Longarm and the Unwritten Law

by Tabor Evans

  Longarm strapped on his six-gun and went down the hall in his shirtsleeves to take a good leak and wash the sleep gum from his eyes. He needed a shave, but his soap and razor were still up in that Denver baggage room, if he was lucky. So he let that go for now, went back to his room to put on the rest of his outfit, and went downstairs for a late breakfast.

  As he consumed it in the back booth of a nearly deserted chili joint, he read Henry's typed-up onionskins casually a third time. Then he dropped them in a trash barrel out front as he was leaving. There'd been nothing all that secretive or hard to remember, and it was getting tedious to tote that dumb manila envelope all over.

  He found the livery Clovis Mason had suggested, and evoked the Ranger's name to see if they'd treat him as a customer who might know which end of a pony the shit fell out of.

  The old weatherbeaten geezer who led him out back to the corral acted sensibly enough until they'd agreed on a couple of aging but still serviceable cow ponies, a paint and a bay, both mares, and got down to brass tacks about money.

  The old hostler wanted four bits a day for the hire of both the mares and the riding and packing gear Longarm would need to get him up to Fort Sill and back. That sounded reasonable. So did the old-timer's asking for a deposit against the loss of anything he hired out. But Longarm didn't think he was reasonable when he asked for a deposit of the full market price, and then some, for, say, two fine cutting horses and a spanking-new roping saddle silver-mounted.

  Longarm snorted in disgust and said, "I was only aiming to ride them old plugs a week or so. Nobody said nothing about my proposing either should take my name and bear my children. I'll deposit, say, a hundred in cash for the whole shebang, and that's only on account I doubt I'll have to forfeit any of it."

  The hostler naturally protested that the bridles and saddles alone would cost better than a hundred dollars to replace, and so it went until they'd settled on a deposit both found outrageous and Longarm was free to walk the two mares across to that general store, with the stock saddle cinched atop the paint and the bay stuck, for now, with packing.

  He went inside to discover that, sure enough, they sold almost anything a man or beast might require out on the open range in the late summer months.

  He bought some vulcanized water bags and a sack of oats for the ponies, knowing there'd be plenty of sun-cured but fairly nourishing grama to graze along the way.

  He bought extra smokes and a few days' worth of canned grub for himself. It hurt to spring for a new Winchester when he knew he had an almost new one strapped to his McClellan in that baggage room up Denver way. So he bought a couple of boxes of Remington.44-40 that fit his revolver as well, and let the saddle gun go for the time being. He bought some new denim jeans, along with a razor, soap, and such. His hickory shirt and tweed vest would get him by after sundown this far south in summertime. But he figured he'd better pick up a vulcanized poncho along with the minimal bedding he might need for a night or so in the middle of nowhere much.

  Once he and the shop clerk had loaded all his purchases aboard the two horses, Longarm led them on up the street until, as he'd hoped, he spied a pawnshop.

  He was coming out of it a few minutes later with an older but well-kept Winchester Yellowboy, the original model with its receiver cast brass instead of machined steel. Most Indians and some cowboys still favored the Yellowboy over newer models because its rust-proof receiver made up for its loading a tad slower in a setting where a gun might be tougher to strip, clean, and oil very often. The Yellowboy, like the Henry all Winchesters were based on, would shoot as fast as any other saddle gun when fast shooting was called for.

  Longarm was lashing the antique weapon to his hired saddle by its stock-ring when a familiar figure in a tan travel duster and veiled hat paused on the nearby walk and declared in a self-possessed tone that she believed that she owed him an apology.

  Longarm finished what he'd been doing, tipped his hat to the lady, and told her he was pleased to see she' been talking to Ranger Mason, but that no apology was called for. As he joined her in the shade on the walk, he decided that her hair was a dark shade of honey under that veil and her eyes were hazel. He said, "I can see how it must have looked to a lady on her own late at night, Miss Weaver."

  She smiled under her veil and replied, "I see I wasn't the only one talking to Ranger Mason this morning. I really do feel foolish, and grateful, now that I know you really did save me from the pest back in Amarillo. Ranger Mason tells me you're on government business, bound for the Kiowa Comanche Reservation just to the north."

  Longarm nodded, since it wasn't a secret mission, but explained, "I ain't sure you could say it was just to the north, ma'am. I know the reserve of which we speak starts officially at the Red River, a fairly easy ride from here. But whilst the Red River forms a south boundary to the lands set aside for all those Indian nations, the ones I'm out to visit will be way closer to Fort Sill, a good forty miles or a hard day in the saddle north of the river."

  She said, "That's what everyone keeps telling me. I have to see old Chief Quanah of the Kiowa Comanche. Will you take me with you?"

  Longarm laughed incredulously. It wouldn't have been polite to ask a reporter for a pesky paper why anyone with a lick of sense might want to. He just said, "Quanah ain't much older than me. Folks take him for older because he's sort of weatherbeaten and he started so young it seems he's been whooping it up for ages. He ain't the chief of the Kiowa or even all the Comanche. He led the Kwahadi or one division Of the Comanche Army during the Buffalo War. He seems to speak for more of them now because he's half white and speaks good English."

  She said she'd heard as much, and had a lot of questions to ask the big chief. So he gently told her, "He might not be up at Fort Sill right now, Miss Weaver. I just read some B.I.A. dispatches. They say Quanah's on a sort of inspection trip of the older nations that were sort of civilized somewhat sooner. It reminds me of those trips Peter the Great took to other parts of Europe when he set out to civilize Russia."

  She started to say something about wanting to talk to some other Indian chiefs in that case. He started to tell her it was out of the question for her to come along. But then she headed him off with: "I have to find out if there's any truth to those rumors of corruption in the newly organized tribal police. I haven't been able to get a line on whether the ring-leaders are white or red or whether there's nothing to it at all."

  He said, "Well, seeing you're bound and determined, and seeing we both seem interested in the Indian Police, we'd best see about hiring some riding stock for you, Miss Weaver."

  She said she already had her own horse and saddle awaiting her pleasure at her own hotel. So he told her to go fetch them while he went back to that general store for a few more trail supplies.

  So she did, and they were riding north for the Red River of the South within the hour, which was between nine and ten A.M. Longarm was too polite to comment on her sitting her hired roan sidesaddle. Folks rode best the way they'd first been taught, and if she sat a mite forward, as Eastern folks were prone to, it wasn't as if he expected her to circle any stampedes between hither and yon. Lord willing and the creeks didn't rise, they'd make Fort Sill in a hard day's ride, and her livery nag would bear up better with her modest weight carried SO.

  He saw she'd lashed her own bedding across her saddlebags. She doubtless hadn't been told it was best to wrap the blankets inside a waterproof canvas ground-cloth. Folks who insisted on calling the Western grasslands the Great American Desert seemed to think rain never happened out this way.

  He had to ask if she knew how to use the Spencer repeater she'd slung from the off side of her girlish saddle. She said her father had let her practice on tin cans back East when she was little. He shrugged and refrained from pointing out a.51caliber Spencer was hardly meant for a kid's backyard plunking. He doubted they'd have any call to shoot at anything between here and the river, and once they were on the Kiowa Comanche hunting ground beyond, shooting was r
eserved for hunters of the Indian persuasion.

  As they followed the dirt wagon trace north across overgrazed and unfenced range, even a gal from back East could see a considerable herd of beef had eased in from their right to avoid the town but make for the same river crossing up ahead. He didn't tell her how he figured the trail drive was only an hour or so ahead. She could read how suddenly cowshit dried as the sun rose high.

  He found it more interesting that some outfit was still driving beef north this far east. As settlement spread westward, so the cattle trails kept shifting. All but the most westerly counties of Kansas had been closed to cattle drives by now, and most cows were following that new Ogallala Trail further west these days.

  Godiva Weaver broke into his train of thought by asking him out of the blue if he could answer a question about cowboys that nobody else had been able to. He said he'd try.

  She said, "I know everyone seems to feel you Westerners ride at least twice as good as the Queen's Household Guard, but it seems to me you all ride with your stirrups too long and seated too far back for your poor mount's comfort."

  Longarm smiled thinly and said, "I hope you told the others you talked to you were a reporting gal. I've seen some riders act mean because someone asked them their right name."

  He stared up the trail to see that there did seem a haze of dust on the northern horizon as he continued. "I've never ridden with Queen Victoria's outfit. I know professional jockeys get more speed out of a racehorse by leaning their weight forward on a flat straight course. For just like a human being carrying a pack on his back, a horse can run a tad easier with the weight across his shoulders."

  She said that was what she'd meant.

  He said, "There's more to riding a pony than tearing sudden and straight, Miss Weaver. To begin with, you want to stay in the saddle. That's way easier if you're balanced over the critter's center of gravity when it spins to the left or right, sometimes without your permission. Cowhands ain't the only ones who ride back a ways with a boot planted firm down either side. Cavalry troopers, polo players, and others inclined to ride more zigzaggy than some tend to sit their mounts in the same unfashionable way. It's true your mount would no doubt like to carry your weight further forward. But you see, a man who makes his living riding a horse ain't as likely to fret more about horses than his own neck."

  She sniffed and said, "I've seen the way you all treat cattle out this way as well."

  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 pain
t 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."