Chapter 16

That night they made camp by a spring near the foothills of the Ruby Mountains. All day long, they’d seen signs of Indians and once even what was a small encampment in some rocks with four wickiups.

“Do these wickiups belong to your family?” Longarm asked.

Nolita shook her head. “Belong to all of my people.”

Longarm lit a campfire while Lilly laid out some food that they had bought in Dirt Gulch. Nolita gathered firewood, far more than was needed for cooking but Longarm supposed it was to light up the night sky enough that it might draw her brothers or at least other friendly Paiutes.

“Nolita, have you camped here before?” Longarm asked after they ate and were sitting around the campfire getting sleepy and half mesmerized by the dancing flames.

“Many times,” she answered, staring into the fire.

“How many more days do we need to travel before we stand a good chance of finding your brothers?”

Nolita shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Longarm sure hoped so. He wanted to get back on the westbound train and get to Sacramento where he figured he had the best chance of finding or at least learning about Link St. Clair. Being out in this lonely country with two women who were counting on his protection was not to his liking. He knew that the Paiute had a history of trouble with whites and that they had often staged small attacks on the Central Pacific Railroad building crews some twenty years earlier.

“How many of your people remain in this country?” Lilly asked.

“Not many. Whites cut down the piñons whose nuts we gathered and used for our winter food. They shoot all the deer and wild things, put cattle on our lands, and kill many of our people.” Nolita made a grand sweeping gesture. “Once, Paiute all over this land . . . but no more.”

Longarm had been among the Paiute a time or two and he’d never been comfortable among them. They were short, dark people who lived in a country often so lacking in grass or water that it seemed impossible that anyone could survive. They were hunters and gatherers, not farmers like the Hopi and because of the scarcity of water and game, they were constantly on the move. Their traditional enemies were the Shoshone, but now it was the white man who came into this country seeking but rarely finding precious metals.

He heard the hoot of an owl and it was almost immediately answered by the howl of a coyote.

Nolita snapped out of her reverie and jumped to her feet.

“What is it?” Longarm asked, already pretty sure that he knew the answer.

“My people,” she said, growing excited and moving away from the light of their campfire. Putting her hands to her mouth, Nolita twice echoed the calls of the owl and the coyote. All grew very quiet and the only sound was that of their horses shuffling their hooves in the dark and the crackling of their campfire.

“Nolita, are you sure that whoever is out there is friendly?” Longarm asked, taking Lilly’s hand and moving out of the firelight.

Nolita stood frozen, straining to hear the faintest of sounds. Finally, she smiled and said, “Yes.”

Longarm allowed himself to relax, but only a little. “Can you call them in to our camp?”

Nolita shook her head. “They will come with the rising sun.”

Longarm nodded with understanding. “Lilly, I think we ought to try and catch some sleep.”

“I’m not sure if I can.”

“Me, neither,” Longarm confessed.

“Nolita, what . . .”

But the Paiute woman was gone.

*  *  *

Longarm and Lilly slept poorly that night and they were wide-awake when the sun lifted off the eastern horizon. There were clouds in the sky and the sunrise began with a faint light that turned the sky pale gray and then progressed to salmon and finally the clouds became crimson and gold. It was as pretty a sunrise as Longarm had seen in many a day, but he was too tense to really enjoy it.

“One more cup of coffee,” he said, more to himself than to Lilly. “Then I’m going to hitch up the team and we’re heading back to Dirt Gulch.”

“Custis, we can’t just leave her out here!”

“It’s her home,” Longarm argued. “I’m sure that she’s going to be fine. If she was worried about that, she would never have left our camp last night.”

Lilly stared to the east, face troubled. “What if her brothers are both dead? What if her people decide that she is cursed or defiled?”

“I don’t know the answers to those questions,” Longarm admitted. “All I know is that we did our best to get her back to her people, and now that we’ve done just that it’s time for us to go about our own business, and that starts with returning to Dirt Gulch and getting back on the train.”

“Look!”

Longarm had been turning toward their camp when Lilly’s sharp exclamation brought him back around. “Well, I’ll be darned,” he said as he saw Nolita walking toward them surrounded by about a dozen or more Paiute men, women, and children.

“What do we say or do?” Lilly whispered.

“We do nothing until they speak or make sign.”

“But . . .”

“Shhh!” Longarm hissed. “Just smile and try to act relaxed.”

Lilly edged up close against Longarm. “I sure hope that these are friendly Paiutes.”

“If they weren’t,” Longarm decided, “they wouldn’t have their women and children tagging along. And, most likely, they’d have attacked us in the night.”

“I thought Indians never attacked at night.”

“A lot of dead white men had the same wrong idea,” Longarm said, smiling as the Paiutes grew nearer. Their men were armed with pistols and rifles and their women carried sharpened lances and knives. None of them were smiling and Longarm marveled at how strong and tough they all were.

“I have told them that you are my friends and are good,” Nolita said.

“We appreciate that,” Longarm said gravely. “Which ones of these are your brothers?”

Nolita nodded at two young men who stepped forward. “This is Samuel and that is Miguel.”

At the sounds of their names, both young men nodded first toward Longarm and then toward Lilly.

“I am glad that they are alive and you have found your brothers,” Longarm said. “Do they speak English like you?”

“No.” Nolita spoke to them in her own tongue and then turned back to Longarm and Lilly. “They want me to say that they are very glad that you brought me home. They told me that they had caught the white man who took me away while he was sleeping and bashed in his head with rocks.”

“He deserved that,” Longarm said. “Anything else they want us to know?”

“Yes,” Nolita said, looking uncomfortable, “they want also for me to say that they are all hungry.”

Longarm killed a smile. “Tell them that there is plenty of food for everyone in the wagon and that they are welcome to cook it here.”

Nolita translated this information and the Paiute women surged past her to the wagon where they and the children all began pulling out and then opening the supplies.

The Paiute men, however, did not move but continued to stare at Longarm and Lilly. Clearly, there was more unfinished business on their minds.

“What is it?” Longarm finally asked.

Nolita could not meet his gaze. “I’m very sorry but they want the wagon and horses.”

Longarm was not completely caught off guard by this news. He had dealt with Indians before and knew that they usually felt that so much had been taken from them over the years that they were entitled to ask for almost everything except a white man’s family or his weapons. Longarm chose his next words with care. “Tell them that they cannot have the wagon or the horses because, as you know, they do not belong to us.”

Nolita passed this information to the men who began to talk about the manner with animated gestures. Nolita’s brothers were calm, but several of the other men were clearly angered by this refusal.

Finally, Nolita said, “I am so sorry, but they will not leave you alone until they have at least one of the horses and all of the food.”

“Is this how your people treat your friends?” Lilly demanded, clearly upset by what she considered to be ingratitude.

Nolita lifted her chin and met her gaze. “My people have been hunted down by whites and while they believe me when I told them you are very good white people, they still see that you have much and they have almost nothing. Look at their clothes and at how thin they are.”

Longarm felt a little ashamed because Nolita was right, these were very poor people. “If we give them one of the horses, then we’ll have to leave the wagon here because it can’t be pulled by the other horse all the way back to Dirt Gulch.”

“They know that and the wagon will be useless to them,” Nolita said. “But that is their demand. I am not their leader. I am a woman and cannot say what men will do.”

Longarm turned and walked away to think about this for a few minutes. He was angered, but knew that no good would come from a serious confrontation that ultimately would go very hard on Nolita. The woman had suffered enough already and deserved better.

“All right,” he agreed, turning back to Nolita. “Tell them to follow us and the wagon back to Dirt Gulch.”

“They will not go to that place.” Her brothers were speaking rapidly to her and when they were finished, she added, “They would be shot and maybe hanged in Dirt Gulch.”

“Then tell them to follow us until we are close to that town and then they can have a horse and I’ll have the liveryman come out to get his wagon. That way, Lilly and I are only in debt for one horse.”

“I will tell them of this plan,” Nolita promised.

Nolita conveyed Longarm’s wishes and it was clear that some of the older men were still not pleased. But it seemed as if Nolita’s brothers were openly in favor of Longarm’s terms.

Longarm whispered to Lilly. “I think the best thing for us to do is to hitch up the wagon and leave at once.”

“But . . .”

“Trust me on this,” Longarm said as he began to grab harness and move toward the horses. “If we act as if we expect that they will accept my terms, then the likelihood is that they will. On the other hand if we look worried, afraid of them, or doubtful, they’ll become even bolder in their demand for both horses.”

“All right,” she said. “I’ll help you with the harness.”

While the Paiutes argued passionately about what was to be done, Longarm and Lilly got the horses harnessed to the wagon and left their food supplies on the ground for the Paiutes to eat while they tried to come to an agreement.

“They’re following!” Lilly said as they turned the wagon back toward Dirt Gulch. “The whole bunch including Nolita are hurrying after us on foot. Don’t they have any horses?”

“I doubt it,” Longarm said. “They are so thin that I imagine they eat their horses.”

“Oh, my!”

“So before we get near Dirt Gulch you had better pick the one that is going to be butchered and roasted tonight,” Longarm told her.

“But I like them both!”

“Think of those thin children following along,” Longarm said, his tone of voice grim. “Think of how they’ll feast for days on one of these horses.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” Lilly said, but she shook her head and her expression was one of sadness.

*  *  *

True to his word, Longarm drove to within a mile of Dirt Gulch, and in a deep and dry wash bed where they were hidden from sight of the town, he unhitched the oldest of their two horses and led it back to the Paiutes who kept glancing nervously over the edge of the river bank toward the nearby railroad town.

Nolita came forward and took the lead rope in her hands. “I thank you for everything you did for me,” she said to Longarm and Lilly. “You will always be my friends.”

“Here,” Lilly said, slipping her a roll of greenbacks. “This is for you to help your people. Spend it wisely.”

“I will,” Nolita promised, hugging her tightly.

Longarm glanced over her head to the Paiutes who stood only twenty feet back. “Did your brothers accept your story about what you did while you were in the hands of white slavers?”

“Yes.” Nolita allowed herself a small smile. “Forgive me, but I told them that I killed those Dooley men.”

“You killed them?” Lilly asked. “And did you tell them how you could kill five bad men?”

“Yes. I was thinking about that all the time on the train coming to my land and people. I decided to tell them that I slit all the Dooley men’s throats in the night while they slept.”

“And they believed that?”

In reply, Nolita reached into her skirt and pulled out the same butcher knife that she’d used on Longarm’s shoulder. It even had some bloodstains on the steel. “When they saw this knife they believed me.”

Longarm saw humor and irony in Nolita’s story. “You should have been a politician.”

Nolita did not understand Longarm’s meaning but she turned and waved the knife toward her people, who beamed with delight and appreciation.

Longarm pointed to the butcher knife. He made a slashing motion toward his neck with his stiffened hand. The Paiutes burst into gleeful laughter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Longarm whispered to Lilly, who was dumbfounded by the charade. “And the sooner the better.”

Lilly touched Nolita’s face and then she turned and hurried after Longarm and the horse that would live to see many more days.

*  *  *

The horse they had left behind cost them twenty dollars after some hard dickering with its former owner. He had tried to persuade Longarm that the animal was in the prime of its life while, in truth, it was a smooth-mouthed animal showing all the signs of advanced age.

“I would have paid him more,” Lilly said as they climbed back on the train headed westward. “You didn’t have to argue so hard about the price.”

“That horse was twenty-five years old if it was a day,” Longarm replied. “And he couldn’t have sold it for twenty dollars to anyone. The truth is that he got more money from us than it was worth and he’s probably telling all his friends that he slickered us good.”

“I see.” She paused a moment, then asked a question that she was afraid to learn the answer to. “Custis?”

“Yes.”

“What will happen to Nolita?”

“What do you mean?”

“Will she wind up looking as bad as those other Paiute women we saw this morning?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. “She might. Then again, you gave her some money and she is smart. My guess is that she’ll parcel that money out over a very long period of time to help not only herself and her family but the other members of her tribe.”

“They looked destitute, didn’t they.”

Lilly was making a statement, not asking a question. Longarm scowled. “The Paiutes and all the other desert Indians have a tough go of it. Like we were told, once they relied on hunting deer and eating roasted pine nuts, which I’ve tried and are pretty tasty. But with all the white people tromping around on their lands, things have gotten a lot tougher.”

“Will they as a people survive?”

“Yes,” Longarm said without hesitation. “They will survive because that’s all they do and what they do best. Some years they might lose more people than are born, but in good years they will replenish their numbers. They have one really great advantage over the Plains Indians like the Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and the Comanche.”

“And what could that possibly be?”

Longarm pointed out the window. “The Paiute live in a mostly bone-dry and hellish country that has little or no value to whites unless gold or silver is one day found. You can’t farm this land and you sure can’t raise horses or cattle. This land won’t even sustain flocks of sheep. There’s little timber or anything else here so we’ve left it to these people who have lived here long before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.”

“I see.”

The train blasted its steam whistle and they began to roll. Weary and gritty, Longarm leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

“You’re going to miss the scenery if you take a nap,” Lilly warned.

“I’ve seen it all before many a time,” Longarm answered. “And believe me, the country between here and Reno isn’t fit for anything but jackrabbits and rattlesnakes.”

Lilly was seated next to the window, and as they gathered speed and she studied the harsh landscape of sagebrush, rocks, and broken mesas, she nodded her head in agreement.