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.