paint with permission of their lodge leaders. I'm pretty sure those tipis I took for Comanche down by the Red River were circled wrong for traditional Horse Indians. I know one I winged was calling out in Spanish, unless it was one of his pals calling for him. In either case, no Indian on this reserve would have reason to call for water in Spanish, whilst few Mexicans would be likely to be fluent in the sign lingo of these plains.'
Minerva said, 'Didn't you tell me that when you and that other girl tried to signal peaceful intent from that sod house they pegged a shot at you, Custis?'
He smiled thinly and replied, 'Didn't know you were really that interested. But the more I study on it, the more it looks as if those fake Black Leggings ain't real residents of this here reserve!'
They rode on into the settlement, to be greeted by yapping dogs, laughing kids, and Police Sergeant Tikano, who said he'd already heard some of it from a rider from Fort Sill.
The three ladies seemed headed for the Gordon cabin to sip tea or something. Longarm and his two ponies wound up out front of the police station, a frame structure cut to the same pattern as a B.I.A. schoolhouse. As Tikano was ordering one of his uniformed policemen to take the ponies around back and tend to them, the older white agent, Conway, came over from his larger house to join them. Longarm waited until they were inside, where the moon-faced Comanche sergeant seemed to keep his own moonshine on file, before he got out the brass button his Kiowa pals had found on the mountain for him.
Tikano handed him a tumbler of moonshine as he took the button in his other hand, held it up to the light, and decided, 'Ahee, it looks like it came from one of our uniforms. When we started to organize, the army gave us ragged old tunics and the B.I.A. gave us straw hats. The kind Saltu farmers wear. Quanah said we looked like scarecrows. He sent away to Saint Louis for real uniforms and felt hats like the soldiers wear. That is why this button has crossed poggamoggons instead of U.S. on it.'
Longarm took a polite sip of firewater and said, 'I thought they were supposed to be war clubs. So what we're talking about would be fake Indian Police in real uniforms that were lost, Strayed, or stolen?'
Conway allowed that made sense to him too. But the Indian scowled and declared, 'We are missing no uniforms. None. We have less than a hundred Indian Police, counting the noncommissioned officers. All of them are Comanche, so far. All of them are known to me as Hou-Huam with true hearts. Hear me, each man has been issued one uniform. One. None of them are missing. None of them have reported the loss of the fine uniforms Quanah bought them. Even if one, or even two of our men got drunk and were ashamed to report such stupidity, didn't you say there were many of these forked-tongued koshares wearing big blue falsehoods?'
Longarm nodded thoughtfully and said, 'That's about the size of it. But a tailor who'd sell uniforms to Quanah would sell the same sort of uniforms to most anyone else. You wouldn't know the name of that outfit in Saint Lou, would you?'
The Indian and his agent exchanged glances. Conway shook his head and said, 'Quanah never asked my permission. I had nothing to do with the whole shebang. As I understand it, Quanah got permission to start his own police from the main office, up at Anadarko. They have a telegraph line to the outside world at Anadarko. We don't. Have to depend on the army line out of Fort Sill in a real emergency. Fortunately we don't have many, betwixt the cavalry and Quanah's new police force looking out for us.'
Longarm nodded absently, and turned back to Sergeant Tikano to ask, 'Did you say no Comanche held higher rank than noncom? Who does that leave as the commissioned officers in your outfit?'
The Indian looked sincerely puzzled as he polished off the last of his own drink and said, 'Nobody. I mean, there's no Saltu dressed up as an Indian Police Officer. We take our orders from Quanah. Maybe he takes orders from army officers, or our boss agent up at Anadarko.'
Longarm cocked a brow at Conway, who said, 'Makes sense to me. I know I don't order even Sergeant Tikano here direct. Whenever we have trouble here, Tikano and his boys seem able to get on top of it without my help. I have asked them to arrest troublemakers who sass me on allotment day. But I reckon you'd have to ask at Anadarko if anyone other than Quanah rides herd.'
Longarm insisted, 'Some B.I.A. official has to approve their payroll. Quanah can't be hiring and firing out of his own pocket, can he?'
Conway shook his head and replied, 'I just now said somebody up to Anadarko has to have the final say. You might ask Fred Ryan, if he's made it back to Fort Sill yet. Fred's in closer contact with headquarters thanks to that army telegraph line. That's how come Fred's our liaison man at Sill. He gets to relay heaps of messages back and forth. He'd likely know the address of that tailor in Saint Lou. For I doubt Quanah would have ridden all the way up to Anadarko to wire out for uniforms when he could have done so from Fred Ryan's office.
Longarm figured Fred Ryan was likely still in Fort Smith that morning, but said he knew how to use a telegraph key, if push came to shove and the Signal Corps would patch him through to a line off the reservation. So seeing nobody at the sub-agency could shed more light on the subject, he said he had to get on over to the army post.
He tried calling on Minerva to say his proper good-byes. But she seemed too busy over by the school to chat with him. So he just rode on out with a clear conscience, seeing he didn't seem able to terrify her by the safe sane light of a sunny morning.
CHAPTER 17
Longarm walked his tired ponies most of the modest way over to Fort Sill. He'd ridden them harder earlier, and it was that awkward time of the morning when folks were either too busy or too sleep-gurrimed to chew the fat with you. That summer gullywasher would have wiped away any sign that even greenhorns might have left, and the one man who might be about to clear away a heap of cobwebs, Quanah Parker, was nowhere to be found just yet.
Crossing the post road, Longarm read by the rain-paved mud how a whole mess of riders and at least six wheeled vehicles had just that morning headed north. Any signs young Standish and his patrol had left riding in through that slurry were naturally long gone. Longarm decided it stood to reason that Colonel Howard had sent out other patrols in more strength, once Standish had reported in. But unless they'd been wired further news about those fake riders, it seemed to Longarm the wrong way to go about it. The so-called Indian Wars had always been a tad distinguished for useless wear and tear on the U.S. Army. A heap of Mister Lo's diabolical cunning was nothing more than the facts of life on the High Plains. There were a lot of directions to ride on a sea of grass twice the size of the Baltic. Columns crossing it in the open, bold as big-ass birds, were invisible below the horizon to a scout on horseback less than ten miles away.
Longarm rode through the seemingly deserted shantytown outside the east gate of the cavalry post. He knew the whores, pimps, and gamblers were there. Night owls with no profit to be made this side of the army flag coming down again had no call to be out on their muddy streets at this hour. He passed a seemingly random grove of canvas tipis. He smiled to himself as he noted that despite the casual way they'd been put up by the side of the
