Longarm and the War Clouds by Tabor Evans Page B

scouted here at McHenry some time ago—War Cloud. He’s a Coyotero.”
    Belcher studied the men critically. He was a large, handsome man around thirty, Longarm judged, though the lines around his eyes and soft waistline made him look older. His eyes were cold and arrogant.
    He had thick, dark brown hair parted in the middle and hanging long over his ears, brushing the collar of his bib-front blue cavalry blouse. The whites of his blue eyes were a network of bright red lines. They were rheumy from drink. He seemed to have trouble focusing.
    Lowering his gaze now with apparent chagrin—something told Longarm that it was not a common emotion for him—he buttoned his fly, slid his suspender up over his broad shoulders, and came on into the room.
    â€œWarm Springs Apache, yes.” Belcher sagged into his swivel chair, which squawked and creaked beneath his weight. He lounged back negligently, wrists dangling over the chair’s arms. “Blue Feather. Sorry, gentlemen—I don’t reckon that looked too professional. But we’re not all that fixed on form around here. What man doesn’t have a dalliance once in a while?”
    He glanced at first Longarm and then War Cloud. His eyes strayed to Magpie standing against the door, arms crossed on her breasts.
    â€œSay, what we got there?”
    â€œThat’s War Cloud’s daughter,” Longarm said before War Cloud could say anything.
    The lawman sensed the acrimony building in the Coyotero scout, and he didn’t want to kick things off here at Fort McHenry on the wrong foot. He couldn’t help adding, however, “Her father’s right protective of the girl, though I’ve seen how she can handle herself right fine.”
    Belcher let his half-drunk gaze linger on the girl for a few more seconds and, as though Longarm’s words had taken a while to register, switched his gaze to the tall federal lawman standing between Kilroy and War Cloud. Belcher wrinkled the skin above the bridge of his nose.
    â€œDon’t talk crap to me, federal boy,” he said, lines of anger cutting across his pale forehead.
    Longarm drew a short breath to stem the rising tide of his own anger. He kept his voice almost ridiculously mild as he said, “I wasn’t talking crap to you, Major. I was simply telling you how it was, that’s all.”
    â€œYou don’t like me—I can see that already.”
    â€œAnson,” Kilroy said.
    â€œShut up, Captain. Don’t speak until you’re spoken to.” The major rubbed a finger across the brass oak leaves on his left shoulder and then cast his bleary gaze at Longarm once more. “You don’t think I should be . . . uh . . . entertaining at such a time, so you’ve already made up your mind about me. Isn’t that it, Marshal Long?”
    Longarm said nothing.
    â€œYou show me a soldier who doesn’t entertain outside the marriage once in a while, and I’ll show you a stuffed uniform who knows nothing about life in this neck of the woods. Just because I fuck an Apache washer girl once in a while to ease the nerves of commanding a fort out here in the high and rocky don’t mean I don’t love my wife and want her back. It don’t mean that goddamn redskin had any right to cart her away from me in the middle of the fuckin’ night!”
    Uncharacteristically showing his emotion, War Cloud said, “I heard she wasn’t carted away. She went willingly. My friend Black Twisted Pine wouldn’t take a woman against her will. No Apache would. To do so would be to dishonor himself as well as his family!”
    â€œWho told you she went
willingly
?” Kilroy slapped the desk.
    Kilroy said defensively, “They would have found out sooner or later, Anson. They
needed
to know!”
    Longarm said, “Hell, even Washington knows that. What Captain Kilroy told me wasn’t news.”
    Kilroy was sitting up