Longarm on the Santee Killing Grounds by Tabor Evans Read Free Book Online

with his Minnesota Volunteers by the time Pope arrived with his limited-service regulars and paroled prisoners to mop up."
    Vail shrugged. "Be that as it may, this letter from a preacher who was there at the time confirms there was indeed a New England shave-tail called Israel Bedford mopping up Indians in the dubious company of Galvanized Yankee noncoms called Calvert Tyger and Brick Flanders. Dyer can't say who the one called Chief might have been, if he was with them at the time or not. He says he still remembers Tyger because of the unusual name, and Brick Flanders came to mind as soon as he read my questions about red beards and glass eyes."
    Longarm asked, "How come he remembers Lieutenant Bedford after all this time?"
    Vail glanced down at the letter, but didn't quote directly from it as he explained. "It appears Dyer was doing some missionary work at Fort Ridgely, trying to save the souls of captured Santee. Some of the officers gave him a hard time, saying he was wasting salvation on already damned souls the army was fixing to hang. But whenever Lieutenant Bedford was the officer of the day, he let Dyer into the stockade to help the condemned Santee pray for forgiveness."
    Longarm smiled thinly. "Must have worked for some of 'em. I understand they had close to four hundred Santee on charges of murder, rape, and worse. Abe Lincoln spoiled a heap of fun when he pardoned all but thirty-eight of 'em. Indians I know say at least thirty-seven of 'em were mean as hell by Indian standards."
    He flicked more ash, ignoring Vail's warning frown as he went on. "This Israel Bedford sounds like a charitable cuss, and would a paid-up Union officer want all that much truck with Confederate renegades who stole Union officers' mounts to head out west along the owlhoot trail?"
    Vail suggested, "That's one of the notions you might want to ask him about. I ain't ordering you to huff and puff his soddy down and haul him all the way back in irons. I only want you to ask him, in your usual sneaky way, where he got that purloined treasury note. It's possible he sold something in good faith to an old army pal or a new neighbor, who'd be the next one you'd want to question, discreet but on your toes, lest you wind up in a mysterious fire as well. Henry's got your travel orders out front, if you're in such a hurry to miss that Sunday-Go. So what are you waiting for, a fatherly pat on the head or a boot in the ass?"
    Longarm felt no call to argue with anyone as stubborn as Billy Vail. So knowing old Henry could play that typewriter faster than most could write by hand, he went out front and asked, "Would you do me a favor, Henry? The boss don't seem to cotton to my carrying office files all the way to Minnesota. So I was wondering if you'd like to type up a thumbnail sketch of that payroll robbery and a list of names we might be interested in whilst I run home to pack, send my regrets about that Sunday-Go to a couple of pals, and pick me up a fresh railroad timetable at the Union Depot?"
    Henry handed him a bulky envelope and smugly replied, "I wish you wouldn't tell me how to do my job. You'll find everything you need in here, along with your travel orders, and I naturally looked up the times and places you'll have to transfer between here and New Ulm if you're leaving on the eastbound night flyer, as I'd say you ought to."
    Longarm didn't argue with Henry either. He allowed he'd be back when he finished the field job, strode out of the office and over to his hired digs, then hauled his possibles to the Union Depot and bought a round-trip ticket to Durango on his own.

CHAPTER 5
    Longarm wasn't being disrespectful of Billy Vail's ability to read sign. He knew nobody tracked better on paper than his pudgy paper-pushing boss. But sometimes sign read different in the cold gray light of reality, and old Billy had just said there wasn't a great hurry to head for New Ulm. For a suspect working to prove a homestead claim would be there if he wasn't