you, I give up. Agreed?”
“Hell, no! I got the jasper and possession is nine-tenths of the law. I don’t need no territorial judge to say who he belongs to. The prisoner belongs to me!”
“Longarm, you’re acting like a fool!”
“That makes two of us, doesn’t it?”
Kim Stover called over to Longarm, “Please be reasonable, Deputy Long. I don’t want my friends to get in trouble!”
“They’re already in trouble, ma’am! This ain’t coffee and cake and let’s-pretend-we’re-vigilantes! You folks wanted the fun without considering the stakes. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though. You and any others who’ve had enough of this game can ride out peaceable, and I won’t press charges.”
“What are you talking about! You’re in no position to press charges! We’re trying to save your life, you big idiot!”
“Well, I thank you for the kind thoughts, ma’am, but I’ll save my own life as best I can.”
Foster yelled, “I’m moving Mrs. Stover out of range, Longarm. You’re obviously crazy as a loon and the shooting will be starting any minute now!”
Longarm watched them go back to their boulder, then rolled over on one elbow to gaze up at the cliffs above him. The prisoner’s face was pale and cold, now, and the eyes were filmed with dust. Longarm pressed the lids closed, but they popped open again, so he went back to watching the skyline.
His eyes narrowed when, a good ten minutes later, a human head appeared as a tiny dot up above. Another, then another appeared beside it. Longarm suddenly grinned and waved. One of the figures staring down at him waved back. Longarm went to the still-smoldering shale-oil smudge fire and, keeping his head down, used his saddle blanket to break the rising column of smoke into long and short puffs. The next time he looked up, the dots on the rim rock had vanished.
He crawled back to the breastwork, tied his kerchief to the barrel of his Winchester and waved it back and forth above the wall until Foster hailed him, calling out, “Do you surrender?”
“No, but you’re about to. Tell the folks around you not to get spooked in the next few minutes. Some friends of mine are moving in behind you and some old boys shoot first and ask questions later when they see Indians. Tell ‘em the ones coming in are Utes. They won’t kill nobody, ‘less some damn fool starts shooting!”
“What in the devil are you talking about? It’s my understanding the Utes are not on the warpath!”
“‘Course they ain’t. They’re on the Ouray Reservation, about a ten-hour ride from here, when they ain’t investigating smoke on the horizon. The Ouray Utes are wards of the U.S. Government, so I thought I ought to send for ‘em. Some of ‘em don’t speak our lingo, so make sure nobody acts unfriendly as they come in to disarm YOU.”
“Disarm us? You can’t be serious!”
“Oh, but I am, and so are they. I just deputized the whole damn tribe. You said eighteen-to-one was hard odds? well, I figure I now have you outgunned about ten-or twelve-to-one. So don’t act foolish.”
“My God, you’d set savage Indians against your own race?”
“Yep. Had to. Only way I could do what I aimed to be doing.”
“What’s that, get away from us with my prisoner?”
“Hell, I could have done that days ago. The reason I led you all down here was to put you under arrest.”
“Arrest? You can’t arrest me!”
“If you’ll look up the slope behind you, you’ll see that I’ve just done it.”
The Mountie turned to stare openmouthed at the long line of armed Indians on the skyline and the others coming down the trail on painted ponies. He saw white men getting up from behind rocks, now, holding their hands out away from their gunbelts as they tried to look innocent. A pair of Ute braves had Timberline on foot between their ponies and to avoid any last-minute misunderstandings, Longarm got up from behind his little fort and walked over to them, waving his Stetson.
An older moonfaced Indian on a stocky pinto rode it into the creek and waited there, grinning broadly as Longarm approached. He said, in English, “It has been a good hunt. Just like the old days when we fought the Sioux and Blackfoot in the high meadows to the north. What is my brother from the Great White Father doing here? Do you want us to kill these people? They do not seem to be your friends.”
“My blood brother, Hungry Calf, is hasty. Is the agent over on your reservation still my old friend, Caldwell?”
“Yes. He is a good man. He does not cheat us as the one you arrested that time did. We did not bring him. Agent Caldwell is good, but he says foolish things when we ride out for a bit of fun.”
“I’d like to have all these people taken to the reservation, Hungry Calf. I’m arresting them in the name of the Great White Father.”
“Good. We will take them to Agent Caldwell, and if he gives us his permission, we will hang them all for you.”
“Tell the others not to harm them in any way. Most of them are not bad people.”
“Ah, but some of these saltu have broken the white father’s law. Can we hang them?”
“You won’t have to. You Ho have herds of longhorns, now. You know how a hand cuts the critters he wants from a rounded-up herd?”
“Of course. Herding longhorns is less fun than hunting, but we are now fine cowboys, if what Agent Caldwell says is true. We shall drive them all in together, then my brother can cut the bad ones out for the branding. It should be interesting to watch. I have never herded white people before.”
