“Shit,” he complained.
He stood there, huddled close behind the body of the horse, waiting for another telltale puff of gunsmoke to mark a target for him.
There was no other shot, however, and after several minutes it occurred to Longarm that he was having to hunker lower and lower in order to stay behind the horse.
The animal was sinking slowly to its knees. After a while the last of its endurance waned, and it rolled over into the creek with a huge splash.
“Shit,” Longarm repeated.
He shoved his Colt back into its holster and stood over the dead horse, wondering if the sonuvabitch of a rifleman was still up there on that ridge waiting to pot him, wondering where his hat had floated to, wondering why in hell someone wanted to shoot him in the first place.
He didn’t have answers to any of those questions, and after a bit he gave up wondering and turned to walk the rest of the way back to Tall Man’s lodge.
Chapter 26
Longarm woke as completely as if he’d been doused with water cold from the creek. He had no idea what time it was. In the middle of the night, he suspected. The evening fire had burned down to coals with their red heat hidden beneath layers of dark ash. The lodge was dark, and all around him Longarm could hear the soft, slow breathing of people in sleep.
He sat up on the buffalo-robe bed and clutched his blanket close around his shoulders. He felt awkward and uncomfortable with no clothes, not even his drawers, on underneath the blanket.
Yellow Flowers, with Tall Man smirking in the background, had demanded that he shed everything down to the skin before they went to bed.
Longarm had protested. But only a little. His unwanted dip in the creek, to say nothing of the rain before it, had left him soaked and chilled and rather thoroughly miserable. He wanted to dry out as badly as Yellow Flowers insisted that he do, so, after a token refusal he’d given in and handed over the clothing. All of it. Now his things were hanging on cords of twisted wild grass stems suspended along the inside wall of the lodge.
He reached over to feel of the nearest piece, and found it was not quite dry yet. He supposed that information should have told him about what time it was. But somehow he’d missed out on calculating time from the speed with which laundry dried.
Late, He was sure it was late. Beyond that he hadn’t a clue. He slipped on a pair of elderly and too-big moccasins of Tall Man’s that Yellow Flowers had given him. His boots too were going through a drying-out process, this one involving hot sand that was poured into them and replaced every now and then with more sand that was fresh and dry, while the old, cold damp sand was discarded.
Still holding the blanket close around him, Longarm found a cigar and stooped to light it from the coals before taking it outside. The rum crooks had been as thoroughly drenched as Longarm and his garments, but it seemed that nothing could cause them serious damage. Hell, they were already so bad, who would recognize it if they got any worse.
Longarm took his blanket and his smoke and waddled—the moccasins were big enough to feel like buckets—out onto open ground away from the smells and the night noises of the sleeping Crow camp.
The aimless meandering eventually brought him back to the rock where he’d rested the night before, and he sat down there to finish his smoke.
A minute, no more than two, later he saw the approach of a pair of unearthly wraiths in the night.
Somehow, this time he was no longer surprised.
“I suppose you called me here,” Longarm said by way of a greeting.
“Yes. Thank you for coming.” Angelica smiled and took a seat beside him. The white dog licked his hand and wagged its tail and as before curled up at Longarm’s feet.
Longarm didn’t bother trying to argue the point with her. And hell, he didn’t know why he’d come awake when he did and felt like taking a walk. Maybe she did.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Angelica,” she answered. “I told you that.”
“Yeah, but Tall Man doesn’t know you.”
“He does not,” Angelica agreed.
“Tall Man says he knows all his own people.”
“Yes, I would expect him to. There are not so very many.”
“But he doesn’t know you.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Angelica smiled. God, he could look at that smile every morning and not get tired of it. Not in a lifetime of close looking. “I am not of Tall Man’s people,” she said.
“Are you tryin’ to tell me you’re some kinda … I dunno … some kinda spirit? Or something?”
Angelica threw her head back and laughed. It was like a chorus of bells chiming. Pure music. “You are funny, Long Arm.”
“I wasn’t tryin’ to be,” he admitted.
“No. That is why it is so funny.”
“If you don’t belong here …”
She laughed again and touched his wrist. Longarm was sure the girl’s flesh was electrically charged. It had to be to have that much of an impact on him. “I do belong here, Long Arm. But in the other village.”
“Huh?”
“I am Piegan, Long Arm. Not Crow.”
“But …”
“Because I walk here in the night you think I must be of the Crow people? No, Long Arm. I walk here because this is where the spirits guide my feet. I walk here because you have come to help our people. Both our peoples, the Piegan and the Crow. The spirits tell me I must speak with you. And so I do as I am guided.”
“These spirits of yours,” he said. “Do they happen to know what happened to John Jumps-the-Creek?”
“They know,” Angelica said.
“What, then?”
She shook her head. “I said the spirits know. This is true. I did not say they have told me.”
“But they told you about me.”
“Yes. You are to be a … what is the word in your language … the tool?” She thought for a moment, then smiled. “The instrument. That is the correct way to say. You are the instrument to save our peoples with the truth.”
“If I only knew the truth,” Longarm said.
“You will. When the time comes, Long Arm, the spirit wolf will help you to know what is true.”
“The spirit wolf,” he repeated, bending down to scratch the dog behind its ears. The dog wagged its tail and wriggled and when he quit scratching, turned to lick his hand. Some wolf, he thought. About as ferocious, this one, as a young cottontail rabbit.
“Do you find this so very hard to accept?” the pretty girl asked.
“To tell you the truth … yeah. I do find it a bit much to swallow.”
She shrugged, her eyes twinkling. “Chew on it, Long Arm.”
“Smart aleck, ain’t you?”
“Sometimes,” she agreed. “Sometimes, yes.”
“Smart enough to know that I’m taken with you?”
“Yes, Long Arm. I know that you are. I too feel the thing that is between us.”
“I don’t suppose …”
Angelica shook her head. “No, Long Arm. I am a virgin. I must remain a virgin. If I allow a man to have my body, the spirits will take back the gifts that were given to me. I will no longer be able to serve my people.”
He swallowed. Hard. There was something about this girl … “Pity,” he drawled.
“Yes. It is.” She touched his wrist again, and the sensation raced up his arm and down his spine. He shivered. And positively ached from wanting her.
Angelica turned her face away from him and stiffened. “Please, Long Arm. Do not do this to me.”
“Do?”
“The thing that you are thinking. I want it too. Help me, Long Arm. Please.”
He stood. He took her hand and lifted her gently to her feet.
He bent and tasted of her lips. Her breath was sweet and her lips soft as down and warm as sunshine. He felt a shudder run through her. “You,” he said.
“You,” she repeated.
He kissed her again. Again he felt the shuddering, jolting impact of it deep in her flesh. She trembled, and he realized that as much as she enjoyed his touch, she was truly, genuinely frightened now.