of them bunched close enough to hit with a well-pitched rock. They obviously had come down to water in the thin light of dawn and were taking their time about it, enjoying the rich bottomland grass as well.
Longarm looked them over and decided they were too grand a gift to be ignored. After all, what is a party without plenty of roast meat for the feasting?
And Longarm did intend to throw a party for the Utes when they showed up.
With a grunt of satisfaction he slid the Winchester out of its scabbard and, still lying snug and warm inside his blankets, took easy aim on the chest cavity of a particularly large and tasty-looking cow.
The herd erupted into a miniature earthquake of snorts and whistled warning calls and pounding hoofs at the sound of Longarm’s gunshot, but the cow dropped in her tracks and never so much as quivered, while the rest of the bunch ran frantically toward the line of low hills to the east, where they immediately disappeared into the timber. Longarm never got another glimpse of them climbing for the safety of the heights, even though he knew where to watch, where the huge, majestic animals almost had to be. Within seconds he might have believed he’d imagined the whole thing. Except, that is, for the presence of the dead cow lying on the grass mere paces from his bed.
Stretching then and yawning, Longarm laid the Winchester aside, sat up, and pushed the covers off his body. He leaned down to stir last night’s ashes into this morning’s fire with the addition first of some dry grass and then, quickly after, a handful of twigs and small branches he’d gathered the evening before. As soon as he had a fire going, he set his coffeepot over it and only then stood, yawning again, to bring out his knife and walk over to the downed elk.
He had work to do there so he would be ready when the Utes arrived.
Chapter 14
“Long Arm! Heya. Long time no see, yes?”
“Too long, old friend,” Longarm told the grinning, nearly toothless Indian who dropped unhurriedly off the side of his horse and came forward to grab Longarm in a bear hug that made rib cartilage pop. “How are you, Bad Eye?”
“Good, yes, and you, Long Arm?”
“Better now that I see my friends the Ute people.”
“You come to visit with your friends, Long Arm?”
“I do, Bad Eye. Tell your women there is meat to roast, there, and tonight when the meat is ready to eat we will feast together.”
“You have whiskey, Long Arm?” Bad Eye asked, eyeing—with two perfectly sharp eyes despite his name—the casks sitting some distance apart from Longarm’s spare and spartan camp.
“You know it would be against the law for me to give whiskey to you, Bad Eye. I cannot do that.” The Indian’s expression became sad. Longarm winked at him. “On the other hand, I can’t pay attention to everything that goes on behind my back tonight,” he added.
Bad Eye laughed and turned to say something to the group of young warriors who had also dismounted and come over to get a closer look at this white warrior who several times in the past had proven himself a friend of the tribe. The men chortled with delight at whatever it was Bad Eye told them. Not that Longarm had much doubt about the gist of that conversation. There would be whiskey to be had this evening, and best of all, it would be without cost. They would not even have to barter for it, just help themselves whenever Long Arm was not looking.
Longarm let the men talk among themselves. While they did so he was busy searching beyond the gathering of males, peering at the crowd of women and children who pushed and shoved as they jockeyed for positions from which they too could inspect the tall white man.
There was, he admitted to himself, a particular face he hoped to see there.
But he did not. Dammit, he did not. Spotted Fawn must not have come along with this particular band this year. She might have stayed on the reservation far to the west or gone off with another band, or might even be accompanying a husband somewhere for all he knew. After all, it had been a rather long time since he’d seen her.
He’d been hoping, though. He admitted that to himself now. He thought about asking Bad Eye, and then decided it would be better to let it be. If she was not there, well, there was nothing he could do about it. But he’d sure been hoping.
“Come, Long Arm. Smoke with us while the women make the lodges ready and kill some fat dogs to add to your meat. Tonight we will feast together, heya? Tonight we are brothers once more.”
“Yes, Bad Eye. Tonight we are brothers again.”
Enemies tomorrow perhaps, Longarm acknowledged to himself alone, but brothers tonight.
“Come, Long Arm. My pipe is here. Do you have tobacco?”
Dutifully Longarm pulled out a twist of tobacco and gave it to the headman of the band, not expecting any of it to be returned—nor was he disappointed in that expectation.
But then this exact thing was the reason he’d come all this way to find the Utes. Now he needed to soften them up and make their tongues loose. By morning, he figured, he should have a pretty good idea if any of this bunch—or for that matter any of the rest of the tribe—might have been plotting to kill the commissioner from Washington City.
Chapter 15
Helluva party, Longarm thought with considerable satisfaction. Most of the Utes were sloppy drunk by now. Hell, he was a little tight his own self. The world had a nice, fuzzy glow and buzzed all around him. Longarm sat in a place of honor before a roaring fire, the creek—and the whiskey—behind him where he could not see the frequent forays into the booze made by the young men of the tribe.
The whole thing was, or so he hoped, on the legal side of things. Technically speaking, that is. And that, after all, was what would be important to the lawyers who might someday look into these events should Longarm ever be called upon to testify about what he learned there. Federal law prohibited him from selling or trading whiskey to
