Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

McBride laughed dryly and said, "Well, you might be able to drop out as we're crossing the next draw, if it's deep enough. But they'll still spot you again the moment you ride close enough to matter."

Longarm said, "I know. That's why I mean to dismount in the first deep draw we come to, tether this pony smack by the trail, and sort of pussy-foot out and around. I wear these low-heel boots with a certain amount of pussy-footing in mind."

They heard faster hoofbeats overtaking them. As they glanced back they saw Senator Rumford and Shoshoni Sam coming fast with worried expressions. Longarm called back, "Don't point out any smoke talk to us, gents. We were just talking about 'em. Someone could be out to spook us. So don't act spooked cuid farther along, as the old song says, we'll know more about it."

As the two other riders joined them Longarm added he was glad they had, explaining, "Human eyes, like crow birds, only count as high as three for certain without actually counting. That's how come we say three or four. When we dip below the line of sight from yonder whatever, I'll drop out, you three will just ride on naturally, and they might not notice. It's an old crow-hunting trick. You've all no doubt hunted crows as kids by having four or five old boys go into some cover near a roost, having all but one come back out, and giving that one old boy the chance to blast the wise-ass birds when they decide it's safe to flutter down and roost some more?"

He wasn't too surprised to learn the crusty New Englander knew more about hunting crows than Shoshoni Sam. The four of them rode on another few furlongs. Then, where the trail swung down through an alder-choked draw, Longarm announced that had to be the place and reined in to haul out his Winchester and dismount while the others just kept going.

He tethered the roan to a handy alder, gave it an assuring pat, and said, "I know you'd like cotton wood leaves better, if these were only cottonwoods in leaf instead of bare-ass alders. But I reckon we all got to take

the luck of the draw from time to time."

Then he was moving west through other bare alders along the east-west wooded draw. It wasn't easy. Where alders grew at a\\ they tended to grow like giant porcupine quills a human body had a time fitting between. That was doubtless why some called such thicket's "alder hells," and back home in the wetter slopes of West-by-God-Virginia, alder hells got big enough and thick enough to trap and kill a lost stranger much the way a sundew plant could trap and kill an unwary hover fly. But out this way in dried country the springy broom-handle trees didn't slow him down that much, and he began to miss the hell out of them as soon as they petered out to leave him moving along a damned old sandy wash with his Winchester at port arms, chambered and cocked.

He hadn't gotten near enough west when even that meager cover petered out on him and he had to belly-flop and crawl up a damned old grassy rise, aiming for the half-ass cover of some rabbit bush and soap weed along the crest above him.

He took off his hat and risked a look-see between two clumps. He saw that he and McBride had been right about the source of all that smoke talk. Nobody seemed to be smoke-talking just then, but he could make out the fainter shimmer of rising smoke nobody had tossed wet grass on yet. He couldn't say whether that meant a pause in the conversation or whether the conversation was over. Before he could work out the best way to work around to the far side from where he lay, he saw someone else already had. A trim red figure on a spunky gray pony was tearing along the skyline fit to bust with a free hand upraised in the High Plains peace sign. Tupombi was too far out for him to hail. But he could hear her distant squawks as she charged the wispy column of blue smoke, and he surmised from all those "Kaf" sounds she was requesting somebody hold their damned fire.

Hoping to draw at least some of the fire his own way, since he knew he was way out of range, Longarm broke cover to wave his hat and yell pleas and curses at all concerned.

Tupombi spied him and be saw her wave back. But she never reined in until she'd made it to the very rise that smoke was coming from. When Longarm saw she was still alive, staring all about as she sat her reined-in pony that close to the smoke column, he muttered, "Aw, shit." and headed over to join her there.

It took a spell, crossing more than one grassy draw afoot, and then they were close enough to converse. So he called out, without breaking stride, "Thanks a heap. I was out to catch 'em, not spook 'em all the way back to the Snake River. What got into you, girl?"

She called back archly, "You, my big strong skookumchuk. I did not want them to kill you. That was what I was shouting just now."

He trudged on up to her, muttering, "I wish you hadn't. I was trying to sneak up on 'em."