“That’s an old, feeble argument, Marshal. I’ve heard it before, many times. And I expect I’ll hear it again and again, now that I’m out here in the West. Why, this country belonged to the Indians, and we took it away from them by force.”
“I reckon there’s something in what you say. We crowded the Indians so close together that we made whole armies where there were only small raiding parties before. George Custer wouldn’t have found himself in such a pickle if it hadn’t been for that. And there’s plenty who have lied to them and stolen from them and sold them guns and whiskey and gotten filthy rich in the process, and ruined such lives as they had in what they’re pleased to call the Shining Times. I’ve traded shots with Indians, white men, Mexicans, and even Chinese, and I’ve had some of them help me out when I was in a few tight spots, too. There’s some Indians just as greedy and ornery as white folks can be, which is how they lost some of what they had. They took a lot of scalps and tortured a lot of their own people, way back when, over sharing what they’d staked out as their territory.”
“Oh, I’ve heard that, too. Why should they share? The land was theirs.”
“Land’s not worth much to people unless it’s used, ma’am.”
Maidia was getting angry. “We spoil the land! We dig up the soil and cut down the trees and dam up the rivers and kill the animals. The Indians never did things like that!”
Longarm grinned. “You ever see a Comanche buffalo drive? Or a Ponca village after a Pawnee raid?” He hesitated, then added, “I never did see that last myself, but I talked to men who did.”
“I’m not saying the Indians are perfect,” Maidia retorted angrily. “But they certainly didn’t despoil the land and destroy the forests the way we’ve done in the East, and the way people are beginning to do here in the West.”
Longarm sat thoughtfully for a moment, then got up and walked over to the fire. He picked up one of the few remaining long branches that hadn’t been reduced to firewood length, and began to pull the burning sticks out of the fire and stamp them under his boots, driving them into the dirt and extinguishing them.
Maidia watched him for a moment, her face showing her perplexity. Then she began to feel the bite of the night wind that the fire had kept her from noticing before.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked. “You’re putting out our fire, and I’m getting cold!” Longarm said with great seriousness, “Why, seeing as you’re so dead set against the trees being cut up for firewood, Miss Harkness, I didn’t want you to be embarrassed by sharing any of the heat we been getting from that tree.”
“But we need the fire to be comfortable!” she protested. “If we didn’t”—she stopped short and smiled. The smile became a laugh. She said, “All right, Marshal, you’ve made your point. But I think you exaggerated a little bit, just as I was doing.”
Squatting down, Longarm began rebuilding the blaze. Over his shoulder, he said to her as he worked, “The world might be a prettier place if folks were all considerate to each other, but they ain’t, and that’s why I’ve got this here job of mine. I can’t afford to ponder too much on the way things ought to be—I’ve got to enforce the law, which is about the way things are. And I do my best to enforce the hell out of it. Now, I don’t know anything about you, except you’re a nice-looking young lady, but I’d guess you went to school a lot, and didn’t do much rubbing up against real people. And you sure don’t know much about Indians. Or men, either.”
“I’ll admit I deserved the lesson,” she replied soberly. “I made a very serious mistake in not going to somebody in Fort Smith and asking about those four men I hired. But the man at the livery stable where I went to find out about getting here to the Cherokee Nation seemed to know them, so I just assumed they were all right.”
“Which wasn’t a real smart thing to do,” Longarm pointed out. He added hastily, “Meaning no offense, ma’am. But I’ll see you safe back to Fort Smith, and you can catch a train there to take you back to Boston.”
“I have no intention of going back to Boston,” Maidia said firmly. “I came out here to work with the Indians, and that’s what I intend to do. I appreciate your offer, Marshal Long, but I’ll manage quite well on my own, I’m sure.”
“You know I can’t just ride off and leave you to look out for yourself,” Longarm told her sternly. “Now, I’ll tell you what. You backtrack with me a little ways tomorrow morning. There’s a little place on the river called Webbers Falls, only eight or maybe ten miles from here. I’ll find somebody dependable there to ride with you to wherever you’re going.”
“I have a letter of introduction to a Reverend Miller in some place called Choteau. I found it on the map; it’s quite a distance north. There’s an Indian school there, and I’m hoping to find a place teaching, to begin with.”
“A while back, you said something about being a social worker,” Longarm said. “Guess I don’t rightly know just what that is.”
“Generally, it’s just being helpful to poor people and those who don’t have an education. I’m qualified as a teacher, though, among other things.”
“As long as you got a place waiting, that’ll make me feel better. But how about my proposition, Miss Harkness? Will you go along to Webbers Falls with me, and let me pick out somebody to ride with you and see that you get to Choteau safe and sound?”
“Of course I will. I think it’s very thoughtful of you to offer to help me.” Maidia hesitated for a moment. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology, Marshal. I misjudged your actions earlier—not that I approve of them, you understand—but I’m beginning to see that the standards I’ve been judging things by can’t always be applied to this part of the country.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Longarm assured her. “And meaning no offense again, you sound a lot smarter now than you did when you were ripping me up one side and down the other for what I done. But that’s put behind us, I guess?”
“Yes, I guess it is,” she agreed.
“Good. Now, if we’re going to be comfortable tonight, I’ve got to look after some camp chores. The first one’s to get rid of him.” Longarm nodded at the corpse. “And then I’ll see what I can rustle up in the way of some supper.” Keeping her eyes off the body, Maidia said, “You do what’s necessary. I don’t know much about cooking over a campfire, but I’ll help you as much as I can in getting dinner ready.”
Longarm dragged the late Jasper to the grave that had been intended for Maidia Harkness. He went through the man’s pockets before covering the grave, but found nothing in them that would help identify him, just a
