Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

He answered, "I'm still working on who might have killed her. I doubt the ones sending smoke signals from nearby did it. I figure she's been dead close to a month. It's hard to say exactly when a body's been covered over and then exposed for unknown intervals. At any rate, them old boys you just chased away from here with all that yelling couldn't have laid out yonder medicine wheel either. So they might not have known anything about her at all."

The pretty Comanche breed smiled radiantly down at him as she said, "I see why the Utes call you Saltu Ka Saltu, Custis. I would hate to have you after me if I had done something bad. But I know you would never say bad things about me if I was innocent, whether I was Ho or Taibo."

Chapter 12

Nobody else wanted to look at the dead woman when Longarm and his grim discovery caught up with the main column an hour and change later. He'd wrapped the soggy remains in a double layer of rubberized canvas, secured with rawhide latigo, but it still managed to spook stock within a dozen yards. So he had to ride lonesome, off to one side of the trail, downwind, leading a mighty pissed-off pack brute with the dead lady aboard.

Hence he didn't hear half the mutterings that must have transpired before Tim McBride, now riding alone on point, called dinner break in a watered draw.

It was Tupombi who joined Longarm downwind of the others as he was tethering his ponies to some bare chokecherries. She'd dismounted and buried her face in his open vest before he could ask why she seemed so weepy.

She sobbed, "We're turning back. Madame Marvella was already making an awful fuss before you proved her right about dead white women around here. Shoshoni Sam said there's just time to make it back to town before dark if we leave right away. But Custis, my Taibo skookumchuk, I don't want to leave you, ever, ever!"

He held her gently as he softly said, "I've grown sort of used to your sweet company as well, honey. I'd be lying if I said I was pleased by the notion of you and your pals turning

back. But Madame Marvella has a point, and I'd be lying if I promised you anything once this mission's over. I know I ought to be whipped with snakes, but a tumbleweed job like mine just keeps me from making promises to anyone, no matter how warm I feel to 'em."

She said she understood, and asked if they couldn't part with sweeter sorrow up the draw in deeper brush. He was sorely tempted, dumb as it might have been, but then Madame Marvella yelled for Tupombi from somewhere else amid the trees. So Longarm sighed, settled for a brotherly kiss, and led the reluctant gal and her pony back to the others, saying, "I got a favor to ask of your boss, seeing he's headed back to the county seat."

Tupombi murmured back, "I don't have to do everything they say and maybe Pocatello's band would take me in, up at Fort Hall, after you don't want me anymore."

He told her not to talk silly. So she simmered down, and then it was Shoshoni Sam's turn to tell Longarm he was talking silly when, over by the cookfire, Longarm told the old showman what he wanted.

In the end, of course, the show folk headed back to the county seat, and the county coroner, with Tupombi and the dead gal, each of whom Longarm found so interesting in her own distinctive way.

Everyone else in the northbound party seemed mighty relieved. Senator Rumford said he was anxious to make up the lost time, smoke signals or not. So they pushed on harder, with riders scouting well out on all flanks as the country kept getting more open. There were double pickets the one night they had to camp out, at Longarm's suggestion, on a timbered rise, surrounded by open grassy slopes, with no fire.

Senator Rumford wanted to push on, insisting they were not that far from Fort Hall and that nobody could scout them at any distance in the dark.

Tim McBride backed him, although with some hesitation, pointing out they'd likely be smack on top of the fool

Shoshoni by daybreak and that pushing the stock that hard, through cool night air, would be safe as long as they were near the end of the drive.

But Longarm snorted and said, "I thought you said you'd spent some time in this high country, Tim. I wouldn't bet on whether we face rain, snow, or worse this side of sunrise, but that Comanche gal we left back yonder agreed with me earlier we could be in for what her kind call waigon weather."

He saw neither man seemed to understand and added, "Waigon is the Thunder Bird in Ho. Whether we ride into Fort Hall in sunshine or soaking wet, we don't want to surprise any Indians. The Shoshoni in particular have grim memories of white men barging in on 'em by the dawn's early light. Pocatello must be expecting us, seeing he asked for all that silver we've been packing in to him. But those smoke signals may mean other factions ain't as friendly and, like I said—"

"Don't you think Shoshoni killed that woman back near that old medicine wheel?" Tim McBride asked.