by Tabor Evans
Longarm shrugged and quietly asked, "Were you there, ma'am?"
The same young rider who'd sounded off so silly earlier called out, "Just say the word, Miss Helga! Just say the word and stand aside whilst we fix him good for our pal the Chief."
Before anyone could get even sillier, Longarm told their boss lady she'd better explain why such gunplay would hardly be wise.
She stared up at him, sidewinder friendly, and quietly asked why it might be unwise of her to just stand aside and let nature take its course.
He said just as softly, "You ain't that dumb. You're just pretending to be that dumb to scare me. I'm still working on why you feel a need to scare me. But suffice it to say, it ain't working."
Another rider, this one ominously older and more serious, pleaded, "Move clear and let us at him, Miss Helga. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a loudmouth trying to bluff his way out of a fight he brought on himself!"
Longarm waited, saw the gal wasn't going to say it for him, and raised his voice loud enough for all to clearly make out as he declared, "There's one of me and seventeen of you, as I feel sure you've all been feeling swell about. So good as I like to feel I am, I doubt I'd be able to take even half of you with me on my way out of this old world. But what would the survivors do for an encore?"
He let that sink in and continued. "It's possible to gun a federal deputy and make it to Canada or Mexico before Uncle Sam can hang you. But you'd play hell starting over anywhere in these United States with a federal murder warrant hanging over you. John Wesley Hardin was only wanted on a Texas murder charge, and they tracked him all the way back east to Alabama. But let's say at least some of you are smarter than old Hardin must have felt when he took to gunning lawmen. Killing this one would still mean the eternal end of all Miss Helga's late kith and kin ever worked for."
The dangerously smart-looking hand growled thoughtfully, "I fail to see how they could outlaw Miss Helga here for what some others might do with or without her full approval."
There came an ominous rumble of agreement from all along the line, and sixteen men lined up a surprisingly long way, even as they commenced to circle some from both ends. So Longarm quickly pointed out, "They don't have to prove toad squat in any court of law, once you make the boys I ride for sore at you. For openers, my having poked a few cows in my own time, let's talk about grazing fees. Or has the little lady here been paying any for all that federally owned bluestem you've been turning into beef for her?"
Helga Runeberg looked stricken and gasped, "Range fees? Nobody has been asking me for any range fees, you fool!"
Longarm said, "That's my point, and you'll find out who the fool might be if ever my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, takes it into his head not to like you, ma'am. Indians have recently been demanding and getting six cents an acre per month, or two bits per year, just by telling their B.I.A. agents they wanted it off white folks grazing odd corners of their reserve."
He reached for a fresh smoke as he quietly asked, "How much do you reckon a mighty sore white government agent might think an acre of prime long-grass prairie was worth? Oh, I forgot to mention the new fencing regulations up before Congress."
He let the worried murmur die down before he explained. "It ain't been passed yet, but we figure it will be within this decade. Seems a heap of self-styled cattle kings and queens have taken to fencing off public lands as if they owned it their fool selves. The Bureau of Land Management has a whole list of new regulations about drift fences, free access to water, and so on pending before Congress, like I said."
He thumbnailed a matchhead and lit his cheroot before he added, "I suspicion us federal lawmen will enforce such new regulations in accordance to how we feel about particular cattle folk grazing public land we might be most interested in. My particular boss worries more about the green grass closer to our Denver office, unless, of course, somebody in other parts gives him a real reason to send in other deputies, and then other deputies, for as long as it may take to settle the matter to his satisfaction."
Nobody said anything. Longarm let some tobacco smoke run out his nostrils and decided, "I came over this way to pay a call on Western Union's Sleepy Eye office. It's been grand discussing my future with you all, Miss Helga. But now I'd best be on my way. So you go ahead and back-shoot me all you want, if you're really ready to retire from the beef industry."
She must not have wanted to. Longarm heard some ominous muttering, and his spine commenced to itch like hell as he turned around to walk away from the spiteful gal and her surly bunch. So how come the street was suddenly so wide and he was moving so slow through air that felt as thick as glue until, suddenly, he found himself indoors again, breathing natural again as he muttered, "Son of a bitch. I made it!"
CHAPTER 23
As was often the case in such small towns, there was more behind the yellow-on-black Western Union sign out front than the occasional sending or receiving of telegraph messages. The balding old bird who ran things for Western Union in Sleepy Eye doubled in brass as their postmaster and sold feed, seed, and hardware on the side. He was neither Swedish, German, nor breed, and he was starved for gossip and knew Mister Cornell had never meant the law when he'd forbidden Western Union employees from repeating messages sent by paying customers.
That westbound train Longarm had been advised to take to Sleepy Eye came though, without stopping, as he was winding up his main errand there with the agreeable older gent. So Longarm would have been happy about that buckskin waiting for him at their livery even if it had still been raining and that waitress had been prettier.
The telegraph clerk confirmed that, just as Longarm had suspected, the late Baptiste Youngwolf had been using this telegraph office closer to his bunkhouse on the Runeberg spread a lot. The friendly but only part-time telegrapher hadn't kept any telegram blanks, seeing he'd found the Indian's communications with some other redskin out west sort of tedious. He agreed as soon as Longarm pointed it out that dull remarks about kith and kin no outsider could identify worked good enough as a code with nobody else really trying to break it. The telegrapher recalled most of the wires had been sent back and forth between Sleepy Eye and a place called Aurora, Colorado. After that he just couldn't nail things down any tighter. Longarm soothingly explained Aurora was a town about the size of Sleepy Eye an easy ride east of Denver.
He said, "One or more of that gang I told you about could lope out to that Aurora telegraph office and back before anyone in Denver even thought about it. I'd best send a wire to my Denver outfit from here, advising my boss how come he hasn't been intercepting too many wires sent to or from downtown Denver."
The older gent handed him a yellow blank. As Longarm was block-lettering his terse advisory, adding there'd be more from New Ulm in a spell, he asked the older local whether Youngwolf had been the only Indian out at the Runeberg spread.
The Western Union man seemed sincerely annoyed by the suggestion as he replied, "Jess H. Christ, Deputy Long, how many infernal Sioux do you want?"
Longarm suggested Youngwolf had been Ojibwa. The clerk nodded his balding dome and said, "Chippewa are about the onliest Indians still allowed in these parts, and Chippewa are bad enough. We've just agreed that red rascal calling his fool self Baptiste, as if he was some sort of Red River breed, was a wanted outlaw who tried to blow you away with another man's shotgun without asking. You want me to find you more?"
Longarm smiled thinly and explained, "Don't want more Indians. But I need more Indians if I'm to make heads or tails out of the last few days or nights."
He told the helpful old-timer about those other Indians asking about him by name, although in another lingo, out at the Bee Witch's floating shanty. The telegrapher hadn't heard that much about any Bee Witch, proving the eccentric colored beekeeper had been better known up and down the bigger river to the east. They both agreed an Ojibwa who'd fought Santee in his salad days would have to be mighty broad-minded to be working with a bunch of the Santee, even this late in the ga
me. The old-timer knew his Indians well enough to agree it would be impossible to mistake the one lingo for the other, and told Longarm, "You got to remember the Sioux and Chippewa were going at it hammer and tongs before any of us white folks ever got this far west. Being both sides had similar views on religion, whether they prayed to Wakanna or Manitou, they tortured one another way worse than they ever tortured us. You see, there was more to it than personal dislike and-"
"I know about honoring a brave enemy by giving him the chance to die slow and stoic, singing his death song whilst you poke out his eyes and shove glowing embers up his ass," Longarm said, waving aside the theology of another breed of humankind as he suggested they stick to more recent events. "The blue and the gray fought more recent, with considerable enthusiasm, and yet there's been northern and southern malcontents riding the owlhoot trail together for fun and profit. So the real mystery would be where those other redskins have been hiding out all this time, whether they were in cahoots with that dead Ojibwa or not."
The telegrapher suggested he'd heard tell of breeds, full-bloods, and even colored folks filing homestead claims in these parts just as if they were real Americans or dumb Swedes. Dumb Swede was said by non-Scandinavian settlers in these parts as if it was one word, the way Damn Yankee was said down Dixie way.
Longarm shrugged and said, "I know. I've met some colored and Santee settlers over by the Minnesota lately. I can't make Youngwolf fit in with any of them, though. Aside from him hailing from an enemy nation, why would an Indian on the dodge hide out in a white bunkhouse and stick out like a sore thumb if he had even one family of Indians he could blend in with as, say, a real uncle who'd been further west for a spell?"
The telegrapher allowed he'd never hide out with a mess of Mexicans or Swedes if he had a whole bunch of his own kind to hide out among. Then he asked, "What if those other Indians were after you for some other reason entire?"
Longarm grimaced and said, "I was afraid you'd say something that smart. What do I owe you for this telegram to my boss? I want it to be delivered direct to his office with no argument about who had to pay, lest that gang slip another wire past us by way of that Aurora connection!"
The clerk rapidly counted off the words, and allowed a dollar and six bits ought to have the message on old Billy's desk before quitting time that afternoon. So Longarm paid up, and they shook on it and parted friendly.
He found his hired buckskin rested and raring to go when he and his Winchester made it back to that livery. So he settled up, saddled up, and was on his way back to New Ulm under the noonday sun, with enough of a prairie breeze to dance the wildflowers all around and dry their sweat enough to keep them comfortable.
This time Longarm followed the service road north of the tracks, to see whether his warning to Helga Runeberg and her boys had sunk in. He decided it might have, once he was sure nobody, red or white, was following him or laying for him out ahead.
It was tough to either trail or ambush an experienced plainsman on such open range, once he was on the prod and watching for either.
Longarm took advantage of the breeze at his back and gentle slopes ahead of them to make better time going back than he had coming out. So it was still fairly early in the afternoon as he rode into New Ulm again, keeping to the narrower back ways on purpose lest someone ahead get word he was coming before he wanted to advertise he was back to pester them.
He wasn't even thinking about good old Ilsa Pedersson as he cut through a residential block a couple of streets over from her place. But she seemed even more surprised when they almost crashed into one another on horseback, with her riding good old Blaze at a smart trot. The comely widow woman smiled and howdied him, so Longarm had to tick his hat brim to her. But he felt no call to tell her where he'd been or where he might be going.
She must have wanted to know, for she swung her smaller black mount around to fall in place at Longarm's left, gazing archly at him over a calico-clad shoulder with her shapely rump aimed his way while she told him she'd just been over at the river landing on business and that she'd surely missed him at her supper table, once those pies had cooled and things had quieted down along her street.
He knew exactly where she'd really been missing him, after suppertime, because he'd been thinking about females all the way back from Sleepy Eye, although in the line of duty, of course.
He asked old Ilsa how well she really knew Helga Runeberg, both of them being Swedish as well as Brown County gals. The somewhat older but far prettier widow woman made a wry face and demanded, "Have you been sparking her as well? I suppose you think I haven't heard about you and that Vigdis Magnusson at my very own bank!"
Longarm managed a poker face as he quietly replied, "I don't see why they bother printing a newspaper in this gossiping county seat. It's true Miss Magnusson has been helping me out with my investigation. I told you, late one night, how I'd been sent here to look into that hundred-dollar treasury note, and that lady happens to be a material witness. As to Miss Helga Runeberg-"
"What has that silly young Vigdis got that I haven't got?" the visibly upset Ilsa asked.
It would have been needlessly cruel to tell her. So Longarm said, "We were talking about Helga Runeberg, and you have my word she don't like me at all. I just crawfished my way out of a fight with her and a bunch of her riders. They all seemed to feel I should have let an Indian who rode with them pepper my hide with number-nine buck." lisa said she knew all about Longarm's rough ways with both her sex and his own, adding, "It's about time some girl said no to you. You're too smug about your looks by hill!"
Longarm shrugged and just let her fuss a spell as they rode side by side along the cottonwood-shaded back street. When he saw a chance to slip some words in sideways, he said, "I know I ought to be hung as a menace to womankind, Miss Ilsa. Meanwhile, I'm still a lawman, and I keep feeling I've seen that surly little face of Helga Runeberg's at some other time and place, mayhaps on somebody else. Somebody told me she had a kid sister. What about brothers or other immediate kin that might have the same distinctive eyes and nose?"
The older county resident thought, shook her head, and decided he couldn't have ever met Helga's father or real uncle, Jarl, both of whom had died years before. She added, "The last I heard of the younger Runeberg girl, Margaret, she'd run off to Chicago with a cattle buyer. Somebody told us later they'd really gotten married and settled down fairly well off."
Longarm thought, then said, "I've been to Chicago Town more than once. But I reckon I'd recall any Swedish gals married up with either crooked or half-ways honest cattle buyers. There's no such thing as a totally honest cattle buyer."
Thinking of Chicago Town and the meat-packing trade made Longarm think of another widow woman, the younger and even prettier Kim Stover, who'd met up with him there, sort of like this afternoon, after they'd agreed to part friends out Wyoming way. A man could sure raise himself an erection astride a split-seat saddle, thinking about women whether he'd ever split their seat or not.
Then lisa coyly murmured that she had to turn off at the next cross street, but that she'd baked another pie and she could save some for him if he'd like to come calling after dark, well after dark, by way of her alley gate.
It was tempting in more ways than one. If the gossips up that other alley knew about him and old Viggy, it made no never-mind who he called on after dark as far as his own reputation went. After that, seeing he had to disappoint one or the other, this older gal doubtless had more delicate feelings, and it was sort of nice to pillow-talk afterwards with somebody who might really care about what you thought about something besides her.
On the other hand, if breaking up with a gal made a man look sort of dumb, breaking up with the same gal a second time made a man feel downright stupid. He was still pissed off at himself about all those tears and recriminations after that day and night in Chicago with good old Kim Stover, after the both of them had just about gotten over an earlier sweet night of madness and some cold gray empty morn
ings.
So when they came to Ilsa's corner he said he'd study on it, once he carried out some uncertain chores in town. For there was no need to burn a bridge behind him, and another way to feel dumb as hell was to make double certain you'd have no other gal to turn to if something unexpected got a beautiful blonde sore at you.
He left the buckskin, McClellan, and most of his gear at the livery near the river, and legged it back to the center of town with his Winchester and six-gun on foot.
He stopped first at the New Ulm Western Union. It was a tad early to expect answers to anything he'd sent from Sleepy Eye, but they were holding replies to some earlier wires he'd sent from New Ulm.
He put them away and legged it on over to the courthouse, where he found that clerk in the coroner's office had one, but only one, death certificate of any interest to either of them.
As the county man explained, "None of the others on your list seem to have fallen on greater misfortune than needing money at Christmas time. That one old gent who died after drawing out his life savings won't work as a murder victim either. As you can see from all this paperwork, signed by a town constable and half a dozen witnesses as well as his attending physician, old Jacob Thorsson was run over by a brewery dray in front of God and everybody whilst full of the holiday spirits, which would have been pear brandy in Jake's case."
Longarm studied the papers the helpful clerk had dug out of their files as he softly mused, "Gents have been run over deliberately, and this one had just drawn close to ten thousand dollars at his bank to just about clear his account entirely!"
The clerk nodded and said, "I mentioned your notion to my own boss. He'd like to know what ever became of the money too. But the trail is over six months cold, and as you see, old Jake lived long enough to absolve the brewery dray driver, allowing he'd been drunk as a skunk and not paying attention when he stepped off the curb. His dying words were backed by those witnesses interviewed on the spot by the constable. So how might a murderer get a drunk to stagger so conveniently?"
