He rose to his feet and headed for the back door to see where that breed kid might be with his damned dinnerware. Dame Flora got up to chase after him, saying she needed trail supplies as well, if he knew of a reasonable place to
purchase any. She explained she and her party had nin out south of the Idaho Hne, and that Angus had refused to let anyone take advantage of her at any of the widespread settlements they'd passed through since.
Longarm was too polite to say he'd been wondering why the four of them had been trying to buy breakfast at a stage stop if none of them had come in by stage. When he asked her where her riding and pack stock might be, she confirmed that, like him, they'd taken advantage of the only livery and wayside inn for a day's ride north or south. She said she wasn't used to sleeping on the ground and he believed her. They then saw that breed kid coming across the yard with Longarm's dinnerware in a fresh burlap sack. So Longarm gave the kid a cheroot, told him to leave the stuff inside by the stove, and asked if there might be a nearby general store that wasn't out to skin strange gentiles alive.
The kid said there was such a store out front and down the main street a ways to the south. He didn't know how they felt about the price of beans this far from the railroad. When Longarm said he'd passed the place riding in, and that there was only one way to find out. Dame Flora said she'd best not tell old Angus where they were headed.
Longarm didn't care. She seemed much better company than gloomy old Angus. As they circled the building wide she took his arm in a natural way, as if to confirm what he'd just told himself.
Chapter 7
The little frame store down the way was crammed to its tin ceiling with everything from straight pins to moldboard plows and penny candy to hundred-pound sacks of com meal. The little dried apple of a gent who ran the place even kept coffee, tobacco, and racy reading material under his counter for passing gentiles bound for the Montana Territory. Dame Flora found their prices outrageous, but Longarm told her the old cuss was being firm but fair, explaining, "All the stuff from the outside world comes in expensive, by packsaddle or freight wagon over many a dusty bump, ma'am. You'll find local produce no more than a few cents higher than in most country stores. Mormons tithe a dime on the dollar to their temple after paying local taxes. So I've seen higher prices out this way."
She said in that case it might be smarter to buy plenty of dry beans, bacon, and such in bulk. But Longarm warned her, "Not if you mean to break camp every morning, ma'am. I know you got servants to cook for you. But you just don't have the time out on the trail."
He could see she wasn't used to doing her own cooking as soon as she asked what he meant. The old storekeeper cackled. "He knows a thing or two about beans, little lady. So listen to him tight."
Longarm chuckled fondly and pointed at the piled sacks
of navy beans as he explained, "First you got to soak 'em in water at least twelve hours before you put 'em on the fire with may haps some sowbelly and molasses to simmer another six or eight, by which time I'd have eaten from cans and moved on at least twice. Folks in any hurry can ride quite a ways in even the time it takes a fresh spud to bake in the coals, come to study on it."
She still seemed undecided. So he asked just how much farther she and her own party meant to ride in search of other Scotch gals. When she frowned thoughtfully and said they'd probably ride on up to Fort Hall with him, Longarm smiled uncertainly and declared, "I ain't sure about that, ma'am. To begin with, it won't be for me to say once that government party catches up with us here. Even if they don't mind, I ain't sure you ought to. I've told you why I doubt those missing gals got lured anywhere by Shoshoni."
The old Mormon who ran the store had been doing his best to keep up with them. So he naturally asked if they were talking about new converts from the British Isles. When Dame Flora informed him they sure were, he told her, "This young jasper's right about that too. The Salt Lake Temple's written us to watch for such goings-on up at this end of the delta. Seems some kith or kin has gotten worried about an ugly young thing who got off the train at Ogden with a heap of cash and a lot of baggage. She'd told one of our own young ladies she'd met on the train about the big cattle baron she was on her way to marry up with. The sister she confided in said she had a lot of mighty queer notions about us Deseret folk."
Dame Flora anxiously questioned the old Mormon further while Longami lifted down a case of canned sardines. He knew they were going to have to bring some pack brutes over to tote all this shit in the end, but meanwhile it made sense to eat the damned apple one bite at a time.
He was only half listening, because he'd known the old Mormon was going to inform Dame Flora that, no, they hadn't seen missing spinster gals here in Zion. A missing
anything was by definition something nobody honest would have seen since it was first missed.
He had his own practical additions to his own supplies piled at one end of the counter by the time Dame Flora figured much the same and switched to buying her own much larger load. Longarm told them both he'd be right back to settle up with his own pack brute. He asked Dame Flora if she wanted him to haul old Angus and, say, a couple of her own pack brutes back with him. She dimpled at him a and said he was being awfully helpful. So he left her jawing about canned grub and lost, strayed, or stolen spinsters with the friendly old Mormon.
It only took him a few steps and a dozen drags on his smoke to make it back to the Overland station. But when he stepped inside to fetch Dame Flora's hired help, he found they'd been replaced near the potbellied stove by Buffalo Bill, Old Mother Hubbard, and maybe Pocahontas— or leastways, three odd-looking strangers dressed up like them.
On second glance the imposing white-haired gent in the white ten-gallon hat and matching fringed and beaded buckskins couldn't be the one and original William F. Cody, who'd only started acting so odd since he'd won. that medal for killing Yellow Hand and taken to giving lectures about his misspent youth on the vaudeville circuit. This version of the Old Frontiersman rose to shake and introduce his foolish-looking self as the original Shoshoni Sam, whom Longarm had doubtless heard of. He introduced the motherly and sensibly dressed woman in the loose duster and poke bonnet as his wife, the famous tightrope-walker and bareback-rider Madame Marvella. The younger sort of gypsy-looking brunette, in a tailored but beaded and fringy outfit of wine red deerskin, was supposed to be a famous Indian princess named Tupombi, Princess Tupombi of that Comanche nation he'd doubtless heard of as well.
Longarm didn't feel up to insulting anyone who hadn't insulted him first. So he allowed he'd naturally heard of all
of them, but that right now he was searching for some others who'd just been by that very stove. So Shoshoni Sam told him a gruff old Scotchman had told some scared little gal to go upstairs and pack something while he and a regular American went out back to see about their stock.
Longarm thanked him, explained that the sack of stuff on the floor was his, and picked it up as he added that old Angus and at least two pack brutes were needed by a lady down the way.
He was more bemused than annoyed when the Wild West apparition tagged along, confiding, "You may be just the man we've been hoping to meet up with. You did say you were a government man just now, did you not?"
Longarm agreed he'd introduced himself as Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long. So Shoshoni Sam said, "You must be the one they call Longarm. Us famous Westerners have to keep track of one another. I heard the government was up to something big with my Shoshoni blood brothers this fall. Might you be on your way up to Fort Hall?"