She stayed with him as he walked upslope behind the homestead. He didn’t mind. She was nice company and, as it turned out, not bad at herbing. From time to time she’d bend over to pluck a weed he wasn’t so sure one ought to eat. When he came up with a fistful of bitty wild onion bulbs and mentioned death camus she said, “Those are onions. I have an easy way to keep from eating death camus by mistake. I never eat any kind of camus.”
He chuckled. “That’s a good way to be sure. Even Shoshone have been known to poison themselves that way. But the camus that’s safe to eat sure tasted good, one time, when I was left afoot a spell with nothing better to eat.”
She asked when that had been. “Never mind,” he said. “I don’t like to dwell on Indian scouting. I like most Indians, when they ain’t on the warpath.”
She looked away and said, sort of tight-lipped, “I don’t. The Shoshone killed my husband two summers ago. Was that the uprising you just spoke of?”
“Yep. I’m sure sorry I shot off my fool mouth about Indians, Miss Ann. I didn’t do so to rake up hurtful memories.”
“I know. I can tell you don’t like to hurt anybody. I must say you sure picked an odd profession for such a kind-hearted man.”
He shrugged and said, “It pays better than herding cows, and I don’t figure I’m hurting most folk. Most folk come decent. By putting away the few bad apples in the barrel, one could say I was sort of helping the majority of the folk I meet.”
Then he grinned sheepishly. “There I go, trying to explain my fool self to a lady who reads books about psychology.”
She laughed sweetly. “That’s what they say we all do, about some things. The world could use more men who excuse their actions your way, Custis. I get to see a lot of meanness in my line of work, too, and it’s amazing how many spiteful things can be rationalized as one’s duty to the Lord and Queen Victoria.”
He said he’d noticed that, and added, “As long as I’m picking greens with a lady who knows more than most about sick heads, I got some posers for you to study on with me.”
They kept gathering as he filled her in on the homicidal lunatic he’d been chasing when he’d been sidetracked by this lesser case of human error. He noticed she listened well, without missing any bets in the deep grass they were moving through. She let him finish before she said, “Well, I’m only trained to the grade of practical nurse. But it certainly sounds as if that poor boy is suffering from dementia praecox.”
“Does that mean he’s just plain loco?” he asked, and she said, “About as crazy as one can get and still function. As I understand it, victims of the madness think everyone’s against them. So they convince themselves they’re somebody more important and powerful, who can deal with enemies better.”
He hunkered down to pick a tasty-looking weed as he said, “I already had that part figured. What I’m more worried about is whether Black Jack Junior is really demented or just trying to slicker me.”
She flopped down in the grass beside him. He started to ask why and decided that would make him loco, too. He rolled to sit beside her, muttering, “We got more greens than a rabbit could eat for supper.”
She lay back on her elbows, her own greens piled where she’d have had a lap if she’d been sitting up straighter, and opined, “I don’t see how the killer you’re after could be faking madness. He’d have to be mad to be carrying on the way he’s been carrying on, wouldn’t he?”
Longarm plucked a grass stem to chew before he explained, “I still get the feeling I’ve been missing something. The real Black Jack Slade didn’t vanish into thin air after he pistol-whipped or gunned somebody. He tended to stick around and brag about it. His young, meaner mimic ain’t like that at all. One minute he’s there, carrying on even worse than the original, and the next time you look he’s just not anywhere. Could that demented whatever make a cuss act sneaky as well as ornery?”
She said, “Of course. People with delusions of persecution can act fearsomely cunning, and they often suffer from a split personality as well.”
He frowned. “Does that mean he could think he was more than one nut? Say, Wellington and Napoleon at the same time?”
“More like Wellington one time and Napoleon another. I even read of a case in France where this real French peace officer spent half his time as a master criminal and the rest of the time as the detective assigned to the case. It appears he made a sincere effort as a detective to track his own criminal side down.”
Longarm chuckled at the picture. “Did he ever catch himself?” he asked.
She shook her sunbonnet and said, “Not exactly. He was caught by other French detectives when his criminal personality walked into the trap his detective personality had set up. The point is that both his personalities were sincere. He wasn’t putting on an act when he was either.”
Longarm sighed. “I sure wish the timid little Joseph Slade would offer some suggestions on how to catch his blacker side. But if he does turn into a milk-toast, between such moments, he ain’t seen fit to turn his other self in. I got another poser for you, Miss Ann. I’ve been taking him at his word he thinks he’s that long-dead gunslick, and trailing him as if he was real. So far, aside from the way he behaved in Denver when he was just starting to act crazy, he’s done all his dirty deeds on or about the old stomping grounds of his idol, former self, or whatever. Do I sound loco, too, in assuming he just has to stay close to the old Overland Trail?”
She told him, “I think you’ve been unusually wise, for a peace officer without a degree in lunacy. The fact that the poor boy headed north to the Overland Trail proves he’s acting under some compulsion.”
“Yeah, he could shoot folk just as good where he was, if that’s all he wanted to do. I just wish he’d stay compulsed more visible along the Overland Trail. But whether he tries to ride through the South Pass up ahead dressed in goat-hair chaps or as a Baptist minister, I’ll have him. Folk of any description come few and far between in trail towns like Atlantic City, and he’ll have to stop for water there, after riding dry a good stretch above the headwater slopes. I just have to watch for any stranger that small and-“
“Have you considered him riding sidesaddle, in skirts?” she cut in.
He started to tell her that was silly until he took her suggestion. “Thunderation! That works! Even he must have noticed by now how short and small he is. Even in his wild cow duds he ain’t no bigger than you are, and it stands to reason a lunatic could think he was Josephine as well as Napoleon. He come home from the army to an older sister who could be missing at least one dress. I never asked, and she might not have noticed in any case.”
He thought about the way the killer had vanished so quickly with posse riders hot on his tail and grabbed her to give her a big kiss as he told her, “You’re smart as hell, Lord love you. Oh, sorry, ma’am. I wasn’t trying to be forward.”
She smiled up at him from under her sunbonnet and told him she wasn’t sore. He let her drop back in the grass as he sat up in it and stared down the slope at the shabby homestead, growling, “Your fine suggestion makes up for the day I just lost on more serious business. But I’m still sorry I ever saw that fool kid running for you.”
She said, “I’m not. I mean, if you hadn’t wrapped her up so well before I could get there, she’d surely have died before the boy and me arrived.”