Stringer in a Texas Shoot-Out

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer shook his head and insisted, “It wasn’t. I’ll allow he could have been a Cherokee or any other breed you like, but aside from fitting the general description, he was a total stranger.”

  “Then how come he seems to be so intent on killing you?” Slim asked with an expression of simple, childlike logic.

  Stringer didn’t answer. He was stuck for an answer. It didn’t make a lick of sense either way.

  Downstairs, someone was yelling in Spanish. Slim muttered, “Oh, shit, I wonder what that greaser down there wants.”

  Stringer called down, “Aqui, Gordo. Es muy malo, espantero!”

  Then he told the others, “It’s the boy’s uncle, the day man. Hang on to your hats, boys. We figure to hear a heap of yelling in the near future.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  In point of fact, the dead boy’s kith and kin carried on no worse than Stringer felt they had every right to. That was still louder than Texans of the Anglo persuasion might have, but they were as stunned as enraged by the agreed-upon description of the likely killer. If there was one thing Texans and Tex-Mexicans agreed upon, it had to be that Indians, at least Indians from north of the border, were just no damned good.

  Lucky for the part-Chihuahua Lefty Chavez and Roy Bean Junior, the ominous sky and lack of any notion what the rifleman might be riding discouraged any thoughts of forming a posse. By the time talk had gotten that serious, Buckskin Jack had naturally joined his boys and all the other boys that could fit inside the Parker Arms. He seemed more willing than Slim, his senior deputy, to take Stringer’s word on the stranger he’d spoken to whilst Marin Garcia had still been dripping just above them.

  The tiny town tamer holding court at a corner table with his back to the wall and a pitcher of suds in front of him said, “It’s just as well we have a gent here who can prove someone played us false about that Oklahoma hired gun. The fact remains, someone in these parts must have hired him, unless we assume lunatics with Indian features just wander all over creation playing cowboys and Indians with real bullets “

  Stringer was getting mighty weary of rehashing the little anyone seemed to really know. He was too polite to say so, but as he reached for his makings only to discover he was out of straw paper, it gave him an excuse to mutter something about tobacco shops and get up from the table gracefully.

  There weren’t enough smokers in Comanche Woe to justify a shop selling nothing but tobacco, but he spied a Bull Durham sign on the screen door of the general store cum post office across the way. Once he got there, he found they had all sorts of tobacco, from Rooster Snuff to tailor-made Fatimas, to sell. As he restocked on his own brand, with extra papers because he liked to roll tighter than the Bull Durham outfit must have considered profitable when they stuck their own free papers to the pouch, he noticed they stocked ammunition on a back shelf as well. When he saw that all but one of the pasteboard boxes were just a mite dusty, he told the old lady behind the counter he could use some .38 Positives as well.

  As she got a box down, blowing dust off the box of two dozen, he tried, “I see you stock smokeless deer rounds, too. I didn’t know you had many deer around here, ma’am.”

  She replied, prune-lipped, “We don’t. Most of the hands seem to favor .44-40 Winchester for shooting through all the brush outside of town. We sell just enough of everything to stock a fairly complete line, of course.”

  He counted out the coins all this bullshit was going to cost him as he said, “I’m in the market for a rifle. Failed to bring one up from the railroad with me because I didn’t know there was any hunting at all. I heard there was a young cowhand of possible Indian blood who might have a .30-30 for sale. I don’t suppose you’d know him?”

  She laughed in a surprisingly girlish manner, considering, and told him, “There was no call for Buckskin Jack to send you pussyfooting, young sir. I already told him about the rifle rounds we sold that dusky stranger yesterday. We sold some earlier, more than once, to that water witch, Wet Willy Wallace. That was afore we’d heard they was really Henry Starr and Curly Bill, of course.”

  He paid her, anyway, and sheepishly asked, “You say Wet Willy shopped here regularly, ma’am? What about the one they called Mysterious Dave Mather? He spent some time up here before anyone recognized him, right?”

  She nodded, brightly, and confided, “I never sold him any rifle ammunition. Just .44-40 shells he could use in either his side arms or saddle gun. He sure bought a heap, for a small-holder who didn’t seem at feud with his neighbors. They say he used to shoot tin cans off his back fence by the hour, as if he wanted to keep in practice.”

  Stringer smiled thinly and said, “Maybe he had good reason, with neighbors who gossiped so freely about his personal habits. I can see you’re too clever by half for anyone to put anything over on you. I’ll bet you’ve studied on what seems to be drawing all these famous gunfighters to this out-of-the-way part of Texas?”

  She looked offended anyway as she sniffed and replied, “We’re not as far from the rest of Texas as they might have told you, young sir! I’ll allow things got sort of quiet for a spell after the big cattle drives got kilt off by the railroad a day’s ride south, but things has been picking up a heap since folk found out how good the soil in these parts grows things, once you sprinkle some water on it.”

  He nodded and said, “I heard lots of new settlers have been moving in. Do you reckon that might have had anything to do with all the target practice Mysterious Dave went in for, still posing as old Pete Harlow?”

  She shrugged and said, “Oh, he was a sort of odd old bird as long as any of us old-timers in these parts can remember. My husband, Clem, says he always knew he was hiding something, though neither of us suspected he was wanted for murder up Kansas way.”

  Stringer asked how she and old Clem had felt about Curly Bill while he was still a local water witch and pipe peddler. She looked undecided before answering, “He was kind of odd, too, looking back on it. Him and Pete Harlow was pals, you know.”

  Stringer assured her he hadn’t known. So, she explained, “Wet Willy traipsed all over with his drilling crew and wagonloads of pipe, of course. Whenever he was anywheres near town, he stayed out at Pete Harlow’s spread, like they were old pals.”

  That raised some interesting angles indeed, but since the dear old thing couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell him anything more about either reputed outlaw, Stringer took himself and his purchases back to the livery and, finding the half dozen Mexicans there somewhat calmer, but not that calm, saddled the scrub himself to get in some riding before that storm hit. As he led the pony outside, old Gordo followed him, advising, “You are asking for to get struck dead by lightning if the hail does not kill you first, señor. Trust an hombre who knows this part of the world. Is muy peligroso when the wind is from the southeast, as it is blowing now. Is not supposed to blow that way in summer, but when it does, ay carramba!”

  Stringer said, “I have a slicker on my saddle and I know better than to ride along ridges once the air starts to tingle, Gordo, but as long as you seem in the mood to advise on local matters, I’d like to poke about the spread Mysterious Dave had, back when he was still calling himself Pete Harlow. You’d know the best way to get out to it from here, wouldn’t you?”

  The fat old Mex made the sign of the cross and said, “The wagon trace around the foot of the reservoir runs directly to it, pero do not go. Is nothing there now worth the while of the living. After the law caught up with the old killer, all his belongings were sold off for to pay his just debts.”

  “Then nobody can accuse me of looting if they spy me poking about out there, right?” asked Stringer with a smile. The older man didn’t smile back as he replied, “Don’t go. Those boys of la raza told us you were muy decente for an Anglo, and there is something siniestro about that rancho, even when the sun is shining! Wait for a bright sunny morning and take someone with you, eh? Don’t head out there with a storm coming on, this late in the afternoon. It will be starting for
to get dark by the time you are ready to ride back, even if it is still dry, eh?”

  Stringer said he’d get back sooner if he started sooner and mounted up to do so as the old Mex called him a stubborn fool and went back inside.

  Stringer knew he was asking to get caught by another storm on the range, after dark, but his paper had sent him to gather material for a Sunday feature, not War and Peace, and aside from all the time he was wasting on all this confusion, he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend the coming night in either a haunted hayloft or a whorehouse. If the ranch house out at the deserted spread had enough of its roof left to matter he might just hole up out there and see if the ghost of Mysterious Dave had anything to say to him. He still had some grub in his saddlebag and he was starting out fresh on tobacco and ammunition, so what the hell.

  He reined in at the Western Union to dash off an update to Sam Barca before he confused them both any further. He knew what Sam would say once he learned there was still no light at the end of this dumb tunnel. So, he added he’d give up at the end of the week if he found nothing at all. Then he asked the telegraph clerk to send it collect at night letter rates and went back out to see if anyone had stolen his horse.

  Nobody had, but little Bessie, the towel gal from Madam Maggie’s, was standing there, shifting from one foot to the other as if she had to pee. He nodded to her and she stammered, “Madam sent me to fetch you, suh.”

  Stringer cocked an eyebrow and replied, “I’m pleased as punch to hear I’m still welcome and you can tell her I still like her, too, Bessie. But I’m afraid I just can’t make it this evening. I have to ride out of town a ways to visit with gents who shouldn’t have ever been there.”

  She looked mighty confused, which made them even. He said he was just funning. Bessie stammered, “If you please, suh, Madam says they’s out to do you dirty and I’m not to come back without you!”

  That inspired him to cock his eyebrow even higher, but when he asked the little colored gal who “they” might be, all she could come up with was some hardcased customers one of the girls had overheard in the parlor downstairs. When he asked Bessie to at least describe them she replied she couldn’t and suggested Madam might be able to. He was tempted. Even if it was all no more than a ploy to set up a bedroom rematch, there were worse ways to spend a night that promised rain on the roof before morning. There was even the chance some gunslicks had even been plotting against him in a whorehouse, when you studied on it. It made as much sense as plotting murder in a church. However, as he’d just put down on paper for old Sam, nobody who knew shit seemed to want to tell him what was going on around here and he’d not only spent too much time, but felt rather used and abused by the one or more assholes who kept pegging shots at him. He’d been shot at before, but seldom by anyone who had nothing to hide from a man with a socially respectable excuse to ask questions. So, he thanked little Bessie for her words of cheer, mounted up, and rode off without looking back.

  It was a short enough ride to the dam impounding the runoff for the Comanche Woe. It had impounded so much of late that a swell silvery waterfall was spilling over almost the whole length of it. Once it hit bottom it naturally ran on down the valley towards Cottonwood Draw and the Pecos as a wide and swift but barely shin-deep sheet of white water. He saw how the wagon trace running north to the far side simply ducked under the damp to emerge on the far side. He saw he didn’t have the crossing all to himself, either. Miss Susan Bancroft of the Lazy B was sitting her own big roan in the shade of a streamside crack willow, staring at him in a bemused way as he rode on down to join her there, ticking the brim of his hat and saying, “Howdy. I’m sure glad I bumped into you like this, Miss Susan. I was meaning to compare notes with you on that breed we both saw at the livery last night.”

  She answered, “I heard about them suspecting him of killing that poor Mex kid. They say it was likely him as fired at the two of us later on. Where are we headed now?”

  He blinked and told her he hadn’t been aware “they” were headed anywhere. She looked hurt, so he added, “I’m on my way out to the spread that reclusive old gent lived alone on, before he was exposed as Mysterious Dave by some helpful neighbor, in female handwriting on purple paper. Whether that suggests anything to you or not, I reckon it won’t hurt for you to tag along partway. Where might your own spread be, Miss Susan?”

  She pointed the other direction entirely. When he pointed out that nightfall was headed their way whether it stormed again or not she demured, “I’ve a toe-length slicker in my saddle roll.” Then she produced an ominously large Colt Dragoon out of nowhere in particular to add, “I picked this up in town as well, since we seem to have someone gunning for us.”

  He asked if she’d ever fired a hand gun that ferocious, and when she offered to lay a barrage on any target he might choose for her, he said he’d take her word but added, “I don’t know if anyone’s after you or not. I’m pretty sure someone’s out to get me. So, we’d best study on just how far you want to tag along, Miss Susan.”

  She demanded to know why someone was gunning for him. When Stringer confessed he didn’t really know, she laughed triumphantly and said, “There you go. For all we really know, they’re after both of us and there has to be more safety in numbers, right?”

  He grunted, “Wrong. I found it distracting as the devil on those steps last night.” As he spurred forward to ford the stream, she tagged right along, and there was nothing short of slapping leather on her he could do about it.

  ******

  The Harlow spread lay a little over an hour’s ride out and he had to forgive little Susan for tagging along once he noticed how much more she had to say about the surrounding landscape than he did. Once they topped the rise on the far side of the dam, things commenced to look more complicated than he’d expected.

  Once out of the deeper draw Comanche Woe hunkered down in, the land rolled higher, drier and more gently, in a giant patchwork quilt of saddle-high chaparral checkered with somewhat smaller squares of cleared and fenced-in quarter sections.

  Thanks to the lateness of the hour and the threatening storm clouds, few of the nesters were far enough from their mostly adobe dwellings and sunflower windmills to pester riders on the road. To her credit, Susan did wave back at some ragged-ass kids who waved at them from atop a haystack they were playing on. However, she’d no sooner done so when she muttered, downright disgusted, “Durn those Black Republicans and their durn old homestead law. I swear I don’t know who’s stupider, be it the pencil pushers back East giving away land they’ve never laid eyes on, or the foreigners forging west to claim and prove semidesert as farmland before they’ve even bothered to learn English!”

  Stringer had to allow the grit and cheat grass along the wagon trace they were following didn’t look too promising for sweet corn or carrots. He added, “The old lady behind the counter at the general store told me some have found they can grow many sorts of cash crops betwixt the sticker bushes, given plenty of water, and so far I’ve yet to see a quarter section fenced in without its own wind pump.” Then he turned in his saddle to stare blankly back the way they’d come, and add with a slight frown, “Seems odd so many have filed this far out from Comanche Woe, though. Why do you suppose they missed the obvious advantages of gravity irrigation below the dam? The town itself can’t possibly be using all that impounded water, can it?”

  She shook her head and said, “Of course not. Old Clem Thornway and his business pards started their development company and built the fool dam with something like that in mind. But, like I just said, the damn Yankees in Washington give away unimproved land for next to nothing. So, most of these new settlers seem to want to make their own improvements.”

  Stringer reined in on a low rise and went through the motions of securing a saddlebag as he mused, half to himself, “I’d as soon dig postholes as ponder all the ways a body can gain title to land this far from, say, Ohio, but is it safe to assume this Clem Thorn way you mentioned thought to buy up all
the land titles downstream from his dam before he bothered to build it?”

  She said, “Sure he did. Wouldn’t you make sure of future profits before you sprang for such an engineering project? Even with foreign laborers working for two bits a day, that big earthfill dam must have cost old Clem a pretty penny. What are we doing here, scouting our back trail?”

  He said, “Yep. I keep having the feeling we’re being followed. But so far I’ve failed to spot anybody back there.”

  She said her female intuition didn’t suggest one way or the other. She pointed out that they were more than halfway there and that he’d be able to use old Pete Harlow’s windmill tower as a swell lookout if only they arrived before darkness, or one heck of a lot of rain commenced to fall. So, they rode on a mite faster, with her asking him more questions about himself, now.

  Once they’d established he was single, and about how much he made in a given year, Susan got around to the less important questions gals always seemed to ask him. He was tired of explaining how come a man who wrote for a living, spelling all the words right and avoiding either slang or sloppy grammar, got to talk so much like any other old boy off a cattle spread in Calaveras County. But at least Susan was well read enough to savvy how Edgar Allan Poe, in real life, had likely been able to ask someone to pass the biscuits without using poetic descriptions, or even sounding spooky. She agreed that once she studied on it, she herself chose her own words with more care when she wrote a letter, even to an old school chum.

  He’d had this same conversation before. So, to change the dumb subject he said, “The old lady at the general store mentioned a husband she described as Clem. Might we be talking about the same busy beaver as owns that dam?”

  She said yes, and went on to describe an old beaver who’d been busy indeed since he and his wife had started their trailside store back in the late 1880s. Since Susan had been out on her own folk’s spread in pigtails at the time, and hadn’t been all that interested since, Stringer had to put the saga of the small-town shopkeepers together in bits and pieces as he got her to recall them with his own skills as an interviewer. They both wound up pretty bored with the Thornways and their dinky business empire by the time Stringer had it straight in his head.