Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds (30 page)

The drably pretty young waitress who seated him at a round table with a checkered red, white, and gravy-stained cloth didn't seem upset by his faded denims and Winchester '73. But he sure was getting dirty looks from the only other patron at that hour.

That small brunette he suspected of being the hot-tempered Helga Runeberg was seated at another table in a far corner, spitting venom at him with her big blue eyes from under the brim of her dark gray Stetson Carlsbad. Longarm had no call to nod at a lady he'd never been introduced to. He wasn't ready to question her about her Uncle Chief before he found out a bit more about the dead rascal. He'd come in here to settle his gut before he enjoyed the usual duel of wits with a small-town telegraph operator. So he didn't want to argue with the dead Indian's boss before he had a better line on whether Youngwolf had been taking advantage of an old pal's kin or the mean-eyed little gal had been aiding and abetting a cuss she'd known to be a charter member of a serious outlaw gang.

The drably pretty and dishwater-blond waitress said they didn't go by printed menus, but suggested the special for the day might be better for his health than anything their cook would ever whip up as a special order for some fussy eater.

When she added their special, as usual, offered him his choice between fried or mashed potatoes with his roast beef and succotash, he said he'd go with fried and asked if he could have his coffee with his grub.

She looked surprised, and asked how else anyone might ever drink their coffee. So he knew he was in a place that catered mostly to his own sort of country folk. The small brunette in the corner looked a tad stuck up for the place, and likely sipped her damned demitasse with a whiff of creme liquor, with some bittersweet dessert. She looked as if she could smell the crotch of his jeans clean across the room, and thought it unseemly to sweat in the saddle like a human being.

The air was still damp from all that rain as it started to warm up. So Longarm could smell that waitress pretty good as she returned in no time with his order. But he could tell she'd had a bath the night before, if not that morning, and it wasn't her fault she had to sweat a tad at honest work. He decided he liked her far better than the snooty sass in the corner, although the brunette would likely win in a beauty contest, where each feature got measured on its own.

Neither gal was a raving beauty, or even pretty enough to win the third prize, when you got down to brass tacks. But neither the pallid young waitress nor the somewhat older brunette cattle queen would have been thrown back in the sea if they'd washed up on Robinson Crusoe's beach.

Longarm figured he'd rather lay the waitress, although it wasn't going to bust his heart if he never laid either. The waitress seemed just a good old country gal who'd give a man a tolerable ride he might recall for as long as another payday in another trail town. The more finely featured but bitchy-looking brunette would likely scratch and bite, or just lay there like a slab of beef from the icehouse, depending on which way might make a man feel worse. He wondered idly who she kept reminding him of. She didn't look like any gal he'd even considered kissing lately. Yet he was almost certain he'd seen that almost pretty face and that elfin turned-up nose before. Meanwhile, the grub the much sweeter-natured gal had served was good, and the coffee was even better. Arbuckle Brand, if he was any judge, and percolated in one of those high-toned pots as well to taste this good!

Arbuckle Brand was roasted and ground to be sold in the Far West with such complications as high altitudes and primitive brewing in mind. So a mountain man or cow camp cook could make a tolerable mug of Arbuckle Brand in a tin can, over an open fire, a mile or more above sea level with alkali water. The stuff turned to strong black ambrosia that would wake a man up grinning when you made it in a percolator on a real stove. So Longarm put away his first cup pronto, and asked for a second before he'd finished half his grub.

The friendly dishwater blonde got even prettier in Longarm's eyes when she allowed he could have all the coffee he wanted at no extra charge. For she was surely used to serving cowhands, and it was only natural to wonder how fine she might be able to serve them in other country ways.

But he never came right out and flirted with the good old gal. He hadn't ridden all this way to spark a waitress, and even if he had, that other gal was watching and he could tell she thought all men were beasts. Or leastways, he was. But he resisted the temptation to get up and go over to assure he didn't mean to mess with their waitress, and hadn't set out to murder her Uncle Chief back in New Ulm.

Longarm had just finished the last of his special, and was fixing to ask what they had for dessert when he heard considerable galloping out front and glanced through the glass to his right to watch a dozen and a half riders reining in and dismounting by the railroad platform across the way. When he recognized one as Gus Hansson, Longarm smiled thinly and nodded in satisfaction. For now he had a better handle on just how long it took to ride out to the Rocking R and back. It was obvious the snip at that other table had sent the kid to fetch her other riders as she'd ridden on into town.

So he wasn't surprised when Helga Runeberg suddenly rose to her not-too-imposing height and swept grandly past him on her way out the front door. Longarm figured she had an account with the best beanery in town. So he was more surprised when that waitress scurried after her, waving a riding crop.

Then he realized the distracted cattle queen had left her crop at that other table. He'd thought that dishwater blonde looked honest.

He watched her chase the shorter but more imperious gal across the street and hand over the crop. On the way back, the waitress seemed to be in at least as much of a hurry, and her dishwater-gray eyes were wide and worried as they met his own through the glass.

As she came back in, Longarm asked what they had that day for dessert. The waitress asked if anyone had ever called him by the name of Longarm, and when he allowed some had, she looked really upset and said, "If I were you I'd skip dessert and let me show you another way out the back. We don't want trouble, I don't like noise, and even if I did, they just said something about you being a lawman!"

Longarm asked what else they'd said, and when she replied Miss Helga had called him a murderer who deserved to be punished, Longarm, sighed and said, "I reckon I'd best skip dessert at that. But you never want to duck out the back way unless you're certain someone ain't been sent around to the alley with just such an event in mind."

He asked how much he owed them. When she told him not to talk dumb and for heaven's sake get going, Longarm put a silver dollar on the checkered cloth by his empty plate, drank the last of his coffee, and got to his own feet, removing the Winchester from his lap to cradle it over his left arm as he headed for that same front door.

The waitress gasped, "Are you crazy or just deaf? Didn't you hear what I just told you?"

Longarm said, "Every word, ma'am. I know you're curious, but I'd be obliged if you stayed away from all this window glass for the next few minutes. Things are likely to get a mite tense out front for a spell."

Then he opened the door, stepped out in the sunlight, and things did. One of the younger hands across the way softly hollered, "Hot damn! The little darling must want to dance with all of us!"

An older and meaner-looking hand growled at him to shut up. All of them but their boss lady, standing with her boots apart a pace or more closer, were packing six-guns on their hips, and more than one, just like Longarm, had hauled out his saddle gun as well.

They were all a tad out of his way if the Western Union had been his next intended stop after all. He decided a beeline in any other direction but one could have the same effect on the wolf pack as a running deer fawn might have on the four-legged kind. So he strode straight across to where the only female in the bunch seemed intent on standing her ground. Then he stopped, just short of stepping on her booted toes, and softly said, "Allow me to introduce myself, ma'am."

Before he could she snapped, "I know who you are and why have you been following me?"

To which Longarm could only reply, "I ain't been. If I wanted to I reckon I could, lawful enough, on public thoroughfares across open federal range. I wasn't expecting to question you, on your own land or anywhere else I wanted to, before I had more to ask about. For now I choose to take your word you thought Baptiste Youngwolf was a misunderstood comrade in arms of your late father. I don't care just how you take my word it was him or me the other day when he came my way with that Cleveland twelve-gauge."

"Killer!" she snapped. "Cold-blooded killer with a bounty-hunting badge and not a fair bone in your body! Uncle Chief would have won if he'd really been after you with my daddy's shotgun in his capable old hands and a Navy Colt Conversion on his hip!"

Longarm shrugged and quietly asked, "Were you there, ma'am?"

The same young rider who'd sounded off so silly earlier called out, "Just say the word, Miss Helga! Just say the word and stand aside whilst we fix him good for our pal the Chief."

Before anyone could get even sillier, Longarm told their boss lady she'd better explain why such gunplay would hardly be wise.

She stared up at him, sidewinder friendly, and quietly asked why it might be unwise of her to just stand aside and let nature take its course.

He said just as softly, "You ain't that dumb. You're just pretending to be that dumb to scare me. I'm still working on why you feel a need to scare me. But suffice it to say, it ain't working."

Another rider, this one ominously older and more serious, pleaded, "Move clear and let us at him, Miss Helga. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a loudmouth trying to bluff his way out of a fight he brought on himself!"

Longarm waited, saw the gal wasn't going to say it for him, and raised his voice loud enough for all to clearly make out as he declared, "There's one of me and seventeen of you, as I feel sure you've all been feeling swell about. So good as I like to feel I am, I doubt I'd be able to take even half of you with me on my way out of this old world. But what would the survivors do for an encore?"

He let that sink in and continued. "It's possible to gun a federal deputy and make it to Canada or Mexico before Uncle Sam can hang you. But you'd play hell starting over anywhere in these United States with a federal murder warrant hanging over you. John Wesley Hardin was only wanted on a Texas murder charge, and they tracked him all the way back east to Alabama. But let's say at least some of you are smarter than old Hardin must have felt when he took to gunning lawmen. Killing this one would still mean the eternal end of all Miss Helga's late kith and kin ever worked for."

The dangerously smart-looking hand growled thoughtfully, "I fail to see how they could outlaw Miss Helga here for what some others might do with or without her full approval."

There came an ominous rumble of agreement from all along the line, and sixteen men lined up a surprisingly long way, even as they commenced to circle some from both ends. So Longarm quickly pointed out, "They don't have to prove toad squat in any court of law, once you make the boys I ride for sore at you. For openers, my having poked a few cows in my own time, let's talk about grazing fees. Or has the little lady here been paying any for all that federally owned bluestem you've been turning into beef for her?"

Helga Runeberg looked stricken and gasped, "Range fees? Nobody has been asking me for any range fees, you fool!"

Longarm said, "That's my point, and you'll find out who the fool might be if ever my boss, Marshal Billy Vail, takes it into his head not to like you, ma'am. Indians have recently been demanding and getting six cents an acre per month, or two bits per year, just by telling their B.I.A. agents they wanted it off white folks grazing odd corners of their reserve."

He reached for a fresh smoke as he quietly asked, "How much do you reckon a mighty sore white government agent might think an acre of prime long-grass prairie was worth? Oh, I forgot to mention the new fencing regulations up before Congress."

He let the worried murmur die down before he explained. "It ain't been passed yet, but we figure it will be within this decade. Seems a heap of self-styled cattle kings and queens have taken to fencing off public lands as if they owned it their fool selves. The Bureau of Land Management has a whole list of new regulations about drift fences, free access to water, and so on pending before Congress, like I said."

He thumbnailed a matchhead and lit his cheroot before he added, "I suspicion us federal lawmen will enforce such new regulations in accordance to how we feel about particular cattle folk grazing public land we might be most interested in. My particular boss worries more about the green grass closer to our Denver office, unless, of course, somebody in other parts gives him a real reason to send in other deputies, and then other deputies, for as long as it may take to settle the matter to his satisfaction."

Nobody said anything. Longarm let some tobacco smoke run out his nostrils and decided, "I came over this way to pay a call on Western Union's Sleepy Eye office. It's been grand discussing my future with you all, Miss Helga. But now I'd best be on my way. So you go ahead and back-shoot me all you want, if you're really ready to retire from the beef industry."

She must not have wanted to. Longarm heard some ominous muttering, and his spine commenced to itch like hell as he turned around to walk away from the spiteful gal and her surly bunch. So how come the street was suddenly so wide and he was moving so slow through air that felt as thick as glue until, suddenly, he found himself indoors again, breathing natural again as he muttered, "Son of a bitch. I made it!"