Greek George shook his battered head and said, “Black Irish doesn’t have anything to do with anyone’s complexion. It’s the way the Irish themselves separate Irish Catholics from the Protestant ones they call Scotch Irish, see?”
Longarm nodded sheepishly and said, “I should have remembered that. I’ve been to more than one Irish wake, black or orange. I don’t see how the missing woman’s religious persuasion might account for her vanishing like that without a church of any description for miles.”
Greek George placed a finger alongside his swollen nose and winked knowingly as he replied, “I was raised Baptist because my elders just couldn’t find any Eastern Rites church where they wound up in Alabam’. But they was furriners. I’ve noticed English-speaking settlers tend to settle near their own sorts of churches, unless they don’t hold with churchgoing, or maybe want to keep to themselves.”
Longarm sipped some of Osage Opal’s good strong coffee as he tried to recall how many folks with Irish names he’d met in these parts.
Greek George said, “there ain’t no Papist church a day’s ride from that old Nesbit place Rose Cassidy bought a few months ago. So neither she nor her dumb daughter had any call to spend much time in town, or receive visitors from any congregation they belonged to. Ain’t that sort of care-free behavior for a woman trying to keep men away from herself and her pretty daughter?”
Longarm made a wry face and replied, “Undersheriff Pat Brennan has a Black Irish name, albeit, now that you mention it, she don’t act like a religious fanatic. A widow with a small nest egg looking for a new spread in cattle country might be more interested in price and location than the nearest church. As far as that goes, you don’t even have to believe in the Lord to want your feebleminded children left the hell alone. All we know for certain is that the two of them kept to themselves a short ride out of town.”
“Doing what?” demanded Greek George.
Before Longarm could say what they did, the peddler, who was more interested in the ways of local womankind, told him, “They weren’t running a regular stud farm over by the Junction. I know they had that prize cordovan stud with Morgan lines. But they posted no breeding papers on him, if he had any. Or if they really owned him. I’ll allow they kept a fair-sized remuda of riding stock, some of it nice-looking, if you can name me more than a half-dozen Flint Hills riders who ever bought a mount off that mysterious widow woman.”
Longarm thought about that, and decided folks in Minnipeta Junction would be able to tell him how many sales had been made. But anyone starting out to raise stock would be inclined to hold off on sales and build up their breeding stock as much as they could.
Longarm drained his mug and got to his feet, thanking Greek George for the little he’d had on new gals along his Flint Hills peddling route. The assaulted and battered peddler rose to follow him around to where his borrowed chestnut had been tethered near the watering trough. As Longarm remounted, Greek George insisted, “Them two Black Irish women and the old Nesbit place work better than any others if you’re searching for a hideout. Who’s to say for certain Rose or Maureen couldn’t be that mysterious woman everyone’s been asking us after?”
Longarm settled in the saddle and gathered his reins as he calmly replied, “Me. I locked eyes with Miss Medusa Le Mat one time, and poor young Maureen ain’t her. I’ve been told her mother favors Maureen, and the bank-robbing gal I met up with wasn’t old enough to have a grown child. After that, the timing gets too tight. I know they say Rose Cassidy hails from Texas, and it’s true the gang I’m after robbed a bank down yonder recently. But they did it after Rose Cassidy bought that old Nesbit place.”
“Then you did at least consider them recent arrivals in the Flint Hills?” asked Greek George.
Longarm nodded soberly and replied, “I’m paid to consider far and wide. Neither you nor Miss Osage Opal fits the descriptions of anyone wanted for a recent bank robbery, no offense. I can’t get anyone else I’ve met up with in these parts to work as the notorious Medusa Le Mat, but whilst we’re on the subject, you say somebody else has been out this way asking about a mysterious woman?”
Greek George nodded and said, “Young jasper who said he was riding for Hard Pan Parsons. Told me all about that gal with the ten-shooter and asked if we’d been approached by any strangers, seeing this place is about as far out of town as a getaway pony could run without any trail breaks.”
Longarm nodded understandingly, ticked his hat brim to the hefty Osage Opal in the open doorway behind Greek George, and headed back to Florence.
The afternoon was about shot, but there was time for him to read through back issues of the local papers at the public library. Bills of sale for land or livestock in another county would be recorded in that other county’s seat, not there by the railroad stop, damn it.
He ate an early supper near the livery, sourdough biscuits and gravy over fried hash, reminding him of his own days herding cows.
Cow camp fare stuck to the ribs and didn’t seem as tedious when you hadn’t had any for a spell.
After he’d eaten, he mosied over to the Florence jail to see what old Hard Pan Parsons had to say about the deputy he’d sent out to question Greek George.
Hard Pan said he hadn’t sent anybody, adding, “Are you suggesting that gang could be planning something here in Florence, with a run for that hog spread across the creek in mind?”
Longarm soberly replied, “You were the one who said most of the local riders avoid the place. No matter what the original plan was, Miss Medusa Le Mat could have scouted that bank at the Junction the same as me and came to the same conclusions about a crew of Pinkerton men on the prod.”
Hard Pan grimaced and said, “Oh, Lord, as if we didn’t have half enough on our plate with all them tinhorns and whores drifting in to put the boys aboard their trains for home as they get laid off with severance pay!”
Longarm nodded and asked, “I take it nobody has seen that one whore who seems to be missing along with Rose Cassidy?”
Hard Pan nodded and said, “We figure French Barbara climbed aboard a train with somebody who enjoys a blow job as he watched the scenery pass by. She ain’t anywheres around here. She was too popular to stay out of sight long. I want to tell you about Johnny Behind the Deuce O’Rourke. He’s here in Florence, spoiling for a fight.”
Longarm smiled thinly and said, “I know Johnny Behind the Deuce. We met last night at the Sunflower Saloon that ain’t open for business in these parts officially.”
Hard Pan grumbled, “Look here, I’m paid to keep the peace here in Florence, and that’s all I’m paid to worry about!”
Longarm said, “Nobody sporting a badge has seen fit to shut down the Alhambra or Long Branch in Dodge either. I understand your sort of delicate position here in Kansas cattle country, pard.”
Hard Pan looked relieved, and said, “I was hoping you might. I don’t want you going back to the Sunflower this evening. Johnny Behind the Deuce has been drinking heavy and talking big all afternoon, and like I just said, they pay me to keep the peace.”
Longarm just looked disgusted.
The older lawman insisted, “They say he’s got a rep. I know you have a rep. But I don’t have no rep and what am I supposed to do if Johnny Behind the Deuce can take you?”
To which Longarm could only reply, “Get six sturdy gamblers to carry my coffin. For I’ll deserve it if someone like Johnny Behind the Deuce can take me, and his sporting pals might enjoy the chore.”
Chapter 17
The sun was setting as Longarm dropped by the Western Union to see if they were holding any day letters for him. Day letters, like night letters, were slick notions of the late Ezra Cornell, who’d developed the Morse telegraph into the coast-to-coast Western Union Company. He’d noticed most wires were sent during peak business hours, when a nickel a word could save or make far more. But business slacked off to next to nothing during a slow day or most any night. So old Ezra had come up with a cheaper rate for those who didn’t mind getting their messages through a few hours slower, although still much faster than they could by way of the U.S. mails. All you had to do was ask them to send your wire by day-or night-letter rates and Western Union would do the rest, at a much cheaper rate. Your message would go out, sometimes a few words at a time, whenever the cross-country lines weren’t busy and the telegraphers had no nickel-a-word stuff to tap out.