time. For though the moon was rising now, it was still nearly pitch-black around him and that thing had swooped at him like a diving eagle who’d known where it was going!
Could it have been an owl? Too big. No owl he’d ever heard had flapped as loud and mean as that. For that matter, he couldn’t remember ever running into an eagle that size! He’d been attacked by an eagle as a kid, trying to collect some eggs for some foolish kid’s reason, and the sound of its angrily flapping wings had been a pale imitation of whatever had just snatched off his hat!
He was still wondering about it when the moon pushed an edge above the horizon and he could see the pale streak of the road better. The road was empty. The overgrazed weeds lay ghostly gray around him for at least a hundred yards, and there was nothing there to see.
After a while, he rose slowly to his feet and walked over to his hat, where it lay in the road. He examined it for talon marks, and finding none, put it on. Then he clucked soothingly to the chestnut and caught the reins. The horse was still nervous, but he soothed it and remounted. He kept the saddle gun across his thighs as he resumed his way west toward the agency.
It took him a while to get there, this time. The rising moon kept telling him he was alone as he slowly rode across the prairie, straining his ears for the sound of those mysterious wingbeats. But, though there was nothing to see and not a sound to be heard out on the lonely range, he kept swinging around to look behind him.
Longarm spent the morning at the fenced quarter-section, showing a bunch of Blackfoot kids how to twirl a throw-rope. By the time he saw that their interest was flagging a bit, he had two of them getting the knack of a passable butterfly and at least five who could drop a community loop over a fence post one out of three tries. He called a halt to the lesson. If he hadn’t gotten them at least curious about roping, by now, they weren’t like any other kids he’d ever met.
As he ambled back toward the agency buildings one of the older boys fell in beside him to say shyly, “The white man’s rope tricks are fun, but my father says the ways of the cowboy are not our ways.”
Longarm said, “I don’t mean any disrespect for your elders, Little Moon, but your daddy likely doesn’t know that the art of roping was invented by Indians. Us American hands learned roping from the Mexicans, who learned it from the Aztec, Chihuahua, and such.”
“You’re making fun of me! There were never Indian cowboys before you people came here!”
“Nope. No white cowboys, neither. The cowboy was born when the Spanish horsemen got together with the Indian hunters who roped deer and antelope, down Mexico way. The vaquero, buckaroo, or cowboy owes as much to the red man as the white. Down in the Indian Nation, there are some Cherokee and Osage cowboys few men could hold a candle to. Jesse Chisholm, who blazed the Chisholm Trail, was a Cherokee.”
“Oh, we know about the Five Civilized Tribes,” Little Moon said scornfully. “They are not real Indians. My father says they live like white men.”
“Your Daddy’s right about that point, Little Moon, but I doubt if the Cherokee would agree that they weren’t real Indians. In their day they were wild enough, and the Osage lifted their fair share of white folks’ hair in the Shining Times. All in all, though, the Five Tribes, Osage, and such Comanche as have taken to herding longhorns are living better than you Blackfoot, these days.”
The boy walked head-down, pondering, before he shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I think it was better in the Shining Times, hunting the buffalo and Utes.”
“Maybe,” Longarm concurred, “but those days are gone forever. As I see it, you’ve got two choices ahead of you, Little Moon. You can learn new ways for the new times coming, or you can sit out here on a government dole, feeling sorry for yourself while the rest of the world leaves you behind.”
“Wovoka says more Shining Times are coming. If all of us stood together we could go back to the old ways and-“
“Wovoka’s full of shit,” the deputy cut in. “I hope you won’t take it unfriendly, son, but you could gather every tribe in one place, armed and mounted, and one brigade of cavalry would be pleased as punch to wipe you out. What happened on the Little Big Horn was a fluke; old Custer only had about two hundred green troops with him. The army has new Gatling and Hotchkiss guns, now, too. So at best, that gives you three ways to go. You can learn to make your own money, or you can take the little money the B.I.A. might dole out as it sees fit, or you can just go crazy with the Ghost Dancers and die. Meanwhile, you might work on what I just showed you about roping. You’ve got to loosen up and remember to swing the loop twice to open it up before you throw. Your aim ain’t bad, but your throwing is too anxious.”
Leaving the Indian youth to ponder his own future, Longarm walked past the agency to the back door of the cottage Prudence Lee was staying in. As he mounted the back steps to knock, she spied him through the screen door and opened it, saying, “I was just brewing some coffee. I’m afraid your suggestion about asking for Indian recipes turned out pretty dismally!”
He joined her in the kitchen as she waved him to a seat, explaining, “You forgot to tell me Indians put bacon grease instead of sugar in their coffee. Uncooked white flour dusted over canned pork and beans is rather ghastly, too!”
Longarm chuckled and said, “Lucky they didn’t serve you grasshopper stew. The grasshoppers ain’t all that bad, but the dog meat they mix in with it takes time to develop a taste for.”
Prudence paled slightly. “Oh, dear, I did eat some chopped meat boiled with what I hoped was corn mush. You don’t think-?”
“No, I was funning. They only eat stuff like that when they’re really hungry, and old Cal’s been seeing to it that the rations are fairly good. There’s nothing wrong with Indian cooking. It’s just that they have different tastes. I’ve met some who hated apple pie, and Apache would starve before they tasted fish. Some tribes look on eating fish the way we look on eating worms.”
She grimaced as she put a cup of coffee in front of him and said, “I wonder if I’ll ever get used to conditions out here. The Bible Society never told me what it would be like.”
“They likely didn’t know. Folks back East have funny notions about this part of the country. It ain’t the Great American Desert Fremont said it was. It ain’t the Golden West of Horace Greeley. It’s just different.”
“I’m trying to adjust,” she said with a sigh, “but I’m beginning to see how it might drive some women, well, strange.”
He wondered if she was talking about Nan Durler, but he didn’t ask. He said, “I came by to ask a favor, Miss Prudence. You were fixing to hold some sort Of Pow-wow here this evening, weren’t you?”
