Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (26 page)

“Oh, I'm right sure there'll be men sent there, too. I just happened to draw this one.”

“Why? Why here?”

“Because stories got back to the East that there's likely to be real trouble here.”

“It's those goddamned foreign nesters!” Hawkins exploded. “They're the ones who went running to Washington for help! They've been trying to take control away from us native Americans ever since they came in!”

Longarm raised a hand in a calming gesture. “Look here, Mr. Hawkins, I wasn't sent here to help or hurt anybody. Just to see that the voting's fair.”

“Don't feed me that bullshit, Long! Your bosses are the same people who've controlled every administration since the War ended, and all that time they've been trying to flood the country with foreigners!”

Longarm remained unruffled. “That's your opinion, Mr. Hawkins, and you're sure entitled to think whatever you please. It's not part of my job to pay that much attention to the political side of things. All I'm interested in is enforcing the law.”

“Go look at those damned Russian nesters, then. They're the ones who're not satisfied with the way things are run around here. They're the ones who want to change everything.”

“You mean because they're running a candidate for sheriff against your man Grover?”

“Who says Grover's my man? He's a public official. Maybe I supported him when he first got elected, but that's my business. You just got through saying that.”

“From what I've heard, you're a pretty big man hereabouts, Mr. Hawkins. I'd bet Sheriff Grover'd think twice before he did something you told him not to.”

“People come to me for advice, sure. I give it to them, and if they think it's good advice and follow it, that's sure as hell not my fault.”

“I couldn't argue against that. Only there's a big stretch of difference between giving advice and giving orders.”

“Exactly why did you come here today, Long? To intimidate me? Threaten me?”

“I can't recall doing either one, Mr. Hawkins. No, sir. The only reason I'm out here right now is to let you know I'm on hand to stop any election day trouble before it gets started. I plan to keep an eye on the voting place, and I won't stand for fights or threats, and there won't be any repeaters or double voting.”

“You're not hinting that I'm planning to encourage any of those things? Or that I'm trying to engineer a crooked election?” Under his tan, Hawkins's face was flushing a deep red. “If you are, I'll have your hide nailed to my barn door before election day.”

“I know you've got a lot of influence, Mr. Hawkins. You put this county together, and you run it without a courthouse or any elected officials except a sheriff. But I'm not hinting anything. All I'm saying is, if you hear about somebody planning to try to steal the election, you let me know.”

“Let me tell you a few facts, Marshal—maybe they'll make you look at this thing differently. We cattlemen
made
this part of Kansas. Why, damn it, when I came here in '69, there were thirty or forty abandoned homesteads, where wheat crops had failed and the homesteaders couldn't make it. This is cattle country, Long, not farmland.”

“Sure.” Longarm nodded. “I've seen range and I've seen farmland, traveling around the country like I do. I know the difference.”

“That's the smartest thing you've said yet.” Hawkins's voice lost some of its hostility, “I'll finish what I started to say, if you don't mind. My ranch was the first one here. All the others came later, but all of us ranchers got here before those foreigners came flooding in, cutting up our range with their Glidden wire. We made this place, we got the railroad spur, we made a town out of Junction. And as sure as shit stinks, we don't propose to give up what we made.”

Longarm took his time replying. Finally he said, “A minute ago you told me how many sections you've got in this place of yours. Mind telling me how many of 'em you picked up, just for filing fees on those thirty or forty homesteads you said were abandoned when you moved in? If a man picks up a hundred and sixty acres for a two-dollar filing fee, I'd say that's damn cheap. Less than a penny an acre is what it figures out to, doesn't it, Mr. Hawkins? And wouldn't you like to pick up what those new homesteaders have filed on at the same price?”

Anger flooded back into Hawkins's voice. “I took idle land and put it to use! It took a lot of work and sweat to do it, don't overlook that. Sure, I've got a valuable spread here now. And I'll fight to keep it!”

“Well, now.” Longarm's voice was quietly level. “You've said right out where you stand, so I'll do the same. As long as what you do is legal, you won't find me standing in your way. Nobody's out to deny you any rights. But nobody's going to deny those farmers their rights, either, whether they're foreigners or whatever else, as long as what they do is legal, too. Not while I'm around, at least.”

“I've already told you what you'd better do. Spend your time watching those Russian nesters instead of bothering good American citizens.”

“Now, I plan to keep an eye on them, too. Don't worry about that. But I'm going to be watching a few other things, like fence-cutting and trampling down wheatfields.”

The rancher pointed a cautionary finger at the marshal. “Be careful, Long. You're stepping outside your authority when you mix into something that's a matter for the sheriff.”

“Not when the sheriff closes his eyes to lawbreaking.”

“All right. If that's all you've got to say, you can go about whatever kind of business you've got. My work's waiting for me, and it's not going to wait all day.”

Longarm stood up. “I try not to keep any man from his honest business. Or to let one get away with any unlawful business. Thanks for your time, Mr. Hawkins. We'll probably run into each other again pretty soon.”

Without waiting for Hawkins to show him to the door, Longarm turned and walked briskly across the polished floor, let himself out, mounted the roan, and started back toward Junction.

When he saw in the distance the green rectangles of the homesteaders' wheatfields, he turned the horse west. This was the area he'd started out to look at the day before, when he'd been interrupted by Nicolai Belivev's rifle shot. He was riding now at an angle that would take him to the Santa Fe spur track about four miles outside Junction. In the triangle between his course and the track lay the fields he hadn't looked at before.

A few minutes after he'd turned west, Longarm noticed a small natural ridge. Perhaps the little rise marked the shoreline of a centuries-dry lake, or perhaps it was a wrinkle resulting from some earthquake that had buckled the land in times before men lived on it. The rise stretched roughly along the course Longarm wanted to follow, and he turned the roan to climb it. Though it was no more than a yard or so above the rest of the terrain, even this much gave him an elevation from which he could survey the land more easily.

He was surprised at the area covered by the homesteads. It was impossible to count them, for most of the 160-acre claims had been fenced into wheatfields of forty to sixty acres, as much wheat as a man could tend in a day's work. Counting the number of dwellings was equally impossible, he discovered as the roan picked its slow way along the ridge. So many of the dwellings were sod houses that it wasn't always possible to tell whether a hump inside a fenced field was a soddy in which someone still lived, or one that had been abandoned in favor of a frame house close by. There were, Longarm judged after he'd ridden almost to the end of the ridge, between thirty and forty frame houses, with six or eight more under construction, and at least half again as many soddies as houses.

On his way to Hawkins's ranch, he'd guessed that there were as many as twenty homesteads east of the cattle trail. If his new estimate was correct, and if each dwelling he'd counted housed only two adults, then the number of immigrants living around Junction numbered a bit more than two hundred. He reached the railroad and turned onto the road that ran beside the track, heading for Junction.

No wonder Clem Hawkins is bothered
, Longarm told himself as he swayed to the broken rhythm of the roan's walk.
I'd bet a plugged lead dollar there're just about as many settlers as there are ranchers and hands. It's a cinch Hawkins ain't missed counting noses. I bet he knows right down to the last man how many hands his rancher friends hire, and how many folks live in Junction. And not everybody who lives there is going to vote the way Hawkins and his pals want 'em to. Old son, we've got us a close election here. Billy Vail sure handed me a live one, this time!

Chapter 5

Breakfast was a long time behind him when Longarm returned to Junction. He'd chewed a piece of jerky from the emergency rations in his saddlebag, but while it kept his stomach from growling too angrily, it didn't give him the sensation that he'd eaten a real meal. His first stop was at the Ace High for an appetizer that he didn't need, but to which he felt entitled after a morning and part of an afternoon in the saddle. Then he crossed the street to the café.

“We sold out everything we cooked for dinner, and ain't got the stuff for supper ready yet,” the scrawny proprietor informed him.

“Well, you've got a stove in the kitchen, haven't you?”

“Sure. Now, you oughta know that.”

“Then cook me something.”

“I guess we can do that, all right. It'll cost you a dime extra for my trouble, though.”

“Go ahead. I'll pay it.”

“Eggs and a fried steak sound about right? Cost you two bits and the extra dime on top of it.”

“I didn't ask you how much, friend. I said I'd pay it. Now go on and cook.”

Longarm slid a cigar out of his vest to give his jaws something to do while he waited. As time passed and no food appeared, he was tempted to light it, for the shot of rye he'd had across the street was serving its purpose, and his stomach was crying out in earnest now. The steak and eggs finally came out of the kitchen. He made short work of finishing them off, sipped his coffee, and started for the hotel to drop off his rifle and saddlebags. He planned to spend the rest of the afternoon sauntering around town, striking up a few conversations that might give him an idea as to how the citizens of Junction itself, small as their numbers were, felt about the growing feud between the ranchers and homesteaders. After he'd done that, he'd drop in at the saloon for a drink and visit with Ruthie awhile, then have a late supper. Just as he was entering the hotel, he heard his name called.

“Marshal Long! A moment, please!”

Turning, Longarm saw Mordka Danilov hurrying along the board sidewalk toward him. He waited for the homesteaders' spiritual leader to cover the distance between them.

“It is good fortune that I find you,” Danilov panted as he stopped beside Longarm. “Already twice I have asked here at the hotel, but you have always been away.”

“Something come up that bothers you, Mr. Danilov?” Longarm asked.

“Only perhaps. Of it, we cannot be sure.”

“Well, come on in and we'll go up to my room. You can tell me about it.”

Mordka hesitated. “It is better that we do not talk now. Some of the Brethren have things they would like to say, too. They must work the fields until dark, you see.”

“Sure. I know how farming is. Well, bring in whoever wants to talk to me, Mr. Danilov. We can sit down and palaver this evening, later on.”

“Palaver? This word I do not know.”

“It just means talk.”

“Ah.
Ya panimayiti
I understand,” Danilov nodded. He looked questioningly at Longarm. “Would you talk with us tonight, then? If you would come to my house for supper—not a feast, you understand, but such as we have to offer—it would be easier for my friends to assemble there.”

“Why, sure. Only you don't have to bother about feeding me. I just ate a minute ago.”

“No, no!” Danilov insisted. “It would honor us if you break bread with us. Come at dusk, Marshal. You will have no trouble finding my house again,
da
?”

“No trouble at all. I'll be there.”

During his afternoon stroll around Junction, Longarm found too few residents who'd talk about the election to give him much of an idea of the townspeople's feelings. Even at the barbershop, the barber was not as talkative as those of his trade usually are. In the stores, where he dropped in casually and chatted with customers as well as clerks and proprietors, he could find no clear-cut current of opinion. He got the feeling that while their minds might be made up, people hesitated to say anything that might get back to Grover and, through him, to Hawkins. When he'd finished his rounds, he was as much in the dark regarding local sentiment as he'd been before he'd started. Late in the day, with the setting sun warm on his back, he got his horse from the livery stable and set out for Mordka Danilov's house.

Light spilled into the dusk through the open door of the Danilov dwelling, and as he drew closer, Longarm could hear a humming of voices raised in spirited discussion. He tethered the roan to the fencepost nearest the gate and went in. Danilov came to greet him.

“
Dobro pojalovativa
, Marshal Long. I make you welcome. Come and meet my brothers.”

For the next few minutes, Longarm went through a bewildering series of introductions to men whose names sounded incomprehensibly complicated. He supposed they were the Russian equivalents of Smith, Jones, and Brown, but his head began to reel as, in quick succession, he met Fedor Petrovsky, Antonin Keverchov, Mischa Evrykenov, Pavel Sednov, Tikhon Gapontski, and Basil Lednovotny. All of them spoke passable English, though some were less fluent than others, and all of them found it easier to speak to their companions in their native tongue. Nicolai Belivev he remembered from the day before; he found a partial solution to his conversational dilemma by addressing only Belivev and Danilov by name.

To heighten Longarm's confusion, there was a strong uniformity of appearance among the other men. All wore untrimmed, chest-length beards and all had shaved upper lips. They were also dressed in much the same manner. All of them had on solid-color shirts—blouses, really—with full-cut sleeves and closely fastened cuffs; the only difference was that a few wore the familiar denim Levi's of the prairie, while the rest had on full-cut trousers of a material coarser than denim, and tucked their trouser legs into calf-high boots.

Mordka sensed his guest's confusion with the unfamiliar names, and tried to lessen it by repeating the names of the Brethren who addressed Longarm during the brief pause that followed the introductions. As soon as the first confused minutes had passed, Mordka announced that supper was ready. He went to the door at the rear of the room, and opened it.

“Marya!” he called. “Tatiana!
Dayti uzhin!
”

Marya Danilov came at once from the adjoining room, followed by a much younger woman; Longarm put her age at eighteen or twenty. They went at once to a table that was covered with a plaid cloth, and transferred the cloth to a second table. Both women worked silently, paying no attention to the men. Both wore plain, drably hued dresses that reached their ankles, and had small white capes draped across their shoulders. Longarm remembered Marya from his earlier visit, but he found his eyes drawn at once to Tatiana.

She was a girl of striking beauty. Dark blond hair, the color of deep honey, was drawn in severe sweeps from a center part into a bun at her neck. The blond hair framed a classic face—a straight nose with nostrils that flared slightly, full red lips, a firmly rounded chin. Under golden blond brows, Tatiana's eyes were a light blue gray, large and luminous. Her hands were large, the hands of a working woman, reddened and rough, but the skin of her face and neck was flawless. The plainly cut dress she wore effectively concealed all of her figure except for her breasts, which bulged fully rounded below broad, competent shoulders.

As soon as the cloth had been removed, revealing an array of dishes piled with foods strange to Longarm's eyes, Mordka held up a hand, raised his face, and closed his eyes. The others did the same.

“Slava Bog! Slava Christos!”
Mordka said, and at once the guests—except for Longarm, who stood watching—repeated the words. The silence that followed was broken by the host, who took Longarm by the arm and led him to the table. “
Kushaitye
, Marshal Long!
Kushaitye pojalsta!
” Immediately, smiling, he went on, “It is our way to make a guest welcome in our homes, an old custom, you understand? You would say to me, ‘Eat, Mordka, eat heartily,' in your own language.”

“I see.” Longarm blinked at the dishes. “It—it looks real good.”

“It is our
zakuskis
,” Mordka explained. He pointed to the filled dishes in turn. “Here is chicken
piroshki
, mushroom
piroshki
—” pointing to rounds of pastries spread with ground meat—“
ogurtsi
—” indicating tiny cucumbers smaller than a finger, swimming in a clear liquid—“
sirniki
—” more rounds, which were browned like toast—“
selenye gribi
,” indicating mushrooms in a liquid similar to that covering the cucumbers. “Eat and enjoy, Marshal. Here. A
piroshki
is a good way to begin.” He picked up a plate filled with meat-spread pastry rounds and held it out to Longarm,

Somewhat gingerly, Longarm took one of the rounds. He bit into it, found it delicious, and this gave him the courage to try another. As soon as he started to eat, the remaining guests joined him at the table. Longarm watched them for clues, and ate as they did, picking up one of the
zakuskis
with his fingers and popping it into his mouth whole. He began sampling the
zakuskis
, and found his mouth filled with flavors that were entirely new to him, though he could recognize the beef and chicken, the eggplant, mushrooms, and cottage cheese that formed the basis for the fillings of the
piroshkis
and the spreads for the pastry rounds.

Mordka appeared at Longarm's elbow, watched him bite into a
piroshki
, and smiled. He said, “I am glad to see you enjoy our little
zakuskis
, Marshal.”

“They're plumb good, Mr. Danilov. Where'd you get the makings for all this stuff, in a place like Junction?”

“You must have seen our little gardens. The women attend to them, while we men work in the wheat. After a rain, they go to the unplowed ground and gather mushrooms. Many of the seasonings, like dillweed, grow wild out on the prairie.”

“Wasn't it a lot of work for Mrs. Danilov to fix up a spread like this?”

“No, no, she did not make them by herself, Tatiana helped, of course, and so did the wives of the other Brethren. We have learned to share with one another, you see.” Mordka looked around. “Ah. You must finish with the
zakuskis
soon, Marshal. It is time now for supper.”

“Supper?” Longarm couldn't hide his surprise. “I thought all this
was
supper.”

“
Zakuskis
are only to start. Now, we sit down and eat soup with
pelmeni
, and
golubtsi
, and
blinis
, and to finish, we will have a bowl of
gourievskaya kashka
. Come. You must sit at my right hand; you are our honored guest.”

Mordka led Longarm to the larger table. While the men had been munching on the appetizers, Marya and Tatiana had unobtrusively set out plates, knives, and forks on the cloth transferred from the
zakuskis
spread. Danilov took his place at the head of the rectangular table and motioned Longarm to sit at his right. As soon as they were seated, the women began filling bowls and platters from the pots that, almost unnoticed, had been kept warm on the kitchen range that stood in the far corner of the room. As though this was a signal for the other men to sit down, they began finding places, and the table was soon filled.

Nicolai Belivev was sitting across from Longarm. He smiled when he saw Longarm inspecting the soup, which was a clear broth that had tiny bite-sized dumplings swimming in it. Belivev said, “Do not worry, Marshal. It is only good chicken soup, and the
pelmeni
are filled with the livers from the chickens.”

Longarm took a spoonful of soup and chewed down on the dumpling that he'd carried to his mouth in the spoon. It was not flat and doughy-tasting like the dumplings he'd eaten before. The
pelmeni
turned out to be a thin shell of flaky dough, and the spiced ground-liver filling added a tang to the bland broth.

Belivev had been watching. He smiled. “This is the first time for you to eat Russian-style,
da
?”

“Yep. But I sure don't aim to let it be the last.” Longarm looked at the heaped platters in the center of the table. “I don't know what's in all those plates, but I'll bet they're just as good as what I've already tasted.”

“We do not eat so well each day, you understand,” Mordka told him. “But when we have a guest, we want him to enjoy our best.”

“Well, it sure does you proud. These are about the finest little dumplings I've ever tasted.”

“Tatiana made them. She has a good hand with pastry dough,” Mordka said. “But if you are wondering what is in the platters, I will tell you.” He pointed to them, one by one. “Here is
golubtsi
, chopped beef rolled up in cabbage leaves.
Blinis
, what you would call pancakes. In this small bowl is
izra iz Baklajan
, eggplant cooked with onion and tomatoes and green peppers and seasonings. And in the covered bowl is the dessert,
gourievskaya kashka
, made with ground wheat from last year's crop and fruits from your airtight tins. We have not yet had time to plant fruit trees; we are too busy getting our houses finished and caring for our wheat.”

“
Eta pravlina
,” the man sitting next to Longarm said. “It was no time for us to do such things yet. Next year it will be better.”

“Next year is always better, Fedor,” Belivev remarked. “Next year I plant fruit trees, and I also build me for my wife a house. A
salash
, maybe, but is better the worst hut than to live in the ground, like mole or rabbit.”

Fedor nodded. “
Da
. If from the wheat we get money enough, so do I build a house, too.”

By now, the diners had eaten their soup, and all around the table, plates were being loaded from the serving platters. Encouraged by the soup, Longarm sampled the cabbage rolls,
blinis
, and eggplant, and found them as different as the soup from his daily fare, but as tasty as the dishes he'd enjoyed earlier. He refilled his plate, taking food from each of the platters. The others were concentrating on eating with the same degree of interest that he was, and conversation faded except for a word now and then complimenting the flavor of the
golubtsi
stuffing, or a request for a platter to be passed to someone who could not reach it.