The reason for the confusion was cleared up as soon as the people gathered at the agency headquarters saw the dead man.
He was an Indian. No question about that. But he was wearing a tweed coat, an ancient and ragged thing, but one which at a distance would appear remarkably similar to Longarm’s normal clothing. And much more to the point, the dead man had been wearing Longarm’s flat-crowned, snuff-brown Stetson hat. The one that Longarm hadn’t been able to find after it floated downstream in the creek.
He did not now want the hat back. Not to wear again anyway, although it might still have some utilitarian value as evidence in a murder investigation.
The Stetson had been shot twice. Once off Longarm’s head, the second time while this dead Indian was wearing it. Now the hat had been crushed—probably stepped on by one or more horses would be Longarm’s guess—and was stiff with caked, dry blood and with other, even less pleasant-looking stuff.
The Indian who had been unfortunate enough to find the hat and wear it had been shot through the head by a large-caliber slug. Brain matter, darkening as it dried and hardened, was coated thick inside the crown of the expensive hat, and the fine beaver-fur felt was sodden with the man’s spilled blood.
No, Longarm would not want his hat back. Not after a dozen cleanings would he want to put the thing on his head again.
But the Stetson told him volumes about the fate of the Indian who’d been wearing it.
“Poor son of a bitch,” Longarm said. “Anybody know who he is?”
“He is not Crow,” Tall Man said.
“I’ve seen him before,” the Reverend MacNall said. “He’s Piegan. I don’t recall his name.”
“Short Tail Rabbit,” one of the policemen said. “He is one who wished to lead our people in council.”
“Yes, of course,” MacNall said. “I remember him now. Bright fellow and a good speaker. One of Cloud Talker’s opponents in the quest for control of the tribe.”
The policeman nodded.
“You know,” MacNall mused aloud, “my first thought was that Short Tail Rabbit was mistaken for our friend Longarm and killed by accident. But now..
It was an interesting theory anyway, Longarm thought. “Anybody know where Cloud Talker is?”
MacNall shook his head. Tall Man did not bother to answer. It was safe enough to assume that he would neither know nor care much about the whereabouts, or the well-being, of the Piegan leader. If, that is, Cloud Talker did indeed prove to be the leader of his people that he’d positioned himself to become.
“Anybody seen Cloud Talker today?” Longarm asked of no one in particular.
There were no responses. Apparently no one had.
“I think,” Longarm said, “I’d best go find him an’ have a talk with him. Any suggestions, anyone?”
“No,” the agent said, “but if you don’t mind, friend, I would like to send a police escort with you. Just, um, in case.”
“In case of exactly what, Reverend?”
MacNall shrugged. And elected not to elaborate, possibly because of the Indians who were listening in to the conversation.
The agent said something to the Piegan policeman who seemed to be in charge, and that officer nodded to the trio of police who had just brought in the body of Short Tail Rabbit. “These men will go with you, Longarm, and keep an eye on your back.”
“I appreciate that.” It occurred to Longarm that yesterday when he’d waved to that “hunting party” on the ridge top when he was riding into Camp Beloit, he might well have been waving to a band of hunters who were hunting him. It seemed more than merely possible that they were fooled into letting him pass because he was bareheaded at the time and riding a Crow pony. They might simply have failed to recognize him from afar, just as someone mistook Short Tail Rabbit for Deputy Marshal Custis Long.
Unless MacNall was right, and Short Tail Rabbit’s death was a deliberate attempt by Cloud Talker to eliminate a political rival.
Or then again, Longarm speculated, both those possibilities could be true. One would not necessarily rule out the other. The “hunters” could have failed to recognize Longarm and Cloud Talker could have taken advantage of Short Tail Rabbit’s wearing of Longarm’s Stetson to shoot him and divert suspicion from himself.
And Hell might freeze over before tomorrow’s sunrise too. Sometimes a man could think so damn much that all he accomplished was to tie himself in knots, Longarm knew.
The one thing Longarm was sure of right now was that he wanted to locate Cloud Talker and have a word with the man.
“You boys need to change to fresh horses before we start out? No? Then let’s ride, fellas. Let’s see can we find Cloud Talker before nightfall. Tall Man, I’ll be back to spend tonight in your lodge if I can. If not, then I reckon I’ll see you tomorrow.” Longarm touched the brim of his old Kossuth—the thing didn’t seem quite so nasty-looking in comparison with the current state of his Stetson—as an informal salute to Reverend MacNall, and swung into his saddle again.
He did want to have a word with Cloud Talker. And quick, before there were any more bodies around here, what with first John Jumps-the-Creek and now Short Tail Rabbit dead.
Very many more bodies and the Piegan nation, or anyway this band of it, would find itself without leadership altogether.
Chapter 33
It occurred to Longarm—somewhat too late to do anything about it—that he should have asked MacNall to send along someone who spoke some English. As it was, it looked like none of his escorts could speak a word of it.
They were making themselves clear enough in spite of that. What with gesturing and jabbering and pointing the way, they made it plain that they wanted Longarm to go with them to the spot where they’d found Short Tail Rabbit and then start the search for Cloud Talker from there.
It wasn’t exactly the way Longarm might have chosen to handle it. But it could have been worse, he supposed.
And since he couldn’t argue with them anyway, neither side being able to understand a word of what the other was saying, he gave in and went where the three Piegan policemen indicated.
They rode west from the agency, crossed the creek and the adjacent drainage, and entered a chain of low, grassy hills. In the distance Longarm could see the dark humps of some pine-covered bluffs reminiscent of the Black Hills. Except these hills up here did not have gold in them. Longarm was damn well positive about that. They wouldn’t have been given to the Indians if they were worth anything.
They had gone seven, maybe eight miles when the Piegan cops pointed down to a thin trickle of water gleaming bright silver in the slanting afternoon sunlight. Again using broadly dramatic gestures, the tribal police indicated that this was where Short Tail Rabbit had met his demise.
The Piegan fell into single file behind Longarm as he let the chestnut pick its way down the shallow slope toward the murder site.
As they came close the horse began to fidget and blow snot, no doubt smelling blood there. Longarm shortened his rein and slipped his feet back in the stirrups until he barely had his toes on the irons.
It was not, however, the chestnut he was thinking about.
As Longarm’s mount reached the tiny rill and gathered itself to jump across, Longarm heard the sound he’d been expecting.
He threw himself off the chestnut, striking the ground already in a roll and coming up with his Colt in his hand.
Behind him—behind where he’d just been actually—a .50-70 Springfield roared, and a slug the size of a grown man’s thumb sizzled a foot or so above Longarm’s saddle. His empty saddle.
The sharper, lighter bark of Longarm’s Colt followed so fast behind the report of the rifle that the two sounds were almost as one, the six-gun’s fire virtually an extension of the sound of the rifle shot.
One very amazed Piegan warrior took Longarm’s bullet low in the throat. The policeman had time for his eyes to flash wide open in horror. Then he was driven backward off the seat pad of his pony to fall with a drenching splash into the creek, Springfield flying in one direction and his cavalry-style campaign hat in another.