The Indian shrugged. “There is plenty of aspen, juniper, and pine along the ridges. You will find a high chaparral of pinyon and scrub oak as far east as the reservation line. I can’t answer for the goat-loving Nakaih or cow-herding Pindah Lickoyee grazing right up to the line and sometimes crossing it. Nobody grazes the canyons the Anasazi used to dwell in. There is nothing there for a full-grown rabbit to eat.”
Longarm nodded. “So I’ve been told. Yet others say all them strangers have moved in among them long- deserted cliff dwellings and seem to be guarding them from all corners. I’d sure like to know why. You say you had some riding stock to show me?”
The Indian rose from the table. “We have many fine ponies, many. Come. I will show you and you can have your pick. But I don’t think you will find anyone over in those canyons you just spoke of. Not anyone alive. In our Shining Times, some of our hunters entered those dry canyons to see what might be there. Some came out excited, to say they had seen chindi! Others never came out at all. The shades of dead people can be cruel, and a lot of people must have died when all those old empty ruins were still young!”
Longarm rode out of the Dulce Agency just before sundown. He didn’t see any Indians. That didn’t mean a hundred or more pairs of dark sloe eyes weren’t watching his every move, So whether it would be passed on or not, Longarm moved westward along the railroad tracks, as if headed on toward Durango for whatever white-eyed reason.
He was riding a black-and-white paint and leading a buckskin, seated astride a double-rigged roping saddle made by the Mullers. His denim duds, like his borrowed saddle, were meant to pass him off at any distance as a cowhand riding to or from some outfit not too far away. Most riders north of, say, Santa Fe telescoped hats of any color the same way because it would take a fancy Mexican chin strap to keep a high-crowned hat on when the mountain winds got frisky all of a sudden. Longarm had felt no call to change his sepia Stetson, which was overdue for some steaming and blocking in any case.
Despite the fool descriptions of him printed by reporter Crawford in the Denver Post, and despite the likelihood a lawman of some rep might be heading toward his real destination, Longarm knew lots of old cowhands sat tall in the saddle with a heavy mustache, and even more wore a double-action Colt on their left hip, cross-draw with the tailored hardwood grips forward, loaded with the same S&W.44-40 rounds as the Winchester ‘73 booted to the off side of the roping saddle. He had iron rations for maybe three days on the trail packed hidden in the bedroll and personal saddlebags he’d lashed to the roping saddle’s cordovan skirts. For when strangers rode by packing lots of trail supplies, a body could get curious as to just how far they’d come or how far they meant to go.
He’d left the well-broken-in manila throw-rope buckled to the off swell to add to the picture, since far more cowhands than lawmen rode as if they might be chasing cows.
It was an even-money bet he was wasting time and effort as he rode on into the golden sunset with the mountains he meant to ride over rising blood-red behind him in the lavender eastern sky. For it was one thing to swear a Jicarilla police sergeant to secrecy, and another to assume neither he nor his moon-faced wife would confide a bit to their own kith and kin.
But half a chance was better than none and well worth the taking when it wasn’t costing more than a couple of extra hours on a cool clear-weather trail through pleasant scenery.
Though the glowing light made it tougher to make out all the details, he could still see why the Jicarilla might not want to leave for any uncertain surroundings to the south. That fool report he’d read back in Denver said the BIA wanted to move the Jicarilla for their own good. The government was always moving Indians somewhere else as a way to improve their condition, and the Cherokee were still cussing Andrew Jackson for it after all these years. The report on the Jicarilla failed to mention the New Mexican cattle interests who’d cussed poor U. S. Grant for setting aside all this mountain greenery for Apache rascals who’d fought the New Mexico militia to a draw. Both Anglo and Mexican settlers had been fuming and fussing over all that swell range being wasted on fool Indians who didn’t know how you made real money on marginal range and semi-arid woodlands. The scenery along the way was too pretty for high country being managed for real money.
He was well out of sight from the Dulce Agency when he turned in the saddle to see a big fat star winking down at him from a purple sky. He kept riding away from it as he recited to his ponies:
“Star light, star bright, Same star I saw last night. Wish I may, wish I might, See a different star some night.”
Then he swung south, away from the track, saying aloud, “We’ll see where this shallow dry wash leads us by moonrise. Ought to be able to circle Dulce and make her up around the eagle nests without too many Jicarilla spotting us in the moonlight. They don’t find moonlight as romantic as us white eyes. They won’t even go raiding after dark before they work up a powerful medicine against the evil eyes most folks call stars.”
Longarm had more than one good reason to follow the southward-trending wash as darkness fell all around. The broad sandy bottom was easier for his eyes to make out, even as the steep, brush-rimmed banks on either side screened anyone moving along it. Best of all, since the snakes preferred twilight time for supper, neither the critters they hunted nor the diamondbacks themselves had any call to be scampering about in the open with two full-grown ponies crunching sand their way. High Apacheria got too cold for a sand-loving sidewinder on many a night, and the critters only bred where they could make it through the whole year.
Longarm figured they’d worked at least three miles south of the Dulce Agency when the big full moon popped up from behind the crags to the east as orange as a pumpkin ready for pie. So the next time they crossed a deer trail headed the right way, he reined in, changed mounts, and took it.
There was much to be said for mankind’s way of laying trails the way men wanted to go and to hell with a few dips or rises. But riding a strange mount in unfamiliar territory, Longarm preferred to work his way along trails laid out by other four-legged critters. Deer, being in less of a hurry and having no call to work harder than they needed to, tended to wind along contour lines a man would have a tough time following even in better light. So neither pony gave him any trouble as they wound their way ever eastward with the light improving as the rising moon got whiter while appearing to be getting smaller. Longarm had won cow camp bets on that optical illusion. You proved your point by aiming at the moon, high and low, with a calibrated gunsight. It still looked all wrong, but measurement was measurement.
The Continental Divide wasn’t always where the mountains rose highest. The uncertain dotted line on the map indicated where the falling rain wound up running down to sea level one way or the other. So while Longarm had to get over the official Continental Divide, it wasn’t nearly as high in these parts as in the Sangre de Cristos on the far side of the upper Rio Grande. Geology courses wouldn’t take four years if this old earth had been stuck together simply.
They still had some climbing to do before midnight and, deer not really caring which way the rivers might
