He wrinkled his nose and found himself saying, "I don't have to treat cows one way or another, ma'am. Now that I've a better-paying job I only eat them, the same as you and all your kith and kin. Next to a slaughterhouse crew, your average cowhand could be said to pet and pamper the cows he's paid to tend to. Have you ever tried to befriend a free-ranging beef critter, Miss Weaver?"
When she laughed despite herself and confessed the thought had never occurred to her, Longarm said, "Don't. Mex bullfighters just plain refuse to face a Texas longhorn in the ring, even for extra prize money. When and if we catch up with that herd out ahead of us, don't dismount for any reason within at least a couple of furlongs. They seem to feel anyone they catch afoot was designed for them to gore and trample. I don't know what you've seen cowhands doing to such delicate critters, Miss Weaver. Some old boys will rope and throw an already cut and branded yearling just to prove it can be done. On the other hand, cows kill folks a lot just for practice. So 1I reckon it evens out. You said something before about the Indian Police up ahead acting ornery too. No offense, but to tell it true, I'm more concerned about lawmen abusing their authority than a fool cowhand abusing livestock."
They could see the river ahead of them now, with the dust from that trail herd hanging mustard yellow just above the far shore, as she said, "I told you back in town I had to get Chief Quanah's version before I decided who's behind it all. Our informant only told me big money has been changing hands, with somebody being paid a lot to look the other way. I'm sure we'll find out that the tribal leaders are innocent dupes of some crooked white men, of course."
Longarm rose in his stirrups to stare thoughtfully up the trail ahead and say, "I can't tell why from here, but that herd out in front of us seems to be milling in place on the far bank of that regular crossing. It's been dry a spell and the water ought to be low enough up the river a ways. Do you know for a fact that white men have been leading some Indians astray, or might you share the opinion of so many that Mister Lo is simpleminded as well as poor?"
As she followed him off the beaten path at an angle, Godiva Weaver protested, "My paper and I have always shown the greatest sympathy for the poor Indians, Deputy Long. We know the poor Comanche only wanted to lead peaceful lives in communion with the natural world, until selfish white men drove them to acts of desperation."
Longarm snorted in disgust and said, "That may be sympathy, but it sure ain't much respect. The Comanche up ahead learned to ride a generation ahead of most other Horse Indians by watching the early Spanish do so, helping themselves to some horses, and teaching themselves to ride better. In no time at all they were the terror of the Staked Plains, and pound for pound they've killed off more of the rest of us, red or white, than all the other Horse Indians combined. They'd be mighty hurt to be dismissed as posey-picking poets back in the days they still recall as their Shining Times."
He made for the silvery surface of the Red River, more clearly visible through the streamside cottonwood and willows now, as the newspaper gal said, "Everyone knows they were great warriors if forced to fight."
To which Longarm could only reply with a laugh, "Nobody ever had to force a Comanche, a Kiowa, an Arapaho, or South Cheyenne to fight down this way. All the plains nations, and the Comanche in particular, gloried in blood, slaughter, and horse thievery. I know they were more in the right than usual when they rose up against the buffalo hunters a few summers ago. The Indians had been cut down enough by cannon fire to go along with Washington on West Texas hunting grounds no bigger than a state or so back East. So those greedy hunters should have left them and what was left of the south herd alone. But the Indians could have saved themselves a heap of casualties in the end if they'd dealt with the trespassers less gruesomely."
He waved his free hand expansively to the north and added, "So that's why we've set up Indian Police wherever the Indians are halfways willing to enforce the B.I.A. regulations more constitutionally. It costs way less salary and resentment to swear in tribal members as uniformed federal lawmen than it might to post white military police at every agency. I've been asked to see just how well they've done so up around Fort Sill. You were saying they ain't been doing it so well?"
She nodded primly and replied, "We were tipped off to brazen bribe demands by the Comanche Police. Apparently they can be paid to look the other way no matter what a white crook wants to do on Indian land, if the price is right. Or contrariwise, they might arrest you for singing improperly, just to shake you down!"
They were closer to the river now. Longarm pointed at the water just ahead and observed, "The river runs too deep for our fording yonder. Let's ease upstream a ways. Indian Police don't have authority to arrest white men. They can prevent a felony in progress and turn white crooks over to the nearest white lawman. Otherwise, their orders are to report non-tribal evil-doers to their agent or somebody like me."
She suggested, "Maybe the whites they intercept on or about their reservation don't know that. Anyone with a badge and a gun can stick out his chest and bluff, whether he has the legal authority to act that way or not, right?"
Longarm spied a stretch of water that seemed to be simmering to a boil a furlong upstream and said, "That stretch looks no more than stirrup deep. But let me go first anyways. Poorly trained or greedy lawmen of all complexions have been known to abuse their authority. Bluffing a paid-up Texican white man out of a bribe might not be as easy for an Indian. But like the old church song says, farther along we'll know more about it."
He led the way cautiously down the crumbling bank. The paint he was riding entered the water gingerly, but didn't put up half the fuss the bay did until he'd dragged it into the shallow water a ways.
Godiva Weaver's roan was either better-natured or else it was smart enough to see the two ponies ahead of it weren't drowning. So they were all soon across the medium-wide and mighty shallow Red River of the South in no time.
As they rode up through the timber along the far bank, Godiva asked how far ahead the Kiowa Comanche reserve was, and when he told her they were on it, she allowed she'd expected a fence or at least some signs posted.
Longarm said, "A lot of folks seem to. An Indian reserve ain't a prison camp, no matter how some Indians act. It's a tract of land set aside by the government for said Indians to live on, undisturbed and not disturbing nobody. It's usually the smaller reserves you'll find posted like private property. Everybody knows Texas is supposed to start just south of the Red River, and like I said, most Indians served by the Fort Sill agency would want to camp closer."
She asked, "Then what are those wigwams doing down that way?"
Longarm reined and stood up to stare soberly eastward along the riverside tree line. He could see all those cows still milling amid billows of trail dust, and atop a slight rise beyond the trail, there was surely a ring of the conical tents the Eastern gal had just misnamed.
He said, "That's a tipi ring, Miss Weaver. A wigwam is the same thing made out of bark and mentioned by someone speaking Algonquin. Tipi seems to be a Sioux-Hokan word for lodge or dwelling, but all the plains nations who live in 'em seem to use tipi or something close. The question before the house ain't what they are but what they might be doing yonder. You just heard me say why I'd hardly expect a Kiowa or Comanche camp this far south."
He unfastened his recently purchased and fully loaded Yellowboy and heeled his mount into a thoughtful walk as he mused aloud, "The trail hands in charge of that herd seem perplexed too, seeing they don't seem able to move their cows past them Indians."
As she gingerly followed, Godiva hauled her own saddle gun up to brace it across her upraised right thigh as she asked if this was really any of their business.