As they followed the gentle grade down to more sensible cropland, shifting shadows made everything to either side of the county road wriggle and writhe in the ghostly moonlight. Longarm had figured out as a kid why folks felt proddy moving past a graveyard when the moon was full and the hoot owls were feeling amorous. So he told old Smokey not to believe in ghosts, even if they were smack on the very warpath those Santee had come boiling down once the pot had boiled over up at the lower agency. Of course, they'd hit that military post on the far side of the river first, likely fording the Minnesota at some handy crossing and...
"That's it!" Longarm assured his mount as he chuckled and added aloud, "Old Chambrun was right. It might not be smart to assume a man can't think sensible as anyone else just because he's got some Indian blood!"
He reined in to light a cheroot as he expanded on his inspiration. It made just as much sense as he got his smoke going and shook out the match. It only stood to reason a well-funded breed, scouting earlier than the rest of his bunch for a good spot to claim, might see the advantages of a place along the river where they'd never build any steamboat landing but might surely build a bridge, or even a railroad trestle, once this valley commenced to fill in some more!
Longarm blew smoke at a sycamore making obscene gestures at them in the shifty light and told Smokey, "They call it the law of eminent domain when they want to run a railroad or bridge approach across your property. You got to let 'em. But they got to pay you a fair price, or as much as the land would be worth under, let's say, corn and taters. So if I had my homestead on the best bridge site for miles, I reckon I'd let them force me to sell the acres they needed at their price, and then I'd set my own price on what I had left, once I'd cut 'em up into building lots for the crossroads settlement you generally find where a serious river crossing intersects a county road!"
He heeled his borrowed mount to ride on. Then he suddenly reined in some more, and sure enough, those other riders he'd only thought might be echoes reined in themselves after they'd noticed he had.
He rode on at a comfortable lope, knowing for certain there were four or more riders about a quarter mile back. It got less easy to say for certain once there were more than three.
Longarm figured he could take up to half a dozen with his Winchester if he could surprise them from good cover. There were plenty of shifty-lit trees to his left, between the road and riverbanks. If he turned old Smokey loose to run on for some oats, as ponies were inclined to behave by nature... Shit, the gelding would doubtless head back to its familiar fodder and water at the Kellgren spread, meaning an empty saddle passing those other riders on the road to give them plenty of warning someone had dismounted up ahead to lay for them!
"I reckon we'd best stick together," Longarm told his loping blue roan as he hauled out his Winchester anyway with a hell of a night ride still ahead of them.
He knew the big gelding was made out of flesh and blood, like he was, and only a steam-driven machine, whether afloat or on wheels, was about to swallow that much distance in one gulp. So those others, who had to know that much, would likely wait until he took a trail break before they... what?
"Let's find out," Longarm growled as he neck-reined old Smokey off the road to burst into the second growth off to their left. The gelding didn't like it much, and it was tough on Longarm's knees without chaps as well. But he forced the blue roan through the springy jungle as far as a little moonlit cove, where he dismounted on the drier side and tethered Smokey to an alder, saying soothingly, "You got plenty of browse and all the water you can drink. So keep your voice low whilst I work back a ways with this saddle gun and see if I can find out what this is all about!"
Old Smokey didn't argue. Longarm found it far easier to move his own smaller frame through the tanglewood on foot. Closer to the sometimes-moonlit road he found a fallen sycamore with a swell clump of box elder sprouting just right to break up his own outline as he lay behind it in the grass with his Winchester propped across the mottled sycamore bark to cover the road.
Nothing happened. It felt as if the Ice Age had come and gone, to be replaced by the rise and fall of the Roman Empire at least. The moon was now overhead, but the night kept getting darker as those clouds got thicker, and he could only hope a night bird had just shit on his hat brim in passing, because otherwise it was starting to rain and he'd left his damned slicker by the river with his damned saddle on that damned gelding!
Another drop hit his left wrist, closer to the muzzle of his '73. There was nothing he could do about it. If it rained hard he'd get wet. If it didn't, he wouldn't. Those other riders doubtless had slickers handier on their damned saddles. They were likely back up that road a piece, putting them on. They'd be along directly, the dry and comfortable sons of bitches.
But still they didn't come, and now it was starting to really rain. Longarm lay there, getting soaked, as the raindrops pounded out yonder on the road as if intent on muffling the sounds of any approaching hoofbeats. He considered whether that could be what had inspired the mysterious riders on his trail to hold back. He knew that same rain made it tough for him to judge whether anyone else was out there in the dark or not. He doubted he'd want to ride in on anybody with his own loaded gun, not knowing just where the rascal was in shifting darkness with all but the loudest sounds drowned out.
It was even possible they'd never been after anybody to begin with, Longarm decided, as he went back over various conversations he'd had in recent memory.
He hadn't told anyone in New Ulm where he was headed or how he meant to get there. It hardly seemed likely anybody aboard that steamboat could have followed him on horseback. The Kellgrens had had the drop on him earlier and acted friendly as hell after he'd told them who he was and where he was headed. So why would any of their riders be trailing him?
He'd passed other spreads without stopping. But that didn't mean nobody had spotted a stranger riding by in broad daylight and gotten to fretting some. County folks living alone with all sorts of oddities on their consciences had given Longarm some anxious moments in the past. Just hearing a lawman was in his neck of the woods had been enough to set off that old prospector living in sin with his daughter up a canyon that time, poor old bastard.
But it was just as likely the Chambruns had been unsettled by his unexpected visit and personal questions. It was true they'd acted as civilized as he'd had any right to expect. But they'd had more than one boy back yonder big enough to pack a gun, and who but a total asshole would gun a lawman on his or her own property when the poor cuss had a good eight- or twelve-hour ride ahead of him on a damn-near-deserted county road?
"Meanwhile I'm as likely to die of a summer ague if I don't get out of this cold rain!" Longarm grumbled, even as he forced himself to just stay put and take some more while he counted to a hundred for at least the hundredth time.
Then he hauled in his gun muzzle and rose back to his soggy feet, knowing that even if they were still out there in the stormy darkness, they couldn't begin to guess where he might be in the dark.
He made his way back to his rain-soaked mount, untethering it but not remounting just yet as he said, "I'm sorry about this too, pard. I was spooked over Lord knows what, and whatever it was don't seem to be after us no more. So what say we get back to the road and move on at least as far as that Conway spread? Them colored nesters ain't on our list of suspects, like the Bedfords further on, so we'll ask for shelter there, all right?"
He started working their way through the dripping tanglewood. It wasn't easy. The saplings and sticker brush seemed even thicker in the direction he'd chosen. Then he spied light through the branches ahead and marveled, "We can't be that close to the Conway place or any other I remember from the pilothouse of the Moccasin Blossom."