Leaving the Indian youth to ponder his own future, Longarm walked past the agency to the back door of the cottage Prudence Lee was staying in. As he mounted the back steps to knock, she spied him through the screen door and opened it, saying, “I was just brewing some coffee. I’m afraid your suggestion about asking for Indian recipes turned out pretty dismally!”
He joined her in the kitchen as she waved him to a seat, explaining, “You forgot to tell me Indians put bacon grease instead of sugar in their coffee. Uncooked white flour dusted over canned pork and beans is rather ghastly, too!”
Longarm chuckled and said, “Lucky they didn’t serve you grasshopper stew. The grasshoppers ain’t all that bad, but the dog meat they mix in with it takes time to develop a taste for.”
Prudence paled slightly. “Oh, dear, I did eat some chopped meat boiled with what I hoped was corn mush. You don’t think-?”
“No, I was funning. They only eat stuff like that when they’re really hungry, and old Cal’s been seeing to it that the rations are fairly good. There’s nothing wrong with Indian cooking. It’s just that they have different tastes. I’ve met some who hated apple pie, and Apache would starve before they tasted fish. Some tribes look on eating fish the way we look on eating worms.”
She grimaced as she put a cup of coffee in front of him and said, “I wonder if I’ll ever get used to conditions out here. The Bible Society never told me what it would be like.”
“They likely didn’t know. Folks back East have funny notions about this part of the country. It ain’t the Great American Desert Fremont said it was. It ain’t the Golden West of Horace Greeley. It’s just different.”
“I’m trying to adjust,” she said with a sigh, “but I’m beginning to see how it might drive some women, well, strange.”
He wondered if she was talking about Nan Durler, but he didn’t ask. He said, “I came by to ask a favor, Miss Prudence. You were fixing to hold some sort Of Pow-wow here this evening, weren’t you?”
“If You want to call it that. I’ve invited some of the women over for a class in infant care.”
“I’d be obliged if you could leave ‘em to their heathen ways with kids at least one more night, Miss Prudence. I’ve told Rain Crow and the other reservation Police I want a tight curfew after sundown. Some of the squaws would be riding home in the dark, even if you were to cut ‘em loose early. The moon won’t be up before nine-thirty tonight, and I aim to have every Indian tucked in good by then.”
“Oh, are you expecting trouble from those Ghost Dancers again? I thought the man behind it was just killed.”
“Yes, ma’am, and what killed him might be on the prowl tonight.”
“Oh, dear, then you do think the Wendigo may strike again tonight?”
Longarm shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t aim to leave any man, woman, or child out alone on the prairie after dark, Wendigo or no. I’m going to have to ask you to spend the night next door with the Durlers too. Rain Crow and Calvin will be sitting up all night’with the doors locked and guns loaded. The Wendigo’s been making me look like a fool—partly because I’ve been one. From now on, I ain’t waiting for him to hit so I can chase him around like a bloodhound with nose trouble. I’m making sure, no matter how he’s doing it or when he’s figuring to do it again, that there won’t be anybody out there in the night for him but me!”
“You can’t hide an entire Indian tribe from that madman forever!”
“Don’t aim to hide ‘em forever. Just until I catch the Wendigo.”
“But even if the Indians cooperate, the reservation’s so big! How can you hope to intercept anyone or anything out there in all those miles of darkness?”
“If I knew that, I’d know the Wendigo’s methods, reasons, and likely who it was. Getting every possible victim out of the Wendigo’s reach is the best first bite I’ve come up with. So, like I said, you’ll help a heap by bunking down with the Durlers until it’s safe for you to stay here all alone.”
She sipped her own cup of coffee thoughtfully, and though she finally nodded, her voice was worried as she said, “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it. You know they’ve been fighting like cats and dogs next door.”
“They’ll be keeping company manners with you and Rain Crow listening, Miss Prudence. They weren’t fussing when I came in last night.”
“You should have heard them earlier! These walls are thin, and if there is one thing I can’t abide, it’s hypocrisy-What’s so funny?”
Longarm wiped his grin away and said, “I’d be out of a job if everybody suddenly took to being truthful. We’re all a mite two-faced, Miss Prudence. I know we ain’t supposed to be, but I reckon it’s just human nature to keep our true feelings hidden.”
She stared at him oddly and licked her lips before she brazened, “Well, I certainly try to be truthful in my dealings with everyone!”
“I know you try, ma’am. But tell me something. When’s the last time you asked the lady next door why she was fussing with her man?”
“That’s different. Hypocrisy’s one thing, rudeness is another!”
“Maybe. But lies are what we call other folks’ falsehoods. When it’s our turn to bend things out of shape we generally have a more angelic reason.” He sipped his coffee and added, “I suspicion the lies we tell ourselves are the biggest whoppers of them all.”
Her eyes blazed defensively as she asked, “And just what sort of lies are you saying I tell myself, sir?”
He smiled gently and answered, “I never accused you, ma’am. It’s funny how the less I accuse folks, the more they seem to want to tell me. I’m in a nosy line of work, so I’m probably better at reading the silences between folks’ words.”
“In other words, you’re just fishing? Well, you can just fish somewhere else, then. For I’ve nothing to hide.”
He nodded as if in agreement and sipped some more coffee. He didn’t really give much of a damn about such secrets as a little sparrow-bird spinster-gal might have. He wasn’t getting paid to find out what had driven her to reading Bibles for a living. But wasn’t it a bitch how it spooked folks when you backed off just as the questions were getting close to home?
Prudence Lee said, “I suppose you think I’m as silly as poor Nan Durler, in my own way. But that really was another girl I was talking about.”
“What girl was that, ma’am?” Longarm asked innocently. “The one back East who ran off on her husband? I’d almost forgotten about her.”
“I’ll bet you have. I’ll bet you have a whole crazy story cooked up about my atoning for some dark, secret sin. But you’re wrong. It was only a girl I knew, one time.”
He nodded and said, “I know. Her story reminds me a lot of Madam Lamont, down Denver way.”
“Who’s Madam Lamont? She sounds like a—you know what!”
“Yep, that’s what she was. Ran the most expensive parlor house on State Street, for a while. The poor old gal was atoning for a terrible mix-up.”
Prudence looked shocked. “Atoning? Is that what they call being a prostitute, these days?”
“Well, some folks have odd notions on the subject of atonement. You see, Madam Lamont came West as a bride, back in the Pike’s Peak Rush before the War. Her name was something else, then, of course. Her husband was a preacher. He freighted her and a mess of Bibles to the gold camps, aiming to wash the sins of the miners away. The gal was likely fond of him, for they seemed happy. Then the preacher vanished, as did a gold camp redhead at the same time, who was said to be no better than she might have been.”
“Heavens, the poor girl was deserted by her husband for a dance-hall girl?” She shook her head sadly.
“That’s what she suspicioned, and it sort of jarred something loose inside her head. She took to drink and then, since it beat taking in washing, she started pleasuring men for pay. She must have been good at it, for the next thing anybody knew, she had the biggest fancy house in Denver. I reckon she was trying to get as far from the preaching trade as possible. But like I said, it was all a mix-up. Her husband hadn’t done her wrong at all.”