Juanita Maria said something in a sad and shaky voice, but Bad Tooth only shrugged by way of interpretation. “We have food to eat and robes to sleep on. It is enough,” the old crone said.
“And Cloud Talker? Does he provide for you too?”
Bad Tooth shrugged again.
“May I ask you something, Grandmother?”
“Long Arm is welcome to say or to ask whatever he likes. Surely our grandson knows this.”
“I can’t seem to recall ever meeting Cloud Talker before. Which one of you is his mother?”
“Why, Cloud Talker is not of our blood, no. Not of either of us.”
“But if John Jumps-the-Creek is his father … excuse me. I don’t mean to bring up something that I shouldn’t.”
Bad Tooth translated that for Juanita Maria, and both of them seemed to get quite a kick out of the idea. “Long Arm, have you forgotten so very much about our people that you would ask such a thing? Cloud Talker is the son of John Jumps-the-Creek’s sister Many Willows, whose husband was not of the same clan and so could not be the father to Cloud Talker.”
Longarm frowned, trying to put it in place. He vaguely remembered that Piegan couples had to come from two separate clans in order to avoid the contamination of incest. There was a kinship within the clan regardless of blood connection. And when it came to family, whether clan or blood relationship, the children followed the line of the mother, not the father. That had something—Longarm had never really understood all this—to do with the habit of having an uncle act as father to the children of his sister. In many tribes a blood father’s relationship with his own children was minimal, almost to the point of disappearing. He really didn’t understand all of the complex interlock of family and clan relationships. But at least the reminder was enough to satisfy his curiosity about Cloud Talker. And to explain the fact that Longarm had never met him before even though Longarm and John Jumps-the-Creek had been friends for years.
“Is that … Cloud Talker being, uh, sort of a son to my friend … is that why Cloud Talker is the new shaman?”
“Cloud Talker our shaman? Is he?” Bad Tooth asked, her rheumy old eyes growing wide.
“But I thought …”
Bad Tooth and Juanita Maria conferred; then they led Longarm to the fire pit outside the lodge where Juanita Maria stayed. “Sit. We will talk for a while, before the rain begins again.”
Longarm looked at the sky. There were a few puffy clouds building to the west, but they presented no threat. The sky directly overhead was all buttermilk and blue. He doubted it would rain again all week long judging from the look of things at the moment. He did not presume to correct the old women, though. That would have been rude.
“Would you like coffee to drink?” Bad Tooth asked. “I can make some from the present you gave to me.” A moment later, after some quick translating, she added, “Juanita Maria would sweeten your coffee with the sugar you brought.”
“No, thanks. Those things are for you, not for you to serve me with.”
“You would like water to drink?”
“I would like water, yes.” He wanted them to be able to do something for him. That would demonstrate their hospitality. And their usefulness. He suspected both were of importance to the women.
Juanita Maria hurried away to fetch a gourd of cool water for him, and Bad Tooth disappeared long enough to find a walnut-sized chunk of pemmican for their guest. Longarm saw the pemmican and felt his stomach churn. When properly made, pemmican would last for years without spoiling. Which seemed a helluva shame. The stuff, made of pulverized berries mixed with tallow and other ingredients best left unknown, looked and tasted like goat shit allowed to turn rancid. Well, tasted like he imagined rancid goat shit would taste. Except maybe not quite that good.
He accepted the pemmican, smiled broadly, and bit off a mouthful. Yeah, it was properly made pemmican, all right. Wonderful stuff.
A sip of the water wouldn’t wash the taste away. He thought about munching a handful of dirt, or possibly some horse apples, but that would have been rude. He settled for finishing off the pemmican quickly so as not to have to endure it any longer than necessary and then lighting a cheroot to cover the flavor with something infinitely better.
Juanita Maria and Bad Tooth graciously accepted his last cheroot—he’d thought he had more than enough when he left Deadwood, dammit, but with the race yesterday and now this—and broke it in two pieces so they could share the slender cigar. Longarm held a match for them and lighted his own. “May I ask you something?”
“Long Arm can ask anything. Are we not the grandmothers of this good friend?”
“You are,” he agreed, solemnly puffing on his cheroot and sending a wreath of pale smoke into a quickening breeze. “If it would not be too painful, Grandmother, please tell me how my friend died.”
“Our husband was murdered by the Crow. The Crow are not to be trusted, you know.”
“Yes, but do you know which man of the Crow murdered John Jumps-the-Creek?”
Bad Tooth and Juanita Maria conferred again. Then Bad Tooth shook her head. “It was night. Very late. We were asleep in our beds. I heard my husband stir. I saw him rise from his bed. He was growing old, Long Arm. He had to rise several times each night to go out and empty his bladder. You know how this is.”
Longarm nodded.
“I saw him rise. No one called to him. No one woke him in the night. I am sure of this, Long Arm. Juanita Maria has no more hearing than she has teeth, but my ears are as good now as when I was a girl. If someone called to my husband in the night, I would have heard it as well. He woke with the need to piss as he always did, and he got up and he went outside into the night. I saw him go. He put a blanket over his shoulders and he went out of our lodge.” She sighed, the memories seeming to overtake her for a moment, and paused to bring Juanita Maria up to date on what was being said.
