nobody can say where a particular police patrol is supposed to be, or who'd be leading it! You got a whole heap of range to police, Sergeant Tikano. Don't you have, say, a wall chart divided into numbered beats for your boys to ride?'
The Indian and his agent exchanged puzzled looks. Longarm nodded and said, 'I'm commencing to see what I'm doing here. Might you at least have a table of organization?'
When that didn't work he tried, 'A list of riders signed up to draw government wages as nominal peace officers?'
It was the agent who brightened and said, 'Oh, sure, I'm the one who pays them extra on allotment day. We have us a force of about two dozen so far.'
Longarm frowned and observed, 'That's hardly enough to patrol a reserve bigger than some eastern states!'
Tikano shrugged in resignation and explained, 'We haven't been able to get many to join. The others laugh and refuse to obey when they see a Real Person dressed as a Saitu. Quanah says we are not to beat anyone just for laughing at us. We can only use force if we see them doing a really bad thing, but of course, nobody does anything bad when one of us is around.'
He sipped more corn and continued. 'In our Shining Times our old ones made laws. But they were not the laws the Great Father expects us to follow today. When young men were appointed to make everyone obey the rules that had to be obeyed, they were not the same lawmen every day. One group would be appointed to keep order during the hunts for Kutsu, I mean the Buffalo, while others would keep order in camp during the New Women dances. Nobody made others behave long enough to make a lot of people cross with him, and as I said, our old laws were not the new laws. In our Shining Times it was very important that a hunter who had hunted well would share his meat with others. Whether he slept with one woman, two women, or another man was between him and Taiowa, the one you Saitu call Holy Ghost. Our new police force would have more respect if we were allowed to take away the ponies of a man who refused to help a neighbor, instead of locking up the neighbor when he helped himself!'
Longarm finished his drink, silently declined another, and got out three smokes as he quietly said, 'Nobody's asked me to write a Comanche civil or criminal code, praise the Lord. I'd best wait until Quanah returns before I set out to overhaul your whole setup. What can you tell me about them Black Leggings Kiowa, and how do you cotton to the notion of them working in cahoots with at least one dishonest Comanche patrol leader? That mysterious bunch wearing paint only hit us after I'd identified myself to old Tuka Wa Pombi and told him I'd soon be having this very conversation with you gents.'
Sergeant Tikano didn't like it at all. He said, 'There are other Kiowa closer, but the elder who keeps the puha bundles of their Black Leggings would be old Necomi, camped this time of the year a half day's ride to the northwest in the Wichita Hills. I'll send a rider over to see what he has to say for himself. But I don't think he will want to tell us much, whether he knows anything or not.'
But Longarm said, 'I'd as soon ride over for a word with him my ownself, seeing the Kiowa seem to resent you and your own riders and, no offense, I've been questioning witnesses longer.'
The white agent protested, 'Necomi won't tell you shit! He hates us white folks to a man, and lies to other Indians when the truth is in his favor!'
Longarm smiled thinly and replied, 'That's what I meant about my being more experienced. Most of the suspects I question hate my guts and lie like rugs. But when you know how to deal the right questions to a poker- faced liar, it's surprising what you can get him to tell you.'
Sergeant Tikano snorted impatiently. 'The two of you are buzzing in my ear like flies above a pile of shit. Necomi doesn't speak a word of Saltu. Do you speak Kiowa, Great Saltu Lawman?'
Longarm grinned sheepishly and replied, 'I talk sign well enough to get by.'
The Indian said, 'Hear me, if you ride alone into Necomi's tipi ring you will want to keep both hands free to slap leather at all times. Agent Jed speaks straight about Necomi. He looks down upon anyone who is not a Black Legging Warrior and saves up his hate, as the red ant saves up grasshopper legs, for you people! I don't think you want to ride over there right after putting three Black Leggings on the ground!'
Longarm got to his feet with a grimace to hand out the cheroots as he explained, 'If I only had to do what I wanted to do, I'd be overpaid for pursuing wine, women, and song.
In the meanwhile I see no way to ask Quanah Parker what he wants me to do with his police force until he gets back, and by that time, I ought to be able to make it to the Wichita Hills and back, so...'
'If you ride in alone they will kill you and say you were never there,' Sergeant Tikano told him with a scowl. Then he brightened and decided, 'I don't think even Necomi would kill a woman of Quanah's own band, and you will need someone with you who can speak for you in Kiowa!'
Longarm struck a match to light up the three of them before it went out--that was considered good luck in cow camps--and asked, 'A Kiowa lady belonging to your Comanche band?'
The Indian nodded and offered to explain along the way. Jed Conway blinked and demanded, 'Hold on. You don't mean little Matty Gordon, do you?'
The Indian just shrugged, asked who else they had to trans late for Longarm, and led the tall deputy outside, pointing past the church and schoolhouse while explaining, 'Yaduka Gordon is a halfbreed like our Quanah. He married a Kiowa woman called Aho when we used to feast with them after the fall hunts. They have a daughter he calls Matty because he speaks no Kiowa. Her Kiowa mother named her something as tongue-twisting as Matawnkiha because Kiowa talk funny. I think it means something like Growing Daughter in her mother's tongue. But it means nothing in our own.'
They started walking as the Indian went on. 'Growing up among Ho, the girl naturally speaks both her father and mother's tongues, along with your own. Quanah has made all our children go to the B.I.A. school so that none of you Saltu will be able to laugh at them or take any advantage of them in times to come.'
Longarm nodded soberly and said, 'Jeb Conway just allowed your chief was smart. Whatever happened to that colored army deserter he had blowing bugle calls for you all over by the Palo Duro that time?'
The erstwhile hostile shrugged and said, 'I never saw him after the blue sleeves found our last good hideout. No Saltu were supposed to know about that secret canyon in the Texas Panhandle. Our Tonkawa enemies told your Star Chief Sherman where we hid among the berry trees in the depths of that big well-watered canyon.'
Longarm was almost sorry he'd asked as the Indian went on. 'They marched against us from every direction,
