by Tabor Evans
The deputy nodded sagely and said, "Charges a dollar a head if you want to drive your herd to market across Comanche land, or six cents an acre if you want to graze there, now that most of the buffalo are gone."
Longarm said, "Let's stick to your own Santee of fond memory. I was told flat out that a good many local Indians you ran out of these parts years ago mean to come back, living white, after gaining legal title to some of their lost Santee Sioux reserve."
"That ain't fair," Sheriff Tegner protested. "I rode with the Sixth Minnesota, and don't try to feed me that shit about Mister Lo, The Poor Indian. I was there when we had to bury white men, women, and bitty babies, all swelled up and flyblown, out on the prairie after the savages scalped 'em, stripped and raped 'em, the men and babes included! I heard that whining shit about them Sioux not getting their rations on time with a war going on back East, and I neither know nor care whether crooked traders short-stopped hard cash as well. Hardly a white person they butchered in revenge could have known doodly-shit about the government's dealings with Indians they'd been assured were friendly. It was that same old refrain you hear from every sniveling crook, red or white, once he's caught!"
The deputy nodded and chimed in falsetto, "Honestly, Sheriff, it was all my cruel landlord's fault! He evicted my poor momma for not paying her rent, so I naturally raped that lady across the street for revenge!"
Longarm grimaced and said, "You don't have to convince me. Like I said, right or wrong, this syndicate of breeds and pure-bloods seems interested in local real estate and may or may not be up to something worse. I'm going to have to leave it up to you, interesting as I found it, because my boss feels I'm wasting time around here."
He nodded at the deputy he'd talked to before and explained, "Like I told you earlier, we had too many Calvert Tygers burning to death in rooming house fires. My boss figured, correctly as it just turned out, somebody was trying to convince us Calvert Tyger was dead out Colorado way. So when he got word about that payroll money turning up here where Tyger commenced his shady career, he added two and two to come up with a wrong number."
Longarm took the vile cigar out of his mouth to hold it over the back of the chair and let it smolder politely as he sighed and continued. "I wasn't the only deputy working for Billy Vail, of course. He had a half-dozen others poking about closer to home. So the day before yesterday Deputy O'Foyle out of our office came across yet another Calvert Tyger registered as a guest of the Colfax House near the Overland Terminal in Denver. So that night, Billy Vail had deputies at the hotel, and sure enough, they caught a son of a bitch fixing to set fire to the place after midnight, and never mind all the innocent men and women upstairs, whether they were married to one another or not!"
Sheriff Tegner whistled and declared, "Hot damn! If I caught me a firebug out to cremate yet another Calvert Tyger, I vow I'd soon make him tell me why!"
Longarm nodded soberly. "Old Billy did. It takes him a tad longer, since he hates to leave bruises, but he usually gets the straight story with his gentler means of persuasion. The unfortunate they caught, who's facing a good jolt in prison even with the charge reduced from attempted murder to arson, was a well-known petty thief with a serious drinking problem. He says--and Billy Vail believes him--he was recruited for the job by a more prosperous sinister stranger who gave him a hundred up front with the promise of another hundred after the hotel went up in smoke with yet another Calvert Tyger." The local lawmen looked blank. It was the younger deputy who asked, "But how did they murder another such gent if the plot to set his hotel on fire failed?"
Longarm said simply, "They couldn't. We have the supposed Tyger in protective custody too. His real name's Peppin, and he'd never heard of Calvert Tyger before someone who describes a heap like the cuss who recruited the firebug offered him drinking money and a free room if only he'd play a little joke."
Longarm took a thoughtless drag on that cigar before he remembered why he'd taken it out of his mouth. "The generous sneak told Peppin he was working for a rich mining man who wanted his wife to think he'd checked into the Colfax House alone during a business trip down to Denver."
Sheriff Tegner decided, "Sensible story. Just sneaky enough for an average drunk to buy. The plot was for this Peppin to die as another Calvert Tyger, a famous outlaw, whilst he thought he was covering up for some rich dog and his play-pretty at another hotel in town, right?"
When Longarm nodded, it was the local deputy who demanded with a puzzled frown, "To what end? What's the point of somebody letting you find Calvert Tyger dead over and over again?"
Longarm said, "That's one of the things Billy Vail wants me to look into as soon as I get back to Denver. The first notion that comes to mind would be that the real gang leader wants us to think he's dead so he can settle down and enjoy all that payroll money. I can go along with old Billy's thesis that the real Brick Flanders, with his red beard, glass eye, and gold front tooth, would be better off drugged and burnt up in a fire than tagging along with a leader those two bums from the Colfax House describe as sort of smooth-talking but bland-looking. Another member of the gang could have changed the rooming house register easy enough before his fire burned up the already dead Brick Flanders."
Sheriff Tegner whistled again. "I can see why you ain't as worried about land grabbers who might or might not waylay a colored lady now and again. Anyone who'd burn folks up in his own name, over and over again, has to be just plain mad-dog mean!"
Longarm shrugged. "Billy Vail feels, and I'm inclined to agree, the surviving members of the gang have some motive, nasty as it may seem. It ain't as if Calvert Tyger ain't been at it as long as Frank and Jesse, you know, albeit he's been way more cautious and not half as active. So why would a careful occasional cuss who's always allowed things to cool down betwixt jobs suddenly take to burning his own self up in fire after fire, whilst still on the dodge for that big Fort Collins job?"
Sheriff Tegner said, "I follow your drift. You'd think that once he and his pals got away clear with all that money, they'd leave Colorado entire instead of trying to convince you their leader was still in the state, albeit burnt to a crisp."
The younger local deputy volunteered, "I'd let that money I took cool down before I spent it too. I forgot to ask about the hundred dollars they gave that one cuss to set fire to that hotel the other night."
Longarm shook his head. "Billy Vail didn't forget. It was in ten- and twenty-dollar silver certificates. We just don't know whether the crooks who stole the money knew those serial numbers had been recorded. It ain't the usual routine. But the paymaster up there in Fort Collins did it, poor bastard, and now nobody will ever be able to ask why. Suffice it to say it's one of the few breaks we've had on this case. Had the money been untraceable, and had Calvert Tyger simply left the state, as you suggested, we'd be sniffing a mighty stale and musty trail by now."
He got back to his feet, saying in a brighter tone, "Meanwhile we ain't, Lord love all crooks, too slick for their own good, so like I promised, I'll put all I know about your local mysteries on paper before I leave town. I've just a few more errands to tend in New Ulm before I do. So I'd best get cracking."
They rose as well to shake and part friendly with him. Longarm strode out front and headed next for the bank. Some cynical sage had once written, doubtless in French, that a stiff prick had no conscience. But even after he'd cooled off, he'd promised the poor worried Mato Takoza he'd see what he could find out about her missing Miss Jasmine when he got to town. So here he was, and now that he knew the Bee Witch had sometimes called herself Miss Jasmine Smith, as unlikely as that sounded, there was an outside chance she'd cashed checks or money orders at one bank or another. The folks she worked for would have hardly funded her with cash or money orders she'd have to cash less discreetly at the post office or Western Union.
By this time it was going on noon, and the streets of New Ulm were starting to get hot as well as less crowded. For folks working in a town this size tended to go home for their n
oon dinners.
So Longarm spotted the cuss keeping pace with him, a pistol shot back, sooner than he might have had the walk been more crowded when he glanced at window glass in passing. A man With a job such as his learned to do that every chance he got. So Longarm was pretty certain the dark figure on his ass was really on his ass, once he'd crossed the street, actually out of his way to the bank, and spotted that same mysterious cuss at the same distance, behind him, in the plate glass of a dress shop.
The cuss wasn't reflected sharp enough to make out in detail at that range, but Longarm could see he was dressed cow, although a tad fancy, in a silver-trimmed black charro vest and shotgun chaps. His features were a dark blur under his big black Stetson Buckeye with its high crown pinched army-style, That didn't mean near as much to Longarm as the fancy Cleveland twelve-gauge the cuss had cradled casually over one forearm, as if he might be after duck or quail in the center of town.
Certain the cuss was tailing him, although uncertain about the motive, Longarm strode on as if he hadn't noticed, and swung the next corner as he might have if he'd been headed for somewhere down that side street to begin with.
It worked even better when, just around the corner, Longarm spied a service entrance in the brick wall of the corner store and crawfished into it, casually drawing his.44-40 but holding it down at his side politely. The man on his tail with that scattergun swung the corner wider, as a trained gunfighter was supposed to. As he spotted Longarm and broke stride, Longarm called out an easygoing howdy, and never raised his own gun muzzle until he saw he had to.
They fired as one, the dark stranger's twelve-gauge blowing a big dusty crater in the cinder paving between them as Longarm's round of.44-40 punched him in the gut to jackknife him out from under his large hat and lay him low.
Longarm managed just in time not to squeeze off the extra round or so that seemed safest on such occasions. He covered his downed foe thoughtfully instead as he strode over to smile down, saying, "I was admiring that fowling piece you just dropped, pard. English made over to London Town, right?"
He could see now the man he'd gunned seemed almost pure Indian despite his duds and short haircut. Longarm hunkered down, six-gun in hand but held politely, to quietly ask, "Where are you hit and, just in case, who would you like us to get in touch with for you?"
The dying man just glared spitefully as his lips moved silently in what could have been a curse, a prayer, or a death song. By the time Longarm had pinned on his federal badge and Sheriff Tegner had joined the gathering crowd, the black-clad stranger's jet black eyes had commenced to film over and he wasn't moving his lips or breathing.
As Tegner hunkered beside him, Longarm quietly said, "I ain't sure what just happened. He was tailing me from your office to here. But he had the drop on me earlier, and never got really hostile until I challenged him."
The sheriff said, "Remind me never to challenge you, Longarm. I think I know this old boy. He looks a mite older now, but don't we all, and he reminds me of a scout we had with the old Sixth Volunteers. If it's the same cuss, his name was Baptiste Youngwolf. Last I'd heard, he'd run off to his reservation. Lots of 'em were like that when it came to taking orders, you know."
Longarm softly said, "I've ridden some with full-blood scouts. If this was one who rode with you, Vern, might he by any chance have been Santee?"
The sheriff shook his head and replied, "Hell, no, Chippewa. Even if you could get yourself a Sioux to scout Sioux for you, you'd not be sure you could trust such a two-faced cuss yourself. Him being Sioux could complicate hell out of things!"
Longarm grumbled, "Not hardly. This would all make more sense if I could be more certain this was a Santee-speaker I may have overheard just last night."
"He was Chippewa," another old-timer in the crowd decided. "I recall that same hatchet face and the cavalry crease of his big black hat from earlier days as well. I never rode with the Volunteers, but I used to drink with some. This old boy was one of their scouts like the sheriff here says. The soldiers called him Chief, as I now recall, and now that I think back, they did say old Chief deserted with some white boys and never hung about to draw his last pay."
Longarm got wearily back to his feet, muttering, "A lot old Billy Vail really knows! I got to go send him a wire, Vern, if that's all the same with you."
The sheriff got to his own feet, saying, "As long as you wasn't planning on leaving Brown County before we can tidy this up with the coroner's office. I doubt there will be any fuss, you being a lawman and him coming after you with that scattergun and all. But they are likely to want some more details for the death certificate and bill of mortality book. You reckon he was really that cuss called Chief who ran off with them Galvanized Yankee deserters that time?"
To which Longarm could only reply, "That works better than any Objibwa working in cahoots on something else with folks he'd have been raised to call Nadowessioux and hate like sulfur and molasses!"
Then he added, reloading his six-gun, "After that, like your county coroner, I sure would like to have some-damned-body fill in some of the damned details! For I'll be switched with snakes if I can make one lick of sense out of all this bullshit!"
But before he could elbow away through the gathering crowd, one of the newcomers loudly demanded, "Jesus H. Christ, who tangled with the Chief and what's the Chief doing there on the ground?"
It was Gus Hansson, that young cowhand Longarm had met the other night on the open range west of the county road. Longarm turned to the surprised-looking kid to declare, "He's dead because he tangled with me. It was his own notion. I'm still working on how come. You say you knew him more recent than these older gents, Gus?"
Hansson nodded, but stared at Longarm as if he'd just been caught jerking off in church as he replied, "Well, sure I knew him. We was riding for the same outfit. Miss Helga Runeberg hired him as a top hand not two weeks ago, and she ain't going to like this at all!"
An older local in the crowd proclaimed with a more noticeable Swedish accent, "Yumpin' Yesus! Helga Runeberg has always been as mean as she was pretty and she has more than a dozen riders! If I wass you I'd get out of town before she finds out, no matter who I wass or why I yust shot one of her boys!"
Longarm smiled thinly and announced for all who had any interest in the matter, "I did what I had to and I'll leave these parts when I've finished what I came to do. If anyone wants to build what just happened here into a blood feud, be advised I can get just as mean as pretty too!"
CHAPTER 20
Longarm spent more time than he felt he had to spare at the Western Union office near the depot. First the fuss in charge had to argue with him about rates, seeing he wanted to send more than three full pages of close-set block lettering to his home office at day rates collect.
The clerk pointed out they charged way less than a nickel a word after midnight, when the moonlit wires might otherwise hum idle in the wind. But Longarm said he'd have told them to send it as a night letter if he hadn't wanted his boss to get the damned report directly.
They didn't argue, since he paid up front for the shorter wires he sent to the Indian agents at Crow Creek and Leech Lake, hoping to get a better line on that dead Indian, whether Ojibwa or Santee. Then he had a longer argument over their prior telegraph traffic, with the old fuss in charge insisting Mister Ezra Cornell would rise from his grave to haunt them if they betrayed their sacred trust to all their customers.
Ezra Cornell had been the rich old bird who'd gotten richer than old Sam Morse on the telegraph by founding and stringing the Western Union Telegraph Company just in time for the Civil War. He'd made so much money he'd had enough left over to build a university and get his son elected governor of New York, after Ezra had died, by setting down some company rules in stone. One that had given Longarm a pain in the past was that nobody who didn't work for the company was ever to read a private message sent by a paying customer.
Longarm explained, "I've had this argument with you boys before and, so far,
I've usually won. Old Ezra never intended his employees to obstruct justice. He just didn't want small-town gossip emanating from his scattered offices."
He let that sink in and added, "I ain't interested in whether an elderly colored lady who might have called herself Smith was sending or receiving dirty messages. I only need to know if anyone like that availed herself of your services at all, damn it!"
The clerk sniffed and grudgingly allowed, "We have very few darkies in New Ulm to begin with. I suppose it's safe to tell you no elderly colored women by any name have availed themselves of our services in recent memory."
Longarm nodded. "Now we're getting somewheres. As you'll see whilst you're sending that tedious report to my boss, Marshal Vail, I just had to shoot me an Indian they called Chief Youngwolf. Santee, or what you'd call Chippewa. I described him in more detail in them wires I just asked you to send to the Sioux and Chippewa B.I.A. agents. You'd know if a pure-blood wearing a black Stetson Buckeye had been in and out of here all that much by any name, right?"
The Western Union man declared that as a matter of fact they had fewer Indians sending or receiving telegrams than colored folks, the Great Sioux Rising of '62 having left Indians unpopular as hell in this particular corner of Minnesota.
Longarm started to ask a dumb question about breeds. He decided an Indian gunslick laying low in a county so crowded with blue-eyed blond Scandinavians would as likely recruit a pure white to front for him if he was shy about dealing with Western Union in person.
Longarm confided to the clerk, as much to diagram it in his own puzzled mind, "Somebody communicating by wire with Colorado pals on a fairly regular basis would doubtless be using some slick code if he was too slick to just wire back and forth naturally."