Longarm and the Unwritten Law

by Tabor Evans

  Necomi sighed and told Longarm, "Maybe you did not lie about the riders you fought with over by Cache Creek. But somebody is lying about being members of our lodge and we are very cross, very!"

  Eskiminzin said, "My Kiowa uncle is not as cross as the women we left back along Elk Creek, throwing dust in the air and calling us cowards because we let the Comanche Police bring our ponies back for us without killing any two-hearted Kiowa raiders! Listen to me, all of you, there must be blood for blood, and one of our pony guards was stabbed in the back by those Black Leggings!"

  The outraged Necomi roared, "No Black Legging rider owes any blood to anybody! We just told this other twittering magpie from the Great Father that our lodge has done nothing, nothing, to be blamed for all these silly fights! Hear me, when and if we do put on our paint and follow the warpath again, we will not be stopped by a few shots or less than a thousand enemies!"

  Longarm didn't wait for the runty Eskiminzin to tell the older man he was full of shit. In a more soothing tone he asked about those Comanche Police. He pointed out, "Elk Creek ain't all that close to the Comanche range southeast of Fort Sill, is it?"

  The Kiowa-Apache grumbled, "We never invited Quanah's white-eyed Comanche in blue sleeves to patrol along Elk Creek. They told us they had to patrol all the reservation lines because nobody else was willing to join them. Maybe we were not so cross the second time they rode by, right after those Black Leggings killed that boy and drove off two hundred of our best ponies!"

  Longarm nodded soberly and said, "Chores such as that were what Quanah and the B.I.A. had in mind when they commenced to organize such forces for this big reserve. I don't think any of your Kiowa brothers from the real Black Legings Lodge ran that stock off on you. I think Necomi here was right about some big fibbers pretending to be a bunch more feared and respected than your average band of horse thieves."

  Necomi gasped, "Riders who were never initiated into our lodge in the leggings and paint of members? Who would do such a terrible thing? Who would dare? Tanapah, the great bright eye in the sky, would tell all the other spirits, and then where would they be? Everyone knows it is wrong to use another person's puha, or even to paint one's pony in the same way, without offering him a present and getting his permission!"

  Eskiminzin nodded gravely and volunteered, "This is true among my people too. I paid the first very rich Aravaipa ranchero for the use of this prosperous and powerful name. It would have been bad medicine if I had just stolen the name like a chicken!"

  Longarm nodded and said, "I understand about your old ways. Sort of. Maybe these raiders pretending to be honorable Kiowa have forgotten the old ways. Tell me about those Comanche Police recovering your run-off stock without having to gun any of the rascals."

  The Kiowa-Apache shrugged and said, "None of us were there. The blue sleeves said that they only had to track the stolen ponies a day and a night. They said they found them in a draw at dawn. The men who'd run them off were not there. So the Comanche only had to round them up and herd them back to us. Their sergeant said he did not think the stinking Kiowa wanted to fight Comanche. So they ran away in the dark."

  Necomi gasped, "That was a bad thing to say! Hear me! Any rabbit-killing Comanche who thinks even a Kiowa girlchild is afraid of him had better stop dreaming and wake up!"

  Longarm shook his head and said, "Don't get your bowels in such an uproar, Chief. There used to be some troublemakers called Romans on the far side of the Great Bitter Water. They liked to get the rest of us white folks to fighting amongst ourselves by spreading just such an easy mess of fibs. Then they'd move in and stick us with spears. They called their game divide and conquer."

  Eskiminzin asked innocently, "You mean the way your Eagle Chief Carson got the Utes to fight our western cousins for him over in the Canyon de Chelly?"

  Longarm laughed sheepishly and said, "It worked, didn't it? What I'm saying about these mysterious raiders is that anyone can slip on a pair of black leggings. And they've been acting more like plain and simple outlaws than any warrior society I know of. I got a good look at three of them, dead, over by Cache Creek. So I'd be mighty surprised to discover they were a gang of Minnesota Swedes. But how do you boys feel about them being Mexican bandits, dressed up in Kiowa duds to confound the law, both red and white?"

  Eskiminzin shook his head and said, "They were heard shouting back and forth. Nobody could tell what they were saying, but it did not sound at all like Spanish. Many of our people speak enough Spanish to deal with Mexican ... ah, horse traders."

  Longarm dryly observed, "That likely accounts for all this sudden interest in horseflesh and the reservation borders. I'll ask directly, with a better chance of getting a straight answer, when I catch up with those Comanche Police. Did they say which post they were working out of, Eskiminzin?"

  The runty Kiowa-Apache looked blank. Longarm nodded and muttered, "Never mind. Some damned body is supposed to keep files on everything, and recovering two hundred head of goats would rate a commendation. I don't suppose you could give me that patrol leader's name?"

  Eskiminzin soberly replied, "I could not even give you my name, if you mean my real name, given to me in a vision by White Painted Woman. But the Comanche who brought back our ponies said we could call him Black Sheep, in your tongue, after we told him his Comanche words meant nothing, nothing to a real person."

  Longarm cocked a brow and marveled, "That Tuka Wa Pombi sure gets around! A few days ago he was trying to collect passage fees off a Texican trail boss, and when I asked about that at their nearest field headquarters, none of the Comanche Police I spoke to had ever heard of a comrade by such a name."

  Eskiminzin shrugged and said, "There are many reasons, many, for a man to give different names at different times. He may be trying to avoid an evil chindi, or the husband of some wicked woman he met when he was full of tiswin and forgot you are not supposed to do that with another man's woman."

  Longarm smiled thinly and declared, "That last notion sounds way more reasonable than ducking evil spirits. There can't be all that big a police force. So sooner or later we're bound to meet up and I can just ask him. Did they say where they were headed next?"

  The Kiowa-Apache nodded gravely and replied, "They said they had to take the money to Chief Quanah."

  Longarm frowned thoughtfully and asked what money they might be talking about.

  The runty Kiowa-Apache explained, "The money they need to buy more blue sleeves and guns. They said if our young men would not join the Indian Police, then the least we could do would be to pay our fair share. Meeting in council, our elders agreed. They had brought back our ponies. They had done a good job of tracking after our own young men had lost the trail where slickrock runs down into Elk Creek. We were surprised that Comanche could do this."

  Necomi scowled and said, "So am 1. Our little Kiowa-Apache brothers range closer than the rest of us to their old hunting grounds between these hills and the Washita bottomlands. Would you say I was crazy if I wondered about liars dressing up as both Black Leggings and Indian Police?"

  Longarm shook his head and replied, "I would say great minds are inclined to run in the same channels. No Indian Police led by anyone by any name are authorized to collect money in the name of Quanah Parker. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, run with government money by Little Big Eyes or Interior Secretary Schurz, pays and equips all the Indian Police on all the reserves. Chief Quanah's business dealings are matters of civil law, backed up as such by federal or local courts, depending on what the problem might be."

  Necomi was first to get the picture. He said, "This Black I Sheep was not supposed to ask those drivers for money. He was not supposed to ask our little Kiowa-Apache brothers for money. He is... what?"

  "A crook," said Longarm flatly. "There's this more pallid outfit over near New Orleans called the Black Hand instead of Sheep. There's no natural law saying an Indian with a droll sense of humor and an eye for easy money couldn't read the Police Gazette and see how the Black Ha
nd flimflams other folks less inclined than average to send for the regular law." He saw none of the Indians gaping at him knew what he was talking about, even if they spoke English. So he simplified the protection swindle of the notorious Black Hand, and even a Horse Indian could see how once a bunch of friendly-acting toughs could pretend to protect a neighborhood from meaner-acting members of the same gang.

  Eskiminzin gasped, "It would be easy, easy to track stolen ponies over slickrock and through running water if you knew just where some secret friends had left them for you!"

  Necomi said, "That is why there was no fight. Those riders acting as if they were Kiowa Black Leggings never really wanted all those ponies! Where could they have sold them on this crowded reserve? I think it was all a trick to make you pay good money for your own ponies!"

  Longarm nodded. But before he could answer, Necomi cut in. "Then what are these forked tongues when they are not pretending to be other people? Are they wicked Kiowa or evil Comanche?"

  It was a good question. Longarm said it was too early to say, and asked if he and the ladies were free to go ask. Necomi said they had never been prisoners and that he'd have his young men cut out and saddle their ponies for them. They'd Just agreed a cuss with a forked tongue was no good. So Longarm turned and strode through sunlit dust and dark Kiowa curses to rejoin the two gals. Along the way he met up with old Pawkigoopy, shaking his rattle and chanting while the others did all the work to secure their camp. When the medicine man saw Longarm bearing down on him alive and well, he looked as if he'd been fed something awful himself. Longarm just grinned wolfishly and hauled out a couple of cheroots, asking the goggle-eyed Indian if he'd like a heap strong smoke.

  Pawkigoopy ran away, calling on his spirit pals for help against what had to be Longarm's heap stronger medicine.

  Longarm lit one cheroot and put the other away as he circled out of the tipi ring to rejoin the gals from the east. He was glad their particular tipi faced away from the swirling confusion inside the tipi ring. Since every tipi faced the same way, the folks on the other side of the circle were stuck with the settling dust and fly-blown horseshit whether they were under attack or not.

  As he ducked inside he asked if either gal had tasted anything but their own supplies. Matty said a Kiowa gal had offered them some coffee, but they'd poured it on the cold ashes when nobody had been looking.

  Longarm said, "Good thinking. We're fixing to ride out any minute, so let's pull ourselves together in here."

  Minerva Cranston commenced to pin her hair back atop her skull as she murmured, not meeting Longarm's eye, "I suppose I owe you an explanation for the way I carried on last night."

  He shook his head and said, "Save it for the next sewing bee. Right now the inner thoughts of a teasing schoolmarm are the least of my worries." He scooped up his saddlebags and told them to join him outside as pronto as possible. Then he ducked out of the tipi to see that things had simmered down a bit, with most everybody and his or her belongings forted up inside the circle of thin-skinned but mysterious hide shelters.

  Unless you had the element of surprise riding with you, it could be injurious to one's health to blindly charge a tipi ring.

  For some would be empty, while others might be hornet's nests of dug-in riflemen. Horse Indians fought differently, but that wasn't to say they fought stupidly, or didn't learn new tricks along the way. Dull Knife's band had given the army a scare, despite the hopeless odds, when troopers inspecting the Cheyenne's last encampment near White River found more than one deep pit inside a tipi with its cover rolled up a few inches all around to offer a ground-level field of fire.

  Dull Knife had only given in because he was low on food, blankets, and ammunition, as well as smart. Army pals had told Longarm some of the more recent hostiles had learned to reload their brass cartridges with home-brew black powder and fashion fresh slugs from hammered telegraph wire. They used mushed-up match heads for cartridge caps. The War Department had wanted to forbid the sale of kitchen matchesin trading posts, until cooler heads had pointed out how many Indians who didn't know that trick would surely get matches from the settlers all around them, even as they pondered why the army found this so important.

  A brace of Kiowa kids came around the bend on foot, leading Gray Skies and the other four ponies. So Longarm yelled for the two tardy gals to get their tardy rumps out there, and once they had, he soon had the three of them riding east at an easy lope.

  He reined in on a rise a quarter mile out and made sure nobody was right on their tail. Then he told his two female companions to stick tight and follow his lead.

  They did as he whirled Gray Skies and plunged down the far slope, to where the pony trail crossed a barely wet and braided sandy rill along the bottom of the draw. He warned them not to cut any corners with their own hooves as he headed Gray Skies upstream in the fetlock-deep but patiently running water. Matty seemed to follow his drift, but Minerva called forward, "Where are we going, Custis? I thought we were headed back to Quanah's agency over that way!"

  Longarm called back, "Let's hope everyone else thinks we are too. We'd never make it that far across open prairie with anyone serious on our trail. So we'd best head up into the woody Wichitas and see if we can't make Fort Sill the long way round instead."

  Matty whooped, "I like to shop at Fort Sill. They have ribbons of different colors than our Indian trader sells, and red licorice whips and ladies' fashion magazines. Why don't they sell fashion magazines at our trading post, Custis? Don't they want us to be fashionable?"

  He figured she might be on to something, but he said he just didn't know. As they rode up the streamlet, chokecherry and box elder pressed in more densely from either side. So by the time they came to where the water sprang from the sandy head of the draw, they were out of sight of the trail they'd forsaken. Longarm led the way around some bow-wood, or Osage orange, and through some cottonwoods to ride up as steep a slope as they could manage, hoping nobody would scout for any sign where nobody with a lick of sense would force his mount to go.

  When they cut a more sensible deer trail cutting northeast at a gentler angle, Longarm decided to follow it. If anyone was slick enough to figure where they might be headed, they wanted their mounts in shape for a running gunfight down the slope. Longarm studied on that as he led the way single file. He had his Winchester Yellowboy again to back his six-gun and derringer. Matty had insisted on packing a nickel-plated Harrington & Richardson.32-18 in a saddlebag as if she might be fixing to start off a pony race on demand. Minerva hadn't brought any firearms at all. When asked, she'd allowed nobody had ever shown her how to fire a gun. So that was another way she'd turned out different from that newspaper gal, Godiva Weaver, cuss the two of them combined.

  They had to rest and water their ponies more than once, working up through the scrubby timber or high chaparral, depending on what was rooted where on the rocky slopes. Longarm was paying attention to the sky, knowing how easy it was to get turned around in hills that hadn't read the same large-scale map. So it was little Matty, staring back the way they'd come, who called out, "Down in those blackjack oaks, past that outcrop we passed half an hour ago!"

  Longarm stared long and hard before he made out brownish movement way down yonder. He nodded but said, "Anyone following this trail could have as innocent a reason. But why don't we give them a chance to prove they ain't dogging us in particular?"

  They didn't know what he meant, so he led them a good way along the apparent natural trail along the crest of a side ridge that only groped its way to a wooded knoll that overlooked the real trail from two furlongs north and forty feet higher. As they neared the sort of island in the sky, he reined in and dismounted, telling them to do the same as he explained, "The winds up here have tangled those blackjacks, and better yet, there's an undertangle of hellish bow-wood, if only we can get these ponies through it."

  They could, but it wasn't easy, even with little Matty helping. Being a Horse Indian raised in bow-wood country, she
knew how to deal with the ornery natural bobwire.

  Back East, where they called it Osage orange, bow-wood growing in a park like some floral pet could stand on one trunk about the size and shape of a crab apple, although thorny as a rosebush and bearing a sort of mock orange hard as wood. But out here where it had to fight a more ferocious climate for its life, the results were wilder. Bow-wood branches coppiced, meaning you got two or three new thorny sprouts wherever you busted off or simply peeled some bark off a wind-whipped limb. The Indians had cut stouter branches to make a heap of short tough bows of the springy wood before they'd switched to more lethal firearms. Early settlers had planted and trimmed bow-wood into buffalo-proof hedgerows before both the buffalo and slower-growing fencing had given way to bobwire. Up here on the knoll the wickedly thorned and wind-pruned greenery had taken the time to grow. So with Matty holding some branches back, and him cutting a few more, they soon had themselves and their ponies totted up inside what the surprised Minerva described as a natural bower.

  That was what she said you called a shaded clearing roofed over or walled by tough sunlit branches, a bower.

  Longarm tethered the ponies as deep in the little glade as he could get them, and told the otherwise less useful Minerva to pick some bow-wood leaves for them while he and Matty scouted the far sides of the knoll. No warm-blooded critter would eat oak leaves, but bow-wood grew those thorns to protect its juicy leaves.

  Gingerly parting the sticker-brush to the north with Matty and her small revolver in tow, Longarm saw that approach was steeper but brushier. So he told Matty, "If those other riders are on their own business, they'll pass on by. If they're after us, and figure out where we are, they'll circle afoot to creep up this slope through all that tanglewood."

  He cradled the Winchester Yellowboy in one arm as he drew his Colt.44-40 and handed it to her, saying, "It's an insult to shoot a grown man with a .32-Short. But take both pistols over to the far side and keep an eye on that trail whilst I guard our back entrance. I don't want no needless gunplay. I'd rather have 'em guess where we might be. Do you know how to twitter like a horned lark?"