been tumbling around out here, though in fact the biggest native American tumbleweed had now been reduced in rank to “witch grass.”
The soberly dressed folks Longarm passed as he rode in could only be distinguished from ordinary Western rustics by straw hats and chin whiskers on most of the men, and perky white half-bonnets on most of the ladies. The signs along the street were in both English and High Dutch. Longarm knew that a sort of big white barn was their meeting house, and he’d been assured nothing as odd as Holy Rolling went on inside. Hardly anyone would have noticed such a natural-acting religious sect if the Mennonites hadn’t been changing the country between the Mississippi and the Rockies far more, in their own quiet way, than the Mormons had on the far side of the Continental Divide. Longarm had recently read how, at the rate things were going, there’d be more white Americans of High Dutch or Irish descent than any other breed by the turn of this century.
Of course, most of the immigrants quietly flocking in from all parts of that Dutch-speaking hodgepodge Bismarck and his kaiser had only recently hammered together as the Germanic Empire were Lutheran or even Papists. But whether they were outnumbered or not, it was the Mennonite Dutch who’d taught everyone else how to make a good living farming what Pike and Fremont had agreed to call the Great American Desert. That Turkish brand of winter wheat the Mennonites had put on the American market wasn’t just a grain you could grow on buffalo range. It was a superior sort of hard wheat that came out of those big steam-powered mills back East as the finest grade of flour. So when anyone bragged on American apple pie, whether they knew it or not, they were bragging on a Pennsylvania Dutch recipe baked in a crust of Russian-Dutch flour.
A plain American-looking gent with a pewter star pinned to the front of his clean white shirt was regarding Longarm from a doorway with some interest as the dustier federal deputy dismounted in front of the town hall. Longarm had pinned his own badge to the lapel of his old denim jacket as he’d ridden in from the Lazy B with that imperious brunette. He’d found in the past he could save local lawmen harsher words than they could gracefully retract if they knew right off who they might be cussing at. A total stranger of the Anglo-Saxon type wasn’t going to ride into a community such as this without anyone of innocent or guilty intent taking note of his arrival. So in this case a frontal attack seemed as safe as any.
That didn’t mean a lawman on the trail of another stranger to the close-knit community couldn’t zigzag a mite in case Wolf Ritter had made more friends so far than he had. So when the Dutch-sounding town marshal said to call him Werner Sattler, they shook on it and Longarm told him the truth halfways as he tethered the two ponies out front. He said he’d heard an owlhoot rider wanted by the federal government had been reported in this corner of Kansas.
The town law nodded soberly and said, “Wolfgang von Riuerhoff. You’ve missed him by a week.”
“You knew who he was, and where he was, and you never saw fit to let the rest of us in on it?” Longarm demanded with a scowl.
The town law replied with what appeared an easy conscience, “He was gone before anyone told me. Come on inside. I don’t have any bread and salt in my office desk, but we keep schnaps filed under S.”
Longarm followed the town law through that side door of the town hall, and confirmed his memory of schnaps as a strong but smooth brandy to be consumed in moderation while on duty. So he nursed the tumbler Sattler had poured him as they sat on either side of the older lawman’s desk to jaw about wayward Prussians with dueling scars.
The town law explained, “That killer trained by the Prussian Army rode in on a market night. So nobody would have paid any attention to him if he hadn’t spoken Hoch Deutch.”
Longarm started to ask a dumb question. Then he nodded and said, “I follow your drift. A stranger talking English with a Boston accent would attract more attention in a Texas saloon than your average Mex. By the way, you do have saloons here in Sappa Crossing, don’t you?”
The Mennonite lawman nodded, raised his glass, and said, “We are good Christians and Our Lord poured wine at the Last Supper. I wish you other Christians would get over the idea we’re some sort of cult.”
Longarm said, “You won’t be as noticeable a generation or so down the road. Your kids are already talking like everyone else out this way. But we were talking about Wolf Ritter, as he’s more often named on many a wanted flyer.”
Sattler finished his schnaps, poured himself another, and explained, “Our saloon, like some of the other establishments serving the wagon-trace traffic, serves a mostly English-speaking crowd, and as you just pointed out, none of our crowd speaks Hoch Deutch in that guttural Junker accent. People from Stettin or Berlin always sound as if they have sore throats.”
Longarm was in no position to agree or disagree. So he just took another sip of schnaps and Sattler continued. “There’s no law against speaking like a Prussian bully. Fred Zimmermann, at the Ganseblumchen, was the one who brought the mysterious beer drinker to our attention. The bartender’s description did match up with a lot of those wanted posters you just mentioned. But by the time I gathered a few of my part-time deputies and got over there, he’d left.”
Longarm knew better than to accept another schnaps before he’d had his noon dinner. So he got out two smokes as the older lawman went on. “That LeMat revolver was the persuader. I never saw it in Horst Heger’s window until the next morning. So I’d almost put the mysterious drifter out of my mind when someone said they’d seen him riding on. Then, later in the morning, passing Heger’s shop, I saw the wicked weapon on sale. I went right inside to ask Heger about it. He said he’d bought it, at a fair price, from a fellow Prussian down on his luck.”
“Horst Heger’s as pure Prussian as Wolf Ritter?” Longarm asked.
The Mennonite shrugged and allowed few Prussians were pure anything, being a mixture of pagan Polish peasants and the Teutonic knights who’d crusaded hell out of ‘em back in those Dark Ages.
The local lawman didn’t say Horst Heger had recognized Wolf Ritter from those wars of conquest a few summers back. So Longarm figured he’d been smart to play his cards close to the vest. He’d ask Horst Heger when he talked to him.
Once he had his tumbler drained and both their cheroots going good, Longarm casually asked just where Horst Heger’s gun shop might be in case that LeMat was still in the window.
The town law said it was upslope, across from the smithy, so a cowhand having his pony reshod might have easy access. On the way back out front, Longarm asked about local liveries, hotels, and such.
The local lawman said there was a municipal corral out back of the town hall. But folks around Sappa Crossing already had enough riding stock to make a livery stable unprofitable. When he mentioned they had a fair livery run by a friendly Indian gal just up the ways in Cedar Bend, Longarm changed the subject to wayside inns.
Sattler said they hadn’t had one in Sappa Crossing since that mail stage had cut its runs back to once a week,
