one and the same?”
“I’ll eat that apple a bite at a time. If they’re the same gent, I’ll catch ‘em both whenever I catch one. If they ain’t, I’ll catch ‘em separately. I’ve been asking about for a stranger with a limp. Nobody’s seen any.”
“Could be Johnny knows you’re here and just lit out to other parts. As I see it, his only reason for hiding out here would be because you didn’t know he could pass for an Indian. You get my drift?”
“Sure. Real Bear’s the only victim who could have identified him. You’re still breathing, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Longarm?”
“If Johnny Hunts Alone killed Real Bear to keep from being given away, he’d have done better to go after a white man he’d hunted with than a mess of Indians and a gal who never knew him.”
“I see what your meaning is and I thank you for the warning. Anyone out to skin this hombre and take his head had best be good at it, though. I know the breed on sight and I can get riled as hell when folks start cutting off my head!”
Longarm rose to his feet as the scout got up, remounted, and rode away with a friendly wave. Longarm was about to go into the house, but Prudence Lee fluttered out, and whispered, “Don’t go in, they’re fighting.”
Longarm heard the sound of breaking crockery and a man’s voice raised in anger through the open doorway. He nodded and said, “Maybe we’d best go for a ride or something.”
“Oh, I’d like that. Calvin said something about riding out to an Indian ceremony, later. Could I go along?”
Longarm started to shake his head. Then he thought of his plan for enlivening the festivities and said, “It might prove interesting, at that, if a white gal was there watching.”
Fair was fair, though. So he said, “Miss Prudence, I’m going out with Rain Crow and some other Indian police to make some folks feel foolish. I don’t expect danger, but there’s likely to be some cussing.”
“Oh, it sounds exciting! Calvin said you were trying to expose the Ghost Dancers as frauds, and I’m very interested in Indian lore.”
“Yes ma’am. Some of such lore can tend to be a bit racy. You did say you were married once, didn’t you?”
“Heavens, do you expect an orgy?” Prudence asked breathlessly.
“Ain’t sure. I haven’t been to many Ghost Dances. If I let you come along, you’ve got to promise to sit there poker-faced and not say anything, no matter what.”
“I think I can manage that. If you’ll help me with my side-saddle
…”
“We’ll be taking the buckboard, ma’am. Indians don’t laugh at wheels the way they do at white ladies riding funny. I’ll be putting some bags of feed around the edges of the wagon bed. If I should say to, I’ll be obliged if you sort of flatten out behind ‘em while the lead flies.”
Chapter 11
It was sunset as the naked Ghost Dance missionary pranced up and down in front of the assembled Blackfoot elders gathered out on the prairie. His hair was long and stringy and his penis was painted red for some reason. He was about thirty years old and chanted in English as he waved the limp leather medicine shirt he held in one hand. His own Paiute dialect would have made no more sense to the Blackfoot than it would have to a white man, so as Longarm and the girl drove up to the edge of the crowd with Two Noses and Rain Crow at either side, they could understand his meaning as he pointed the gourd rattle in his other hand at them and shouted, “Behold, the white man comes with a woman and two of his Blackfoot hunting dogs. Do not listen to their words, my brothers. The whites are ignorant of the message of Wovoka!”
Longarm reined in at a discreet distance, ignoring the sullen muttering from the crowd as he nodded to the missionary and shouted back, “You just go ahead and have your say, old son. We’ve come in peace to learn, not to dispute religion with a man of the cloth—if we stretch cloth to include red paint, I mean.”
The missionary wiggled his hips, swinging his painted penis, but Prudence Lee didn’t blanch as he and even Longarm might have expected. She sat prim and straight on the buckboard seat, looking at him like he was a bug on a pin.
He held the leather garment up and shouted, “So be it! Hear me, my brothers! Wovoka has blessed this medicine shirt! These others you see by the council fire are for your warriors. When the time comes for our dead ancestors to join us in a final battle for our lands, the bullets of the soldiers will not hurt you if you wear them!”
Longarm muttered, “Stay here, ma’am. Rain Crow, you see that nobody trifles with Miss Prudence, hear? I’m gonna mosey over and take a closer look and listen.”
He climbed down and made his way to the front of the crowd, hunkering down politely on his heels and not saying anything as the Paiute shouted, “All our dead ancestors will come back from the Happy Hunting Ground to join us! All of them! The soldiers may be many, but think of our numbers if every Indian who ever lived rides at our side against the soldiers!”
Longarm called out, “Can I ask a polite question? I was wondering if you’d tell us what tribes Wovoka had in mind.”
“Tribes? Wovoka makes no distinction, white man! Our Ghost Dances shall raise all the dead!”
“White dead, too? You mean these folks have to face George Armstrong Custer and his men again? If you don’t mind my saying, Custer was a mean son of a bitch at Washita and some other places even before you boys killed him!”
“Don’t mock me, white man. Wovoka’s medicine is only intended to bring back dead Indians!”
“I suspicioned as much. Tell me, does he aim to raise the Crows, the Utes, the Pawnees?”
“Of course. Every Indian who ever was!”
The Paiute missed the worried muttering from some of the old men around Longarm. He was probably a stranger in these parts.
