fool we both shot should have known what I was saying.'
Minerva moaned, 'I'm about to come! Won't you even stick a finger in there for me, Custis?'
To which he could only reply, 'Not just now. The next few minutes should tell the tale. I just sent up a pillar of smoke they ought to be able to see from Fort Sill. So those sneaks just down the way must have a much better view of it. Indian or Mex, they ought to be able to figure out why. So now they're making up their minds whether they want to charge like Pickett or ride for their lives. They know they don't have until nightfall now. I figure it won't take a full hour for my old pal, Colonel Howard, to order out a patrol once somebody points out our mysterious smoke signals. It might move him faster if you'd like to toss on more leaves and flip-flop that tarp from time to time.'
Minerva grimaced and declared, 'I've been taking notes on Indian customs. But I don't even know Morse code, Custis.'
Longarm said, 'Just try for any old dots and dashes. The cavalry are more likely to ride over and see who's sending lem up than they are to worry about decoding it!'
She didn't seem to be moving. He insisted, 'Give it a try. A patrol from Fort Sill would be hard pressed to make it here in less than four hours if we got 'em started right now!'
She moaned that wouldn't be soon enough, and started to back out of the sticker-brush. He told her to hang on to that derringer and just let fly a blind shot from time to time in the two directions neither he nor Matty could cover. She got to her feet, bawling like a baby but heading for that smudge fire. So Longarm concentrated on the slope he hoped they'd choose to charge.
If the cavalry came at all, they'd be moving in from the southeast not much later than noon. He knew that down below they knew they had to shit or get off the pot a lot sooner. You didn't want a cavalry column less than two hours behind you as you lit out, even when you'd won. Admirers of either cowboys or Indians might not know it, but the well-shod and oat-fed cavalry stock selected by the Army Remount Service tended to outlast and overtake more casually cared-for ponies.
Staring down through the shimmering sunlight, Longarm tried to put himself in the other side's fix. it might have been easier if he'd had a better line on who in the hell they might be.
He composed some nasty Mexican insults with care, knowing how tough it was to cuss in Mexican. English enjoyed the luxury of words that were dirty all by themselves. You had to be more poetic in Spanish. Son of a bitch lost its sting translated into 'hijo de perra,' because you had to settle for a plain old female hound. 'Cabron,' meaning goat, was a meaner thing to call a Mexican because a goat, like a betrayed husband, wore big but nearly harmless horns.
Recalling what some border raiders had once tried on him and a mess of Ranger pals, Longarm cupped a palm over his mouth to blur just where he might be calling from as he bawled, 'Ay, que mariposas, es probable que son sesenta y nueve!'
Somebody pegged a shot where they thought he might be. He couldn't say whether the one behind that outcrop was annoyed at the suggestion he was a butterfly sucking off a pal, or whether he'd just sounded off longer than he should have.
He yelled, 'Tu madre!' which was usually good for a flying bottle in any well-run cantina, and sure enough, that same hothead behind that same outcrop let fly another round.
Longarm didn't return the fire. His hidden target was over four hundred yards out. He was hoping they could see how easy it would be for him to nail anyone at fifty as they struggled up the last barren yards of that steep dusty slope.
So what was holding them from just riding on? If they knew who was up here, they knew one man and two gals weren't packing a treasure worth dying for.
Longarm grumbled, 'You sneaky sons of bitches think we know something about you that we don't. But what could that be? You know that by now I've reported my suspicions about fake Black Leggings to real Black Leggings. I've asked everyone who'll listen about Indian Police acting suspicious as hell. So what's left? What could I be missing?'
He spotted movement nobody but an experienced deer hunter on the prod might have spotted. Somebody was sidewinding through some knee-high mountain campion. Longarm considered what that gal had said about the quality of mercy in that play about Venice. On the other hand, Miss Portia had never had to stop so many bastards with one old saddle gun. So he fired, and damned if the jasper rolling down the slope from that clump of brush wasn't clad in dusty blue from head to toe. Longarm chortled, 'Hot damn if I ain't smart! It's just like I was only suggesting, back in that Kiowa camp! Those fake Indian Police are in cahoots with fake Indians!' He yelled, 'Bolla de idiotas! No me jodas!'
So then it got very noisy, with shot-up twigs and chewed-up oak leaves raining down on him as he grinned down at the billowing gun-smoke and muttered, 'I asked you not to screw i with me, you idiots!' Then the guns fell silent, and a long time crept by as the sun rose ever higher and he tried to determine whether they were moving in or moving out. Minerva rejoined him on her hands and knees to gasp, 'Matty sent me. She says a lot of riders are moving along the slopes from the southwest. She says she can tell they're busting through the chaparral on horseback because of all the dust. Those cavalry troops from Fort Sill haven't had time to get here yet, have they?'
To which he could only reply grim-lipped, 'Not hardly. Stay here with that derringer. Fire it a heap if anyone shows his fool face to the north. I doubt anyone will. But you never know for certain.'
As he crawfished back under the blackjacks, Minerva protested, 'I couldn't repel a charge with this toy if I knew how to use it! Where do you think you're going, Custis?'
He grunted, 'Where I expect more action, of course.' Then he got to his feet, Yellowboy at port, and added, 'They knew right off it was a lot steeper on this side. By now they must have noticed how we've been covering it.' He moved off through the trees as he grumbled, 'you bet they'll try the gentler slope from the trail, if and when they go for broke!' He kicked more greenery on the smudge fire in passing, and then he was kneeling by Matawnkiha Gordon to say, 'We're swapping places. Go cover the tougher-looking backyard whilst I watch this front way in with a tougher gun.' Unlike her white teacher, little Matty had been raised on tales of blood and slaughter. So she merely said, 'I think they're bunching on this side too. There's no dust downslope now. But I keep spotting moving branches, and there's no wind at all right now!' Then she was fading back through the dappled shade, and Longarm had slid into her place behind a fallen log. She'd chosen a swell position. She'd gone a night and then some without a bath as well. But the female odor lingering in the crushed grass didn't disgust a man worth mention. The kid's Kiowa mamma had known what she'd been about when she'd insisted on a chaperone.
He had to laugh. He knew Matty's momma would laugh too if she ever found out who'd been chaperoning
