Longarm and the Colorado gundown

_{There were supposed to be four guards at the mine. He could see two. One of those had taken a chair and folding table over to the gate and was playing a card game with an Indian. The other guard looked more asleep than not, although he did have a carbine laid across his lap. That obviously qualified him as a guard.}

_{The way the Utes were acting inside the makeshift palisade around the mine opening, they might’ve been willing to take guard shifts themselves. The flimsy structure could have been pushed down by any self-respecting six-year-old, and while Longarm watched, two young women came out through the gate—unchallenged, and in fact barely noticed by the guards—and helped themselves to fresh water from the stream below the Crane mine.}

_{This was ... Longarm scratched his ear and frowned ... he wasn’t sure what this was. But what it wasn’t was anything close to what he might’ve expected to see here.}

_{After everything he’d been told in town about the people hating and fearing the Ute tribe, well, this scene just wasn’t natural.}

_{Aggie had actually been worried about mobs of townspeople slaughtering the Indians if the writ were served? Boring them to death seemed more likely from what Longarm could see here.}

_{There was only one way to get any explanations. Longarm}

_{stood and walked down in plain sight of the people below.}

_{It was the Indian cardplayer who noticed his approach and pointed it out to the guard, who seemed to be his enemy only when it came to gin rummy.}

_{“Aw, hell. Are you the deputy marshal from Denver?” the guard asked.}

_{“Uh, huh.”}

_{“Bud, Reece, Anthony? Dammit, Bud, wake up there. And you boys come outta the shack now. The deputy is here.”}

_{“Who are you?” Longarm asked.}

_{The man grinned and extended his hand. “Brad Crannock, Deputy. I’m Chief Bevvy’s second in command. Nice to meet you.”}

_{“Brad, I swear I’m getting more confused all the time. I was expecting to be met with bullets here and have to fight my way in to free the Utes. Now you’re acting like we all been playing some kinda damn game.”}

_{“Not a game, Deputy. But not so serious as we’d been told neither. I mean, hell, once we got acquainted with Wind’s people it turned out that, shit, they wasn’t wanting to scalp nobody.”}

_{“Wind?” Longarm asked.}

_{“Sure. The headman of the Utes here, Man Who Breaks Wind.”}