She tried to cool her bare tits with a folding Spanish fan as she told him, “Poor Stavros has no other trade to save him from the dollar a day he's worth to the D Bar L. In town he'd like it known he rides as a top hand. But he's never been able to get the knack of roping, and they have him wrangling the riding stock for Mexican kids who can rope and throw.”
Longarm said, “Mexican Indians invented the roping the mixed-blood
vaquero's
so famous for. Somebody riding with Cortez wrote he'd seen an Aztec rope a running deer with his braided leather lasso. You're right about it being a knack, like pitching a baseball or playing a musical saw. Some are born with such abilities, some can learn 'em, and others are just better off trying something else.”
He sat up to reach for his Stetson and fan his own bare hide some, as it kept getting warmer. She laughed and said they'd sure look silly to anybody walking in on them at the moment.
He said, “You told me the door was locked. We were talking about how come anyone might take Cousin Steve for a cuss who'd be willing or even able to kill another.”
She replied, “I told you he drinks too much and brags too much for a poor soul who's never amounted to much. Stavros and me are both a bit older than Devil Dave Deveruex. I remember his big sister, that stuck-up dishwater blonde greaser, as about my age. We went to different schools. They're Church of Rome.”
“What does that have to do with her kid brother or Cousin Steve?” he demanded.
She said, “They would not have played together as mean little kids. So they only know one another by local repute. From all accounts, Devil Dave deserves his reputation. Poor Stavros, I fear, has blown his own trumpet too loudly, trying to convince the girls at Rosalinda's that since he can't rope they must have him on the payroll as a gun hand.”
Longarm nodded soberly and said, “Like that boy who cried wolf in that yarn by Mister Aesop!”
She smiled roguishly and said, “I didn't know you were that familiar with Greek culture. It feels like rain. I hope it does. If ever things cool off in here again I've some other Greek notions to teach you.”
Chapter 15
It never rained that afternoon, but by sundown the dry heat outside was bearableâonce they'd shared a cool tub together and proven soap could be a lot of fun, too.
He wound up on the streets of Sheffield-Crossing. alone. because she had to open her shop for the evening trade, after extending him an open invite to help her close it, around midnight.
Longarm took advantage of the tricky light to run a few errands. He was coming out of the Western Union when Chongo Masters and another gent in a more
charro
outfit, with more Indian blood in him. stopped him on the walk.
Chongo said, “Crawford, this would be Slim Gonzales, the ramrod of the D Bar L, and he's got some questions for you. So answer 'em polite.”
“I've nothing to hide.” Longarm lied, adding, “but after that I don't have to be polite to anybody I ain't working for,
comprende?
”
Despite his name and appearance, Gonzales had no accent as he soberly said, “Don't get your bowels in an uproar. They told me you were a big brave boy when that Mission Apache started up with you last night. I'm not looking to rawhide anybody, Dunk Crawford. I'm looking for a hand who seems to have strayed or been stolen on us.”
Longarm nodded and said, “I was just talking to his cousin about him. She thought I might know where he was. I told her I hadn't noticed he was missing. You may find this hard to buy, but they don't pay this child to ride herd on the hired hands where I've never worked.”
The Tejano, or Tex-Mex, foreman said, “You were talking to the rangers about him, and Chongo, here, tells me Greek Steve seemed mighty upset about that.”
Longarm nodded and said, “Chongo told you true as far as Greek Steve went. I never told him the rangers had asked about him in particular. I told they'd asked if I knew any Greek riders in these parts and I told they I didn't know any riders in these parts.”
Gonzales nodded but demanded, “How come Steve hasn't been seen since early last night and the rangers lit out this morning after talking to you some more?”
Longarm shrugged and replied in an easy tone, “Ask âem. They told me they'd been called back to their posts to mount another expedition with the Buffalo Soldiers. Our army and two thousand
federales
have been out to corner Victorio and his hundred-odd Bronco Apache since last summer. I told 'em I'd been invited to a war one time and hadn't enjoyed it as much as I'd hoped I might. They never asked if I thought Greek Steve might care to ride with them against Victorio.”
Chongo asked, “What were you just doing in that telegraph office?”
Longarm snorted in disgust and said, “Sending telegrams, of course. I asked if I could get a blow job off Western Union, but they said they only handled messages.”
“Who did you wire?” Chongo demanded in a mighty rude tone.
Longarm said, “President Rutherford B. Hayes and the Pope in Rome. I want them to abandon the gold standard and declare me a saint. Go on and ask inside if you don't believe me!”
They must not have believed him. Slim Gonzales said, “Western Union won't show us what you just wired unless you give your permit. Let's go back inside so's you can give your permit. Dunk.”
Longarm went back inside between them. having little other choice, and the three of them bellied up to the counter, where Longarm asked the bemused gray telegraph clerk if he could have those blanks back for just a minute.
The clerk allowed it made no nevermind to him and the last two wires they'd sent were naturally on top of the out pile. So he handed them to Longarm. who handed them to Slim Gonzales. dryly asking. “You can read plain English. I hope?”
The lanky
Tejano
could. Longarm had addressed one coded field report to the home address of old Henry, the young squirt who typed out front for Marshal Billy Vail at the Denver federal building. With just such an emergency in mind. Longarm had wired the Jingle Bob at South Spring. New Mexico Territory. asking Uncle John Chisum if he could have his old job back at the same pay. seeing the grass hadn't turned out green as he'd hoped down this way.
He'd signed it Dunk Crawford. knowing anyone who might intercept it wouldn't be anyone he'd want to show his badge and I.D. off to. It was a safer ploy than dragging no red herrings at all across a false trail. He'd known when he'd sent it that Uncle John Chisum would have no idea who Dunk Crawford might be. or whether he'd ever ridden for the Jingle Bob or not. When a reasonably polite cattle baron had hired and fired hundreds of riders in his time he'd hardly spend a nickel a word just to wire back that he couldn't remember you. Uncle John did know Longarm. as a U.S. deputy marshal on fairly friendly terms. But he was likely to either ignore a job application from a Dunk Crawford entire, or wire back that he had an opening. Riders were always coming and going at an outfit big as the Jingle Bob.
Slim Gonzales handed the yellow forms back. observing. “You told Miss Connie you hadn't taken sides in that Lincoln County War.”
Longarm passed the forms across the counter to the clerk with a nod of thanks as he replied to the lady's foreman, “Did I? I must have lied. Like I told her, things went to hell in a hack up Lincoln County way after Dad Peppin's posse and them colored troopers wiped out most of the Chisum, Tunstall, McSween shootists in the summer of '78. What I meant to tell Miss Connie was that I never gunned anybody for either side. Uncle John Chisum was only backing Lawyer McSween and his ad hoc Regulators with his dollars. He kept us Chisum riders herding Chisum cows, the way Major Murphy only funded the hired guns of Jim Dolan. I give you gents my solemn word I never pegged one shot at anybody, for anybody, during the Lincoln County War. I wasn't even working in or about the County Seat of Lincoln where most of the fights flared up.”
He was smiling innocently as he told them that, for it was the pure unvarnished truth, however they might want to string it together.
The lean-and hungry-looking foreman turned to his boss wrangler to ask, “What do you think, Chongo?”
Chongo shrugged and said, “Miss Connie don't pay me to think. She tells me what she wants done and if it ain't impossible it gets done.”
Gonzales nodded and said, “I reckon that's about the size of it.”
Then he told Longarm, “You'd best come with us now. Our boss lady would like a word with you, and you just heard her described as our boss lady.”
Longarm allowed he had nothing better to do, as long as they were talking about the Deveruex-Lopez town house. He explained he still had to stick around town until they held that coroner's inquest.
They didn't seem interested. They had a buckboard parked down the way in front of another saloon, so Longarm didn't have to fetch his own mount from the livery or walk all the way.
Chongo tethered the team out front, and that same snooty butler who got to sleep with the maids and likely the kitchen help ushered them into that same big salon, where Consuela Deveruex y Lopez seemed to be holding court in yet another riding habit of summerweight shantung, the color of the dobe walls all around.
Longarm was pretending not to savvy much Spanish, so all his acting skills were called into play when she asked her foreman what he thought and Gonzales replied in Spanish that she was likely right about him.
It got tougher and he had to act surprised when she asked if they'd searched him and he had to wait until they told him in English that he could let them go through his pockets gently or risk some mighty rough handling at gunpoint if he made them call some others in to help.
Longarm thought it sensible to stare hard at the imperious dusky blonde as Chongo went through his pockets while she and Gonzales got to watch, with the
Tejano's
bony brown hand hovering near the grips of his North & Savage .36-30. Chongo placed each item on the coffee table in front of the gal's uncomfortable but thronelike chair as he took them from Longarm's pockets. Longarm was sorry he hadn't been packing any rubbers. It would have served her right. He wasn't worried about the wallet, pocket knife, keys, comb, and such they were showing her because his badge, regular wallet, and field notes were hidden away with his arrest warrants. A man had to think ahead and you could hire a safe deposit box at any bank for a few cents a day. So he had, back at the county seat before he'd ever ridden into Sheffield Crossing.
Connie Deveruex took a folded wad of paper from the wallet he'd put together for Dunk Crawford and unfolded it before she quietly asked what a man who professed such a peaceful past might be doing with a reward poster in his peaceful pocket.
Longarm shrugged and said, “I told you I didn't know The Kid and I meant it when I said nobody seemed to know where he was right now. I never said I couldn't use that five-hundred dollar bounty, if things worked out that way.”
Gonzales whistled softly and said, “You must think you're pretty good. They say Billy The Kid has killed some people.”
Longarm asked, “Could I have my stuff back, now?”
The dusky blonde nodded and held his wallet up to him as with a smile to say, “You seem to be the New Mexico rider you said you were, Dunk Crawford. I'm still missing Greek Steve and we're getting set to drive a market herd to San Antonio. Do you still want a job?”
Longarm started putting things back in his pockets as he told her, “I just wired the Jingle Bob and swallowed some humble pie. I allowed I hadn't found the grass as green down this way as we'd been told. So with any luck they ought to wire back by the time your own coroner is done with me.”
“Let me and my law firm worry about that coroner's inquest!” she cut in as if she was used to getting her own way. She said, “Hernando Nana was wanted dead or alive before you shot him. You may have some bounty money arriving by the time we get back, see?”
He shrugged and said, “I reckon. But didn't somebody tell me Greek Steve was on your payroll as a wrangler?”
She nodded and Chongo said, “He's on my crew. Or he was.”
Longarm said, “I don't wrangle. I don't help the cook. And I don't ride drag. I ride as a top hand for forty-and-found or I don't ride at all, no offense.”
She stared soberly up at him and said, “You do seem awfully sure of yourself. I usually start a rider at a dollar a day and see how things pan out. How are we supposed to know how good you are before we see how you ride?”
To which he replied without hesitation, “I just told you how I ride. How am I to know I'll get one red cent riding for anybody? I ain't seen any money, yet.”
“Watch your mouth, cowboy!” snapped Slim Gonzalez.
But the dusky blonde just smiled up at Longarm and said, “That sounds fair. If you can't cut the muster on the trail I can always fire you, and if you don't think we're treating you right, you're free to quit. One of my younger
vaqueros
can fill in for Greek Steve with the remuda. I suppose you only trail cows on point, Dunk Crawford?”
Longarm smiled and said, “Aw, I ain't stuck-up, ma'am. I'll ride out front or off either swing, as long as you don't expect me to ride flanks or drag.”
He was hoping she'd tell him to go to hell. He'd been sent to track her kid brother down, not to herd her damned beef to San Antone. But she seemed amused by his cocky demands and said, “Bueno, you'll start at forty-and found, and you'll be out on point with Slim and me, where I can keep an eye on you, starting out. If you last a full day, Slim here may want you riding swing.”