Stringer and the Wild Bunch

by Lou Cameron

  Kid Curry came over and sat down beside Stringer. “I just checked out front,” he said. “We ain’t casting enough light out the adit to worry about. It faces an old stamp mill across the way, and we’re down in a draw to begin with. Do you want to start writing about me now, or would you rather wait until we grub?”

  “That mulligan has some boiling to go,” Stringer said, “if that was jerky I saw ’em toss in just now. But I don’t have my notebook or even a pencil on me at the moment.” The pop-eyed owlhoot swore and bawled out, “Hey, do any of you boys have a pencil?”

  “Never mind,” Stringer soothed. “I only need to make notes of names, dates, and places. Why don’t you just tell me how you got started in this business, and we can get her down on paper in the sweet by and by?”

  Kid Curry nodded and began. “I was raised in Missouri, the same as Frank and Jesse James, and brought up decent by kind parents, the same as they was. But you know how hard it was on us all during the infernal Reconstruction, so—”

  “Hold it,” Stringer cut in, explaining, “My readers just won’t buy that, no offense. President Rutherford Hayes ended the mayhaps fair or unfair treatment of ex-Confederates way back in 1876. So while the James and Younger brothers may or may not have had just call to resent the Reconstruction, you’d have just been learning to talk about the time Johnny Reb and Damnyankee became dead issues.”

  Kid Curry shook his derbied head. “You wouldn’t think that if you’d been raised in our part of Missouri. I lost my cherry afore I knew Damnyankee might be said as two words. You ain’t no Damnyankee, are you?”

  Stringer said, “We called ourselves Californianos. But for the record, I was roping top-hand before someone told me Robert E. Lee wasn’t just a steamboat. I’ll say you were driven desperate by the Lost Cause if that’s the way you want it. What happened next?”

  “Folk picked on us,” Curry almost whined. “I wasn’t imagining it. I had me three brothers, and they can tell you they was picked on too. Two of my brothers turned out as mean as me after all that picking on, back home.”

  “What happened to your other brother?” Stringer asked. Curry sighed. “He must have been the sissy of the family. So far, he ain’t never been in trouble with the law. But never mind about my Missouri kin. I left there early, after I had to gun an uppity old boy who kept picking on me. I come out west, hoping to leave all that trouble ahind me. But I dunno, it seems everywhere I go, folk pick on me. I lost a job in Texas when I had to shoot a foreman who said I was lazy. I shot another man in Dodge for calling me pop-eyed. Then I sort of fell in with old George Curry and—”

  “Hold it,” Stringer cut in. “Are we talking about the one and original Flat Nose Curry, best remembered for shooting it out with a Utah posse near Thompson Springs a few years back?”

  “He was one of the founding fathers of the Wild Bunch,” Curry replied, “and he taught me everything I know.”

  Stringer grimaced. “What was he to you, an uncle or something?”

  It took Kid Curry a moment to catch his meaning. “Hell, my real name ain’t Curry. I was baptized Harvey Logan. They took to calling me Kid Curry because old George sort of treated me like his kid. My brothers, Johnny and Lonny, still go by the name of Logan. You’ll be meeting up with ‘em if we don’ get cut off by the law betwixt here and Brown’s Hole.”

  Stringer swore under his breath. “You were right. I’m going to need a pencil and paper. I might be able to remember Butch Cassidy is really named Parker, and you just told me your real name is Logan. But how in the hell did someone named Brown get into this discussion?”

  Kid Curry frowned. “I don’t have no trouble keeping things straight. The first Hole in the Wall was up near Billings. Then the law found out about her and we moved it to a cliffed-in valley closer to Casper, Wyoming. Then we had to set up in old Star Valley on the Wyoming-Idaho line. Some sneaky range detectives found out about Star Valley, so we’ve been working out of Brown’s Hole, where the borders of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah meet around the headwaters of the Green, like I told you before. Ain’t you been paying me no mind at all?”

  “I’ve been trying to,” Stringer said. “It’s not easy. In other words, such places as the Hole in the Wall or Robber’s Roost are wherever you boys feel they ought to be at the moment, right?”

  “Don’t talk dumb,” Kid Curry said. “Everybody knows Robber’s Roost is a mesa in southeast Utah. That’s where Butch Cassidy got his name. He started out riding with Big Mike Cassidy, who raises cows in Mexico these days. All us young gents devoted to free enterprise have to learn the ropes from older and wiser owlhoots. A boy just started out on his own is sure to get caught. Didn’t you know that?”

  Stringer smiled thinly. “I suspected as much when I decided to put myself through college after I got tired of the beef industry. The more I listen to you, the surer I am that I made the right choice. I don’t see how I could get your business straight in my head with an older mentor teaching me from textbooks on the subject.”

  Kid Curry shrugged. “Well, to tell the truth, we like to confuse outsiders about such matters as our real names and current addresses. Just call me Kid Curry in that story you’re fixing to write about me, and forget where we might be while you get it down right. I don’t know where in the hell we’d move to if the law found out where the Hole in the Wall is right now.”

  Stringer offered no suggestions. Someone announced the mulligan was as ready as it was likely to get, and Stringer lost track of Kid Curry in the general stampede. Stringer thought it wiser to stay put and let the gents with guns eat first. After a while he got a crack at the pot, filled a tin cup, and moved deeper into the mine to consume it. He found a slab of fallen rock just about right for sitting on. He got out his pocket knife to use as a spear for the bigger lumps. As he got the first chunk of not-bad stewed jerky in his mouth and proceeded to chew hell out of it, an angry voice snapped, “Hey, how come you got a weapon concealed on you, prisoner?”

  It was the one called Arkansas. Stringer wasn’t surprised. For who else would have followed him so far from the fire just to ask dumb questions?

  Stringer looked up, swallowed, and said, “I don’t know what you might call a weapon, amigo, but where I come from, this is a bitty jackknife. I’m sorry if it makes you nervous. Why don’t you go someplace else and let me worry about stabbing my fool self to death with it as I inhale this mulligan?”

  Arkansas smiled down at him like a buzzard who’d just spied a lamb lost on a salt flat. “Well, now,” he purred, “don’t we talk brave for a newspaper dude who likely has to squat to piss? How come you’re so brave, newspaper boy? Do you really think you could take a real man?”

  Stringer shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t see any around here. Where I come from, real men don’t rawhide unarmed gents when they’re packing a brace of double-actions.”

  “Are you saying mean things about the proud state of Arkansas, you Californee pansy?”

  “It’s California poppies we’re famous for,” Stringer said. “I can’t say I know your state well enough to insult or praise it. But if you’re trying to make me admire it, you’re doing a piss-poor job. Maybe you’d feel better if you went to jerk off somewhere else, Arkansas. You know I can’t fight you. So your war dance is just a waste of time.” Arkansas blinked in surprise. Then he scowled and roared, “I’ll show you a war dance, you smartass fancy Dan! I’ll show you how we stomp piss ants like you in Arkansas or anywhere’s else we finds them!”

  He might have. Stringer was tensed to roll out of the way, even though he doubted he could avoid bullets as well as boots. Then another voice called out, “Leave him alone, Arkansas.”

  They both turned to see it was Slim. The skinny consumptive had dried out some by now, but he still looked pale and shiversome as he moved closer down the mine shaft.

  Arkansas laughed. “What’s this dude to you, Slim? You don’t look healthy enough to fuck nobody this evening.”

  “You’r
e right,” Slim said. “I feel sick as hell. I’d feel even worse if Stringer hadn’t hauled me outten that creek back there. So I want you to leave him alone. I don’t mean to say that again.”

  Arkansas laughed, incredulous. “I don’t take orders from no walking skeleton, and it’s for me to say who I might or might not want to rawhide, see?”

  Slim nodded, and though his hand didn’t make any giveaway move near the tie-down holster down his right thigh, he sounded serious enough when he said, “All right. Fill your fist, if that’s your pleasure.”

  Arkansas gasped. “You can’t mean that, Slim,” he protested. “You and me are pards. We got no call to fight over a damned outsider!”

  “You’re wrong,” Slim said. “I got plenty of call to fight you, Arkansas. I don’t like you. I never have. You’re a blowhard and a bully. You’d have to grow up with my frail constitution to know how much I’ve always hated bullies. Since I’ve learned to use a gun, I’ve sort of got over being scared of bullies. But I still dislike ‘em considerable. So do you aim to draw or crawfish? I don’t give a shit either way.”

  Arkansas gulped. “Hell, I can’t fight you, Slim. Even if I could, can’t you see me and old Stringer was just funning?”

  Slim stared soberly down at Stringer. “It’s for you to say, Stringer. I told you I owed you. So do you want to say the two of you was just funning or do you want this silly son of a bitch dead?”

  “Let it go, Slim,” Stringer said. “I don’t mind an old boy saying he aims to stomp me, as long as he hasn’t done it yet.”

  Slim shrugged. “I want you on the far side of the fire now,” he told Arkansas. “If I catch you rawhiding this gent again, I’ll slap leather on you sure as hell.”

  Arkansas turned and walked away, making brave noises under his breath. Slim told Stringer to let him know if anyone started up with him again.

  “I’d say we’re even now,” Stringer said. “I don’t want you getting in trouble on my account.”

  “I’ve been in trouble for some time,” Slim replied. “The doc said my lungs might heal up in this thin mountain air. But it don’t seem to be working. I ain’t worried about no other kind of trouble. Arkansas ain’t as yellow as you might think. He’s seen me draw.”

  “I figured you had that sort of rep,” Stringer said. “But what do you reckon Kid Curry would do or say if you took to gunning members of his gang on my account?”

  Slim shrugged. “The Kid would know better than to do anything. He’s seen me draw too. As for saying anything about it, he knows I’m worth Arkansas and his mother to the gang, even if his mother screws good. We just brung Arkansas along to let him get some practice. Kid Curry knows who’s just noise and who he can count on in a pinch.”

  “Can he count on you in a pinch, Slim?”

  “Don’t try nothing funny, and we won’t have to study on it. I was on my way back here to warn you that we’ve been sort of wondering about you. Kid Curry says you’ve given your parole. That may be good enough for him. What I was coming back here to tell you was that me or someone else will surely shoot you if you try to slip past the fire afore sunrise.”

  “Why, Slim, I thought you and me were friends.”

  “I ain’t got no friends. I said I owed you, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to gun that other silly bastard.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Falling asleep in damp duds on solid rock wasn’t easy. So it seemed to Stringer he’d barely got there when someone nudged him awake. The fire had been allowed to go out. But there was just enough daylight coming down the shaft from the adit for him to make out the dim figure hunkered over him. He had to wait until it spoke some more to figure it was Kid Curry. The owlhoot said, “Slim seems in a bad way. Do you know anything about the doctor business, seeing as you’re so educated?”

  Stringer sat up and rubbed at his sleep-gummed eyes. “They failed to tell us much about TB in English Lit. But from what I’ve read on the subject since Dr. Koch discovered the bug a few years ago, a night in a damp mine after a frolic in a mountain stream would not be the treatment I’d prescribe.”

  Kid Curry nodded. “Rain’s stopped and the sun’s up. We’ll spread a blanket on the grass and let Slim bake a spell. His poor spells seem to come and go. He’ll likely feel better in a while. Meanwhile he’s too sick to ride on, so I’m leaving you and some of the other boys here with Slim as the rest of us ride on.”

  Stringer didn’t ask why. It would have been stupid to protest a lack of medical skills while Kid Curry was dealing him such a better hand. He got stiffly to his feet and followed Curry out of the mine. The sun was still low but it still hurt his eyes at first. As they adjusted to the morning glare, he saw that while all the ponies were tethered to abandoned machinery just outside, the. human members of the gang had assembled on the grassy sunlit slope to the north. As the two of them crossed the sterile mud that paved the floor of the small secluded valley, Stringer saw that, sure enough, old Slim was spread out on one blanket, with another blanket spread over him. Seeing Slim asleep or unconscious, Stringer didn’t ask the lunger how he felt that morning.

  The small fire someone had kindled where the mud met the grass had gone out, or been put out. As Stringer and Kid Curry joined the group, a short, shy, or sullen rider they called Pecos handed Stringer a tomato can filled with black coffee. It was half cold and bitter as bile. But it seemed just the thing for sweeping cobwebs from a man’s skull. Stringer thanked Pecos, who turned away without answering and moved up the slope a ways. There, he hunkered down in the damp grass and scowled at the world from under the brim of his big black hat.

  Kid Curry indicated two other gents. “I want you to stay here with Banger, Will, and Pecos,” he said, “till Slim dies or gets better. Pecos knows the trail, and you ought to be able to catch up with us. I don’t think the law knows about this place. But since they can’t be more than a day or so ahind us, I wouldn’t give Slim more than one day in the sun if I was you. If he ain’t better by sundown, another night in that mine will kill him for sure. So use your own judgment.”

  Stringer didn’t argue. But as Kid Curry turned away, the one called Banger rose to follow him back down to the horses. Though Stringer couldn’t make out their words, they seemed to be having a heated discussion. Kid Curry ended it by turning to call out, “Vamanos, muchachos. There’ll be time to rest up with strong liquor and weak-willed women where the rest of us are going.”

  The ones who hadn’t been told to stay rose, laughing or moaning, in accordance with how much sleep they’d had, and in a little while they’d all mounted up and ridden up the valley out of sight.

  Banger came back from where the remaining ponies still stood sort of lonesome and threw himself down in the grass near Slim. “I don’t like this. We’d agreed not to split up this time.”

  His sidekick, Will, sitting cross-legged on the far side of Slim’s blanket, nodded. “That’s how they caught up with the Tall Texan, got Deaf Charlie kilt, and scared Butch so bad we ain’t seen him since. Nothing like that would have happened if they’d all stuck together after stopping old Engine Number Three.”

  Stringer chose a position between Slim’s blanket and the shy or sullen Pecos. He reached for his makings and found that while they were still a mite damp, they’d dried enough to risk building a soggy smoke. As he did so, he asked Pecos what all of them were talking about. Quiet kids wearing two guns at a time made him uneasy. It didn’t help when Pecos didn’t answer.

  The one called Banger explained, “It was the last big job we pulled, year before last, I think. Kid Curry set it up, so he was in charge. The kid had heard about a safe full of cash aboard the Great Northern Express pulled by old Engine Number Three. So when they stopped for water at Malta, Montana, we clumb aboard betwixt the cars, waited till we was out of town—where the Tall Texan’s sweetheart, Laura Bullion, was holding the horses—and stopped the train slick as a whistle. Me and Butch blowed the safe right, for a change. Butch is inclined to use too
much nitro on his own. Anyways, we got close to fifty thousand in cash and cashier’s checks without hurting a hair on anyone’s head.”

  Will chimed in, “They split up. That’s when things went to hell in a hack. The Tall Texan and Laura got picked up in Saint Lou, trying to cash one of them checks with the wrong signature. Tex was always better at shooting than forgery. Meanwhile Kid Curry, seeing he was in Montana anyway, took a solo detour to the Winters spread to gun old Jim Winters for personal reasons. Jim was sort of popular in them parts, so Kid Curry lit out for his hometown in Missouri.”

  “It didn’t work,” Banger said. “Deaf Charlie Hanks tried to cash another stolen check in Tennessee and got kilt in the resultant confusion. That alerted the Pinkertons to look east for at least some of the gang, and hell, they knew where Kid Curry hailed from.”

  Will nodded. “He made out better than old Deaf Charlie, though. Killed two Missouri lawmen and came back out here to get things organized again.” He shot a thoughtful look at Banger and added, “Some organization. After all that planning, we wasn’t able to open the safe on that last train, and my share of the passenger money comes to about what I could make herding cows a month, a lot less nervous.”

  Stringer got his smoke going, with some difficulty, and since he didn’t want them fighting among themselves until he’d had time to plan what he might do, he soothed, “Well, at least nobody got hurt, and thanks to that rain last night, I don’t see how the law can trail you all the way back to the Hole in the Wall.”

  The two outlaws facing him looked blank. “Who told you we was headed up to them old haunts?” Banger asked.

  Stringer shrugged. “Kid Curry, of course,” he answered truthfully enough. “Didn’t he tell you about Brown’s Hole, up in the headwaters of the Green?”

  Nobody answered for a moment. Then Banger said, “That tears it. I might have known when Butch and Sundance didn’t show up for this job that they figured Curry’d gone loco, total!”