Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

Rumford said, "Sixty thousand dollars, adding up to just under a couple of tons of specie. The damned fool Indians demanded it. They simply can't seem to grasp the concept of paper money."

Longarm whistled softly and then dryly suggested, "I ain't sure I'd put much faith in anything on paper if I was an Indian with sixty thousand dollars' worth of anything to sell. I was wondering about them big old pack mules. Might I ask just what the taxpayers are out to buy with that much solid silver?"

Granger volunteered, "At least four hundred thousand acres the Shoshoni-Bannock bands don't really need, this side of the Snake River."

Senator Rumford confirmed both Washington and Salt Lake felt the land in question would be much improved by white settlers because the otherwise-fertile soil needed irrigation works to bring it up to its full potential.

When Granger added something about Indians not understanding a thing about agriculture, Longarm managed not to mention those vast irrigation projects Indians had come up with down to the southwest before Columbus had been a gleam in his daddy's eye. He said instead, "That many acres of pure-ass desert would be a bargain at double your offer, no offense. So them Shoshoni must want that silver awesomely bad!"

He reached for one of his own smokes in self-defense, muttering half to himself, "So how come the Shoshoni have been acting so spooky of late?"

When Granger suggested their treacherous scouts, for whatever reason, could have been just making up some Indian trouble, it was Bishop Reynolds's turn to declare, "Some Indians have been sending up smoke signals to the north, and Shoshoni are about all the Indians we get in these parts."

Lukas nodded and said, "Banncx:k seldom ride this far south since Buffalo Horn got his fool self shot acting sassy that time. Some of my riders have reported smoke talk over to the foothills too. That's how come I been out rounding up my herd the last few days."

Longarm asked the stockman how many head he might be missing. The Easterners couldn't see why until Lukas allowed he didn't seem to be missing enough to matter, adding, *They can't be raiding us for livestock, after all. Lord only knows what they're really talking over with all that infernal smoke!"

Longarm frowned uncertainly and ventured, "It could be no more than us. Whether we were coming or not, I mean. If old Pocatello demanded two tons of silver for anything, he surely expects to see it before the first real snowfall."

Granger said with a pout that neither he nor the stock would be ready to push on for at least a spell. Then two more men from their outfit came in, followed by Shoshoni Sam, Madame Marvella, and a mighty innocent-looking Tupombi. So seeing he was going to have to start all over again, Longarm suggested they haul over an extra table and more chairs. Bishop Reynolds got out of helping by heading out to the kitchen to demand some danmed service.

The two new government men were an Indian agent and a head mule teamster with at least one Indian grandparent, both loaned by the B.I.A. Tim McBride, the whiter of the two, allowed he'd been deputy agent at the White River Agency in Colorado before the Utes there had been pushed across the Green River into less civilized range. Duke Pearson, the breed, said he'd been allowed to go on driving mules trains most anywhere because his grandmother's Ute band had been smart enough to steer clear of the Meeker Massacre and such. Neither B.I.A. man had any fringes or beadwork on or about their persons. They were both dressed for comfort on the trail in sort of uncertain autumn weather. Either one of them could have passed for a hand employed by Lukas digging graves or punching cows.

By the time they had all of that straightened out they'd all found seats at the two shoved-together tables. By the time a weary Longarm had repeated a tale he was commencing to find tedious, the Mormon kids from the kitchen had everyone there but the bishop sipping coffee and nibbling marble cake. Bishop Reynolds had his cake with buttermilk.

After confirming suspicions he'd already had about those two so-called scouts, Tim McBride opined, 'They were slowing us down deliberate, more than they really needed to if all they had in mind was dry-gulching Deputy Long here."

Before anyone could answer, McBride brightened and asked, "Say, might you be the Deputy Long called Longarm, the one the Utes call Saltu Ka Saltu?"

Longarm nodded modestly. Duke Pearson grinned too and said, "Well, I swan, and wait till I tell the folk back home I met up with the gent who arrested that son-of-a-bitching agent who was robbing 'em blind that time."

Then he remembered there were women present, stammered as much at Madame Marvella, and apparently apologized more handsomely to Tupombi in Ho. She tried not to let her suffering show as she coped with his Ute accent, and demurely replied in her more trilly Shoshoni-Comanche version of the same basic lingo.