The swarthy bare-chested cuss in black leggings kept going, so Longarm shot him in the ass and he didn't move in any direction once he'd finished flopping down the slope a good ways.
Longarm got himself and Minerva well clear of his own gunsmoke as he muttered, "I told him I'd send him on to Hell if he didn't stay put. Matty agrees with me that one of them was calling for water in Spanish before. So that fool we both shot should have known what I was saying."
Minerva moaned, "I'm about to come! Won't you even stick a finger in there for me, Custis?"
To which he could only reply, "Not just now. The next few minutes should tell the tale. I just sent up a pillar of smoke they ought to be able to see from Fort Sill. So those sneaks just down the way must have a much better view of it. Indian or Mex, they ought to be able to figure out why. So now they're making up their minds whether they want to charge like Pickett or ride for their lives. They know they don't have until nightfall now. I figure it won't take a full hour for my old pal, Colonel Howard, to order out a patrol once somebody points out our mysterious smoke signals. It might move him faster if you'd like to toss on more leaves and flip-flop that tarp from time to time."
Minerva grimaced and declared, "I've been taking notes on Indian customs. But I don't even know Morse code, Custis."
Longarm said, "Just try for any old dots and dashes. The cavalry are more likely to ride over and see who's sending lem up than they are to worry about decoding it!"
She didn't seem to be moving. He insisted, "Give it a try. A patrol from Fort Sill would be hard pressed to make it here in less than four hours if we got 'em started right now!"
She moaned that wouldn't be soon enough, and started to back out of the sticker-brush. He told her to hang on to that derringer and just let fly a blind shot from time to time in the two directions neither he nor Matty could cover. She got to her feet, bawling like a baby but heading for that smudge fire. So Longarm concentrated on the slope he hoped they'd choose to charge.
If the cavalry came at all, they'd be moving in from the southeast not much later than noon. He knew that down below they knew they had to shit or get off the pot a lot sooner. You didn't want a cavalry column less than two hours behind you as you lit out, even when you'd won. Admirers of either cowboys or Indians might not know it, but the well-shod and oat-fed cavalry stock selected by the Army Remount Service tended to outlast and overtake more casually cared-for ponies.
Staring down through the shimmering sunlight, Longarm tried to put himself in the other side's fix. it might have been easier if he'd had a better line on who in the hell they might be.
He composed some nasty Mexican insults with care, knowing how tough it was to cuss in Mexican. English enjoyed the luxury of words that were dirty all by themselves. You had to be more poetic in Spanish. Son of a bitch lost its sting translated into "hijo de perra," because you had to settle for a plain old female hound. "Cabron," meaning goat, was a meaner thing to call a Mexican because a goat, like a betrayed husband, wore big but nearly harmless horns.
Recalling what some border raiders had once tried on him and a mess of Ranger pals, Longarm cupped a palm over his mouth to blur just where he might be calling from as he bawled, "Ay, que mariposas, es probable que son sesenta y nueve!"
Somebody pegged a shot where they thought he might be. He couldn't say whether the one behind that outcrop was annoyed at the suggestion he was a butterfly sucking off a pal, or whether he'd just sounded off longer than he should have.
He yelled, "Tu madre!" which was usually good for a flying bottle in any well-run cantina, and sure enough, that same hothead behind that same outcrop let fly another round.
Longarm didn't return the fire. His hidden target was over four hundred yards out. He was hoping they could see how easy it would be for him to nail anyone at fifty as they struggled up the last barren yards of that steep dusty slope.
So what was holding them from just riding on? If they knew who was up here, they knew one man and two gals weren't packing a treasure worth dying for.
Longarm grumbled, "You sneaky sons of bitches think we know something about you that we don't. But what could that be? You know that by now I've reported my suspicions about fake Black Leggings to real Black Leggings. I've asked everyone who'll listen about Indian Police acting suspicious as hell. So what's left? What could I be missing?"
He spotted movement nobody but an experienced deer hunter on the prod might have spotted. Somebody was sidewinding through some knee-high mountain campion. Longarm considered what that gal had said about the quality of mercy in that play about Venice. On the other hand, Miss Portia had never had to stop so many bastards with one old saddle gun. So he fired, and damned if the jasper rolling down the slope from that clump of brush wasn't clad in dusty blue from head to toe. Longarm chortled, "Hot damn if I ain't smart! It's just like I was only suggesting, back in that Kiowa camp! Those fake Indian Police are in cahoots with fake Indians!" He yelled, "Bolla de idiotas! No me jodas!"
So then it got very noisy, with shot-up twigs and chewed-up oak leaves raining down on him as he grinned down at the billowing gun-smoke and muttered, "I asked you not to screw i with me, you idiots!" Then the guns fell silent, and a long time crept by as the sun rose ever higher and he tried to determine whether they were moving in or moving out. Minerva rejoined him on her hands and knees to gasp, "Matty sent me. She says a lot of riders are moving along the slopes from the southwest. She says she can tell they're busting through the chaparral on horseback because of all the dust. Those cavalry troops from Fort Sill haven't had time to get here yet, have they?"
To which he could only reply grim-lipped, "Not hardly. Stay here with that derringer. Fire it a heap if anyone shows his fool face to the north. I doubt anyone will. But you never know for certain."
As he crawfished back under the blackjacks, Minerva protested, "I couldn't repel a charge with this toy if I knew how to use it! Where do you think you're going, Custis?"
He grunted, "Where I expect more action, of course." Then he got to his feet, Yellowboy at port, and added, "They knew right off it was a lot steeper on this side. By now they must have noticed how we've been covering it." He moved off through the trees as he grumbled, "you bet they'll try the gentler slope from the trail, if and when they go for broke!" He kicked more greenery on the smudge fire in passing, and then he was kneeling by Matawnkiha Gordon to say, "We're swapping places. Go cover the tougher-looking backyard whilst I watch this front way in with a tougher gun." Unlike her white teacher, little Matty had been raised on tales of blood and slaughter. So she merely said, "I think they're bunching on this side too. There's no dust downslope now. But I keep spotting moving branches, and there's no wind at all right now!" Then she was fading back through the dappled shade, and Longarm had slid into her place behind a fallen log. She'd chosen a swell position. She'd gone a night and then some without a bath as well. But the female odor lingering in the crushed grass didn't disgust a man worth mention. The kid's Kiowa mamma had known what she'd been about when she'd insisted on a chaperone.
He had to laugh. He knew Matty's momma would laugh too if she ever found out who'd been chaperoning whom on this expedition.
His new position offered a whole new set of tactical considerations. There wasn't much cover between this wooded knoll and the trail about a furlong south, with fair cover growing right up to the far side and the open slope they'd have to cross no steeper than that streetcar line up Denver's Capitol Hill. He figured he could drop eight or ten if they rushed him in a bunch. He didn't know what he'd do if they charged across the trail spread out in greater numbers.
He glanced up at the sky. He didn't need to dig out his watch to see no cavalry patrol could have made it far enough to matter as yet.
Longarm asked a carpenter ant crawling along the log, "Do you reckon we're just spooking ourselves? Those fakes have to know they ain't got all day to hit and run. So what if they've just run?"
He figured Comanche would have charged by this time. In their day they'd been admired for fighting just as bravely, or dumbly, as Texas Rangers. Most other Indians considered a fallen hero a dead fool. There was no shame in calling off a "bad fight" because the idea was to make the enemy die bravely, not to get your fool self killed.
Counting those others Godiva Weaver had nailed the other day, the gang had taken mighty heavy losses for the nervous moments they'd been able to manage for him so far. He asked that ant how come the rascals had kept coming back for more. The ant didn't seem to know. Longarm insisted, "it has to be a better reason than my guns and boots. Some leader with a personal hard-on has to be ordering them to lift my hair in particular!"
He warned himself he was thinking in circles. Not wanting to give away his position with tobacco smoke, he plucked a stem of grass to chew as he softly sang:
Farther along, we'll know more about it. Farther along, we'll understand why. Cheer up, my brother, walk in the sunshine. We'll understand this, all by and by.
Then he spotted riders coming along that trail from the southwest. There sure were a heap of them. All wearing feathers, paint, and those black buckskin leggings as they sat their ponies tall, as if they didn't have a worry in this world.
Longarm wasn't sure they did. He had sixteen rounds in his saddle gun, the gals had his other guns, and there had to be at least fifty of the befeathered riders headed his way!
Then he recognized a familiar war bonnet. It was the only thing about old Necomi that hadn't been daubed with red, black, and yellow paint. And that had to be good old Hawzitah riding beside the chief, in spite of the way he'd whitewashed his head and shoulders. So Longarm half rose to shout, "Look out, Necomi! We're surrounded up this way and you boys are riding into an ambush!"
That inspired a Kiowa reply that sounded like puppy dogs getting their tails docked in a meat grinder. As half his followers dropped off the trail to beat through the brush and cuss it just awful, the more dignified Necomi rode closer to shout, "Which side was sending up those smoke signals? We could not read them. But when we see smoke above our own hills we wish to know why!"
Longarm called back that he'd been trying to signal Fort Sill. The older Kiowa shouted, "We can talk about it later. My scouts say some of those fork-tongues wearing black leggings just rode off to the northeast, and I wish to talk to them before they die!"
Longarm broked cover to signal danger with his free hand as he cautioned, "Call your young men back! I just told you I sent for the U.S. Cav! What would you do if you were a green trooper and you saw Kiowa in feathers and paint coming your way at full gallop?"
Necomi was smart enough to picture that. He swore mightily and rode closer, protesting, "This is not sensible! We could catch them if we really tried. But they will be far, very far, by the time the blue sleeves get here!"
As they closed to within conversational distance, Longarm nodded and said, "I know. If your young men were dressed as Indian Police, those mysterious rascals would never get away. But they're not. So now all we can do is wait here and explain all this confusion to the infernal army!"
CHAPTER 16
The morose Necomi didn't wait an hour for the hated cavalry. He headed for home with most of his followers. But the more progressive or more curious Hawzitah thought his two dozen painted warriors ought to practice their scouting. So they did. Longarm had to take their word when they reported no bodies after a thorough search out at least a mile in all directions. The knoll he'd chosen for a stand was surrounded by tanglewood-choked draws, timbered north slopes, and high chaparral most everywhere else. But once real Kiowa came back with signs as small as torn-off feathers, blood-spattered grass stems, and one brass uniform button, Longarm had to concede they'd have hardly overlooked a full-grown corpse out yonder.
He was stoking the smudge fire atop the knoll with fresh green branches, with the two gals hunkered nearby, when old Hawzitah came through the blackjacks again to report, "They were riding shod ponies. Many shod ponies that dropped blue sleeve sign. Those who paint themselves do not feed their ponies oat seeds for the birds to peck at. I think all of them, whether in blue sleeves or paint, were riding police ponies. By the time those other blue sleeves get here they will have made it east to the post road to Anadarko. Nobody will be able to pick out their sign from the other hoofprints on such a well-traveled trail, even if they forget to change their clothes!"
Longarm grimaced, stared thoughtfully down at the brass button in his left hand, and said, "I'm afraid you're right. This button tells me the ones in uniform may not be wearing government issue. The B.I.A. salvages cast-off army blue for the Indian Police. But some dress more spiffy. Agent Clum, over to the San Carlos Reserve, managed to get local settlers to outfit his Apache Police in spanking new blue tunics with their own pewter badges a spell back. I'll ask the Comanche Police sergeant I know whether this button looks like one he'd want his own boys to polish."
Minerva Cranston had been listening with interest. So she chimed in. "What good would that do you either way, Custis? We've all agreed those mysterious uniformed riders don't seem to be Comanche. There are no other Indian Police on this particular reserve. So it's obvious they begged, borrowed, or stole those uniforms somewhere else!"