barn.
Steed said under his breath, “When are they going to start dishing up the grub? I’m damn near starved.”
“So am I,” Floyd agreed. “You reckon they’ll eat before the burying?
Or wait till it’s finished?”
“I’m as hungry as the rest of you, I guess,” Bobby said. “What you reckon they got in all them platters and pots?”
“It’d better be food,” Steed told him. He took another swallow from the almost empty bottle. “My belly thinks my throat’s been cut.”
Several of the older women came from the barn and sat down near Belle. They stared silently ahead. The other women began carrying the food from the wagons into the house.
“I sure hope that grub they got is fit to eat,” Floyd said. He caught Longarm’s eye and winked broadly. “Let’s see, Sam was part Cherokee. Ain’t it the Cherokees that likes dog meat, Windy?”
“Oh, most of the redskins I know about eat dogs,” Longarm replied. “Sioux, Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Comanche. I guess the Cherokees do too.”
“Dog meat?” Bobby gasped. “Is that what we’re going to have to eat?”
“Oh, you don’t have to eat if you don’t want to, Bobby,” Floyd said. “Or you can pass up the meat and fill your belly with bread and potatoes and garden truck.”
“You and Floyd are funning me, aren’t you, Windy?” Bobby asked. “Those folks don’t even look like Indians. They don’t really eat dogs, do they?”
“Well, they’re all of them part Cherokee, Bobby,” Longarm answered. “But I reckon they’ve given up a lot of their Indian habits.”
“Dog meat or not, I don’t aim to wait any longer for some grub,” Steed said suddenly.
Longarm looked at the outlaw. Steed was weaving on his feet; the whiskey on his empty stomach was proving to be more than he could handle. Before anyone could stop him, Steed staggered over to the wagons. There was only one woman in sight. She was lifting out a heavy pot. Belle and the woman on the porch had moved into the house. “You think you better go bring him back?” Longarm asked Floyd.
“Ah, Steed won’t hurt the woman. He’s just gone to find out when we’re going to be fed.” Floyd was feeling the liquor almost as much as Steed.
Longarm watched as Steed approached the wagon. The woman heard him coming up and half-turned, having balanced the pot on the edge of the wagon’s side. Steed said something to her, and the woman shook her head. He gestured at the pot. His wild arm-waving overbalanced him, and Steed lurched heavily into the woman.
Longarm saw trouble looming and started to move. He got to the wagon just as Steed grabbed the woman’s arm. She kicked at his shins, still trying to hold onto the pot, but almost dropping it.
“Don’t put your hands on me!” she said as Longarm came up.
“Now, listen, you damned-” Steed began.
Longarm cut off whatever Steed had been about to say by grabbing his shoulder and whirling him around. “Leave the lady alone, Steed,” he ordered sternly. “This ain’t a time or place to stir up a ruckus.”
“Let go of me, Windy—or by God-“
Longarm increased the pressure of his steel-hard fingers on Steed’s collarbone. Steed broke off his intended remark to say, “Damn you, turn me loose! That hurts!”
“You’ve had a drink too many,” Longarm told the outlaw. “Go on back over there with Floyd and Bobby and cool off.”
Steed sobered up quickly as he got the message from Longarm’s hard voice and crunching grip. The memory of Mckee may have helped speed his recovery. He protested, “I wasn’t aiming to hurt her. All I want is a bite of something to stop my belly from griping!”
“Then wait, like the rest of us. Now come on. Let’s go back over there with Floyd and Bobby.”
Longarm swung Steed around. He hadn’t really looked at the woman, intent as he was only on hustling Steed away from a situation that could create trouble. They’d gotten several steps from the wagon when she called, “I still don’t know your name, but thanks for the second time!”
“You’re welcome,” Longarm replied. He turned as he spoke, and looked back. He recognized her then. It was the woman he’d bumped into at the shindy. As they had the day before, Longarm’s eyes widened. Her face was one of the prettiest he’d seen in a long time, now that he got his first good look at it when it wasn’t pulled into a grimace. There wasn’t any special feature that drew his attention, just a general impression of mature beauty.
He said, “My friend didn’t mean any harm, ma’am. We just put in a morning’s work digging Sam’s grave, and we’re a mite starved out.”
“There’ll be plenty to eat as soon as Cousin Sam’s buried,” she said. “It wouldn’t be respectful if we made him wait until after we’d eaten, though.”
Longarm nodded. “We’re not all that hungry. We can wait.” In a lowered voice, he told Steed, “You were acting like a damn fool. If that woman had yelled, you’d have had all of Sam’s men kinfolk piling out of that barn and onto you.”
“Hell, I didn’t mean anything, Windy. I only wanted to see if I couldn’t get a bite to eat.”
“Just the same,” Longarm began. He stopped as a drumbeat sounded from the barn, then another. He nodded and said, “I guess we’ll be eating soon enough. It sounds to me like Sam’s funeral’s just started.”
