“Oh, no, nothing exciting like that. Trying to find the dang Utes. They aren’t down yet, though they normally would be by now.”
“Nothing serious, I hope,” Giver said.
“Naw, nothing serious.” Murder, bombing, stuff like that. Nothing serious.
Giver peered off into the distance as if there was something in a far corner of the roof that would give him the powers of insight. Or something. After a moment he shook his head. “I’m not for sure where they’d be either. Used to come by here every year before now, but they quit using the road a couple years back after that bunch of young bucks ran wild and killed those fellows down the other side of the Divide.”
Longarm remembered reading about that, although he hadn’t been involved in any investigation that might have taken place afterward. A bunch of young Ute warriors who had never proven themselves in a fight decided one night to claim their manhood by way of taking some scalps. They slipped away from the rest of the band and found a pair of out-of-work mining men camped out beside the highway, jumped and killed them, and took their scalps to dance with. It had made quite a stir in the newspapers at the time, but that was half a dozen years ago or longer. As far as Longarm could tell, that was the last time these eastern Utes had killed anyone. “I remember that,” he said, accurately this time.
“So do others around here. Made it pretty clear the savages weren’t to use the road anymore.” Giver shrugged. “It cost me a little business, but not so much. They never did all that much trade with me anyway when they came through.”
“You don’t happen to know what route they follow nowadays?” Longarm asked.
“Sure do. They come down Slater Creek—that’s south of here about twelve, fourteen miles—then up and over the backside of the Peak.”
Longarm grunted. That was pretty much the way he’d just now come. Without running into the band he was looking for.
“They’ll be along by and by,” Giver said. “I’ve never known them to fail. They always come eventually.”
“Guess I’ll ride back down and see can I find them.”
“Anything I can do for you while you’re here, Marshal?”
“Not unless you got something to eat.”
“No, but if you’re riding south you’ll pass by the Widow Clark’s place. She sets a good table and won’t charge you for it, although if you insist, she’ll take a little something to replace the supplies she’s used up. It, uh … she could use the help, if you see what I mean.”
“I do, and I thank you for the suggestion.” Longarm touched the brim of his Stetson, then turned away. He stopped again, though, before he reached the door and turned back to face Giver once more. “Say, now. Would you happen to have a piece of paper and a stamp? It just now occurred to me that I took off from Denver without leaving word, and I oughta do something about that while I can.”
“Paper, envelope, and stamp, all for five cents. You can’t find a better bargain than that,” Giver claimed. “Oh, and a pen and ink to write your letter with. You can stand right here at the counter if you like. I won’t peek, not even after you leave.”
Longarm pushed his hat back a mite and accepted the writing implements Giver laid out for him. In all the fuss and feathers after Billy’s murder, he never had gotten around to telling Debbie what was going on. She deserved better than that. Especially, Longarm thought, if he intended to see her once he got back to the city.
And he damn sure did hope to see that lovely lady again once things shook out and Billy’s murderer was where he properly belonged.
Longarm paused for a moment of thought, then began scratching a quick note for the tall and buxom nurse whose company he enjoyed so much.
Chapter 13
The postmaster’s directions were easy to follow, and even—wonder of wonders—accurate. Longarm found the broad, grassy valley twelve or fourteen miles south of the Florissant Post Office where one creek flowing sluggishly out of the west joined another, faster-moving stream that came down from the north. Longarm suspected that the north-south-flowing creek was the same one he’d already crossed a dozen or more times when he was up on the mountain. Here the two joined to continue southward, no doubt eventually adding their waters to the Arkansas River.
It was not the creeks that captured Longarm’s attention, though, so much as it was the numerous fire rings left unused at least over the past winter, and the elliptical beaten areas of grass, covering an area of four or five acres nearby, that showed where temporary lodges had been erected in past years.
This, he was sure, was one of the Utes’ stopping places on their twice-annual migrations from the mountains to the plains and back again.
He was equally sure that the tribe had not yet gotten this far in their journey this season. Longarm spent several minutes gazing out over the landscape, trying to decide if he should ride west up the narrow, lush valley of what the Florissant postmaster called Slater Creek, or if he should instead venture south into the area sometimes known as High Park, the smallest and least known of the chain of protected wintering places.
A wrong choice could mean missing the tribe in their travel and a serious delay in the pursuit of Billy Vail’s murderer or murderers.
After a few minutes of thought, he accepted logic above urgency and stepped down from his saddle to begin unpacking. Since he did not know which direction to take from there, it made sense to sit still and wait for the Utes to come to him.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Longarm mumbled under his breath as a soft, crunching-tearing sound wakened him from what had been a deep sleep. It was not quite dawn yet, the sky to the east pale and luminous but with no sign yet of actual sunlight visible beyond the tall, conical peak that dominated the horizon above the valley.
The source of the noise that had disturbed him, Longarm discovered without having to move from his bed, was a herd of elk cropping grass on the far side of the creek not forty yards from where he’d spread his bedroll.
There must have been well over a hundred animals in all strung out beside the creek bed, twenty-five or thirty
