Stringer in Tombstone

by Lou Cameron

  He shook his head. “Lighting a night fire in Apache country can get you in trouble even when there are no Apache for miles. I ate a real supper earlier. You should have, too, if you ain’t on a diet. Dry tortillas washed down with pulque sounds okay to me.”

  She didn’t argue. Soon they were reclining side by side under the tent fly, enjoying, or trying to enjoy, pasteboard-flavored tortillas and warm pulque. Both were acquired tastes. Pulque was fermented maguey juice, partway to becoming tequila, which tasted more like liquor and less like soap. But though not yet distilled to hard liquor, pulque could do the job on you if you mistook it for a home brew mild as beer or even wine. So despite the healthy thirst one got from chewing dry tortillas—like blotting paper—Stringer tried to take it easy as they passed the clay jug back and forth.

  Little Concepción was less inhibited, if not thirstier. She was full of plans for a treasure hunt, come sunrise. It sounded tedious to him. On the other hand, it wasn’t his money they were talking about. He said, “I’ll help you scout about as soon as it’s light enough. But unless your grandfather hid a can of coins pretty obvious, you’d best streak for home and come back with some armed relations, Concepción. Aside from the sheer toil involved in scalping this whole mountain, that ruffian who was about to kill you when I showed up might want to go a second round with you.”

  She snuggled closer atop the bedding to say, “Pooh, nobody else knows where this camp is. It is cold up here at night without a fire, no?”

  “You’d best get under the blankets, then. I’ll keep an eye open, just in case you’re wrong.”

  She didn’t have to be asked twice. He knew she was used to living in close quarters, where personal privacy took more than a little ingenuity. So he was surprised if not exactly upset when she proceeded to shuck her duds before she crawled under the blankets instead of waiting till after. He assumed she felt it was dark enough to get away with that. It wasn’t. She sure was a hairy little thing. Her nipples matched her sloe eyes as well, by moonlight. Then he got to observe her shapely naked rump for a spell as she took her own good time crawling into the bedding. He looked away and reached absently for his Bull Durham pouch, but she demanded, “For why are you still sitting there with all your clothing on? Do you not wish to come to bed with me?”

  He turned his head to see her sloe eyes smoldering up at him and had no trouble at all recalling the other parts of her the bedding was covering now. He said, “I’m not sure that huntsman who saved Little Red Riding Hood got to molest her, afterwards. You’re just a kid, Concepción. You don’t know how inevitable things can get, once the purest-minded gent’s under the covers with a gal in your present state of undress.”

  She pouted up at him. “Ay caramba! Have you no feelings for a muchacha in distress?”

  He laughed and told her he was starting to feel distressed, too, adding, “It’s one thing to be a mite drunk on moonlight and pulque. It can be another thing entire to wake up in the cold gray dawn with a headache and second thoughts.”

  “Pulque never gives me a headache,” she sniffed. “Do you scorn me because I am not one of your blue-eyed Anglo muchachas?”

  That did it. Having had to pass on a half-dressed blue-eyed blond muchacha that same evening, it was asking too much of any natural man to expect him to pass on a stark-naked and apparently willing brunette. So he assured her that scorning her was the furthest thing from his mind and proceeded to get out of his own duds and into the bedding with her.

  But when he took her shapely nude body in his arms and hauled her close to kiss her, Concepción stiffened and gasped, “What is this I feel between us, down here?”

  Considering she had her hand around it at the moment, Stringer thought that a mighty dumb question. He held her less tightly and asked, “What were you expecting, flowers?”

  She giggled and clasped his erection tighter as she replied, “I was not expecting so much of anything! Anglo women must be built like cows!”

  He nibbled her ear and rolled her on her back as he assured her, “Of course, if you’d rather not…”

  She put both arms around him to welcome him aboard. Then they both gasped in mingled pleasure and concern as he entered her with difficulty. After that, of course, they were free to go lovingly loco for a while, and did.

  Later, as they shared a smoke and more cuddles, Concepción marveled in an adoring tone, “That was muy romantico, querido. I am so glad I did not know what was getting into me until we got it in me. I fear I would have resisted your advances if I had known how big you were, in every way. Pero now that you have made me so brave about such matters, could we do it again before we go to sleep?”

  He took a drag on their smoke and assured her it wasn’t all that late, yet. She snuggled closer and repressed a yawn to ask, “Es verdad? I am more used to going to bed with the chickens. For why do you stay up late? What is there to do at night, out of bed, I mean?”

  He patted her bare bottom with his free hand as he told her, chuckling, “Nothing’s better than this, night or day. But if I was alone with a lamp, right now, I’d probably be working on my notes. I told you I was a newspaperman on our way up here, remember?”

  She said, “Si, like Señor Steinmuller, my grandfather’s poor amigo. Do you know for why they both died within the very same month, querido? I find this most unusual, no?”

  He took another drag and snuffed out the butt in the sand beside him as he said, “That’s one of the news angles I’m still working on. I know how Steinmuller died; he was shot. I don’t know exactly what killed your grandfather a few days earlier. An old man could die just as easily from a natural cause or a less natural blow on the head. Steinmuller might have been wondering about that, too. He was snooping around out in the high chaparral when somebody put that rifle round in him and he barely made it home to die.”

  She began to toy with the hairs on his belly as she mused, half to herself, “I wonder what that wicked gringo you saved me from thought to find in the poor dead viejo’s ‘dobe. From the way he behaved, at first, I think he thought I knew what it might be.”

  Stringer shrugged the bare shoulder her head wasn’t resting on. “I scouted about for a sign, back there, right after I found him there. The town lawmen who drove out to pick up the body no doubt poked about as well. But you may have something, Concepción. That bushy-browed bully boy wouldn’t have been there at all tonight if his side wasn’t still hunting for something they suspect old Steinmuller had on him the day he died.”

  She began to walk her fingers down his belly, teasingly, as she sighed and said, “I found nothing of value. Even the postage stamps had been canceled.”

  He yawned. “I noticed. You mean those few envelopes in the trunk at the foot of his bed, right?”

  She answered, “Pero no, I meant the stamps on all those old letters I found under those old newspapers.”

  Stringer perked up to demand, “Under those old back issues over against that one wall? You looked?”

  She said, “Si. Under one end of the pile, near the wall. I could see no treasure had been buried where the dirt floor was bare. So I shifted the pile, just a little, for to see if perhaps the dirt looked softer there. When I saw all those gringo stamps I thought they might be worth something. Alas, they had all been canceled. As I was going through the envelopes, for to see if there was any dinero in any of them, I heard that wicked hombre coming. So I simply shoved the newspapers back against the wall the way I found them. The rest you know.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow, muttering, “Not by half. I have to get back there as soon as it’s light enough to see what I might be doing. Meanwhile, you say you opened some of those envelopes, querida?”

  She said, “No. I opened all of them. Most were empty. One had been stuffed with slips of colored paper—verde, amarillo, rosado—and some just blanco. I think he may have put them all together in one envelope. Alas, I do not read much inglés. Pero, wait, I think some were from a Señor Hearst. Would that
mean anything to you?”

  He bent over to kiss her before he said, “You bet your sweet bottom it might! It sounds as if the old man was collecting a heap of rejection slips!”

  “Are these good for to collect? They only seemed bits of paper to me,” she replied.

  Stringer explained, in simple terms she’d be able to grasp, how little any writer enjoyed the sight of a rejection slip paper clipped to a story sent back to him. He added, half to himself, “If the old man just kept sending his whatever out again, it’s in some editor’s slush pile tonight instead of his ‘dobe. There’s no sense looking for it there and Lord knows when they’ll get around to either running it or sending it back. So, let’s see, the old man sent some news item over and over again to no avail. It must have struck everyone as mighty uninteresting if the Hearst Syndicate turned it down. They just love stories about two-headed calves and spooks.”

  She sighed. “I wish you would make up your mind if you wish for to make love again or talk about two-headed calves. If the old newspaperman had written something interesting, someone would have wanted it, no?”

  Stringer said, “Hold the thought about whose turn it might be to get on top, for now. The beads are starting to string together. Let’s say the old man filed a story that read sort of so-what. Let’s say he kept submitting it, with no luck, until something even more exciting happened and he sent that wire, all het up right before someone gunned him to keep him from doing just that.”

  She asked, hopefully, “Do you think he knew who killed my grandfather, or where my grandfather hid his dinero?”

  Stringer thought before he muttered, “Steinmuller wasn’t out to report a murder. He only wired that the Tombstone Lode was still flooded, which was hardly news. The wire service wouldn’t have picked up on it at all if they hadn’t made the mistake of assuming it was the town, not the old mines above it, that suffered said flood. So what could I be missing, dammit?”

  She suggested, “Maybe he was only loco. For why else would he hide worthless paper under other worthless paper? Oh, that gives me another idea. What if my grandfather hid his dinero under that big woodpile, querido?”

  Absently, he said, “I’ll help you look for it at sunrise. Then, either way, I have to get back to town. There’s something about that last wire the old man sent that I have to be missing. Lord knows it was short enough. At a nickel a word he couldn’t afford to be long-winded and…That’s it! He blocked out his message free-style and then, to save money, he crossed out all the words he thought he could get away with. Only he crossed out one word too many. Put back just one word and the whole thing makes sense at last!”

  Concepción replied in a languorous tone, “Bueno. Can we make love some more, now?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Between having Concepción for breakfast, helping her find her grandfather’s tin box of silver dollars under the woodpile where she’d correctly guessed it might be, and then searching the old ‘dobe some more after sending Concepción on her way in a very good mood indeed, Stringer didn’t get back to Tombstone until fairly late in the morning.

  He still had some loose strings to tie up. It wasn’t easy with most of the town up at the Lucky Cuss. The shaft was said to be just about dry by now and nobody wanted to miss the first assay on the first rock they brought up. But he found an old printer sticking type in the press room of the Epitaph and, since the local newspaperman was a real pro who could read copy and carry on a conversation at the same time, Stringer was able to confirm a few notions he’d been mulling over all morning. He dropped by the marshal’s office and swapped notions with Wes Rhodes long enough to burn a smoke down. All he came away from there with, for sure, was that nobody had shown up in town, official, with bushy brows and a gunshot wound and that Knuckles Ashton was alive and well, or at least alive, in the El Paso jail. The butt-shot Knuckles had gone to an El Paso M.D. for treatment, the doc had told the law about it, and the Texas Rangers had recalled they had an outstanding warrant on the rascal.

  Nobody but one sleepy barkeep could be found at the Oriental Saloon. He told Stringer that Faro Fran and the gals were all up to the Lucky Cuss either to console the losers or help the winners celebrate. Some gents always called for wine and women, either way Dame Fortune dictated. Stringer thanked him for the information and tried farther along Allen Street, deserted as if it was midnight rather than just about noon.

  As he’d hoped he might, Stringer caught up with Skagway Sam at the same pool hall, enjoying a solitary game of eight ball. The burly tinhorn was playing in his vest and shirtsleeves. The place was otherwise empty. As Stringer entered, Skagway Sam told him, “Go into the tap room next door and help yourself to some cold cuts and beer, if you know how to work the tap. Everyone’s gone up to that infernal mine to stand about and stare at nothing in the hot sun. I has it on good authority that they won’t be blasting this side of three, Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise.”

  Stringer hung up his hat but said, “I washed some pigs’ feet down with lager the moment I got back to town, say an hour or so ago. Tortillas and pulque’s just not my notion of proper breakfast.”

  “Mine, neither,” said Skagway Sam, pointing his own cue at the wall rack as he asked, “Care for a game, old son?”

  “I’ll just watch, for now. I had a rough night and my head’s just starting to clear.”

  Skagway Sam shrugged, told Stringer to suit himself, and bet, “Six ball in the corner pocket,” which he proceeded to sink with almost disinterested grace. Then he said, “Ten ball in the side pocket. Were you aiming to put me in your paper as the all-time pool shark of Tombstone, Stringer?”

  In the dimly lit room Stringer began to roll himself a smoke, leaning back against one wall, as he replied, “Not as an all-time pool shark. I’d have thought high rollers like you and Miss Faro Fran would have aimed higher than Tombstone when you came back down from the Alaska gold fields. No offense, but this town was about dead when you first got here.”

  Skagway Sam paused to chalk his cue tip as he met Stringer’s eyes with a casual smile and said, “Dead’s a strong word. They like to say, here, that Tombstone is too tough to die. I will allow we’ve been hoping someone would wake it up a mite more, though. What do you figure they’ll find, up the slope, when they bust some fresh rock off the old face?”

  Stringer said, flatly, “Silver. Mayhaps a mite low grade, but I’m sure it’ll assay rich enough to encourage deeper digging, with another stock issue to pay for it, of course. Old Ferris, over to the Epitaph, assured me the ore samples will be assayed by a reputable old-timer everyone here in town has always found dead-on-the-level honest, too.”

  Skagway Sam sighed wistfully. “Damn! I wanted in on the Lucky Cuss. I even bought some shares in it a while back. But old Fran called me a damn fool and made me get rid of ‘em at face value. Four ball in the far corner pocket.”

  Stringer waited until the gambler had sunk the shot before he struck a match to light his smoke, then said, “That was smart of her. She no doubt wanted it distinctly understood that neither of you had any interest at all in silver mining, once the fur starts to fly. They don’t know they know it at the Epitaph, yet, but once the sheep figure out they’ve been shorn, it’s just bound to occur to everyone that while the syndicate promoting that grand reopening was Los Angeles based, they made a point of hiring a lot of local Tombstone help.”

  Skagway Sam called a shot and missed. He straightened up to reach for the chalk cube again as he muttered, “Tip slipped on that last one. What was that about shearing sheep, just now?”

  Stringer blew a smoke ring to study as he explained, “Oh, the whole thing’s a con job. The Lucky Cuss has been salted. Didn’t you know that?”

  Skagways Sam growled, “Not hardly. Old Fran said it could all be a flimflam when she made me unload that stock. Others here in town have opined they couldn’t see why the original owners had pulled up stakes and just about given the claims away, after a good twenty years of mining, if th
ere was anything left to mine. On the other hand, all the mining men I’ve jawed with on the subject agree there’s just no way to salt a mine when it’s under tons and more tons of deep dark water.”

  “They were right,” Stringer agreed. “It couldn’t be done that way. So they had to do it another way. They began by buying the claim as it was, a worthless water-filled hole in the ground, cheap. Then they posted it against trespassing and put guards up there as well to make sure nobody strayed too close to the adit.”

  Skagway Sam grimaced as he bent over the table again, saying, “Sure they did. Then they sent someone down the shaft in a diving suit to hammer silverware into the considerably flooded face, right?”

  Stringer countered, “They didn’t have to, first they simply repaired the old steam pump. It only took, say, one barrel of spare parts that screwed off again just as easy. Once they had the old pump working again, silent as any other stationary steam engine, they filled the firebox with smokeless charcoal they bought off an old Mexican recluse, and started her up. They only pumped at night or mayhaps when it was raining, of course. Somebody might have noticed running water, other times.”

  Skagway Sam frowned hard at the cue ball, then growled, “Nine ball, side pocket. I can see how your notion might work, if someone was drunk, crazy, or both. Why on earth would they have hauled that big thumping gasoline engine up the mountain if they already had the old steam pump working?”

  Stringer chuckled. “That’s easy. They hope to prove their sincerity and no doubt amuse a bigger crowd with that huge red thumping wonder, while, naturally, few of us were supposed to even think about the old steam pump that had kept the shaft dry a good twenty years. If anyone looked, as I did, they could see it was busted and, hell, if it was any good, as you just pointed out, the thumping wonder would have been a needless expense.”

  He took another drag before he continued, “Getting back to before they’d sold enough stock to buy such amusing toys, the promoters pumped the shaft dry, the old-fashioned way, and then they simply went down to the face and salted it in any number of the usual methods. We’ll know more about that once they pass out some ore samples, any minute, now. Once they had the mine salted they smeared plenty of grease over the face to waterproof it. Then they poured some more oil about to make sure the whole shaft would seem as disgusting after the water level rose and sank in one more cycle. After that, they just had to wait a few days and, sure enough, the springs of ground water that had called for hard pumping in the first place filled the shaft back up and they were ready to raise the curtain on the final act, which is going on right about now, with a whole trainload of potential investors and dumber reporters than me on hand to watch them hit silver some more.”