The good old gal he'd wired for more details about Tyger, Flanders, and others who deserted about that same time, such as that scout he only had down as "Chief," had wired back she needed more time. For most of the Confederate records in that private library in Denver dealt with western rebs, such as Hood's Texas Brigade. But she said she'd keep digging and that she was looking forward to a personal visit as soon as he got back to Denver. Longarm grinned as he put all the telegrams away, for after all those pure hours aboard those trains, even the memory of a sort of homely old gal could make a man feel sort of horny. He remembered how hard she tried to please with a rollicking rump despite her plain appearance.
Recalling what Ilsa Pedersson had just said about him looking like a hobo, Longarm scouted up a barbershop that served hot baths in the back as well. He borrowed a whisk broom and did what he could about the fly ash and dust on his duds as the tub slowly filled with only slightly rusty water. He had a fresh shirt and a change of underwear in his saddlebags, of course, but he didn't want to traipse all over New Ulm to get them. The dirt on his light blue work shirt wasn't all that awful anyway, once he'd washed his hide good with naptha soap and had the barber sprinkle him with plenty of bay rum after his shave out front.
The barber's business had been slow that afternoon, but a lawman who knew the ropes of a small town didn't press his luck by bringing up the subject of Israel Bedford. Old Ilsa had already told him the suspect enjoyed a good local rep, and there was no way in hell to ask about folks in a town this size without someone being sure to let them know there was a stranger in town asking about them.
There were only so many hours in a day to work with, but a strange lawman who didn't let the local lawmen know who he was ahead of time could sure have silly conversations about the six-gun someone had just noticed he was packing with no other visible means of support.
Billy Vail's opposite number in these parts worked out of the bigger twin cities further east, where the Minnesota joined the Mississippi. So the ranking law in New Ulm was the county sheriff, and fortunately the sheriff himself was out raising campaign funds for the coming fall elections. So Longarm only had to tell a senior deputy what he was doing in Brown County in a dirty shirt and with a.44-40.
The deputy said they'd been expecting him, and added that the boys from the Saint Paul Federal Court had already questioned everyone at all involved, without finding out too much.
When Longarm groaned inwardly and asked whether other deputies had called on Israel Bedford, lest he not know those serial numbers had been recorded, the sheriff's deputy said cheerfully, "Hell, you can't hardly ask a man where he got a treasury note without explaining why you're asking, can you?"
Longarm grimaced and growled, "Sometimes it don't pay to be quite so direct. I don't suppose anybody wondered what a suspect might do with other listed treasury notes he'd been fixing to spend once they told him how they'd spotted the first ones?"
The local lawman shrugged. "There was no need to pussyfoot. Everyone knows Captain Bedford is as honest as the day is long, and your federal pals left content with his story."
"Which was?" Longarm asked.
The deputy sheriff answered, "Livestock transaction. Bedford has some of the finest riding stock in the county for sale. Serves his mixed mares with a pure Morgan stud these days. Told us he'd sold a saddle-broke filly and a promising colt for that hundred-dollar note. Said the buyer was an Indian, or mayhaps one of them Metis, or Red River breeds. Anyways, others out his way say they'd seen a whole family of dusky wanderers around the right time. The one who paid cash for Bedford's stock was dressed like a white man. Had a more Indian-looking squaw and a mess of raggedy kids tagging along, from toddlers to kids in their teens. Us county riders tried to help your federal deputies cut the trail of the prosperous savages, but the sod's as thick and springy as it gets out yonder, and they were traveling with neither a cart nor travois so... What the hell, it ain't as if Captain Bedford is famous for robbing folks and wasn't there something about an Indian riding with that gang when they shot up that government office at Fort Collins?"
Longarm shrugged. "We can't ever get everyone to agree on how many there were in the gang. One witness figures five all told. Another counted six or eight as he bled on the floor. He may have just been excited. Nobody on the streets of Fort Collins seems to have counted shit as the gang left cool as cucumbers and slow as innocent churchgoers. But Tyger and Flanders did have at least one associate called Chief. I'm still working on his full name. The army sure kept casual records as they were chasing Little Crow with such informally recruited columns."
The somewhat older Minnesota man nodded. "Don't I know it. I rode with Sibley's Volunteers, and we had to laugh at those ragtag Galvanized Yankees when they rode tear-ass all over after Sioux we'd already shot the liver and lights out of."
He got up to stride over to a file cabinet as he continued. "We thought some of the regulars were all right, though. Captain Bedford was in charge of his column's remount and quartermaster detail. Not as picky as some West Pointers when it came to sharing supplies in the field with comrades in arms. Made hisself a heap of friends out this way."
Longarm nodded and said he'd heard as much. Then, since the son of a bitch was helping himself to a swig from that jug without offering to share, Longarm allowed he had other fish to fry, and got back out to the square before he found himself saying something unprofessional. It wasn't easy, knowing half-ass federal men and selfish county men who openly favored his prime suspect had totally fucked up his original plan of action.
CHAPTER 9
The Granger's Savings & Loans was just off the square, and a handsome young gal peering out through the bars of the teller's cage didn't look scared of strangers as Longarm came in just as they were fixing to shut down for the afternoon. When he flashed his badge and told her what he'd come for, she vanished for a moment, and then unbolted an oaken door from the inside to run him back to the branch manager's private office.
The bank was run by a P.S. Plover, a portly white-haired cuss who rose behind his acre or so of desk in a neighborly way to wave Longarm to another padded chair and offer a cigar from his big brass humidor. "That was quick," he said. "I just posted my letter yesterday and I didn't expect Saint Paul to send anyone this side of Monday."
Longarm accepted the Havana claro with a nod of thanks, and took his seat before he replied. "I ain't from the marshal in Saint Paul, Mister Plover. I ride for Marshal Vail out of Denver, and I'm here in response to that purloined treasury note you all detected. You say you've written more since?"
As he lit his fancy smoke the banker explained. "I'm pretty sure I can name that breed who bought stock off Israel Bedford with one of those hot treasury notes, Marshal Long."
Longarm modestly replied, "I'm just a deputy marshal, but lots of folk make that same mistake. Just let me get out my notebook before you name the mysterious Indian for us, hear?"
As Longarm gripped the cigar with his teeth to break out his notebook and a pencil stub, the banker said, "He's not pure Sioux. Looks like a full-blood, if you ask me, but he claims to be white on his daddy's side and hence eligible to own land, sign contracts without a white sponsor, and in sum, make a perfect pest of himself with his full-blood squaw and platoon of trashy breed brats."
Longarm poised his pencil and cocked a quizzical brow, so the banker said, "His name's Chambrun, Wabasha Chambrun, for God's sake. Claims to be the spawn of a French-Canadian mountain man and a squaw of the Osage persuasion."