bandits, dressed up in Kiowa duds to confound the law, both red and white?'
Eskiminzin shook his head and said, 'They were heard shouting back and forth. Nobody could tell what they were saying, but it did not sound at all like Spanish. Many of our people speak enough Spanish to deal with Mexican ... ah, horse traders.'
Longarm dryly observed, 'That likely accounts for all this sudden interest in horseflesh and the reservation borders. I'll ask directly, with a better chance of getting a straight answer, when I catch up with those Comanche Police. Did they say which post they were working out of, Eskiminzin?'
The runty Kiowa-Apache looked blank. Longarm nodded and muttered, 'Never mind. Some damned body is supposed to keep files on everything, and recovering two hundred head of goats would rate a commendation. I don't suppose you could give me that patrol leader's name?'
Eskiminzin soberly replied, 'I could not even give you my name, if you mean my real name, given to me in a vision by White Painted Woman. But the Comanche who brought back our ponies said we could call him Black Sheep, in your tongue, after we told him his Comanche words meant nothing, nothing to a real person.'
Longarm cocked a brow and marveled, 'That Tuka Wa Pombi sure gets around! A few days ago he was trying to collect passage fees off a Texican trail boss, and when I asked about that at their nearest field headquarters, none of the Comanche Police I spoke to had ever heard of a comrade by such a name.'
Eskiminzin shrugged and said, 'There are many reasons, many, for a man to give different names at different times. He may be trying to avoid an evil chindi, or the husband of some wicked woman he met when he was full of tiswin and forgot you are not supposed to do that with another man's woman.'
Longarm smiled thinly and declared, 'That last notion sounds way more reasonable than ducking evil spirits. There can't be all that big a police force. So sooner or later we're bound to meet up and I can just ask him. Did they say where they were headed next?'
The Kiowa-Apache nodded gravely and replied, 'They said they had to take the money to Chief Quanah.'
Longarm frowned thoughtfully and asked what money they might be talking about.
The runty Kiowa-Apache explained, 'The money they need to buy more blue sleeves and guns. They said if our young men would not join the Indian Police, then the least we could do would be to pay our fair share. Meeting in council, our elders agreed. They had brought back our ponies. They had done a good job of tracking after our own young men had lost the trail where slickrock runs down into Elk Creek. We were surprised that Comanche could do this.'
Necomi scowled and said, 'So am 1. Our little Kiowa-Apache brothers range closer than the rest of us to their old hunting grounds between these hills and the Washita bottomlands. Would you say I was crazy if I wondered about liars dressing up as both Black Leggings and Indian Police?'
Longarm shook his head and replied, 'I would say great minds are inclined to run in the same channels. No Indian Police led by anyone by any name are authorized to collect money in the name of Quanah Parker. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, run with government money by Little Big Eyes or Interior Secretary Schurz, pays and equips all the Indian Police on all the reserves. Chief Quanah's business dealings are matters of civil law, backed up as such by federal or local courts, depending on what the problem might be.'
Necomi was first to get the picture. He said, 'This Black I Sheep was not supposed to ask those drivers for money. He was not supposed to ask our little Kiowa-Apache brothers for money. He is... what?'
'A crook,' said Longarm flatly. 'There's this more pallid outfit over near New Orleans called the Black Hand instead of Sheep. There's no natural law saying an Indian with a droll sense of humor and an eye for easy money couldn't read the Police Gazette and see how the Black Hand flimflams other folks less inclined than average to send for the regular law.' He saw none of the Indians gaping at him knew what he was talking about, even if they spoke English. So he simplified the protection swindle of the notorious Black Hand, and even a Horse Indian could see how once a bunch of friendly-acting toughs could pretend to protect a neighborhood from meaner-acting members of the same gang.
Eskiminzin gasped, 'It would be easy, easy to track stolen ponies over slickrock and through running water if you knew just where some secret friends had left them for you!'
Necomi said, 'That is why there was no fight. Those riders acting as if they were Kiowa Black Leggings never really wanted all those ponies! Where could they have sold them on this crowded reserve? I think it was all a trick to make you pay good money for your own ponies!'
Longarm nodded. But before he could answer, Necomi cut in. 'Then what are these forked tongues when they are not pretending to be other people? Are they wicked Kiowa or evil Comanche?'
It was a good question. Longarm said it was too early to say, and asked if he and the ladies were free to go ask. Necomi said they had never been prisoners and that he'd have his young men cut out and saddle their ponies for them. They'd Just agreed a cuss with a forked tongue was no good. So Longarm turned and strode through sunlit dust and dark Kiowa curses to rejoin the two gals. Along the way he met up with old Pawkigoopy, shaking his rattle and chanting while the others did all the work to secure their camp. When the medicine man saw Longarm bearing down on him alive and well, he looked as if he'd been fed something awful himself. Longarm just grinned wolfishly and hauled out a couple of cheroots, asking the goggle-eyed Indian if he'd like a heap strong smoke.
Pawkigoopy ran away, calling on his spirit pals for help against what had to be Longarm's heap stronger medicine.
Longarm lit one cheroot and put the other away as he circled out of the tipi ring to rejoin the gals from the east. He was glad their particular tipi faced away from the swirling confusion inside the tipi ring. Since every tipi faced the same way, the folks on the other side of the circle were stuck with the settling dust and fly-blown horseshit whether they were under attack or not.
As he ducked inside he asked if either gal had tasted anything but their own supplies. Matty said a Kiowa gal had offered them some coffee, but they'd poured it on the cold ashes when nobody had been looking.
Longarm said, 'Good thinking. We're fixing to ride out any minute, so let's pull ourselves together in here.'
Minerva Cranston commenced to pin her hair back atop her skull as she murmured, not meeting Longarm's eye, 'I suppose I owe you an explanation for the way I carried on last night.'
He shook his head and said, 'Save it for the next sewing bee. Right now the inner thoughts of a teasing schoolmarm are the least of my worries.' He scooped up his saddlebags and told them to join him outside as pronto as possible. Then he ducked out of the tipi to see that things had simmered down a bit, with most everybody and his or her belongings forted up inside the circle of thin-skinned but mysterious hide shelters.
