Tall Man glowered but said nothing, although it was apparent that he was having difficulty keeping his emotions under rein.
“My father’s spirit cries out for justice, Long Arm. My father asks the Great Father in Washing Town for justice.” Cloud Talker dropped the accusing finger and looked into Longarm’s eyes. “My father asks his friend of the Long Arm for justice. My father asks that this man and his killers die. An eye for an eye, the black robes tell us, is the white man’s way. A death for a death. This is what my father asks of his friend now.”
“Nobody dies without a trial, Cloud Talker. The Great Father’s justice requires that.”
Cloud Talker shrugged. “As you wish, Long Arm. Have the trial that you want. Then they die.” He looked from Longarm back to Tall Man. “But know this, Long Arm. My father’s murderers must die for what they did. In the manner of the Great Father if you will. If not that, then the Piegan nation will do what must be done, and all the Crow will be swept from this place so that our people may remain here in peace and harmony with all the spirits. You understand this that I say, Long Arm?”
“I believe that I do, Cloud Talker.”
“Good. I have no more to say.” Cloud Talker grunted contemptuously down at the pair of Crow guards by his feet, then turned and stalked silently away. That, Longarm thought, was one impressive damned Indian. And a dangerous one too. He was a keg of powder just waiting for somebody to light his fuse. Any-damn-body. Longarm turned back to his friend Tall Man. Funny, he thought, how it seemed to’ve slipped Tall Man’s mind that John Jumps-the-Creek was dead. A body would think the Crow should have mentioned that little fact. But then there was an awful lot that Longarm did not know about how Indians thought. He expected that was not apt to change to any appreciable degree either. “Let’s go back inside an’ finish our meal, old friend,” Longarm suggested.
Chapter 14
Longarm rubbed his groaning belly. He’d passed being full half an hour ago. Now he was miserable. But it was the sort of misery that a man just had to like. That Yellow Flowers really was a fine cook. Longarm’s extravagant compliments hadn’t stretched the truth hardly at all. The two men stood outside Tall Man’s lodge now, having a leisurely smoke. There was no sign of Cloud Talker nor of the Crow guards who had tried to keep him away. Someone else seemed to be missing also.
“Any idea where I can find Colonel Wingate, Tall Man? Or at least the horse I rode in on?”
“Dull Sword went to see Agent MacNall. He took your horse with him although my people would have seen to its care.”
“Dull Sword?” Longarm asked.
Tall Man grinned and barked out a short, sharp little laugh. “It is the name we call him by.”
“Prob’ly fits,” Longarm commented.
“Yes, so we believe.”
“Tell you what, old friend. Whyn’t you point me toward this Agent MacNall. I expect I’d best fetch up with the colonel. Wouldn’t hurt t’ talk to MacNall either.”
“It is too far for a man to walk in those frozen moccasins,” Tall Man said, looking pointedly down at Longarm’s calf-high boots. Apparently the boots, which were perfectly comfortable from where Longarm stood, appeared restrictive and heavy to the Indian’s eye.
“You got a better idea?” Longarm asked.
“Yes. I do.” Tall Man motioned to the nearest Crow and said something in a crackle of swift words. The young warrior nodded, pleased with being appointed to do something for this chieftain and his guest perhaps, and dashed off in the direction of the horse herd. When he returned he was leading a pair of heavily muscled ponies, one a tri-color pinto with a ring of white around its eyes and the other a bright chestnut with the short barrel and dished face that suggested Spanish barb breeding somewhere back along its bloodline.
“Choose one,” Tall Man offered.
With no hesitation Longarm reached for the single rein that was tied loosely around the chestnut’s lower jaw. No hesitation because everyone knew that a horse with the white showing around its eyes was no damn good. Tall Man wasn’t going to put anything over on him that easily.
“You are sure you want this one?” Tall Man asked, confirming Longarm’s suspicions. Longarm obviously had been expected to choose the flashier, taller, sleeker-bodied pinto over the tough and solid little barb.
“I’m sure.” Longarm took a quick step to give himself some momentum and leaped onto the chestnut’s back.
It had been a while since he’d ridden bareback, and he was plenty glad the chestnut stood steady for him while he shifted his butt and found a secure seat that did not trap his balls tight against the pony’s backbone and turn them into mashed cojones.
Tall Man swung onto the pinto’s back and seemed instantly to become a part of the animal. Longarm had no idea how anyone could make that look so … so natural and easy, dammit. Especially since Tall Man was a good head shorter than Longarm and the pinto at least two fingers taller than the chestnut.
Tall Man pointed. “You see there, Longarm? Beyond the creek. That rise? Two rocks and then one?”
“I see where you mean.”
“The agency buildings are past that rise, just beyond the two rocks. I will race you there. Unless you are afraid to lose to Lo the Stinking Indian.”
“Somebody been giving you trouble, old friend? Remember, I been downwind from you today. I didn’t come across nothing that’d wrinkle my nose.”
“Forgive me. I was rude to a man who has long been my friend.”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Then will you race with an old friend, my friend?”
“Hell, yes, what’s your wager?”
“One twist of my tobacco against one handful of your cigars,” Tall Man suggested.
“That sounds fair. But I’ll be damned if I know what I’ll do with your nasty tobacco when I already got these fine cheroots to smoke.”
Tall Man grinned again. “First, my friend, you must win. Then it is time to think about the spoils.”
Whenever you say.”
“You see the meadowlark behind the grass there?”
“I see it,” Longarm said.
“When it flies. That is when we go,” Tall Man said.
“Fair enough. I-“
The bird took wing, and Tall Man’s pinto was two jumps gone before Longarm jabbed the chestnut with his heels and joined the race.
Joined the race? Not hardly.
The plain fact was, Longarm’d been jobbed.
Tall Man had seen his chance and climbed all over it.
That pinto could spot an antelope half a furlong and come in four lengths ahead, Longarm was sure.
Hell, he’d never seen a horse as quick as that pinto was. Seemed that way anyhow.
But jeez, wherever would an ignorant savage like old Lo there—if that’s what Tall Man wanted to be called—learn about white men’s aversion to horses with white eyes?
Wherever or however it had happened, Tall Man had taken advantage of it to make sure he was riding the pinto while Longarm plodded along—relatively speaking—on the chestnut.
The chestnut, meanwhile, was game and willing. It wasn’t the horse’s fault that nothing short of a runaway steam engine was apt to head that pinto. And only if the race went on until the pinto wore down.
Lordy, that horse could run.
Even so, Longarm was no quitter. And who knows? Maybe the pinto would have to stop to take a crap. Or Tall Man would decide to pause at the creek for a drink. Or … something.
Longarm yelled his throat raw trying to urge the chestnut faster, and all the while the damned pinto was pulling an ever-widening lead on him.
They ran belly-down across the lush grass bordering the creek to crash full speed into the water.
The pinto’s flying hoofs shot a curtain of water high into the air, the droplets glistening like jewels in the slanting afternoon light, and for a brief moment the angles of sun and vision lined up just right so that Longarm could see a miniature rainbow hanging over the creek behind the pinto’s sweeping tail.