Longarm asked how much of range all about they owned fee simple.
The stockman’s daughter shrugged and said, “We graze what our cows can eat. I think Athair filed a government homestead claim on the homespread you see up ahead. After that we just let our thousand head or so graze the open range the buffalo and Mister Lo left fallow for us.”
He asked about the farming homesteaders north or south. One of her hands snorted, “That’ll be the day some clodhopper busts one acre of Lazy B sod!”
Then he looked away and swallowed hard as the gal in the white hat shot him a look Longarm couldn’t read. So he waited and, sure enough, the gal said innocently, “We only range this strip betwixt those corn and wheat growers. Say four miles wide by a dozen miles long, or twice the size of that island they’ve built New York City on top of. Even farm folks can see how dumb it would be to drill in crops this high and dry. So we never have any trouble with anyone.” One of her hands suddenly found something in the opposite direction worth a chuckle. So she demurely added, “No trouble worth mention, at any rate. When strangers start driving claim stakes within two miles, then Himself usually invites ‘em to supper and, over after-dinner malt liquor, explains the land claims allowed under Brehonic Law.”
Longarm had to think hard, and it was a good thing he took books on most everything home from the Denver Public Library, because up until then he’d never had much occasion to even say Brehonic Law.
When he did, he said, “No offense, ma’am, but if you’d be citing the ancient Celtic code of Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, American jurisprudence is based on Anglo-Norman Common Law.”
She said, “Everybody knows about that mistake. That’s why the laws made in Washington make so much trouble out our way. Athair says that in the good old days of Brian Boru and that warrior queen of the Picts, Banrigh Sgatha, there was no need to write down deeds or land titles. Land belonged to Himself who first drew water and burned wood on the spread.”
He asked if her daddy might be Scotch or Irish.
She said, “Neither. I’d be Iona MacSorley and my people hail from the Hebrides, where the Donald ruled as a king in his own right until the time of Columbus, when such things mattered less. My sheanairean were forced to leave their misty isles many years ago. But none of us have forsaken the old ways.”
He believed her. He’d met up with her kind before, and knew she’d been taught to speak English without the usual brogue because, where her folks hailed from, English was a whole new lingo that had to be learned entirely. He wasn’t up to arguing squatter’s rights under either Celtic or Anglo-Norman rules with a spoiled beauty. He knew a whole lot of feuding and fussing had resulted in the outlying parts of the British Isles as men of good faith on either side had tried to sort it out fairly. Different notions of right and wrong caused enough trouble this far west.
He couldn’t resist asking innocently whether her dear old daddy had noticed any Indians drawing water or lighting dried buffalo chips a few short seasons back.
She had no sense of humor, or no conscience about such matters. She replied without hesitation, “Clan lands are claimed by first use and held by right of the sword. You can look it up.”
He smiled thinly and quietly replied, “I don’t read Gaelic, but don’t you mean held up by the gun, Miss Iona?”
She shrugged and asked if anyone had pressed federal charges in regard to gunplay or the threat of the same.
He allowed her that point, and concentrated on controlling his two ponies as a yellow cur dog met them in the dooryard to snarl and snap as if he meant it. Iona MacSorley yelled at the mutt but it paid her no mind, driven to distraction by the totally strange stock invading its territory. So the sweet-faced gal simply swung her Winchester and shot it, just like that, without even sighting along the barrel.
It took Longarm longer to get his spooked mount back down from the sky. Once he had, she sweetly apologized for not warning him. She added he should have expected it, seeing the way that cu cuma had defied a kind mistress.
As they rode wide of the dead dog bleeding in the dust, the front door of the main house they were approaching popped open and a gnomish figure with a white beard and fright wig popped out on the veranda to say something mighty scary in Hebredian Gaelic.
Iona replied in her imperious English, “Bleidir was about to bite into the boghan of this guest’s mount, Athair. He’s come to tell you he shot that tarbh tosgach the boys called Reb.”
The gnome laughed and grinned up at Longarm to say, “Ceudfailte agus toirlinn! That poorly cut bull was a devil, and have you eaten your fill this day?”
Longarm allowed he’d barely recovered from breakfast, leaving out the naughty parts, as he dismounted and let their hands take charge of his horseflesh. As he followed the gnome and his daughter inside he saw she was tiny and darker, now that she was on her feet with her hat hanging down her spine on its chin-cord. A redheaded Scotch gal he’d met a spell back had explained how nobody knew where those pockets of small dark elfin folks had come from before recorded history. She’d warned him never to ask any such folks if they were kin to that dark mysterious half-sister of King Arthur, Miss Morgana the Fairy.
The two little people sat him down before a baronial ‘dobe fireplace with a big round leather shield and some handsome cutlery over the timber mantel. Then Iona went to fetch some refreshments, and her father made him repeat his adventure with their queer-steer. Longarm couldn’t resist asking why they hadn’t shot old Reb themselves.
The older man’s English sounded plain enough. He had more music to his voice than his more Americanized daughter, but neither sounded at all like those vaudeville Scots who said things like, “Tis a bragh bricht moonlit nicht tonicht!” and insisted that was Scotch-English.
None of the old-timers he’d met in these parts, save for good old Opal Red-Dog, seemed inclined to make much sense. They all acted as if they had something, or somebody, more important on their minds. Longarm wasn’t of a mind to discuss the price of beef with the owner of the rogue he’d shot. So he asked if it was all right to smoke, and old MacSorley said he’d be proud to have one. So in the end the shooting of that queer-steer ran Longarm two and a half cents as they both lit up his brand.
They’d barely done so when there came a distant rumble, as of thunder, in the clear morning sky.
Old MacSorley said, “Och, mo mala, I wish they wouldn’t do that. It upsets my crodh and if each loses no more than a pound as it runs about, such losses add up!”
Longarm said he didn’t think much of dynamiting clear skies in the hopes of rain either. When he got no argument about that, he casually asked how MacSorley and his fellow beef growers felt about a wetter summer than usual, aside from the noise.
The older stockman shrugged and said, “Is coma learn, and I doubt the other stockmen care that much either, as long as the trails are dry and the crossings low by the fall roundup. We’re on ground too high to worry about flooding, and a wet or dry summer evens out for our crodh. Why do you ask?”
Longarm said, “They pay me to ask nosey questions, sir. I agree with you on that rainmaking operation over to Cedar Bend. But I was told some old boys fixing to harvest their winter wheat any minute have made threats against those Ruggles gals.”
The crusty old Hebredian snorted, “Och, that’ll be the day when an Anabaptist sgagair gathers the comas to raise his hand against a full-grown woman!”
Iona, coming back into the room with a loaded tray, trilled out, “He means they’re gutless sissies, Custis. Which girls do you want beat up, those silly sisters or the runaway wife who’s driven our only good gunsmith to distraction?”
As she put the tray of cake and coffee down on a nearby rosewood table, Longarm blinked uncertainly and decided to risk it. “Might we be talking about a Sappa Crossing gunsmith named Heger, Miss Iona?”