Viggy shrugged a bare shoulder and said she didn't recall either redskin around her bank all that much. Then she asked how he knew the check they'd cashed for them had anything to do with that hot treasury note.
Longarm smiled gently and replied, "It couldn't have. The Tyger gang hadn't pulled off that robbery in Fort Collins yet. The point is that the Chambruns seem to be telling the truth about big checks coming their way from other prosperous Indians. Your New Ulm bank had no problems with the out-of-state check, made out to the female or full-blood branch of the Chambrun family by the Pipestone Bonemeal & Fertilizer Company of Omaha, Nebraska."
Viggy observed she'd heard Pipestone was a place in Minnesota.
Longarm chuckled fondly and agreed. "Not too far from here, as a matter of fact. Pipestone, Minnesota, is named for the sacred red cliffs where the old-time Santee, amongst others, quarried the red catlanite or pipestone they carved into calumets, or what we tend to call peace pipes. The Indians smoked 'em for all sorts of medicine. I reckon it was only natural for some breed or assimilate going into a profitable business in Omaha to name his new venture after old-timey good medicine. I suspect I passed their trackside operation the last time I was in Omaha. There's a heap of meat-packing going on around there these days, and a smart gent who ain't afraid of hard work and dirty hands can make a heap of wampum on the fringes of meat-packing by disposing of the leftover blood, crud, and bones at a profit."
Viggy repressed a yawn and asked what on earth grubby redskins in Omaha might have to do with anyone in New Ulm.
He told her he liked to know when folks were fibbing to him or not, and added, "Your boss, old P.S. Plover, caught the serial number on that later treasury note as it was passing through his bank. So it's unlikely the Chambruns got even one such note from you folk. But I see here you charged 'em one percent, or ten dollars, when you cashed that earlier check from Omaha."
Viggy nodded innocently and replied, "Well, of course we did. One percent is about the least any bank charges for cashing a check drawn on another bank for a person with no regular account with them. Would you have us go to that much trouble for nothing at all?"
Longarm said, "Not hardly. I never said you were bilking check-cashers. On the other hand, ten dollars is a week's salary for a top hand, and old Tatowiyeh Wachipi might well have scouted up some banker willing to cash a sure thing for less."
He wrinkled his nose and added, "That opens up a whole other line of questioning, and I just don't want to take the time to canvass every infernal bank in the county!"
She lay back down and coyly asked what he did feel like doing now that they'd rested up a spell. He laughed and said he wanted to take just a few more notes, since he doubted he'd have the strength or the interest in dry numbers once they got weak and wet some more.
He was right. Despite that weak tea, they fell asleep in each other's arms an hour later, to be awakened at dawn by rain on the roof and a distant rumble promising there was more to come.
The buxom blond banking gal said she was glad it was such a dreary morning. After breakfast in bed, with toast and jam making more sense with the two of them in more of a hurry, Viggy told him she wanted him to give her a good head start down the alley with her umbrella and Macintosh. So he did, hoping the infernal rain would let up as he smoked at her kitchen table and went over his notes. She had of course hauled out with the ledger itself under her rain gear.
It was still raining when Longarm couldn't stand sitting still up there anymore. He was wearing his thin practical range denims, but it was only wet outside, not cold, So he let himself out Viggy's back gate around eight-thirty, and damned if there didn't seem to be an old biddy out by the hen house in her yard across the alley just as Longarm tried to slip past. It would have looked more sneaky not to tick his hat brim at a lady, so he did, but she just sniffed and looked through him at the rear windows of old Viggy's little hideaway. Longarm didn't ask her who that other heavy smoker might be. With any luck the cuss might not find out about him.
Good and wet by the time he got to the livery, Longarm knew from sad experience he didn't want to break out his own rain slicker and put it on over wet denim in summertime. So he just dickered with them for the hire of a buckskin mare who didn't mind muddy roads, they said, and got even wetter riding her over to Courthouse Square in the steady summer drizzle.
The sheriff was off kissing babies some more. Longarm called on the coroner's clerk to tell them he had to ride over to Sleepy Eye, but meant to return before leaving for good. He handed the clerk a damp but legible sheet torn out of his notebook and added, "Whilst I'm scouting the Western Union over by that other railroad stop, I sure wish you'd check this modest list of bank depositors against the bills of mortality this side of, say, Christmas."
The clerk allowed he would, but naturally wanted to know how come. So Longarm explained, "An old lady keeping her money in the bank as Janice Carpenter vanished from the face of this earth just after she drew it all out. I got some pals in railroading circles who may or may not be able to tell me where she went from here. Meanwhile, going over the bank ledger with another pal last night, I noticed more than one additional depositor cleaned out all or most of their savings around the same time."
The clerk nodded, but proved he was good with facts and figures by submitting, "Wouldn't it be natural for folks to withdraw lots of money during the holiday season, Deputy Long?"
Longarm proved how smart he was by replying, "It would, and we'll say no more about what folks might or might not have done with their own money then as long as they're alive now. But I'd sure like to know if anyone else wound up dead, or missing, just after cleaning out their bank accounts. Wouldn't you?"
The clerk allowed he might, but objected, "That Jasper we've been holding at Oland's couldn't have robbed anybody as early as Christmas or even New Year's, Deputy Long. He only came back to these parts a few weeks ago."
Longarm wasn't sure who they were talking about and said so. The clerk said patiently, "Baptiste Youngwolf, that Chippewa cowhand you shot your ownself. We had him on display on the cellar doors around to the back until some cowhands who'd been riding with him over at the Runeberg spread identified him for certain and naturally told their boss lady what you'd done to one of her boys."
Longarm muttered, "Damn it, he came after me. I never even knew he was in town until he was swinging a shotgun muzzle my way!"
The clerk said, "That's the way the coriner, sheriff, and district attorney see it, Deputy Long. Miss Helga Runeberg still rid into town on a broom last night to arrange for her Uncle Chief, as she called him, to be embalmed and gussied up in a genuine mahogany casket by old Ivar Oland and his crew. We allowed it wouldn't hurt as long as they kept him above ground and on display at their funeral parlor until we closed the books on the dead rascal."
The clerk sounded more annoyed as he continued. "Miss Helga's made arrangements to plant the red heathen in the hallowed ground of our Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, ain't that a bitch?"
Longarm allowed it was up to the church to decide whether a dead Indian had been a good Indian, because he was more interested in how they knew how long the jasper had been in these parts.
The clerk said, "Miss Helga told us, and some of her hired hands back her story. She said she hadn't seen her Uncle Chief for quite a spell, but that she'd naturally signed him on when he showed up less'n a month ago, saying he'd been handed a shovel out Colorado way."