Longarm didn’t answer. They rode in silence until they regained the tracks and swung east. After a time they saw a pony grazing in the moonlight. Its saddle was empty.
Rain Crow said, “That is Yellow Leggings’s pony.” Then he called out, loudly, in Algonquin.
There was no answer, but somewhere in the night a burrowing owl hooted back at them mournfully.
Longarm followed as the Indian led, shouting for his friend. He felt as though something was crawling around in the hairs on his neck. He slid the Winchester out of its boot and held it across his thighs as they rode on. He heard a distant chuffing coming up behind them and warned, “Train’s coming, Rain Crow. Let’s swing wide so the locomotive won’t spook our mounts!”
As the Indian ahead of him did so, Longarm saw his own shadow painted on the silvery, moonlit grass by the yellower light of a railroad headlamp. Rain Crow shouted something in his own language and moved forward at a dead run as Longarm followed. Then he, too, saw something up ahead, illuminated by the beam of the eastbound train.
The train overtook them and thundered by as Rain Crow dropped to the ground, shouting, “It’s Yellow Leggings! Wendigo has him!”
Longarm’s Own Mount shied as the scent of blood reached his flaring nostrils and Longarm had to steady him before dismounting. He joined Rain Crow by the dark mass on the ground and lit a match with his free hind. Then he swore and shook it out. He’d seen enough.
But Rain Crow took a little bull’s-eye lantern from his saddlebags and lit it, cursing monotonously in Algonquin. He swung the beam over his dead friend’s body and the trampled grass around. Then he said, in English, “It’s like the others. No head. Not a drop of blood more than ten feet from the body!”
“The head could have been toted off in an oilcloth poke or something.”
“Yes, but what does Wendigo want with their heads?”
“Wants to scare you, most likely. We’re wasting time here. You know we ain’t likely to find sign. Let’s ride over to the next rise the roadbed cuts through. My map says it’s twelve feet deep.”
The Indian remounted and Longarm did the same. They were almost at the railroad cut when Rain Crow reined in and whispered, “Another pony. There, off to the south of the tracks.”
“I see him. Looks like a big buckskin-Oh, damn you, Lord! You couldn’t have let that happen!”
He loped over to where Buck stood, reined in, and almost sobbed, “Damn that gal! I told her not to come looking for me out here!”
The Indian said quietly, “Over there, near the tracks, pale in the moonlight.”
Longarm raced his mount over, slid it to a stop and leaped from the saddle to kneel at the side of Roping Sally, or what was left of her. He didn’t light a match. What he could see was ugly enough by moonlight. He pounded a fist hard against the sod by his knees and said, “We’ll do right by you, honey. If that son of a bitch is on this earth within ten miles he’s going to die Apache-style!”
Longarm walked to the lip, and got down, calling, “Shine that bull’s-eye over here, will you?”
Rain Crow did as he was asked, sweeping the rim of the drop-off with the narrow beam. After a time he said, “Nobody was up here when that train went by.”
“Let’s look over on the other side. A left-hander would have reached for a grabiron from over there.”
They rode down and across the tracks to repeat the same investigation on the north side of the track. The dry prairie straw betrayed no sign of blood or footprints, but when Longarm had the Indian swing his beam near his own boots, he saw that didn’t mean much. The drained soil up here was bone-dry and baked brick-hard. The stubble had been grazed by jacks, judging from a rabbit turd he saw, and his own heels didn’t leave tracks. Longarm took his hat off and threw it down, as he yelled, “All right, Lord! I’ve had just about enough of this shit!”
The Indian’s voice was gentle as he said, “The woman back there meant something to you, didn’t she?”
“Goddamn it, Rain Crow, shine that fool light somewhere else, will you?”
“I know what is in your heart, and there are tears in my eyes, too.”
“Well, I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me. I got a bottle in my saddlebags. Before we go for a buckboard to transport the two of ‘em, I figure we could both use a good stiff belt, don’t you?”
“Indians are not allowed to drink, Longarm.”
“I know. We’re going to kill that bottle anyway.”
Chapter 10
Longarm was still three-quarters drunk as he waited outside for the coroner to finish. He would have been drunker if he’d known how, but the numb anger in his guts had ruined his plumbing and the stuff was just going through without dulling the pain. It was bad enough to find a stranger’s body mutilated and beheaded, but he knew he’d dream a spell of nightmares about that once-shapely body he’d intended to remember with pleasure.
A trio of cowhands came over to him as he sat on the wooden steps in the wan morning sunlight. One of them said, quietly, “We ride for the Double Z. Is it true Roping Sally was killed by Indians?”
Longarm shook his head and said, “no. Whoever did it killed two Blackfoot in the process. I’d be obliged if you boys would pass the word about that. The Indians have enough to worry about without other folks after ‘em!”
“We heard about them other killings, Deputy. Heard there’s a Paiute medicine man out there, too, stirring up a rising.”
“The Indian police know about the fool Ghost Dancer. They’re keeping an eye on him. Blackfoot never had much truck with Paiute in the old days. He’s just flapping his mouth in the wind, I suspicion.”
“Army gent was telling us Washington’s worried about this here Ghost Dancing. That Paiute cuss, Wovoka, has been down in the Indian Nation selling his medicine shirts, too.”
“There you go. None of the Five Civilized Tribes has risen. We’ve got all sorts of folks spouting religion in these
