Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds (14 page)

The kid who'd been hunkered in the coppice broke cover, turning out to be in his teens with batwing chaps and a hat big enough to house at least a small Indian family. "My boss lady is Miss Helga Runeberg, who's owned the Rocking R since her daddy's pony hit a prairie-dog hole at full gallop a couple of roundups back. Her home spread fronts on the Sleepy Eye trace six or eight miles to the southwest."

Longarm started to comment on all the grass the mysterious lady seemed to think she held rights to, if this was her drift fence, but that was between her and Land Management. So he kept his mouth shut and his ears open, and sure enough, the kid explained. "Earlier this evening Some strange riders came by, allowing they was federal deputies looking to ride with you, since they'd heard you'd ridden out to the northwest of New Ulm."

That meant at least the Bedfords and those colored folks were off the hook, if what this kid said was true. Longarm got to his own feet, gun muzzle trained politely but still ready for anything. He heard young Hansson say, "After we told 'em we hadn't seen any sign of you and they'd rid on, Miss Helga told us to fan out far and fan out wide, so's to tell you they were looking for you and telling whoppers about being on the same side."

Longarm answered cautiously, "As a matter of fact, some lawmen from Saint Paul could be headed this way. How come your boss lady cast such doubts on their reasonable-sounding tale, Gus?"

The young cowhand shrugged and said, "Miss Helga's smart, I reckon, or mayhaps she recognized one or more of 'em from somewheres else. She can be sneaky too, when she's giving a hand enough rope to hang hisself. But why not ask her your ownself, Deputy Long? Miss Helga said the rider as caught up with you was to carry you on back to the big house so's you could tell her what you wanted us to do next about the big fibbers."

Longarm thought before he decided. "It's a tempting invite. But I'm already invited to supper with another lady in New Ulm, and I'd as soon go over some records at the county courthouse before I say what I want to do next with, to, or about anybody."

Young Hansson was close enough now so they could converse in quieter tones as he shrugged and said, "Suit yourself, but don't you never say I didn't relay her invite after warning you about them odd riders. I swear I didn't know who you were when first I spied you way out here in the middle of nowheres. How come you ain't on the county road where I expected to meet up with you, Deputy Long?"

Longarm explained, "I was afraid somebody less friendly might be expecting me to head back to town that way. You ain't the first who's told me or warned me I have so many admirers out searching for me by the light of the silvery moon, Gus. You know those colored folks a mile or so up facing that other road?"

The local rider calmly asked, "Which darkies, the Conway family or the Bee Witch?"

Longarm blinked uncertainly and replied, "The folk I talked with looked more like a family than any sort of bees, or even witches. I heard some riders had been asking about me ugly from a colored boy about your age. Your turn."

Hansson said with certainty, "That sounds like one of the Conway boys. They're all right. We've told all the nesters along the bigger river we don't object to no quarter-section claims along the county road. For as long as they don't string bobwire more than a half mile southwest of the road, it helps our own drift wire hold Rocking R stock back from that dangerous river and spooky road travel."

Longarm dryly replied, "I'm sure your new neighbors find that a generous offer. I thought those Conways had to be on my side when they warned me some rascals were talking mean about me. Try that Bee Witch on me some more."

The white cow hand explained. "That's what they call this crazy old colored lady who dwells on a house raft and ranges her honey bees all along the banks of the river. When they ain't out foraging flowers they live in these white boxes, right on the raft with the Bee Witch herself. Ain't that a bitch?"

Longarm shrugged and said, "Takes all kinds to work this land of ours, I reckon. Is this floating beekeeper supposed to be dangerous?"

The cowhand shook his big hat. "Not to grown folk. I hear she threatens to hex kids who pester her or her bees. That's how come they call her the Bee Witch. They say she can threaten kids sort of scary with chicken claws, African goofer dust, and such. What might you want with an old crazy lady who keeps bees, Deputy Long?"

"They likely sell her honey for her in town at some food shop," Longarm decided. "Wabasha Chambrun is the one I'd sort of like to talk to, without those mystery riders noticing. I reckon I might get straighter answers once I go over some courthouse papers in the morning. But seeing as you seem to know so much about nesters over on this side of your considerable range, what can you tell me about that bunch?"

Gus Hansson said, "They're Sioux, part Sioux anyways, no matter what they say. I was still a toddler when Little Crow and his cruel Santee rose against us that time, but I was big enough to see what they'd done to the Atterbom twins and poor Ann Margaret Toligren, left all bloody and dead with her skirts up around her waist, and damn their two-faced lies, I remember what a damn Sioux smells like, dead or alive, and that lying Chambrun and all his lying kids smell the same way, no matter what he says about being mostly white with a part-Osage woman!"

Longarm said soberly, "Indians allow they smell us as something different too. I ain't sure my own nose is educated enough to pick out a Santee from a distant Osage cousin, but like I said, I mean to go over some records before I call any man a liar."

Gus Hansson asked, "What do you do when you prove a man's a liar?"

To which Longarm could only reply, "Depends on what he's lied to me about, of course."

CHAPTER 13

Since first things had to come first, Longarm was rubbing down the widow woman's saddle brute in her stable when she caught up with them, lantern in hand, to say, "Oh, I was hoping it was you I heard out here. I'd about given up on you for the night. You said you'd be right back. I sure hope you like cold ham, Custis."

Longarm smiled sheepishly in the lantern light, and explained how he'd gotten sidetracked without ever getting a chance to interview Wabasha Chambrun at all. When she said she could fetch her part-time stable hand, an old Finn who lived just down the alley, Longarm told her, "I'm better than half-ways done here, and there's no need to pester anyone else. You can see I've run some well water in this trough, but where might you be keeping your oats, Miss Ilsa?"

She set the light on a keg and hauled a feed sack from another stall as she said, "Barley and cracked corn. Minnesota oats command a premium price back East, and I wasn't planning on entering the Kentucky Derby with either of these ponies."

Longarm allowed barley and cracked corn made for a fair balance as he poured some feed in with the twists of hay he'd already shoved in Blaze's feed box. It wasn't until his hostess moved to pick up her lantern again that he noticed her informal costume. She hadn't been whistling Dixie when she said she'd about given up on him getting in any time tonight. But it would have been rude to tell a lady he could see so much of her through a nightdress with a lantern on the far side of it, so he never did. But she sure had swell legs for a gal with that much gray in her hair. Her gathered-at-the-neck outfit of ivory cotton flannel looked more modest as soon as she was holding her wan lantern between them again. Old gals living alone doubtless got so used to flouncing about the house informally that they tended to forget they looked half undressed to late-night visitors.

She told him he was unusually kind to riding stock as he finished rubbing old Blaze down with some sacking while the pony put away some fodder after being watered first. Longarm went on rubbing as he just shrugged and said, "I ain't all that kindly. I'm just more country than some townsmen who don't ride as serious, ma'am. Me and old Blaze here warmed up pretty good with some cross-country lopings in chill night air, and I'd like to borrow him some more tomorrow."

She naturally said Blaze was his to ride as often as he liked. So he naturally replied, "That's how come I don't want him lamed up with poorly tempered sinews, ma'am. Ride a Sunday horse serious, and let him rest up without a good rubdown, and he'll wind up the next day the way we do when we're out of shape and cut a cord of stove wood or do a couple of loads of laundry in our first rush of enthusiasm."

She laughed and said she knew what he meant, although she couldn't picture him doing even one load of laundry. Then she said something about heating up the coffee, and left the lantern for him as she headed back to her kitchen.

He draped his saddle blanket over one of the rails of one stall and his McClellan over another. He hung on to his saddle gun as he picked up that lantern and followed after old lisa.

She'd been wrong about the ham turning cold. It was at least lukewarm, thanks to her warming oven, and the fried potatoes she served with it hadn't gone greasy yet. As he dug in at her kitchen table he wasn't sure he wanted too much of that reheated but strong-smelling coffee. For he had a busy day ahead, his head was still buzzing with events of the day just ended, and it was going to be tough to fall asleep in a strange bed under the same roof as such a sweet smelling female in any case.

He could tell, even as she sat across from him with her matronly curves covered modestly enough by soft ivory folds, that she'd just had a hot bath and doused herself with plenty of lilac water after using some white vinegar to get her hair, or something, clean enough to eat off. But she wasn't acting flirty as she demanded he bring her up to date on his moonlight ride. When he told her he meant to check Wabasha Chambrun's homestead claim before giving the cuss enough rope, she looked puzzled and said, "I know for a fact he bought enough Glidden wire and staples to fence a full quarter section, Custis. Wouldn't even an Indian have to be awesomely stupid to think he could get away with simply squatting along a well-traveled county road?"

Longarm washed down some chewed-up ham and potatoes with her fine coffee before he replied. "How often might you ask to see the title deed of a homestead you're riding past on a visit to somewhere else? I'll ask at the courthouse come morning whether Minnesota follows common law on squatter's rights. A lot of states still do, and we're only talking about two years' difference if your luck holds out."

She said she had no idea what he was talking about. She'd said her folk had hailed from a different old country. So Longarm had to explain. "Back when Ben Franklin and the boys were inventing a whole new country, they still felt the need for some law and order. So they decreed that until such time as they passed new laws that might read different, the courts could go along with the precedents of old English common law. That's what you call what some judge and jury have already said a time or more, a precedent. If you refuse to buy ignorance of the law as an excuse, you got to let folks sort of know what to expect if they do the same things the courts have decided on in the past, see?"

She said she did, despite the dubious look in her big brown eyes, so he continued. "The doctrine of undisputed habitation, or squatter's rights, goes back before King William's Doomsday Book. For as law and order came out of the Dark Ages, it was tough to produce a written title search on such property as you might or might not have held a spell."

The Minnesota gal brightened and said, "Oh, they tell about such things in the Sagas! The Norse tradition held that land belonged to the first man who'd drawn water and built a fire on it, as long as he was man enough to defend it."

Longarm nodded and said, "Defending it against the claims of any others was the sticking point in any such notions of land titles. It was tough at times to say who might have been first on a particular plot of ground. So the early courts held that any man who'd held his claim for seven years or more, undisputed by any others, likely had as good a claim to it as anybody."

She asked, "What about Indians, in the case of land on this side of the main ocean?"

He grimaced and said, "Now you're straying from common law into a can of historical worms. Whether this corner of Minnesota became so civilized by Indian treaty or criminal trespass is moot, with all the original Indians marched off to the Dakota Territory. As of, say, 1864 this has all been federal open range or taxable privately held land, depending. If Chambrun's been allowed to file a proper homestead claim, despite his complexion, so be it. Five years after his claim's been approved by the Land Office, providing he doesn't mess up entirely, the land is his to keep, cherish, or sell at a profit as far as Uncle Sam cares."

She nodded. "But if they never filed, and just fenced off some open land on their own?"

Longarm said, "I told you I got to look up the local view on squatter's rights. But unless Minnesota law reads different, and specific, Chambrun and his kin get to keep that quarter section as their own as soon as they've held it seven years with nobody else disputing 'em." Ilsa stared wide-eyed across the table. "I can see why you said it was only a matter of two years either way. But would they let an Indian pull a stunt like that, Custis?"

To which he could only reply with a shrug, "Depends on what you can prove an Indian, or vice versa, in a court of law, should that be your pleasure."

She looked mighty puzzled, even as she picked up the coffeepot to refill his cup. So he said, "No more coffee for me, thanks. It's tougher for some folks to decide who might be an Indian than it can be to decide who's colored. I ain't sure I follow the logic myself, but in those courts as enforce color codes, it seems a person known to have any colored ancestry is colored. But the same folks who won't rent a room to an octoroon, with one colored grandparent, seem just as able to classify anyone less than half Indian as a white person with a little Indian blood."