As he reined in, an older and skinnier white man came out on the porch while a middle-aged Indian lady in a print house dress shyly watched from the doorway.
As Longarm dismounted, the Indian agent barked something in the Comanche dialect and a kid who'd been winding up to throw a horse apple ran over, grinning, to take charge of Gray Skies for their distinguished guest. Longarm hung on to the Yellowboy saddle gun, having been a kid once himself.
As he joined the older couple on the porch, the agent said to call him Conway. He explained he already knew who Longarm was because the mail ambulance had just passed through and Fred Ryan had told them to expect him. He added, Fred said you and a newspaper lady with him had brushed with Black Legging Kiowa. Makes no sense, but come on in and we'll talk about it."
He hadn't introduced the Indian woman. As they entered the combined front parlor and reception room, she seemed to be tearing out the back door, as if she was shy as hell or going somewhere else.
Longarm didn't comment. He knew some called gents like Conway "squaw men," while others considered them only practical. He'd just come from a government installation where white men stuck way out in Indian country were trying to get white women to go along with the unusual conditions.
Conway waved him to a seat on a hardwood bench designed not to stain too easily, and got a bottle from a filing cabinet as Longarm brought him up to date as tersely as he knew how. Conway poured two tumblers of clear corn liquor, and handed one to Longarm as he perched his own lean rump on a three-legged stool, saying, "I just sent for Sergeant Tikano. He'd know better than me about them reservation police. Quanah left his own boys in command whilst he's gone."
Longarm sipped gingerly at the moonshine, and asked the agent just where the chief might be, doing what.
Conway shrugged and replied, "Try getting a straight answer out of a poker-faced breed who braids his hair and figures long division in his head. He said he was going across the headwaters of Wildhorse Creek to see about leasing some grazing rights to some kissing cousins on his mamma's side. I don't recall him ever telling his half-assed police to collect any passage or grazing fees for him."
This turned out to be the simple truth when they were joined a few minutes later by a blue-uniformed Indian who'd have been a giant, if his arms and legs had been proportioned like those of a white man. A lot of Comanche seemed to be built that way. But Sergeant Tikano overdid it a mite with his barrel chest and big moon face.
Conway didn't pour the Indian a drink. Tikano simply went over to that filing cabinet and helped himself. Federal regulations forbade a white man to serve hard liquor to a ward of the government. But no lawman, red or white, was supposed to take a glass out of an Indian's fool hand.
Conway repeated what Longarm had said, in a rapid-fire mixture of English and Comanche, as the big Indian sat down on the bench next to their visitor. The sergeant took a solid swig, grimaced, and declared in no uncertain terms, "No Kwahadi Comanche would call himself a sheep of any color. I think he was trying to have fun with you. A Kwahadi who spoke your Saltu tongue that well would have heard what your people mean by a black sheep."
Longarm nodded and said, "Makes sense. Might one of your police officers by any name be authorized to collect tribal fees for the rest of you?"
The Indian flatly answered, "Chief Quanah takes the money from Saltu he does business with and puts it in a Texas bank to have litters. I don't know how this puha is sung, but it works well and Quanah buys good things with some of the money while the rest keeps breeding for us in that big iron box!"
Conway cut in. "We've looked into Quanah's business dealings, and it sure beats all how sharp as well as honest that wily breed has got since last he lifted hair! He sort of plays both ends against the middle, now that he's been accepted by quality folk of both his momma and pappa's complexions."
Longarm didn't want to get into how some Hopi had taken to oil lamps and buckboards without giving up their blue corn or Katchina religious notions. So he said, "Be that as it may, I can see why your chief sent for me if nobody can say where a particular police patrol is supposed to be, or who'd be leading it! You got a whole heap of range to police, Sergeant Tikano. Don't you have, say, a wall chart divided into numbered beats for your boys to ride?"
The Indian and his agent exchanged puzzled looks. Longarm nodded and said, "I'm commencing to see what I'm doing here. Might you at least have a table of organization?"
When that didn't work he tried, "A list of riders signed up to draw government wages as nominal peace officers?"
It was the agent who brightened and said, "Oh, sure, I'm the one who pays them extra on allotment day. We have us a force of about two dozen so far."
Longarm frowned and observed, "That's hardly enough to patrol a reserve bigger than some eastern states!"
Tikano shrugged in resignation and explained, "We haven't been able to get many to join. The others laugh and refuse to obey when they see a Real Person dressed as a Saitu. Quanah says we are not to beat anyone just for laughing at us. We can only use force if we see them doing a really bad thing, but of course, nobody does anything bad when one of us is around."
He sipped more corn and continued. "In our Shining Times our old ones made laws. But they were not the laws the Great Father expects us to follow today. When young men were appointed to make everyone obey the rules that had to be obeyed, they were not the same lawmen every day. One group would be appointed to keep order during the hunts for Kutsu, I mean the Buffalo, while others would keep order in camp during the New Women dances. Nobody made others behave long enough to make a lot of people cross with him, and as I said, our old laws were not the new laws. In our Shining Times it was very important that a hunter who had hunted well would share his meat with others. Whether he slept with one woman, two women, or another man was between him and Taiowa, the one you Saitu call Holy Ghost. Our new police force would have more respect if we were allowed to take away the ponies of a man who refused to help a neighbor, instead of locking up the neighbor when he helped himself!"
Longarm finished his drink, silently declined another, and got out three smokes as he quietly said, "Nobody's asked me to write a Comanche civil or criminal code, praise the Lord. I'd best wait until Quanah returns before I set out to overhaul your whole setup. What can you tell me about them Black Leggings Kiowa, and how do you cotton to the notion of them working in cahoots with at least one dishonest Comanche patrol leader? That mysterious bunch wearing paint only hit us after I'd identified myself to old Tuka Wa Pombi and told him I'd soon be having this very conversation with you gents."
Sergeant Tikano didn't like it at all. He said, "There are other Kiowa closer, but the elder who keeps the puha bundles of their Black Leggings would be old Necomi, camped this time of the year a half day's ride to the northwest in the Wichita Hills. I'll send a rider over to see what he has to say for himself. But I don't think he will want to tell us much, whether he knows anything or not."
But Longarm said, "I'd as soon ride over for a word with him my ownself, seeing the Kiowa seem to resent you and your own riders and, no offense, I've been questioning witnesses longer."
The white agent protested, "Necomi won't tell you shit! He hates us white folks to a man, and lies to other Indians when the truth is in his favor!"
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, "That's what I meant about my being more experienced. Most of the suspects I question hate my guts and lie like rugs. But when you know how to deal the right questions to a poker-faced liar, it's surprising what you can get him to tell you."