Longarm started to introduce the nurse and himself. The sardonic lawman in black said, “I know who you two are and you both make me nervous. I’d be Pronto Cross, the town marshal. I thought me and Sheriff Wigan had a gentleman’s agreement. I don’t concern myself with anything that might take place a furlong outside of town, and in return nobody rides at full gallop or discharges his firearms in town.”
Longarm nodded soberly and said, “I have heard tell of a town-tamer called Pronto Cross. They tell me he blew a wild cowboy off his pony when he rode it through a schoolyard down Kansas way.”
Pronto Cross shrugged modestly and replied, “School was in session and he’d been warned. When people pay you to preserve law and order in a town, you’re supposed to preserve law and order. No offense, but neither of you federal employees are making my job any easier in Pawnee Junction!”
Nurse Calder said, “I was just about to leave! They told me the Pawnee were savages when I signed up to work out this way! I’ve yet to meet any Indian who openly admired cowardly killers who gang up on women!”
Pronto Cross laughed softly and assured her, “Nobody in that bunch was a Minute Man, ma’am. They were just young jaspers who forgot the way we expect ‘em to act in town.”
Longarm nodded grimly and said, “I’d been wondering how come your county sheriff led those two prisoners out back to the mob instead of making a stand inside brick walls. You and your town deputies would have had to come to help if the shooting had started within the town boundaries. Is it safe to assume Sheriff Wigan knows all the Minute Men on a first-name basis too?”
Pronto Cross answered innocently, “Most everyone in the county can name most everyone else, if he cares to. You must have noticed by now that nobody cares to. Do us all a favor, Longarm. Wind it up before anyone else gets hurt. I’ve passed the word to leave you alone until you leave. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. I’d like to do more for you, but it’s an election year and a man can only do so much before he has to look out for his own skin, if you follow my meaning.”
Longarm said, “I follow your meaning. Come on, Nurse Calder, we’ll go see about that permission you need from Rose Burnside and I’ll ride you partway back to the agency.”
Pronto Cross nodded agreeably and said, “I’m glad you both see it my way. What’s done is done and there’s no sense hanging around where you just ain’t wanted, right?”
Longarm just took the gal by one elbow and led her around the rumps of their ponies. There were some questions that deserved polite answers. There were others that were just too dumb to bother with.
Chapter 8
They were shown in to find Rose Burnside seated stiffly near the foot of her brother’s closed coffin of mahogany-stained pine with cast-iron handles. The velveteen-draped viewing chamber was candle-lit mighty poorly. So it was hard to read the gal’s expression when Longarm introduced the Indian Agency nurse to her and added, “If it’s of any comfort to you, Miss Rose, Nurse Calder and me just now found out your brother wasn’t an idiot. He was an imbecile. That’s way smarter than an idiot, and I have even better news for you.”
Both gals seemed interested as he continued. “When Dr. Langdon Down made his first serious studies of your brother’s syndrome, as you describe it scientifically, he was starting from scratch with rough data. Down’s description of what earlier does had written off more cruelly was a vast improvement, of course. He freed all those poor women of nasty suspicions about their visits to the Chinese laundry, and pointed out that real Mongolians were just about as smart as anyone else, without pinkies that turned in or thicker tongues than most. But the doc jumped to some hasty conclusions of his own, starting with calling the condition Mongoloid idiocy. More recent studies have shown a greater number of such odd-looking children, no offense, are smarter than true idiots, which are baby-brained. Most are imbeciles, meaning they think at about the level of a six-or eight-year-old, with some of them even smarter, able to read, write, and do sums at a sixth-grade level.”
He let that sink in, then told her gently, “We’ll never be able to ask your brother to take any written tests, of course. But it would tell us more about him and others like him if you’d let Nurse Calder here take some, ah, tissue samples back to her clinic down to the Pawnee Agency.”
Rose shook her head and said, “I’ll not have anyone poking about inside Howard again. I’m sure the undertakers did their best this evening. But he already looks as if he’s been stuffed!”
That wasn’t such a bad description when you studied on it. But Longarm said, “Nobody wants to disturb his remains again, Miss Rose. They, ah, did all they had to to his innards this afternoon. I was there, and you have my word nobody did or said anything disrespectful of you or your family. Nurse Calder just spoke up for your brother at the coroner’s hearing, as a matter of fact. She said right out she didn’t think he did half the things they say he did to that Sunday school gal. She wouldn’t have been able to offer such an opinion if she and Doc Forbes hadn’t sort of … poked around at him.”
Rose looked up hopefully at the bigger gal, who nodded soberly and said, “Whatever happened, I can’t see how your brother could have raped anybody.”
Rose said, “I was wondering about that. He never seemed to take any interest in such matters, even when neighborhood kids came by to watch the stock going at it. You see, swine are built sort of odd and, well …”
“Nurse Calder needs your permission to study some more on what made your brother tick,” Longarm said. “It’s important to have somebody study and write things down. For example, we know from more recent studies that your brother’s syndrome doesn’t run in the family, as you said you feared. The reason you and your other brother were born normal to the same mother is that Mongolism seems to be little more than a game of chance, with one out of, say, five hundred mothers losing out.”
Nurse Calder showed she’d been keeping up with the literature by cautiously adding, “Older women who’ve been ill seem to run a higher risk of bearing a Mongoloid child. Nobody knows why any woman might give birth to such a child. But Custis is right about the odds, and it’s very common to see one such child among a large family of normal brothers and sisters.”
“They usually spoil the funnier-looking kid brothers or sisters,” Longarm volunteered. As the nurse nodded he went on. “Like you can say from your own experience, that particular breed of half-wit tends to be lovable as well as embarrassing. They like to play, seldom play rough, and hardly ever raise a fuss. But why go on about such family problems when the odds are you’ll never have to worry about anything like that again, Miss Rose?”
The small gal in black gasped, “Oh, thank you! Thank you for telling me that! I’ve been sitting here and sitting here, knowing how my poor mamma must have felt when she ran off that way, and, oh, I do so hope you’re not just saying that to make me feel better!”
Longarm swore they weren’t, and brought up the delicate matter of pickle jars again. She told them they could keep anything they’d ever found in her unfortunate brother’s cadaver for all she cared, and Longarm got Nurse Calder out of there before she could change her mind.
It was really getting dark outside by then. Nancy Calder suddenly grabbed hold of Longarm’s vest and gave him a sisterly peck on one cheek before she said, “That was very sweet of you, Custis. You do have a way with women, for a man who can be so stern with a half-dozen men at a time!”
He said, “Aw, mush. I’m as nice to anybody as their manners call for. I never lied to anybody just now. I read most everything I told her in this book I borrowed from the library this afternoon. Where’s that poor boy’s brain right now, over to the Forbes house?”