weights this time or do we have to cut ‘em out and run ‘em over to your fool scales by the slaughterhouse again?”
Before the agent could answer, Longarm said, “We were just talking about that, Sally. New government policy. Uncle Sam’s buying them by the head, now.”
“Do tell? What’s the offering price per head these days?”
“They’re offering ten dollars a head for scrub stock. But seeing you’ve got some prime beef mixed in with those other cripples, how does fifteen sound?”
“Shit! I can sell ‘em to the meat packers at railside for more than that!”
“I know. Maybe you’d do better that way.”
She grinned and said, “Might have known you’d wise old Cal up. When do I get my money? Ain’t been paid for the last beef yet.”
Durler said, “I sent the voucher weeks ago, Sally. You know how Washington is.”
“That’s for damn sure. I’d starve to death if nobody was buying my good beef. Say, Longarm, what are you doing in that army saddle? I thought you was a cow man.”
“Used to be. Working for Uncle Sam on a government horse and rig these days.”
“Hell, I wanted to see if you could throw a rope without hanging yourself. You want to borrow Buck?”
Longarm was about to decline, but he noticed a handful of young Blackfoot had drifted over to watch the sundown diversions.
He remembered the idea he’d had in the cigar store and nodded. By now one of the teenaged hands riding with Roping Sally had joined them and the girl swung out of her dally saddle as he steadied the buckskin for her. She walked over to Longarm with a swish of her chaps and said, “You can tie down if you’ve a mind to. My reata’s a new one.”
Longarm dismounted and walked around to the near side of the buckskin. He shot a glance at the girl’s mount before he put a foot in the stirrup, muttering, “That’s the way it’s going to be, huh?”
He swung up in the saddle as the grinning boy passed him the reins and moved away. The buckskin took a deep, shuddering breath and exploded between Longarm’s legs.
He’d expected it since noticing the white of the buckskin’s rolling left eye, so he was braced for a dispute from the one-woman horse. Buck crow-hopped five or six times, saw he had a rider aboard, and started getting serious.
Roping Sally yelled, “Ride him, cowboy! Wahooooo!” as Buck and Longarm got acquainted. The buckskin shook himself like a wet dog at the top of every ascent through the evening sky and came down with the spine-snapping jolt of a serious bronc who wasn’t afraid of sinking up to his knees in bedrock. The Indian kids were shouting now. Longarm didn’t know if they were rooting for him or the horse as he noticed Buck was losing interest in killing him. He yanked his hat off with his free hand and started slapping it across the buckskin’s face, grunting, “Let’s get it all out of you, you old son of a bitch!”
But Buck had had enough. He was sensible as well as ornery and it’s tedious to work up a sweat over a man who won’t be thrown. Longarm saw that he had the buckskin under control and ran him hard once around the inside of the fence line to get the feel of him as he uncoiled a loop of reata. As he came by at a dead run, he whirled his medium-sized loop just twice to open it, and threw.
The dismounted Roping Sally crabbed sideways as she saw his intention but the leather loop came down around her head and shoulders anyway as she grabbed it, yelling, “You drag me and I’ll kill you!”
Longarm let go the coil to keep from doing any such thing as he reined Buck to a skidding stop, whirled him around, and dropped to the earth with a bow of mock gallantry.
Roping Sally looked relieved and said, “I thought you were mad. I forgot to tell you old Buck ain’t named after his color.”
“It was sort of interesting. You want to do me another favor?”
Roping Sally disentangled herself from her own rope and coiled the other thirty-five feet in, clucking about the way he’d let the oiled leather lay in the dusty stubble before she asked, “What’s your pleasure? I don’t screw, if that’s what you mean.”
“You see them Indian kids watching? Cal, here, has been trying to get them interested in working cows. I thought maybe you, your hands, and me might show them how much fun it can be.”
“I get your drift. What’ll we show ‘em? More rope work or some fancy cutting?”
“Let’s just play it by ear. I don’t have a saddle horn or rope, so I’ll cut. You three throw some cows down for the hell of it.”
He turned to Durler and said, “We’re putting on a wild-west show for your kids, here. Why don’t you talk us up? You might mention that working cows is almost as much fun as hunting buffalo was, when they had buffalo to mess with.”
Durler laughed and said, “I got you, Longarm. You there, Short Bird! Come over here, I want to talk to you.”
So, as the Indians watched, Longarm started cutting cows out of the uneasy, milling herd as Roping Sally and her two helpers went through the motions of roping and branding. Longarm enjoyed it as much as the grinning Indian kids, for Sally was a lovely thing to watch in the soft evening light as he worked with her. His army mount wasn’t a good cutting horse, but he managed well enough, and every time he sent a steer running her way Sally roped it on the first cast. She roped underhanded, overhanded, and sideways, as if her reata was an extension of her fingers. She caught and stopped them by the horns, by either hind foot, and once she dropped a rolling loop in front of a young steer and grabbed him around the belly as he leaped through the hoop. Her dismounted helpers threw each critter she caught and hogtied it as if for branding. Longarm noticed they never got sloppy, like some hands, and threw a critter on the wrong side. He Surmised that every animal she owned was branded on the left rump, the way well-tended cows were supposed to be. It was nice to see serious work. In his time he’d seen cows branded on the right side, either flank, or shoulder. Some old boys didn’t seem to give a damn where they marked a cow, as long as they got done by supper.
