by Tabor Evans
Longarm grunted. Paused to think for a moment. His tracking skills were good, but . . .
He headed into the village and twenty minutes later found Bull Mathers.
“I’m needin’ your help, Bull.” Longarm explained the situation and asked, “Can you track the man?”
“Not me, maybe, but I know someone that can. He’s only a kid and an Arapaho kid at that, sixteen maybe seventeen years old, but he can track a mouse over a flat rock. He’s the best I ever seen. I can get him for you if you like.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Longarm said.
“Wait here.” Half an hour later Mathers returned with a scrawny, pimple-faced Indian boy in tow. “This is . . . Long, you wouldn’t be able to pronounce his name anyhow. Just call him Hey You and you’ll get along fine. But he doesn’t speak any English so I’d best go along with you.”
“Fine with me, Bull. Let’s grab some gear and get after the man.”
“He has some pals he’d like to come with us. It would be fun for them. Almost like raiding was in the old days,” Mathers said.
“Fine by me. I’ll get my mule and meet you in front of the headquarters building.”
Longarm hurried back to the hotel and made up a pack that mostly contained cigars, matches, and jerky. He found his mule and saddled it, including breast strap and crupper, and made it back to the administration building within a quarter hour. Mathers and eight Arapaho boys, the youngest of whom could not have been more than fourteen, were already there waiting for him.
Longarm could not see any firearms among the gaggle of teenagers, but every one of them carried a lance and two of them had bows as well. They acted like they were hunting coyotes instead of a man.
Mathers spoke to Hey You and their little procession started out.
They were not two miles out of the village before Hey You said something to Mathers, who turned in his saddle and relayed the information on to Longarm.
“He says Johnson is pushing his horse too fast. He’ll break the animal down if he keeps up like this.”
“Tough luck for the horse,” Longarm said. “Tougher for Johnson.”
Late in the morning of the next day they caught up with the fleeing sutler. Johnson was walking his horse, which was limping badly on the off fore.
The Indian boys gave a whoop and rushed ahead, Longarm and Bull Mathers following at a calmer pace.
“Just hold him for me,” Longarm shouted at the backsides of their racing ponies. “Me and Bull are coming.”
“You realize, don’t you, that they couldn’t understand a word of that,” Mathers said. “But don’t worry. They’ll get him for you.”
The Indian boys raced ahead, the riders yipping and shouting, lances waving, ponies running flat out with their ears laid back.
“Shit, they’re having fun, aren’t they?” Longarm observed.
“This is almost like in the old days for them,” Bull said. “They’ve never proved themselves as warriors. Too young.”
“Oh, damn. What are they up to now?” Longarm said.
The boys were circling around Johnson, hollering for all they were worth. They dropped off their ponies and surrounded the sutler.
Probably, Longarm thought later, everything would have been all right except Johnson made the mistake of pulling his pistol and pointing it at one of the Arapaho.
Three lance tips lashed out, rapping Johnson’s wrist and forearm. Hard. The man dropped his revolver without firing it, but by then it was too late.
Another lance thrust pierced Johnson’s upper arm. Succeeding thrusts by one or more of the eight youngsters jabbed him in the kidney, the stomach, the cheek. Then the blood lust came over the boys and they punctured Johnson’s gut, his balls, his throat, and finally Hey You delivered a fierce thrust into the man’s heart.
By the time Longarm and Mathers reached them, Johnson was already dead and the eight newly proven warriors were painting themselves with the man’s blood.
“You aren’t going to arrest them, are you?” Mathers asked, sounding more than a little worried.
Longarm sighed. “The man resisted arrest. I saw that clear enough. And no, I ain’t gonna arrest them. It was a clear case o’ self-defense, the way I saw it.”
He reached into his pocket for a cheroot and a match, already thinking about returning to the reservation and accompanying Bethlehem Bacon back to the railroad.
There would be time along the way . . . and she was a damn fine-looking woman . . .
Longarm was smiling when he reined his mule toward the reservation and Beth.
Watch for
LONGARM AND THE MODEL PRISONER
the 436th novel in the exciting LONGARM series from Jove
Coming in March!
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