Chapter 12
Nobody else wanted to look at the dead woman when Longarm and his grim discovery caught up with the main column an hour and change later. He'd wrapped the soggy remains in a double layer of rubberized canvas, secured with rawhide latigo, but it still managed to spook stock within a dozen yards. So he had to ride lonesome, off to one side of the trail, downwind, leading a mighty pissed-off pack brute with the dead lady aboard.
Hence he didn't hear half the mutterings that must have transpired before Tim McBride, now riding alone on point, called dinner break in a watered draw.
It was Tupombi who joined Longarm downwind of the others as he was tethering his ponies to some bare chokecherries. She'd dismounted and buried her face in his open vest before he could ask why she seemed so weepy.
She sobbed, "We're turning back. Madame Marvella was already making an awful fuss before you proved her right about dead white women around here. Shoshoni Sam said there's just time to make it back to town before dark if we leave right away. But Custis, my Taibo skookumchuk, I don't want to leave you, ever, ever!"
He held her gently as he softly said, "I've grown sort of used to your sweet company as well, honey. I'd be lying if I said I was pleased by the notion of you and your pals turning
back. But Madame Marvella has a point, and I'd be lying if I promised you anything once this mission's over. I know I ought to be whipped with snakes, but a tumbleweed job like mine just keeps me from making promises to anyone, no matter how warm I feel to 'em."
She said she understood, and asked if they couldn't part with sweeter sorrow up the draw in deeper brush. He was sorely tempted, dumb as it might have been, but then Madame Marvella yelled for Tupombi from somewhere else amid the trees. So Longarm sighed, settled for a brotherly kiss, and led the reluctant gal and her pony back to the others, saying, "I got a favor to ask of your boss, seeing he's headed back to the county seat."
Tupombi murmured back, "I don't have to do everything they say and maybe Pocatello's band would take me in, up at Fort Hall, after you don't want me anymore."
He told her not to talk silly. So she simmered down, and then it was Shoshoni Sam's turn to tell Longarm he was talking silly when, over by the cookfire, Longarm told the old showman what he wanted.
In the end, of course, the show folk headed back to the county seat, and the county coroner, with Tupombi and the dead gal, each of whom Longarm found so interesting in her own distinctive way.
Everyone else in the northbound party seemed mighty relieved. Senator Rumford said he was anxious to make up the lost time, smoke signals or not. So they pushed on harder, with riders scouting well out on all flanks as the country kept getting more open. There were double pickets the one night they had to camp out, at Longarm's suggestion, on a timbered rise, surrounded by open grassy slopes, with no fire.
Senator Rumford wanted to push on, insisting they were not that far from Fort Hall and that nobody could scout them at any distance in the dark.
Tim McBride backed him, although with some hesitation, pointing out they'd likely be smack on top of the fool
Shoshoni by daybreak and that pushing the stock that hard, through cool night air, would be safe as long as they were near the end of the drive.
But Longarm snorted and said, "I thought you said you'd spent some time in this high country, Tim. I wouldn't bet on whether we face rain, snow, or worse this side of sunrise, but that Comanche gal we left back yonder agreed with me earlier we could be in for what her kind call waigon weather."
He saw neither man seemed to understand and added, "Waigon is the Thunder Bird in Ho. Whether we ride into Fort Hall in sunshine or soaking wet, we don't want to surprise any Indians. The Shoshoni in particular have grim memories of white men barging in on 'em by the dawn's early light. Pocatello must be expecting us, seeing he asked for all that silver we've been packing in to him. But those smoke signals may mean other factions ain't as friendly and, like I said—"
"Don't you think Shoshoni killed that woman back near that old medicine wheel?" Tim McBride asked.
Longarm shrugged and replied, "Can't say who killed her before I find out. Sticking to the little we really know, we don't know shit about the reception we can expect up the trail ahead. I just said all them Indians may not agree with Pocatello about Shoshoni real estate. It can take as few at two Indians to express a dozen opinions on anything. They're not that much different from us, and after that, we still don't know those smoke signals were meant to be all that sinister. I know they puffed at us, and others before us. Meanwhile, there's no proof any Indian is on the warpath, and we could all be spooking at neighborhood gossip."
Senator Rumford grumbled, "I wish you'd make up your mind. First you say we'd best move in cautiously, and then you point out there may be no trouble at all!"
Lx)ngarm nodded soberly and said, "It's best to keep both options open in Indian country. Senator. I could tell you tales of overconfident gents waking up dead and bald whilst, at the same time, grim things have happened to Indians who
didn't know they were on the warpath till they heard bugles blowing and field guns blasting. So unless you'd like to claim that Indian land the old-fashioned way, from dead Indians, it might be best to ride in sedately, well after sunrise, after Pocatello's scouts have had time to announce our visit."
Senator Rumford grumped off in the darkness to fuss at someone else while Longarm, McBride, and other natural leaders drifting in worked out the best way to get them all through the night.
Since they'd already agreed on the site and cold suppers, there was little more than the details left to work out. Longarm didn't like to sound bossy, as long as he was getting his own way on important matters. So he just leaned against a tree and smoked as the others decided who'd pull guard, with whom, and where. Longarm had already noticed the fair-sized outfit had sort of split into three more or less friendly factions, based on natural feelings. Aside from the quartet of older gents from the congressional delegation, the eight or ten Western riders split without obvious rancor into those who'd worked with McBride and Pearson before and those who'd worked at other Indian agencies or other outfits. So nobody fussed, and Longarm just went on smoking, when McBride and young Jeffries, off the Rosebud Reserve, decided it worked best if the congressmen, led by Longarm, took first watch, Jeffries and his bunch took second, and McBride and the others off the White River Agency worried about the wee small hours.
Having agreed on that, they secured all the stock downwind, with the packs, including all that silver specie, smack in the center of camp so everyone would bed down all about it. By the time they'd all eaten uncooked canned goods it was dark enough to make them wonder where the danmed moon might be. Longarm wasn't the only one to notice there were no stars out either, and surmise a mess of clouds up yonder.
Pulling first watch, glad as hell he was wearing a frock coat and vest as he drifted through the trees with his Winchester,
dying for a smoke he dared not light, Longarm found his inner thoughts more interesting than the almost pitch blackness all about him.
He'd elected to circle farther out, suspecting the others on this watch, being the greener apples in this barrel, would stick closer to their bedrolls than they ought to. So he had mostly open slopes to his left, the way his cradled Winchester pointed, as he circled clockwise along the ragged tree line. He couldn't see shit on such an overcast night, of course. But he felt safer when it began to snow. He knew no Indian night crawler with any brains would crawl far enough to matter in even a light snowfall. The idea of night crawling was to hit and run, not leave a trail even a schoolmarm could follow come daybreak.