and left him sort of bloody.”
“Any mail who don’t know how to fall has no call wearing cowboy boots.”
“What am I supposed to do now, call you my Prince Charming and swoon at your feet?”
“Nope. I’d rather talk about the lay of the land where we’re headed. You said your daddy, Real Bear, is the only one who can point out this Johnny Hunts Alone to me. How come? I mean, don’t the other Indians know a stranger when they see one?”
“Of course, but you see, it’s a new reservation, just set up since our tribes were rounded up by the army in ‘78. Stray bands are still being herded in. Aside from Blackfoot, we have Blood and Piegan and even a few Arapahoe gathered from all over the north plains. My father doesn’t know many of the people living with his people now, but he did recognize Johnny Hunts Alone when the man passed him near the trading post last week.”
“The owlhoot recognize your dad?”
“Real Bear didn’t think so. My father knew him over fifteen years ago and they’ve both changed a lot since, of course. It wasn’t until my father got to my house that he remembered just who that familiar face belonged to!”
“In other words, we’re traveling a far piece on the quick glance and maybes of one old Indian who might just be wrong!”
“When you meet Real Bear, you’ll know better. He doesn’t forget much. Aren’t you going to ask about our house?”
“Your house? Is there something interesting about it, ma’am?”
“Most white people, when they hear me mention my house, seem a bit surprised. I’m supposed to wear buckskins, too.”
“Well, I ain’t most people. I’ve been on a few reservations in my time. What have you got up there, one of them government-built villages of frame lumber that could use a coat of paint and a bigger stove?”
“I see you have seen a few reservations. Ours is a shambles. The young white couple the B.I.A. sent out from the East doubtless mean well, but … you’d have to be an Indian to understand.”
Longarm fished a cheroot from his vest and when she nodded her silent permission, thumbnailed a match and lit up, pondering her words. He knew the miserable fix most tribes were in these days, caught between conflicting policies of the army, the Indian agency, and loudmouthed Washington politicos who’d never been west of the Big Muddy. He took a drag of smoke, let it trickle out through his nostrils, and asked, “What’s this other trouble you mentioned about the young men wanting another go at the Seventh Cav?”
“The boys too young to have fought in ‘76 aren’t the real problem. Left to themselves they’d just talk a lot, like white boys planning to run off and be pirates. But some of the older men are finding civilization more than they can adjust to. You know about the Ghost Dancers?”
“Heard rumors. Paiute medicine man called Wovoka has been preachin’ a new religion over on the other side of the Rockies, hasn’t he?”
“Yes. Wovoka’s notions seem crazy to our Dream Singers, but the movement’s gaining ground and even some of our people are starting to make offerings to the Wendigo. You’d have to be a Blackfoot to know how crazy that is!”
“No I wouldn’t. The Wendigo is your Dad’s folks’ name for the devil, ain’t it?”
“My, you have been on some reservations! What else do you know about our religion?”
“Not much. Never even got the Good Book that I was brought up on all that straight in my head. Blackfoot, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and other Algonquin-speaking tribes pray to a Great Spirit called Manitou and call the devil ‘Wendigo,’ right? I remember somethin’ about owls being bad luck and turtles being good luck, but like I said, I’ve never studied all that much on anyone’s notions about the spirit world.”
“Owl is the totem of death. Turtle is the creator of new life from the Waters of Yesteryear. I suppose you regard it all as silly superstition.”
“Can’t say one way or another. I wasn’t there. It might have took seven days or Turtle might have done it. Doubtless sometime we’ll know more about it. Right now I’ve got enough on my plate just keeping track of the here-and-now of it all.”
“Does that make you an atheist or an agnostic?”
Longarm bristled slightly. The last person to call him an atheist had been a renegade Mormon night rider who had left him to die in the Great Salt Desert. He had had plenty of time to ponder on the godless behavior of those who accused others of godlessness. “Makes me a Deputy U.S. Marshal with a job to do. You were saying something about devil worship up where we’re headed, Miss Gloria.”
She shrugged and replied, “I don’t think you could put it that way. People making offerings to the Wendigo aren’t Satanists; they’re simply frightened Indians. You see, it’s all too obvious that Manitou, the Great Spirit, has turned his back on them. The Wendigo, or Evil One, seems to rule the earth these days.”
“Is he supposed to be like our devil, with horns and such, or is he a big, mean Indian cuss?”
“Like Manitou, the Wendigo’s invisible. You might say he’s a great evil force who makes bad things happen.”
“I see. And some of your folks are praying to him while others are taking up Wovoka’s notions about the ghosts of dead Indians coming back from the Happy Hunting Ground for another go-round with our side. I don’t hold much with missionaries, since those I’ve seen ain’t been all that good at it but right now it seems you could use some up on the Blackfoot reservation.”
“We have a posse of diverse missionaries on or near the reservation. My father would like to run all Dream Singers off, Indian as well as white. I hope your arrest of Johnny Hunts Alone will calm things down enough for him to cope with.”
Longarm nodded and consulted his Ingersoll pocket watch, noting that they had a long way to ride yet. The girl watched him silently for a time before she murmured, “You’re not as dumb as you pretend to be.”
