Longarm finished one bowl of the stew, and was hard at work on a repeat helping when some of the kids came running into camp, jabbering as fast as they could talk and gesturing off toward the north. The children reported the source of the excitement to Bad Eye, then ran off in search of their mamas or daddies or somebody else to show off to.
“What is it, Bad Eye?”
“White man and some damn Injun come.” Which meant, Longarm concluded, that the damn Injun was not of the Ute people.
Longarm stood, a tin cup of sweet, scalding hot coffee held gingerly in one hand, and peered off toward the source of the excitement. Someone was coming, all right. In a large freight wagon. The people on the wagon must have wanted to make the journey mighty bad, Longarm thought, to force a rig that big and that awkward so far off the road.
The wagon was still the better part of half a mile distant, and Longarm could see for himself that there were two people riding in it. As for them being a white man and some damn Injun, well, he would withhold judgment on that subject until they came nearer.
When they did approach the camp, however, the opinion of the sharp-eyed youngsters was confirmed. They were indeed a white man and an Indian, the white man dressed like something out of a catalog offering clothing for the Great Outdoors, complete with knee-high lace-up boots with rolls of wool stockings showing at the tops, and the Indian wearing a black suit, a tidily fashioned necktie, and a derby hat.
The white man, Longarm saw, was a gent he’d seen before. Dammit.
Here in the middle of absolutely no place, one of the damned Secret Service men had gone and found him.
Longarm suspected his ass was gonna wind up in a sling now since as far as anyone back in Denver knew, Deputy Marshal Custis Long was still on assignment serving papers over in Utah.
Chapter 19
With any kind of luck, Longarm told himself, this Secret Service agent wouldn’t remember him.
“Long, isn’t it? Deputy Long?”
So much for luck. At least the man was smiling a nice, cheery sort of welcome. And even though he remembered who Longarm was, he would have no way of knowing what … “I thought you were in Salt Lake City.” Uh, yeah. Really good luck he was having today. You bet.
“Yeah, well, um …” What the hell was this man’s name? Was this one supposed to be Smith? Or Jones? Jeez, you would think they could’ve come up with something more believable than that silly combination.
“Look,” the smiling—or was that smirking? Longarm couldn’t tell for sure—Secret Service man said, “you don’t have to tell me. I mean, I wouldn’t if I was you. You know? Not really. No need anyhow. If it was my boss that was blown up, I’d be doing the exact same thing as you, Long.” He shook his head and shrugged. “It doesn’t make any sense to me either, taking experienced investigators who know the country and the situation around here and sending them off on a bunch of shit jobs. They could have borrowed city cops or sworn some county deputies into temporary federal service if they need to keep the routine stuff rolling, right?”
“I, um …”
“Oh, you don’t have to say anything out loud. Not that I’d carry tales back to Denver, but you can’t know that. Better for you to keep your mouth shut than trust a stranger. I won’t take offense.”
Surely, Longarm thought, this fella couldn’t be for real. He was so … likable. Jeez. Nobody could be that transparent. Not really. Probably he was trying to lull Longarm into giving something away. Not that he could figure out what that something might be. But this Smith, or maybe it was Jones, he was up to some damn thing. Had to be.
“Excuse me a minute, would you, Long?” The man grinned and shuffled his feet some more. All right, so maybe he didn’t actually bob his head and shuffle his feet, but that was kind of the impression he gave. Then he turned to ask the Indian with him to greet the Ute headman for him.
The Indian, it seemed, was an interpreter that the Secret Service agent had brought along with him. The Indian in the derby hat said something to Bad Eye in a guttural, slightly slurred version of the Ute tongue that even Longarm knew enough to realize wasn’t an especially good rendition of the language. Fortunately, he backed up the spoken words with gestures in the pretty much universal sign language used by most all the Plains tribes, so no matter how bad he was at speaking in Ute, the two would be able to understand each other.
Bad Eye never blinked, taking it all in and responding in a fast burst of his own language.
Longarm figured if Bad Eye wanted to lay low and not let on that he spoke English, well, that was his affair. Longarm wasn’t going to take the hanky off the bush and expose him.
“This man is chief of tribe,” the derby Indian intoned in a sonorous voice, not necessarily accurately, but spoken with conviction regardless. “His name is Dead Sea. He welcome Agent Smith as his white father.” Which at least solved that small puzzle. This was the one who called himself Smith.
“Tell Dead Sea …,” Smith began, and the dance had begun. Longarm figured this was apt to go on for quite a while, and judging by the preliminary rounds, would likely end up with all parties hopelessly confused. Hell, there were worse things that could happen.
“Excuse me, Smith,” Longarm said in a soft voice while the two Indians were busy grunting at each other.
“Yes, Long?”
“I reckon you got things under control here, so I think I’ll move along. No sense in the two of us duplicating efforts, right?”
“Certainly, Long.” The so-called Smith smiled a smile that Longarm would have sworn looked genuine … if he didn’t already know better than to trust the son of a bitch. “And don’t worry. I won’t say a word to anyone back in Denver about … you know.”
“Right. Thanks.”
The two shook hands, and Longarm placed himself behind Smith’s Indian where Bad Eye could see him, then sketched a few signs in the air to tell Bad Eye goodbye, that they would talk more later.
Bad Eye grunted loudly and made signs to say thanks for the whiskey. Which confused the hell out of the derby Indian, and brought Smith into the picture as he hurried to explain that they had a wagon load of stuff as presents for the great Ute people but that they hadn’t brought whiskey with them because that would have been against the law.
Longarm hid his amusement and got the hell out of there while he could manage to do so without laughing out loud. He was pretty sure Bad Eye wouldn’t explain what he’d meant by the sign. And if he did, the interpreter would likely get the explanation wrong anyway. Longarm suspected Smith wasn’t going to learn a whole hell of a lot while he was there. But bless the handsome young fellow’s heart for trying, right?
Longarm got his gear together and headed north toward Florissant and the quick route back to civilization.
Chapter 20
Longarm was seated in a rocking chair on the front porch when Henry got home from work. It was well past dark already, but Longarm was content enough. His belly was full and he had a cheroot twined in his fingers. It was not entirely unknown for the dedicated clerk to work long hours whenever necessary, and Longarm was willing to wait however long it took so he could be caught up on whatever might have taken place while he’d been away.
“Hello, Longarm. Come inside away from the mosquitoes,” Henry suggested as he unlocked his front door and led the way in.
Longarm hadn’t particularly noticed any mosquitoes around, but then maybe the smoke from his cigar kept them away. He stood, yawning, and followed his friend indoors. “Hope you don’t mind me waiting for you here,” he said.