Somewhat mollified, Vail nodded his bullet head and said, “They call him Wolf Ritter. His real name’s Wolfgang von Ritterhoff, and before he come across the main ocean and turned total outlaw, he was one of those Prussian Cavalry johns who rode for Bismarck in that Franco-Prussian War a few years back. As the Austrians, Danes, and French could tell us, no Cheyenne Crooked Lancer could hold a candle to a Prussian trooper coming at you with a saber in one hand, a horse pistol in the other, and the reins gripped in his evil grin. But now that things are a tad calmer in that new Germanic Empire Bismarck carved out a few short years ago, such ferocious fighting men have been ordered to wax their pimp mustaches, click their heels on entering or leaving the ballroom, and in sum behave like officers and gentlemen.”
Longarm nodded thoughtfully. “Some old boys who rode in the war we had earlier have yet to adjust to civilian ways. I take it this Wolf Ritter never took too well to heel-clicking and kissing the ladies on their dainty wrists?”
Vail said, “Ritter hung on to his horse pistol, a LeMatt he took off a dead French officer at Sedan. It was kissing a lady of the Pawnee persuasion all over, against her will, that led to his being listed as a federal want. When the screaming Pawnee maiden’s federal Indian agent tried to make Ritter stop, he wound up with nine rounds of .40- caliber and a modest load of buckshot in his guts. The Pawnee victim says the poor gunshot cuss died slow and got to watch as Ritter finished what he’d set out to do to her. Any questions?”
Longarm quietly asked, “Which way did he go?”
Vail said, “South, to the Smokey Hill range north of Dodge. I had you over yonder on another case a spell back, remember?”
Longarm nodded. “You damn near got me killed. But why in thunder would a total furriner choose that stretch of west Kansas to hide out in? I know you said he likes Indian gals. They’re doubtless a change from Austrian, Danish, or French gals. But the South Cheyenne and Arapaho who used to range the Smokey Hill swells are long gone, and the country’s been thrown open to stockmen and … Oh, I follow your drift!”
To which Vail replied, “I was hoping you might. What do you call them High Dutch-speaking Russians who’ve come west to grow tumbleweeds and that red Russian wheat?”
Longarm said, “Mennonites. They ain’t exactly Russian. Catherine the Great, being a High Dutch princess to begin with, invited some unpopular but mighty good farmers to migrate to Russia with her and see what they could do with her back steps. That’s what they call the prairies in Russia, steps.”
Vail said, “Never mind all that. Is it or ain’t it a fact that a mess of High Dutch Holy Rollers with beards and thick accents have infested the Smokey Hills of Kansas?”
Longarm nodded. “Mennonites ain’t Pentacostals “`inclineci to speak in tongues and thrash about on the floor during services. From what a nice little gal told me a spell back, the main reason they got persecuted in their old countries was that they don’t hold with baptizing their kids. That’s why some call ‘em Anabaptists. That ain’t accurate, though. Their founding prophet, a Hollander named Menno, said babies didn’t know whether they wanted to be Christians, Muslims, or hell, Hopi snake dancers when they grew up. So it was a lot more logical to let kids grow up and then baptize ‘em, after they agreed to be Mennonites. But Mennonites call themselves Brethren when nobody else is around.”
Vail rolled his eyes up and groaned, “Ask the kid what time it might be and he lectures you on how to build a grandfather clock! I know all about those High Dutch Holy Rollers getting chased off those back steps by some other Russian emperor’s cod-sacks, and how they didn’t want to go back to that Germanic Empire because Bismarck had started to draft everybody into his spikey-hatted army. I know most of them settled in the Dakota Territory to pray their own way and raise all that red Russian wheat to their heart’s content. The bunch that came down to Kansas to farm even tougher country are the ones Wolf Ritter seems to be hiding out with.”
Longarm asked, “How come? As I understand it, Mennonites don’t hold with violence, military or otherwise.”
Vail said, “None of the simps would know a renegade Prussian officer if they caught him in bed with their woman, and as I’m sure Ritter was the first to notice, all those sodbusting Holy Rollers favor full beards as well as High Dutch accents!”
He saw that hadn’t gotten through to Longarm and added, “Ritter went to that fancy military school where the students get to carve each other’s faces with sabers when they ain’t studying table manners. So he used to be mighty proud of his scarred-up left cheek. Such a distinctive feature on an otherwise average-looking face can be a bother when you’re riding the owlhoot trail with many a murder warrant out after you.”
Longarm said, “I follow your drift. I’m to look for a clodhopper with chin whiskers and a furrin accent, who’s really a murderous vet of the Franco-Prussian War, among the Smokey Hills of Kansas, which are really rolling prairie carried to an extreme.”
Vail said, “An informant who knows him on sight reported him last in a trail town called Sappa Crossing, a four or five days’ ride north of Dodge City. I’ve already told Henry out front to route you by rail as far as the forks of the Republican River by way of the Burlington line. The ride south will be way shorter, and every time we let you get off in Dodge you seem to get stuck playing draw poker at that infernal Long Branch, or playing slap and tickle with someone like Madame Mustache for at least a week!”
Longarm smiled innocently through the haze and quietly remarked, “I ain’t sure Madame Mustache still has that place in Dodge. Do you reckon Wolf Ritter’s dumb enough to be hanging on to that distinctive old LeMatt revolver?”
Vail shrugged. “Be dumb as hell to take such pains to hide out as a Holy Rolling homesteader without picking up a whole other gun. Either way, he’ll likely be packing a concealed weapon, and the way I hear it, he’s been trained to kill a heap with most any weapon handy!”
Chapter 4
Longarm got off the Burlington eastbound at the cow town of McCook, Nebraska, after he’d barely gotten started with that eastbound blonde in that low-cut summer frock. With nobody from the fussy home office looking, he’d shed his stuffy tweeds for a far more comfortable riding outfit of faded but soft clean denim jacket and jeans over a hickory work shirt. He’d learned on past missions, the hard way, it paid any man more interested in catching men than cows to stick with broken-in stovepipe boots he could ride or run in. His cross-draw .44-40 was a tad more noticeable without a frock coat to hide under, but nobody was likely to worry about a rider packing his hardware sensibly in plain leather wrapping.
Longarm’s Winchester ‘73, chambered for the same .44-40 rounds as his double-action six-gun, naturally rode in a saddle boot attached to his McClellan army saddle, which, like his boots, reflected experience with unexpected experiences. General George McClellan had made a total hash of his Peninsula Campaign in ‘62, but before that he’d introduced one hell of a saddle, based on, but improved over, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry design he’d met up with during some diplomatic time in those parts. Old George’s version rode easy on one’s mount, with an open slit the
