by Lou Cameron
Stringer merely said, “That lets me off the hook as his main desire. Maybe he was just glarey-eyed by nature.”
Davenport thought before he decided, “He was glarey-eyed, all right. He acted more human, back in the club car, until you got on the subject of Tombstone.”
Stringer asked, “Weren’t we both discussing Tombstone?”
Davenport countered, “You were the only one who said you were going to Tombstone. I told you, and no doubt him, that I was only riding as far as L.A. I got the distinct impression he didn’t like the idea of anybody going to Tombstone right now.”
The train started up again. Stringer said, “Well, whether I upset him or not with my travel plans, there’s nothing he can do about it now.”
But Davenport asked, “Want to bet? There’s a telegraph office in, or close to, every railroad depot. Western Union can beat you almost anywhere in the country, by hours. If I were in your boots I’d stay well clear of Tombstone until I found out why someone else seems so interested in it.”
Stringer said, “I’m a reporter. It’s my job to find out if and why things seem suddenly interesting. To tell the truth, all I was expecting to find, once I got there, was a sort of soggy ghost town.”
Grimly, Davenport said, “We gave ourselves away as newspapermen, too, before I noticed that glarey-eyed rascal listening in on us. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather do a feature about the Wild West two-reelers they’re making down in L.A. these days? I know the nickelodeon is likely to be just a passing fad, but what if we throwed in on a comical free-lance article with the text by you and the amusing illustrations by me?”
Stringer said, “I have a better idea. Why don’t you come along with me to Tombstone and illustrate whatever could be happening there right now?”
Homer Davenport shook his head gravely. “No thanks,” he said. “I only like to sketch ghost towns when I know for sure that nobody is haunting ‘em.”
CHAPTER TWO
Stringer was sorry to part with Homer Davenport when they got to L.A. that afternoon, for the cartoonist was interesting company and Stringer was less than a third of the way to Tombstone. As the S.P. he’d changed to rumbled and rolled its weary way across the greasewood flats to the east, Stringer would have settled for the company of the gal back home on the second landing. He knew the scenery outside would get even duller after sunset, and he’d never learned to sleep soundly sitting up. The damned old timetable made it impractical to stretch out in a Pullman berth, even if he’d felt like spending the money. He knew they wouldn’t be folding down the bunks and drawing the canvas hangings in the forward Pullman cars before nine P.M., and he had to change trains again at Tucson before three A.M.
After that, according to the timetable, it got worse. The spur line serving Tombstone had gone out of service once there was no silver ore to ship, and the best S.P. could offer by rail, now, was the flag stop at Fairbank on the Rio San Pedro. Stringer knew he would have to be awake, well before they got there, if he wanted the conductor to drop him off anywhere near Tombstone.
So he had a late light supper in the diner and put off drinking and smoking in the club car by reading through the copy of Collier’s he’d picked up in the L.A. depot. The latest adventure of Sherlock Holmes was sort of interesting. But Stringer felt old Sea Power Mahan’s article calling for Teddy Roosevelt to build an even bigger Great White Fleet was overdoing Manifest Destiny a mite.
That reminded Stringer of his possible need to defend his own national integrity, so, feeling just a touch foolish, he hauled down his gladstone to unpack his gun rig and put it on. By buckling it so the .38 rode higher than usual on his right hip and buttoning his denim jacket over it, he figured the only folk who might notice would most likely know enough about guns not to ask foolish questions of a fellow traveler.
By the time he’d armed himself and finished the magazine it was getting too dark for easy reading, anyway. The overhead Edison bulbs were only forty-watters when they were lit and the S.P. must have thought it saved a heap of money by waiting until the sun outside had set entire before they switched them on.
He took out the menu Davenport had given him and unfolded it for another sober study of that ugly mutt aboard the earlier train. Then he put it back in the same jacket pocket and got up to amble back to the club car.
Nobody half so ugly seemed to be there. Stringer got a beer at the bar and found a corner table to set it on as he took out the makings and proceeded to roll a smoke as well.
He did so with the full knowledge that the gentle draft through the club car put him downwind of anyone who might be offended by the delicate scent of smoldering Bull Durham. So when a burly gent who’d been seated at another table with a gal in a big hat commenced to loom over him and demand he put out his infernal smoke before he’d even lit it, Stringer smiled up at him, sincerely puzzled, to ask in a less offensive tone, “Is there a No Smoking sign I missed, somewhere about?”
The husky fellow rested his weight on the knuckles of his hamlike fists, planted perilously close to Stringer’s beer schooner on the tiny table between them, as he growled, “Sign or no sign, you’d better not light up if you know what’s good for you!”
Stringer thought about that as he sealed the paper with the tip of his tongue. He hadn’t been smoking in his forward coach seat because he’d noticed ladies riding up yonder, some with little kids. The gal at the next table didn’t strike him as a lady, unless red velvet, black lace, and at least two coats of face paint were the newest fashion. The hulk defending her delicate nose was dressed as sporty. There was a diamond stickpin almost big enough to serve as a bicycle headlight flashing from the purple silk tie he had peering over the top of his brocaded maroon vest. His brown derby hat looked new and mighty free of dents, considering what seemed to be wearing it. Stringer put the twist of Bull Durham between his lips, struck a match, took his time lighting it, and then asked, quietly, “Tell me what’s good for me.”
It was the burly stranger’s turn to study some. Anyone could see he had a good forty pounds and likely the reach on the tall but more sinewy Stringer. After that things got less certain. The calmly interested face meeting the bully’s usually intimidating glare was clean-cut and unscarred. But it was well tanned by sun and wind and the wide-set amber eyes could stare warm as old gold or icy as cold brass, depending on what they were staring at. Stringer had never liked bullies, even when he’d been small and skinny enough to be afraid of them—which he hadn’t been, for some time. There was nothing like growing up in cow country and working your way through college as a cowhand to put muscle and lightning-fast reflexes on most anyone, and Stringer had been born to a tall and warlike Highland clan to begin with.
The woman at the next table saved the situation by calling her escort back, softly but as sharply as if he’d been her dog. That allowed him to nod down at Stringer grimly and mutter, “Later,” as he straightened up and moved back to the safety of a woman’s skirts. Stringer refrained from blowing a taunting smoke ring after him. He made sure, in fact, that the draft was wafting his smoke through the corner vent on his far side before he relaxed a mite more to enjoy both his smoke and his suds.
He didn’t relax all the way, of course. He could see the confrontation hadn’t gone unnoticed in the crowded car; often some other asshole would take up the cause, once he had enough under his own skin to feel surly.
This state of affairs made the ride more interesting as they rumbled on through the desert night. But just a beer and a couple of smokes later the garishly dressed couple got up and left. Stringer stared at the clock above the bar wistfully. They hadn’t even made it to the Colorado River yet and he’d been sort of counting on the sullen bastard to keep him alert and thus awake.
He perked up again, however, when yet another stranger—also on the tough side—stepped away from the bar, grabbed the empty chair the first bully had just vacated, and swung it about to sit down, uninvited, across from Stringer.
As Stringer�
�s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, the new pest said, “I’m on your side, whoever you may be. For a minute, there, I thought I was going to have to earn my keep, the noisy way, and I just hate noise.”
Stringer sized him up for a moment before he said, “I give up. Railroad dick, or on your way to pick up a prisoner?”
The other man, who had a few years on Stringer, chuckled and said, “You was right with the first guess. My job is to see that passengers aboard this line are neither robbed nor shot while still aboard. There are times I wish I’d taken up the violin, like my dear old mother wanted me to. Were you aware, just now, whose face you was blowin’ smoke at?”
Stringer shrugged his shoulders. “I did get the impression he must have thought he was somebody tough,” he allowed.
The railroad dick said, “He’s not distinguished as a thinking man. Lucky for both of us, the lady with him, Faro Fran, spotted me at the bar just in time. Her less sensible escort was the one and original Skagway Sam, a knowed associate of Soapy Smith, up Alaska way.”
With a frown, Stringer objected, “Soapy Smith was shot dead some time ago, right?”
The railroad dick shook his head. “Not that long ago,” he said, “and Skagway Sam fought his way through them vigilantes. As you just saw, they’ve given Alaska back to the less dangerous wolves, now that the gold strike up yonder seems to be bottoming out. I wish I knew where they was headed, now. I’ve always wanted to get in on a gold rush, early enough to matter.”
“I was up Alaska way the night they hailed the dawn of this new century,” Stringer said, nodding. “My head still hurts to think about it. I got there too late for the really big strikes, too. I don’t recall anyone called Skagway Sam at that big New Year’s party, although, come to think of it, there were a mess of whores wearing lots of face paint.”
“I figured you for a wandering young gent,” the railroad dick claimed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to show me any I.D. you might see fit to pack along with that gun you got on, eh?”
Smiling, Stringer said, “You’re wrong. I’ve generally found it easier to show my press pass and gun permit than to cause needless anxiety to gents as peace-loving as me.”
The older man looked anxious indeed until he saw that Stringer was drawing nothing more lethal than a billfold from under his jacket. As he studied Stringer’s credentials he relaxed visibly. “Hell, I know you, son,” he exclaimed. “I mean I’ve read the stuff you write for the Sun. Was you serious or working for the Democrats when you sent that piece from Cuba about old Teddy’s famous charge up San Juan Hill?”
Stringer put his billfold away with a sigh as he told yet another avid reader why his dispatches from the front during the recent war with Spain had disagreed so often, and so much, with more thrilling eyewitness accounts filed from the cantinas—and worse—of Havana. He finished by pointing out, generously, that some of the other correspondents had no doubt been more worried about yellow jack than Spanish bullets. Hardly anyone on the American side had actually been killed by the enemy, but the fever had put one hell of a mess of good men on both sides in their graves.
“My sister’s oldest boy told us much the same tale when he got mustered out of the Roughriders. So I know you ain’t a bullshit artist, MacKail. Now I’m going to give you a no-bullshit tip on surviving your quarrel with Skagway Sam.”
Stringer cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? I thought it was over, sort of peaceful.”
With a disgusted look, the railroad dick said, “Gunslicks like Skagway Sam can’t afford to end fights peaceful. You called him and you backed him down, in front of a woman and a whole mess of men. He knows that such stories are sure to get around in time. So he means to nip the story, and you, in the bud.”
“You’d best sit somewhere else in that case,” Stringer replied indifferently. “You’re in my line of fire if he comes back for a rematch, pard.”
The older man shook his head, explaining, “Not here, in a car full of witnesses, dammit. This is the twentieth century, not Dodge in the seventies. Cold-blooded murder wasn’t as easy to get away with, then, as some would have it, but everyone who rides this line knows the sad story of the Tucson yards. Your best bet would be to get off when this train hits Yuma.”
Stringer shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t have any business in Yuma. I can’t say I know the sad story of the Tucson yards, either. Is it a good place to lay for someone you don’t like?”
The old-timer, who knew the line better, nodded grimly. “It’s where you got to change trains, in the dark, with a heap of handy shadows all about as you stumble across a mess of tracks and switch points. The first time the Tucson yards was used so fatal was back in the spring of ‘82. The victim was Deputy Sheriff Frank Stillwell. He was found dead by the tracks after his killer—or killers—had left aboard any number of trains passing through the junction late at night. They got away clean. The same trick’s been used since. That’s why I’d get off at Yuma, instead, if I was you.”
Stringer said, “Maybe it’s just as well you’re not me, then. But I thank you for the warning just the same. Wasn’t the unfortunate Frank Stillwell one of the gents accused of gunning down Morgan Earp in some pool hall, earlier?”
The railroad dick said, “It wasn’t some pool hall, it was Bob Hatch’s, in Tombstone. Some said the deed was done by Stillwell. Others said it was Pete Spence or a Mex calt Florentino Cruz. Suffice it to say, Morgan Earp’s body was being sent to their family home in California, by way of the Tucson yards, the very night Frank Stillwell wound up just as dead there. What he might have been doing there that night is still pure mystery. It couldn’t have been Morgan Earp as shot old Frank. Some say it was Doc Holliday, Sherm McMasters, Turkey Creek Jack, or even one of the other Earp boys. My point is that the deed was never pinned on nobody. That’s just the way it goes when you gun a man in the dark before no witnesses. You’d best get off at Yuma.”
Stringer sipped some beer as he thought about that.
Then he put down his schooner, firmly, and said, “Skagway Sam might not even know about that natural ambush point down this line. Thanks to you, I do. It’s not all that easy to ambush an armed man when he’s on the prod and expecting you to try. If Skagway Sam’s half as good as you say, he’ll know that, too. He’s traveling with a woman and Lord knows how much other baggage. They must be heading somewhere farther east than Tucson, so they’ll have their own train connections to worry about. I’d look dumb as hell getting off at Yuma just because I was spooked by the dark.”
Heaving a sigh, the older man said, “Maybe so. But either way, you’d be alive when you finally got where you’re going.” Then he asked, “Where would that be, by the way—El Paso?”
Stringer shook his head. “Tombstone, and please don’t tell me I can’t get there from here. I know I have to get off at Fairbank and hire a horse and saddle.”
“Hell, it’s a waste of time, talking sense to lunatics,” the railroad dick said, grimacing. “You say you’re in a hurry to get to Tombstone? There’s nothing there no more. I hope you didn’t tell Skagway Sam you was headed for Tombstone. Catching you all alone, on the desert, has laying for you in the Tucson yards beat all hollow!”
It was hard to stay awake all the way to Tucson, but Stringer had no other choice. The crisp, cool air slapped him wider awake when he stepped out on the observation platform as soon as he felt the train slowing down. Setting his gladstone down, he let his gun rig’s buckle out a couple of notches. Then, with gladstone once more in his left hand and his .38 riding lower on his right hip, he prepared to detrain in a less usual manner. He assumed anyone out to do him dirty would be expecting him to get off up forward, with the help of the train crew. There were few stops with platforms along the S.P. line, so the trainmen swung trapdoors up out of the way to expose four steps leading down to just above the level of the tracks and then they provided yellow steel boxes to serve as bottom steps to the grit.
As the train hissed to a stop in the darkness, Stringer fork
ed a long leg over the side of the observation platform, steadied himself with his gun hand, and just dropped to the crunchy railroad ballast. Up ahead, he heard the clatter and clangs of the train crew making things easier for the other passengers getting off in the regulation fashion here.
Stringer had the layout of the Tucson yards pictured in his mind’s eye as a sort of Y with the top branches to the east in order to let rolling stock move on to the north or more to the south in that easterly direction. Now that he was there, things looked less simple in the tricky light. He felt sure there was more light on the subject now, thanks to Thomas Edison, than there’d have been the night Deputy Stillwell had met his mysterious demise somewhere around here. Electric lights on strategic but widely spaced poles cast confusing, piss-poor imitation moonbeams as well as long inky shadows in every direction. Up ahead, blurred figures were departing from the right side of the train. Stringer had determined that the passenger train they were supposed to transfer to would be a track or so over in that direction, but a line of empty freight cars, zebra striped in light and shadow, had been left to block the next siding over. The other transferring passengers were hurrying up the slot between the train they’d just left and the awkwardly parked boxcars. Stringer didn’t need to be told by anyone that the deal was to move on up and over to passenger cars waiting a siding farther away than they’d have been if he was running this dumb railroad.
He started walking faster to catch up with the rest of the crowd. As the couple at the tail end passed through a shaft of light he caught a flash of big hat and red skirt. That made him drop back a few paces, even as it reassured him some; Skagway Sam and Faro Fran seemed more intent on changing trains than on a resumption of hostilities.
He still wanted to let them board well ahead of him, so that he could climb on somewhere else. They were probably traveling fancy, in one of the forward Pullman cars. Stringer knew he’d be, if he was traveling with a gal built like Faro Fran. After all, what were a few coats of paint between friends in the cozy darkness of a Pullman berth? She probably smelled swell, too.
