Women, children, and all. Sure. You betcha. Anybody who would believe that crap, Longarm knew, didn’t know anything about Indians in general or the Ute tribe in particular.
Unfortunately that category, those who knew next to nothing about Indians, included damned near everyone who lived around there.
The warnings were attributed to a “highly placed source with the government.” Who didn’t have his name mentioned anywhere in print, Longarm noted. Convenient. For somebody.
“Anyone who reads this will become hysterical when those people are released, Longarm,” Aggie said. “They are sure to. Why, they will believe they are on the verge of disaster, that all of us are to be slaughtered.”
“That sure seems t’ be the idea,” Longarm agreed.
“Whyever would some government spokesman say things like this?”
“What gives you the idea that somebody official said any o’ this?”
“Well... this, of course. Right here, as you can see for yourself.” She showed him her paper and tried to point to the offending paragraph.
“I read that part a’ready, Aggie. What I’m saying is, I don’t reckon anybody official said anything like that.”
“But...”
“Aggie, surely you learned by now that some folks will lie now an’ then.”
“But...”
“No reason why a man who’ll lie to your face won’t lie on paper too,”
“I can’t believe ...”
“You know the fella that wrote all this shit?”
“Certainly.”
“I think I need t’ pay him a visit.”
“I shall go with you. As soon as we’ve eaten.”
“You can wait here if you like. Me, I want t’ get on with it.”
“But lunch is already here, Longarm. That’s ours on the tray coming now.”
Aggie surely did like her groceries, Longarm conceded. And she was just the sort who would refuse to help him find the newspaperman until she’d had her way. Which in this case would involve getting some grub down. He might just as well sit back and fill his own belly while he was waiting for her.
The meal she’d ordered turned out to be something with a foot-long French name. Longarm was fairly sure he’d never heard the term before. On the other hand, he didn’t really need to. Once you cut through the fuss and fancification, what it came down to was a good old mulligan stew cooked and served inside a little bitty pie crust. He wondered if he ought to point that out to the lady, then decided it was probably better not to. Let her enjoy paying half a dollar here for the same kind of mulligan she could get down the street for fifteen cents.
“Hurry up there, would you?” he prodded. “We got work t’ do, dang it.”
“Don’t rush me,” she shot back at him. But she was hurrying in spite of what she said, he saw.
“Ellis Farmer, I would like you to meet Deputy Marshal Custis Long. Marshal Long, Mr. Farmer is the editor of the Snowshoe Independent."
Deputy Marshal Custis Long scowled. Editor Farmer beamed with pleasure, either real or feigned. “How convenient,” he enthused. “I was going to look you up this afternoon, Deputy. I hope to interview you about your, um, business here.”
“Yeah. Real convenient,” Longarm grumped. He felt no inclination to suggest that Farmer join Longarm’s friends in the use of his customary nickname. “Did you write—?” “Pardon me a moment please, Deputy. This will only take a second. Then we can talk as long as you wish.” Farmer smiled and rubbed his hands together, and hurried out of the newspaper “office.”
Calling the publishing site of the Snowshoe Independent an office was putting the best face on things, to be sure. It consisted of a tent, and a rather shabby one at that, with timber reinforcements at the comers and native stone laid down to fashion an uneven floor of sorts. The roof sagged, and in some places the canvas was so thin that the sun practically shined right through. Longarm suspected it would leak like so much fishnet when it rained.
Wooden crates were piled at the front to create a counter of sorts, and more crates and sturdy boxes were used as desks and chairs. Racks of metal type stood on sawhorses at
the back of the tent, and a portable press rested on a stoutly constructed table, the only article of genuine furniture in the whole damned place. Longarm’s impression was that the Snowshoe Independent was not a particularly prosperous enterprise.
Longarm pulled a cheroot out and lighted it. He hadn’t taken time for an after-dinner smoke before now, and the flavor of the tobacco was especially welcome. There in public he didn’t offer one to Aggie, and he thought the dirty looks he was getting from her might have something to do with that. He grinned and winked and blew smoke rings into the air between them.
‘There, that didn’t take long, did it,” Farmer said as he breezed back in from his errand. “Would you care to sit down? This way, please.” He took Aggie’s elbow and guided her to a seat on a crate marked FloEver Ink.
“You can sit there, Deputy. But I would prefer it if you didn’t smoke. Stinking, nasty things, cigars. I detest them.”
“Do tell.”
“Yes indeed. I find them quite vile.”
Longarm took a closer look at the editor named Farmer. The fellow was thin and pale. He was of average height and wore a closely trimmed beard. His hairline was receding badly even though he was probably still in his twenties. There was something about him, though, that wasn’t quite ... normal. Nothing overt. Nothing Longarm could point to and say, “Hey, that’s it.” Just something that wasn’t quite ... right.
Fortunately that wasn’t something that Longarm had to give a shit about. Ellis Farmer’s problems, whatever they might be, were his own worry.
“You wanta know what I detest?” Longarm asked. He kept the cheroot trapped between his teeth and gritted his question around it.
“I take it you intend to tell me?”
“You take it right, Mr. Farmer. What I detest, mister, is newspaper articles that aren’t true. An’ that incite to violence.”
“I agree with you most strongly,” Farmer said. “Most strongly indeed. I certainly would never be able to abide anything like that either.”
Longarm puffed slowly on his smoke for a moment. ‘That story in today’s edition comes t’ mind, Farmer.” “Which one did you have in mind?” The question was deceitfully bland. The man had to know good and well which story was in question here.
Longarm’s eyes narrowed.
“About my clients,” Aggie put in, apparently accepting Farmer’s smart-ass response at face value.
“Oh, yes. My warning about the impending atrocities. Not that I expect any praise, you understand. I was only doing my civic duty to pass that information along. Protecting the life and property of one’s fellowman is what any good newsman hopes to accomplish.”
“Where’d you come up with bullshit like that?” Longarm snapped.
“Surely you can’t mean—”
“Quit your playacting, Farmer. Why’d you print a string of lies like that? You must’ve had a reason, man. But damned if I can work out what it could be. Can’t see any sense in it whatsoever.”
“Lies, Deputy? What lies could you possibly mean?” Longarm glowered at him. It was Aggie who answered the man. “There is no danger from the Ute tribe, Ellis. Certainly there is no danger from the band of frightened, innocent people I represent here. Now why in the world would you print a story saying all those awful things?” “But those were not lies, I assure you. I was given that information by my source. I repeated the warning exactly as it was given to me.”