel Holy Ones, the Mary
Mother, who was not able to save her only son as Changing Woman saved
the Hero Twins, and the Jesus Chindi, whose medicine failed to protect
him from his enemies and whom even his followers call a dead man's
chindi!"

Longarm dryly observed, "'Holy Ghost' don't sound as spooky.  I ain't
out to convert an Apache witch to the Santa Fe, as the Mexican call
their Holy Faith.  I know this fullblood Arapaho family running a
tolerable cattle spread up near Pikes Peak.  Lord only knows who or what
they pray to after dark.  But in daylight they're taken for regular
cattle folk with some Indian blood. Meanwhile nobody makes 'em fill out
forms or sends the cavalry after them every time they order a beer after
a hard day in the saddle."

She said, "I could never live like a pindah lickoyee!  Could you learn
to live like a N'de if things were different and we were the ones who
had won?"

Longarm shrugged.  "I'd have to, wouldn't I?  Given the choice of living
as a grown man with longer hair and a different supper menu, or being
kept as a sort of combination charity ward and museum exhibit, unless I
aimed to run off and get shot up by the Fourth Na-dene Cav, I reckon I'd
as soon adjust enough to get by."

Then he said, "It's up to you.  I picked my race with more care before I
let myself be born.  Meanwhile we'd best get off the range of your
superior kith and kin before they kill us both in some fine old
traditional way you'd never want them to forsake."

She protested she didn't approve of all the customs of her own kind.
Just the nicer beliefs, like Changing Woman, White-Shell Woman, or
Rainbow Boy.  She said she'd never be able to give up all her N'de ways.

Longarm said, "Let's ride.  I'll teach you another way my own kind
follow behind Queen Victoria's back.  I reckon we could call it the
Hypocrisy Way. Mighty strong medicine a heap of our own gals find mighty
useful.  I'm sure a paid-up witch could learn it in no time."


Chapter 6


Folks who didn't know many Mexicans with steady jobs tended to feel they
were lazy because they took that long siesta in the heat of a sunny
afternoon. Longarm knew they made up for La Siesta with a shorter spell
of sleep at night.  So he wasn't surprised when they rode down on a
Mexican quartet stringing bobwire by the dawn's most early light.  Their
English-speaking boss didn't seem too delighted by the sight of an armed
Anglo and obvious Apache coming at him off the Jicarilla reserve.  But
he'd been raised by a mama of quality.  So he said, "Buendias.  We are
not stringing this drift wire too close to the reservation line, one
hopes?"

Longarm agreed they were at least a couple of furlongs east of the line,
and explained they were looking for a spread that branded with either an
inverted sombero or a cabeza de vaca chongo.

The boss looked relieved, and said they'd guessed right with the
cow-skull brand.  He said they were looking for the Alvera spread, and
gave them simple directions that made Longarm cuss under his breath.
For while only a total shit would abandon such a sweet pal on foot with
so far to walk, getting Kinipai to her literally distant kin was going
to cost him almost a full day out of his way.

But pissing and moaning about that wasn't going to get them there any
quicker, so he thanked the fence crew and rode on.  Longarm had no call
to ask them why they were stringing wire on public land.  It would have
only been rude to talk about reasons why no vaquero wanted to hunt for
stray Mexican stock on Apache range with talk of an Apache uprising in
the air.

Knowing the going would be easier up the east bank of the river because
there'd be fewer side branches, they worked their way down to the fairly
broad but mighty shallow Rio Chama to ford it.

Chama meant something like "brushwood" in Spanish, and Anglo settlers
who liked to sound smart were quick to assume El Rio Chama had gotten
such a name for the cottonwood, willow, and such along its floodplain.
But in point of fact an ancient Spanish explorer named Francisco
Chamuscado could have just as easily had that side branch of El Rio
Grande named after his fool self. Greenhorns were always leaping to
hasty conclusions about the West.  That was why they were called
greenhorns.  After a dozen or more years out this way Longarm wasn't so
certain he knew everything.

Once on the coach road up the far side, they had to ride the way they'd
just come, inside the reservation line.  Kinipai said she was sorry she
hadn't known her kinswoman had settled that far north.  He let her make
it up to him during a trail break, off the trail in some tall
rabbitbrush.

You saw far more rabbitbrush and wild mustard than bunchgrass and sage
when riding up a valley grazed by beef stock instead of the deer the
Jicarilla preferred to eat.  As the alien but lush golden mustard gave
way to more greasewood and tumbleweed, Longarm knew they were within
easy goatherding of some settlement.  The Indian gal thought it was
mighty spooky to see that much bare dust at that time of year.

They found the small but thriving trail town of Vado Seguro to be a
cattle ford and market town used by both Anglo and Mexican settlers off
the surrounding spreads.  There were parts of Texas where you might see
one breed refusing to drink with the other.  But Anglos and Mexicans got
along better in New Mexico Territory, having far more in common with
each other than with the considerable Indian population, which ranged
from hostile through barely civil, with none of them anxious to dance
with your gal or vice versa.

Longarm didn't need the odd looks Kinipai was attracting as they rode in
to inspire him to rein in near the market and buy her a frilly cotton
blouse, a wraparound skirt of floral-print calico, and a pair of
woven-leather zapatas to replace the moccasin boots she'd been stripped
of.  Her tough brown feet had about recovered from those ant bites by
this time, and she seemed delighted as the elderly Mexican gal they'd
bought them from showed her how to lace the zapatas to her trim ankles.

Longarm also bought her a small gilt cross on a fake golden chain.  He
wasn't just being a sport.  Lots of folks, Anglo or Mexican, thought you
could tell a Mex senorita of Indian blood from a plain old Indian by
such tokens of La Santa Fe.  Few of them knew how many Indians used the
same cross as a medicine symbol, usually representing a star or the four
mystical directions.

Kinipai had learned enough about outsider ways while learning English at
a mission school she'd never wanted to go to, to grasp the symbolism of
a cross with one leg a tad longer.  She fussed at him while they were
enjoying a warm sit-down meal of chili con carne and tamales near the
livery, where he'd paid some kids to curry and water their ponies while
they cooled off and ate some genuine oats as reward for a job half-done.

Seated at the blue-painted table under an awning, Kinipai said she could
see their colored waiter took her for a fairly prosperous Mexican gal
with new shoes.  But she said it made her feel funny, as if she was
telling her own kind they weren't good enough to hang about with
anymore.

He washed down some lava-stuffed tamale with strong black coffee and
quietly observed, "It was them who decided you weren't the kind of gal
they wanted blessing them the old-timey way, Kinipai.  We live in
changing times, as Miss Changing Woman warned you long ago.  You can't
go back to the Dulce Agency.  They drummed you out of your old regiment
under a sentence of death. It's as simple as that."

She protested, "This food tastes funny.  These fine clothes you just
bought me are pretty, pretty, but they are not the sort of clothes I am
used to wearing, and I feel as if I am wearing my way-chanting mask,
even though my face is naked, naked!"

Longarm smiled fondly and said, "Hold that thought until I can hire us a
room here in town for La Siesta.  I like you naked all over, and there's
no sense pushing on through the heat of the day just to find everyone in
bed when we get there."

She fluttered her lashes and said, "I like to get naked with you, even
though you are not a real person.  Do you think real people at some
other agency would take me in if I went there instead of that rancho my
cousin lives on?"

Longarm shrugged and said, "The Mescalero are fixing to get marched over
to the Arizona Desert.  The Chiricahua are as likely as your own
Jicarilla to jump their reserve and give the army an excuse to scratch
'em off the government dole.  I've spent enough time with your Navaho
cousins to tell you they're as enthusiastic about hunting witches as the
Jicarilla witch-hunters we just saved you from.  So I'd say you had the
choice betwixt conforming like a new recruit to the mighty strict
traditions of strange Na-dene, or to the less strict Mexican ways.  I
understand from Papist pals that you can get along with a heap of fun as
long as you don't rob the poor box or insult a priest to his face."

She had to smile at that picture, but insisted, "Hear me, I could never
forsake Changing Woman, Rainbow Boy, or Child of the Waters for strange
Holy Ones.  Why do you white eyes make it so hard for us to go on living
the way we were meant to live?"

To which Longarm dryly replied, "Meant to live how, by whom?  I've told
you I've had this dumb conversation before.  There's as many ways to
live Indian as there is to live white-eyed.  Some of your kind may go on
living much the same, with trading-post luxuries thrown in.  A Woodland
Cree trapping furs the way his granddad did has a lot in common with any
other fur trapper, save for mayhaps being better at it than some of us."

He tried some more chili and continued.  "The Pueblo farm folks you poor
misunderstood Apache used to raid may be better off these days.  My kind
savvies any halfway sensible-acting cuss with a permanent address and
irrigated croplands marked by boundaries anyone of goodwill can agree
on. Your Navaho cousins have even managed to switch from raiding to
sheepherding with some success.  Their blankets, clay pottery, and
coin-silver jewelry command fair prices at the trading posts, and it
ain't as if anyone's asking them to pay rent or taxes as they find newer
ways to live like ... Indians, I reckon.  I know they don't live like
your kind or mine these days."

She curled her pretty lip and sneered, "Hear me, we real people no
longer consider those sheepherding blanket salesmen N'de!"

He said, "That's all right.  The folks we call Navaho call themselves
Dend.  They think your ways are sort of dumb too.  Can't you see none of
the warrior-way nations can go on acting the way they used to?  Nobody
is pestering the Ojibwa as they go on gathering wild rice the same as
ever.  It's the swaggering horse thieves and buffalo hunters the Ojibway
themselves named Nadowiesiu or Sioux that you see moping and weeping
about the Shining Times they enjoyed at the expense of Ojibwa, Pawnee,
and others raising crops instead of hair."

She sulked.  "Hear me, my people never took scalps before your people
taught them that trick."

Longarm snorted.  "I know, it says in the Good Book how them Romans
scalped Jesus, and everybody knows the English scalped Joan of Arc and
anyone else they didn't like.  King Henry scalped at least two wives,
and the Spanish Inquisition was scalping folks right and left years
after other Spaniards had been exploring on this side of the main ocean.
Finish that coffee and wake up, girl.  There's blame enough to go
around.  I'll allow some of our boys have been mean as hell if you'll
admit nobody ever named your kind Apache because they came by in a sled
giving presents to good little boys and girls."

To her credit, she seemed to study some on what he'd just said as they
finished their plates and he ordered more coffee and some tuna pie.  You
made tuna pie with candied cactus fruit, not fish.  Kinipai said she
liked tuna pie, and allowed that at least some of her own kind had been
a tad unreasonable of late.  He asked her again if she thought the
Jicarilla would jump the reserve or go quietly when the time came for
them to move down to that Tularosa Agency.

She shrugged the brown shoulders partly exposed by her new Mexican
blouse and said, "I hope those fools who wanted to kill me fight the
blue sleeves. It will serve them right to be butchered by the medicine
guns some say the blue sleeves have now.  Have you heard about those
medicine guns that piss bullets forever in a steady stream?"

Longarm nodded.  "We call 'em Gatling guns.  Custer was offered a
battery of Gatlings to back his brag back in the summer of '76, but he
was in too much of a hurry, or too proud.  General Sherman will
doubtless send mountain artillery into your Jicarilla mountain
strongholds too, if push comes to shove.  So if I was one of your chiefs
I reckon I'd go along with old General Sherman."

She sighed.  "That was why I was trying to chant another Night Way when
they stopped me.  The blue sleeves are too strong for us to fight.
Victorio and those others who came out this summer are all going to be
killed without gaining anything, anything.  General Sherman is the one
who said the only good Indian was a dead Indian, right?"

Longarm said, "That was General Sheridan.  But you won't find him and
old Billy Sherman in too much disagreement if he finds himself fighting
extra Apache this summer.  Finish your pie and let's go find us a place
to resume our own hostilities, you good little Indian!"


Chapter 7


They made it to El Rancho Alvera by suppertime.  It was just as well
Kinipai had tasted more interesting Mexican food.  For the tortillas and
refritos whipped up by her former Jicarilla kinswoman had hardly any
taste at all.

Despite the half-ass Mexican ways of their hefty older hostess, she
greeted them both like long-lost Jicarilla kin, and the two gals babbled
like brooks at high water in the melodious but odd lingo they'd been
raised to speak.

Other Indians had assured Longarm nobody who hadn't been raised Na-dene
would ever speak the language past the baby-talk level.  Almost all the
tongues spoken by the rest of the folks on the North American continent
followed an entirely contrary grammar and general view of the world.  So
it was not surprising how much a keen observer could follow while, say,
two Dutchmen, Greeks, or Shoshoni were talking.  For most folks spoke
with similar facial expressions and hand gestures that helped if you
could pick out one word in a dozen.

Na-dene wasn't built that way.  To begin with, as Kinipai had attempted
to explain, a slight change of sound could turn a changing woman into a
white-painted woman.  And they did that with all their words, turning
one thing into another with, say, an m instead of an n, or even worse,
by using more than one word to describe what a white man, or most other
Indians, would consider the same blamed thing.  So just as you learned
to call a coyote ma'i, some fool Na-dene gal would giggle and tell you
you should have said "atse hacke," and if you protested that that came
out more like "first warrior" than "coyote," she'd look at you as if
you'd just wet your jeans, and insist that everyone knew it meant coyote
also.

In addition, their facial expressions and hand signals were just odd
enough to make a stranger guess wrong about half the time.  If the army
ever had another war with the Apache, those Apache scouts working for
the Signal Corps would doubtless come in handy.  For nobody else could
make an educated guess as to what in blue blazes the Apache had just
yelled or signed down the line.

Ramon, the fat, easygoing Mexican married up with Kinipai's distant
cousin, agreed that Apache gossip was a caution as he and Longarm jawed
in Spanish over coffee and tobacco.  Ramon seemed surprised that Longarm
wasn't planning to stay the night, if not a month or more.  But Longarm
had no call to flash his badge and identification at anyone who hadn't
asked to see either, and with good reason.  So he let it go when Ramon
said he'd heard a lot of Anglo gunhands seemed to be drifting in from
all over down near La Mesa de los Viejos.  When Longarm asked if anyone
up this way had any notion what was going on down that way, the Mexican
looked a tad uneasy and said he tried not to concern himself with
matters that didn't concern him or his raza.

Longarm took advantage of a certain cooling off on the part of his host
to say he had some riding to do and had best get it on down the road so
he'd have a head start once the moon rose.  Kinipai was the only one
there who begged him to stay a while longer.  She followed him outside
so he could kiss her in the soft light of the gloaming and assure her
he'd never in this world screw any other gal on this particular rancho
should he ever pass this way again.  He figured she was trying to make
him feel possessive when she demurely mentioned that her Jicarilla
kinswoman was out to fix her up with a vaquero who was three-quarters
Indian.  But it might have rubbed her the wrong way if he'd told her
that sounded like her smartest move at the moment.

He went back over to the stable to find that, just as Ramon had
promised, those two police ponies had been rubbed down, watered, and fed
enough cracked corn to see them through the night and get them by for a
day or more on such browse as he might find for them when he made day
camp again.

But as he was saddling the paint, the tall drink of water in gray charro
duds whom Longarm had already been introduced to as the segundo, or
foreman of the spread, caught up with the slightly taller deputy to tell
him he was wanted over at the casa grande.

Longarm nodded and let the segundo lead the way, aware how rude some
might take his riding on and off the property without saying a word to
El Patron in the flesh.

Don Heman Alvera y Moreno was a severely friendly old gent with a gray
spade beard.  He was seated on his veranda in a wicker chair and a clean
but rumpled white linen suit.  He waved Longarm to another seat across a
small marble table piled with tapa snacks and a pitcher of iced punch
and got right to the point.  "They told me you had ridden in with an
Apache, wearing a double-action with tailored grips.  If you are
searching for work as ...  a man of action, I am prepared to pay five
Yanqui dollars a day with private quarters and all you and your mujer
Apache can eat."

Longarm smiled and accepted the tumbler of punch the older man poured
for him as he said, "Miss Kinipai ain't my mujer, Don Heman.  We met up
along the trail from Dulce, and I escorted her this far to visit with
her own kin, La Senora Robles.  As for my needing a job, I find your
offer right handsome. But I've already made other plans and, no offense,
I'd like to make her down by La Mesa de los Viejos by morning."

The old ranchero exchanged glances with his segundo, who said he had to
get back to his own chores and drifted off in the tricky sunset light.
Then Don Heman said sadly, "I might have guessed you were one of those
hombres."

Longarm put his tumbler back on the table and mildly asked what those
hombres were supposed to be up to.

The dignified old Mexican looked as awkward as his mestizo cowhand with
the Apache woman had looked.  He shrugged and softly replied, "Quien
sabe?  It is best to vote the straight party ticket and not question
Anglo political developments in Santa Fe, no?"

Longarm said, "I thought the Santa Fe Ring had been broken up by your
new governor, General Wallace."

The old-timer cocked a bushy gray brow.  "I am certain he can walk on
water and raise the dead as well.  They say he is an authority on La
Biblia, and lesser miracles are more possible than breaking up that gang
of ... Never mind.  You and your friends have nothing to fear from a
harmless old greaser who simply wishes to be left in peace on mostly
rocky barren range, eh?"

Longarm thought, then made a decision.  "There's always going to be at
least a modest courthouse gang around any administration elected by
mortal voters.  But surely the clique of lawmen, lawyers, and judges
over in Santa Fe can't be getting away with the sort of things the
earlier bunch under Grant got away with.  I heard even U. S. Grant put
down his booze and ordered an investigation after the New Mexico Guard
sided with land-grabbers out to evict old land-grant families such as
your own.  Grant had his faults as a president, but he did fight in a
war that was ended by that Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo, which said-"

"I know how the treaty conceding my own land to me reads!" the old
Mexican said sharply, before adding in a dryer tone, "I was here as an
hombre about your age at the time.  Es verdad I have not been called
upon to defend my family's land grant in court since your miraculous Lew
Wallace replaced our ... less formal Santa Fe machine.  But those same
guardsmen, along with federal troops, have taken sides in such
discussions of land title as that Lincoln County War to the southeast,
no?"

Longarm said, "No.  Wallace offered a blanket pardon to all the
gunslicks on both sides and sent in the troops to make sure nobody
started up again.  I know some say the McSween side got the short end of
that stick.  Others say it was dumb to go on fighting after a whole new
crew of lawmen had been appointed with orders to throw cold water on
both growly dogs.  Be that as it may, despite some hurt feelings,
Wallace ended the Lincoln County War once and for all, with both sides
sincerely sorry they'd ever started it.  You say you've had the same
sort of bully-boy tactics up this way, Don Heman?"

The ranchero shrugged.  "I said nobody has tried to rob us with
trumped-up charges that our title to this grant is mythical and hence
open to more blue-eye claimants under your Homestead Act of 1862.
Perhaps now the politicos who concern themselves with such matters are
selling chances for to steal land from the Indians.  You know, of
course, how much of northern New Mexico is still Indian land and ...
For why am I telling this to an Anglo who is no doubt laughing at an
ignorant greaser, eh?"

Longarm said he hardly ever called gents he was drinking punch with
greasers.  But he got the impression his words were falling on deaf
ears.  So he repeated what he'd said about getting it on down the road,
and nobody tried to stop him when he rose, excused himself, and ambled
back across the swept-dirt central yard to the 'dobe stable.

There, finding himself alone with the riding stock, he finished saddling
the paint and led both horses out under the purple sky to mount up and
ride back the way he and Kinipai had come.  Not even a cur dog saw him
off.

A man could get the impression folks just didn't trust him, with Apache
in an uncertain mood close by in one direction, and canyons full of
other Anglo strangers up to Lord only knows what down the other way.

The ponies were rested and the balmy night was just right for man or
beast.  So he started out at a mile-eating trot, which was more
comfortable for his mount than himself.  Cavalry and cowhands trotted
more than fashionable dudes hunting foxes.  That was why both cavalry
and stock saddles came with stirrups slung low enough for a rider to
stand in and let the saddle hammer thin air instead of his balls while
his pony bounced along at an easy trot.

He'd stocked up on more canned trail goods and tobacco earlier that day
in Vado Seguro, so he had no call to ride back through the small trail
town as he approached it some hours later by moonlight.

If there was one way for a stranger to be noticed in a small trail town,
it would have to be riding in just as the card games and drinking had
narrowed down to the regulars who'd known one another a spell.  So
Longarm circled the settlement through the hillside chaparral and rode
on and then some, until he figured he was just south of where he and
Kinipai had crossed the river much earlier.

He was already starting to feel wistful about the friendly little witch
woman.  But that wasn't why he reined in a furlong on.  The paint he was
riding was acting mighty odd under him.

Horseflesh wasn't made right for puking.  A pony had to be sick as hell
to even try to vomit, and when it tried, the little it could get up came
out through its nostrils, which was dangerous as well as disgusting.
Neither horses nor mules can breathe through their mouths.  So what a
man, a dog, or a cat would call a stuffed-up nose could be a fatal
illness to a pony.

He reined off the riverside trail into stirrup-high rabbitbrush that for
them horses to browse as he uncinched his borrowed stock saddle and put
it aboard the buckskin, telling the paint he was sorry those Mexican
kids back at Rancho Alvera had apparently allowed it to cool off too
fast.

The paint just kept on retching, paying no attention to the brush that
every critter that ate leaves seemed to admire.  Then the buckskin
lowered its head and started gagging too!

Longarm led them both back to the road afoot, intending to rest them
both as the three of them strode along in the moonlight, with him
mulling over all the plagues and dyspepsias horseflesh was heir to.

They had plagues, the same as hogs and humans, but it was as odd to see
two ponies take sick at the same time, within minutes of one another, as
it would be to see two kids come down with the whooping cough while you
were reading them a bedtime story.  None of the other riding stock he'd
seen since getting off the train at the Dulce Agency had looked at all
out of sorts.  So what in thunder could have gotten into them?

The buckskin, the one he'd thought in better shape, suddenly snorted
odd-smelling vomit out both nostrils, tried to breathe in some more, and
failing that, went into convulsions at the other end of the reins
Longarm was holding.

That added up to a whole lot of contorted horseflesh, bucking and
kicking and flopping about on the trail like a big dusty trout he'd
hauled out of the nearby Rio Chama.  In the meantime the paint busted
loose, and might have run off if it hadn't been running in a series of
circles until it ran head-on into a trailside oak and wound up flopping
on its side like the poor buckskin.

Longarm let go of the reins, seeing they weren't doing a thing to
control either brute.  As the two of them kicked at nothing much and
writhed like wiggle worms caught by the sunrise on flagstones, Longarm
found some horse puke, hunkered down, and got some on one finger to
sniff at.

Horse puke, like cow puke, smelled oddly sweet to the human nose.  There
was something in the way grazing critters digested vegetables that made
the stuff smell like malted grain.  But when Longarm held a flickering
wax match near the vomit he could make out yellow corn, gray shreds of
oat, and what looked like fine red pepper.

"Rat poison!" he suddenly declared out loud.  At the same time the
buckskin, who'd showed the effects last, suddenly went limp and just lay
there in the moonlight like a big tawny beanbag.

Longarm drew his six-gun as he strode over to the writhing paint,
saying, "I can imagine how you must feel, you poor brute."  He dropped
to one knee, placed the muzzle of his .44-40 in the hollow above the
paint's left eye, and pulled the trigger.

He made sure the buckskin was as dead before he went about recovering
both bridles, the saddle, and his heavy but necessary trail supplies,
muttering, "They must have fed you ponies red squill by the sugar scoop
back yonder!"  Red squill is a well used rat poison by folks with kids
and pets to worry about because it only makes a kid, a cat, or a dog
puke like hell. Rodents, like ponies, can't throw up enough of the
poison to save themselves. "I wonder which sneaky Mexican back yonder
knew that much about ponies. There's no mystery as to who gave the
order, or why!"

Tying the two bridles to the saddlehorn, Longarm hefted the heavy roper
to one hip and morosely regarded the dead ponies by the light of a
silver moon.  They both lay too close to the public thoroughfare.
They'd spook hell out of any team or mounted pony coming up or down the
valley day or night. But he didn't see how he could move either far
enough to matter with just his one human back.

He got out a cheroot and lit up one-handed as he pondered his next move.
He was a good way from that trail town, a sure place to hire or, if need
be, buy more riding stock.  Those Mexican riders he and Kinipai had seen
stringing wire close to twenty-four hours back had surely been off some
stock spread closer to that place where they'd crossed the river.
Longarm decided it was worth trying a mile to the south, and trudged
that way, muttering, "Don Heman knew Ramon and at least two Apache gals
might get steamed if he had his segundo drygulch an Anglo they were on
good terms with.  So thinking I was some hired gun out to join up with
others, fixing to do Lord knows what down this same valley, he decided
to just rat-poison my ponies and leave me afoot whilst they ... what?"

Stranding a rider along the trail and making him walk for many a mile
was a sure way to make him mad as hell, which was doubtless why the
State of Colorado still hung horse thieves.  It was run by old-timers
who'd heard many a sad tale about long dusty strolls.  But Don Heman
would have surely known his dirty joke would leave Longarm alive.

He shifted the awkward load to his other hip as he clenched his cheroot
between bared teeth and growled, "Try her this way.  He didn't want to
kill a gringo close to home, but wanted him slowed down to an almost
stationary target for later!"

That had worked, ominously well.  Had he stopped in Vado Seguro the way
most riders might have, those two ponies would have appeared to have
taken sick and died on him while he was with the other Anglo riders in
the saloon.

"Hold on," he warned himself.  "Why couldn't you have simply gotten
other riding stock at the town livery?  Come to study on it, that town
livery could have had rat poison of its own to spare.  And you never
told them stable hands in Vado Seguro just how far you and La Senorita
might be riding.  So gunslicks of either the Mexican or Anglo
persuasion, coming up from them canyons after being sent for, could be
expecting to catch up with you and Kinipai any time now and a
considerable distance north of Rancho Alvera!"

He warned himself he could be playing chess while the other side was
simply playing mumblety-peg like mean little kids who couldn't even say
what made them so mean.  For like many an Anglo rider, or for that
matter many a Mexican, he'd strode through many a set of swinging doors
to find himself in a whole heap of trouble with assholes who were just
mean by nature and inclined to view a stranger of a different breed as a
personal insult just because he was still standing up.

Longarm decided to set his suspicions to the back of the stove until he
met up with a horse doctor who could hazard a guess as to how long it
took to rat-poison a pony.  For he was damned if he knew.

His load wasn't getting any lighter as he trudged on down the dark
lonesome road, with night critters scattering off to either side as he
made no effort to move quietly along the wagon ruts.  A sneaky walker
could get in a whole lot of trouble at snake time, the first few hours
after sundown.

He was even more worried about spooking beef stock.  His boots offered
some protection from snakebite, but the undiluted Spanish longhorn was
inclined to regard any human on foot as a target of opportunity, and
while the moon was shining bright, many a shadow in the middle distance
could well be a cow making up its mind to come tear-assing his way
without warning.  it was the female of the species that was more likely
to really kill you, since the bulls tended to charge straighter and with
their heads lower.

That was why Mexican matadors only fought bulls, and flat out refused to
consider fighting even a bull of any Anglo dairy breed.  They knew the
graceful fawn-colored Jersey milker, both male and female, had killed
more men, women, and children than all the other breeds combined.

He was glad most Mexicans drank goats' milk, and preferred not to think
of the hogs they had ranging free for acorns, mesquite pods, and such.
Hogs could be dangerous as well.

But when the strumming of a far-off guitar drew his eye to some
pinpoints of lamplight way off to his left, he resisted the hankering to
cut catty-corner through the waist-high mustard you always seemed to see
around Spanish longhorns.  The critters that admired the herb they'd
crossed the main ocean with tended to lie down in it at night, and they
could get up suddenly, with horns spanning seven feet from tip to tip,
or nine feet if you measured around the curves.

He trudged on until, sure enough, he found a side lane heading to that
isolated rancho.  There was neither a fence nor cattle guard in
evidence.  So those hands stringing wire had been more worried about
stock straying across the reservation line than goring poor wayfaring
strangers on a public right-of-way.

Sneaking up on folks after dark could be as dangerous as the spooking of
other critters.  So, not wanting to waste ammunition, Longarm decided
he'd best sing, out of tune, with that distant Mexican guitar.

It seemed to be trying for "La Paloma."  So Longarm let fly with an old
Irish ballad they'd based that trail song on.  Instead of "Streets of
Laredo," although to the same tune, he sang:

"Sure, pity the plight of a wayfaring stranger, With night coming on,
and a long way from home."

It worked.  He'd barely finished the first verse when that guitar ceased
strumming and the lights ahead commenced to wink out.  But the moonlit
wagon ruts led him on through the darkness, as he switched to a more
cheerful song about the Chisholm Trail, until a furlong or so on he
heard a rifle cock and somebody called out, "Quien es?"

Longarm replied in Spanish, giving his true name but not his true
occupation as he explained how two ponies had died along the coach road
under him.

There was a low, urgent consultation.  Then a feminine voice called out
in passable English, "Might El Senor by any chance be the Custis Long
some of my people call El Brazo Largo?"

Longarm, as that translated from the Spanish, sighed sheepishly and
allowed he hadn't known he was that famous this far north of the border.

The woman called back more cheerfully, "Bienvenido, El Brazo Largo.  You
say you have need of caballos?"

Longarm said, "I'd be proud to pay for the hire of at least two, ma'am,
and I sure wish someone might see fit to get the two I had off the road
about a mile and a half north.  I suspect they both ate rat poison, and
in any case they're sure going to wind up somewhat disgusting."

He heard what seemed like a boss lady order someone else to gather a
work detail for some hide salvage and an easier disposal than burial.
Mex folks were as bad as his own when it came to letting folks
downstream worry about their shit and garbage.

He didn't say anything.  El Rio Chama ran fairly clear this far up, but
it would carry the dead ponies into the far bigger Rio Grande, which ran
as muddy and stinky as the Missouri by the time it got halfway to El
Paso.

They'd made him welcome, so he moved forward, derringer palmed in his
free hand, to be greeted like a long-lost rich uncle and, of course,
relieved of his load as the gal took his left elbow to tell him she was
honored and that her casa was his casa for as long as he cared to own
it.

He knew she was only being polite.  Both her English and Spanish were
spoken the way landholders who've never had to ask for a job were
inclined to speak.  He made out her retainers, doubtless armed, as eight
to a dozen.  Some of them had already scampered ahead, he felt sure,
when he saw lamps being lit and heard more music up the road a piece.

By the time they got to the hollow square of 'dobe walls with red-tiled
roofing, they'd established she was called Consuela Rosalinda Llamas y
Valdez. He was sort of surprised, when she led him into her well-lit
Spanish Baroque front parlor, to see that she was a Junoesque gal old
enough to have a streak of silver in her black braided hair, and that
she looked more Indian than full-blooded Kinipai had.

As she told him his saddle and possibles would be taken to his room, and
sat him on a leather sofa near the glowing coals of her baronial
fireplace, he recalled what that anthropology gal who'd kissed so nice
had said about skulls.  She'd said all babies had the same cute little
bones behind their face meat, and that the kids of the different races
slowly got more different as they grew up, with the outstanding
differences waiting till they got older to stand out.  He'd read about
that sad case of the pretty quadroon passing herself off as pure white
and marrying up with a proud and proddy planter, who'd shot her and then
his own fool self when he just couldn't ignore the fact that his wife
kept getting more colored-looking as they both got older.

It wouldn't have been polite to ask a lady with such a long Mexican name
what Indian nation she might have hailed from way back when.  That
sweet-kissing expert on the subject had told him Na-dene were not as
closely related to Comanche, Kiowa, and such as the Pueblos, who came in
more than one breed.  But although he'd noticed some Indians were
taller, shorter, prettier, or uglier than others, he'd learned not to
make snap judgments.  Indians tended to intermarry more than white
breeds, being less inclined to brag about family trees.  Some Mexican
had obviously found Miss Consuela pretty enough to marry up with,
wherever she'd come from.  She was still a handsome old gal, and she
hadn't learned such proud ways overnight.  He decided she could have
been a mission child.  Before they'd been run off by the Mexican
government, the Franciscan missionaries had done a tolerable job of
turning Indian converts into fair imitations of regular Mexican farmers
and artisans, which was why the Mexican government had put its foot down
before Mexican politics could get even more complicated.

The lady of the house on a well-run Mexican rancho seldom had to give
orders.  Her willing workers had the mythical faithful darkies of the
Dixie that never was beat by a furlong at anticipating wishes.  So a
pretty little thing with more white blood than his hostess had a big
tray of tapas in front of Longarm in no time, with his choice of coffee
or Madeira.

He allowed he'd go with the coffee, being too tired already for much
wine.  As she poured and served him, Consuela told him that, as he'd
sort of suspected, she was the widow of an older grandee whose family
had held this grant, close to twenty square sections, since way before
that treaty of 1848. He didn't care.  But as he was working on a tapa
filled with mushrooms he sure hoped were safe, she brought up the
constant bickering about land grants in more recent years.

Since she'd asked, he explained.  "It's a matter of scale, ma'am.  You
know how much range it takes to raise stock in a land of a tad less
rain, and I know from my own cow-herding days that you rancheros could
use more because you raise stock Spanish-style.  But the Homestead Act
of '62 only allows an Anglo to claim a quarter section of land.  That's
twice the size of many a prosperous Pennsylvania Dutchman's farm, but a
pitiful joke in cattle country."

She protested that was hardly the fault of her and her local neighbors.

As he discovered a nicer tapa made with cheese, he washed it down with
coffee, nodded, and said, "Nobody said it was, ma'am.  The way Anglo
cattlemen get around the restrictions of the Homestead Act is by
claiming a prime spot for a home spread and grazing the unclaimed open
range all around."

She shrugged and asked who was stopping them from raising their own beef
any way they wanted.  Longarm replied, "You land-grant rancheros, ma'am,
along with the Indian reserves, I mean.  New Mexico and Arizona
territories, save for the state of Nevada, have way more land tied up
privately or as reserved federal land than most anywhere else.  The
price of beef has gone up back East, as I hope you've discovered to your
own pleasure.  But even as cattle barons like old John Chisum are trying
to expand, they run into Indian reservations bigger than some Eastern
states, or privately owned land grants big enough to be counties at
least.  Your modest holdings wouldn't quite hold Manhattan Island,
albeit Denver could fit in easy enough.  But I can see how some new
neighbor cut off from the river road by that much private property could
feel vexed about the earlier administration's generosity.  The Homestead
Act came way after that Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, you know."

She looked so worried he quickly added, "The real pressure in Santa Fe
is for taking back all that land we gave to the Indians, now that we've
found some use for it.  I just came down from Dulce, and nobody I met
was wearing war paint.  So it seems more likely the government shifting
all those Jicarilla will free up a mess of open range any time now."

She stared into the glowing embers of her fireplace, her own sloe eyes
glowing back, as she murmured, "I know how most of your kind feel about
the rights of Indians.  I have, as you suggested, a new neighbor who
would like to graze all the way to the river.  He has taken me to court
twice since my Carlos died a little over a year and a half ago.  He and
his Anglo lawyers keep trying to prove I am an Indian, rather than a
Mexican protected by that treaty, and hence, that I have no rights to
this land now!"

Longarm grimaced and said, "I'm certain he'd just love to take it off
your hands, ma'am.  But you were married lawfully to the holder of a
land grant recognized by Guadalupe Hidalgo, right?"

She said, "Si, but alas, I was unable to give Carlos any children, and
they say it was he, a blanco of pure Spanish blood, who held his
family's grant from the old Spanish Crown."

Longarm polished off a pork-stuffed tapa and said, "I'm sure the court
dismissed his plea because of the usual precedent's, ma'am.  You call a
ruling based on what earlier courts have found a precedent.  That was
decided years ago, out California way, when some earlier California
Spanish raised the question in reverse.  Seems this Scotch sea captain
married a land-grant heiress who up and died, leaving a Spanish land
grant to a pure gringo."

He sipped some coffee and added, "It was a federal court that held that
inherited property was inherited property.  They weren't about to hand
over all that land to distant Mexican relations.  You have been fighting
off this rascal in a federal court, right?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

She nodded.  "My parents were working for the parents of my poor Carlos
when Mexico lost that war with your people.  Nobody ever asked us what
we were until most recently.  But they say I am still an Indian and that
the U.S. Constitution gives no rights to Indians.  They showed me the
paragraph, in black and white.  I cried.  It seemed so cruel and
unjust!"

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

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

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

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

He said, "Sure.  It would have been dumb to divide them any other way.
The real point is that even then there were Indians acting like everyone
else and, well, folks who had to be dealt with differently.  So what
that clause about untaxed Indians really means is that nobody can expect
to have the full rights of an adult citizen as long as they're off the
tax rolls, as public charges or wards of the state."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Chapter 8


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

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

Longarm knew why old Consuela was smiling like old Mona Lisa as she
asked him if he'd had a comfortable night.  He managed to meet her gaze
with a poker face as he allowed he'd had no complaints.  It was up to
the ladies to say whether they'd been pure as the driven snow or had
taken it all three ways more than once.  He'd always thought that
Casanova had been a fool, if not a liar, spelling out just when and
where he'd played slap-and-tickle and the exact number of gals he'd
played it with.  For few believed a braggart to begin with.  And the
ones who'd bought your brag might hear of some other great lover who'd
scored higher.  So Longarm was sure his considerable rep as a horny
Denver devil stemmed from the simple fact that nobody in town could say
for certain who he might or might not have slept with in such a
good-sized town.

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

He wrinkled his nose and replied that if Ynez had been the handle of
that lady who'd led his way to bed, he'd found her tolerable to look at.
"I haven't asked who you found repulsive last night, or vice versa,
because to tell the truth I'm more worried about that John Brown, the
head butler they say Queen Victoria may be carrying on with.  The
picture's a mite more amusing, no offense.  Nice-looking folks all look
about the same in bed together."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the sun up and nobody likely to be laying for him in the high
weeds, Longarm headed for the coach road cattycorner through the
stirrup-deep wild mustard.  The air was still crisp and the tang of tiny
yellow blossoms seemed to make both ponies frisky.  You saw so much
mustard around Spanish-speaking stock because they liked to nibble
mustard about as much as humans did, concentrating instead on consuming
grass down to the root crowns.

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

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

Then he saw those distant riders reining in but not getting down in
front of old Consuela's casa.  Nobody seemed to be shooting at anyone
yet.  But Longarm sighed and said, "All right, just this once, but we
really ought to watch this shit."

It took a bit less time loping back than it had taken to trot off.  But
as he closed in on the tense scene he saw the argument had had time to
build up some steam.  Consuela and half a dozen of her ranch hands were
on her front veranda afoot.  None of the riders had dismounted, and one
scrawny old cuss was waving a paper at the Indian gal as if he wanted
her to take it.

Everyone stopped jawing to stare at Longarm as he reined in to join the
discussion.  As he neared the man who seemed to be the process server
and held out his free hand, Consuela cried, "Don't take that!  You have
to accept an eviction order before they can make it stick!"

Longarm smiled down at her reassuringly.  "I fear you may know more
about ranching than legal proceedings, Miss Consuela.  That ain't the
way things work, and even if it was, I don't own an acre of spit in
these parts.  So I'd best have a look-see."

He turned back to the mean-eyed old goat who'd been trying to serve the
Indian gal with his fluttering single sheet, and mildly asked who he had
the honor of confronting.

The older man said he was Cyrus Grayson of the Bar Three Slash, and
asked who Longarm might be, aside from a Mex-lover.

Longarm ignored the snickers from the other riders backing the old
goat's play as he mildly suggested, "By the time you found out exactly
who I was, you might have decided you didn't want to know me all that
well.  What have you got there, Mister Grayson?  Looks to me like a
notarized letter."

Grayson handed it over, snapping, "Damned right it's notarized.  Had it
witnessed and sealed by a licensed notary public yesterday afternoon!"

Longarm scanned the absolutely worthless document with a smile of
disbelief.  Then he turned back to the worried Consuela and said, "This
jasper knows no more about the law than you do, Miss Consuela.  He's
made a sworn statement to the effect that you are neither an American
citizen nor a member of the white race, which is moot.  Then he goes on
to say you're squatting unlawfully on range he needs to get to the river
road, and so on."

Grayson nodded grimly and added, "Signed, sealed, and delivered
according to law.  There's no arguing with papers witnessed and stamped
by a notary public, right?"

Longarm laughed.  "Wrong.  A notary public is a respected tobacconist,
innkeeper, or whatever, licensed by the county to witness and seal
documents to prove he witnessed somebody swearing to him their words
were true."

Grayson nodded.  "That's what I just said."

Longarm replied, "No, it ain't.  You tried to tell us this foolish
scribble was a legal document.  It's an expression of your personal
opinion about a lady who was here first, on land you'd like to grab but
ain't about to.  I don't know what you paid to have this notarized, but
you wasted your money.  Didn't the notary tell you when he stamped it
for you that all he was backing was your word that you and you alone
were the blithering idiot who signed it?"

Then Longarm was suddenly holding a pistol in his hand as the sheet of
paper fluttered down between his mount's legs.  So the younger rider on
the far side of old Grayson suddenly let go of his own pistol grips with
a sick grin as Longarm quietly said, "I only give one demonstration.
The next one who reaches for his side arm had better mean it."

Old Grayson's face had gone frog-belly white, but his voice was fairly
steady as he said, "Don't never do that again without my say-so, Rafe.
Now get down and pick up that paper you made the man drop."

Longarm kept his gun out as he said, "I have a grander notion.  I want
Miss Consuela's lawyer to keep and cherish that free sample of
documented stupidity."

He said a few words in Spanish.  Consuela nodded, and one of her hands
dashed forward as Longarm danced his mount off the paper.

Consuela asked something in Spanish.  Longarm wanted both sides to get
his message, so he replied in English.  "It was a childish bluff I'd be
ashamed to try in a lunatic asylum, Miss Consuela.  I'd say your
friendly neighbor's own lawyer told him there was no way they'd ever get
a court order in New Mexico evicting anyone from an old Mexican land
grant.  So he wasted more time and money on a notarized document, as I
said."

Grayson told the Mexican hand, "I'll take that," as the hand picked up
the document in question.  The Mexican hesitated.  Longarm snapped at
him in Spanish, and he ran clean past Consuela and into the house with
it.  Then Longarm told Grayson calmly, "You were trying to serve that
paper on the lady, in front of witnesses.  So now she's got it, and when
her lawyers finish laughing at you, they'll likely want to hang on to it
in case you ever try to waste their time in court again.  Didn't your
own lawyer explain any of this to you, old son?"

Grayson snapped, "I have my rights, damn it!  I'm a U.S. citizen who
fought at Cold Harbor for the Union and came away with scars to prove
it.  Who are you to take the side of a full-blood Indian against a good
white American?"

Longarm chuckled fondly and replied, "I'll allow you seem to be a white
American.  I doubt you're all that good, and I know you're as smart as
the average scarecrow.  I don't know where you got the grand notion you
could run a taxpaying grant-holder off her land as you might some Digger
Indian poking through your trash heap, but it just ain't possible.  So
why don't you just git and save wear and tear on all concerned."

Grayson sat taller in his saddle as he grimly replied, "I don't run off
as easy as your average Digger neither, Mexlover."

Longarm said, "I don't think you understand this situation,
land-grabber. It ain't going to work.  Even if you shot everyone here
and burned the whole spread to the ground, you would never in this world
gain title to a Spanish grant recognized by the U.S. Government, unless
you could get Miss Consuela here to marry up with you."

Neither Grayson nor the widow Llamas seemed enthusiastic about that
suggestion.  Longarm laughed and said, "You got to admit nothing else
would work half so well.  But seeing you haven't come courting, old son,
why don't you just be on your way?  If your pony has its feet stuck, I
might be able to inspire it to run with a few pistol shots."

Grayson glared down at the cornely widow on the veranda instead,
snarling, "You win this hand, you stubborn squaw, but I can find me just
as many hired guns as you, hear?"

Then he whirled his pony and rode off, his ragged-ass bunch in his wake,
before Consuela could give the show away by saying anything at all.

As they rode off, cussing and arguing among themselves, Longarm
holstered his six-gun, hauled out his Winchester, and dismounted to say,
"I'd best stick around a while.  I'm hoping you've seen the last of them
till he comes up with another bright notion.  But you never can tell
what a wolverine might do when it can't seem to get a cupboard open."

She laughed girlishly, and suggested they have some more to eat and
drink inside.  He figured she had to do a lot of riding between snacks
to keep her figure on the pleasant side of pleasantly plump.  Her hired
help, of course, took care of his riding stock and, as long as they were
about it, relayed Longarm's suggestion that everyone get the kids, pigs,
and chickens forted up inside the 'dobe walls for now.

Back in that same parlor, Longarm explained the situation in greater
depth as they nibbled tostadas and sipped sangria punch made with plenty
of rum.  She asked if he didn't think a stupid enemy was more dangerous
than a smart one.  He didn't want to worry her more than he had to.  So
he shrugged and said, "Might be a smart move to send a message to your
own law firm. Where are they--in Vado Seguro?"

She nodded, and said she'd send a rider right away.  But he told her to
hold the thought as he got out his notebook and a pencil stub, saying,
"I saw a Western Union sign out front of the hardware store in town.  I
also have some pals over to Santa Fe, a lot closer to Governor Wallace
than your lawyers might be, no offense.  So we'd best alert the federal
territorial government to this total idiot you're having trouble with."

She clapped her hands in delight, and asked if he could possibly stay
until the troops came to bombard Cyrus Grayson into submission.

He chuckled and said, "Anything is possible, ma'am, but it ain't
practical for me to man this post indefinitely.  If nothing happens on
this side of noon, I'll have to figure it's over, for now."

Then a rifle round sponged through the window to shatter the big pitcher
on the table in front of the sofa and spatter them both with busted
glass and sangria punch.

Sangria was made of red wine, lemonade, rum, and other crud that looked
like bloody gashes on wet clothes and skin.  But Longarm was out the
door with his Winchester before he'd taken time to see whether either of
them had been fatally wounded.

The rifleman was already well on his way aboard a roan, having fired
blind from way off in the mustard, judging by the drifting white smoke.
Longarm went back inside, muttering, "Looked like a kid.  Might have
been acting on his own.  If there's one thing more dangerous than a
blithering idiot, it has to be a young blithering idiot."

She'd risen to her feet, black lace sopping wet, and told him he was all
spattered with sangria punch as he set down his Winchester again.  He
ruefully said he'd noticed as he regarded his own sleeves.  His jeans
hadn't caught too much of it, and he'd fortunately set his denim jacket
aside, clear of the liquid explosion.  But his hitherto light blue work
shirt seemed covered with purple polka dots now.

As he picked up his notebook and pencil again, wiping the notebook's
fake leather cover dry on his ruined shirt, he asked if she'd heard that
table salt was good for fresh wine stains.

She said his only hope was a day-long soak in salt water, followed by
thorough laundering and a day or so flapping in strong sunlight.

He grimaced and said, "I got another shirt in my saddlebags.  I'd meant
to launder some sweat out of it before I wore it some more.  But it
holds fond memories, and has to be an improvement over purple polka
dots!"

As he sat down and proceeded to compose his wire to the federal men in
Santa Fe, eighty-odd miles to the south-southeast, Consuela repeated
what she'd said that morning about her late husband having been a big
man.  "I'm sure we can find you a pair of fresh shirts, and I would not
feel as awkward handing down your freshly laundered work shirts to one
of my larger riders, eh?"

He agreed that made sense.  There was no need to go into why the
personal duds of even a dead hidalgo might give some vaqueros lofty
opinions of their position on the spread.  He said he'd as soon wash up
again before changing into that fresh shirt.  When she said his wish was
her command, he told her they'd best wait a spell.  He'd already said
that if the riders meant to come back, it would likely be before the day
got hot enough for La Siesta.

But he felt sticky as hell long before noon as the sweet rum punch he'd
been soaked with dried to the consistency of that goo on the shiny side
of flypaper.

He scouted out around the buildings on foot, both to make sure he'd
really run that last rider off and in hopes of feeling a tad less itchy.
He couldn't find anyone to shoot.  But he sure felt like shooting
somebody as the morning dragged on.

Meanwhile, Consuela had bathed in her own quarters, and changed into a
simple Mexican smock of white cotton, sashed at the waist with red silk.
It made her look more girlish in her Junoesque Zuni way.  That jasmine
scent she'd splashed on her brown hide made her smell a lot more
high-toned than your average lady in rope-soled sandals.

When she inquired, and he had to admit how miserable he still felt, she
suggested he might bathe in her mirador, or what Anglo Victorians called
a cupola when they had one stuck atop their own houses.

He allowed he'd noticed the boxlike structure atop her roof, but had
assumed it to be a dovecote.  She explained it had been built in wilder
Apache times as a lookout and siege tower, with more to it than it might
seem from outside, since the clay tiles of the sloped roof rose
waist-high to anyone up there.  She offered to show it to him, and must
have taken it for granted that he'd cotton to it.  For she called out to
a house servant in passing that El Senor would be needing some hot bath
water up there poco tiempo.

You had to go up a glorified ladder, or mighty steep staircase, by way
of Consuela's own master bedchamber.  It hadn't been meant to be easy
for raiding Apache.  Once they were up in the frame mirador, glazed with
sash windows all around, Longarm saw it was fixed up as a sort of study
or guest room, furnished with a writing table, a brass bedstead with
blankets over the mattress, and the usual stools and such.  She pointed
out the big copper washtub under the table, and said she'd often bathed
and slept naked during La Siesta in hot weather, when the cross
ventilation that high off the ground was one's only hope.

He placed his Winchester on the writing table as he admired the view all
around and said, "Raiders would have a time creeping in through the
mustard with anyone watching from up here.  For I'll be switched if I
can't see lots of bare ground that would be behind the weeds to anyone
sitting on the veranda downstairs!"

She said that was why her late husband's grandfather had built it that
way to begin with.  Then a small gal with a big olla of bathwater came
up through the corner trap.  So Longarm hauled the tub out, and she'd no
sooner emptied her few gallons into it when yet another servant, this
one a young boy, popped into view with even more warm water.

Folks back in Denver who'd started putting in newfangled indoor plumbing
were already starting to forget how easy it was to get along without
pipes when you could afford hot-and cold-running servants.  They made it
easier to bathe whenever or wherever you wanted, as well.

As the kids relayed his bathwater up from the kitchen, Consuela said
she'd fetch him those shirts she'd mentioned.  Her servants had already
brought him plenty of Castile-style Spanish soap and a brace of Turkish
towels.

By the time they had the copper tub half-filled, Longarm was sure nobody
was creeping about out there in broad-ass daylight.  So when he found
himself alone, he stripped bare-ass to get right in the tub and wash
away all that sticky sangria punch.  It felt so good it gave him a
hard-on.  But he didn't think it showed above the soap suds when the
lady of the house popped back up through the trap without letting him
know she was coming.

She said she was sorry if she'd disturbed him, although she seemed more
interested than embarrassed by the sight of his bare chest and wide
shoulders. She held up one of the shirts she'd fetched and said she
hoped it would suit him.  He figured it was big enough.  But it was a
shade of dusky rose he'd have picked out for a lady's dress.  The other
shirt was spinach green, a more reasonable color for a man, but cut from
silk satin, which looked even more sissy than the rosy poplin.  He told
her they both looked swell, since either was an improvement on soiled or
wine-stained work shirts and he didn't want to insult her by implying
her Carlos had been a foppish dresser.  He knew she was fixing to brag
on handing the duds down to a famous lawman who'd admired them. He also
knew he was admired in some Mexican circles, and disliked in others,
because he couldn't stand El Presidente Dias and his brutal rurales.

When he said he liked both shirts, she scooped up his stained one to run
it down to the kitchen.  He finished washing, rose to his feet in the
tub, and began to rinse his naked body off with an extra pot of clean
water.  So Consuela caught him standing there, bare-ass with a hard-on,
when she popped back up to ask something else.  She stared goggled-eyed
for as long as it took her to blush beet red under her tan, and then
dropped out of sight again as he began to blush a bit himself.

The next time she wanted to come up through the trap she knocked on a
stair tread and called out to him.  He said he was decent, and she
looked in and found him seated on a stool near a window with just a
towel wrapped around the parts that mattered.  He said, "You were right
about cross ventilation and how warm this valley can get by noon.  I
figured it was all right for me to keep watch informally, seeing you've
already learned all my secrets in any case."

She flustered that he was a naughty boy as she came all the way up with
a tray of fresh tostadas and rum punch, made this time with just the
lemon, sugar, and yerba buena, a sort of dry-country mint
Spanish-speaking folks fancied more than some.

She set the refreshments on the wide windowsill, and closed the trapdoor
as she allowed it did seem about time for La Siesta.  Longarm didn't ask
why she'd chosen to flop down on the bedstead instead of down below in
her more private quarters.  He was no fool, and even if he had been, she
was sending mighty warm smoke signals with those smoldering sloe eyes.
So he poured them two tumblers of punch and sat down on the blankets
beside her, saying, "I doubt anyone's out for another fuss under the
noonday sun."

Then he tasted his drink and declared, "You sure were generous with the
white rum this time, Miss Consuela."

She demurely replied, "I thought it would save having to go back down
for more.  Are you aware that towel is giving away your secrets again?"

It didn't seem to bother her.  But he glanced down to see that, just as
he'd thought, he was covered tolerably well.  He said, "I suspect that's
just a big wrinkle in this Turkish toweling, ma'am."

She made a thoughtful grab for it as she murmured, "So you say."

He laughed and said he knew how to play bego-bego as well as any Na-dene
gal as he grabbed her by one big soft cantaloupe and they both flopped
back across the bedding.  She laughed back and said she wasn't any fool
Apache as she made a more skillful grab for him and gasped, "Madre de
Dios, you are a big man, aren't you!"

He kissed her and ran his free hand down her considerable curves to see
what she had down yonder.  Anyone who said all Indian gals were much the
same had likely never felt up all that many Indian gals--or white gals
for that matter.  Longarm was used to finding every gal's crotch far
different from every other, bless each and every one of them.  But even
as he commenced to strum her old banjo with skilled wet fingers, he felt
obliged to warn her, "I did say I'd be riding on this side of forever,
didn't I, querida?"

She began to move her bigger hips in a way far different from the
smaller and younger Kinipai as she moaned, "Faster.  Did you think I
would have been in this much of a hurry if I had thought you were liable
to stay longer?  A woman has needs, but a woman trying for to maintain
her dignity with her servants must give some thought to whom she wishes
for to chingar, eh?"

So he kissed her again and got rid of the toweling, shoved her thin
skirting up around her soft brown waist and rolled his hips between her
big brown welcoming thighs to conjugate naughty Spanish verbs in her.
Consuela gasped in surprised delight, and laughed like hell as he thrust
in and out of her muttering, "Chingar, chingo, chinge, chingamos, and
what else?"

She commenced to peel the rest of her white cotton off over her head as
she sobbed, "La vida es breve.  Vamanos pa'l carajo y vamos a joder toda
la fregeda tarde!"

He said that sounded fair.  He figured he was stuck there for at least
the whole damned afternoon, and there were far more tedious ways to pass
the time than strong drink and hot fornication.  So once he had her
spread out under him as naked as an enthusiastic jay, he hooked his
elbows under her plump knees to position her even better.

She stared up at him in mingled fear and adoration and said she'd never
taken it at that angle so deep before.  But when he asked if she wanted
him to back off, she dug her nails into his bare bouncing buttocks and
hissed, "Lo que necesito!  Pero me marvillo que todavia estoy vivo!"

So he agreed he needed it just as bad, and found it just as amazing that
they seemed to be living through it when he shot his wad and kept on
pounding as he felt her warm wet innards responding in kind.  So by the
time he'd brought her to climax he was hot as hell again, and things
went on that way for a delightfully long time before they had to stop
for a breather.

They enjoyed more rum punch and tobacco while they were at it.  He stood
tall to light up and check the sunlit horizon all around as Consuela
refilled their tumblers, wondering aloud if she'd brought enough liquid
refreshments for a wilder siesta than she'd planned.  She didn't deny it
when Longarm accused her of planning something when she'd slipped into
that easy-to-slip-out-of outfit.  She held out his tumbler to him, and
demurely confessed she'd been curious to learn if half the things they
said about El Brazo Largo could be true.  When he sat down beside her to
share the cheroot as well, she giggled and said she'd been expecting
less.

She asked if she could count on him staying at least a week or so.  He
lay back across the bed and hauled her down to nestle her head on his
bare chest as he set the tumbler of rum punch aside and replied, "I'd be
proud to spend at least a month with anyone half as friendly, you pretty
thing.  But to tell the truth, my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, would have a
fit if he knew I was off saving damsels in distress from dragons.  So
let's study on that dragon called Grayson, starting with why he's so
anxious to extend his own range as far as El Rio Chama."

She began to run the cool bottom of her drink up and down his bare belly
as she absently mused, "There are other cattle trails off to the east.
Perhaps he just wants more water for his stock, no?"

Longarm said, "No.  There's well-watered mountains to either side of
this valley with heaps of cleaner seeps and springs than the muddy main
stream. You know I met some of your vaqueros stringing a drift fence on
the far side of the Chama up the slope a ways.  So might the original
Llamas grant extend as far as the Jicarilla line?"

She said, "Pero no.  Only out to the Camino del Rey, or what you now
call the coach road.  But you must have seen my holdings are not fenced,
and your own Anglo law allows stray stock for to graze on any federal
land not set aside for anything else by the government, eh?"

He nodded and dryly observed, "I'm sure lots of your cows wind up wading
such a modest river all by themselves.  Keeping them off that Indian
land with drift wire makes sense too.  Old Cyrus Grayson must have
noticed the grass looks greener on the far side of the fence.  I suspect
he's after easier access to that ungrazed reservation range."

She protested, "Is reserved for Los Apaches, no?"

He nodded soberly, but said, "The powers that be are fixing to move the
Jicarilla south and free up all that ungrazed grass and uncut timber.
Anglo stockmen such as Grayson are in closer touch with the powers that
be."

He set his smoke aside and took her glass from his belly to sip some rum
punch before he handed it back.  "I wish I knew exactly which powers
were behind such an ill-timed move.  I just helped the War Department
calm some other Indians down, over to the Four Corners.  So I know
General Sherman ain't anxious to needlessly upset peaceful Apache types
whilst three or more regiments are playing tag with Victorio for Pete's
sake!"

She sounded sort of prim as she observed her own Indian kin had long
since learned to get along better with Mexican and Anglo neighbors who
were just as tough but far easiergoing than Apache.  He got the distinct
impression nobody else in northern New Mexico, Anglo, Mexican, Zuni, or
Tanoan, would shed one tear for poor little Kinipai and her Jicarilla
kin when--not if--they were evicted from their big fat reservation.

He said, "You should have seen the stampede when the Lakota were forced
out of the Black Hills.  Prospectors and land-grabbers came from all
over, along with the male and female parasites and human birds of prey
such booms attract.  The Dulce Agency could wind up as wild as Deadwood
by the time we got things under control again."

He knew he hadn't planned on confiding more than he had to.  But he
figured she was apt to gossip when he'd gone on in any case.  In the
meantime, there was no saying what other gossip a local gal might have
heard.  So he confided, "I've been trying to learn more about a whole
heap of armed and mysterious strangers moving into these parts, honey.
They seem to be Anglo and may be hired guns."

She polished off the last of her rum punch and got rid of the dry
tumbler as she casually replied, "We've heard such talk, querido.  I
think that may be why Cyrus Grayson accused you of being just such a
rider.  He could see you were not one of my regular vaqueros, and there
has been much gossip about Regulators up by this end of the territory."

Longarm whistled softly and said he hoped it was just gossip.  For the
Lincoln County War to the south was officially over, and that noisy
confusion had commenced when one faction bought control of the elected
sheriff and another, led by merchants and stockmen with less political
pull, had "deputized" their own force of ad hoc "Regulators" under the
posse comitatus provisions of common law.

It hadn't worked, of course.  The corrupt lawmen recognized by the Santa
Fe Ring had refused to recognize the private-agency badges worn by
McSween riders such as Billy the Kid, and so a rooting, tooting, and
shooting time had been had by all before Governor Wallace had come west
to declare such shit must cease.  But the notion that private citizens
could recruit and arm their own Regulator forces to enforce the law as
it seemed it ought to be enforced had never faded all the way away.

He decided, "Old Cyrus wouldn't have taken me for a hired gun from other
parts if he knew that much about hired guns from other parts.  So I
suspect you're only up against a proddy pest your ownself."

She asked if he'd forgotten that rifle ball through the window down
below.  He reminded her he'd already said that had likely been an eager
whelp. "By now he's been whopped with a newspaper and warned to behave.
For kids don't act so foolish unless they expect to brag and be praised
for their heroism.  Old Cyrus is a fool, but not that big a fool.  He
was trying to bluff a dumb Mexican neighbor, no offense.  He'd have
never come up with that pathetic bluff if he'd known where to get his
hands on a so-called Regulator."

Consuela rose on one elbow and groped across him for the other
half-filled tumbler.  It felt swell.  She had great tits.  She drained
the tumbler, then rolled clean over him--that felt even better--to perch
on the edge of the mattress and pour them both fresh drinks as she
pleaded with him to at least guard her from that cruel gringo neighbor
until sundown.

It would have been as cruel to say he meant to be on his way by that
time.  So he suggested she get on her hands and knees so he could make
sure nobody was creeping up on them outside at the moment.

She was willing, and he really could see all around below as he got a
good grip on her heroic hips to take her from behind, tall in his socks.
By this time they'd gotten to where it just felt swell instead of
desperately thrilling.  So he got to wondering, as he stood there calmly
banging away, how many other gents had stood watch up here the same way
over so many years of off-and-on Indian troubles.  He doubted he was the
first who'd discovered standing guard all by oneself could get tedious
as hell.  It was surprising how easy it was to just stand and stare with
one's old organ-grinder up inside a pal.


Chapter 9


He rode off in that tricky light near sundown when any rider a snoop
might spot at a distance would be tough to describe.  He'd put on that
green satin shirt and started out aboard the palomino, leading the cream
this time. Not wanting to ride back to the trail town of Vado Seguro,
he'd asked anyone answering those wires sent from there to reply care of
Western Union at Loma Blanca, to the south and hence closer to where
Billy Vail had ordered him to go in the first damned place.

There were others on the road that early in the evening, although they
were widely spaced as he howdied those he met going the other way.  He
set a fair pace for anyone going the same way to overtake.  So nobody
seemed to.  He rode at a trot for an hour, and let both ponies water in
the shallows of the Chama and browse some cottonwood leaves as he
changed mounts by moving the shaken-out saddle blanket, and then, of
course, the saddle, back aboard the cream mare.  He took his time to
rest them more than to water and browse them. They'd been watered and
fed cracked corn before leaving El Rancho Llamas.  But it seldom hurt to
give a horse more water, and they couldn't bloat their fool selves on
leathery cottonwood leaves.  Swamp maple was about the only really
dangerous browse a pony would willingly eat too much of, and you hardly
ever saw swamp maple in these parts.

He remounted and rode on, making even better time because, just as he'd
remembered, that mare was the high-stepper of the pair.  The sexless
palomino came along willingly, packing nothing, at the quicker pace.

He'd swapped mounts again, more than once, by the time he rode into the
sounds of a distant piano and spied pinpoints of light down the road
ahead. Loma Blanca, despite its old Spanish handle, had a more Anglo
feel to it as Longarm reined in near the black-and-yellow Western Union
sign across from a busy-looking saloon.

He tethered his ponies to the hitch rail, and strode in to see if anyone
had seen fit to answer any of his earlier wires sent from Vado Seguro by
way of that Llamas rider.

There was one answer, from a territorial lawman Longarm knew in Santa
Fe. They'd heard of Cyrus Grayson.  They had him down, rightly or
Wrongly, as one of those pests called "litigious" by lawyers and judges
because they enjoyed litigation, or bringing others to law, as much as a
hog loved his wallow on a hot day in August.  Santa Fe said they'd look
into Grayson's possible abuse of due process, although there Wasn't much
of a mystery as to how you persuaded a cigar-stand notary to witness and
stamp your fool signature on most anything. Grayson wasn't known to have
ever pushed one of his many petty feuds to gunplay, however.

Longarm hadn't told anyone south of Denver what he might be doing down
this way, so the lawman hadn't expressed any opinion about the peculiar
activity around La Mesa de los Viejos, or the plans of either the BIA or
the Indians in regard to that big Jicarilla drive.

Billy Vail never wasted five cents a word answering progress reports
unless he had further orders to give a deputy in the field, of course.

Longarm went back out front and, staying afoot as men just love to do
after hours in the saddle, he led his ponies down to the livery they'd
told him about at the Western Union, and asked the Mexican night crew if
they'd rub down and rest, but just water his riding stock so he could
ride on before midnight.

When they said they could, he took his saddle gun and some lighter
valuables worth stealing with him to that saloon.  He'd eaten plenty of
tortillas and beans at Consuela's for supper and it was still early.
But a man sure felt like another beer after pissing along the trail a
spell, and you never knew what gossip you'd hear in a trail-town saloon.

He got some thoughtful looks but no unfriendly stares when he passed
through the swinging doors to see who might be playing the piano so
poorly. The crowd seemed mostly Anglo, with just a few Mexicans playing
dominos at a corner table.  He saw to his chagrin that the piano was
being badly played by a skinny old gent in a striped shirt and brocaded
vest.  He'd thought for a moment it might be Miss Red Robin, an old pal
who played the poorest rendition of "Aura Lee" and gave the best French
lessons west of the Mississippi.

But why on earth would a man want to dwell on such country matters after
spending all that recent time in a cunt?

He decided it was all the dark-complected company he'd been keeping of
late.  The two Indian gals had been of different anatomy as well as
tribal background, but the henna-rinsed Red Robin was one of those
naturally blue-eyed brunettes with skin as creamy as that high-stepping
mare down the way.  He ordered a needled beer from the politely
stone-faced barkeep, and had to grin as he consoled himself with the
simple fact he'd never been as loco with his old organ-grinder as some
he'd heard about.

When an old drunk standing next to him asked what was so funny, Longarm
knew the poor old-timer didn't really care.  But he signaled the barkeep
to refill the drunk's beer schooner anyway as he smiled and explained,
"Just thinking about horny riders and the dumb things they can do when
they're hard up."

As the barkeep drew another for him the old-timer said, "Horny riders
are always hard up.  That's why I feel safer around drinking men.  But
get to the funny part, old son."

Longarm said, "There was this Prussian cavalry officer I read about,
back in the time of old Freddy the Great.  Seems he fell in love with
this young mare in heat, likely a buckskin, whose rump reminded him of
some fat gal back home.  So they caught him standing up behind her on a
box, humping away with his fancy pants down."

The barkeep put the second beer before them as he said with a puzzled
smile, "They caught a man humping a horse?  A full-grown one?"

Longarm sipped some of his own suds and explained.  "A mare in heat,
with a tendency to pucker down hard.  But them Prussian officers felt it
was a mighty odd way for a man to behave too.  So they court-martialed
him for conduct unbecoming a human being, and they were fixing to shoot
him when old Freddy the Great got word of it."

The drunk asked, "You mean King Freddy forgave the cuss for acting so
forward with a cavalry mount?"

Longarm shook his head and said, "Not hardly.  Freddy the Great agreed
the poor simp didn't belong in the cavalry.  So he ordered him
transferred to the infantry, and that way, everybody came out all right.
I reckon they found a proper stud for the mare, and I understand the
Prussian army provides drummer boys for old infantry hands who've been
away from home a spell."

The three of them laughed.

A morose-looking young squirt a couple of paces down the bar said, "I
don't think that's funny, Julesburg," in a mighty unfriendly tone.

The drunk between them crawfished away from the bar with his free drink
as Longarm smiled thoughtfully down the mahogany and asked if anyone was
speaking to him under the impression his handle might be Julesburg.

The kid, sporting knee-length chinked chaps and an ivory-gripped Merwin
Hulbert over sun-faded denim, sounded sure of himself as he replied, "We
figured out who you had to be, Julesburg.  A tall rider with his hat
telescoped Colorado-style and his Colt worn cross-draw adds up to one
such cuss with the sand to stand up to a dozen white men for the money
and other favors of a Mex gal.  We both know I have the dishonor to be
addressing the one and only Julesburg Kid, a mite older but no wiser
than when he rode with Black Jack Slade up Julesburg way, seeing his
manners still seem to reckless."

Longarm blinked, then had to laugh as he figured out who the kid had to
be.  He said, "There was a young cowboy wearing chinked chaps in that
bunch with old Cyrus Grayson.  After that you've got things a tad mixed
up, old son."

The barkeep backed away and the place got mighty quiet when the kid
almost sobbed, "I ain't your son.  My mama was married up when I was
born. I'm Jason Townsend, and I got my own rep as a man nobody had best
mess with, hear?"

Longarm nodded soberly and said, "In that case I'd rather buy you a beer
than mess with you, Jason."

The kid said, "I don't drink with back-shooting sons of bitches."

The barkeep half moaned, "Jesus H. Christ!"  One of the Mexican domino
players murmured, "Vamanos, amigos.  Tengo que mear como el demonic!"

So all the customers decided they had to piss like the devil, whether
they spoke Spanish or not.  The barkeep just lit out the back way
without saying anything.

Longarm said quietly, "I can overlook that part about my probable
parentage, seeing we seem to have the place to ourselves, if you'd be
kind enough to tell me just who this Julesburg Kid ever shot in the
back.  I ain't him.  But since I seem to remind you of some hired gun
with a nasty rep ..."

Then he read the sidestep away from the bar for what it meant and
snapped, "Don't try it, Jason.  I know Merwin Hulbert still makes those
cheap shiny thumb-busters, but it was never a good fighting gun to begin
with and I don't want to prove that to you, boy!"

Young Townsend snarled, "I'll show you who's a boy!  I'd heard you'd
lost your nerve.  Heard that was how come you back-shot that brand
inspector with no rep of his own.  You ain't got the grit to slap
leather face-to-face with another gunfighter, eh?"

Longarm muttered, "Aw, shit, you're supposed to be a gunfighter as well
as a total asshole?"

It was the wrong thing to say to a punk on the prod.  Townsend had been
working himself up all the time he'd been trailing his intended victim.
So he moved fast, faster than most, as his gun hand swooped down on
those side-draw ivory grips.

Then he was reeling along the bar with his cheap fancy gun still in its
holster and two hundred grains of hot lead cooling off inside his
ruptured but still-convulsing heart.  As Longarm followed his last
movements with a smoking but now-silent Winchester, the boy bawled out,
"Don't whup me no more and I'll be good, Mama!"

Then he landed facedown in the sawdust with one spur still ringing like
a coin spinning down as Longarm muttered, "I told you not to try, you
poor dumb kid!"

As the smoke cleared, the barkeep came back in with a somewhat older
gent wearing a silvery mustache and matching pewter badge.  So Longarm
started to identify himself as he finished reloading.

Before he could do so, the town marshal firmly stated, "I don't want to
hear your sad story.  Kevin here just told me the punk-ass was the one
who started it, and no jury would ever hang a man who'd been called a
son of a bitch to his face in public."

Longarm put his gun away and just paid attention to his elders as the
town law continued.  "I'd hold you for the coroner's hearing anyways, if
I liked noise.  But rightly or wrongly, you just now gunned the
black-sheep son of a mighty big and mighty close cattle clan I'd as soon
not mess with in an election year.  So why don't you do us both a favor
and ride on, Julesburg?"

Longarm managed not to grin as he quietly replied, "I see great minds do
run in the same channels.  I'd only stopped here to wet my whistle on my
way t-"

"Don't tell us where you're headed and we won't have to tell the
Townsends," the town law said.  "Nobody with a lick of sense is about to
lie to the Townsends about anything involving the spilled blood of even
a worthless Townsend.  And I don't want to have to tidy up after any
local voters neither.  So how come you're just standing there like a
big-ass bird, stranger?"

Longarm allowed he was just leaving and left, crabbing to one side as he
stepped out the swinging doors into the darkness.  But nobody gathered
outside seemed more than curious as he bulled his way through and
crossed over to the livery.

One of the Mexican hostlers said he'd figured El Brazo Largo would want
one of his caballos saddled in a hurry, and so he'd taken the liberty of
cinching that stock saddle to the fresher-looking mare.

Longarm nodded soberly, but said, "Seeing you've guessed who I might be,
I shouldn't have to tell you why I'd rather ride on aboard less
distinctive horseflesh.  What sort of a swap might you be willing to
make for danged near pure Spanish barbs?"

The hostler grinned like a kid smelling fresh-baked pie while coming
home from school, and said, "Take your pick from our remuda out in the
corral.  In God's truth we don't have stock to match either of those two
you rode in with. Pero we may be able to send you on your way with
reliable if less distinguished riding stock, eh?"

They could.  Longarm rode out of town before midnight aboard one bay and
leading another.  In the meantime he'd changed shirts.  Everyone who'd
been there would recall a stranger in a green satin shirt as the
intended victim of the late Jason Townsend.  The one thing anyone could
say for dusky-rose poplin was that it didn't look at all like green
satin.


Chapter 10


Longarm wouldn't have entered either fresh mount in a serious horse
race, but he found them both steady and willing.  So along about two in
the morning he tried crossing back over the river to the less traveled
side.

He suspected he'd picked the wrong ford when the river came up to his
knees and filled his boots.  But as long as he was at it, he took off
his telescoped Stetson and bent down with it to fill the crown with more
water.

Once the felt had taken the time to soften some, he punched the crown
all the way plain, and then creased it along the top and dimpled both
sides cavalry-style.

He didn't meet up with any Apache war parties on their side of the river
as he worked his way south through timber and chaparral.  The
reservation line doglegged far off to the west this far south, and he
suspected the Jicarilla were more worried about pindah lickoyee than
vice versa about now.

Well before dawn he recrossed the Chama to get back on that coach road
and follow it north.  He didn't want to go back to see Consuela, despite
fond memories of her rollicking tawny rump.  He knew the trail town of
Camino Viejo stood by the river just to the southwest of La Mesa de los
Viejos.

You just about had to pass close by to get to the old Indian pathway up
to those canyonlands, and all in all, he figured it might be best if
folks recalled him coming from the south instead of the scene of that
dumb gunplay to the north.

As the sunrise caught him still in the saddle, Longarm peeled off his
denim jacket and put that away with the green shirt to ride into town
outstandingly rosy from the gunbelt up.

He wasn't too surprised to see that despite its Spanish name the town,
handy to more than one trail, was far more Anglo than Mexican.  There
was always Mexican or Indian hired help in any New Mexican town for the
same reasons the shoe-shine boys and street sweepers tended to be
colored east of Austin.  But neither Mexicans nor Indians with money to
pick and choose seemed to cotton to Camino Viejo, situated as it was
between an Apache reserve and a heap of haunted ghost towns.

He left the two bays in an Anglo-run livery near the Western Union.  He
didn't have anything new to wire anyone, and he hadn't told anyone to
wire him here in Camino Viejo.  So he idly traced the single line of
telegraph wire east against the morning sky for as far as he could tell,
then took himself and his Winchester to breakfast at the hotel dining
room recommended by the livery hands.

There were always a few late risers having breakfast at seven in the
morning.  So Longarm knew the blandly pretty waitress answered to Trisha
before she came over to take his order.  He'd already read the
blackboard on the wall, the place not being prissy enough to hand out
printed literature, and said, "Them waffles with scrambled eggs and
sausages sound tempting, Miss Trisha.  But could I have mine with chili
con carne instead of syrup over 'em?"

The slender dishwater blonde told him it was his funeral.  Then, just as
she was fixing to take his order to the kitchen, she turned back to him
with a puzzled smile and asked, "Do I know you, Mister ...?"

"My friends call me Henry," Longarm lied, figuring drunk or sober he'd
be able to recall the clerk who played the typewriter for Billy Vail.
He didn't push his luck by insisting he'd met Trisha before.  But she
suddenly smiled--it was a great improvement in her looks--and said, "Oh,
sure, I remember that dark cavalry hat and mustache now.  You told us
you'd fought those rebs at Apache Canyon during the war, last time you
passed through with that big market drive."

He neither confirmed nor denied her accusation.  He liked to ask trick
questions too.  So she lit out for the kitchen to fetch him his
substantial if unusual breakfast.

He was enjoying it, his Winchester across his lap, when a couple of new
customers came in, dressed cow and covered with dust.  They gave Longarm
a long look and took a corner table.  When Trisha came out to ask what
they wanted, Longarm politely waited until she'd taken their order
before he called out, "Hold on, Miss Trisha.  The next time you get a
chance could I have me some cream for this coffee?"

She nodded easily and said, "Sure you can.  But I thought you said
before you cottoned to it black, Henry."

The strange riders exchanged glances as Longarm smiled sheepishly and
said, "You've made it stronger than usual this morning, no offense."

The waitress didn't seem to care one way or the other.  A short spell
later she'd fetched him a can of condensed milk and served the two
others their white bread and beans with black coffee.  Longarm was glad
the coffee really was brewed strong, the way he liked it.

The other two would have doubtless finished their lighter breakfasts
ahead of him in any case.  But Longarm gave them plenty of time by
ordering a slab of cheesecake and more coffee to go with his
after-breakfast smoke.  So they and some of the other customers had
left, and Longarm was about to, when he heard the waitress hissing like
she'd cut herself, and turned to see a burly young cuss in bib overalls
had her by one wrist and didn't seem to want to let go as he grinned up
at her like a shit-eating hound.

Longarm knew better.  He'd just ridden out of one dumb scrape with an
aspiring desperado, and gals who didn't want assholes falling in love
with them had no business waiting tables.  But when Trisha sobbed, "Damn
it, Alvin, you're hurting me!" Longarm just naturally found himself
saying, "Stop hurting her, Alvin."

The burly lout let go of the gal's skinny wrist, but rose to his own
considerable height as he scowled Longarm's way and demanded, "Were you
talking to me, cowboy?"

The question hardly deserved an answer, but Longarm had just found out
how dumb it could be to call a scowling asshole an asshole.  So he kept
his own voice mild as he replied, "Somebody had to.  Trisha, why don't
you go rustle up more coffee for me and Alvin whilst we have us a word
in private?"

The pallid blonde pleaded, "Please don't have a fight in here, boys.  It
could mean my job!"

Then Longarm got to his own feet and, seeing how tall he rose, Trisha
sobbed, "Oh, Dear Lord!" and tore out of the room.

Alvin was looking itchy-footed too as he stared down at the saddle gun
in Longarm's big fist and the .44-40 on his hip, saying, "Hold on,
Mister Henry. I ain't armed and it ain't as if I really hurt your gal,
right?"

Longarm moved over to the heavier man's table, scaring the shit out of
old Alvin but smiling pleasantly enough as he explained, "I knew all the
time you were only funning, Alvin.  But you're a man of the world.  So
you can surely see the fix the two of us poor innocent gents are in.
You know how gals expect a man to stick up for them when they let out a
holler.  You know you'd have had to call me, no matter how you really
felt, had I been teasing your own gal, right?"

Alvin suddenly grinned boyishly and said, "Say no more, Hank.  I didn't
know the gal was spoken for and if it's all the same with you, I'd
rather just drop the matter than fight over a gal who'd only call me a
big bully if I won!"

Longarm laughed and asked, "Lord have mercy, has that happened to you
too?"

So they were shaking on it when Trisha and the cook risked a peek
through the kitchen doors.  But she never came out till her burly
admirer had left, leaving a handsome dime on the table instead of the
usual nickel.  Then she asked, her blue eyes staring astounded, "How did
you do that, Henry?  The last time anyone told Alvin to leave me alone
there was broken chinaware and busted-up furniture all over the place!"

Longarm said, "I told him a white lie about us.  is it safe to say you
don't have any other gent here in town to stick up for you?"

She sighed.  "The few who might have shown any interest all seem afraid
of Alvin.  He's the town blacksmith and they say he can bend horseshoes
with his bare hands.  What you did was awfully sweet, Henry.  But if I
were you I'd ride.  I can handle Alvin without resorting to gunplay.
But you may wind up with a harder row to hoe!"

Longarm finished his coffee--she hadn't brought any more--and left the
right change on his own table without sitting down as he said, "I doubt
we'll have a duel over you, no offense.  I mean to ride on.  But I've
had a long night in the saddle and daytime ain't the best time to travel
here and now. So I reckon I'll hire a hotel bed upstairs and stay out of
sight and study war no more till suppertime."

She told him he was cutting it thin, then spotted the quarter tip he was
leaving and allowed she hoped to serve him some more at suppertime.

He ambled through the archway into the hotel lobby next door.  An old
jasper who looked as hearty as one of their dusty paper fern plants or
the dusty elk's head over the key counter, stared hard at the Winchester
Longarm had toted in by way of baggage and said he could have a corner
room for six bits, payment in advance.

He brightened some when Longarm paid with a silver cartwheel and allowed
he'd take the change in the form of not being disturbed one moment
before he damned well decided to wake up and come back down for his
supper.

The corner room offered cross ventilation and a view of the river,
meaning it would be on the sunny side after high noon.  But when Longarm
shut the jalousies he saw there was far more breeze than light coming up
through the slanted slats.

He bolted the hall door, stripped to the buff, and flopped naked atop
the turned-down bedding to discover that, once he was able to take a
load off his feet and clear his mind of listening for distant hoofbeats
in the dark, he was more tuckered than he'd expected.

He was sound asleep in no time, unaware of the conversation those two
advance scouts were having about him in the saloon across from his
hotel.

The mean-looking Granddaddy Townsend was holding court at a corner table
as the younger and faster-riding kinsmen of the late Jason Townsend
remained standing, as if they were schoolboys reporting to their teacher
to explain piss-poor grades.  One insisted, "We've scouted high and
we've scouted low, Granther.  The only stranger to anyone we talked to
here in Camino Viejo won't work as the bastard who shot it out with our
Jason."

The grim, grizzled Granddaddy Townsend snapped, "Nobody shot it out with
the dumb kid.  Jason drew on a known gunfighter who was standing there
with his damned carbine in his damned hand!"

The bitter old man looked away as he muttered, "Jason was a fool kid and
I always knew he was going to die young and dumb, but blood calls to
blood. You say there's only one such stranger?"

One of the Townsend riders who'd been in the hotel dining room with
Longarm said, "Tall, tanned cuss with a mustache, somewhere in his late
twenties or early thirties, just as they described that son of a bitch
who gunned Jason.  But after that he seemed to be known here."

The old man snapped, "He had to be known some damned where, and we know
he wasn't from Loma Bianca, damn his eyes!"

The younger Townsend, who'd heard Trisha call Longarm Henry, said,
"After that, he wore his hat crushed cavalry instead of Colorado.  Had
on a sissy pink shirt instead of the green one they told us about up in
Loma Blanca. Everyone with any sense favors a six-gun and Winchester
loading the same .44-40 brass in Apache Country.  But he's over to the
Hotel de Paris if you want us to fetch him for you, Granther."

The old man might have told them to.  Then two more of his boys came in,
blinking like owls as their eyes adjusted to the change from the
dazzling sunlight out front.  One called out, "We found some riding
stock that don't belong to nobody here in town, Granther.  Stranger left
'em at the town livery.  Said he meant to bed down a spell and ride on
in the cool of evening."

The mean old man growled, "Never mind what he might be doing here.
Which way was he coming from and what was he riding?"

The second of the two who'd found those bays at the nearby livery said,
"Seems he rode in from the south on one bay gelding, leading a second.
One's a redder shade of chestnut than the other and they both have white
blazes but different brands.  Don't know what you'd call either, seeing
the Mex brands look more like kids' scribbles than the letters and
numbers real rancheros register."

Granddaddy Townsend made a prune face and said, "Never mind all that.
Any rider on the dodge can circle a town to come in from any direction.
But that Julesburg Kid who murdered our Jason rode into Loma Blanca
earlier astride a white barb and leading a palomino, in a green shirt,
not no pink one.  You say this jasper you other boys saw eating
breakfast at the hotel knew somebody there?"

One of them nodded and said, "The waitress called him Henry.  They acted
sweet on one another, like he'd come courting."

The old man rose from his seat, patting the worn grips of his Walker
Conversion as he decided, "We're wasting time.  No killer on the owlhoot
trail slows down to court waitress gals this close to the scene of his
crime! Having no known business in these parts, that Julesburg Kid is
doubtless on his way to that stagecoach line to Fort Wingate and points
West, unless he's streaking for Old Mexico in hopes of escaping us
entire.  So vamanos, muchachos.  I want the head of that murderous
drifter, and he sure as hell don't seem to be here in Camino Viejo!"

As the bunch of them strode out of the saloon, boot heels thudding and
spurs jingling, the barkeep who'd been listening silently turned to
signal what looked like a regular customer sipping suds down the bar.

That wasn't exactly what the man was there for.  The barkeep asked if
he'd been following all that war talk.  The hired gun nodded casually
and said, "I'm paid to notice trouble.  Didn't sound like trouble for
anyone we know, though."

The barkeep said, "Boss lady says she likes to hear everybody's troubles
hereabouts.  You'd best go tell her what just blew into town."

The hired gun protested, "Shit, that federal deputy they want us to
watch out for wears a dark brown outfit, not no pink shirt."

The barkeep said, "Tell her anyways.  They say Longarm's been known to
act sort of sneaky."


Chapter 11


Longarm arose around five that afternoon feeling way better.  He flung
open the jalousies so he could see what he was doing as he gave himself
a whore-bath and shaved at the corner washstand.  He had to put on the
same rosy shirt, but it smelled all right.  Then he went down to see
what they might be serving for supper, having slept clean by his usual
noon dinner.

He found there was nobody else having supper at that hour, if anyone
living in town ate supper out to begin with.  When he commented on this
to the same waitress, the dishwater blonde said they had to stay open
lest travelers stopping at the hotel go hungry.  But there didn't seem
to be all that many since all that talk about Apache trouble had started
up again.

Longarm was tempted to assure her the Jicarilla seemed resigned to their
unfair fate.  But he never did.  What Billy Vail had sent him to look
into was no beeswax of anyone else.  So he allowed that roast beef with
mashed potatoes and string beans sounded fine, if they'd leave out the
string beans and serve him some of the tamales mentioned on the
blackboard instead.  When she said they could, but it would cost him
extra, he said to deal him that hand anyway.

So they did, and he was right about hot tamales tasting far more
interesting than string beans.  A couple of townsmen in frock coats came
in, but only had coffee, and left as Longarm was ordering dessert.  He
noticed that as Trisha was clearing away his dinner dishes, she was
singing soft and low that old Scotch song about rye whiskey.  He'd have
never followed her words if he hadn't already known them.  But seeing he
did, he had to grin as their possible double meaning sank in.  She'd
said that she didn't have anybody here in Camino Viejo, but she still
seemed to be singing:

"Among the train, there is a swain I dearly love myself. But what's his
name and where's his hame, I dinna choose to tell!"

It was a shame he had all that riding ahead of him around the time she'd
be getting off, but that was the way things went some nights.  So he had
apple pie with cheddar cheese, put away another strong cup of coffee,
and told her he might or might not see her again at breakfast time.

She really seemed to care as she asked whether he'd be staying on at the
hotel or not.  So he said, "We live in an uncertain world, Miss Trisha.
I got some calls to make this evening.  Ain't sure how many or how
long."

She asked, "Are you some sort of cattle buyer or traveling salesman,
Henry?  They were wondering about that this afternoon."

He said, "You might say I'm interested in horse-trading.  Who did you
say wanted to know?"

She shrugged.  "Queen Kirby, I imagine.  It was some of her help, not
Queen Kirby herself, of course.  You saw two more of them just now.
Having coffee at that table near the door?"

Longarm nodded and said, "Figured they were looking me over.  I take it
this Queen Kirby is the biggest frog in this little puddle, no offense?"

Trisha made a wry face and replied, "None taken.  I don't think much of
Camino Viejo, either, but a girl needs a job.  Queen Kirby's all right,
I reckon.  She owns most everything and everybody in town, but she's
never done me dirty and I was brung up to live and let live."

Longarm said, "I thought you sounded like a decent country gal.  I take
it this Queen Kirby don't own this dining room, though?"

Trisha said, "Nor the hotel, the two churches, or mayhaps a few of the
shops down the street.  Once you own the saloon, the card house, the,
ah, houses of ill repute, and the municipal corral, you've got a pretty
firm hold on things, though."

He nodded.  "I follow your drift.  There seems to be some such big frog
in every puddle this size.  Not too many of 'em seem to be gals called
queens, though.  Is that her first name or an honorary title, Miss
Trisha?"

The blonde said she didn't know, explaining, "I've only seen her out
front in passing.  She never eats here.  I understand she has a Chinese
cook and dines on frog legs, fish eggs, and peasant-birds at her fancy
mansion just outside of town."

Longarm smiled gently and said, "I think pheasant was the bird you had
in mind.  But you were right about such vittles sounding a mite fancy.
I've known rich folks who ate natural as the rest of us.  So it's likely
this Queen Kirby ain't been rich as long.  I reckon I could use another
coffee, ma'am. Seeing others seem so interested in me, it might be
interesting to hang around a spell."

She said that he could have all the coffee he wanted, but that she'd
thought he had to go somewhere.

He didn't want to tell anyone he planned to explore some canyons
officially said to be deserted.  So he just said he'd ride out soon
enough, and lit a cheroot as she went to fetch the pot.

Nobody else came in as it started to get darker out front.  By then he'd
gotten about all Trisha knew out of her, and she'd started to ask more
about him, or about the Henry she now thought she remembered from an
earlier trail drive.  So he quit while he was ahead and ambled off to
see what that saloon might be like.

As Trisha had told him, they did their serious gambling in the card
house between the saloon and a ramshackle row of whorehouses around a
corner and up a cinder-paved lane.  The saloon was the usual
twenty-by-forty-foot establishment meant for drinking, conversation, and
penny-ante poker.  The bar ran back most of the length of the
smoke-filled space.  There was no piano, and a sign warned everyone to
stay out of the back rooms unless they worked there.

Nobody was seated at any of the four tables.  At that hour there were
only a half dozen cowhands and a jasper in a rusty black suit at the
bar. Longarm figured that one for the most nosy.  So he bellied up handy
to the cuss, but ignored him as he ordered a draft for himself.

The barkeep was usually the one who casually asked a stranger if he was
new in town.  But this one just poured and didn't seem interested in the
change Longarm left on the zinc-topped bar.  So Longarm nursed his beer
scuttle a third of the way down and lit his second cheroot before he
casually said, "Heard some talk about Apache trouble as I was having
supper just now."

The rusty suit took him up on it to observe in an agreeable tone,
"Noticed the cavalry way you wear your hat.  You interested in scouting
Apache, Mister ...?"

"Crawford, Henry Crawford," Longarm replied easily enough, seeing as
Crawford Long had invented painless surgery just in time for the war,
and there was that reporter Crawford of the Post who kept writing all
that Wild West bullshit about Longarm.

The man in black said he answered to Wesley Jones, and repeated his
question about scouting.

Longarm said, "Not hardly.  To begin with, the army seems to be out
after Victorio along the border way to the south.  After that, I'd as
soon kiss a sidewinder on the lips as scout Apache.  I asked my
doubtless foolish question with a view to avoiding Apache.  I heard
something about some having jumped the Jicarilla reserve, is all.  Heard
some were hiding out in them canyonlands to the east."

The man in black exchanged glances with the barkeep before he quietly
asked, "You know your way around La Mesa de los Viejos, you say?"

Longarm replied, "No, I don't.  I've never been over yonder, and I ain't
sure I'd want to go up one of them canyons with a picnic basket and a
pretty gal.  Somebody said something about them being haunted, and I try
to avoid haunts as well as hostile Indians.  When I asked about Apache
hiding out over yonder, it was only because I got to ride north betwixt
the uncertainties of that haunted mesa and the sure-enough Apache
reserve to the west."

Wesley Jones said, "So you do.  You say you have business up in Loma
Bianca or Vado Seguro, Henry?"

Longarm shook his head casually and replied, "I'm bound for Chama.  The
railroad stop called Chama, not that river out front.  Got to meet a
business associate there.  Just want to make sure I won't run into any
other gunplay along the way."

"You say you're headed up to Chama with some gunplay in mind?" the
barkeep suddenly blurted out despite himself.

Longarm smiled innocently and said, "Is that how what I said came out?
Well, that's one on me.  I only meant I had to meet somebody in Chama.
A man would have to be a fool to say he was on his way to a gunfight if
he was really on his way to a gunfight, wouldn't he?"

The man in black nodded at the barkeep and said, "Don't take my invite
wrong, Henry, but there's somebody we'd like you to meet and this saloon
ain't where the real action transpires here in town.  It's only here on
the coach road to serve folks just passing through."

Longarm sipped more suds before he asked with the caution one had to
expect from a knock-around rider, "Just what sort of action might you
have in mind for this child, Wes?"

Jones, if that was his name, said, "You name it, from faro to
fornication, and we'll likely be able to satisfy your cautious nature.
Old Mel here can testify to my being a respectable cuss who ain't out to
rob you or cornhole you, Henry."

The barkeep nodded soberly and said, "We got our business rep to
consider.  Old Wes is a gambling man.  I'm sorry, Wes, but I got to say
it. After that, Mister Crawford, he ain't a crooked gambling man.  The
place of which he speaks is owned by the same respectable lady who owns
this saloon and the hardware across the street."

Longarm said that in that case he'd try anything once.  So Wesley Jones
led him out the back way, past the sign warning them not to pass, and
through a maze of back alleyways in the gathering dusk.  Then they were
in a dimly lit hallway, leading into what looked like the main salon of
a steamboat, or the front parlor of a whorehouse.

Then Longarm noticed most of the hired help seemed to be men in suits
instead of gals in kimonos, with a rougher-dressed crowd at the bar or
around the gaming tables.  Jones had been right about the faro.  They
had crap tables and one of those fancy French wheels of fortune as well.
Jones led Longarm over to a red plush sofa and sat him down, saying,
"I'll see about our drinks. Don't go away."

Longarm leaned back and lit a cheroot.  Jones didn't seem to be coming
back.  But after a tedious time another cuss in a black frock coat came
over with two gin-and-tonics to ask where Jones was.  Seeing as "Henry
Crawford" didn't know, he handed him both stiff drinks.

They let him work on them awhile.  Longarm set one aside and nursed the
other so long that the same cuss came back to sit down beside him and
sadly declare, "You're getting to where you need glasses, or else I need
to lose some weight and shave off this mustache.  You really don't
recognize me, do you?"

Longarm had to admit he didn't.  He had a trained eye for faces, and he
suspected he knew this routine, having spent some time with a Gypsy
fortune-teller who'd really liked it dog-style.

As Longarm stared thoughtfully, the total stranger said, "Come on, who
was your best pal in the old outfit?"

Longarm was sure where they were headed now.  So he stared hard at his
questioner and demanded, "You were in Sibley's Sixth Minnesota?  No
offense, but my best pals were Swede Bergen and Chad Spooner, and you
don't look like either."  He took a sip from his glass and added, "Chad
got killed later in the Sioux Wars, and you couldn't even be related to
old Swede!"

The too-clever-by-half confidence man laughed and said Longarm had been
right the first time, going into a song and dance about the not only
late, but also nonexistent Chad Spooner having introduced them during a
payday crap game.  They both laughed and agreed they'd been young and
green to shoot craps on an army blanket.  It was easy for Longarm to
laugh.  He'd never been near the Sixth Minnesota during his real war
service.  He'd learned the little he knew about the outfit the time
Billy Vail had sent him to Santee country to look into other Indian
trouble.  The silly bastard pumping him by pretending to be an old army
pal was taking awesome chances, counting on all soldiers having similar
memories about crap games, army grub, and mean sergeant majors. But
Longarm went along with the game, smart enough to let a wise-ass play
him for a fool.  The slicker smugly confided, "I've found it wise to
change my own name, since I've taken up more sporting ways.  I was the
kid they called Slim in the third platoon, remember?"

It was easy enough to agree.  There'd always been some kid called Slim
in one platoon or another.

The slicker said, "You and Chad were in the first platoon under old
Carlson, right?"

Longarm shook his head and said, "You must be getting old too.  It was
the second platoon and the shavetail was Jergensson."

The so-called Slim nodded eagerly and said, "Gotten fatter, like I said,
too.  I'd forgot old Jergensson.  Whatever happened to the looie after I
got wounded and sent home?"

Longarm had no idea, since he'd never served under any Second Lieutenant
Jergensson of the Sixth Minnesota, but he managed to look sober as he
said, "Stopped a Sioux arrow with his floating fibs up around Yellow
Medicine.  He wasn't such a bad cuss, for an officer.  Say, do you
remember that infernal Major Palmer who held a full inspection in that
snowstorm?"  It worked.  The sneak calling himself Slim decided to quit
while he was ahead and got back to his feet.  But before he left he had
to try.  "Your real name was Femdale, right?"

That Gypsy gal had explained how any wild stab was as likely to get the
same response from the mark.  So, seeing he was supposed to be the mark,
Longarm laughed and said, "Not even close.  You must have me mixed up
with old Hank Ferguson.  I was Hank Bradford before I had to change my
name for business reasons."

The trick questioner smiled easily and said, "Right.  I'd forgotten old
Jergensson too.  Smart move to keep your first name and stay so close to
the original, Hank.  We'll talk about old times later.  I got to get
back to work before I get in trouble."

Longarm didn't try to stop him.  He grinned wolfishly with his smoke
gripped in his teeth as he watched the wise-ass circle a table and go
through an unmarked door between two red plush curtains.

Longarm rose and drifted over to the nearest faro layout.  He didn't
place a bet.  Faro was as easy to rig as baccarat.  But as he watched
the dealer's hands the cards seemed to be coming out of the so-called
shoe, often a false-bottomed box, about the way a Christian might be
expected to deal.  So Queen Kirby seemed to be content with straight
house odds.  The house had to be coming out ahead, though, with a crowd
this size.

The man in black who called himself Wesley Jones joined Longarm at the
faro layout to demand, "How come you didn't stay put like I told you?"

Longarm softly but firmly replied, "I don't work for you.  So who are
you to tell me shit?"

Jones smiled uneasily and said, "Never mind.  Queen Kirby wants a word
with you.  Play your cards right and you might wind up working for her."

Longarm allowed that he already had a job, but tagged along through that
same unmarked door.  The big, rawboned redhead seated behind a fancy
rosewood writing table was smoking a Havana claro as she waved him to a
ridiculous perch on a small plush chair with her bejeweled and manicured
left hand, saying, "You'll be pleased to know we sent those others
looking for you on their way while you were slug-a-bed and helpless at
the hotel, Henry.  Why did you tell my boys you were on your way north
when you just came from there in a hurry?"

Longarm smiled easily and said, "That's a fool question, if you don't
mind my saying so, Miss Queen.  Where would you tell strangers you were
headed if you were riding the owlhoot trail from the north?"

The handsome but hard-looking gal of at least thirty-five summers smiled
wearily and said, "Henry, Henry, you haven't changed a bit since last we
met and you were trying to fib your way under my way-younger skirts."

Longarm stared hard as he could with a poker face.  Staring with a bit
more thought, he realized she did look faintly familiar.  But he was
good at remembering faces, and it was just as likely he was recalling
familiar features from different rogues'-gallery tintypes and trying to
make a mite more sense out of a mishmash.  He tried picturing her with
natural hair.  That pinned-up henna mop had likely started out brown, to
judge from the remains of her more naturally colored plucked eyebrows.
Her teeth were a tad pearly for her more time-worn painted face.  But if
they were false, she'd spent as much on them as she had on her low-cut
maroon velvet dress.  She likely showed that much bodice so nobody could
miss the pearl choker she wore around her neck, as if she was that
redheaded Princess Alex of Wales instead of ... whatever all this was
supposed to signify.

She removed the cigar from her painted lips with a smile and said,
"After all that sweet talk you don't remember me at all, do you, Henry?
I fear Father Time's cruel tricks have been easier on you than me,
Henry.  But I'll give you a hint.  Think back to where you first went
after mustering out of the Sixth Minnesota, my young so ldier blue."

The hardest part about going along with old fortune-telling shit was
resisting the natural impulse to show you weren't really a dumb shit.
But Longarm thought fast and declared in a puzzled tone, "I don't recall
you from San Antone at all, no offense.  It wasn't all that long ago and
I'm particular about whose skirts I might or might not mess with.  I
don't mean you're too ugly even now, but I never mess with gals I'd
forget so total afterwards."

She laughed and said, "I'm flattered, I think.  You never got that far
with me in San Antone, but it was a nice try and I forgive you for never
having written."

She waved her cigar at the man in black by the door and continued.  "Wes
tells me you said you had a job up in Chama.  Was that just a lie or was
that where you were going when the Townsend boy recognized you and
behaved so foolishly?"

Longarm had no way of knowing whether anyone there had ever laid eyes on
the real Julesburg Kid.  So, hoping he'd thrown them off his back trail
with that bluff about San Antone after the war, he patted the action of
the Winchester across his lap and replied, "Jason Townsend never
recognized me. He said I was the Julesburg Kid.  I was still trying to
persuade him he had me mixed up with someone more famous when he slapped
leather on me.  As to what I was really doing in Loma Blanca, or where I
was headed from there, it's nobody's beeswax but my own.  I ain't asked
anyone in this town for a thing I ain't been willing to pay for.  I
ain't asked anyone anywhere to tell me what they might be up to.  But
seeing we seem to be former sweethearts from San Antone, I'll show you
my pee-pee if you'd care to show me your own."

The man in black sucked in his breath, but Queen Kirby laughed and said,
"You were playing your cards close to your vest the last time I tried to
get some straight answers out of you, Henry.  So all right, I'll spread
one or two cards face-up for you.  To begin with, you're on a fool's
errand if you expect to be hired as a gunhand as far north as the D&RG
Western stop at Chama.  I know what you've heard about a land rush up
that way.  But I've gotten it from the horse's mouth, or from a BIA
official who likes redheads no matter what color hair they have, that
the Interior Department's not going to throw all that Apache land up for
grabs.  There's a lot of Indian policy being debated back in Washington.
The War Department was against moving Apache for no pressing reason to
begin with.  More than one BIA man doubts the Jicarilla can make do at
the Tularosa Agency.  But seeing there's been so much other pressure to
clear dangerous Indians out of these parts, the Apache are being moved
on what Washington calls an experimental basis, with their present
reservation held in trust as federal land for at least the next seven
years. So what do you think of that, Henry?"

Longarm said, "The Jicarilla may think it's some improvement over losing
their land entire.  If the BIA allows 'em to return after even one year
at Tularosa, they're going to think us white eyes are mighty odd.  Their
Navaho cousins are still bewildered by the time we made 'em all plant
peach trees around Fort Sumner and then let 'em all go home to the Four
Corners again.  I fail to see why I should worry about it, though.  Like
I said, I go where I please and work for whoever pays me the most."

She said, "We may be able to pay more than any would-be land-grabber,
with no Indian land up for grabs just yet.  This is where all the real
action's about to start, near the south end of that Apache reservation,
where the BIA and Indian Police have less to say about things."

"You fixing to grab the south end of the Jicarilla reserve, Miss Queen?"
he asked with a deliberately puzzled smile.

The big redhead said, "I'm not in the business of grabbing land.  I'm in
the business of owning land, cattle, and other good things.  You should
have taken me more seriously that time in San Antone.  I may not have
aged as gracefully, but I've wound up rich enough to buy and sell all
sorts of good things, including men quick enough with a gun to protect
me and my property."

"Protect you from whom, Miss Queen?" Longarm asked in a desperately
casual tone.

She smiled in a way that might have suggested coyness in a far more
innocent face and said, "We'll talk about it some more, after I've
talked about you some more with some riders I sent up to Loma Blanca.  I
expect them back by breakfasttime.  If you're what you say you are, I
can make it well worth your while to stay here as one of my own
Regulators.  So if you're really you, you'll do well to stick around."

Longarm nodded and said he'd study on it.  As he shifted his weight to
rise, she added, "They tell me that skinny blonde waitress at your hotel
has been droolin over you, you rascal.  I hope you haven't told her all
those sweet lies you told me and Lord knows how many of the other girls
in San Antone that time.  But I take it you'll either be with her in her
quarters or up in that hotel room with her should anyone need to get in
touch with you tonight?"

Longarm rose to his feet, stiffly saying, "I don't cotton to folks
getting in touch with me late at night, ma'am.  I'll be where I'll be,
and how would you like it if I was to blab all over town that it was
with you instead of a sweet kid who never done you dirty?"

Queen Kirby laughed and said, "I can see why she's drooling over you,
Henry.  You haven't lost your touch or your looks since the war!"

He told her she was pretty too, and allowed that he had to get on back
to his hotel.  As he left he heard Jones saying, "Told you he'd stood up
to your blacksmith for that dishwater blonde.  Wouldn't it be fun to be
a fly on her bedroom wall tonight?"

Longarm strode through the crowd and out the back door without incident
or dawdling.  He'd closed one eye along the way so he was able to see
outside in the dusk with that one.  He ducked into the slot between the
card-house and whatever they'd built right next to it.  He'd already
seen there was no window against the back wall of Queen Kirby's office.
It was always better to have a skylight when you kept a card-house safe
in one corner.  But if there weren't any windows, there was no way
anyone could see what he was doing as he dropped to the dirt and rolled
under the frame card house.  There was the usual eighteen-inch crawl
space between the dry soil and overhead floor stringers. He dragged his
Winchester after him as he inched on one elbow until, sure enough, he
could hear them talking in the office right above him.

Jones was saying something about Apache painting white stripes across
their faces from ear to ear.  Queen Kirby said, "Never mind about Apache
war parties right now, Wes.  I asked you what you made of that tall
drink of water we were conning earlier.  You say he's off the premises
now?"

Wes said, "Spider says he just saw him go out the back.  You'd better
hope we were conning him, and not vice versa.  Should he be that lawman
we were warned about, he's likely heard all the cons of old army pals
and long-lost sweethearts."

Queen Kirby laughed lightly and said, "I told you how I mean to make
sure.  I frankly think he's what he seems, a well-armed and dangerous
drifter, looking for action and hearing about that bunch of
land-grabbers gathering up by the railroad.  Who else would gun a
pissant with no warrants out on him, then hang about as if he had more
serious business in this territory?"

Wes suggested, "A man with serious business in this territory.  As your
head barkeep put it together from listening to those Townsend riders in
your saloon, that Jason Townsend just started up with our Henry,
Longarm, or whoever the blue blazes he really is.  Any man, on either
side of the law, would have swung his Winchester muzzle up the same way.
Fool kid must have thought there was no round in the saddle gun's
chamber.  But it was still a fool chance to take."

Queen Kirby said, "Spare me the gory details.  The point is that a
federal deputy should have identified himself to the town law and our
mysterious Henry Bradford didn't."

Longarm could picture the man in black shrugging as Wes replied.  "I
agree another lawman should have.  That's not saying he would have if he
was in a hurry.  Everyone agrees the man who gunned that punk was just
passing through.  He may have figured he had better places to go in a
hurry."

The man they were talking about heard Queen Kirby say, "I just don't
know.  I'll allow this Henry Bradford, Crawford, or whatever, is a tall
tanned galoot with a heavy mustache, wearing his double-action .44-40
cross-draw. I'll allow we were warned the famous Longarm rode out of the
Dulce Agency looking much the same, if you'll agree much the same ain't
quite the same."

Wes said, "Your pals with the BIA said Longarm had on jeans and was
using a stock saddle in place of his well-known McClellan.  You wouldn't
need surgeon's hands to punch the crown of a dark brown hat into a
different shape, would you?"

Queen Kirby said, "We were wired that Longarm left the Dulce Agency with
a pale blue work shirt, a black-and-white paint pony, and a buckskin.
My old flame Henry rode in wearing a not-too-new Mex shirt of dusky
rose.  After that, he's boarding two bay ponies, not a paint with a
buckskin, in my very own livery.  How do you like it so far?"

Wes said, "Riders have been known to change horses, and those old bays
could have been swapped for those better Indian ponies easy!"

Queen Kirby said, "That's why I sent Fats and Tiny up the river to Loma
Blanca, Wes.  We'll know soon enough whether anyone swapped those Indian
ponies for livery nags.  I told them to ask if anyone had been wearing a
tamer shirt during that saloon fight, too.  But I'm going to be mighty
disappointed if our Henry really turns out to be Longarm.  For they say
he's called Longarm because they send him far, wide, and sudden, to be
the long arm of federal law."

Wes didn't seem to follow her drift.  So she stamped her foot, close to
Longarm's ear, and said, "I'm talking about the time even a slowpoke
would have taken to get here from the Dulce Agency, you dunce.  If that
was the real Longarm we just talked to, where has he been all this
time?"

Wes said, "Somewheres, I reckon.  We know he rid out of the Dulce Agency
to poke his nose into our own business and-"

"No we don't," Queen Kirby said with a chuckle.  "You just heard me tell
him about those land-rushers way up the valley.  So how you know the
real Longarm isn't poking about up yonder, having heard some of them are
hiring guns, and not having heard a thing about our bigger play down
this way?"

Longarm grinned in the darkness right under her feet as he waited for
what came next.  But all that came next was a bitch from Wes about some
stockman who couldn't seem to savvy he was supposed to pay off his
gambling markers.

Queen Kirby told Wes not to worry about it, adding she'd own the
deadbeat's land and cattle before long in any case.  So Wes asked her
about some other business dealings, and Longarm decided to quit while he
was ahead.

He rolled out from under the card house and made his way out of there
without being spotted in the tricky light of early evening.  But even as
he headed for the town livery he realized there was no way to take out
even one of those bays without Queen Kirby learning he'd gone
night-riding.  So he headed back to his hotel on foot, his mind in a
whirl as he considered whether to risk his ass one way or another.  For
he had to ride over to that mesa sooner or later, and it sure seemed
sooner was best.

His mind made up, he trudged on toward the lamp-lit side entrance,
muttering, "Perfidy, thy name is woman, and you're likely to feel a fool
when she tattles on you!"

Then he sighed and said, "Aw, shit, stealing a horse would be taking an
even bigger chance, and you know you have to get a damned horse off
somebody!" He knew Queen Kirby owned neither his hotel nor that dining
room.

The dining room was still open and that dishwater blonde seemed pleased
to see Longarm.  But she told him the kitchen had shut down for the
night if he wanted anything more than cooling coffee or a slice of
something colder. Seeing there was nobody else out front, he took a deep
breath and asked if she thought she could keep some right important
secrets that wouldn't mix her up in anything indecent.

She sat him down at a corner table and then sat down beside him, smiling
a tad indecently as she confided, "My daddy was a Myers of clan Menzies,
and I was raised on the tale of brave Jeannie MacLeod, who refused to
say where Prince Charlie was hiding, no matter how the redcoats beat her
and raped her!"

Longarm resisted the chance to allow the gal couldn't have enjoyed the
beatings and got out his wallet instead as he said, "I need a horse as
bad as that old cuss in Shakespeare's play, Miss Trisha.  I got the two
I rode in with over in Queen Kirby's own livery.  Don't see how I'd get
either out for some night-riding without them telling her."

The waitress stared thunderstruck at his federal badge and
identification as she marveled, "You mean you ain't the Henry Crawford
I've been ... getting to know all this time?  Well, I never, and there's
the mail coach coming through around midnight if you have to get out of
town without anyone but me knowing about it, Henry.  I mean, Custis."

He put a hand on her wrist as he put the wallet away, explaining, "Ain't
ready to leave for good.  Got to snoop around over by La Mesa de los
Viejos, and it's too far to walk both ways before sunrise."

She gasped, "You don't want to go over there alone!  They say there's
spooks, crazy hermits, or just some sickness in the canyon soils.  In
any case, nobody lives over yonder or rides over yonder since the
old-timey cliff dwellers all got sick and died a thousand years ago!"

He patted her wrist reassuringly and said, "We heard different.  Your
government and mine wants me to see just what in blue thunder is really
going on over yonder, and like I said, I need a mount to lope me over
there and back before dawn.  How are we doing so far?"

Trisha said, "Heavens, I don't keep a horse of my own.  I've no occasion
to go that far from this place I work or my hired cottage down by the
river."

She placed her other palm on the back of his already friendly hand.
"I'd be afraid to ride out into the open range around town.  It was
Apache country until mighty recent, and some say Apache riders have been
seen out there since!"

Longarm said, "If they were visible to the casual eye I doubt they could
have been Jicarilla, Miss Trisha.  You don't know anyone you could
borrow a mount from, saying you were brave enough to ride off somewhere
you just had to get to tonight?"

She started to say no.  Then she brightened and said, "Meg Campbell!
Over by the schoolhouse!  She does ride her own pony and, seeing she's
from a Highland family as well, we ought to be able to confide in her,
Custis!"

Longarm said, "I'd rather we didn't.  Two can keep a secret if one of
them be dead.  A secret shared by three ain't much of a secret to begin
with. Couldn't you just tell her some white lie, borrow her pony on the
sly, and lend it to me eight or ten hours, Miss Trisha?"

The waitress thought, sighed, and said, "Lord, I don't know what excuse
I'd give for borrowing her pony over night.  She knows I don't have a
sweetheart, and she's homely enough to snoop if I told her I'd met
somebody since the last time we talked."

Longarm nodded soberly and said, "I wasn't going to ask you to risk your
good name.  But since you just came up with such a swell excuse,
couldn't you say you had to ride out to a big spender's cow spread to
admire his stamp collection or whatever?  I don't see how your
schoolmarm chum could hope to follow you once you borrowed her only
mount."

Trisha said, "She wouldn't be able to snoop around any rancho I just
made up.  But she knows where my cottage is and it's only a short walk
from her own!"

He shrugged and said, "Nobody would expect to find their pony by any
cottage in town if they'd lent it out for a midnight tryst somewheres
else, would they?"

Trisha explained, "Meg Campbell's nice, but she's inclined to be nosy.
What if she knocked, knowing it wouldn't matter if nobody was there, but
meaning to ask me where her pony was if anyone came to the door?"

Longarm started to say she couldn't simply pretend to be out.  Then he
had a better notion and suggested, "You could hide out in my hotel room
whilst I whipped over to the mesa and back."

She slapped the back of his wrist.  "Why Custis Long, whatever are you
saying?"

He said, "Nothing all that indecent, ma'am.  You'll be even safer from
my forward ways upstairs alone than here in this dining room holding
hands with me.  We'll leave the lamp lit and you can read my Police
Gazette and Scientific American whilst I'm out riding.  That could even
help explain where I spent the earlier parts of this evening, should
anybody glance up at my shuttered windows.  Might be a good idea if you
were to move about and cast some shifty shadows from time to time."

She didn't answer.  They sat there holding hands across the table a
spell as Longarm gave her the time she needed to make up her mind.  Then
she did, and she was laughing like a kid starting out on Halloween with
some laundry soap and rotten eggs as she said, "Let's do it.  It sounds
like fun!"


Chapter 12


It wasn't the schoolmarm's cordovan mare pony that gave Longarm a
literal pain in the ass.  It was the sidesaddle he'd found cinched to
the otherwise satisfactory mount when Trisha brought it around to the
back of the hotel. The stock saddle he'd borrowed off his male pals at
the Diamond K was out of reach in the tack room of the boss lady's
livery, and what the hell, it wasn't as if he was hoping to meet up with
anyone in the dark.  So he handed his room key to Trisha, told her to
make sure the door was bolted after her as well, and got on the mare
awkwardly with his Winchester across his unusually placed thighs.

Actually riding sidesaddle made it tougher for a man to buy all the
snickering things other men said about gals who rode that odd way, with
the left foot natural in the near stirrup and the other one dangling in
midair with one's right knee wrapped around a sort of leather banana
sprouting from the forward swells.  He doubted a gal could really gallop
astride, seated backward with that big banana up inside her.  For aside
from being too big, the knee brace was set at better than forty-five
degrees off center.  Longarm found this one braced his right knee well
enough for him to lope the mare once they were off to the northeast a
ways.

He didn't lope all the way to that mysterious mesa, of course.  It was
too far for one thing, and too mysterious for another.  He reined to a
walk when he spied the moonlit rimrocks looming about a mile and a half
ahead.  He was glad he had when he heard distant hoofbeats.

He hadn't been followed from town.  The riders, a plot of riders, were
coming his way from the canyon-carved mesa--fast!

Longarm reined off the trail into high, but not high enough chaparral,
cussing the old-timers who'd cut all the real firewood this close to
town. When the pony balked at moving off farther, Longarm dismounted,
Winchester in hand, to lead the balky brute deeper into whatever
chaparral was left.

True chaparral, back in Old Spain, was scrub oak.  The Mexican and Anglo
vaqueros, or buckaroos, had decided any sticker-brush too tall to call
weeds and too short to call woods was chaparral.  The shit all around
seemed mostly cat's-claw and palo verde, neither offering cover worth
mention in bright moonlight unless you'd got a heap of it between you
and someone else!

Then he almost stepped off into space, and told the mare he was sorry
for cussing it as a balker once he saw why the trail ran the way it did.
The arroyo running alongside was so deep he couldn't see bottom.  He
sighed, got between the pony and the trail, and snicked the hammer of
his Winchester to full cock.  He knew a man could flatten out in thin
chaparral with an outside chance of not being seen.  But there was no
way to ask a live pony to flatten out like a bear rug, and as long as
they were likely to see the damned mare in any case, a man could dodge
lead better on his feet.  There wasn't a bit of solid cover between his
exposed position and the trail.

He could only stand quietly in the moonlight, hoping to pass for a clump
of overlooked firewood, as he listened to those riders riding ever
closer. Then he could see them in the moonlight, and he cradled his
Winchester to cover the pony's nostrils with a palm and held his own
breath as well, hoping against hope, even as he knew he had to be hoping
in vain.

Then the baker's dozen of bare-headed and cotton-shined riders had
passed by, without a glance in his direction, as the moon shone brightly
on white stripes across dark faces framed by long hair bound with rolled
cloth.  As they jingled off into the darkness he murmured, "Jesus H.
Christ, those Quill Indians seem to be headed for town!  So how do we
get there ahead of 'em to raise the alarm?"

The pony didn't answer.  Longarm wasn't sure he could have either.
Cutting cross-country by moonlight, over busted-up range he didn't know,
would be risky riding slow.  Those painted Jicarilla had been following
the trail at a lope.  But hold on.  Could no more than thirteen of
anything hope to raid a whole town on the prod with all that Apache talk
in the air?

He led the pony back to the trail afoot.  "They have to be headed
somewheres else.  In a hurry, seeing they missed us standing there like
moonlit graveyard statuary.  They could circle the town and be across
the river and back on their reserve before sunrise.  So that makes more
sense."

Then he remounted awkwardly, and rode on up the trail to the northeast
as he muttered, "Might be interesting to see where they just came from."

He naturally knew better than to ride into a canyon entrance in
Apacheria.  That could be a fatal move in calmer country.  So a quarter
mile out, as the range began to rise at a steeper angle, Longarm led the
pony off to the other side of the trail, tethered it to lower but
lessferocious greasewood, and gave it a hatful of canteen water before
he put the wet Stetson back on his head and started legging it the rest
of the way, saddle gun at port arms.

A mesa was called a mesa because that was the Spanish word for a table
and the early Spanish explorers had noticed how many flat-topped hills
they seemed to have in these parts.  Most mesas grew that way because
millions of rainstorms had carved away land that hadn't been covered by
a lava flow, an ancient lake bottom dried to dense mudrock, or whatever,
leaving land that had once lain lower perched higher in the sky.  The
moonlit caprock of La Mesa de los Viejos was far higher than Longarm had
time to climb.  So he worked about a third of the way up the gentler
slopes below the jagged rim of the flat top, and proceeded to
mountain-goat around bends that swung into the canyon that the trail
entered down below.

He found he was near the upper limits of easy sidewinding when one of
his boot heels dislodged a fist-sized chunk of scree that, fortunately,
fetched up in a clump of yucca instead of rattle-clanking all the way
down the slope.  So he eased down to where the footing felt surer and
learned great minds often ran in the same channels when he rounded a
bend to spot movement ahead and freeze in place.

He sank slowly down to one knee as he tried to decide what he was
looking at, near the very limits of eyestrain in the moonlight.  Then
one of them stood up to stretch near that big moonlit boulder, and
Longarm proceeded to crawfish backward, slow as hell for a white eyes
who'd just spotted painted Apache!

He figured they'd been posted there because that boulder overlooked the
trail below.  He knew he was moving so slowly because you weren't
supposed to move at all near Jicarilla without getting spotted.

But his luck seemed to hold.  It wasn't always clear whether Indians had
spotted you or not.  Then he'd made it back down to the schoolmarm's
borrowed pony, and he'd run it over a mile before he reined in to pat
its warm neck, saying soothingly, "I know.  You had to have been up
there with me to savvy why we left so fast.  But let's just set this
rise and listen for a spell."

They did, but all Longarm heard was the panting of his mount and the
pounding of his own heart.  So a million years later he decided they'd
best get it on back to town.

He was tempted to lope the spunky mount some more.  But he never did.
He knew Trisha would have to answer for any needless wear and tear on a
borrowed pet.  So he trotted it down slopes and walked it up slopes as
they made good enough time.  They hadn't gone near as far as he'd told
Trisha they might. For while a lone lawman might or might not be able to
sneak up on outlaws, he wasn't about to try it on Quill Indians in
canyon country without a cavalry column backing his play.

They soon saw the lights of Camino Viejo ahead of them, and by now the
winded pony was breathing naturally and the dry night winds had blown
most of that sweat away.  He knew he could get by with just watering it
before Trisha took it back if he walked it the rest of the way to cool
it down easy.  So he did, remembering that cautionary poem about
mistreating borrowed horseflesh as they poked along.  He recited it to
the pony:

"I had a little pony, its name was Dapple Gray. I lent it to a lady, to
ride upon one day. She whipped it and she lashed it, She rode it through
the mire. I wouldn't lend my pony, now, for anybody's hire!"

When the pony he was riding didn't seem to notice, he confided, "I've
known gals who ride like that.  I reckon it's because they let us fool
men worry about the rubdowns, whiplash wounds, and loose shoes.  But we
won't be returning you too stove in, considering some of the other
little ponies you met on the trail tonight!"

There was no other stock at that hour in the small corral out behind his
hotel.  But there was water in the trough along the north rails.  So he
tethered the saddled mare there for the moment, and snuck himself and
his Winchester up the back stairs.

Trisha answered his second knock.  As he stepped into the dark room she
said she'd thought he was gone for the night.  So she'd gone to bed.  He
could see she hadn't wanted to wrinkle her underwear in the very short
time it took him to strike a light, say he was sorry, and shake it out.
She hadn't seemed quite as blonde down yonder, but few men would have
complained.  Like a lot of gals who seemed a tad skinny with their duds
on, Trisha Myers had a body that would have worked fine cast in plaster
for one of those Greek goddess gals.

She stammered, "Shame on you!  Or should I say shame on me?  I'm all
confounded and still half-asleep.  What time is it and what did you find
out, Custis?"

He rebolted the door and leaned his carbine against the wall, and tried
to tell her it was time to get dressed so they could take that pony
back.  But she somehow sat him down beside her on the rumpled bedding.
He said, "It ain't midnight yet, but your schoolmarm chum may be asleep
already.  So with any luck we'll be able to put her pony safe in its
stall out back without disturbing her."

Trisha moved his hand to her bare lap with both of hers as she demurely
replied, "Never mind how disturbed Meg Campbell needs to feel right now!
I'm so disturbed I've been feeling myself down here, and they say too
much of that can make a girl go crazy or blind!"

Longarm put his other arm around her, and stretched them both across the
mattress so he could finger her more friendly as they kissed.  But when
she took his hat off and commenced to fiddle with his gun rig he said,
"What about that mare out back?"

To which Trisha replied, bumping and grinding, "Screw the silly pony.
Let her get her own swain.  Or better yet, screw me, for I've not had
any since I first came up from Santa Fe last winter and I'm a naturally
warm-natured woman, as you may not have noticed."

As a matter of fact he hadn't.  But seeing a lady he'd mistaken for a
mousy small-town waitress was slithering all over him while she flat out
begged for it, he figured it wouldn't hurt that pony to loiter in the
moonlight out back for a few more minutes.


Chapter 13


The wise and doubtless French philosopher who'd said no human being is
ever more sane than right after they'd enjoyed some good food and a
satisfying screw had doubtless met up with someone like Trisha Myers in
his travels. Because she'd no sooner come, begging for him to do it
faster and swearing she'd kill him if he dared to stop before they were
both old and gray, than she commenced to stew about what her friend, the
schoolmarm, was going to say if they didn't get her pony back to her
before midnight.

Longarm reminded her she'd borrowed the mare for the night, and added it
was hardly likely to turn back into one of Cinderella's mice at one
minute past midnight.  But she pleaded with him to pull his pants back
up as she got dressed with an economy of motion that might have inspired
rude questions about other hotel rooms from a man less considerate of
adventurous blondes.

They encountered nobody else on the dark back streets as they walked the
mare to its owner's modest cottage and carriage shed near the more
barn-like public schoolhouse.  Longarm unsaddled and rubbed down the
pony in the darkness of the shed, while Trisha tapped on the kitchen
door and had a few words through the slit with a mighty sleepy Meg
Campbell, who didn't invite her in.

Trisha rejoined Longarm in the shed, giggling, to report she'd just been
called an infernal sex-crazed night owl.  Longarm warned her not to hoot
too much when her friend woke up all the way and really wanted to know
about the other sex-crazed night owl.

Trisha assured him his secrets were safe with her, as long as he meant
to escort a lady to her own back door and treat her right.

So he did, and Trisha agreed it was even nicer to just get all the way
undressed by candlelight, as if they were old pals, and start all over
without the awkward fumblings of that first desperate desire to come
before the other one changed his or her mind.

She said she'd never watched herself taking it that way in the mirror
before.  She said it made her feel like a total whore.  But when he said
he didn't consider her a whore, she wiggled her tailbone and demanded,
"What am I doing wrong, then?  You just tell me what any whore has done
for you that you liked better and I'll just bet I can do it at least as
well!"

He chuckled and assured her, "If you were moving that sweet little
ring-dang-doo any better it would hurt.  I take it you aspire to become
a full-time professional after you've waited tables a tad longer?  It's
more often the other way around, ain't it?"

She moaned, "Faster!  Deeper!  I don't want to be a whore who does it
with just anybody.  But I love to feel like the man I do want to do it
with considers me a totally depraved slut!  My mama always told me girls
who really let themselves come were totally depraved sluts!"

"I've heard Calvinist ministers explain why boys and girls were created
different," Longarm told her.  He didn't ask who'd taught her to finger
a man's crack like that as he was trying to move in her with her legs
locked around his spine.  To prove he understood her better now, and to
get her damned finger out of his ass, he withdrew just long enough to
roll her over on her bare belly and sweet little cupcakes, shove a
pillow under her lap, and enter her some more from behind, with her
slender thighs down and almost together as he braced his own knees
outside instead of inside her legs to move it in her, as no man had ever
moved it in her before, she said, while he planted a bare palm on either
of her finn buttocks to shove them open and shut while singing to her:

"You naughty girl, her mama said. You've gone and lost your maidenhead!
There's only one thing left to do, We'll advertise your ring-dang-doo!"

It made her laugh like hell, and then she laughed even louder as she
panted, "I'm coming!  I'm coming hard and, oh, Custis, it's never, ever,
felt so amusing before!"

He thought it was fun too.  So a good time was had by all, and it made
them both feel sad and sentimental when they just had to stop a spell
lest they screw one another unconscious.

But neither felt really sleepy just yet.  So as they reclined propped up
on her pillows and sharing a smoke, Trisha finally recalled how they'd
wound up such good friends and asked him, again, where he and her
friend's pony had been earlier.

He told her as much as he knew, adding, "Whoever reported a heap of
white strangers hiding out amid those old Indian ruins must have been
blind.  Or else disgruntled Jicarilla have wiped them out and nobody
this far from the mesa noticed the considerable gunplay that should have
taken place."

She said she hadn't heard about anyone, red or white, camping up in
those dry canyons in any numbers.  When she asked how he felt about
Indians and white renegades being up to something sneaky as hell--in
cahoots the way those Mormons and Paiutes had acted out Utah
way--Longarm said, "Na-dene ain't Paiute, and the Mountain Meadows
Massacre was a sort of ill-considered brawl that nobody had spent all
that much time in plotting.  The Jicarilla leaders smart enough to plot
worth a tinker's dam are up at the Dulce Agency, trying to get as good a
deal as they can out of the Great White Father.  Disgruntled young
bronco Apache don't meditate dark deeds up a canyon with any white
outlaws.  They kill 'em for their guns and horses."

She took the cheroot from him as she allowed that was the way she'd
always heard Apache behaved, too.  Billy Vail had never sent her down
this way to investigate conflicting rumors.

Longarm speculated, "Not much mystery about disgruntled Indians.  I've
often felt disgruntled by our willy-nilly Indian policy, and I must have
a better grasp of our two-party system than your average Indian.  What
can you tell me about numerous new faces in or about these parts,
honey?"

Trisha said there were lots of new faces around Camino Viejo, including
her own, but that she'd never been up any canyons over by that mesa.

When he asked her what had inspired a gal so fond of ... nightlife to
come up this way from Santa Fe to begin with, she explained she'd heard
things were booming up this way, just as the place she'd been working
in, near the Governor's Palace in Santa Fe, had been shut down by the
new, reform administration.

She said she didn't know why.  They'd never told the gals waiting tables
out front what went on in the back rooms, but there'd been boomtown talk
about a ghost town coming back to life up this way.  Hence, here she
was.

She agreed with Longarm that Camino Viejo was hardly more than a bigger
stagecoach stop than most, with the stage company's local relay station
four miles farther on.  But she said old-timers said it had been much
less before Queen Kirby had come out of the blue to do wonders with her
fairy wand, or ready cash.

Trisha explained how the mysterious redhead had swept in one day, three
summers back, to find a few forlorn merchants and the slightly more
prosperous hotel, serving the crossroads near a river ford and not much
else.  The Mexicans had been run off years back, and the more stubborn
or stupid Anglo homesteaders had eventually found it discouraging to
live more forted up, and lose more stock, than folks just a few miles up
or down the valley in either direction.

Trisha said, "The way I heard it, Queen Kirby started by buying out a
couple of failing rancheros, hanging on to their cowboys, and adding
some hired guns of her own to make stock-stealing in these parts more
threatening to one's health.  Then she plowed those profits back into
her card house and less wholesome enterprises.  Some of the cowboys say
there were never all those whorehouses just off the coach road in olden
times."

Longarm blew a smoke ring and said, "I was over to her card house
earlier.  Money can be a lot like snow, once you get a ball of it
rolling right.  She might or might not have come by her first wad of
seed money honestly.  I've got no warrant to question that.  I fail to
see how any federal court would be interested in an old carnival grifter
using the profits from one business to start up or buy out another.
They call that free enterprise, and I can see how she got her first
holding almost free.  It was smart to revive a ghost town with a handful
of private guns instead of building a town from scratch with a far
bigger army of masons and carpenters."

Trisha said Queen Kirby had a building contractor working for her now.
"You can't get hardly anything new built here in Camino Viejo without
Queen Kirby turning a profit on you.  Why did you say she was a carnival
grifter?  I thought you said you'd never courted her down San Antone way
like she said."

Longarm explained, "That was a carnival grifter's trick.  I heard about
it from another carnival gal one time."

Trish pouted.  "A younger and prettier one than Queen Kirby, I'll bet,
you rascal!"

He put the cheroot back between her pouting lips as he said soothingly,
"You'd win.  I thought you admired rascals, you nicely depraved little
slut. Be that as it may, everything I know for certain about Queen Kirby
smells of popcorn and the tinny blare of a carnival.  That might explain
her appearing from nowhere with a fast line of patter and a Minnesota
bankroll."

That term was a new one on Trisha, despite her sophisticated Santa Fe
background.  So Longarm explained, "Cheap flash.  A Minnesota bankroll
is a big bill wrapped around a lot of singles, or even newsprint cut to
size.  I ain't sure why tinhorns are said to do that more in Minnesota.
Heaps of greenhorns there, I reckon.  But anyway, once you convince
enough folks that you're rich, you can buy heaps of stuff on credit.
What you do then depends on how smart a grifter you may be.  A tinhorn
moves on, owing everyone in town.  We call the smarter grifters
millionaires, once they mortgage stuff they've bought on credit to get
the front money it takes to buy more, and then more, until they don't
have to leave town because they own it."

Trisha laughed and said that sure sounded like Queen Kirby.  When she
asked how he meant to stop the old brawd, Longarm shrugged his bare
shoulders and asked, "Stop her from doing what?  Nobody's sworn out all
that many warrants on Commodore Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, or even
Bet-A-Million Gates for grifting their way to fame and fortune."

She said it hardly seemed fair that big fibbers could get so rich by
skating the thin ice just within the law.

He said, "I only get to arrest 'em when they break through the ice.  The
only thing I don't understand about Queen Kirby is why she seems so
worried about me.  The real me instead of the drifter I told her I was,
I mean.  For unless she's doing something more crooked than what you
just said, she'd have nothing to fear from a federal lawman."

Trisha asked, "What if she's up to something really down and dirty?"

To which he could only reply, "That's what I just said."


Chapter 14


Trisha had to be on the job when the morning stage from Santa Fe made
its breakfast stop in Camino Viejo.  So she was up with the chickens,
and served him black coffee and orange marmalade on fried bread, while
she had him for breakfast in bed.  She allowed that a gal waiting tables
tended to nibble all day on the job and skipped sit-down meals if she
wanted to keep her figure halfway trim.

They agreed it would hardly be discreet for them to stroll hand-in-hand
from her cottage by the dawn's early light.  So she left a spell ahead
of him. Then he got dressed, rolled over a rear windowsill, and emerged
from some crackwillow farther along the riverbank, too far for anybody
nosy enough to care.

He mosied back to the hotel, saw nobody had been searching his room,
unless they knew his trick involving a matchstick stuck in the door
crack under a bottom hinge, and cleaned all three guns on the bed both
to kill some time and to make it tougher for folks to kill him.

It took him some time to decide what was making him oddly uneasy as he
listened to the morning sounds outside.  He hadn't heard anything odd.
Birds always chirped and boots always clunked on plank walks in the
morning.  Then he realized it was sounds he wasn't hearing that was odd.
Trisha had said a morning stage was due in from Santa Fe.  But here it
was going on seven in the morning and where was it?

He moved over to the shuttered window overlooking the street and flung
the jalousies wide.  Things looked quiet for that hour out front.  He
left his Winchester by the bedstead, locked up, and wedged another
matchstick under the bottom hinge before he went downstairs.

He didn't hand over his room key at the desk in the lobby.  Nobody
really wanted him to while he was still staying there.  It was a bother
for all concerned to fumble keys in and out of pigeonholes whether a
guest was sneaking someone up the stairs or not.

But he stopped there anyway to ask the gummy-eyed desk clerk what time
the chambermaid usually made the beds upstairs.

The clerk yawned and asked when he was planning to leave town.  When
Longarm allowed he didn't know how many more days he might be there, the
clerk said the maid would change the damned sheets at the end of the
week or whenever he left for good, depending on which came first.

Longarm said, "Don't get your bowels in an uproar, old son.  I'd as soon
not have anyone popping in and out of my room like a cuckoo-clock bird.
That's how come I asked."

The clerk said sullenly that they'd never robbed a guest yet, and asked
how many stagecoach strongboxes he'd hidden under the bedstead up
yonder.

Longarm smiled and said, "Only one.  The coach from Santa Fe seems to be
taking her time this morning."

The clerk said, "It ain't running this morning.  Apache.  Where were you
when them riders tore through blazing away to raise the alarm last
night?"

Longarm thought hard, nodded, and said, "I do recall what I took for
distant thunder along about three in the morning.  You say it was
something more exciting?"

The clerk said, "You must have been sleeping like a log.  They woke me
up and I live two streets over.  The way I got it, coming to work, was
that the Apache raided the Chandler spread just north of town.  Lucky
for the Chandlers, the crew at the stage relay up the road heard the
whooping and shooting and came to help.  But the fool Apache shot out
all the window glass, turnt over the shithouse, and naturally run off
all Bob Chandler's riding stock."

Longarm whistled softly and said, "I wonder if the army knows as much as
we do about all this."

The clerk shrugged and said, "they've wired Santa Fe.  Wires to the
north have already been cut.  But at least they won't butcher the folks
aboard that morning coach, and the one coming down from that railroad
stop at Chama won't even start, seeing the wire's down in Apacheria."

As Longarm turned to stride out front, the clerk added in an oddly
cheerful tone, "The army's got all its spares chasing old Victorio along
the border right now.  They ain't about to detach even a squadron to
chase Jicarilla horse thieves.  We have to lose us some hair up this way
before the soldiers in blue show up."

Longarm was afraid he agreed.  He headed for the Western Union on the
corner anyway.  Billy Vail had sent him on a wild-goose chase.  There
were no outlaws holed up in the canyons of that mesa.  Not alive, at any
rate.  But meanwhile, some Jicarilla kids were fixing to get their whole
nation in a whole heap of trouble if somebody didn't do something about
it before white blood was spilled!

Knowing there was no way to wire BIA headquarters in his official
capacity without giving his true identity away, Longarm strode into the
combined tobacco stand and telegraph office to send a wire east via the
line to Santa Fe.  But the older gent who sold cigars more often than he
sent wires anywhere, morosely informed Longarm he was solely in the
tobacco business that morning.

"Apache," he laconically observed, figuring nobody but a tenderfoot
needed more explanation than that when Western Union shut down for
repairs in Apacheria.  Nobody had ever had to explain electricity to any
hostiles.  All they'd had to hear was that the blue sleeves got word
somehow along those singing wires stretched from pole to lonely pole,
far from the gaze of any cavalry patrol.

With the wires down in all directions, Longarm felt no pressing need to
identify himself as he stocked up on some cheroots instead.

As he stepped out on the walk, pausing to light one of the cheroots, the
man in black called Wesley Jones caught up with him.  "Where have you
been? They just told me you weren't in your room and I've been looking
high and low for you."

Longarm finished lighting his cheroot and shook out the match before he
said, "You found me here instead because I was running low on tobacco.
What did you want with me, Wes?"

Jones said, "It's Queen Kirby who'd like another word with you.  I was
asking where you might have been earlier this morning when she first
sent me to fetch you."

Longarm blew smoke in the rude questioner's face and calmly told him,
"Where I might or might not have been is my own beeswax.  When did Miss
Queen adopt me as her wayward child?  I can't come up with any other
reason I'd have to report to her for roll call.  Can you?"

Jones said, "I can.  You can't ride on to that job up Chama way with
Apache on the warpath.  Meanwhile she's got as good if not a better job
for a man who's not afraid to use a gun on short notice."

Longarm didn't want to seem too anxious.  On the other hand, he sure
wanted to know why Queen Kirby was recruiting a private army of hired
guns. So he shrugged and said, "I'll hear her out.  I ain't saying I
want to work for any woman, though."

The man in black smiled thinly.  "You'll find Queen Kirby as tough as
most he-bosses if you cross her.  Now that it's over, I can tell you
just how close you came last night to finding out how tough she can get.
How come you swapped two fine Arab ponies for bay scrubs up Loma Blanca
way, Crawford?"

Longarm was glad he'd picked an alias easy to remember as he answered
casually, "I left in a hurry.  Would you want to be riding a cream and
leading a palomino right after a serious gunfight, Wes?"

The man in black led the way along the walk as he chuckled and replied,
"They say you changed your shirt from green satin to rosy cotton, too.
I admire a man who thinks fast on his feet.  It's a good thing you never
put on a pale blue shirt or swapped those pale ponies for a buckskin or
a paint."

Longarm knew exactly what he meant, but naturally pretended not to as
they walked on past that saloon and around to the card house, where this
morning better than a dozen ponies were tethered out front.

When they went inside, the gaming room was full of tobacco smoke and
some hard-looking gents, armed to the teeth and not playing cards or
shooting craps.  When Longarm commented that it looked as if someone was
fixing to go to war, Jones told him he was right.

They went into Queen Kirby's office.  A hatchet-faced individual with an
old army shirt, shotgun chaps, and an English Enfield .476 six-shooter
was leaning against a back wall, arms folded Indian-style.  Queen Kirby
asked, "You ever meet up with Poison Welles before, Henry?"

Longarm stared, neither friendly nor unfriendly, at what assumed to be
the stranger instead of a desert water hole, and allowed he'd never had
the pleasure.

Queen Kirby said, "Fortunately for us all, Poison here knows the famous
Custis Long, or Longarm, on sight."

Poison Welles nodded soberly and declared, "He ain't half as tough as
they say he is in the Rocky Mountain News.  I backed him down in
Durango, just about this time of year, around '76 or '77.  Thought he
could dance with my gal just because he was a famous lawman.  But when I
told him to fill his fist, he just grinned like a fool and said he'd
only been funning."

"I'm sorry I missed that," said Longarm, trying not to sound too
sarcastic.  He wasn't supposed to be as clever as Queen Kirby, and it
was no skin off his nose if she didn't know the town of Durango hadn't
been there in '76 or '77, since they'd built it on land the Ute had lost
more recently, after that ill-advised Meeker Massacre closer to White
River.  He didn't know why fabulists like Poison Welles made up such
whoppers, but he was glad this one had when Queen Kirby said, "We'd
already backtracked you enough to feel we were safe in calling you
Henry, Henry.  But having Poison here assure us you can't be who you
couldn't be means I may as well lay some more cards on the table,
face-up.  I want you and your gun hand working for me, Henry.  I'm
paying a hundred a week and found, with a bonus for each and every time
you really have to fire a gun.  How do you like it so far?"

Longarm quietly asked, "Who might I be fixing to gun for you?"

She said, "Right now I've got Apache pestering me.  I knew from the
beginning that that stupidity with the Jicarilla was going to cause more
Indian trouble.  Those fools down in Santa Fe never thought ahead as
they were pulling strings to move the Jicarilla.  I told you what the
wise-money boys told me about the Bureau of Land Management freezing all
that Indian land, and now we're stuck with upset Indians, at a time the
army can't spare us any help with them!"

Longarm cocked a brow and cautiously asked, "You've been recruiting
gunhands to fight Indians, ma'am?"

She shrugged her bare shoulders and replied, "Somebody has to.  I just
told you the army seems too busy.  General Sherman says he just can't
spare the troops to chase horse thieves when Victorio and his four
hundred total savages are running wild down south."

She took a drag on her cigar before adding primly, "I prefer to call you
boys my' Regulators,' not my hired guns.  I can assure you all it's
perfectly lawful, Henry.  I've cleared it with both Santa Fe and our
county sheriff up Ensenada way.  So how's about it?"

Longarm exchanged glances with Poison Welles, as if he thought the
blowhard knew his ass from his elbow, then turned back to Queen Kirby to
demand, "What's the bounty per Apache head, ma'am?"

She met his gaze unflinchingly and said, "I knew you were my kind of
gun, Henry.  A hundred dollars on each dead buck and fifty for a squaw
or kid.  We don't take prisoners.  Any Apache who messes with me will
learn I'm not a fool government you can fight with one day and tap for a
handout the next."

Longarm nodded soberly and said, "I follow your drift, ma'am.  I've
often wondered why Uncle Sam fights 'em in the summer and feeds 'em
through the winter, myself.  But ain't we likely to get in trouble with
said government, slaughtering wards of said government without a hunting
license?"

Queen Kirby shrugged and said, "Hell, I'm only asking you to shoot the
red devils for me.  Nobody's asking you to sleep with them or buy them
any drinks."

Poison Welles chimed in.  "White folks got the same right as anyone else
to defend themselves, and it's the Apache, not us, as started it!"

Longarm didn't feel like debating that point.  He'd warned Indians more
than once not to give his own kind the excuse to fight them if they
weren't ready to start their own industrial revolution.

He said, "Well, like Wes here says, I'd never get up to Chama to see
about that other job alone at a time like this.  So I reckon you just
hired another gun, Miss Queen."

She said, "Good.  Go home and get your Winchester.  Then saddle up any
mount in my livery and be ready to ride.  I've heard those Apache are
holed up around La Mesa de los Viejos and I want you to lead the patrol,
Henry.  For I know you're a killer and I want those damned Apache
killed, right down to the last papoose!"


Chapter 15


Longarm didn't intend to kill anyone he didn't have to.  But a
reservation-jumping Jicarilla could offer mighty persuasive arguments
for killing him wherever you might meet him off his reservation.  So
Longarm was not too upset to find that one canyon deserted once he'd
led, or at least rode out ahead of, Queen Kirby's score and a half of
"Regulators."

The riders he'd spotted the night before had been camped among some
barely noticeable ruins.  The "Old Ones" of La Mesa de los Viejos had
either dwelt there mighty far back, or built their cliff dwellings and
canyon-bottom pueblos mighty carelessly.

They'd all dismounted to scout for sign amid the squares or circles of
freestone.  So Longarm was counting flies on some horse apples by what
might have been a kiva, filled in and almost totally erased by the rare
floodwaters of many a year, when the famous badman Poison Welles came
over to join him, holding a fresh but empty tin can.

Poison said, as if he knew, "Canned salmon.  No Apache ever brung this
from his agency.  Reservation trading posts don't stock any sort of
canned fish for Apache."

Longarm took the can and sniffed it, saying, "Been open and empty a
spell.  Might have been whites up this way ahead of 'em.  I heard in
town that some kid had seen a mess of white strangers over by this mesa
a spell back. You hear anything about that, Poison?"

Welles shrugged and replied, "No white boys up this way right now.  No
Indians neither.  But wouldn't you say them turds at our feet were
dropped by a white man's horse?"

Longarm nodded and said, "I was just admiring the oat husks.  The flies
say the pony was here about two days back.  The Pueblos never named them
Apache because they steal from one another."

Poison Welles said, "I follow your drift, but they raided that white
outfit last night, not two days ago."

Longarm made a mental note to be careful with Poison Welles in spite of
that bad first impression.  The West was full of pests who seemed half
bullshit and half real.  Old Bill Cody had started to grow his hair
shoulder-length and wear fringed white buckskins like some of those
sissy boys who stayed in camp with the women.  But it was still a fact
that he had shot all those buffalo, and had fought it out blade-to-blade
with Yellow Hand of the Cheyenne Nation.

Wesley Jones, another bullshit artist, came over to ask what was going
on.  Longarm said, "Mixed signals.  Red or white campers this far up the
canyon.  I'd go with white if I didn't have good reason to, ah ...
suspect a good-sized war party rode out of this very canyon just last
night."

Jones said, "Damned gravel makes it hard to track any breed at all, not
to say which way or when, Hank.  What inspired you to say Apache in
particular were up this way last night?"

Longarm reminded himself that Cockeyed Jack McCall had been taken for a
harmless blowhard till he'd really gone and gunned Wild Bill in the
Number Ten Saloon.  Then he chose his words carefully and told them
both, "I can't say I saw them with my own two eyes.  But don't it stand
to reason?  Why would any white boys with a lick of sense be way out
here in this dry canyon during an Apache scare when they could be safely
drinking rotgut or, hell, sipping cider over by the river in Camino
Viejo?"

Poison Welles stared around at the canyon walls as he objected.  "I
can't see Indians camping even dumber, Hank.  This is about the last
stretch of canyon I'd expect to find an Apache camp."

Jones scuffed at the outline of an old stone wall with his boot and
said, "Oh, I dunno.  You can see some Indians must have favored this
spot in olden times."

Poison Welles shook his head, wigwagging his comical tan Texas hat, and
insisted, "Anasazi lived up these canyons on sites and for reasons no
modern mind can fathom.  But Apache are worse than schoolboys about
graveyards and haunted houses, which these old ruins sort of combine.
Could you see kids scared of ghosts camping out in a graveyard when
there was plenty of sites just as good further up or down?"

Longarm managed not to ask how a man who knew that much about Indians
could fail to know the town of Durango had mushroomed on a recent
hunting ground.  He said instead, "We know what's down this canyon we
just came up. Let's go on up it some more and have a look-see."

As they strode back to the others and their ponies, the hard-to-figure
Poison Welles called ahead, "We're moving on.  But don't nobody mount
up. It's safer to walk your horse around a canyon bend in Indian
country."

A prouder man might have reminded Welles that Queen Kirby had told
himself to lead the patrol.  But Longarm let it go, letting Poison have
as much rope as he wanted.

The canyon boxed a furlong farther on.  That explained the ancient ruins
at ground level.  Noah's forty days and forty nights would have had a
tough time flooding the canyon floor this close to its upper end.  The
box was paved with gravel, too, along with scattered horse turds.  This
time it was Jones, despite his soft hands and carnival grifter's
manners, who declared, "They must have kept their Indian ponies up here
in this natural corral."

Longarm said, "Somebody's ponies at any rate.  But they ain't here now,
and there must be more canyons than this one cut into the mesa."

There were.  It took the better part of the day, with some volunteers
scaling the rocks to scout around with a buzzard's-eye view, before
Longarm and all his so-called Regulators decided there weren't any fool
Indians to be found around La Mesa de los Viejos now.

They reported back, hot and dusty, only to be told another spread had
been raided, this time down the river to the south, with the wire still
down and nobody moving along the coach road.

When Longarm said you traveled through Apacheria by night but hunted
Apache by day, because that was the best time to find them holding
still, Queen Kirby told them all to get a good night's rest and go get
the savage rascals at sunrise before they hurt somebody.

Longarm enjoyed a good meal, a hot bath, and even got some rest before
Trisha got off work and rejoined him in his hotel room.

After he'd shown her how much he'd been missing her too, she asked how
long he'd be staying there in Camino Viejo.

He finished lighting their cheroot, patted her bare shoulder, and
truthfully replied, "Can't say.  If those mysterious white strangers
were ever holed up around that mesa, they ain't there now.  I might have
gone riding with some of them today.  Queen Kirby seems to have all the
gunslicks in these parts on her payroll.  I'm still trying to figure out
why."

She took a drag, handed the smoke back and said, "I was working in Santa
Fe when they hired all those Regulators down in Lincoln County.  But we
sure heard about all the feuding and fussing.  You don't suppose Queen
Kirby is out to murder the county sheriff and just take over like a real
queen, do you?"

Longarm said, "The lady don't seem that stupid.  The Lincoln County War
was mutual stupidity, no matter what you read in the papers about it.
The Murphy-Dolan faction thought they owned a whole county because Major
Murphy said so three times, like that queen Miss Alice met up with in
Wonderland. The Tunstall-McSween side said they owned Lincoln County
because Truth, Justice, and Billy the Kid was on their side."

He took a drag on the cheroot and said, "It was a bareknuckles fight
betwixt stubborn cusses who, all huddled together, might have added up
to one mature adult.  Old John Chisum sided with Tunstall and McSween at
first.  But being a grown-up, he backed out in time and wound up way
better off when ... Hmm, I wonder if Queen Kirby noticed that."

Trisha began to fondle him fondly as she repressed a yawn and asked,
"Was that the Chisum they sing about in that trail song, hon?"

He said, "Nope.  Jesse Chisholm blazed that cattle trail north from
Texas.  John Chisum is the biggest cattle king in New Mexico Territory
now. Because he had the brains to pull in his horns and sit it out as
the Gingham Dog and Calico Cat ate each other up.  You can't just shoot
folks, rob them of their land and property, and sit there like a fool
dog with a bone, no matter how wild Ned Buntline writes about these
parts.  The Murphy-Dolan boys gunned Tunstall and McSween in turn, only
to have their tame Sheriff Brady back-shot and have martial law declared
by the new governor appointed by President Hayes.  Jimmy Dolan ran off,
along with most everyone else who meant to go on living outside of jail,
or simply go on living.  Old Murphy died broke, his business ruined by
the war and his health ruined by all the nerve tonic he'd been taking in
increasing doses.  Some say The Kid is washing dishes down at
Shakespeare, near the border.  I don't know where he might be right now
and don't much care.  He's only wanted local for gunning Sheriff Brady.
My point is that everyone got ruined but Uncle John Chisum.  When it was
all over he was in position to buy up all that property mortgaged or
abandoned by the fools who'd ground one another down to nothing, see?"

She began to stroke it harder as she demurely replied, "I guess so.  But
there only seems to be one side around here.  There's Queen Kirby and
those Indians she wants you boys to get rid of for us all.  No white
folks around here are at feud with Queen Kirby, and the Indians don't
have any property anyone can grab without the government's say-so,
right?"

He snubbed out the cheroot and rolled back on top of her as he decided,
"That's about the size of it.  But I'll be switched if I can see anyone
hiring her own well-paid army to fight Indians pro bona--meaning a free
public service in lawyer talk."

Then he was too busy to talk, and she wouldn't have been listening in
any case, as they both went deliciously loco some more.


Chapter 16


The next few nights were as nice, or nicer, with Trisha proving a real
sport about experimenting in bed or anywhere else he could think of.
But the days went tedious as hell, with those infernal raiders neither
moving on to fresh fields of action nor offering a stand-up fight.  It
was almost as if the painted rascals were out to taunt the white eyes in
and about Camino Viejo; for they seldom hit more than half a day's ride
in any direction, and always seemed to double back and hit some more
every time it seemed they'd ridden on.

Everybody Longarm talked with seemed as bewildered, whether they worked
for Queen Kirby or her neighbors.  Some were more jealous than others,
but nobody was on really bitter terms with the hard-faced but jovial
redhead.

Some Western Union riders repaired the wire to Santa Fe.  It was cut
somewhere else the same day, as if the Indians had been watching.

Longarm watched for smoke signals as he led patrols out on both sides of
the river, trying in vain to cut the Indians' trail, with just enough
sign hither and yon to let you know they were still around without
saying exactly where.

Then it got worse.  Wes Jones, leading his own patrol south along the
riverbanks, came upon what was left of old Pappy Townsend and the bunch
he'd led all the way to Santa Fe and back in search of the man who'd
gunned their young kinsman Jason up at Loma Blanca.  When Jones brought
them back, stacked like bloated cordwood on a buckboard, it was
generally conceded they'd have been far better off staying up in Loma
Blanca.  One could only hope the bodies had been stripped and carved up
that thoroughly after they'd been killed.

Queen Kirby ordered eight pine coffins in a hurry for the bunch of them,
and sent them on their way north, more dignified if not a whiff
sweeter-smelling under the sunny New Mexico sky.

When he told Trisha about it later, the pale blonde turned paler and
said she was scared, which sounded reasonable.  Then she pleaded with
him to take her away from such savage surroundings, which he would not,
he told her, because he wasn't fixing on going anywhere before he
learned what was going on.

They were getting undressed at the time, of course, so she tried to take
unfair advantage of him, on her knees beside the bedstead, as she said,
"Pooh! You told me you were a lawman, not the hired hand of a silly old
thing whose only crime is that overdone henna rinse!  You told me just
the other night that neither gambling nor whoring are federal offenses,
lucky for us, and everybody shoots to kill at Apache, save for the
army."

He sighed and said, "I've noticed that.  Some officers seem to go along
with the Indian policy of the moment, whilst others like to preserve the
species, lest a son still in West Point graduate to find no hostiles of
his own to hunt.  I sometimes feel we'd have been kinder in the long run
to follow the Mexican or Canadian Indian policies.  I know it saves a
heap of money to just leave Indians be when they ain't bothering nobody,
and arrest them as outlaws when they are."

She didn't answer.  She couldn't talk with her mouth so full.  He lost
interest in what was going on everywhere else on earth that night.

It was downstairs in the dining room the next morning, her serving him
more sedately with ham, eggs, and an innocent expression, when he told
her, "Don't pack your bags just yet.  But I reckon I could get us out of
here aboard my two livery nags by way of the far side of the river and
up to the railroad inside the reservation line.  I doubt like thunder
we'd meet many reservation-jumpers on or about the reservation they'd
jumped.  So by now nobody else over yonder should know whether to be
sore at me or not."

She looked so puppy-dog eager he quickly added, "Hold on.  I never said
I'd be able to c you all the way back to Denver with me, and I ain't
even fixing to cross the river till I check just a few more angles out."

She bent over to pour him more coffee as she asked what else there could
be to find out about a sort of informal but sensible enough way to cope
with any sort of wild and woolly killers.

He said, "We've been whittling away at where those raiders could be
holing up by day to raid at night.  But like you said yourself, fighting
Indians for fun and profit ain't my regular occupation."

None of the few others having breakfast seemed to be listening, so he
confided, "I just want to wire some questions hither and yon about old
Queen, her boyfriend Wes, and a couple of her other old boys.  She and
the one who says he used to be called Slim tend to sound like a pair of
carnival barkers when they get into a two-sided conversation.  They lard
their jargon with so many terms I can barely understand, and I've spent
some time with carnival folk."

She pouted.  "I was wondering where you learned to contort a poor girl
into such dirty positions.  Is that what you're planning to do to that
old redhead as soon as you get the chance?"

He laughed incredulously and said, "Not hardly, albeit she does remind
me of somebody prettier from a time gone by.  I've been busting brain
cells trying to remember.  Neither of us would have forgotten a long-ago
love affair, despite her bull about having met me before in San Antone."

Trisha said, "Goody!  Does that mean you'll still let me French you if
we meet like this a dozen years from now?"

He sighed and said, "Honey, you can do that when I come back to you this
very evening, should that be your pleasure as well.  Meanwhile, I think
I may have seen a younger Queen Kirby's face on a tin-type or
sepia-tone.  It's possible she resembles some male relation on file.  In
either case, that carnival or theatrical background may narrow the
target area down.  I know some theatrical agents I can call on and, of
course, the Pinkertons keep files on grifters, bunko artists, and such,
because they provide security at so many state fairs and such."

Trisha had to go serve somebody else.  He didn't care.  He'd only been
musing aloud with the only person he could trust with his musings in
these parts.

He finished breakfast and ambled over to the card house.  Queen Kirby
and her Wesley hadn't shown up yet.  Longarm had learned the others
called the man in black her Wesley after hearing some shocking comments
by old boys who'd overheard sloppy noises through door panels from time
to time.

Longarm hadn't asked for further details.  It was enough to know who
might be making sloppy noises with whom.  Everybody acted sort of
disgraceful at such times, and some said the real queen, Victoria,
favored that Scotch butler, John Brown, because it saved time behind
closed doors with the two of them wearing skirts.

It was more important to know Wes outranked Darts Malloy, the wise-ass
who'd said they'd known one another as Hank and Slim in the old Sixth
Minnesota.  He sure talked like a gent who'd once run a dart game in
some dingy traveling show, though he rode well enough.

Queen Kirby finally came in, looking flushed and out of breath, as if
she'd been out jumping fences sidesaddle.  Old Wes, coming in after her
looked as if he'd been doing some riding that morning as well.

Queen Kirby declared, "We've been talking it over.  We have to do
something about those blamed Apache.  It seems pretty clear it's not
such a big war party and that they're shifting around like spit on a hot
stove."

When nobody argued she said, "I want you boys to split up into smaller
patrols to cover more range.  How small can we get away with, seeing
you're our Indian expert, Henry?"

Longarm soberly observed, "George Armstrong Custer was an Indian expert,
Miss Queen.  He wrote the training manuals the army still uses, and we
know he didn't have enough men with him at Little Bighorn.  But I reckon
corporal's squads, every man with at least a fifteen-shot Henry, ought
to be able to handle the baker's dozen we seem to be chasing all over
creation."

She seemed confused by the numbers.  Darts Malloy volunteered to her,
"Corporal's squad is eight riders, Miss Queen.  Baker's dozen is
thirteen.  Me and Henry were in the army together and that's the way you
talk in the army. Ain't that right, Henry?"

Longarm dryly answered, "If you say so, Slim.  If each head scout gets
to pick and choose, I reckon I'd like to try those canyons off to the
northeast today.  Nobody's been back since we spotted sign over yonder
days ago."

Nobody argued and Longarm didn't care who wanted to tag along as long as
they were packing fifteen rounds in their magazines and one in the
chamber. Most Indians packed single-shooters, or at best, the seven-shot
Spencer repeaters the BIA had gone on issuing in fair weather or
foul--to hunt with, of course.  You could really nail a rabbit with a
.52-40 Spencer round.

He rode out with his own eight Regulators a few minutes later, mounted
astride one of the boss lady's better ponies, in this case a blazed roan
with white socks.  Darts Malloy, alias Slim, and Poison Welles seemed to
want to hunt Apache with him.  As they all rode out, Longarm noticed
four of the others were on joshing terms with old Poison.  The others
seemed to have been with Queen Kirby longer.  Longarm didn't trust any
of them as far as he could spit against a windstorm.

But they got up to the mesa without incident.  Longarm allowed, and
Poison Welles agreed, that any Jicarilla lookouts peeking down at them
from the rimrocks should have sent up some smoke by this time.  It made
Longarm less sure of himself to have a dime-novel enthusiast agreeing
with him on Indian-scouting tactics!

They dismounted near the mouth of that one promising canyon and Longarm
went first afoot, leading the roan with his cocked Winchester pointing
ahead. They'd almost made it as far as those nearly gone ruins when
Darts Malloy pointed at the rocks across the way and said, "Say, don't
that look like some sort of cavern betwixt them big boulders?"

Longarm had to stare hard before he made out what surely seemed an
opening in the sandstone.  He muttered, "That's what I get for a snap
judgment.  You've got good eyes, Darts.  I'd best have a peek.  Would
you hold these reins for me, Jennings?"

He handed the reins to the nearest willing hand and moved in on the dark
opening, saddle gun at port.  He hadn't told anyone to stay or follow.
He was mildly annoyed when he heard Darts telling the others to stay put
while he and his old army pal saw what was inside that hole in the wall.
But it did make as much sense to have somebody covering their backs, and
the cleft was barely wide enough for the two of them single file.

It seemed to be more a natural crack, widened by erosion, than a tunnel
or adit carved with any purpose in mind.  Then he spied the scattered
chalky bones in the gloom ahead and declared, "No Jicarilla born of
mortal mama would ever hide shit in here!  See those skulls?  Looks like
a family tomb from years gone by.  I make it a daddy Anasazi, a mama
Anasazi, and look at all those baby Anasazi!"  Then he heard someone
yelling, "Longarm!  Down!"  and so he was already dropping to the gritty
bone-strewn floor as all hell busted loose in the confined space.  He
could only hug the dirt and hold his own fire as bullets and rock
fragments sponged off the rock walls above him and the air got stuffy
with black powder smoke.  Then somebody flopped limply half on top of
him, and as Longarm rolled him off and over he could just make out the
surprised dead face of his old army pal Darts Malloy.  The shooting had
stopped.  Longarm eased his own weapon in position across the handy
corpse and sat tight until a familiar voice called out, "You still with
us, Longarm?"

The bewildered federal man replied, "Who wants to know?"

The rider he'd known up until then as Poison Welles called back, "Rod
Duncan, New Mexico Territorials.  Your old army pal was about to shoot
you in the back just now.  Lord knows how he meant to explain it.  Maybe
he figured he wouldn't have to.  My boys threw down on his boys as soon
as I opened up on the sneaky bastard!"  Longarm asked a trick question
about the Governor's Palace down in Santa Fe.  When Poison, or Duncan,
confessed he'd never heard tell of a stenographer called Rosalinda,
Longarm got to his feet and waded out through the gunsmoke to regard a
mighty grim tableau around the sunlit entrance.

One of the two thoroughly shot-up cadavers was still crapping blood and
worse in slow but steady spurts.  The other poor bastard just lay there.

The other lawman, who'd ordered the surprise ending to Malloy's wicked
plan, nodded at Longarm and asked, "How do you figure all of this,
pard?"

Longarm smiled thinly and said, "They had orders to kill me.  What I
really find mysterious is how a paid-up Apache fighter ever came up with
Durango being there back in '76!"

Duncan shrugged and said, "Wes Jones was asking if anyone there had ever
met the one and original Longarm.  I'd read that story about you being
in Durango some damned time and figured it would help if I volunteered.
To tell the truth, I don't know Colorado as well as I know New Mexico."

Longarm asked, "How come you joined up ahead of me, Rod?"

The New Mexico lawman indicated his four modestly smiling associates as
he explained, "We all did.  Governor Wallace ordered us to when he heard
something odd was going on up this way.  I've been hoping you might
know. I'll be damned if I can make any sense of it."

Longarm said, "Neither could I, until just now.  Let's leave these old
boys here for now and go make us some arrests.  I'll explain along the
way."

Duncan asked, "What about them Indians?"

Longarm said, "Ain't no Indians.  Soon as you figure that out the rest
just follows as the night the day!"


Chapter 17


It was mid-afternoon when Longarm and his five fellow lawmen reined in
near that saloon in Camino Viejo.  They stopped there first because
Longarm recognized the pretty Morgan mare Wesley Jones had ridden out
on, tethered with a half dozen more to the saloon's hitch rail.

The man in black, now dusty as well, seemed to be holding court at the
table farthest back.  The seven or eight others with him were all on
their feet and, recognizing Longarm and the man they knew as Poison
Welles, made way for them.

Jones rose to his feet, smiling uncertainly as he said, "Not a sign of
Apache off to the south this time.  I see you boys got back early too.
How'd you make out?"

Longarm soberly replied, "Darts Malloy is dead.  So are Jennings and
Alderthorpe."

Jones gasped, "My God, what happened?  You brush with them Apache?"

Longarm said, "Nope.  Let's talk about them Apache.  Jicarilla on the
prod and off their usual range who don't have any lookouts posted to
smoke-signal our own movements as we tear-ass all over after 'em."

Jones said, "Well, we've been figuring them for kids, acting on their
own with no serious chiefs in charge."

Longarm smiled thinly and said, "That's likely why they rode past a
grown man and his mount standing in the open by the light of the silvery
moon. That's likely why they'd been camped, or paused to put on their
costumes, in a haunted canyon.  I have it on good Jicarilla authority
that the mere sight of what they call a chindi will kill you on the spot
after dark.  Yet there they were, eating fish cold from the can without
any camp fire, smack dab on top of an Anasazi ghost town.  It makes one
wonder, don't it?"

Jones tried.  "Hell, if the fool Apache were acting usual we'd have
caught up with 'em by this time, right?"

It was Rod Duncan who quietly observed, "One would certainly think so.
Me and a couple of these other old boys have scouted Jicarilla in the
past. They were out in force as late as '73.  Yet try as we might, we
could never cut the rascals' trail.  It's been my own experience that
when experienced trackers can't find anybody to track, there's nobody to
track."

"Or there's somebody else," Longarm amended, adding, "We naturally never
tracked sign left by other Regulators far enough to mention.  So who do
you reckon scared all them local settlers, and even butchered a bunch of
riders from other parts, to set a good example for those in these parts
who might not have been scared enough yet?"

Jones licked his lips and stepped back to give himself more room as he
stammered, "How do you expect me to answer for the loco ways of infernal
Apache, Henry?"

Longarm said, "Aw, come on, you know who I am.  You've known since the
first day your boss hired me.  But lucky for me, neither of you spotted
Inspector Duncan here for anything but a harmless blowhard you could use
as a tool."

Then he said, "As for why we'd like you to answer some questions about
them fake Jicarilla, it's obvious as hell you were them!"

The man in black was good.  He dropped to the floor and tipped the table
on its side between them as he went for his side arm.  Longarm drew and
fired four rounds at the bare pine tabletop.  It took more than an inch
of pine to stop two hundred grains of lead backed by forty grains of
powder.  But the results were far from neat as Jones stopped the
deformed slugs, and a heap of pine slivers, with softer flesh.

Meanwhile Duncan and his own boys were backing Longarm's play with
blazing guns of their own.  For naturally the hirelings who'd been
riding directly under Jones had as much to answer for, and hoped to beat
the hangman's noose with gunplay of their own.

They lost, of course, with one of Duncan's boys pinked along one rib by
a bullet, and all but the barkeep and another man on the other side
dead.  The one survivor had been as quick as the barkeep when it came to
reaching for that pressed tin ceiling.  So he was doubtless good for a
signed statement.


Chapter 18


Duncan had instructed his own deputies to head off other Regulators as
they rode in and either arrest or deputize them pro tem, depending on
whether they'd been riding at certain times with the late Wesley Jones,
alias Frenchy O'Donnel, or, like most of the outfit, just going through
the motions as tools of the boss lady.  So just Duncan and one of his
deputies tagged along as Longarm strode on to the card house to confront
Queen Kirby.

The big redhead must have heard the noise, judging from the way she
greeted them, seated in her office behind that writing table as the one
back-up man positioned himself just outside the door to make certain
they weren't disturbed.

Queen Kirby smiled weakly and asked, "What's going on?  Why are you
staring at me that way, Henry?"

Longarm said, "You know who I am and I sure feel silly about that.
You'll be pleased to hear your lover boy never gave you away as he lay
oozing his last just now.  But Thomhill gave up without a fight, and as
soon as he confessed he'd met up with you all on the carnival trail, it
all came back to me where I'd seen your pretty face before.  You always
have liked to make total fools of mere mortal men, haven't you, Dolly
Moore?  You've come a long way since you had that freak show back in
Saint Lou.  Don't do that, Dolly!"

But a monstrous Le Mat revolver was already rising from behind the
writing table in a jewel-encrusted hand.  So Longarm fired point-blank
with the derringer he'd had palmed just to be on the safe side.  And
that red wig flipped skyward as the now gray-headed Queen Kirby, or
Dolly Moore, flew backwards with the chair and all, in a flurry of
velvet and scattered pearls.

As the smoke still hung above the writing table, Longarm moved around it
for a better look, grimaced, and said, "Takes a spine shot to snap their
heads back that hard.  Dead as a turd in a milk bucket.  But we've got
that fairly full confession and some of the others may fill in a few
gaps as we round 'em up drifting in."

Rod Duncan gulped and said, "She must have hoped you'd hesitate just
long enough.  I know you had to do it.  I was there.  But Jesus, I'm
sure glad it wasn't me as had to gun a woman, pard!"

Longarm said, "I never did.  Dolly must have been so used to the common
courtesies accorded the unfair sex that he lost track of the fact I'd
just told him I knew who he was.

"Who he was?" gasped the New Mexico lawman.

Longarm said, "Used to be a bearded lady, traveling with decent tent
shows.  Put on a less decent act whenever he, she, or it wasn't stopped.
When I caught the act in Saint Lou a few years ago, he had half a man's
suit and half a lady's gown on.  You paid extra to go in the back and
watch the he-she takes its duds off.  I was as big a fool back then.
Cost me four bits to discover he-she was just a soft-built boy.  I
wasn't interested in the girlish ways he could act for just a few
dollars more.  Reckon enough others were to finance more ambitious
projects.  Read a flyer later about this soft-built but hard-headed
he-she marrying up with some rich mining man and robbing him blind on
their honeymoon.  Reckon old Dolly persuaded him she was saving it for
her wedding night.  Old Frenchy back there was the one true love of
Dolly's life."

He finished reloading and put the derringer away as their back-up man
stared goggle-eyed in the doorway and Duncan said, "Far be it from me to
argue that the two of them weren't acting sort of strange.  But what in
thunderation was the motive for all this confusing shit?"

Longarm said, "I'll give you a copy of my report once I have everything
tidied up complete.  I got one more arrest to make first, and if you
think I just felt silly gunning a lady in a red wig and pearls, you
don't know the half of it!"


Chapter 19


Longarm had learned in his boyhood that things didn't always go as a
body might plan them, and that sometimes it might be best to just play
the cards a fickle fate dealt you.

He didn't want to stage a possibly awkward scene in front of a
summer-school class.  So he waited until he was sure Meg Campbell had
come home from her job at the schoolhouse before he went calling.

He caught Trisha Myers in another big fib when the gal who came to the
door turned out to be a stunningly beautiful brunette with deep blue
eyes a man just wanted to drown in.  But he figured it made more sense
to show her his badge and identification.

She invited him right in and sat him down at her kitchen table to coffee
and cake him as she allowed that Trisha had mentioned him, but had never
told her he was a lawman.

He suspected why she sort of avoided his eyes when he asked what else
the ash blonde might have said about him.  The schoolmarm was blushing
but composed herself as she murmured, "Just that the two of you were
becoming ... good friends.  What's this all about, Deputy Long?"

He said, "My good friends call me Custis.  They told me over at the
hotel that Trisha didn't work there anymore.  She wasn't at her own
place, either. I finally found some old boys who'd been spitting and
whittling in front of the tobacco shop when she'd ridden by, headed down
the coach road to Santa Fe most likely.  The wires ain't up yet, and I
ain't sure I want her stopped in any case.  Might that have been your
mare she lit out on, Miss Meg?"

The schoolmarm sat down across from him, shaking her head firmly as she
said, "My Pixie is right out back, if you'd care to see her."

Longarm said, "I'll take your word for it, ma'am.  No lady capable of
such fine marble cake would tell really dumb lies."

She met his eyes this time as she blazed, "See here, I've not a thing to
hide from you or any other lawman!  I haven't been the one in bed with
an impossibly endowed man night after night, damn it!"

He didn't ask how disappointed she felt about that.  He just smiled
sheepishly and said, "She told me you were a dried-up old prune.  But I
ain't charging her with that big fib.  I'm trying to determine how deep
she was in more serious stuff.  I turned to her to borrow your pony for
me that night.  I figured I might be able to confide in a waitress gal
who didn't work for the late Queen Kirby.  I figured wrong, and the two
of them were playing me for a total sap until mighty recently."

Meg Campbell brightened and said, "So that's what it was!  Did you say
the late Queen Kirby?  What happened to her?"

Longarm said, "You go first and I'll tell you the whole tangled tale
from the beginning.  What were you about to say something was?"

The brunette said, "Trisha boasted that whether you were willing to take
her away from all this or not, she was going to leave town on her own
high-stepper, with money to start over in a real town.  I guess I'm as
nosy as I ought to be, and so I naturally kept after her about it.  But
all I got was that certain parties were willing to pay good money to
learn harmless little secrets.  Do you think she was telling Queen Kirby
you'd been, you know, up in your hotel room?"

Longarm smiled thinly and replied, "I doubt Queen Kirby cared about my
love life.  That's all a matter of taste--literally, in Queen Kirby's
case. But it's sort of soothing to know Trisha was only a dumb blonde
after all.  I doubt she'd ever be able to tell us more than we already
know, and what's a little betrayal betwixt friends?"

The brunette poured some coffee for herself as she gently but firmly
reminded Longarm he owed her a story.

Longarm washed down some cake and began.  "Once upon a time there was
this sort of odd couple, well-fixed for cash but on the dodge for having
obtained the cash under many, many false pretenses.  They came in their
travels upon this bitty trail town, well-located but dying on the vine
because it was located betwixt a haunted mesa and an Apache reservation.
Being keen students of human nature, the couple I'll call Frenchy and
Dolly saw folks were still unreasonably spooked by Indian troubles of
the past.  So it was possible to buy valuable property up this way
cheap."

He took another bite and continued.  "They did.  One going business
finances another, and so in no time at all Frenchy and Dolly became
Queen Kirby and her boys.  They naturally sent for other grifters to
help them run their private town."

Meg Campbell protested, "They didn't own all of us.  I'll have you know
I was hired by the town council, not any card-house or parlor-house
madam!"

He said soothingly, "I know.  Almost half the town council is made up of
more respectable old-timers.  That's what was eating the greedy gent who
was posing as a gal."

She gasped.  "Good Lord!  Queen Kirby was a man?"

Longarm said, "I reckon Trisha never told you because she never knew.
He made a fairly convincing old gal, But that wasn't the crime that
caused so much bother.  There was a colonial governor back in the time
of the real Queen Anne who liked to dress up like a fine lady, but he
never dressed others up as Indians to spook folks even worse."

He saw he'd gotten ahead of himself again when she marveled, "Those
Apache were dressed up silly too?"

He silenced her with a wave of his coffee cup and said, "Forget a heap
of their unusual habits and you've still got greed.  The natural laws of
supply and demand raise real-estate values as a township gets more
attractive to investors.  They must have noticed how unwise it was to
simply grab property the way they did down Lincoln County way.  It was
slicker when they grasped how Uncle John Chisum had wound up owning
everything when the gunsmoke cleared, leaving the surviving
property-holders demoralized and ready to sell out for a song.  But as
word got out about those Jicarilla being cleared to make room for
progress, land values in these parts figured to go up, not down, and
leave us not forget the rising price of beef back East.  In sum, Queen
Kirby's trail-town empire had finished expanding for the foreseeable
future, unless they could make the future look different."

He sipped, put down the cup again, and said, "They sent out for more
help.  Some of them hardcase killers but mostly just adventurous saddle
tramps.  Only a small number of them had to be let in on their true
plans. They didn't want to make it easy to add up the numbers, so they
had some camping over in the canyonlands at first.  That was a mistake
they corrected as soon as they heard word was getting out to the real
world about private armies gathering.  They knew Governor Wallace and
even the president who'd appointed him would be on the prod for another
New Mexico dust-up like that Lincoln County War.  So they pulled them
into town and enlisted them with the rest of their so-called Regulators
before I ever got here."

"Regulators regulating what?" she demanded.

He said, "Apache, of course.  Turns out no Jicarilla have really gone
all that wild over the latest BIA nonsense.  They likely figure
Washington will reshuffle everybody back the way they were as soon as
they get Victorio calmed down or buried.  But everyone else with the
hair and horseflesh they value was already braced for another Apache war
before this county's effeminate answer to Uncle John Chisum decided to
provide 'em with one.  It was simple for Wes Jones, as Frenchy now
called himself, to stage some Apache raids while pretending to be
protecting all the white settlers from the savages.  They didn't have to
steal half as seriously as real raiders to scare the liver and lights
out of folks.  They didn't want to kill anyone capable of signing a bill
of sale for some quick cash on the way to safer parts.  So for all the
dramatics, it was mostly hollow noise."

She poured him more coffee as she marveled, "Well, I never.  But how
much of this might Trisha have known, the two-faced thing?"

He grimaced and replied, "Not much.  There was no need for hardly anyone
they used to know what they were really up to.  Trisha never came into
the story before I came down from Colorado, by a devious route and a tad
late. They'd known I was coming.  We're still working on old pals they
might have had on the BIA payroll, working for the railroad or whatever.
Drifting grifters meet a lot of other shady sorts in their travels and a
buck is always worth a hundred cents."

He sipped more coffee--she'd brewed it swell--and explained, "It was my
getting here way later than expected that confounded them about me.  I
fear their first plan was to have me killed by Apache.  I showed up not
exactly as described after killing somebody else along the way.  So, not
wanting to waste a possibly valuable asset, Queen Kirby, or more likely
the one you all knew as Wes Jones, came sneaking around, found Trisha in
my room with me somewhere else, and made a quick deal with her."

Meg nodded and said, "She knew Wesley well.  She said he was a generous
tipper who was always nice to her.  She seemed confused that he never
asked her out after work."

Longarm said, "He had a steady sweetheart.  But he persuaded the gal I'd
been fool enough to confide in that they'd make it worth her while if
she'd report every fool word I said to her to them!"

Meg fluttered her long lashes and murmured, "Heavens, I can see how
foolish that might make you feel!"

He sighed and said, "I doubt they cared about my personal idiocy.  I
told Trisha who I really was.  But then I told her I had no idea who I
was really after or what might be going on.  So they figured it was as
easy and a heap safer to just hire me and have me where they could keep
an eye on me as they got me to jump through hoops like a trained flea.
They figured I'd tell Trisha when and if I commenced to suspect anything
important, and they were right.  I acted like a total sap, and even when
I did start to get warm, I was still so far from the truth they'd have
been better off letting me run down like a clock and head on home.  Have
you ever felt really stupid, Miss Meg?"

She reached across her table to pat the back of his big tanned hand and
soothed, "It might have gone worse for us.  If they were even partway
onto you, and that two-faced Trisha hadn't convinced them you weren't
onto them, they'd have killed you before you found out a thing and then
where would we be?"

He put his own free hand atop hers--most men would have wanted to--and
quietly replied, "You're doubtless right--and I reckon all's well as
ends well.  How come you asked where we would have wound up, Miss Meg?
No offense, but I don't recall old Marshal Billy Vail putting you on the
case with me."

The pretty schoolmarm looked away, cheeks flushed, as she murmured, "I
guess I meant we'd have never been having this conversation, after
Trisha had told me so much about you.  I suppose you're in a hurry to
get back to Denver, now that you've learned all there ever was to know
about our dinky town?"

To which he could only reply, with a friendly squeeze, "I ain't so sure
I've gotten to know everyone down this way as well as I'd like to.  In
any case I'll have to stick around long enough to tidy up a few loose
ends and make sure law and order's been restored total."

She asked, in that case how many days, or hours, they might have to get
to know one another better.  When he suggested at least a good two days,
she shyly suggested they'd best get started and so, what with one thing
and another, it was over a week before Longarm got back to Denver,
walking sort of funny.