outfits, like the Double Z or maybe the Tumbling R?”
“Not that I remember. Why?” Chadwick asked.
“Takes a big outfit to afford hired guns, flying machines, and such.”
“I see your meaning. Have you thought about the army?”
“Sure I have. They’re spoiling for another go at the Blackfoot and the War Department has observation balloons, too. But some officer out to start an Indian war to advance his career wouldn’t have to use spooks. He’d just dream up some incident and start blasting away.”
“If some soldiers were trying to frighten the Blackfoot into a jump, and knew the when and where of it …” the agent suggested.
“Too damned complicated. The second lieutenant out at the fort’s ornery enough to frame up some excuse to kill Indians, but why shilly-shally about with Wendigos? If he had even one man in his command willing to murder for him, he’d just have the rascal scalp some passing white, and bye-bye, Blackfoot!”
“Yeah,” Chadwick agreed, “the War Department’s never been too subtle. How about the B.I.A., as long as you suspect your fellow federal employees all that much?”
“Hey,” Longarm said, “it was you who brought up the War Department. But I’ve considered whether the Bureau of Indian Affairs might have a reason to scare their own charges off. They haven’t got one. The minute the Blackfoot are gone, Washington cuts the funds allocated for feeding the tribe and, if there’s one thing the Indian Ring doesn’t cotton to, it’s leaving money in the Treasury.”
“Some of those funds tend to stick to fingers along the way, too,” Chadwick observed. “It wouldn’t make much sense for the B.I.A. to want to go out of business, would it?”
“Not hardly. Maybe now you see why I keep chewing the same bone over and over. It’s boring the shit out of me, too!”
“So,” the land agent said, “no matter where the trail seems to take you, it keeps leading back to a crazy man, or an Indian spook.”
“I don’t like those possibilities, much, either. I’d best be on my way and see who else I can come up with.”
Longarm left the land office and headed for where he’d tethered his chestnut in front of the saloon. He saw a townie nailing up a cardboard placard and paused to read it over the man’s shoulder. It was an election poster, advising one and all to vote for Wilbur Browning for county sheriff. Longarm frowned and opined, “Seems to me your man is getting anxious, considering. The coroner tells me you’ve never held elections hereabouts, since there ain’t enough county to mention.”
The man finished hammering the last nail and said, “I know. Damned Indian reservation takes up most of the county and there ain’t enough of us whites to matter. But that fool Paddy Murphy’s not worth the powder to blow him up with. So we’re fielding Browning against the shanty son of a bitch!”
“Browning’s a rider for the Double Z, ain’t he?” Longarm asked.
“Yeah, he shot a Texan in Dodge one time, which is more than Murphy can say. The territorial governor’s given permission for elections and we aim to vote Murphy out.”
“Reorganizing the unincorporated districts, is he? That’s right interesting. They say anything about, uh, expanding the county, over at your party headquarters?”
“Hell,” the man said, “we ain’t got a headquarters. Ain’t rightly got a party, either. But since Murphy’s a Republican, the boys over at the livery who paid for these signs must be Democrats.”
“Don’t you know for sure? Seems to me a legal election has to register voters ahead.”
“Shit, nobody in Switchback’s all that fussy. We just aim to have us a real lawman. If Murphy won’t be voted out polite, we’ll just tar and feather the son of a bitch and ride him out on a rail.”
Longarm cleared his throat and adjusted the brim of his hat. “Well, as I’m a federal man, it may not be my call to tell folks how to hold local elections. But you’ll find elections work better if they’re legal. How come folks are so anxious about politics, all of a sudden?”
“It’s the killings out on the reservation. We keep telling Murphy he ought to do something about it and he keeps saying it ain’t his jurisdiction. Wilbur Browning says he’ll jurisdict the shit out of that Wendigo son of a bitch if we give him the job.”
“The Blackfoot have their own police force out there. I suspicion they won’t want your man’s help all that much.”
“It don’t matter what they want. All these Indian rascals running about killing folks have everybody spooked. Seen some more damn Indians just this morning, coming up from the railroad station armed to the teeth.”
A troubled look darkened the tall lawman’s features. “Wait a minute,” he said. Are you saying men from other tribes are in Switchback?”
“They weren’t Blackfoot. Don’t know where they were headed. I ain’t an expert on Indians, but one of the fellows over to the railroad said they were Sioux. They were dressed like white men, save for braided hair and likely needing a bath, but Wes Collins, who used to be in the army, allowed as how the lingo they were jabbering was Dakota.”
“You couldn’t say which way they rode, huh?”
“Well, they ain’t washing dishes here in Switchback, or asking for a job as hired hands, so they likely went on out to the reservation.”
“You say this morning, eh? They’ve got four or five hours’ lead on me and I doubt they’ll be reporting in to the agent. I’ll tell the Blackfoot police about it and let them take care of it.”
“How do you know you can trust your Indian police to tell you true about other redskins?”
Longarm started to say it was a foolish question. Then he reconsidered, shrugged, and said, “I don’t.”
