Longarm and the Shoshoni silver

Longarm didn't ascribe the sinister motives others might to the Mormon Indian policy. He'd always found it easier to share tobacco smoke instead of gunsmoke with any Indian who'd meet him halfway. So he doubted it was true all Indian attacks in and about the Great Basin had been instigated by murderous Mormon missionaries, although there had been that massacre at Mountain Meadows, and the army must have had some evidence against Brother Lee and those other Mormons they hung that time for attacking that wagon train and blaming it on Indians.

He found a friendlier-looking Indian, with big blue eyes, out front as he approached the Overland stop. Tupombi said, "What have you been doing all this time? I was about to come looking for you. Those Scotch people have ridden on, with night about to fall and a chance of snow in the cold wind's breath."

Longarm sniffed, didn't smell anything but sage after a long sunny day, and replied, "Do tell? Well they got a Great

Basin man guiding 'em and a half-moon rising. Did they say what inspired 'em to light out alone after all? Dame Flora told me earlier how much she wanted to tag along with that bigger government party."

Tupombi said, "The porivo with flaming hair said she was tired of waiting, waiting, and wanted to use the talking wire the army must have up at Fort Hall."

Longarm frowned thoughtfully. "Rhinegold hired on as a man who knows this country and he's expecting an army telegraph at Fort Hall?"

Tupombi nodded. "They do have a telegraph at both Fort Hall and Fort Washakie. Shoshoni Sam wired both forts to ask about Boinaiv, or Sacajawea. They said they'd he2u-d she died a long time ago. So there must be two army forts, no?"

Longarm shook his head. "No. There's a small army garrison at Fort Washakie, on the far side of the Divide. Fort Hall was the grand notion of a fur trader called Wyeth. He built it as a trading post on the Snake River back in the shining times of the beaver hat craze. The Hudson Bay Company from up Canada way bought Wyeth out back around '36 because he'd picked such a swell location."

"Then why did they call it a fort?" she demanded with her female logic.

Longarm smiled down at her to explain, "Same reasons they called Bent's private fort on the Arkansas a fort. Because it was built as a fort, of course. No offense, but some of your momma's kin have a time grasping our notions of property rights, and the trade goods a trader might have on hand are gener2illy picked with demand on the part of the consumer in mind."

She said, "Oh. Then those Scotch people are going to have to pay to use the telegraph wire from a trading post? Good. I told them it was a bad time to push on into disputed country alone, sind your Dame Flora spoke to me as if I was a child."

Longarm shrugged and said, "She ain't my Dame nothing and she talks that way to most everybody. I take it you, Shoshoni Sam, and Madame Marvella mean to wait some

more for that lost, strayed, or stolen column of dudes I just can't account for?"

She said they were, that the station manager had agreed to let the well-traveled Madame Marvella rustle up some supper in the kitchen if she'd show his Lulu how it was done, and that her own dear momma had never taught her to prepare food in the Taibo fashion and that she wasn't interested in learning.

He chuckled and confided he'd always ducked mess duty in his army days as often as he could. When she said her mentor, Shoshoni Sam, had been smoking inside by the stove a few minutes ago, Longarm chuckled fondly and suggested, "What say we let him smoke alone, lest he feel inspired to teach you a useful trade? When I was in the army I found that out of sight was out of mind. So I tried to avoid showing up for anything less important than pay call, mail call, mess call, and such. Why don't we mosey back down to that general store and give Madame Marvella and Lulu time to set the table inside? I feel certain Shoshoni Sam or the station manager will holler for us before our grub gets too cold."

She fell in step beside him as he flung his coat over one shoulder but left his gun hand free. When she asked what they might be after at the store ahead he explained, "Nothing. They'll likely be fixing to close for the night. Meanwhile, they got front steps just made for watching the road south as old Tanapah calls it a day in the west."

She took it wrong. She pouted, "Don't mock my puha, even if you think it's sort of silly. My father's people tried to convince me I should shake paho at a weakling who'd allowed his enemies to nail him to a cross without fighting them, and I thought that was sort of silly too!"

He motioned at the store steps they could see ahead now as he soberly replied, "Your boys don't fight when the ahotey is skewering 'em to do some sun dancing either, speaking of odd religious notions, and having witnessed more sun dances than I ever wanted to, I'm sure I'd as soon be crucified if I just had to choose one or the other."