Chapter 23
Longarm hunched his shoulders and gritted his teeth. He was pissed off. He was unhappy. Mostly he was soaked through to the skin.
The borrowed horse and its borrowed saddle did not have a slicker attached, and so he was riding now in a gray torrent of vicious rain and had nothing but the brim of his hat to ward off the barrels of rain that were being dumped on him every step of the way.
The rain had come up out of nowhere, sweeping across the prairie like an immense dark wall, lifting dust where the first icy drops struck dry soil and pushing that sharp, peculiar, ozone rain-scent ahead of it.
Now, minutes later, Longarm felt like he’d been thrown into a creek with all his clothes on. He would not have been any wetter if so. Could not have been.
And to make matters worse, the horse did not like the rain any better than Longarm did. It was becoming nervous, dancing and jumping and getting increasingly spooked. He had to ride on a tight rein and worry that the stupid creature might take a tumble as the muddy footing became more and more slippery.
Off to his left he could see the cluster of buildings that were the agency headquarters. A quartet of tribal police were gathered at the base of the flagpole trying to untangle the halyard there so they could get the flag out of the weather, and he could see some others enjoying the protection of the porch overhang, no doubt stationed there in comfort so they could offer encouragement and advice to those who were by the flagpole in the downpour.
The best thing, Longarm decided, would be for him to join those fellows on the porch. The ride back to Beloit could wait a spell longer.
Besides, those men with the tangled halyard very likely needed the exact advice he could give them.
He turned the horse away from its original line of travel and pointed it east instead. The horse, perhaps understanding, volunteered a rocking-chair lope to get out of the rain.
“I’m sorry, Marshal, but I don’t have anything here that you’d like. You want another twist of cheap tobacco like you bought off me this morning, I got it. You want some sugar or coffee or tea, that’s fine. Blankets I got, or knives or iron pots or the usual Indian trade gee-gaws. But fine cheroots? For that you gotta go to Deadwood or Cheyenne or someplace like that.”
“What do you have?”
“To smoke? Cheap and nasty, Marshal, that’s what I got. Two choices, really. I got these dark rum crooks. Lots of those. They taste like shit, but they come three for a nickel. And I tell you what. You being a white man of some discrimination, I’ll sell you my crooks four for a nickel. All you want of them.”
“You said there’s another choice?”
The agency sutler grinned. “Over there in the corner, Marshal, I got an old catch rope that some Injun gave me in a trade. That old rope has been drug through the manure and the dirt of God only knows how many corral floors and branding chutes. It’s frayed and filthy and full of cow shit. But there’s a good twenty, maybe twenty-two feet of it left in the coil. If you want, Marshal, I’ll sell you that, the whole of it, for twenty-five cents. Whenever you want a smoke you just chop six inches or so off that rope an’ light up. It won’t taste much different from these crooks and will cost a hell of a lot less.”
Longarm couldn’t help but laugh with him. “Reckon I’ll take some of those rum crooks, friend.” He looked outside, where the rain continued to pound hell out of the ground with no sign it would let up inside a week’s time. “And I think I’ll be needing some more gift stuff. Tobacco, sugar, like that. Couple dollars’ worth of it, whatever you think would be good.”
With rain like this and miles between the agency and the army post, there was no way Longarm intended to get back on that horse. Not for any ride longer than the one that would take him back to the Crow camp.
It looked like Tall Man and his family would have an overnight guest again tonight.
Chapter 24
“The reverend is having devotions now, him and some of his friends.”
Longarm thanked the civilian orderly and glanced outside. The rain was, if anything, worse than before. “Reckon I’ll wait if it’s all right with you.”
“You do whatever you want, Marshal,” the orderly said with no interest whatsoever, picking up a magazine and returning to the intimate revelations of the Police Gazette.
Longarm wandered out onto the porch. The air was moist and cool, and the sound of the rain—now that he was no longer being pelted by it—was a muted and rather pleasant drone.
He pulled out one of the agency trading post cigars and, with a skeptical grimace, lighted the thing.
“God, these things are rotten,” he said to no one in particular. The crooks were, in fact, even worse than their price led one to expect. Maybe he should have taken the sutler up on that hemp rope after all. It likely would have tasted better than this.
“I don’t think you can hold God responsible for anything that smells that bad,” a voice said behind him.
Longarm turned, smiled, and extended his hand for a shake. “Reverend. I thought you were busy.”
“Thomas told me you were out here. We weren’t talking about anything that couldn’t be interrupted. Come inside, please. Join us.”
The “us” turned out to be the same crowd Longarm had met the day before, including the civilian teamster from Deadwood, Cale Rogers. Charles Prandel was there, as was the agency supply officer, Booth Watkins. Longarm would not have thought of them as a bunch of good old boys given to devotional meetings. But then what the hell did he know about devotional meetings anyway?
“Nice to see you again,” Longarm said, and helped himself to a chair.
“My spies,” Reverend MacNall said with a laugh, “tell me you’ve been up to the Piegan camp. I hope Cloud Talker is being more forthcoming with you than he has been with me.”
“Not likely,” Longarm said. “Cloud Talker doesn’t seem one to say all that much.”
“That has been my experience too,” the agent said. “Is there anything we can help you with?”
“You can tell me whatever it is you fellas know about the death o’ John Jumps-the-Creek.”
MacNall sighed. “I wish I knew more that I could tell you, Longarm. The tribal police reported it to me, of course. I only know the little they were able to ascertain. Apparently he was killed by one blow to the forehead, presumably a blow from a war club. An alarm was raised shortly before dawn of the day in question when one of his wives went outside and found the body lying in front of his tent.”
“Did the tribal police investigate the death?” Longarm asked.
“Of course. They looked into it immediately, but there were no witnesses. The judgment of all concerned is that the murderer is probably a member of the Crow nation, for reasons that I am sure you understand.”
“That’s what I keep hearing,” Longarm agreed, “but I ain’t seen any evidence that would point to the Crow.”
“I know of no other reasons why a man of John Jumps-the-Creek’s stature would be murdered,” MacNall said.
“No? What about the tussle that’s going on now over who will take his place as head shaman of the Piegan?”
MacNall rubbed his chin and frowned. “Really?”
“You didn’t know ‘bout that?”
“I must confess that I did not.”
“The Piegan aren’t only undecided about who will be their spiritual leader. There’s also some question about who will become head man at the councils too.”
“I thought among the Piegan both spiritual and administrative leadership was the same. And frankly, I assumed that Cloud Talker is next in the line of succession.”
“John Jumps-the-Creek was shaman and head man too. That don’t mean he’ll be replaced by one man. Could be two. Usually is, in fact. John Jumper was unusually strong. His people respected him an’ wanted to follow him. Cloud Talker doesn’t have anything like John Jumps-the-Creek’s force of character.”