“No. We’re supposed to, but they never installed it. I use the one at the federal land office in town on government business. The land agent’s sort of mad about it, too. Who’d you aim to wire?”
“My office. They figured I’d just come here, arrest the jasper Chief Real Bear pointed out, and be on my way back by now. I don’t reckon they’ll think Johnny Hunts Alone got the drop on me if I don’t get in touch tonight. You’re sure I won’t be crowding you folks?”
“Hell, we’re delighted to have white folks to talk to. Nan and me don’t go to town much. The locals seem to blame us for past misdeeds of the Blackfoot, and maybe some Comanche, too! We’ve got us some champion Indian-haters in this territory!”
“Well, Montana was all Indian land up till a few short years ago, so the locals are mostly the same people who drove the Indians back into this one corner to start with. How’s Gloria Two-Women taking her daddy’s murder, now? Did you get her calmed down enough for me to talk to yet?”
Durler shook his head exasperatedly. “Oh, she’s jumped the reservation again, Says her name is Withersomething-or-other, now.”
Longarm arched an eyebrow. “Do tell? When did all this happen?”
“While you were over getting this horse. Gloria said a lot of crazy things, then she sort of took herself in hand and went over to her house to pack her duds. Deer Foot helped, but it’s a funny thing—Gloria won’t speak Blackfoot anymore. She says with her daddy dead she’s not an Indian anymore. How do you figure that?”
Longarm shrugged. “Likely makes as much sense for her to try to make it as a white woman, after all. If I’d been here, I’d have suggested she try living in Oklahoma, where breeds have an easier time than most places. Maybe she knew that, though. She didn’t say where she was going, huh?”
“Nope. Just rode to Switchback to catch a train. They could probably tell you at the station where she took it to, if you really want to question her about what happened.”
“Hardly seems worth it,” Longarm sighed. “She was with me when her daddy was killed, so we know she didn’t do it. I, uh, got to know her pretty well on the train ride up from Denver, so I don’t reckon she left anything out I could use, and even if she was here, she couldn’t identify the jasper for us. Is Rain Crow back with anything, yet?”
“He was by here an hour ago. He hasn’t found out much we didn’t know already. He did say the old ones don’t think a man did it. They say the Wendigo punished Real Bear for turning his back on the old ways and accepting a breed as his daughter.” Durler shook his head wearily and added, “It’s as well Gloria lit out. She was a proud little thing and some of the talk about her is right ugly.”
Longarm studied a crow flying past and tried to appear disinterested as he asked, “Oh? What sort of gossip are the old squaws spreading about the gal?”
Durler shrugged and said, “The usual back-fence bullshit about any gal who lives alone, if she’s pretty. She lived right next door, so Nan and I can tell you she was proper. They say she was married to a white man once. It was before we got here, so I can’t say what went wrong. As far as I know, she was a perfect lady.”
“I’ll remember her as perfect, too,” said Longarm, shifting his weight to meet the younger man’s eyes again as he changed the subject. “I noticed you’ve got corn in the feed troughs. You been shipping it all this way with all this free grass around?”
“I grew the corn on my so-called model farm. The soil hereabouts is piss-poor or I’d have grown a real crop.”
Longarm laughed and said, “You must be one hell of a farmer, Cal. If you’d asked me if you could grow corn on this reservation I’d have said it was impossible!”
Durler stared morosely down at the tawny stubble all around and said, “It damn near was. Like I said, it’s poor soil and the Indians shirked such honest toil as I assigned ‘em.”
Longarm knew it wasn’t his job, but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about such an obvious greenhorn notion. He said, “There’s nothing wrong with the soil, Cal. It’s the crop that was all wrong. You’re a mile above sea level and damn near in Canada. About the only farm crop you can grow up here is barley. Corn’s a lowland crop. Needs at least twenty inches of rain a year to survive.”
“Yeah, I noticed our fields were a mite dry. I had Indians haul water to the corn. They didn’t cotton to it much, but I knew Indians ate corn, so …”
“Cal,” Longarm cut in, “it ain’t my call to tell you how to run your spread, but there’s Indians and there’s Indians. Your Blackfoot lived on wild game, roots, and such, before the army showed them the error of their ways. It’s no wonder they’ve been shirking. No offense intended, but you ain’t showing them how to farm the high plains. You’re showing them how to make the same mistakes every other nester who’s been dusted out has made, over and over.”
Durler’s jaw had a stubborn set to it as he snapped, “I’ll admit I don’t know this country, damn it, but what am I to do? My job is to make small-holders instead of hunters out of the Blackfoot. They gave me the job because I was a fair farmer, back East!”
“I don’t doubt it, Cal. There are abandoned homesteads all over the prairie, left by men who came out West with the skills they learned in other parts. You just can’t farm out here the way you do back East.”
“Will you show me how, then?”
“I don’t aim to be here all that long. For openers I’d say to drill in some rye and barley next time. Then I’d get some of the old-timers to advise me about the climate, soil, and such.”
“None of the nesters will talk to me, damnit!” the agent said sourly.
“I didn’t mean white old-timers. These Indians were here long before it got so civilized. I know you’re not keen on farming and you’ll have as much to show them as they have to show you, but you’ll do better talking to them than lecturing them. You get my drift?”
“Hell, only a handful speak English.”
“I know. It would make your job a lot easier if you and Nan learned Blackfoot.”
“Good God! We’d never be able to in a million years! I don’t know one word of Blackfoot!”
