Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds (28 page)

He laughed and said he could just picture a crook getting secret telegrams by messenger in a bunkhouse. Then he suddenly stared at her thunderstruck and declared, "Jesus H. Christ, speaking of dumb bastards, I sure take the cake! For you're right! He wouldn't need much help, or even a slick code, if he'd never been using the Western Union here in New Ulm at all!"

CHAPTER 21

It wasn't too late to ride, but Longarm had other questions to ask there in New Ulm before he did. So he went on home with Viggy for the night.

They met nobody as she smuggled him in the back way from the alley. She'd already told him on that chesterfield that she didn't smoke. So the lingering smell of another brand of tobacco in her otherwise tidy quarters in the carriage-house loft helped Longarm understand how any gal so young could know so many interesting positions.

He hadn't told her he was a virgin either, and he'd already seen she kept her buxom blond body clean and tidy too, so what the hell. And there was a lot to be said for such a comfortable port in a storm with an easy lay who wasn't likely to piss and moan about it when a man just had to get it on down the road.

Screwing, scrubbing, and sweeping seemed to sum up the big blonde's household skills, though. They'd have wound up supping on weak tea, burnt toast, and jam if Longarm hadn't found some buckwheat flour and sorghum molasses in the back of her cupboard. She said a man who could make flapjacks after screwing a gal so fine would make a swell catch for some lucky lady who was ready to settle down.

Fortunately, she didn't seem ready to settle down just yet. She'd read those books by Miss Virginia Woodhull, advising ladies young and old to get on top and never marry up with any skunk who didn't think a woman ought to have the right to vote.

After she'd been on top enough to settle her nerves a spell, she said she didn't mind if he left the lamp lit and sat up to read in bed, as long as he didn't expect her to. But after he'd gone through that bank ledger more than once, taking notes, Viggy rolled over in bed to prop herself up on one bare elbow, a pretty sight, and demand he explain what he was muttering about.

Longarm pointed at an entry with his stub pencil, but she didn't seem that interested in the tight handwriting as he explained, "That Wabasha Chambrun said he had no notion where that hundred-dollar note he gave Israel Bedford came from, and this far back leastways, he had no account with your bank. But here's an entry saying one of your tellers cashed a thousand-dollar check for one Antelope Chambrun just before Christmas. Miss Tatowiyeh Wachipi, Chambrun's pure Santee wife, must shorten her name when she signs it in Wasichu."

Viggy shrugged a bare shoulder and said she didn't recall either redskin around her bank all that much. Then she asked how he knew the check they'd cashed for them had anything to do with that hot treasury note.

Longarm smiled gently and replied, "It couldn't have. The Tyger gang hadn't pulled off that robbery in Fort Collins yet. The point is that the Chambruns seem to be telling the truth about big checks coming their way from other prosperous Indians. Your New Ulm bank had no problems with the out-of-state check, made out to the female or full-blood branch of the Chambrun family by the Pipestone Bonemeal & Fertilizer Company of Omaha, Nebraska."

Viggy observed she'd heard Pipestone was a place in Minnesota.

Longarm chuckled fondly and agreed. "Not too far from here, as a matter of fact. Pipestone, Minnesota, is named for the sacred red cliffs where the old-time Santee, amongst others, quarried the red catlanite or pipestone they carved into calumets, or what we tend to call peace pipes. The Indians smoked 'em for all sorts of medicine. I reckon it was only natural for some breed or assimilate going into a profitable business in Omaha to name his new venture after old-timey good medicine. I suspect I passed their trackside operation the last time I was in Omaha. There's a heap of meat-packing going on around there these days, and a smart gent who ain't afraid of hard work and dirty hands can make a heap of wampum on the fringes of meat-packing by disposing of the leftover blood, crud, and bones at a profit."

Viggy repressed a yawn and asked what on earth grubby redskins in Omaha might have to do with anyone in New Ulm.

He told her he liked to know when folks were fibbing to him or not, and added, "Your boss, old P.S. Plover, caught the serial number on that later treasury note as it was passing through his bank. So it's unlikely the Chambruns got even one such note from you folk. But I see here you charged 'em one percent, or ten dollars, when you cashed that earlier check from Omaha."

Viggy nodded innocently and replied, "Well, of course we did. One percent is about the least any bank charges for cashing a check drawn on another bank for a person with no regular account with them. Would you have us go to that much trouble for nothing at all?"

Longarm said, "Not hardly. I never said you were bilking check-cashers. On the other hand, ten dollars is a week's salary for a top hand, and old Tatowiyeh Wachipi might well have scouted up some banker willing to cash a sure thing for less."

He wrinkled his nose and added, "That opens up a whole other line of questioning, and I just don't want to take the time to canvass every infernal bank in the county!"

She lay back down and coyly asked what he did feel like doing now that they'd rested up a spell. He laughed and said he wanted to take just a few more notes, since he doubted he'd have the strength or the interest in dry numbers once they got weak and wet some more.

He was right. Despite that weak tea, they fell asleep in each other's arms an hour later, to be awakened at dawn by rain on the roof and a distant rumble promising there was more to come.

The buxom blond banking gal said she was glad it was such a dreary morning. After breakfast in bed, with toast and jam making more sense with the two of them in more of a hurry, Viggy told him she wanted him to give her a good head start down the alley with her umbrella and Macintosh. So he did, hoping the infernal rain would let up as he smoked at her kitchen table and went over his notes. She had of course hauled out with the ledger itself under her rain gear.

It was still raining when Longarm couldn't stand sitting still up there anymore. He was wearing his thin practical range denims, but it was only wet outside, not cold, So he let himself out Viggy's back gate around eight-thirty, and damned if there didn't seem to be an old biddy out by the hen house in her yard across the alley just as Longarm tried to slip past. It would have looked more sneaky not to tick his hat brim at a lady, so he did, but she just sniffed and looked through him at the rear windows of old Viggy's little hideaway. Longarm didn't ask her who that other heavy smoker might be. With any luck the cuss might not find out about him.

Good and wet by the time he got to the livery, Longarm knew from sad experience he didn't want to break out his own rain slicker and put it on over wet denim in summertime. So he just dickered with them for the hire of a buckskin mare who didn't mind muddy roads, they said, and got even wetter riding her over to Courthouse Square in the steady summer drizzle.

The sheriff was off kissing babies some more. Longarm called on the coroner's clerk to tell them he had to ride over to Sleepy Eye, but meant to return before leaving for good. He handed the clerk a damp but legible sheet torn out of his notebook and added, "Whilst I'm scouting the Western Union over by that other railroad stop, I sure wish you'd check this modest list of bank depositors against the bills of mortality this side of, say, Christmas."

The clerk allowed he would, but naturally wanted to know how come. So Longarm explained, "An old lady keeping her money in the bank as Janice Carpenter vanished from the face of this earth just after she drew it all out. I got some pals in railroading circles who may or may not be able to tell me where she went from here. Meanwhile, going over the bank ledger with another pal last night, I noticed more than one additional depositor cleaned out all or most of their savings around the same time."

The clerk nodded, but proved he was good with facts and figures by submitting, "Wouldn't it be natural for folks to withdraw lots of money during the holiday season, Deputy Long?"

Longarm proved how smart he was by replying, "It would, and we'll say no more about what folks might or might not have done with their own money then as long as they're alive now. But I'd sure like to know if anyone else wound up dead, or missing, just after cleaning out their bank accounts. Wouldn't you?"

The clerk allowed he might, but objected, "That Jasper we've been holding at Oland's couldn't have robbed anybody as early as Christmas or even New Year's, Deputy Long. He only came back to these parts a few weeks ago."

Longarm wasn't sure who they were talking about and said so. The clerk said patiently, "Baptiste Youngwolf, that Chippewa cowhand you shot your ownself. We had him on display on the cellar doors around to the back until some cowhands who'd been riding with him over at the Runeberg spread identified him for certain and naturally told their boss lady what you'd done to one of her boys."

Longarm muttered, "Damn it, he came after me. I never even knew he was in town until he was swinging a shotgun muzzle my way!"

The clerk said, "That's the way the coriner, sheriff, and district attorney see it, Deputy Long. Miss Helga Runeberg still rid into town on a broom last night to arrange for her Uncle Chief, as she called him, to be embalmed and gussied up in a genuine mahogany casket by old Ivar Oland and his crew. We allowed it wouldn't hurt as long as they kept him above ground and on display at their funeral parlor until we closed the books on the dead rascal."

The clerk sounded more annoyed as he continued. "Miss Helga's made arrangements to plant the red heathen in the hallowed ground of our Saint Paul's Lutheran Church, ain't that a bitch?"

Longarm allowed it was up to the church to decide whether a dead Indian had been a good Indian, because he was more interested in how they knew how long the jasper had been in these parts.

The clerk said, "Miss Helga told us, and some of her hired hands back her story. She said she hadn't seen her Uncle Chief for quite a spell, but that she'd naturally signed him on when he showed up less'n a month ago, saying he'd been handed a shovel out Colorado way."

Longarm knew a top hand preferred to say he'd been handed a shovel, or asked to do work afoot, and naturally quit, in place of admitting he'd been fired mounted up. Longarm frowned thoughtfully and told the clerk, "A man on the dodge after a payroll robbery would be way more likely to tell an owner he knew he'd been fired off another spread. But how come this Helga Runeberg called Youngwolf her uncle? Is she a breed?"

"More like pure Swede," the local resident replied with an amused grin. "The Runebergs came from Vastemorriand in their old country, to hear them tell it. I understand Miss Helga and her little sister, Miss Margaret, are pure Hellstrom on their late mamma's side."

He read Longarm's puzzled expression right and explained. "That Chippewa you shot rode with their late daddy against the Sioux back in '62. Before he went bad and deserted with them Galvanized Yankees, he saved Axel Runeberg's bacon in a skirmish up by Yellow Medicine. So over the years he's always had a place on the payroll and at the chuck table with the other Runeberg riders, rain or shine and wanted by the law or not. Miss Helga told us she knew her Uncle Chief was laying low because he'd been accused of something he hadn't done, again. She seems to think that happened to him a lot just because he'd been a mite wild in his younger days."

Longarm rolled his eyes heavenward and snorted, "They say much the same about some old boys named James and Younger down Missouri way."

The clerk nodded and said, "Miss Helga can be stubborn as any old Missouri mule. When the sheriff pointed out that one treasury note from the Fort Collins robbery showing up in these parts about the same time as her daddy's old comrade in arms, she allowed they'd heard and been thundergasted as the rest of us. She said her Uncle Chief had told her how he'd been out Colorado way at the right time and close enough to the right place, but hadn't known beans about that payroll robbery and figured we'd just never tried to understand him."

Longarm thought before he cautiously decided, "We could likely stick her with aiding and abetting if she's admitted right out she knew she was hiding an owlhoot rider wanted by the federal law."

The clerk nodded and said, "The sheriff's already warned her not to go around making war talk about lawmen only doing their damned job. She said she has no idea why her Uncle Chief was tagging after you with her dear old dad's fancy Cleveland twelve-gauge. She said she was still sore at us, and at you in particular, but willing to concede it might've been a tragic misunderstanding. That's what some call it when Indians go bad, a tragic misunderstanding. Only us white boys are allowed to be just no damned good."

Longarm didn't want to get into that. He shrugged and said something about letting Sheriff Tegner deal with his own constituents, and added, "Like I said, I got to ride over to Sleepy Eye. With any luck I ought to be back this afternoon."

The clerk glanced out the nearby grimy window and suggested, "If I were you I'd take the train. It's still raining outside and we're talking about wet hours in the saddle versus minutes by rail."

Longarm shook his head and replied, "No, we ain't. I already looked at the timetable I picked up free off the railroad conductor who brought me here. You'd be right if I was only going one way. There's a westbound stopping here in New Ulm today, around ten, and like you said, the flag stop of Sleepy Eye ain't but a few minutes west by rail. But after that I'd be stuck in Sleepy Eye till after sundown if I missed today's eastbound coming through just short of noon."