by Lou Cameron
She wouldn’t. “You bastard! All that guff about Tom Horn was just a cover-up. And to think I was so worried about you and…My God, I’m smack in bed with you! Are you going to arrest me yourself, or just turn me in to Jim Tate in the morning, you brute?”
Stringer sealed the Bull Durham with his tongue before he muttered, “Maybe someday I’ll have women figured out. I hope I won’t be so old by that time that it won’t matter. You’re not making a lick of sense, Cherokee.”
“Oh, no? Next thing you’ll tell me you never even guessed I could be…”
“Stop.” He cut in, firmly, and when she did he said, “I don’t want to guess who you might really be. I’m a newspaperman, not the law, and I’ve already got enough on my plate for a man who only came to cover those Frontier Days. In case you forgot what happened earlier this evening, I did come up here to ask about the murder of Willie Nickell and I’d no sooner started asking when someone tried to murder me. So unless that gent in the red shirt was a pal of yours—and you were acting mighty odd if he was—you saved my life by warning me in time about the way he wore his gun, and I said I owed you. So even if you didn’t make good coffee and screw like a mink I’d feel mighty dirty turning you in, even if I knew what they wanted you for. Since I don’t, I won’t. You have my word on that. Where in hell did I put my fool matches?”
As he groped for his jacket on the floor with the smoke unlit between his own tight lips, Cherokee’s lips softened. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re likely telling it true, as soon as a girl studies on it. It’s just that I’m so tired of being on the dodge and …”
“Shut up,” he said flatly. Then he found a match and stuck a light. As he did so he could see her big warm eyes were filled with tears. He lit his smoke, shook out the match, and growled, “Aw, don’t blubber up on me. I didn’t mean to speak so sharp, honey. I only said shut up because I don’t want you saying dumb things you might regret in the cold gray light of dawn.”
As they snuggled back down together, sharing the smoke, the mystery woman of Iron Mountain sighed and said, “You’re right. The last person I should tell my tale to would be a newspaperman.” Then she repressed a giggle and added, “So far, the newspapers have gotten so much about us all wrong.”
He didn’t answer. Her body felt soft and warm against his. But he was starting to feel a distinct chill. For try as he might not to study on who Cherokee might or might not be, she was starting to fit. Despite Ned Buntline, very few outlaw gals of the West had ever been really good-looking. So that, and the real color of her hair, narrowed it down considerable. He hoped he was wrong. But just the same, when she wanted to get on top he let her.
CHAPTER
SIX
*
After Cherokee served him a cold breakfast and some more warm loving in the morning light Stringer met old Jim Tate, the town law, at the saloon as they’d agreed. Tate said, “I’ve been on the telly-phone to Cheyenne already. It’s hard to get anyone to talk to you with everyone excited about that wild west show down yonder. If it was up to me, they’d hold her all one day and get it over with.”
“Maybe someday they will,” Stringer said. “Right now, between the stock judging, cake raffles, and Lord knows what all, they just don’t have time to do her all at once, like you say. Did you find out anything at all?”
“Yeah. I found out the copper badge who’s supposed to keep track of the infernal files has agreed to judge a damn calf riding contest for kids. Why in the hell would they ask a law officer to act as a damned old rodeo judge?”
“To keep folk from saying the judging might not have been honest, I reckon. Since the contestants themselves have to chip in the prize money to be awarded the winner, the losers tend to bitch a lot when they lose by a point or so. It’s best to have such points awarded by a gent with a rep for honesty. Did you think to call anyone on the entrance committee, Jim? They’d surely know if they had any kind of a Winfield Scott listed as a contestant.”
The older man looked disgusted. “They don’t. That was easy to check off. He must have just liked loud shirts naturally. It’s the police record of the cuss interests me, but with not a soul willing to go through the damned old yellow sheets for me I’m pure stuck for now.”
“You could always try Hayes,” Stringer suggested. “That’s where his voter’s card said he was from.”
Old Jim frowned. “Hayes, Kansas, by telly-phone?”
So Stringer had to explain how one got Central to hook one up for a long-distance telephone call and added that the county could be billed for it.
Jim Tate whistled. “Well, I never. I ain’t never called nobody that far off on the telly-phone, son. You’d best come along and show me how. They got the contraption set up in the general store next door.”
Stringer nodded and followed the older man into the attached retail establishment. A pretty young gal was tending shop. Old Jim introduced her as the daughter of old Fats. Stringer didn’t argue. Anything was possible and Fats was more fat than ugly.
The deputy told her they wanted to use the telly-phone some more and she led them down to the far end of her counter, where a wall-mounted telephone was half hidden by some bales. Jim Tate told Stringer to go first. So the younger conspirator took the earpiece off its hook, cranked a spell, and once he got the reedy voice of Central, shouted out they wanted the sheriff’s department in Hayes, Kansas. Central seemed just as astounded by the idea as Tate had been, but after Stringer explained how it might be done, twice, she consulted someone else and told him, “You’ll have to try again in about half an hour. My supervisor’s not here and I just don’t know how to connect anyone to Kansas!”
Stringer hung up, turned to the old deputy, and said, “Give her until, say, seven-thirty and it might work. If I know it can be done, the odds are that a supervisor might.”
As he started to leave, Jim Tate protested, “Hold on, where will you be if I need you, damnit?”
“You won’t need me,” Stringer said. “Either way. If they can do it at all they’ll know how to get you through. I thought I’d ride out to where that kid got bushwhacked, if it’s all the same to you, Jim.”
“Like hell it is! I don’t want you poking about out yonder, Stringer. I already have one shoot-out here in Iron Mountain to write up.”
Stringer smiled thinly. “Are you offering an opinion that the killer of Willie Nickell might still be at large, Jim?”
The old man looked flustered and said, “Don’t you go putting dumb words in my mouth, damnit. It ain’t for me to say who might or might not have shot that kid. I wasn’t the arresting officer.”
“I know. I wondered more about that before I got here than I’ve learned to since.” Then he turned away and strode out. Old Jim didn’t try to stop him.
The blacksmith was willing to give Stringer the simple directions to the place where Willie Nickell died. It would have been overtly rude not to. But as he helped Stringer saddle up he added, “I wouldn’t go over there this morning if I was you. It looks like rain.”
“I’ve got a spur-length slicker in this roll and you just said it was a short ride,” Stringer said.
The smith tried again. “You won’t find either Kell Nickell nor old man Miller at home. They both went down to Cheyenne for the stock showings this week,”
Stringer shrugged. “I’ll just have a look around.” He led the roan outside to mount up. But as he swung himself into the saddle the smith said flatly, “Don’t go. You’re just asking for trouble, son.”
Stringer glanced up at the sky. It was only a mite overcast and the wind was still from the west. He said, “I’ll likely be there and back before it clouds up enough to matter.” Then he spurred his mount forward as the smith bawled something after him that was lost in the clatter of hoofbeats on gravel.
Stringer only had to watch for a couple of forks in the well-beaten trails that were running mostly upslope from the bitty town. He counted the fence lines marking the boundaries of the modest
-sized homestead claims on the way to Iron Mountain. As he spied a stone outcrop on a rise ahead he slowed his mount to a walk. “That sure answers to the description of the cover the killer fired from. Let’s see if we can find us a break in that bob wire ahead,” he muttered to the horse.
That was easy. The beaten path they were following took them to an improvised gate of the same wire strung on an aspen-pole frame. Stringer dismounted and tethered his mount to a post. As he did so he noticed an oval of good-sized rocks laid out in the grass just off the beaten path. Each rock was about the size and weight a man could handle with two hands and not much sweat. They enclosed an area just about right for a short man or half-grown boy to stretch out on the grass. Stringer hunkered down just outside the oval as he tried to picture just how Willie Nickell’s young body might have fit inside the improvised monument.
He glanced upslope at the outcrop and muttered to himself, “Whether he landed face down or face up, his head would have been farthest from the killer’s rifle blast up yonder. They put these rocks all around his body to mark this spot for the law before they carried him home.”
He combed the grass stubble inside and around the rocks for a sign but wasn’t surprised to find none. A couple of winters had swept by the spartan monument since Willie Nickell had gasped his last breath here, and naturally a whole mess of lawmen had already combed the grass dry for yards around.
Stringer rose, climbed through the wire without opening it, and legged it up to that rock outcrop everyone said the killer had fired from. Stringer didn’t expect to find any spent shells or remains of the raw bacon Tom Horn liked to chew on such tedious occasions. He moved around to hunker behind the outcrop just as the killer would have, and thanks to the clearly visible oval of rocks down below, he was able to decide, half aloud, “Yep, an easy rifle shot from here. But anyone sober enough to hit his target from here would have had a hell of a time mistaking a skinny kid for his full-grown father.”
Stringer got up again and moved slowly and thoughtfully down the slope, along the track the fatal bullet would have taken. If the boy had been given the morning chore of opening that gate for his sheep to move out to open range, it would have been broad-ass daylight in fair weather. Even with the overcast this particular morning Stringer could make out individual details, and Tom Horn didn’t wear specs.
It was still possible he’d done it drunk, of course. But while two hundred yards was an easy rifle shot for a man who knew what he was doing, it was a mite far for shooting wild.
As he approached the fence line again Stringer noticed a half-dozen riders approaching from the other direction. They’d been moving at a lope. As they spotted him they reined their ponies to a walk but kept coming. By the time Stringer made it back to his own tethered mount they were lined up, sort of looming at him. He recognized one as Sweet Violets Vance. So he said howdy.
Sweet Violets didn’t answer. An older and harder-looking rider growled, “You had no call to mess with them rocks, Pilgrim. Them rocks was put there by orders of James Miller hisself.”
Stringer said, “Now that’s sort of interesting. Which rock was under the dead boy’s head?”
The obvious leader scowled and said, “You sure talk wise-ass for a stranger nobody never invited to poke about out here.”
“I thought Sweet Violets there was an old pal of mine,” Stringer smiled. “Who might you be, friend?”
The spokesman for the roughly dressed group said, “You don’t want to know who we are, MacKail. For if we thought you was about to appear in court against us we’d have to make sure you never.”
Stringer asked mildly, “Why would I have call to take you boys to law?”
Another rider laughed and said, “Because we mean to teach you some manners and there’s an outside chance you’ll live through it.”
The one who seemed to be the leader nodded and began to shake out his throw rope. “You never should have messed with them rocks,” he said. “Now we’ll have to drag you some to pay you back.”
Stringer said, “Hold the thought. You boys ain’t as incognito as you might think. I know Sweet Violets there, and he’ll surely lead me and mine to the rest of you later, if I ask him nicely.”
There was a moment of confusion. Then the leader replied, “That’s likely true. We’d best make sure you don’t wind up in condition to pester any of us—ever.” Then he threw.
Stringer had been expecting him to. He sidestepped the spinning loop, caught it with both hands, and ran with it until he was in position to jerk it hard from the roper’s awkward side. It almost spilled horse and rider. But not quite. And by now two others were trying to rope Stringer. He hopscotched clear and dove headfirst through the barb-wire fence. He landed on his left shoulder and came up, hatless, with his gun in his right hand. He fired it once in the air and snapped, “That’s enough, boys.”
The leader began to snake and regather his rope as he laughed and said, “Not hardly. I was sort of hoping you’d draw a weapon on me, Pilgrim. For now, as anyone here can see, we are dealing with a homicidal lunatic and a man has a right to protect himself, right?”
Sweet Violets said, “Hold on, Spud. Nobody said nothing about gunplay and the man has at least four left in his wheel.”
The one called Spud finished recoiling his rope and snorted, “So what? There’s six of us, ain’t there?”
Sweet Violets shook his head. “Five. You can count me out. I’ve seen him shoot.” Then he whistled his pony and rode off fast, not looking back.
“Always figured a man who wore chaps when there was no need to had to be a four-flusher,” Spud said, turning to Stringer. “You’d best drop that gun, MacKail. We might let you live if you’re willing to take a little dragging like a good sport. But like Sweet Violets just said, you don’t have enough bullets to take on the five of us, and the one left is sure to finish you off slow and dirty.”
Stringer shrugged and said, “That sounds reasonable. Now I want all five of you to dismount, hands polite.”
Spud looked more surprised than upset as he asked, “Ain’t you been paying attention? There’s no way in hell you can hope to down the five of us with four rounds. So drop that damn gun afore someone gets hurt.”
“Get down from that horse,” Stringer demanded. “You have my promise true that I’ll kill you first, if it takes all four of my rounds.”
Spud gulped, “Aw, hell, let’s let him go, boys.”
It didn’t work. Stringer said, “The first one of you who puts spur to flank figures to be first one down. I told you all to dismount. I’m not going to say it again.”
So the five of them dismounted. Then Stringer said, “That’s better. Now I want to see some gun rigs in the grass. Unbuckle ‘em and let ‘em drop, unless you want to drop with ‘em.”
Spud protested, “Are you going to let one sissy newspaperman get away with this, boys?”
“Yep,” an older and wiser-looking rider replied. “He’s got the drop on us and Sweet Violets told us from starting that he was damn handy with that gun.”
There was a sheepish murmur of agreement and soon everyone but Spud had let his weaponry fall from easy reach. Spud swore, “Well, hell, if nobody around here has the hair on his chest to back a pard, I can’t see slapping leather on a man who has me covered cold.”
Stringer waited until Spud had let his gun fall at his feet before he nodded and said, “That’s better. Now your pants.”
“My what?”
“I want you to unbutton those jeans and take ‘em off,” Stringer explained nicely.
“What are you, some kind of a queer?” Spud protested.
Stringer just laughed lightly and replied, “What’s the matter? Can’t you take a joke? I thought you boys rode out here looking for some fun. Show us how funny you are, Spud. Or would you rather die more dignified? I’ll count to ten. Then I’ll kill you if you’ve still got those pants on.”
He sounded like he meant it. Even some of his pals were laughing by th
e time the red-faced Spud had shucked his jeans to expose his skinny legs. Stringer was trying to make up his mind about the rest of them when they all heard a distant hail and saw four more riders coming in.
Stringer was beginning to worry about just how many gents one man can rawhide with only four bullets as the newcomers reined in. One called out, “Deputy Tate sent us to fetch you, Stringer. What’s going on here?”
Stringer called back, “Me and the boys were just having a little fun. What’s up?”
The lawman who seemed to be in command laughed and replied, “It sure ain’t old Spud’s pants. What’s wrong with him? Has he got ticks?”
Spud bawled, “This stranger throwed down on us and, as you see, forced me to pants myself at gunpoint. I want the rascal arrested for indecent exposure, Whitey!”
The lawman laughed and answered, “You seem to be the one who’s waving his fool pecker in the breeze, Spud. Pull your damn pants up and behave yourself. Was they giving you a hard time, MacKail?”
Stringer reloaded as he shook his head and said, “I don’t think Spud could show it hard for Queen Cleopatra at the moment. Like I said, they were just out to green a dude and I feel sure they’ve seen the error of their ways. I’m willing to say it’s over if they are.”
Whitey nodded at Spud, who was blushing like a rose as he buttoned his jeans back on, and asked, “How about that, Spud? Is it over?”
Spud said, “Aw, hell, I ain’t about to go after nobody if my own friends won’t show me a little backing and respect.” So the leader of the second party nodded at Stringer and said, “It’s over. We’d best get you back to town, Stringer. Deputy Tate said he was in a hurry to see you. He takes things more serious than these assholes you’ve been playing games with.”
Stringer found old Deputy Jim seated at the saloon table Cherokee usually had spread with cards. Neither she nor any of the other regulars were there that early in the day. Stringer sat down across from the old lawman and asked what he should be worrying about now.
