Legend With a Six-gun (9781101601839) (4 page)

“No, my band avoided the padres when Mexico owned California. They were nearly as cruel as your people. When I was young, I was captured by some gold miners. They made me work for them one summer. Your tongue is less complicated than my own. You Saltu speak a sort of baby talk with very few words. It was easy to learn your speech, although your ways will always be a mystery to me.”

“White folks keep surprising me a mite, too,” Longarm admitted. “But what do you mean about us talking like babies? I know your old ones like to make long speeches. Most Indians I've met could talk the horns off a billy goat. But where'd you get such a big vocabulary with no books or telegraph lines?”

The Miwok shrugged and said, “We talk about things your people do not seem to find important. When Saltu speak, they only skim the surface. For instance, you only have one word for a horse.”

“Wait a minute. We have lots of words for the critters. We call them horses, ponies, studs, mares, pintos, roans, all sorts of things.”

Bitter Water waved this away with an imperious gesture. “Bah. Those words only deal with the surface. You say the same word for the poor animal no matter what it's
doing!
”

The lawman looked puzzled. “I don't follow you.”

“Of course you don't. Suppose I said I saw a horse. What would this mean to you?”

Longarm stared down into the low country and asked, “
Do
you see a horse down there?”

“No. I am hoping that when it gets dark, anyone following us may build a fire and give his position away. To a Miwok, the word ‘horse' would have little meaning. He would want to know how old the horse was and which way it was going. He would want to know if the horse had a rider. He would want to know if it was running, walking, or standing still. He would have no word that simply meant ‘horse.'”

“You mean in your lingo you use a different
word
for a horse running and a horse standing?”

Bitter Water nodded. “Also for every other thing a horse can do. We have no word that means ‘woman.' To a Miwok, it is important whether a woman is young or old, ugly or pretty, awake or asleep, and so forth. No Miwok would ever ever say he had a woman. He would say he had a pretty woman who'd had children and made good acorn mush, or—”

Comprehension flickered in Longarm's steely dark eyes. “I'm getting your drift. That's why when I ask what you folks call a man, I get all sorts of answers, right? I mean, as far as I can grasp your lingo, a ‘ho,' a ‘wa,' a ‘pai,' or a ‘ute' are the same critter!”

“They are all men, doing different things,” Bitter Water concurred. “Your wise men are very funny. They keep writing down names of things they call tribes. They don't understand that when they asked the so-called Paiute, Ute, Hopi, and so forth what they were, they were given the same answer. We all call ourselves ‘people.' What the wise men wrote down was simply what the people they met were doing, or felt like, that day.”

“Well, I thank you for the language lesson, but I never came out here to study Indians. I'm looking for some jaspers given to stealing federal gold. For some reason, you have as much trouble grasping the idea of money as I do understanding Miwok.”

“I understand money. I just see no use for it,” the Indian said.

“That's what I mean. Hell, can't you see that a couple of dollars would buy you a decent set of jeans instead of those rags you're wearing?”

Bitter Water shrugged and said, “I wear cotton this time of the year because it is cool on the skin in the heat. Later, when it's cold, I will wear skins. In the green of spring I will go naked. It seems very sensible to me.”

“Sure,” Longarm persisted, “but if you had money you could buy all sorts of outfits and have them ready as the seasons changed.”

“You speak foolishly. Why should any man carry everything he might need for all the months he can't possibly need them?”

Longarm started to argue. Then he reconsidered and nodded. Since the Diggers wandered constantly, following the game and harvests of wild vegetables, it
did
make sense to travel light. But he saw a hole in that argument and, even though he knew better, he asked, “Haven't you folks ever considered sort of staying put? I mean, you ain't dumb and you must see the advantages of a permanent home, with maybe a garden and some livestock. Farm folks don't have to wander all over creation just to rustle up a meal.”

The Miwok grimaced and asked, “Would you have us live like some sort of Mexicans? Even if we were content to spend all our days looking at the same hills and trees, drinking water that always tasted the same, smelling flowers that always smelled the same, eating food that always tasted the same, would we be left to enjoy our new bland lives?”

“Well, the Indian agency would protect you, on a proper reservation.”

Anger darkened the Indian's features. “As a caged bear is protected by its keepers? No, thank you. There were villages of my people in the Great Valley when the gold seekers came. They had learned farming from the Mexicans. They ate well, as you say. Then a general called Fremont came over the Sierra to fight the Mexicans. The Mexicans had guns and knew how to fight back. So your Fremont had his war with the mission Indians. He killed many. Today their farms are owned by Saltu. They boast that they won their homesteads from wild Indians.”

Longarm said, “You win. It's nigh dark enough for anyone on our trail to be thinking of setting up camp for the night. You think we can find your village in the dark?”

“My people have no villages. They wander. They sleep wherever they are when it's time to sleep.”

“Then how do you expect to find your band?” Longarm asked.

Bitter Water shrugged and said, “We shall meet when we meet. There are only so many valleys where a person can find food. At this time of the year my people will be gathering manzanita. I know where it grows thickly. If I don't find them in the manzanita groves, they will be harvesting acorns soon.”

Longarm started to say he'd tasted one of the little crabapple things off a manzanita bush once, and never intended to try again. Instead, he pointed with his chin and said, “Smoke. Over there to our right, behind that saddleback ridge.” The distant plume of smoke was tinted violet by the setting sun.

“I see it. It is a Saltu fire. You people put too much wood on when you make camp. It is very foolish. A Miwok builds a small fire and sits over it, keeping warm. Saltu build big fires and have to sit back, roasting their fronts and freezing their backs. From the smoke, I would say there are a lot of men in the party. The fools are mounted. We have nothing to worry about.”

Longarm was getting tired of being treated like a greenhorn, so he tried to figure some things out for himself. He wasn't a bad woodsman, if he said so himself, but he'd have missed the part about horses, had not the Miwok made him study on it for a spell.

He said, “You're right. They must be mounted. I can see how the land rolls gentle on the other side of that saddleback. They've been following the natural lay of the land, hoping to cut our trail as they rode. If they don't give up come morning, they'll likely ride up that draw to the north. I'd say they're about four miles away right now, as the crow flies. But they're riding ponies instead of crows, so the grain of these hills will carry them directly away from this rock.”

Bitter Water said, “I know. Why did you think I led you this way?”

Longarm laughed and said, “I thought you were aiming to kill me. I can see now how you folks can stay so wild right on the edges of settled country. It's a good thing for our side that you old boys are less warlike than Apache. I'd hate to try and lead an army patrol after you poor primitive bastards.”

Bitter Water smiled grimly and said, “The idea has been discussed around our campfires. We are not a warlike people, but many of your people are evil. Just a few years ago some men of our kind, led by a breed called Captain Jack, tried fighting you, to the north of here.”

“I heard about the Modoc War. Your Captain Jack and his braves made the army look sort of silly.”

Bitter Water shrugged and sighed. “It didn't matter. In the end, they were all killed. It is better just to avoid your kind.”

Longarm suddenly understood something he'd started to wonder about. He had a gun, though, so it was as good a time as any to have it out. He said, “You have no intention of leading me any closer to your own kith and kin, right?”

Bitter Water kept his face blank as he answered. “I am in your debt. My people are not. You are a good person, I think, but they would want to kill you if we met them far from any settlement.”

“I've heard that white men have a habit of sort of vanishing in the high country from time to time. But what are we supposed to do, walk hand in hand through these bushes forever?”

“When I am sure we have lost those who wish you dead, I will take you to a place called Murphy. There you can steal a horse and be on your way. Will you be going back to Wa Sentan?”

“Not hardly. Nobody seems to savvy that I came out here to do a job.”

“You keep saying that. If you go back to Manzanita, they will kill you and all of my efforts will have been wasted.”

Longarm shook his head and explained, “I ain't as dumb as I look. I've been studying on my next best move. Can you put me on a trail that leads to San Francisco?”

“Of course. You can go down to Sacramento, then catch a steamboat to the big bay.”

“No. I don't think they like me in the capital. I've got to get to Frisco without anyone in Sacramento knowing about it. Can you do it?”

The Miwok thought for a moment before he nodded and said, “Yes. We will move along the ridges until we are well south of Sacramento. Then I will lead you to a Mexican village in the valley. They are good people and may give you a horse. From there you simply ride due west toward Mount Diablo, on the coast. San Francisco is on the other side. Are you going there to get help?”

Longarm shook his head and said, “Not exactly. I'm going over Judge Field's head. You see, he's only the
second
biggest crook in California. If I can make a deal with the
biggest
crook, I might uphold some law around here yet!”

Chapter 2

They called him “The Blind Boss,” but this appellation was only partly accurate. Christopher Buckley was getting on in years and had cataracts, but he could see well enough with his ghastly gray eyes, and didn't miss one hell of a lot. Boss Buckley was the undisputed owner, lock, stock, and barrel, of the California Democrat Party, and who was in the White House made no difference to him and his henchmen, a band of boisterous bullies known as Buckley's Lambs. Finding out where Boss Buckley was, the night Longarm arrived in San Francisco, was no problem. Getting to see him was a bit more difficult.

Longarm caught up with Buckley at a whorehouse near the waterfront. It was late evening. The cobbled streets at the foot of Telegraph Hill were dark, and a peasoup fog was rolling in through the Golden Gate. Longarm was on foot and tired of chasing false leads by the time he got to the frame house and knocked, as instructed, on an alley entrance. The door opened a slit and a wary-looking Chinese asked who'd sent him.

Longarm said, “Marty, the bellhop at the Palace Hotel. I have to talk to Boss Buckley.”

The doorkeeper said, “No savvy,” and tried to close the door. Longarm stiff-armed it open, Chinese and all, and stepped inside, saying, “Sure you do. Where is he, upstairs or in the parlor?”

The Chinese yelled something in his own language and a trio of his countrymen boiled out of the woodwork, yelling.

Longarm sighed, punched the doorkeeper flat, and waded into the others, swinging. Since nobody seemed to be waving a gun at anyone, he decided to settle for a friendly fight.

The confrontation was short, savage, and noisy. Longarm emerged with a split lip, leaving four Orientals stretched out on the red carpet in various states of disrepair. As he sucked a knuckle and got his breath back, a tall, statuesque blonde wearing little more than red garters and a wisp of black lace appeared in the nearest doorway to observe, “Hell, honey, if you want to get laid that badly, you should have made an appointment.”

Longarm smiled at the tall whore and said, “I didn't come for that, this time. I have to see Boss Buckley.”

“Oh, now I see why Wang attacked you. You'd better get lost, handsome. We only do business in this place. We don't introduce customers to one another.”

“Where is he? It'd save time and furniture if folks would be more neighborly hereabouts.”

The whore insisted, “Honey, if I were you, I'd fold my tent and steal silently away. Since I don't want you to beat me up, I'll tell you all you really need to know. The boss is holding a meeting in a side room, and he has a couple of his lambs with him. So what are you waiting for?
Run
, you damned fool!”

Longarm started toward her. She noted the look in his eyes and got out of the way, but yelled out, “Hey, Curly! There's trouble headed your way, and he's a
big
son of a bitch!”

Longarm found himself in a high-ceilinged stairwell, appointed richly with brocaded wallpaper and, for some reason, a suit of armor. A door across the way opened, and a man only slightly smaller than a steam locomotive appeared. He had curly red hair, so Longarm didn't wait to be introduced. He swung as hard as he could and connected firmly with the bodyguard's lantern jaw.

Nothing happened.

Curly not only looked like a locomotive; he seemed to be made of the same materials. He shook his head as if dimly aware of the blow and then, as the deputy hit him again, he simply reached out and hugged Longarm like a big bear, crooning, “Now, Jasus, me bucko, is it trouble you've come for? Faith, and it's trouble you've found, for it's in the bay I'll be after putting you, dead or alive.”

Longarm tried to knee the monstrous redhead as he felt the breath being squeezed out of his creaking ribs. But Curly had his knees together against such a move and sighed, “Now, is that a decent way for a wee thing like you t'act?”

Longarm butted his forehead into Curly's mouth, as hard as he could. Curly roared like an annoyed grizzly and warned, “You're beginning to
annoy
me, bucko! You jist come quiet, and I may be after depositin' you in the water alive. Another trick like that and it's a dead man you'll be!”

Longarm felt his feet leave the carpet as the giant started waltzing him toward the front door. He reached down with the only hand he could move, got a firm grip on Curly's family jewels, and started to twist them off.

The bigger man howled and literally threw Longarm across the hall into the suit of armor, shouting, “Jasus! Now I really am starting to dislike you!” as the lawman sprawled in a welter of disjointed steel plates. He crabbed sideways, clattering and scattering bits of armor as Curly charged. The big man crashed into the wall as Longarm got to his feet, holding the battle mace he'd found on the carpet amid the debris. As Curly moved in on him, growling low in his throat, Longarm could only hope the studded steel club might stop him.

He never found out. A new voice whipcracked, “What in hell is going on out here?” and Longarm recognized the white-eyed older man standing in the doorway. He said, “Buckley, I'm a deputy U.S. marshal. If you don't call that gorilla off, I'm going to have to pull a gun on him!”

Boss Buckley said, “Back off, Curly.” But Curly said, “He went after me privates. I'm going to tear off his arms and legs. I'm going to twist off his head. And then . . . I'm going to kill him!”

Buckley laughed and said, “Later. After I hear what he has on his mind. What's this all about, Deputy?”

“I've come to ask a favor,” Longarm gasped as he tried to regain his breath.

“You and everyone else. Let's go inside and sit down. Would you mind telling me how you found me here?”

“Like to. Can't. The man who told me where to find you made me promise not to tell on him. I can see why.”

Buckley led the way to another room. It was expensively furnished and smelled musty. Buckley had a cigar in one hand, but there was no smell of tobacco smoke in the small room, so Longarm knew he'd been taken to one the boss hadn't been in that evening. The political meeting he'd been holding in some other part of the house must have been private indeed. But it was none of his business, so he didn't comment.

The boss waved Longarm to a chair and took a seat across from him, near a marble fireplace that smelled of damp ashes. He leaned back and fixed the lawman with a shrewd look from his oyster-colored, half-blind eyes, saying, “All right, this had better be good.”

Longarm told his story, beginning with his assignment to the case and ending with a brief sketch of his escape. When he'd finished, the boss said, “I think you're barking up the wrong tree if you think Steve Field is in on it, son. I happen to know he's about to be made a justice of the Supreme Court.”

Longarm exhaled heavily and shook his head. “God help the country!”

“Now cool down, son,” the old boss admonished him. “I know old Steve. He's twice as tough and almost as mean as they say he is, but he wouldn't take a bribe from penny-ante thieves.”

“What about
big
thieves, Mr. Buckley? Are you saying Field hasn't his price?”

Boss Buckley chuckled and said, “Of course he has his price. As does everyone, which makes my career so interesting. But a man slated for the Supreme Court's bench has expensive tastes—too expensive for what you have in mind. I know the Mother Lode like the back of my hand. The Bonanza reefs are played out. In fact, the Lost Chinaman bottomed out a good ten years or more ago. There can't be enough gold in that whole mountain to buy Steve Field—or even me.”

Longarm chuckled and said, “I wouldn't know what your price is, sir, but you're dead wrong about the mine being played out; I read the reports from the assay office. It's true the original owners hit bottom back in the fifties. At least, they thought they'd hit bottom, but we live in changing times. The old-timers just skimmed the cream when they found the Mother Lode. They took the stuff you can wash out with running water. The new owners up there use chemicals the forty-niners never heard of and they found the veins weren't all that pinched out after all.”

Buckley nodded. “I know about the cyanide process. I've shoveled, hydraulicked, and cradled gold in my time! These newfangled methods explain why they've been shipping the ore down the mountain instead of stamping it out on the site, eh?”

“Yes sir. The old-fashioned stamping mills up in the gold fields can't extract enough gold from the country rock to make it a paying deal. So the Lost Chinaman's been sending it by narrow-gauge down to Sacramento where it's supposed to be leached out, melted down to bullion, and transferred here to the mint. But like I said, it ain't been getting here.”

“So I heard,” the boss said. “Where are the trains being held up?”

Longarm wondered if he dared ask the man for a smoke, but decided against it, and said, “That's the spooky part they sent me to find out about, Mr. Buckley. You see, the trains ain't being held up. They leave Manzanita with a shipment, chug down through the hills right peaceably, then turn up in Sacramento with worthless rock. Our government assay boys say the high-graders are substituting the same salmon-colored quartz the gold is found inside, only it's worthless. It looks like gold ore, but it ain't.”

Boss Buckley puffed his cigar thoughtfully and said, “I give up. How the hell do you suppose they manage such a slick trick?”

“I don't know. You're right about its being slick. If the jaspers just stopped the train and rode off with the stuff, we'd have some notion where to cut their trail. But by switching worthless rock for gold-bearing ore somewhere along the way, they leave us with some sixty-odd miles of trackside to study.” He paused for a moment before adding, “If I could get some cooperation around here for a few days, I might be able to answer better.”

Buckley ignored the hint. “Do you suppose they have a railroad siding up there somewhere? You can't unload and then reload an ore car while it's moving. The only way I can see it is that they have a set of duplicate cars, loaded with dross rock and waiting along the right-of-way. Somehow, they must be uncoupling the ore cars, switching them for the others, and—Yeah, you'd only need to start with one string of empties. Each time you switched cars you'd wind up with more empty ones for the next time. You'd best start looking for a siding near a tunnel or switchback. Maybe someplace where they stop the train to jerk boiler water.”

Longarm took the bull by the horns and said, “I'd like to. But I need your help, Mr. Buckley.”

The older man snorted. “
My
help? Before we go a step deeper, I'd like you to tell me why. You're working for those shit-for-brains Republicans the voters were dumb enough to put in, last election. I wouldn't want this to get around, but I run the Democrats in this state!”

“I know. That's why I came to you. Most of the folks up near the diggings are Republicans. If any government people are mixed up in this high-grading, I should think you'd want me to expose them before it's time to vote again.”

Boss Buckley chuckled and said, “I admire your gall. You must have been told by now that I'm supposed to be a scoundrel and a thief.”

“Yes sir, and if this was my assignment, and if I could prove half of what I've heard, I'd arrest you. But I catch my crooks one at a time, and right now I'm after those high-graders. If you could get the county government up there off my back, I'd likely get them, too.”

“How do you know I'm not one of them?” Buckley asked pointedly.

Longarm shrugged. “Don't seem likely. The sheriff up there is a Republican. Another Republican named Lovejoy robbed me of my guns, my badge, my watch, a horse and saddle, and too much else to mention. He's welcome to all but my guns, watch, and badge, as long as he promises not to arrest me any more.”

Buckley smoked a while, immersed in thought, and Longarm knew he'd aroused the older man's chess-playing instincts. Finally the boss asked, “What could I do if I was willing to? I run San Francisco, not Calaveras County, or even Sacramento.”

“They'd listen to you, though. Every nail and barrel of flour they need up there in the Mother Lode comes through your port. I doubt whether a handful of deputies up near the mines would want to tangle with your lambs, either. I know I wouldn't!”

Buckley laughed expansively, and said, “Hell, old Curly is one of my
gentle
lambs. But I'm not about to loan you a posse of waterfront Irishmen.”

Longarm leaned forward and asked intently, “What
are
you going to do, Mr. Buckley?”

The boss studied his cigar ash, and replied, “I'm not sure. With Steve Field on his way to the Supreme Court, and a mention in your case report saying I've been helpful to the U.S. government, I might feel more comfortable about those Eastern senators who keep questioning the way we do things out here on the coast. You did say something about mentioning me in your report, didn't you?”

“I sure did, Mr. Buckley.” Longarm smiled. “Now that you mention it, I don't see how I could have solved this case without your help. I disremember just what you did for me, though.”

“You let me worry about the wheels of government,” Buckley said. “Take your time getting back to the gold fields while I pass the word to a few people.”

“Like Justice Field and the marshal in Sacramento?” Longarm prompted.

“I told you Steve Field's not a thief. I doubt if he knows you're alive.”

“Somebody in his office does,” the deputy pointed out. “They came down hard on a jurisdictional dispute and signaled the county to get rid of me.”

“All right,” Buckley relented, “let's say there's a crook or two in the marshal's office. Let's say that once the marshal's personal attention is drawn to the matter, a smart crook would crawfish off, grinning as innocent as a shit-eating dog. You give me a day or two and I'll be surprised as hell if anyone wearing a badge tries to give you a hard time.”