“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.