and her boys had sunk in. He decided it might have, once he was sure nobody, red or white, was following him or laying for him out ahead.
It was tough to either trail or ambush an experienced plainsman on such open range, once he was on the prod and watching for either.
Longarm took advantage of the breeze at his back and gentle slopes ahead of them to make better time going back than he had coming out. So it was still fairly early in the afternoon as he rode into New Ulm again, keeping to the narrower back ways on purpose lest someone ahead get word he was coming before he wanted to advertise he was back to pester them.
He wasn't even thinking about good old Ilsa Pedersson as he cut through a residential block a couple of streets over from her place. But she seemed even more surprised when they almost crashed into one another on horseback, with her riding good old Blaze at a smart trot. The comely widow woman smiled and howdied him, so Longarm had to tick his hat brim to her. But he felt no call to tell her where he'd been or where he might be going.
She must have wanted to know, for she swung her smaller black mount around to fall in place at Longarm's left, gazing archly at him over a calico-clad shoulder with her shapely rump aimed his way while she told him she'd just been over at the river landing on business and that she'd surely missed him at her supper table, once those pies had cooled and things had quieted down along her street.
He knew exactly where she'd really been missing him, after suppertime, because he'd been thinking about females all the way back from Sleepy Eye, although in the line of duty, of course.
He asked old Ilsa how well she really knew Helga Runeberg, both of them being Swedish as well as Brown County gals. The somewhat older but far prettier widow woman made a wry face and demanded, 'Have you been sparking her as well? I suppose you think I haven't heard about you and that Vigdis Magnusson at my very own bank!'
Longarm managed a poker face as he quietly replied, 'I don't see why they bother printing a newspaper in this gossiping county seat. It's true Miss Magnusson has been helping me out with my investigation. I told you, late one night, how I'd been sent here to look into that hundred-dollar treasury note, and that lady happens to be a material witness. As to Miss Helga Runeberg-'
'What has that silly young Vigdis got that I haven't got?' the visibly upset Ilsa asked.
It would have been needlessly cruel to tell her. So Longarm said, 'We were talking about Helga Runeberg, and you have my word she don't like me at all. I just crawfished my way out of a fight with her and a bunch of her riders. They all seemed to feel I should have let an Indian who rode with them pepper my hide with number-nine buck.' lisa said she knew all about Longarm's rough ways with both her sex and his own, adding, 'It's about time some girl said no to you. You're too smug about your looks by hill!'
Longarm shrugged and just let her fuss a spell as they rode side by side along the cottonwood-shaded back street. When he saw a chance to slip some words in sideways, he said, 'I know I ought to be hung as a menace to womankind, Miss Ilsa. Meanwhile, I'm still a lawman, and I keep feeling I've seen that surly little face of Helga Runeberg's at some other time and place, mayhaps on somebody else. Somebody told me she had a kid sister. What about brothers or other immediate kin that might have the same distinctive eyes and nose?'
The older county resident thought, shook her head, and decided he couldn't have ever met Helga's father or real uncle, Jarl, both of whom had died years before. She added, 'The last I heard of the younger Runeberg girl, Margaret, she'd run off to Chicago with a cattle buyer. Somebody told us later they'd really gotten married and settled down fairly well off.'
Longarm thought, then said, 'I've been to Chicago Town more than once. But I reckon I'd recall any Swedish gals married up with either crooked or half-ways honest cattle buyers. There's no such thing as a totally honest cattle buyer.'
Thinking of Chicago Town and the meat-packing trade made Longarm think of another widow woman, the younger and even prettier Kim Stover, who'd met up with him there, sort of like this afternoon, after they'd agreed to part friends out Wyoming way. A man could sure raise himself an erection astride a split-seat saddle, thinking about women whether he'd ever split their seat or not.
Then lisa coyly murmured that she had to turn off at the next cross street, but that she'd baked another pie and she could save some for him if he'd like to come calling after dark, well after dark, by way of her alley gate.
It was tempting in more ways than one. If the gossips up that other alley knew about him and old Viggy, it made no never-mind who he called on after dark as far as his own reputation went. After that, seeing he had to disappoint one or the other, this older gal doubtless had more delicate feelings, and it was sort of nice to pillow-talk afterwards with somebody who might really care about what you thought about something besides her.
On the other hand, if breaking up with a gal made a man look sort of dumb, breaking up with the same gal a second time made a man feel downright stupid. He was still pissed off at himself about all those tears and recriminations after that day and night in Chicago with good old Kim Stover, after the both of them had just about gotten over an earlier sweet night of madness and some cold gray empty mornings.
So when they came to Ilsa's corner he said he'd study on it, once he carried out some uncertain chores in town. For there was no need to burn a bridge behind him, and another way to feel dumb as hell was to make double certain you'd have no other gal to turn to if something unexpected got a beautiful blonde sore at you.
He left the buckskin, McClellan, and most of his gear at the livery near the river, and legged it back to the center of town with his Winchester and six-gun on foot.
He stopped first at the New Ulm Western Union. It was a tad early to expect answers to anything he'd sent from Sleepy Eye, but they were holding replies to some earlier wires he'd sent from New Ulm.
He put them away and legged it on over to the courthouse, where he found that clerk in the coroner's office had one, but only one, death certificate of any interest to either of them.
As the county man explained, 'None of the others on your list seem to have fallen on greater misfortune than needing money at Christmas time. That one old gent who died after drawing out his life savings won't work as a murder victim either. As you can see from all this paperwork, signed by a town constable and half a dozen witnesses as well as his attending physician, old Jacob Thorsson was run over by a brewery dray in front of God and everybody whilst full of the holiday spirits, which would have been pear brandy in Jake's case.'
Longarm studied the papers the helpful clerk had dug out of their files as he softly mused, 'Gents have been run over deliberately, and this one had just drawn close to ten thousand dollars at his bank to just about clear his account entirely!'
