Longarm aimed the mule in that direction.
“Sorry, sir,” the man said as Longarm approached. “No civilians allowed on the reservation, sir. You’ll have to turn back.” Longarm was close enough now to see he was a corporal.
“Thanks, but I’m here to report to a Colonel Wingate.”
“Yes, sir, and you would be?”
Longarm told the corporal who he was.
“And your business would be?”
“Damned if I know, son. I was only told to report. Nobody got around to telling me why.”
The corporal cracked a thin smile. “That sounds like the army all right, sir. Wait here a moment, please.” He turned and went inside the tent, which was much more commodious than Longarm had thought when he saw it from afar. The tent was a good thirty feet long and probably twenty wide. From the back of the mule—he had not been invited to step down—he could not see how it was laid out inside.
After a few moments the corporal reappeared, this time with a tall, gray-haired officer at his side. The officer was wearing captain’s shoulder boards. “You’re Deputy Long?”
“I am, sir.”
“Thank God. Get down, man, and come inside. I’ve been most anxious for you to arrive. Corporal, take the marshal’s uh, mount.”
“Yes, sir, but … what should I do with it, sir?”
“Draw a set of hobbles from Supply, corporal, and put the marshal’s, um, animal with the, uh, horses.”
“Won’t they fight, sir?”
“It should be all right, son,” Longarm put in. “The mule probably won’t hurt the horses too bad.”
The corporal, who did not appear to know a whole helluva lot about riding stock, gingerly accepted the mule’s reins and led the, uh, animal off in the direction of the dugouts. Longarm had no idea where the alleged horses could be found. Somewhere out of sight from the camp headquarters tent obviously.
“Excuse me, Captain, but I was directed to report to a Colonel Wingate once I got here. Do you know where I could find him?”
The tall captain smiled. “I am Wingate, sir.” Longarm’s eyebrows went up a notch or two. “My colonelcy was a brevet rank during the war. Referring to me by that rank now is a courtesy, perhaps a misplaced one, by my fellow officers. Sort of like calling George Custer general, if you see what I mean. He had in fact reverted to his permanent rank of lieutenant colonel when he died.”
“I see,” Longarm said. And in truth he did understand. It was the army. That was grounds enough to explain almost any insanity.
“Come inside now, please. We’ll get you dried off and warmed up a little. Would you prefer brandy or a whiskey, Marshal? Then we can talk.”
“Whiskey would be fine, but-“
“Come along now. No sense standing there in the rain.”
“Yes, sir.” Longarm trailed docilely along behind the captain/colonel who seemed to be in charge of this testament to the efficiency of Uncle Sam’s boys in blue.
Chapter10
“Do you know an Indian named Tall Man?” Wingate was seated in a folding camp chair, legs crossed and with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. He seemed every inch the officer and gentleman despite the rough surroundings.
“Sure I do,” Longarm said. “Assuming it’s the same one anyhow. I suppose there’s prob’ly dozens with that same name. The fella I recall is a Crow. No taller than any other Indian, though. Kinda stout built with wide shoulders and a bum leg. Is that the Tall Man you mean?”
“That sounds like him, all right.”
Longarm nodded and took a swallow of the whiskey. It wasn’t rye, but it wasn’t rotten either. “He ever tell you how he got the gimpy leg?”
“No, he hasn’t.”
“I did that to him. This was a while back, you understand. We had what you might call an altercation, and he came at me with a war club. Helluva unfriendly thing to do, especially for a Crow. They like to pretend they’ve none of them ever killed a white man. You know?”
“Yes, I’ve heard that about the Crow,” Wingate agreed.
“Yeah, well, don’t believe everything you hear. Not about the Crow or any other tribe. But there’s worse than the Crow, I will give them that. Anyway, that time I’m talking about, Tall Man was willing to put the Crow on record as having killed a U.S. deputy marshal. Me. Which I took exception to. So I shot him in the knee an’ dropped him before he could plant that war club in the middle of my skull. I coulda killed him, of course, and maybe shoulda, but once he figured out that I wasn’t going to, he was willing to talk out our differences. Which turned out to be more a matter of misunderstanding and misinterpretation than real difference. We talked plenty while he was laid up healing, and I suppose you could say that we became friends. Or close enough to it that the difference don’t matter.”
“Interesting,” Wingate said. “That explains at least part of the reason you are needed here.”
“Just part?” Longarm asked. “What’s the rest of it?”
“Other than the Crow Tall Man, I take it you also are acquainted with an Indian known as Cloud Talker?”
