Burned Pot and a gaggle of little girls had come outside too by now, and were gathered close around, but none of them appeared to speak any English. And there was no sign of Tall Man in his own lodge. That was damn-all worrisome.
“Yellow Flowers?”
Burned Pot brought out a wet cloth and bathed Yellow Flowers’ face with it. A moment more and the older wife of Tall Man sneezed. Then opened her eyes.
Her eyes went immediately wide again, and for a moment Longarm thought she would pass out for the second time in as many minutes. But she did not. She groaned a little and wriggled about on the grass, and soon struggled to sit upright. He helped her so that she was sitting on the beaten earth at the entry to the lodge.
“What is it, Yellow Flowers? What’s wrong?”
“You are not a spirit, Longarm? You have not come to take me with you to the spirit world?”
“No, Yellow Flowers, I’m the same as always. An’ the only place I come from is the army camp down south of here. Now will you please tell me-“
“Word came to us that Longarm was dead. It is said you were killed in the hills to the west. Your body is being brought to Agent MacNall at the place of the white men’s houses. Tall Man went there to claim the body of his friend and to mourn.”
“Did Tall Man take his gun?” Yellow Flowers hesitated. “Yellow Flowers. Please!”
Reluctantly she nodded. “Yes, Longarm. My husband took his gun and rode his best war horse when he went to see what the Piegan did to his friend.”
“Christ!” Longarm erupted.
He came to his feet and spun away, not even taking time to speak a word of goodbye, nor one of warning, to Yellow Flowers and Burned Pot.
He ran for the chestnut—thank goodness the horse hadn’t wandered away trailing the reins—and vaulted into the saddle, driving his spurs into the animal’s flanks before he even had time enough to take a good seat. There was no time to waste, dammit.
Chapter 31
The chestnut had no speed, but by God it had heart. Longarm had to give the creature that much. It never quit on him.
He thundered through the creek, silvery plumes of water arcing high, and on across. Up the low ridge and down the other side.
The horse gave him everything that was in it. The run might well have broken its wind. But the horse’s great heart was strong, and it charged with everything it had for every foot of the distance.
And a fine thing that was because Longarm got there barely in time.
Tall Man was outside the agency headquarters, surrounded by Piegan tribal police and engaged in a silent fury of hand-to-hand combat with at least eight of the snotty sons of bitches.
Tall Man’s rifle and ceremonial war club had been stripped away from him, and the Blood policemen were busy administering a thumping, kicking, clubbing beating to the lone Crow leader.
Blood coated Tall Man’s face and neck and chest, and one eye was swollen shut so that he could not see to even try to ward off the blows that rained down on him from that blind side.
Tall Man was no more of a quitter than his chestnut traveling horse, however, and every time one of the Piegan landed a blow, Tall Man lashed out in swift, if ineffective, retaliation.
Longarm got the impression the Piegan were enjoying themselves. Taking their time about cutting down this ancient enemy. They wanted to humiliate him, Longarm suspected.
All but one of the bastards.
That one was not taking an active part in the vicious pummeling. He was standing back, watching, waiting. And when he felt sure he had been forgotten, the short, stocky policeman reached beneath his tunic and brought out a Hudson’s Bay butcher knife, the old familiar model with the ten-inch blade and an excellent temper to the steel.
The Piegan was maneuvering himself to a position immediately behind Tall Man when Longarm saw what he was up to and took a hand.
Longarm did not waste time dismounting from the chestnut and charging the Piegan. He simply pointed the tiring horse at the police officer and slammed into the sonuvabitch.
The Piegan flew in one direction and his knife in another, and Longarm threw himself off the horse and into the middle of the fray.
“You, back off. You, over there. You and you and you, grab this cowardly back-stabbing cocksucker and put him in irons. No, goddammit, don’t look at me like that. Do what I tell you. Right damn now. That’s right. In manacles. The man tried to commit a murder. I witnessed the crime, and he’s my prisoner. Do you want to argue the point with me and go to prison with him? Then haul out your cuffs and put them on that man right damn now. Do it!”
Longarm’s tone of voice left no room for argument.
It helped, of course, that the Piegan cops were so surprised by his sudden, unnerving appearance among them.
But then after all, as far as they knew, they were being confronted by a ghost. And a furious one at that.
Not too many Indians wanted to piss off ghosts. This bunch certainly did not.
Longarm helped Tall Man to his feet while the Piegan police took one of their own into custody and snapped steel bracelets onto him.
While all that was going on, the Reverend MacNall came outside to inquire about the commotion.
He too had heard the news about Longarm’s death. Obviously so. When he saw Longarm standing there trying to mop some of the blood off Tall Man, MacNall stopped stock still and gaped. “I thought …”
“So did everybody else, I reckon,” Longarm said.
“But how did you … I mean, thank goodness you … I don’t know exactly what I do mean. But God, I’m glad to see you alive and well.”
“You ain’t the only one can say that, Reverend. Believe me.”
“You men,” MacNall snapped at the Piegan coppers. “What is the meaning of this trouble here?”
One of the policemen stammered out something and pointed to the one Longarm had placed under arrest.
“Is that necessary, Longarm?”
“It is, sir.” Longarm explained what the Piegan tried to do. “I saw it with my own eyes, Reverend. There’s no doubt what he was up to.” Longarm retrieved the knife from the ground. It had fallen against the side wall of the agency headquarters building. Close up the weapon looked every bit as nasty as it was. “If he’d put this in Tall Man’s back, Reverend, there wouldn’t have been no way to avoid these tribes going to war, sir. Think about that.”
MacNall scowled and said something to the policeman in his own tongue. It was a gift Longarm hadn’t known the reverend possessed and one Longarm wished he had. But then some people have a way with languages. And some have to struggle just trying to get along in one. Longarm found himself more at that end of the scale of possibilities than the other.
“I’ve ordered this man to be locked up, Longarm. You can take your prisoner any time you want him.”
“Thank you, Reverend.”
“As for this other business …”
“Yes, sir?”
“We still don’t know much about your murder, do we?”
Despite the seriousness of the moment—or what could have been a deadly seriousness anyway had Longarm not intervened in time—Reverend MacNall looked somewhat amused when he mentioned Longarm’s murder to the purported victim.
“I got to admit one thing to you,” Longarm said, his voice solemn.
“Yes?”
“I’m gonna be real disturbed if I find out that it’s true.” MacNall threw his head back and laughed openly, and Tall Man joined him.
Chapter 32
Another contingent of Piegan tribal police, three of them, brought in the body that was supposed to have been Longarm’s.