Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds

by Tabor Evans

  The Western Union clerk asked how Longarm knew his mysterious red outlaw had been trying to communicate with anyone by wire to begin with.

  Longarm said, "That's easy. I never put an ad in your local paper to announce my arrival. Youngwolf has been laying low on a cattle spread closer to Sleepy Eye than here to begin with. I'd have never thought to look for him there if he hadn't come looking for me with a twelve-gauge just now, if that was his true intent. I'd sure like to ask the white pal he must have had fronting for him just what in blue blazes this is all about. For up until a few minutes ago I was inclined to agree with my boss that there wasn't all that much going on here in New Ulm!"

  The somewhat mollified telegraph clerk agreed it seemed a real poser. Longarm didn't want to get him het up again by asking to go over all the wires they'd sent or received for, say, the past seventy-two hours. He knew that even if he won the fight, he'd have a hell of a chore just reading that many messages without a clue as to which ones might be in code.

  Folks who hadn't had to try decoding tended to mix codes up with ciphers. A cipher was kid stuff next to a code. The cipher everyone since the ancient Greeks tried first involved simply switching the letters of the alphabet around, so an X might stand for an A or a Z for an E and so forth. But any signal corpsman worth his salt would know right off that a message reading something like "UIF RVJDL CSPXO GPA KVNQFE PWFS UIF MBAZ EPH" had to be cipher, and once you knew that, it wasn't too tough to figure the letter used most likely stood for an E, the next most an A, and so on till you got a few words to make sense and could fill in the rest.

  But a simple pre-arranged code could be almost impossible to break because it worked the way kith and kin might talk when they didn't want the kids to know just what they were saying. It was just as easy and less shocking, for instance, for the lady of the house to suggest they put the kiddies to bed and go for a stroll in the moonlight than it was to say, "Let's lock the kids up and screw," although her man had as good a notion of what she really had in mind. Crooks tended to use messages such as, "Aunt Edna sends her regards," when they wanted to say a robbery was off, still being planned, or all set to pull off. There was simply no saying how a gang leader back in Denver or Durango could have wired the Chief he was coming this way, or what to do about it once he arrived. He mulled the recent events in his own mind as he legged it over to the post office. The Indian they called the Chief had surely been following him, to whatever purpose, when he'd forced the issue. Those other Indians who'd mentioned him by name, in Santee, might or might not have been working with an outlaw everyone had down as a blood enemy. Crooks had no shame. Or what if those Santee trying to get a foot back in the doorway of their old hunting grounds were not in cahoots with the Indian he'd just shot it out with, but worried about something else he might uncover on them? The wheels were still spinning within wheels inside his head when he hit pay dirt, sort of, at the post office. A mousy but not too bad-looking mail sorter recalled a nicely dressed colored lady who'd picked up more than one bulky letter from Chicago, she thought, addressed to one Judith Jones in care of General Delivery, New Ulm. Longarm said that sounded close enough to Jasmine Smith. Longarm had no call to pursue how such a lady might send mail to Chicago, since there were public mail drops all over. It added up to the sneaky so-called Bee Witch sending her tracing-silk drawings by mail and getting paid for them the same way. Whether she'd sent all they'd wanted and she'd just left for other parts, or whether someone else had committed foul play to keep her from finishing, was still up in the air. He'd told pretty little Mato Takoza that, either way, he saw no reason why she shouldn't just go on herding bees out yonder for fun and profit until further notice. He had to go next to the county courthouse, where, just as Sheriff Tegner had said, they were holding a meeting in the cellar to see how they wanted to record that dead Indian. As the older lawman introduced Longarm to their coroner and his pals, Longarm learned they'd already determined the cause of death had been internal bleeding, occasioned by a.44-40 round busting the old boy's aorta all to hell inside him. Longarm said he'd aimed low in the fond hope of getting more out of the son of a bitch than he had. Nobody there disputed the right of a lawman, or any white man, to fire on an infernal Indian pointing a twelve-gauge anywhere near him.

  The coroner said he'd already sent a rider out to talk to the dead man's female boss, in hopes Miss Runeberg could shed some light on what one of her riders had been doing in town with that Cleveland to begin with.

  Once that meeting was adjourned pro tem, Longarm walked Sheriff Tegner and his deputies back to their nearby office, and borrowed a desk to write up as detailed a report for Brown County as they had any right to expect. He suggested Tegner keep a friendly eye on the breed gal running that honey and wax operation in the absence of the missing Bee Witch. Since everyone else was acting so sneaky about a possible bridge site up the river, Longarm put things plain enough for a cuss as friendly as old Tegner to make some profitable real-estate deals if he felt like it. Old George Washington had been decent enough in his day, and nobody had begrudged him a little land speculation near the end of the Revolution. Doing well for oneself while doing good for others was a grand old American custom. Longarm didn't care what others did as long as they didn't break federal statutes on purpose or hurt a soul he had any use for.

  But just in case he was missing something important, Longarm went next to that bank, arriving just in time to see them shutting the big front door from across the way.

  He hurried on across, muttering about banker's hours, and ignored the "Closed" sign hanging behind the medium-sized glass door panel to knock on the shellacked oak as if he really meant it.

  That pretty blond gal, Miss Vigdis Magnusson, came to the door to wigwag her finger at him chidingly. Then she recognized Longarm and popped the door inward, gasping, "Hurry! Get in here before anyone catches us being naughty! We've been closed nearly an hour and I was just about to duck out the back way. Everyone else has already left for the day and I'm not supposed to open up to anybody for any reason!"

  He started to say he'd come to see her boss, old P.S. Plover. But she'd just said the cuss had left for the day, and sometimes a lawman could get more out of a bank employee who knew less about the law as it applied to running a bank. So he smiled sincerely at the buxom blue-eyed blonde, admiring how different she looked next to the gal he'd had breakfast with at dawn, and said, "Mebbe it's just as well your boss ain't here, Miss Vigdis. By the way, do any of your personal pals call you Viggy?"

  She fluttered her lashes and allowed that sounded cute as she led him back to that office they'd been in before. She didn't seem to care why. As they passed the time-locked vault she said she'd sort of hoped he'd drop by again. Once they got all the way back, Longarm noticed the blinds had been drawn and everything looked sort of gravy-brown in the light still getting through from outside.

  Vigdis, or Viggy, motioned to an overstuffed leather chesterfield against one wall and said, "Sit right down and tell me just what you wanted from me, Custis."

  So he sat, smiling up at her a mite awkwardly as he chose his words and decided to take the bull by the horns, beginning, "You look like a sensible gal a man can just level with, Miss Viggy. I don't have too many friends here in New Ulm I can turn to for help and, well, to tell the truth, I'd like you to get even more naughty for me than you were by letting me in after closing hours."

  She blushed hard enough to make out from where he sat, despite the dim daylight, and declared, "Certainly not! Just because a girl smiles sort of warmly at a nice-looking man, it hardly gives him the right to come right out and ask her to be naughty!"

  Longarm laughed out loud as he grasped her meaning and protested, "hold on, Miss Viggy! I never meant I wanted you to get really naughty with me once we wound up alone back here."

  She answered demurely, "Well, in that case, you're forgiven. But I warn you, I don't go in for any of that really naughty stuff some girls say they like, and you promise you won't tell a
nybody, right?"

  He started to tell her she had him all wrong. But then he noticed she seemed to have had nothing on under the summer frock she seemed to be shucking. So he just hauled her down on the tufted leather to treat her right as the two of them got him out of his own gunbelt and most of his duds. She didn't ask him to shuck his army shirt and boots until they'd gotten to know one another better on that old chesterfield. But once she'd come, on top, with him kissing her big creamy tits in turn, she even decided she didn't want her shoes in the way. So a good time was had by all, and she declared she'd seldom been ravaged so romantically by such a grand kisser. It was her notion to call what they were doing "ravaging." Longarm wasn't certain he'd had any say in the matter. He believed her when she said she'd found it lonely working in a stuffy old bank with all her school chums clean down the river in the bigger town of Mankato.

  After they'd screwed, kissed, and smoked a spell, Longarm decided it was safe to tell her what he'd really come for. He told her about the Bee Witch, or a sly old colored lady acting as some sort of secret surveyor for Lord only knows who. He explained he knew it was against banking regulations to release such information without a court order, but that he'd been hoping, seeing they were such pals, she might see fit to bend the rules a tad.

  She did better than that, for a gal who said she didn't go in for any of that naughty French or Greek stuff. Smoking his cheroot in the gathering dusk, without having to strike a light or even get off his bare lap, Viggy said, "I know who you must mean. She had a savings account with us under the name of Janice Carpenter. She was getting these monthly checks from the Chicago and Northwestern, or was it the Minny Saint Lou? We cash so many railroad payroll checks. I'd have to look it up to be sure. But I do know she withdrew all her savings back around Christmas-time, and now that you mention it, I don't think I've seen her around town since then."

  Longarm took the smoke back for a thoughtful drag as the naked lady in his lap reached down to adjust his semi-erection for more comfort, to her, and coyly asked, "Can't it wait, darling?"

  He leaned his bare back harder against the tufted leather to thrust up into her at a friendlier angle as he said soothingly, "No need to put you to that much bother, you sweet little Swedish doll. The most eccentric beekeeper fixing to get herself murdered would hardly have known she wanted to close her bank account first. The timing sounds right, and I don't suppose you'd recall how much she had with you at the usual rate of interest?"

  Viggy writhed her bare bottom to take it even deeper as she told him in a surprisingly conversational tone, "I'd really have to look that up. All I recall at this late date was Mister Plover swearing because it was the last day of a busy week and he had to send for more cash after she and several others withdrew better than four-figure amounts during the holiday shopping season."

  Longarm nodded and said, "That's all I really needed. In figures, I mean. Let me get rid of this fool cheroot and see if we can't do this right!"

  They could, dog-style, with her bare belly hooked over one softly padded arm of the chesterfield and her big pale rump thrust up at an interesting angle.

  As he watched his old organ-grinder sliding in and out of her, he was reminded, by the contrast, of the smaller darker gal he'd had at dawn in a similar position. Good old Mato Takoza was likely to make out well enough on her own in the beekeeping business. That handsome withdrawal by her Miss Jasmine likely meant the so-called Bee Witch had left for good without bothering to sell off her ramshackle raft and beehives. She'd doubtless been paid so much for her secret railroad survey she could have given that pony to some kid in town for a Christmas present.

  Viggy arched her spine and moaned that she was coming again. So he buckled down to serious screwing for a time. But then he was out of wind and recovering his conscience. So leaving it in but sort of soaking, he told her, "Tempting as it may be to drift with the easy answers, I like to wrap things tight as I can. So now I'm fixing to ask you to be really naughty, Viggy."

  The beautiful blonde sighed and thrust her tailbone higher as she said, "Well, if you really can't be content with the way we've been coming. But only after we've both had a bath at my place and if you promise not to low-rate me as a queer-girl afterwards."

  He started to assure her that hadn't been what he'd had in mind. Then he asked her how far her place was and what sort of a place they were talking about.

  She explained how, being an out-of-town gal with a warm nature, she'd boarded here and boarded there in New Ulm until she'd found herself a carriage-house loft fixed up as a furnished flat with its own indoor plumbing as well as a bitty kitchen and all.

  Longarm caught himself starting to thrust some more, and forced his bare ass to hold still as he soberly warned her, "I could sure use a place to stay that nobody else in town knew about. But I got to tell you there could be one or more hard-cases hunting for me even as we speak and, well, I'd sure hate to see any bullet holes in hide so fine, honey lamb."

  She moaned, "If you're not going to move it, take it out so's we can get dressed and out of here before dark! What would it look like if others spied us slipping out the back door in the gathering dusk, as if we'd been up to something like we've just been up to?"

  He chuckled and withdrew, saying, "I admire a natural gal who's good at acting innocent. But as to other transgressions I had in mind, if only you'd hold still and let me tempt you, I'd like you to rustle me up the bank ledger that would have the last transactions of Miss Janice Carpenter now."

  Viggy rolled into a nude seated pose on the tufted leather as she gasped, "Good heavens, I'd feel less wicked taking it Greek-style! Mister Plover would have a fit if he knew I'd been screwing you in his private office, but he'd fire me for sure if he ever caught me letting an outsider go through our books!"

  Longarm slid down beside her. "I only want to have me a peek at that one doubtless filed-away and inactive ledger, honey lamb. What if I was to just slip it under my arm, escort you home, and mayhaps take some notes from it on your kitchen table--when we weren't in bed, I mean. That way, nobody could possibly catch me at it here in the bank after business hours."

  She sighed and said, "I swear I'm going to wind up Frenching you before this night is over, you persistent thing. Even one such ledger is heavy and awkward, and what on earth do you expect to find that I haven't already told you?"

  He said, "Exact numbers, for one thing. If there should be any record of just whom she was getting regular checks from, I know some railroad dicks I could wire to make certain the old colored lady got out of here alive and rich instead of dead and robbed."

  Viggy gasped, "Good heavens, you do deal with a rough crowd, don't you? But I'm sure the poor thing was never robbed. Now that I recall, she made that Friday withdrawal late in the day. So who but I could have known she was carrying that much money and... Surely you don't suspect me of any crime, Custis?"

  He patted her bare thigh and assured her, "Not federal leastways. I ain't sure what Brown County has on its statute books on cohabitation, and you just made me promise never to tell."

  He bent over to gather up the shirt they'd thrown to the floor and rustle up a cheroot and a light as he explained. "Eating the apple a bite at a time, I don't mean to worry about the old gal getting in any trouble around here before I figure out where she would have gone from here and whether she ever got there."

  So while he lit the smoke, the big buxom blonde went bare-ass into another room, and soon returned with her big firm tits draped over the spine of an oblong ledger bound in slate-gray buckram. When she asked why he couldn't just jot down the little they had on one depositor, Longarm explained, "Might spot something interesting about others who put money in or took some out around the same time. I once caught a crook so dumb that after he'd held up a bank with a mask on he deposited the exact same amount with them, doubtless figuring it was the safest place in town to leave his money, knowing he was the only serious bank robber about."

  Viggy laughed and said sh
e couldn't believe any crook could be so stupid. Longarm had to chuckle fondly before he agreed. "Leavenworth ain't exactly a rival of Yale or Harvard. If the average crook was half as smart as he thought he was, he'd go into some safer line of work. You take that morose Indian I met up with earlier today, for example. He's been wanted for years. But he'd found himself a job as a cowhand well clear of town, and I'd have likely never considered looking for him out at the Runeberg spread if he'd only had enough sense to stay put. I don't have anything on Miss Helga Runeberg, or didn't until this very day. But old Chief Youngwolf couldn't leave it at that. He had to come looking for me with a sissy English shotgun, and now look where he's spending the night."

  He took a drag on the cheroot before he added, "They don't aim to plant him in Potter's Field before we can verify who he was air tight. I'm pretty sure he had to be the same Ojibwa who ran off with some white army deserters years ago to stop trains and rob banks for a living. Why don't we get dressed and talk about the wages of sin some more at your place?"

  She dimpled sweetly, and allowed she'd like some supper as well as more sinning. Then, as they were getting dressed, she casually asked how come the mean Indian had been gunning for him like that.

  Longarm shrugged and said, "They asked him to, I reckon. I had less luck at the Western Union than here. Reckless as old Chief may have been, he was too slick to visit the telegraph office in the dusky flesh, and his white confederate must have been sending and receiving some innocent-looking code."

  The beautiful blonde innocently asked how Longarm knew the hatchet-faced Indian had a white confederate.

  Longarm hauled on his jeans, saying, "I just told you. Nobody at your Western Union office here in New Ulm remembers anyone at all like Youngwolf, and his Colorado pals must have warned him I was on my way or he wouldn't have come to town to... Hmm, they might have only told him to keep an eye on me whilst they tried to figure just what I knew by whomsoever I met up with."