Longarm #399 : Longarm and the Grand Canyon Murders (9781101554401) by Tabor Evans Page A

buckskin breeches, and moccasins were studying the mare from every angle.
    “Hello,” Longarm said, approaching the pair. “Nice day.”
    The larger and younger of the two pointed to the mare and grunted. “Sell for ten dollars.”
    “No, thanks.”
    The Indians went into a serious conversation in the Navajo language while Longarm stuffed his new purchases into his saddlebags and then untied the buckskin and prepared to mount up and ride away.
    But the older of the Navajo grabbed the mare’s reinsand held her still for a moment, grunting, “Thirteen dollars and a good wool blanket.”
    “No, thanks.” Longarm smiled. “Now you need to let go of my horse’s reins because I’m riding on.”
    The pair stepped back, and the younger one said, “Twenty dollars. No more.”
    “Not for sale.”
    The Indians shook their heads and looked at Longarm as if he was crazy, then they turned and went into the trading post, heads down and looking dejected.
    “You ought to thank me for not selling you,” Longarm told the mare as he used a winding and well-used trail that led down into the deep and wide gorge. “From the looks of the Navajo Indian ponies I’ve seen on this reservation, you’d have pretty much had to live off the land and fend for yourself.”
    The mare tossed her pretty head and moved smartly toward the trail that led down into the Little Colorado Gorge.

Chapter 8
    Carl Whitfield and his cousin Al Hunt were lying flat on the red earth, and each had a pair of binoculars glued to their faces.
    “He’s coming up the north side of the Little Colorado Gorge,” Hunt said. “I didn’t think he’d take the long way around this gorge like the wagons. We could kill him when he crests the top.”
    But Whitfield shook his head. “Might be someone over at the trading post watching him until he passes over the rim and rides north a few miles. We’ll take him up in the hills.”
    “Got to be careful not to let him see our tracks.”
    “We’ll stay a mile west of him. I know a place that the road passes through a cut in the hills and it’ll be perfect for an ambush.”
    “Hope it isn’t too far,” Hunt whined. “I’d like to get back to Flagstaff by tonight.”
    “Might not be possible. We have to bury that federal marshal so deep that he’ll never be found.”
    “If we’re going to do that, then why didn’t we bring a pick and a shovel?”
    Whitfield curbed his anger. “Because I forgot. I had a lot on my mind before we left town.”
    “Yeah,” Hunt said, unable to conceal a smirk. “And from the looks of your face, I’d say maybe the marshal rearranged some of your brain.”
    “Shut up! We’ll just have to find a low place maybe in some arroyo and cover him with dirt and rocks even if we do it with our bare hands.”
    “To hell with that plan. I say we just drag his body out in those dry hills and let the coyotes and vultures do the rest of the work. And what about that buckskin mare he’s riding?”
    Carl Whitfield had been thinking a lot about the mare. “She’s too good to shoot, but we dare not take her back to Flagstaff, because everyone there knows the buckskin belongs to John Wallace. If we showed up with that animal, we’d be puttin’ a noose around our necks.”
    “I guess that’s true,” Al agreed, “but it seems mighty sad to just drop a fine horse like that. Hey, maybe we should sell her at that trading post.”
    Whitfield thought about that for several minutes. “Too risky. People will remember that horse and its rider. What are we gonna tell ’em when we show up with the buckskin? That the rider fell off and broke his fool neck not long after he left the post?”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    “Well,” Whitfield groused, “it wouldn’t wash! But we could take the mare and the saddle over to the Hopi Reservation. I hear that there’s a big trading post at a place called Keams Canyon.”
    “How far out of our way would that be?”
    “Fifty, maybe sixty miles. An extra