Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

The grasshopper paid him no mind. So he knew he was holding as still as he needed to. Critters always noticed movement before a human might. The older of the humans responsible for this dumb fix bawled out, "Come back here, you fool kid! We can't even be sure where he landed in all that deep grass!"

So Longarm knew what was headed his way long before the grasshopper near his front sight suddenly spooked and went whirring off on wings of black and gold. Longarm simply raised the sight until it was aimed at blue sky just above the amber tips of the screening grass. Sure enough, a tall gray hat preceded a tanned moronic face into Longarm's dead aim, to wind up dead and in point of fact sort of messy as Longarm blasted away point-blank while the dumb jaw commenced to drop at the sight of its own impending demise.

As the kid's shattered skull jerked backwards from under its big gray hat Longarm was already rolling sideways. So he wasn't at all where he had been when that more careful as well as more distant rifleman fired sensibly but too late at the haze of gunsmoke left by Longarm's deadlier shot.

When Longarm saw the rascal was aiming at the moving grass tips above him he froze on his belly again, but gripped his Winchester by its warm muzzle to reach as far away as he could with the butt plate, and then rolled it through the grass in apparent agony as he wailed, "Oh, shit, I give! I

give! You got me bad and I need a doc!"

The one called Pearly bawled, "I'll give you one, you fucker! Are you still with us. Kid?"

Neither Longarm nor the one he'd just shot replied, of course, as Pearly shot the shit out of nothing much where Longarm had been rolling that butt plate about. He had it back in place against his right shoulder by the time Pearly let up, called again to his sidekick, and then wailed, "Aw, shit. Pappy ain't gonna like the way this turned out at all! Come on. Kid, quit funning me and say you only ducked, all right?"

Longarm just lay low.

Another million years later he heard hoofbeats, two ponies moving off on the far side of those aspen judging from the echoes all around.

Longarm still lay low. He'd played the same old Indian trick in his time. It was an old Indian trick because it had worked so many times.

The sun got high as it ever went and began to roll down the west slope of the clear autumn sky. Despite the altitude and his recent promise to that grasshopper, Longarm was really commencing to despise President Hayes and the reforms that called for damned old frock coats the damned sun could bake a man in as if he was a damned potato wrapped in damp adobe. For if it was true old U.S. Grant had been asleep at the switch while his crooked cronies had robbed him and the rest of the country blind, at least a federal deputy had been able to get by in no more than a shirt and vest back then, as long as he combed his damned hair now and again.

There was no safe way to roll out of his tweed coat without a grass stem or more giving away this new position. As if to prove that, he heard those damned ponies coming back, or leastways, he heard two ponies coming at a trot, sounding more as if they were on that dirt road just a few yards off. But Longarm never let on he might still be alive until he heard someone rein in and call out in a female voice, "Is

that you I see with one hand out on the roadway, Deputy Long?"

He stayed put but risked calling back, "Not hardly, ma'am. I suspicion you're looking at someone I just shot, and watch those aspen over to your left as you dismount on my side Indian-style."

The unseen gal laughed harshly and allowed she always did. So Longarm wasn't too surprised when he propped himself up on one elbow for a better look at the so-called Princess Tupombi. She was already demurely afoot in her garish cigar-store-Indian outfit, holding the leads of her dapple gray and his roan cayuse. He figured out why his saddle was aboard the roan instead of the paint before she called out, "Are you hurt? When your pony came back without you I thought it best to come looking for you with a less-jaded mount."

Nobody seemed to be shooting at either of them at the moment. So Longarm got gingerly to his feet and headed her way, calling a mite softer with a brighter smile, "That was mighty considerate of you with old Tanapah really feeling his oats this afternoon."

It didn't trip her up as planned. The pretty little thing gave a happy gasp and proceeded to give him what for in Ho, despite her big blue eyes and more Celtic than Comanche features.

Longarm laughed sheepishly and stopped her as he began to shuck his coat without letting go of his Winchester. "Hold your fire, ma'am. I know Tanapah is the sun father, that ayee means yes and ka means no. But after that I don't know much more Ho than any other Saltu."

She sighed and said, "My mother's people call your kind Taibo more often. Who's that Taibo sprawled in the grass over there?"