With thoughts such as those in mind, Longarm dropped the stirrup back onto its leathers without tightening his cinch, and instead untied the burlap sack the agency sutler gave him to hold his purchases.
He stopped at Cloud Talker’s lodge and asked the young wife there, “Where can I find the wives of Cloud Talker’s father?”
The girl shook her head, but the other wife came up behind her and addressed Longarm over the younger wife’s shoulder. “At the far north edge of the camp there is a lodge, very old, with three buffalo on it. That is the place of the son of Bad Tooth’s sister. That is where the woman called Bad Tooth lives.”
“Thanks.” Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson and hiked off to the north.
Ten minutes later he decided he should have gotten the horse off its tether. He didn’t mind a little walk. But this Piegan camp was two, maybe three times the size he’d expected to find.
What had Wingate said about the number of Piegan warriors? Nine hundred or so? Damned if that was so. Longarm was no great shakes at estimating numbers, especially when it came to Indian camps, where one warrior might live in a single lodge or there might be a dozen bunking in that same amount of space. There were some experts who used a rule of thumb calling for there to be five warriors for every lodge in a given village. Whatever the case, Longarm was certain that the figure given to Wingate was way low. Maybe by as much as half the true strength of the tribe. Hell, there could be as many as two thousand fighting men available to the Piegan. And Wingate, with no field experience to draw on, had no way to so much as guess that he was being fooled.
One thing Longarm was sure of. If hostilities broke out between the Piegan and the Crow, there wouldn’t be a Crow of any shape or age alive longer than an hour or so. Tall Man’s much smaller band would be wiped out in no time.
And considering how few blue-leg soldiers Wingate had under his command at Camp Beloit, the same could easily happen to them with the second wave of screaming, blood-hungry Piegan.
The Piegan camp was strung out for well over a mile along a narrow creek run.
Longarm was sobered and thoughtful as he walked on and on among the Piegan lodges.
“Grandmother,” Longarm said by way of greeting.
The old woman turned, her eyes growing wide and round as she saw who the visitor was.
She let out a shriek as if she’d been attacked by a grizzly bear, and began to yammer and scream in her own language, at which the younger women who were nearby commenced to buzz and mutter amongst themselves. Longarm had to wonder just what line of bull old Bad Tooth was giving them. Powerful stuff, he suspected, based on the way eyes rolled and expressions dashed from joy to horror and back again.
It was probably just as well that he didn’t understand a word of it, he thought, because if he did he might feel compelled to correct some of the more glaring fabrications. And what can ruin a good yarn quicker than the truth, eh?
Bad Tooth jabbered at the other women for a while, then jumped up from the pegged-down coyote skin she’d been scraping and ran—well, hopped and hobbled in something approximating a run—into another lodge close by. She emerged from it moments later with Juanita Maria, every bit as excited as Bad Tooth, hard on her heels.
Longarm smiled. He’d found the both of them, and neither woman looked like she’d changed the least bit since last he’d seen them.
Of course the last time he’d spoken with these two old crones, they’d had the security and respectability of marriage to their tribe’s leading citizen.
Now, with John Jumps-the-Creek dead, they were burdens on their relatives. Hangers-on who could hope for a few scraps and leftovers at best, and who might well starve to death if the man who sheltered them ran short of food come the next winter. The life of an aging widow in most tribes that Longarm knew of was precarious under the most favorable of circumstances, and impossible—quite literally so—when things were not going well. An unproductive old person, man or woman, was apt to be turned out into the snow with neither blanket nor food as a means of preserving the food supply for those who were younger and stronger and able to pull their own weight in the daily routines.
Today, though, these two particular old women were alive.
And seemed extremely happy to receive this visit from a friend.
Longarm, Bad Tooth, and Juanita Maria were all grinning when they ran to him and began hugging him with all their wiry strength.
Chapter 22
“Here. No, the sugar is for you, Juanita Maria; I know how much you like your sweets. No, Grandmother. All of it. I brought it only for you.”
Juanita Maria spoke no English, so Bad Tooth translated for her. Juanita Maria, who had been the wife of John Jumps-the-Creek’s youth, was crying by the time Bad Tooth was done talking. Either Juanita Maria was becoming mighty sentimental in her old age, or Bad Tooth was gilding the lily somewhat in her speechifying. Either way, both women seemed happy, and that was what counted. Longarm was glad he’d had time to come find them, gladder still that he could bring them a few small items to show that he still cared about them.
“How have you been?” he asked. “Are you well? Do they treat you with the respect and the kindness my grandmothers deserve?”
Juanita Maria said something in a sad and shaky voice, but Bad Tooth only shrugged by way of interpretation. “We have food to eat and robes to sleep on. It is enough,” the old crone said.
“And Cloud Talker? Does he provide for you too?”
Bad Tooth shrugged again.
“May I ask you something, Grandmother?”
“Long Arm is welcome to say or to ask whatever he likes. Surely our grandson knows this.”
“I can’t seem to recall ever meeting Cloud Talker before. Which one of you is his mother?”
“Why, Cloud Talker is not of our blood, no. Not of either of us.”
“But if John Jumps-the-Creek is his father … excuse me. I don’t mean to bring up something that I shouldn’t.”
Bad Tooth translated that for Juanita Maria, and both of them seemed to get quite a kick out of the idea. “Long Arm, have you forgotten so very much about our people that you would ask such a thing? Cloud Talker is the son of John Jumps-the-Creek’s sister Many Willows, whose husband was not of the same clan and so could not be the father to Cloud Talker.”
Longarm frowned, trying to put it in place. He vaguely remembered that Piegan couples had to come from two separate clans in order to avoid the contamination of incest. There was a kinship within the clan regardless of blood connection. And when it came to family, whether clan or blood relationship, the children followed the line of the mother, not the father. That had something—Longarm had never really understood all this—to do with the habit of having an uncle act as father to the children of his sister. In many tribes a blood father’s relationship with his own children was minimal, almost to the point of disappearing. He really didn’t understand all of the complex interlock of family and clan relationships. But at least the reminder was enough to satisfy his curiosity about Cloud Talker. And to explain the fact that Longarm had never met him before even though Longarm and John Jumps-the-Creek had been friends for years.
“Is that … Cloud Talker being, uh, sort of a son to my friend … is that why Cloud Talker is the new shaman?”
“Cloud Talker our shaman? Is he?” Bad Tooth asked, her rheumy old eyes growing wide.