Chapter 16
The young man giggled for no reason that Longarm could figure out. After all, he hadn’t said anything particularly funny. But then Small Stones was pie-eyed, and it doesn’t take much to amuse some drunks. Others might get feisty when they drank, but this fellow Small Stones was a happy drunk, laughing and friendly and full of good cheer. Full of Longarm’s whiskey too, of course, which was all to the good the way Longarm saw it.
“Tell me something, my friend,” Longarm said.
“We are brothers, He of the Long Arm, are we not? I will tell you anything.”
“The white ranchers, Small Stones. Are your people gonna let them use the grass on your hunting lands?”
Small Stones shrugged. “That is a matter of importance, eh? It is not for me to say, my brother.”
“But what does the tribe say? What do the elders say when they are in council? I know Small Stones has ears to listen when his elders speak, just as I know you are a warrior of dignity and respect. I know you would not speak out of turn, Small Stones, but I know you listen well when the old ones speak their thoughts. What do they say? Will your young men fight?”
“Fight, Arm Long? No, we have the treaty now. We are done fighting. Oh, we might fight a little … you know … if those ugly Crow come south where they do not belong or if the Shoshone try to take our horses or our women. Have you ever seen a Shoshone woman? No wonder they prefer ours, eh? Our women are beautiful. A man could not fuck a Shoshone woman unless first he covers her face with a badger’s skin to make her prettier. Is this not so, my brother?”
Longarm laughed appreciatively, but was careful to avoid committing himself to an answer. After all, he’d had occasion to bed both Ute and Shoshone maidens, and had to feel a sort of divided loyalty on the subject, the full truth being that in the darkness of a smoky lodge all women look, feel, and smell pretty much the same.
“You will not fight the ranchers, you think?” he persisted, trying to get the warrior’s mind back on the subject at hand.
“A white raiser of whoa-haw or two we might want to kill, my brother, but we do not. The soldiers would come again. Our people remember too well what happened the last time. We killed so many of you whites. The agent and the teacher and those others. But the soldiers came like a flood of blue cloth, and the booming guns. They killed too many of our people then. They were many and we were few. They would come again. That is what our elders tell us in council. Do nothing to make the soldiers come again for when they do, it is not only the warriors who die … our warriors are not afraid to die; you should know this.”
“We know you have no fear, Small Stones. It is well known among your enemies that the Ute are a fierce and proud people who know nothing of fear.”
Small Stones liked hearing that. His thin chest puffed full and he struggled against the effects of the whiskey in an attempt to sit up tall and stern and handsome while his opinion was sought by the white visitor. “We are strong, yes, but we are not many. The soldiers would come again, and our people would die. Too many. It is well, they tell us, to bide our time. We will talk, not fight. It is said by the new agent that a man of importance will be sent by the Great Father. This man will come to us. He will bring to us justice. He will tell the white raisers of cows to stay away from our treaty lands. He will make things right for us. Our elders tell us we know this to be true because the Great Father himself made to us the promise of land that will be ours alone for as long as grass grows and the waters run down from the high mountains. Is this not so, Arm Is Long?”
“It is so, Small Stones. You have the treaty. I know this to be true.”
“Yes, true. We do not need to fight. This man who comes from the Great Father will tell the other white men to go away, and they will have to leave us and our hunting lands alone for he is a man of importance. Is this not so?”
“It is so,” Longarm said absently, his own thoughts absorbing the fact that Small Stones—and presumably the whole of the Ute Nation—did not yet know that the commissioner was dead. And if they didn’t know … “Tell me something, Small Stones.”
“Yes, Long Arm?”
“Were there young men among you, men who want to fight as warriors once more perhaps, who would go against the advice of the elders?”
Small Stones yawned, then shrugged. “A few disagreed. You know how it is in council. Never will all agree to one thing even if the question is no more than whether it is night or day. Someone will always argue. But there was no heat in those words. We stayed, all of the people, we stayed late in our winter places, and we talked. All the people were able to speak. They listened even to me one night, yes. And I spoke, Long Arm. I said my war club has no enemy’s blood on it, and I would like one time to count a coup. But … I admit this only because we are brothers, Arm Long … I was satisfied that the elders are correct. You see, I remember how it was when the soldiers came that time before. My sister died then, and my uncle. My mother, my other sisters, they would die too, I think, if the soldiers come again. No, we are done with the fighting. I will only taste battle if I am lucky enough to find a Crow or an Arapaho without friends enough to protect him. We will not fight the white man. Never again, I think. We talked much. That is why we are late coming to the grass this season. We talked many days, had much feasting.” Small Stones giggled again. “Not good whiskey like here, but we had meat because of the hunting on our lands where the cattle are not permitted to go. We talked many days, and it was decided. We will not fight again. We will speak with the man sent to us by the Great Father. We will ask him to stand for us when the white men want to take back our lands. We will trust the Great Father to protect his children.”
Longarm grunted. Small Stones was the sixth or seventh Ute he’d asked these questions of tonight. All of them had given him the same response. No, the Ute would not fight again over grazing rights. They would appeal to the commissioner and expect him to do what was right. The agent promised them that this would be so, and the elders agreed it was the sensible course to take. The Ute tribe would not fight, certainly not before laying their case before the special commissioner.
And no, none of them had any inkling that the man from Washington was dead.
“Tell me, Small Stones.”
“Yes, my brother?”
“What do you know about bombs and how to make them?”
“Booms, Long Arm? I do not understand. What is a boom and what does one use it for?”
