On Dead Man's Range

by Lou Cameron

  She did. She started to rise. He hauled her back down and said, “Crawling only takes a little longer, and it can be a lot better for your health. You go first and let me cover your rear.”

  She did, laughing like hell, as if he’d said something funny.

  As her well padded but shapely rump swung out of sight around the doorjamb, Stringer gathered the things he’d shucked out of and followed. It seemed safe to stand up in the hallway. So he did. He saw she was still on her hands and knees as she moved into the other room at the head of the stairs. He tossed his things in after her and moved down the stairs in his stocking feet, gun in hand. It only took him a few seconds to bar the heavy front door on the inside. Some of its weight was thick glass. It looked harder to bust than the front window beside the door. Either way, anyone that serious about busting in would have to make considerable noise.

  Having done what he could down below, Stringer glanced out through the door glass to see the street out front was doing its damnedest to look like a river. The muddy water was ankle deep and trying to figure some place to go as the heavy rain kept frothing it deeper. He smiled crookedly, said, “Drown, you sons of bitches!” and went back upstairs to see how old Madge was making out.

  He stopped in the doorway to stare down at the somewhat bigger bedstead in the somewhat bigger room, somewhat confused. For his landlady lay under the sheets, her hair now completely unbound and draped becomingly down on her bare shoulders, while her Gibson Girl blouse and skirt lay on the rug near his own carelessly tossed duds, as if she’d shucked in a hurry. He saw no underwear. She was likely still wearing it.

  He said, “Well, this is sure an odd time to be taking a siesta.”

  She smiled invitingly up at him and said, “Get under these covers with me. It’s gotten so cool and clammy everywhere else that you’re just asking for a chill in that undershirt, you poor boy.”

  He considered his shirt and jacket on the floor between them. Then he wondered why anyone would want to consider a stupid move like that. He chuckled and said, “I admire your sense of timing. Has it occurred to you we’re supposed to be under siege right now?”

  She said, “Pooh, there’s room for your six-gun as well as the two of us in this bed, and in any case, they’d have come by now if they really meant to come, right?”

  He said he guessed so, and left the door ajar as he moved over to join her. He still had his jeans, socks, and undershirt on as he slid under the covers with her. He found her waiting clad in nothing but her high-button shoes and black silk stockings. Not sure just how else one might get in bed with a naked lady, he put his six-gun on the bed table and took her in his arms. He could tell it was the proper move with such an unusual landlady when she swarmed all over him at once, kissing and scratching as she tore at his pants to get them out of the way. He helped her. Most men would have by this time, even if he was still surprised if not as confused about her notions of forting up against the rest of the world. Then they let the rest of the world worry about its own damn self for a long sweet time as the raindrops drummed on the slanting roof above the bed and the bed made considerable noise of its own beneath their tightly entwined and grinding flesh.

  When they finally had to stop to catch their second winds, she moaned, “Oh, that was heavensome, darling. But don’t take it out. Please don’t take it out. It’s been so long since I’ve had anything that deep in my poor old worn-out frame.”

  He didn’t doubt a gal would have to be sort of hard up to make the first move so direct. He knew she wanted him to call her a liar about her poor old worn-out frame, so he moved in it teasingly as he said, “Come on, Madge. You’re built like a teenager and you know it.” Which, in fact, was the simple truth. For though her face still looked a mite old for him, even after all that kissing, time’s cruel teeth hadn’t gotten at her firm and satin-smooth body enough to notice yet.

  She wrapped her long, still shapely legs around his waist, locking her high-button kid shoes atop his naked tailbone, and hugged him tighter everywhere as she moaned, “Oh, Jesus, when I think of the teenage years I wasted, I could cry. I came out here to work for Harvey as a virgin, Stuart. I was almost twenty-five when a no-good tin-horn gambler I’ll always remember with gratitude done me wrong.”

  He started moving in response to her contractions as he told her, “I feel sort of grateful to him, too, right now. He sure broke you in mighty fine.”

  She said, “Don’t talk dirty. I wasn’t sure I liked it this much the first time, and I cried fit to bust when that mean old sheriff ran him out of town.”

  Stringer didn’t know why gals liked to confess more than any man might want to hear at times like these, and like most men, he found such conversation more distasteful than romantic. Then she said, “Once I felt less shy about romance, I started to get really good at it.”

  He didn’t answer. For she was good at it indeed, and though he knew he shouldn’t be enjoying himself this much in such rough company, he felt it all the way down to his socks when they came together again.

  But as sanity returned, as it ever must, Stringer rolled off and said, “Somebody ought to check that front door again, and I can see you’re not as interested.”

  She told him he had a lovely body as he rose and moved out of the room and down the stairs to where he could see the front door. It was as securely barred as ever, and the flood water out front was now lapping at the plank walks. He rejoined Madge to say, “If this rain keeps up, they’ll have to come at us in a canoe. I hope you don’t have a cellar to worry about.”

  She said she didn’t, and added, “This used to be the Harvey House when the world and me was younger. I had it hauled over from the tracks in one piece, after Harvey went out of business.”

  Then she started to cry.

  Stringer put the .38 back on the table and climbed in to comfort her, asking her what was wrong as he held her now trembling body close, in a more brotherly way than before.

  She sobbed, “Oh, Stuart, time flows so swiftly by, and we get so little of it as our share. It seems like yesterday I came out here as a wide-eyed innocent, and I still don’t feel like the legend of the past I guess I really am.”

  He kissed her gently and lowered them both to the pillows again as he said, “Hell, you’re not as ancient as the Butterfield Stage the Santa Fe put out of business. Time changes faster than it really passes, Madge. I deal in legends, more than I want to, thanks to a boss who can’t get enough of what he calls the old west. Looking back, things that lasted not much longer than a mayfly seem like historic eras. But they weren’t. They were just emergency measures. To hear old timers tell it, everyone who ever rode a horse west of the Mississippi rode for the pony express in the few short months it was in business. Now that the Harvey Girl era has been over a spell, folk think of you old timers as a sort of permanent fixture of a past that never was. But we both know that short-lived restaurant chain was little more than a quick-buck slicker’s clever notion that was too good to last.”

  She sighed and said, “It was grand, while it lasted. It was mean of the railroad to start running dining cars just as we was getting to be famous and admired. Mr. Harvey was a decent boss who paid us fair wages and looked after us as if we was his own. He’d fire a girl if she got in trouble, or even fat. He told us we had standards to meet, and we met ’em. We kept ourselves neat and slung good hash. Ask any old timer and they’ll tell you the food on the dining cars has never been as good as the food we served, cheaper.”

  He said, “I told you we live in changing times. Let’s talk of more important matters an old timer in these parts might know more than me about. You said your first boyfriend was run off by the sheriff. Would that have been Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens?”

  She sniffed and said, “Of course. We never had no other sheriff, until recent. I was mad as anything when he ran off my gambling man. But fair is fair, and I have to say old Pear kept the lid on things in these parts, once he got a lid on it, I mean. Holbrook was a
mighty wild little town when I first saw it. Pear got the job because nobody else was tough enough to want it. Nobody expected him to live twenty-four hours, let alone the almost twenty years he lasted. You see, he was a sort of sissy-looking gent in his younger days. He wore his hair longer than General Custer, even after Custer cut his own more fashionable and got killed for his trouble. They say Pear had been an Indian fighter, too, before he took up the law as his career. He dressed cow, but sort of fancy, with a hat brim big enough to run a toy train on, and silver conchos stuck all over him. But nobody laughed at him as much after he stopped a showdown between some Texas hands and a bunch of Mex vaqueros by standing in the middle, alone, and telling one and all he’d gun the first son of a bitch who went for his guns. He talked that rough to everyone. When anyone said he was a son of a bitch, Pear pistol-whipped impartial, be it Tex, Mex, Mormon, or Gentile, until everyone admired him for his fairness. They say he was the first county official who ever kept proper books, too. Old Judge Wattron, who was either a J.P., the town marshal, or a druggist, depending on the time of day, stole everything that wasn’t nailed down before they voted him out.”

  Stringer asked, “Was Owens accused of such dishonest habits before or during the last election?”

  She shrugged her bare shoulder against him and said, “No. Even the Republicans allowed old Pear was upright and true. They just said it was time for a change, and I reckon a lot of folk must’ve thought so too. I’d have voted for Pear, if women were allowed to vote. Women liked him. Not this way—he never messed with any of us. But we could see he was a gent of the old school, and he made it safe for us to go shopping, even when the herd was in town. Nobody ever got fresh with gals while old Pear was running things in this county.”

  Stringer remembered another lady who didn’t seem to admire old Madge had told him much the same thing. He muttered, “Sam Barca could be on to something. A popular lawman gets rooked out of office, and when outsiders ask how come, they get shot at.”

  She began to fondle him teasingly as she said, “I think the rain’s letting up. We’d better get this sweet thing up again before this hotel has to get back in business.”

  He thought that was a grand notion. But just as she’d kissed her way down his bare belly far enough to really matter, they both heard someone pounding on the door downstairs. Madge said, “Damn. We’ll have to start from scratch, later tonight. For I know that knock of old.”

  She tossed the covers aside and rolled over him, inspiringly, to start dressing with astounding speed. As Stringer sat up with gun in hand, she said, “It’s not them. It’s him. Nate Ryan, the town marshal. Nobody else knocks so bossy. I’d best go down and see what he wants.”

  As she left, pinning her hair back up on the fly, Stringer swung his socks to the rug and began to haul his own duds on just in case. He was glad he had when, a few moments later, Madge reappeared in the doorway with the brass-badged Ryan. The town law said, “I’ll take the .38, now, and this time I really mean it, MacKail. I’m here to arrest you for the murder of Blue Streak Bendix.”

  Stringer frowned and said, “I’m sorry he died. But murder is putting it a mite strong, Nate. I put that bullet in him in self-defense.”

  Ryan said, “Not the one in his head that killed him. The doc said Bendix was sedated unconscious, flat on his back in bed, when you crept into the clinic and blew his brains out!”

  Stringer whistled tunelessly and said, “I’m sorry about that too! I wanted to interview him some as soon as he was fit to give interviews. When did all this happen?”

  The lawman said, “During the storm that just passed over, of course. Nobody downstairs heard the shot. What did you do, wait for a handy thunder clap?”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “It wasn’t me. I was here at this hotel from the first raindrop to the last.”

  “Can you prove it?” asked the lawman.

  Stringer glanced at Madge, who was now managing to look as starchy as ever. She said, “He’s telling it true, Nate. I stand ready to swear under oath I never saw him leave the premises since he checked in, well before the storm.”

  It wasn’t good enough. Nate Ryan shrugged and said, “With all that wind and thunderation, he could have snuck out and back in easy enough. The clinic’s just down the street, an easy dash for any man, and the doc says Blue Streak was shot twice, with a .38. So with all due respect to a lady’s hearing during a thunderstorm—”

  “Oh, for heavens sake, we were in bed together at the time of the killing,” she cut in, red-faced but head held high.

  The town law’s jaw dropped. He stared past her at the rumpled bed. Then he gulped and asked, “Would you be willing to swear to that under oath, ma’am?”

  She sniffed and said, “If I have to. I don’t want to, but I’d rather be shamed than see an innocent man hanged.”

  The brass badge looked uncertainly at Stringer and asked what he had to say about all this. Stringer said, “Nothing. Pay no mind to her. I’d confess to a crime I didn’t commit before I’d let a lady dishonor herself on my account.”

  Nate Ryan let them wait a long tense time before he nodded and said, “I reckon I would too. So suffice it to say I see no need to doubt the word of another gent. If you was here at the time Blue Streak was murdered, I can’t hardly arrest you for it, can I?”

  Stringer gravely held out his hand and they shook on it. Then Nate said, “Aw, mush. Now I got to go scout up any sign the real killer might have left.”

  Stringer said, “Try around the water tower across the way,” and when Nate asked him why, he explained, “Someone pegged a shot at me from there, just as the storm started. He might or might not have left signs that all that rain couldn’t wash away. I don’t suspect he was shooting at me just because he took me for a fat old quail. Someone didn’t want me asking Blue Streak any questions. It seems likely that failing to get me, they had to shut Blue Streak up as best they knew how.”

  Nate said, “That makes sense, to a point. But the dormer window in this room don’t face no water tower and—Never mind. I’d best go have a look anyway.”

  As he turned to clomp downstairs alone, Madge turned to her younger guest to sob, “Did you really mean that, about me being a lady?”

  He nodded soberly and said, “I did. I’ll allow I might have just thought you was a Harvey Girl, until you proved what a lady you really are, Miss Margaret MacLean.”

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  *

  Another lady, called Stern, showed up at the hotel just at sundown. Since she’d said she might, Stringer was waiting for her in the lobby, and when he spotted her through the front window, he stepped out to meet her. She’d told him how she felt about old Madge, and while he didn’t share her loathing, he could sort of see why she might feel that way.

  The younger woman greeted him with mud on her skirts and a smile on her lips before she told him, “I have enough court stays to keep Butch Cassidy out of jail, if they were made out in his name. But now we have to go to the hearing. You heard the news about that man you shot?”

  He nodded, took the writs she handed him, stuffed them in a hip pocket, and took her arm as he swung out to the muddy side, asking, “Where is the coroner’s jury meeting, and how come so late, Patty?”

  She said, “I suppose they want to get it over during the cool of evening, thanks to that heavensent rain we were blessed with this afternoon. Wasn’t that something?”

  He said, “I sure enjoyed the surprise. Are we headed right?”

  She said, “Yes, they’re meeting over the drugstore next to the Bucket of Blood.”

  They were indeed. They’d already started by the time Patty Stem led him in by one hand. The county coroner was the same old doc who’d given first-aid to Bendix in the saloon next door. Stringer felt somehow sure that whatever the cause of death they might decide on, improper medical attention would hardly be it. He saw Lawyer Addams seated with the other mostly middle-aged and town-dressed gents behind th
e trestle table. As if he’d read Stringer’s mind, Addams nodded their way, rose to his feet, and said, “I’m not sure I should take formal part in these proceedings, Doc. Young MacKail, here, is a client of mine.”

  The coroner growled, “Oh, sit down and behave yourself, W.R. We all know you’re an ethical cuss, for a lawyer leastways, and Nate Ryan’s already cleared this young gent.”

  He pointed at Stringer and said, “You sit down, too, young gent. We know you didn’t shoot Bendix, that second time. But you may be able to shed some light on how come he was so popular.”

  Stringer drew up a folding chair, sat down, and told them all he knew, which might have been more than some of them really wanted to know, judging from the way a couple of the older panel members were yawning by the time he’d finished.

  The old doc was made of sterner stuff. He thanked Stringer for his testimony and said, “Well, as I see it. This newspaper man could be on to something. It seems obvious Blue Streak was sent to run him or gun him, by someone who didn’t want something printed in any newspaper. We can assume it wasn’t an original notion on Blue Streak’s part, because he was never knowed as a heavy thinker, and even if he had been, he didn’t commit suicide this afternoon. He was gunned severe by someone who took said gun with him on the way out. Anyone can see the killer had to be working for the same son of a bitch who hired Blue Streak to begin with. So all we have to figure out now is who said son of a bitch might be. Wake up, Sam. I’m open to sensible suggestions, from anyone here more sober.”

  Stringer waited, saw nobody else seemed willing to start, and said, “I was sent here to do a feature on Sheriff Owens and the election he lost a short spell back. I had announced such an intent shortly before Blue Streak showed up to inform me I was just too nosy for this town. He looked like no more than a hired bravo to me too. So it seems obvious someone more important has a guilty secret worth killing to hide.”