than this one cut into the mesa.”
There were. It took the better part of the day, with some volunteers scaling the rocks to scout around with a buzzard’s-eye view, before Longarm and all his so-called Regulators decided there weren’t any fool Indians to be found around La Mesa de los Viejos now.
They reported back, hot and dusty, only to be told another spread had been raided, this time down the river to the south, with the wire still down and nobody moving along the coach road.
When Longarm said you traveled through Apacheria by night but hunted Apache by day, because that was the best time to find them holding still, Queen Kirby told them all to get a good night’s rest and go get the savage rascals at sunrise before they hurt somebody.
Longarm enjoyed a good meal, a hot bath, and even got some rest before Trisha got off work and rejoined him in his hotel room.
After he’d shown her how much he’d been missing her too, she asked how long he’d be staying there in Camino Viejo.
He finished lighting their cheroot, patted her bare shoulder, and truthfully replied, “Can’t say. If those mysterious white strangers were ever holed up around that mesa, they ain’t there now. I might have gone riding with some of them today. Queen Kirby seems to have all the gunslicks in these parts on her payroll. I’m still trying to figure out why.”
She took a drag, handed the smoke back and said, “I was working in Santa Fe when they hired all those Regulators down in Lincoln County. But we sure heard about all the feuding and fussing. You don’t suppose Queen Kirby is out to murder the county sheriff and just take over like a real queen, do you?”
Longarm said, “The lady don’t seem that stupid. The Lincoln County War was mutual stupidity, no matter what you read in the papers about it. The Murphy-Dolan faction thought they owned a whole county because Major Murphy said so three times, like that queen Miss Alice met up with in Wonderland. The Tunstall-McSween side said they owned Lincoln County because Truth, Justice, and Billy the Kid was on their side.”
He took a drag on the cheroot and said, “It was a bareknuckles fight betwixt stubborn cusses who, all huddled together, might have added up to one mature adult. Old John Chisum sided with Tunstall and McSween at first. But being a grown-up, he backed out in time and wound up way better off when… Hmm, I wonder if Queen Kirby noticed that.”
Trisha began to fondle him fondly as she repressed a yawn and asked, “Was that the Chisum they sing about in that trail song, hon?”
He said, “Nope. Jesse Chisholm blazed that cattle trail north from Texas. John Chisum is the biggest cattle king in New Mexico Territory now. Because he had the brains to pull in his horns and sit it out as the Gingham Dog and Calico Cat ate each other up. You can’t just shoot folks, rob them of their land and property, and sit there like a fool dog with a bone, no matter how wild Ned Buntline writes about these parts. The Murphy-Dolan boys gunned Tunstall and McSween in turn, only to have their tame Sheriff Brady back-shot and have martial law declared by the new governor appointed by President Hayes. Jimmy Dolan ran off, along with most everyone else who meant to go on living outside of jail, or simply go on living. Old Murphy died broke, his business ruined by the war and his health ruined by all the nerve tonic he’d been taking in increasing doses. Some say The Kid is washing dishes down at Shakespeare, near the border. I don’t know where he might be right now and don’t much care. He’s only wanted local for gunning Sheriff Brady. My point is that everyone got ruined but Uncle John Chisum. When it was all over he was in position to buy up all that property mortgaged or abandoned by the fools who’d ground one another down to nothing, see?”
She began to stroke it harder as she demurely replied, “I guess so. But there only seems to be one side around here. There’s Queen Kirby and those Indians she wants you boys to get rid of for us all. No white folks around here are at feud with Queen Kirby, and the Indians don’t have any property anyone can grab without the government’s say-so, right?”
He snubbed out the cheroot and rolled back on top of her as he decided, “That’s about the size of it. But I’ll be switched if I can see anyone hiring her own well-paid army to fight Indians pro bona—meaning a free public service in lawyer talk.”
Then he was too busy to talk, and she wouldn’t have been listening in any case, as they both went deliciously loco some more.
The next few nights were as nice, or nicer, with Trisha proving a real sport about experimenting in bed or anywhere else he could think of. But the days went tedious as hell, with those infernal raiders neither moving on to fresh fields of action nor offering a stand-up fight. It was almost as if the painted rascals were out to taunt the white eyes in and about Camino Viejo; for they seldom hit more than half a day’s ride in any direction, and always seemed to double back and hit some more every time it seemed they’d ridden on.
Everybody Longarm talked with seemed as bewildered, whether they worked for Queen Kirby or her neighbors. Some were more jealous than others, but nobody was on really bitter terms with the hard-faced but jovial redhead.
Some Western Union riders repaired the wire to Santa Fe. It was cut somewhere else the same day, as if the Indians had been watching.
Longarm watched for smoke signals as he led patrols out on both sides of the river, trying in vain to cut the Indians’ trail, with just enough sign hither and yon to let you know they were still around without saying exactly where.
Then it got worse. Wes Jones, leading his own patrol south along the riverbanks, came upon what was left of old Pappy Townsend and the bunch he’d led all the way to Santa Fe and back in search of the man who’d gunned their young kinsman Jason up at Loma Blanca. When Jones brought them back, stacked like bloated cordwood on a buckboard, it was generally conceded they’d have been far better off staying up in Loma Blanca. One could only hope the bodies had been stripped and carved up that thoroughly after they’d been killed.
Queen Kirby ordered eight pine coffins in a hurry for the bunch of them, and sent them on their way north, more dignified if not a whiff sweeter-smelling under the sunny New Mexico sky.
When he told Trisha about it later, the pale blonde turned paler and said she was scared, which sounded reasonable. Then she pleaded with him to take her away from such savage surroundings, which he would not, he told her, because he wasn’t fixing on going anywhere before he learned what was going on.
