by Lou Cameron
Then, just as the shady couple ahead of him were moved through a puddle of lamplight, a darker figure stepped out from between two boxcars, its back to Stringer and the two guns in its hands trained on Faro Fran and Skagway Sam.
Without taking time to think, Stringer drew his own gun with a shout of “No!” The next few seconds got confusing as all hell.
The shadowy gunslick spun on one heel to throw down on Stringer, who naturally fired first. Then Skagway Sam put a round in the poor brute from the other side, which spun him around again and sort of corkscrewed him into the ground. By the time he got all the way down, both Stringer and Skagway Sam had taken cover between widely spaced but solid boxcars. As he stared their way through the haze of gunsmoke, Stringer was not at all surprised to see Faro Fran had vanished from sight for the moment. Stringer called out, “Skagway?” and got no answer.
He heard running footsteps behind him. One of the yard bulls coming his way was toting a bull’s-eye lantern. Stringer put his still-warm six-gun away and stepped out into view, hands polite, to call, “Over here. Some bozo just tried to gun a woman in her back! That’s him, yonder. Be careful. He was waving at least two guns about, just now.”
The two yard bulls stopped closer to Stringer. The one with the bull’s-eye trained its beam on him, thoughtfully, then swung it on the body just up the slot. Now that he could see what he’d shot it out with, Stringer saw he seemed to be a middle-aged Mex or breed, wearing a dark charro outfit and a puzzled smile, as if he found it mildly amusing to be dead. The yard bull with the lantern noted the open eyes with six-guns safely scattered on the railroad ballast before he whistled softly and said, “This old boy won’t ever back-shoot no more ladies. Where might this lady he was messing with be, right now?”
Stringer said, “They probably ran on to that other train. I have to catch it, too.”
The two yard bulls exchanged wary glances. Then the one who was packing a sawed-off shotgun instead of a lantern said, soberly, “Not hardly, mister. You just gunned a man on Southern Pacific property. There’ll always be another train for you to catch, when and if Tucson says it’s all right for you to move on. Right now we’d best go have us a talk with the law.”
He sounded like he meant it, and Stringer couldn’t really blame him. He shot a weary look at the man he’d just killed, halfway at least and said, “I think we’d better. For openers, I’d sort of like to know who he might have been. You see, I’m a newspaperman.”
They seemed relieved that Stringer didn’t argue. Neither made any unkind suggestions about his gun as the three of them headed back down the slot. Before they got to where he’d gotten off, the eastbound he’d come this far aboard began to roll out of their way. A distant toot told Stringer the train he was supposed to be aboard right now was leaving, too.
The yard bulls swung him north toward a cluster of buildings shaded by a coal tipple over that way. As they cut across the intervening tracks in the tricky light a trio of other men with bigger hats came to meet them. When one called out a wary question about the gunshots, the yard bull with the lantern shone it on Stringer and replied, cheerfully enough, “This gent just shot it out with a Mex, Marshal. Guess who won.”
The three Tucson lawmen were less casual about suspects packing guns on their hips. One drew to cover Stringer while a sidekick gently but firmly disarmed him and patted him down for anything else as serious. When he said, “He’s clean, Marty,” the one with his gun out put it back in its holster and said, “Well, first things usually coming first, we’d best all go have a look at the loser. Do you have a name, you winning cuss?”
Stringer identified himself and offered to show them his papers as they all moved back to the scene of the shooting. With the passenger train no longer blocking the yard lighting, the scene was a lot easier to take in at a glance. One of the Tucson lawmen dropped to one knee, felt the downed man’s throat, and decided, “This one ain’t about to answer no questions. Shine that bull’s-eye over this way, will you, Smitty?”
The yard bull did. The lawman kneeling by the body rolled it back and forth by one shoulder before announcing, “Hit both ways. Just above the heart from the front and lower in the back from behind. When you shoot an old boy you don’t mess around, do you, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “I only shot him once. One of the other passengers I was with put that round in his back.”
The lawman standing by Stringer, who seemed to be in charge along with Marty, observed, “I hate to appear dubious, MacKail. I feel sure you wouldn’t dream of fibbing to the law. But just where might this other helpful gent, who back-shot this one, be right now?”
Stringer said, “Most likely aboard that southbound train that just left. All of us were rushing to board her when that cuss on the ground threw down on the man and woman just ahead of me.”
“Right. Maidens in distress are usually ungrateful as all get-out,” Marty declared with a hint of sarcasm. “You saved ‘em both from this desperado and so they naturally just went on about their own beeswax, leaving you to tidy up after ‘em.”
Stringer said, “I know it sounds sort of unusual. But they were an unusual couple. I don’t know their real names, but if it’s any help, he was called Sam and she was called Fran.”
Marty said, “Oh, that’s a big help MacKail. You know what it looks like, from where I’m standing? It looks like you shot this old boy in the back, for whatever reason, and then finished him off as he spun around, going for his own hardware.”
Stringer protested, “You’re talking loco en la cabeza, no offense. All you have to do is dig the slugs out of him and you can say you’re sorry when you see a round from my gun took him in the chest and a round from some other gun hit him from behind.”
Old Marty looked disgusted. “Do I look like that Sherlock Holmes or any other such sissy nitpicker to you, MacKail? My own good eyes and ears is all I needs to put this here picture together. Anyone can see he was hit first in the back. The front shot was more fatal. You back-shot him. He spun around to face you, slapping leather, and you done better with your second shot. If you got a lick of sense you won’t try to shit the judge and jury with made-up witnesses that just ain’t here!”
Stringer started to protest again, then decided he’d better save his breath for his lawyer—a good one—if the Sun would spring for the court costs he seemed to be facing.
Then a distant feminine voice called out, “Oh, sirs, sirs, could any of you tell me where to find Deputy Marshal Martin?”
They all turned to face the dark feminine figure making its way uncertainly toward them across the tracks in the tricky light.
Marty said, “You have found me, ma’am. Be caresome of your delicate ankles out here in the yards. What can I do for you?”
As she joined them they could see she was a mousy but not altogether bad-looking little thing with a straw boater pinned atop her dark upswept hair. She said, “They told me at the dispatcher’s office that you might be out here and, oh, is that poor man still lying there? Don’t you think you should get him a doctor?”
Marty said, “No, ma’am. But is it safe to assume you already knowed he was layed out, here?”
She replied in a scared small voice, “I saw it. It was just awful. He was shooting at a lady in a red dress and then two other men shot him instead! Is the lady all right?”
Marty turned to stare at Stringer as he told the young woman, “She must be. She ain’t here. Do you see anyone else, here, who might have been involved in that shoot-out, ma’am?”
The girl looked about uncertainly at first. Then she pointed at Stringer and said, “Oh, dear, I don’t want to cause anyone any trouble, but I have to say this young man was the one who shouted a warning and, well, after that they both seemed to be shooting at that poor man on the ground.”
Marty sighed. “You ain’t got nobody in trouble, ma’am,” he said. “We’re going to want sworn depositions from the both of you before either of you will be leaving Tucson. But yo
u coming forward as a witness may have saved young MacKail, here, a great deal of trouble indeed.”
He turned to his junior deputies to add, “You boys had best stay here till the morgue crew arrives. I’ll carry MacKail and his witness over to the office and we’ll see what the coroner will have to say about all this in the morning.”
As the three of them headed for the lights across the yard the lawman gallantly took the girl’s arm, saying, “Watch your step, ma’am. By the way, do you have a name? They’re sure to want me to write it down in my officious report.”
She said her name was Matilda Gower, that her friends called her Tillie, and that she was a librarian who’d been on her way to Tombstone in answer to a help-wanted notice.
Both men were surprised at this, but it was Marty who told her, “I didn’t know they still had a library in Tombstone, Miss Tillie. Last I heard, the silver was gone and the town was dead.”
She sounded sure enough when she answered, brightly, “It must have come back to life, then. There were lots of other job offerings in the same paper, a heap of them in Tombstone. So something must be going on there, now, right?”
CHAPTER THREE
By the time the Tucson coroner’s office opened after nine the two of them had been up all night and then some. Stringer was half-awake on a bench at police headquarters. Tillie had dozed off with her head on his shoulder. By the cruel morning light he could see she was a mite older than he’d taken her for in the soft illumination of forty-watt bulbs. She was still a pretty little gal, but time was starting to pass her by. If she didn’t hook a man at her next library she was doomed to middle-aged spinsterhood sure as hell. She had to be at least thirty. She’d confessed just before passing out on his shoulder that her impulse to try a new start in Tombstone had been occasioned by a spat with an L.A. gent who’d been taking out books, and sometimes her, for many a year without establishing his exact intentions. It was funny how strangers meeting up as fellow travelers got to swapping stories about themselves that they’d never tell their neighbors back home.
Stringer opened his eyes hopefully to the sound of boot heels. It was old Marty. He looked like hell in daylight, too. Unshaven and bleary-eyed, Marty cleared his throat awkwardly and sat down on Stringer’s far side to admit, “We just got some sort of interesting answers to the all-points we sent out on that Mex cuss you shot it out with. He answers to the description of one Jesus Garcia—funny name for such a sinsome cuss. He’s wanted in more places for more misdeeds than you can shake a stick at.”
Stringer yawned, asking, “Who gets such bounty money as there might have been posted on such a wayward youth?”
Martly looked away to mutter, “That’s something we’d best talk over, studious. You know how Indian-giving some outfits can get, once they see a gent they wanted, desperate, dead or alive, is just dead and in no position to annoy them further.”
Stringer asked, “And how were you and the boys figuring on saving me such disappointment?”
Marty tried to sound sincerely helpful as he explained, “If you just can’t stand not being knowed as the man who finally caught up with Jesus, you’ll no doubt want to hang around here in Tucson until the coroner’s jury settles the matter in, oh, say a week or so.”
“I’d just as soon be on my way, no offense,” Stringer replied, grimacing. “What if we just forgot my part in bringing the owl-hoot to justice? You boys would be as willing to take any blame, or credit, involved, right?”
Marty slapped Stringer’s knee with a relieved laugh. “There you go, MacKail. We figured you for a good sport and, like I said, there may not be all that much posted on Sweet Jesus to begin with.”
“Are we free to go, then?” Stringer asked.
“Sure,” Marty declared. “We got nothing at all on the gal. She wouldn’t be able to put in on any bounty money if she wanted to. She never turned the rascal in. She just saw you shoot him.”
With that, Marty handed Stringer’s gun to him and got back up to leave the two of them the chore of whatever came next. Stringer woke Tillie, gently, and as she stretched and yawned like a kitten he told her, “It’s over. The two of us are free to go.”
“I’m hungry,” she replied, in a little-girl voice.
He got her to her feet and picked up his gladstone, saying, “We’re in the center of town. There must be some place around here where we can get breakfast. Where’s your baggage, by the way?”
She blinked down at the floor, gave a mournful little gasp, and cried, “Oh, heavens, my carpetbag and hatbox were aboard that train that left without us last night!”
“Don’t worry. You did tell the conductor you were getting off at Fairbank, right?”
Almost sobbing, she wailed, “No! I told him I was on my way to Tombstone!”
He took her arm in his free hand to reassure her, “Same difference. He’ll have dropped your baggage off at Fairbank to wait for you by now. Let’s worry about one thing at a time, starting with breakfast.”
But as he led her out into the blinding Arizona sunlight, Tillie protested, “Wait, I just remembered my money was in a purse in my hatbox!”
Stringer sighed in exasperation. “You sure must not travel much. Why did you put yourself and all your stuff aboard that other train before you rode to my rescue, for Pete’s sake?”
She looked away as she admitted, “I wasn’t going to. It was none of my business and, anyway, I expected those people you saved to stand by you. Then I saw them on the train, laughing as if they thought something funny had happened and…well, the next thing I knew I was telling the conductor and he said there was nothing he could do about it and I’d have to report it to the dispatcher across all those tracks and then—”
“Don’t worry about buying your own breakfast,” Stringer cut in, adding, “it’s the least I can do. If you left your ticket stub aboard with your other stuff, I’ll see that you still get to Tombstone. For openers I have to get you to Fairbank, and then I guess we get to hire a rig.”
All the way to the beanery they found down the way to the depot, she kept protesting that she couldn’t let him support her, as she put it. Once she had some ham and eggs in front of her she dove in as if she hadn’t been supported in some time. He was more tired than hungry, so as he ate, slower, he got out his railroad timetable to see how much time they had to worry about. When he muttered, “Oh, suffering snakes!” she asked what was wrong. He told her, “The Southern Pacific. You may have heard there’s a boom down the line, but they sure haven’t. The very next train that will drop us off anywhere near Tombstone leaves later this evening, after sundown.”
She sobbed, “Oh, Lord, I can’t stay up that much longer!”
He replied, “We’ll have to check in some hotel and leave a sunset call with the desk. I don’t know how much sleep you’ve had in the past twenty-four hours, but I’ve had none at all and I was up late the night before.”
She toyed with the last of her breakfast toast in awkward silence for a time before she murmured, “Won’t we have to tell them we’re married if we take a room together, sir?”
He started to explain he’d meant to book separate rooms for the two of them. Then he wondered why anyone would want to say a dumb thing like that. Instead he told her, “You don’t have to say anything. I’ll sign in for both of us, see?”
She started to shake her head, then smothered a yawn and replied, demurely, “I’m going to fall on my face if we don’t do something. But I hope you understand I don’t make a habit of going to bed with strange men, sir.”
He said, “I’m not all that strange, and you might as well start calling me ‘Stuart,’ Tillie. You’d sound sort of dumb calling me ‘sir’ while I was checking us through a hotel lobby.”
She didn’t call him “sir” or anything else, as it turned out. She just stood red-faced at a magazine rack while Stringer booked them a room and bath at the inexpensive but fairly clean hotel across from the Tucson depot. By the time he had her upstairs, she was sob
bing softly. He didn’t know how to cheer her up, so he didn’t try. As he unlocked the door of their corner room she stared at the one brass bed, gulped, and told him, “You’d better go into the bath while I get undressed for bed, Stuart. It’s broad daylight, I left my nightgown aboard that horrid train, and—oh, dear —I hardly know you!”
He put down his gladstone, moved into the adjoining bath, and ran the water so he could use the commode discreetly. He was beginning to wonder if she wanted him to sleep in the tub when at last he heard her calling, shyly, “Oh, Stuart? You can come out, now.”
When he did he found that she’d pulled down all the shades. It was still light enough to see just her big doe eyes staring timidly up at him from under the top sheet. Her duds were folded neatly over the foot of the bed, her perky straw boater hung on a bedpost. He hung his own hat and gun rig on another. Then he sat on the bed with his back to her and said, “No peeking, now,” as he hauled his own boots and duds off.
He was so bone weary as he rolled under the covers with her that he felt sure he could sleep platonic with a strange gal if she really wanted him to. But as she snuggled her naked body up against his and pleaded, “Please be gentle with me, sir,” he decided that might be considered rude and, for some reason, he didn’t feel half as tired, now.
Even so, as he took her in his arms for some kissing and feeling-up, she sobbed, “Oh, Stuart, I’m so embarrassed and I feel so low down!”
He murmured, “We don’t really have to, if you don’t want to, Tillie.”
She giggled. “Liar. You know what we both want. But how, oh how, shall I ever face you again? You must surely take me for a woman of no shame at all.”
He chuckled, kissed her, and assured her they’d done nothing to be ashamed of—yet. Then he rolled her on her back and she welcomed him aboard like an old friend. But, being a librarian, she must have felt duty bound to sob, “Oh, oh, what are you doing to me!” even as she proceeded to do it back to him with a skill he doubted she could have picked up from any books, even dirty ones.
