something bigger than old Cotton Younger!”
“Well, you just go back to your woman and study on it. I’ve had my say about the missing cadaver and this conversation’s over.”
He left the bewildered little man standing there and continued to the mission. The sun had topped high noon and he found the Caldwell’s and Kim Stover out back, seated in the shade behind the kitchen shed as the harsh, cloudless light made up for the cold night before by baking the dusty earth hot enough to fry eggs on.
Agent Caldwell started to ask more questions, but his wife, Portia, looked knowingly at Kim and said something about making the rounds of the village, adding something about sick Indian kids.
Caldwell muttered, “I don’t remember any of the Utes being sick,” but he let her lead him off after she’d tugged firmly on his sleeve a time or two.
Kim Stover smiled wanly and said, “She’s quite the little matchmaker, ain’t she?”
Longarm sat on the kitchen steps near her camp chair in the shade and said, “She’s got a lot of time on her hands, out here with no other white women to talk to.”
“She was advising me on the subject. I reckon we sort of told the stories of our lives to one another, between supper and breakfast. She doesn’t think I ought to marry up with Timberline.”
“I never advise on going to war or getting married, but the gal who gets Timberline ain’t getting much in the way of gentle. He rides good, though. Must know his trade, to be working as ramrod for a big outfit. Maybe he’s out to marry you for your cows.”
“I know what he’s after, and it ain’t my cows. Ben and me didn’t have much of a herd when he died. It’s thanks to Timberline my herd’s increased by a third since then. I know you don’t like him, but he’s been very kind, in his own rough way.”
“Well, maybe he don’t like my looks. How’d he add to the size of your herd? Not meaning to pry.”
“He didn’t steal them for me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Timberline’s been honest and hard-working, for his own outfit and all the others in Crooked Lance. He’s the trail boss and tally man when we drive the consolidated herd to market because the others respect him. More than once, when the buyers have tried to beat us down on the railside prices, Timberline warned us to hold firm. Working for an eastern syndicate, he always knew the going and fair price.”
“That figures. His bosses back East would wire him the quotations on the Chicago Board. That’s one of the things I’ve been meaning to get straight in my head, ma’am. You folks needed that telegraph wire. When did it first start giving you trouble?”
She thought and said, “Just after we caught that cow thief, Cotton Younger. We wired Cheyenne we had him and they wired back not to hang him but to hold him ‘til somebody came to pick him up. Right after that the line went dead. Some men working for Western Union fixed it once, but it went out within the week. Timberline and some of the others rode up into the passes to look at it. They said it looked like the whole line needed to be rebuilt.”
“Were any of those other lawmen in Crooked Lance while the line was up that one time? More important, did any of them send a message from your father-inlaw’s store?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t speak to him or to his two awful women. My ex-mother-in-law said bad things about me that weren’t true. Her snippy daughter backed her.”
“Do tell? What did they say against you?”
“Oh, the usual small-town gossip about a woman living alone. My sister-in-law’s a poor old maid who likely doesn’t know what grown folks do in the dark. Her mother can’t know much better. All her man thinks about is money. You notice they only have one child, and she was born long enough ago to be getting long in the tooth now. Poor things are spiteful ‘cause they never get no… you know.”
“Ummm, well, they did seem sort of lonesome, now that you mention it. They gossiped about you and Timberline, huh?”
“Oh, that’s to be expected, even though he’s never trifled with me. What they suspicioned was even more vicious!”
“You mean they had more’n Timberline about your dooryard?”
“They as much as accused him of Ben’s death. When he was killed in a stampede they passed remarks about how Timberline had never liked Ben as much as he seemed to like me.”
“That’s a hard thing to say about a man. Anybody go along with it?”
“‘Course not. You may as well know I took it serious enough to study on it, too. I questioned all the hands who were on the drive with my late husband. Talked to hands who weren’t fond of Timberline as well as his own Rocking H riders. Them two old biddies should be ashamed of themselves!”
“Just what happened to your man, if you don’t mind talking about it?”
“It was a pure accident, or, more rightly, Ben was a pure fool. They were driving in rough country when the herd was caught by a thunderstorm. A lightning flash spooked the herd and they started to stampede. My husband rode out wide to head ‘em off and turn the leaders. Riding in fallen timber at a dead run. They say Timberline shouted a warning to him. Called him back and told him not to try, but to let ‘em run, since the running was poor and there was a ridge ahead that would stop ‘em.”
“That sounds like common cow sense, ma’am. What happened then?”
“Ben’s pony tripped over a log and went down. The herd ran over him and the pony, stomping both flat as pancakes. Later, my in-laws allowed it was Timberline’s fault. They said he’d put Ben on the point, knowing it was dangerous.”
“Well, somebody has to ride the point, though some trail bosses tend to pick unmarried men for it.”
“Ben knew cows as well as anyone. Nobody got him killed. He got himself killed trying to prove he was the best cowboy in the valley.”
She looked away as she added, bitterly, “He had to prove he was good for something, I reckon.”
