Longarm and the Unwritten Law (21 page)

That conjured up a really silly scene in Longarm's head. But he managed not to laugh out loud as he considered how the sassy little gal Minerva had come along to chaperone was really chaperoning her elders without half trying, or really knowing what was going on.

As he heard Minerva moaning in the darkness, "Custis, please!" he softly murmured, "You'll be sorry you ever said that once we get out of this fix alive. But no offense, this is about the last time or place I'd ever risk getting caught with my pants down!"

CHAPTER 14

Longarm hadn't been trying to doze off, but he saw he must have when he awoke with a start to see daylight in the entryway across from them and heard all sorts of commotion outside.

He eased Matty's drowsy head from his lap, and rolled over to holster his gun and stab the tipi cover with his knife. When he put an eye to the puncture he saw ponies swirling in a haze of dust in the center of the tipi ring. Minerva sat up on her pile of buffalo robes to ask what all the fuss was about.

Longarm replied, "Ain't certain. They've run all their riding stock inside the ring for safekeeping and never mind the mess. Some kids from another band might be out to have some fun. On the other hand they might really be worried about something."

A figure appeared in the entryway to call out in bad English that the man, not the women, was wanted at the Do-giagyaguat. So Longarm tossed the pocket knife near her, saying, "Open some more cans and don't eat or drink anything else before I get back, hear?"

Matty sat up, rubbing her eyes, to ask what they were supposed to do if he never came back. Longarm didn't offer any suggestions as he rolled to his feet and ducked outside. It would have sounded hard to point out it wouldn't really be his problem.

He followed his Kiowa guide through the swirling confusion, noting he didn't seem to be under guard as the Indians worked to get set for something ominous.

He found old Necomi and the other Kiowa elders out front of that bi painted tipi, along with five younger Indians dressed much the same with different beadwork. When he heard everybody talking in English he caught on. The visitors had to be Kiowa-Apache, allied or adopted and hence half-ass Kiowa who spoke another lingo entirely. He knew Na-dene, spoken by the so-called Apache, Navajo, and such, was as tough for either a white man or Indian as Arabic or Turkish might be for your average cowhand. You could ask a Comanche or a Lakota what a buffalo was, and while one would say tatanka and the other called it kutsu, they agreed to call the critter something. But Na-dene speakers would ask you whether you meant a buffalo off a ways or in plain sight, grazing, running, or hell, shitting.

Kiowa could only powwow with their little brothers in English or Sign, and Sign being slower, the meeting that morning was being conducted in the hated tongue of the blue sleeves.

Necomi told the head Kiowa-Apache, a scar-faced runt called Eskiminzin, to tell the damned government rider his sad story. So the runty Kiowa-Apache did. He said his own band ranged west of the Wichitas, as close to the reservation line as they could manage without making the Great Father angry. He said they'd been raided more than once by riders who'd sure as hell looked like Kiowa Black Leggings.

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 Hand 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.