Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

She pointed at him, drew her palm across her own brow, made it snake-slither, then put her fist to her heart before she put the back of it to her lips with the index finger pointed at him. So he said, "I think she's asking if I might be the white man they call the one with a Shoshoni heart."

Then he modestly said, "Ayee," knowing that meant yes in Ho, and so she grabbed him in a happy bear hug and began to yell fit to bust until a Shoshoni boy came in from out back with a broom and a puzzled expression. He spoke English. So it was easier for him to say, "Aunt Tahcutiney wants me to lead you over to our big chief's cabin, Taibo with Our Kind of Heart."

Longarm said that sounded swell, gulped some coffee, and

grabbed the sandwich off the plate to eat on the fly as he followed the boy out the back door with Dame Hora still following him. It was dark as an overcast night figured to get outside by this time. When he asked the Shoshoni boy whether they'd be walking or riding, the boy said he was walking and that it wasn't too far for a real man. So Longarm said to just lead on, but warned the Scotch gal in high-buttons she'd likely be more comfortable just waiting inside till he returned.

She said she wasn't about to sit and fidget now that they were so close, at last, to some answers about those missing spinsters.

He told her, "Ain't sure how close we might be to anything right now. Not even where we might be heading. So don't say I never warned you and don't expect us to carry you if you can't keep up."

She said she wouldn't. As they crunched along over uncertain footing after the barely visible outline of the young Shoshoni, she asked him why he didn't like her.

When he said he liked her as much as anyone else he knew around Fort Hall, she said she wasn't used to being spoken to so curtly by her social inferiors.

To which he could only reply with a wry chuckle, "I'd already got that feeling about you, ma'am. May-haps that's what inspired me to keep things plain and simple. If it's any comfort to you, I ain't your social inferior. I'm a bom and bred American from West-by-God-Virginia, and my ancestors whupped your ancestors twice."

She hissed like a stomped sidewinder, muttered something awfiil in Gaelic, then laughed despite herself and said, "I'll have you know it was the Sasunnach, I mean the English, you colonists had so much fun with. But your point's well taken, so lead on. Mo MacNial na Barra."

Lx)ngarm answered, simply, "Can't. If this kid ain't leading us the right way we're lost, and who's that other cuss you seem to have me mixed up with, ma'am?"

She laughed again and said, "Mixed up indeed. The

MacNial, the high chief of a small but proud island clan, was invited to court by one of our German Georges, but since he'd arrived in the rain with his tartan plaid wrapped around him and the eagle feathers drooping on his wet blue bonnet, he was lucky to get any place at the king's table at all. You know, of course, that guests are seated beginning at the head of the table in order of rank?"

He said he'd heard as much, complicated as it sounded. So she explained, "The MacNial was seated below the salt, or near the unfashionable end of the table, among mere Sirs and even Right Honorables. Being a true Highland gentleman he said nothing but simply started eating, with his hat still on, in the Highland fashion."

Longarm said, "Hebrews and cowhands too. Saves having to fuss with your fool hat before or after. Is that why I remind you of this cuss, because I've been chawing on this sandwich with my hat on all this time?"

She said, "No. You see, after a time the king, at the head of his table, noticed the chief's four feathers, sensed they might mean something, and had one of his servants make some discreet inquires. One can imagine His Majesty's chagrin when it developed they'd seated a ruler in his own right below the salt. At any rate an equerry in a white wig was sent down to The MacNial to offer a full apology and move such a distinguished guest up by the head of the table. But by then the chief had started eating and so all he did was glance up to shout, the length of the table, 'Och, dinna' frush yersel', Gordie. Wherever The MacNial may be seated already is the head of the table!' "

Longarm didn't laugh. He swallowed the last of his slim supper and said, "Makes sense to me. I don't see what all the frush was about neither."

She replied, in a softer tone, "That's what I meant. I think I see why the Indians call you a white man with an Indian heart. They seem to see things less, well, frushy than the rest of us."

He sighed and said, "Don't bank on that, ma'am. They mean I try to understand them, not that they can't act just as complicated, as you'll see once we meet up with some of 'em, if ever we meet up with any of 'em."