She took a drag on her cigar and added, “She’s right. Ain’t got a peck of brains in her pretty head, but Buck Lewis ain’t good enough for Ute Mary. That stingy old Jed Nolan only pays a foreman top-hand wages and a half. Do they move that beef operation out of here, like some say, Ute Mary won’t have to worry about her Buck Lewis. He’ll be lucky if they take him to Wyoming with them, and Lord knows they’ll never be dragging Indian kitchen help that fu!”
Longarm didn’t ask why. Depending on how full-blooded she might be, Ute Mary was lucky they hadn’t already moved her on out to Utah Territory with the rest of her North Ute kin. The Bureau of Indian Affairs would frown even harder on her winding up on recent Lakota and North Cheyenne range. In their Shining Times the playful young men of those nations had described the North Ute as their favorite enemies. The Ute had counted coup on them many times as well.
Longarm cautiously asked if Mammy Palaver had any notion who Amanda Nolan might be fooling with on the side. The Obeah woman declared she knew for a fact that the redhead had spent a night at the hotel with one of those mining men the last time her husband had been out of town on business. Longarm perked up as he got out his notebook.
But then she had to spoil it all by declaring the redhead’s adulterous stay at the Elk Rack had been well before that confusing Bunny McNee had run that hotel tab up.
As long as he had his pad and pencil out, he questioned Mammy Palaver about all the other slap and tickle she’d heard about up this way.
An Obeah woman who sold love potions heard a lot. The tiny town commenced to sound like Sodom and Gomorrah with Zebourn and Nero’s Rome thrown in. He was more saddened than shocked to hear poor old Constable Payne had been coming from a tryst with a married woman on the night of his death, and he didn’t want to hear about the late Deputy Keen and that colored waitress across the street.
He was a tad disappointed to learn Tough Shit Nabors seemed to be content with his own young wife. They both agreed rich old men seemed to attract the better-looking play-pretties.
Mammy Palaver had kind words to say for Constance Farnsworth as well. She allowed the pretty young widow was either still in mourning for her man or mighty discreet. Then she spoiled that by adding with a shrug, “That uppity Edward would never tell anyone if he caught her in bed with President Hayes and Jesse James at the same time. But listen, have I told you yet about that minister’s spinster daughter who loves her dear daddy more than the Good Book tells her to?”
Longarm shook his head and murmured, “Don’t have any ministers on my list of suspects. Do you mind if I ask where you might have gotten that swell Gallo Claro cigar?”
She calmly allowed a client had bought a box for her, and named the one fancy tobacco shop in town that carried the brand. He asked if her client had been a white cowboy in Justin boots. She found that a droll suggestion, and explained that the colored foreman of that track-working crew had needed some goofer dust to use on a love rival.
Longarm doubted a man of any race would rely on both folk magic and P&P .44-40s to deal with anyone he wanted dead. So he thanked the kindly old witch and went on back to the center of town.
As he approached the jailhouse he saw heaps of pony rumps and assumed that the posse had come back. He learned he was right when he strode in to be told Constable Rothstein had just gone over to the undertakers for a look-see at that dead gal.
Longarm went after the younger lawman, and caught up with him in the cellar of the drugstore, where the druggist ran his sideline as the town’s only and hopefully occasional mortician.
He’d thought French Sarah had been nicely built when she had served him with no more than tea and pastry at the Farnsworth mansion. When one considered what her petite body had been through since then, it was surprising, and distressing, to see how tempting her pale naked flesh looked as it lay on that cold table with the undertaking druggist powderingher dead nose.
Nate Rothstein turned from watching to nod at Longarm and declare, “Small blood flecks in her eyes and only the bruises around her windpipe, despite the drop and a sudden stop on chunks of ore. They tell me we can save the county some bother and her kin some distress if we list the cause of death as strangulation at the hands of a person or persons unknown.”
Longarm nodded soberly and agreed. “She lit out from her job at Widow Farnsworth’s early in the day, as soon as she’d heard her boyfriend had lost a gunfight with yours truly. She might have demanded they send somebody else after me. She might have demanded money to get out of here before anyone could tell me she’d been out in the woodshed with a wanted killer. In either event, the one she went to killed her on the spot, waited until dark, and then carried her up to that stamping mill to get rid of her.”
He stared wistfully down at the dead gal and asked if the posse had found any sign further west. He wasn’t surprised to hear they hadn’t.
Longarm nodded and said, “I have a plan that might tell us more, whether anyone makes a break for it by rail or not.
He explained what he’d worked out with the pretty owner of the narrow-gauge. Rothstein said it sounded good to him. So they went on up and out to the street, where Rothstein yelled for a kid he knew to go tell Widow Farnsworth to let her combination head down to the outside world in, say, half an hour.
Then the two of them legged it back to the jailhouse, gathering posse members from saloons along the way, and then, mounted on yet another borrowed pony, Longarm led them the same way they’d ridden before.
As they rode, Buck Lewis caught up with Longarm to ask where they were headed and why. When Longarm tersely told him they were fixing to stop the train where that westbound trail left the wagon trace, the Double Seven ramrod laughed and allowed he’d meant to be home for his supper in any case. Longarm didn’t ask whether he preferred to have it served by a naked lady in bed. Mammy Palaver had said he was a tad embarrassed about being a squaw man.
A heap of old boys were. Kit Carson and William Bent had married up properly and lived openly with Indian wives. But more often it was hidden as if it was a secret vice. Old boys who thought nothing of being seen coming out of a whorehouse, whooping drunk, would gun you for asking what they’d been up to in that tipi the other night.
He had time to consider that angle as they lined up across the tracks near that shallow stretch of Mudpuppy Creek. But there was just no way anyone with a lick of sense would want to gun a federal deputy to keep a secret widely known by local gossips. It was simply sad but true that a rider drawing even a ramrod’s pay was never going to do much better than a drab white gal or the sort of pretty Ute Mary. it wouldn’t be a federal crime if old Buck
