Stringer and the Hanging Judge

by Lou Cameron

  “Jesus H. Christ!” gasped Stringer, leaping to his feet. “I need the loan of a pony, saddle, and saddle gun, Your Honor! For anyone capable of sending expensive lawyers after such a valuable prize, could surely afford a hired gun or more!”

  “You got ‘em,” Roy Bean said. ‘Tell Laura to fix you up with all you might need. You’re still going to have to ride like hell if you expect to catch up with that stubborn Belle by sundown, son.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Laura Bean had been right about the frisky roan barb she’d helped Stringer saddle, and her father had been all too right about it being late in the day to chase Belle Rogers and her hands across the desert. The trail they’d left across the crusty alkali desert pavement kept getting harder to follow as the sun kept shining in his eyes at an ever-increasing angle. The only edge he had on Belle’s party was that their hoof prints read they’d been searching for cow sign as they rode at a thoughtful lope. He was able to push his barb faster, loping up rises and running his mount downslope. But as the western sky flamed ruby red and the sun winked adios to him ahead, he failed to make out any movement along the lacy black horizon of the cactus-haunted open range. He pressed on, reading sign as best he could by the ever-fading light. Then, just as he figured he’d lost them, his pony spooked at a dark blur ahead. Stringer calmed it, dismounted by a clump of prickly pear, and tethered it to move in afoot for a look-see.

  It was a dead cow. There was just enough sky glow left to make out its brand. B Bar Lazy Six. Hoofprints circled all about told how Belle and her riders had reacted upon coming across a head of her missing stock in such dismal shape.

  He circled on foot, staring down until, sure enough, he saw where Belle and her hands had cut the north-south trail of cow tracks. He wasn’t surprised to see she and her boys had followed the other trail south instead of north. He went back to his own pony and mounted up. “They’re chasing cows to Mexico, sure enough,” he said aloud to his horse. “Just bear with me until moonrise, pard. I don’t see how we can miss a whole river in this light, tricky as it is.”

  They didn’t get entirely lost, trending south. They just lost track of the trail for a spell. Then, as the full moon rose at last to shed some light on the subject, Stringer spotted water glittering in the moonlight dead ahead and patted his pony. “I figured the Rio Grande had to be around here someplace.”

  He reined in before they reached the tangle of brush and taller trees along the banks and rode upstream, staring down. At last his pony nickered nervously again. “I see it,” he muttered. “Sure seems an odd place for another cow to drop from thirst. But I reckon they thought a posted sign might be too obvious.” He swung his mount southwest to ford the Rio Grande, running a mite high but still only stirrup deep this late in the spring. “Welcome to Chihuahua,” he muttered in a disgusted tone, “next ambush just ahead, you damn-fool gal.”

  With the moon rising behind him, Stringer savvied at once what seemed to be spooking his pony again, for fireflies hardly ever flew in pairs like that. He patted his pony’s neck. “Coyotes. They’re staring at us with as much concern because the two of us are too big a boo for coyotes to mess with. Let’s see what they’ve found over yonder.”

  The roan didn’t like it much. But as Stringer had expected, the glowing coyote eyes retreated as Stringer rode toward them. When he spotted a third cow stretched out in the moonlight, he circled wide to spare his pony’s feelings. He picked up the trail left by both the cow thieves and the pursuing Belle Rogers. Then he hauled out the Winchester .44-40 Laura Bean had lent him, and levered a round in its chamber, muttering, “Jesus, some folk sure sucker easy. Let’s move it, pard. There’s open season on both gringo genders, south of that water we just crossed. You’d think a gal raised in these parts would know that.”

  He rode on as the moon rose higher, exposing pear flats all about as he followed the clear trail between them. Stringer didn’t like the look of those cactus jungles on either side. He knew that next to getting lost in, there was nothing that had a pear flat beat as a hideout. Nobody with the brains of a gnat would ride blind into a twisty maze of twelve-foot cactus, if they expected to meet anyone in there or not.

  But the cow thieves hadn’t taken advantage of the handy cover, as their trail lead ever deeper into Chihuahua. Maybe they really had some destination in the higher country to the southwest. They sure hadn’t worried about covering their trail.

  Stringer came to a wide-open playa, with sign leading off across the moonlit crust string-straight. He spurred his pony to a flat run to make up the time Belle and her party had to be out ahead of him. So he was going lickety-split toward the cactus and chaparral ahead when a shot rang out and a female voice called out in a no-nonsense tone. “Jalto! Quien es?”

  Stringer slid his pony to a dusty halt, as demanded. “Hold your damned fire, Miss Belle,” he called back. “It’s Stringer MacKail, and didn’t anyone ever warn you about discharging firearms this far south of the infernal border?”

  “Advance and be recognized,” she called back. “We’re right on the trail of my missing cows, and I don’t have time to tarry.”

  He rode in, the Winchester held politely across his thighs as he made out Belle and her riders gathered around yet another damned dead cow. As they recognized him and relaxed, Stringer said, “Judge Bean wants you to come home now, Miss Belle. You and these boys have been suckered.”

  “The hell you say,” she replied. “They’ve been driving my poor stock hard enough to drop more than one. But no cow born can out-distance horses, so—”

  “So I just said you’ve been suckered,” Stringer cut in. “I know a dead cow when I see one too. Your stock looks too well-fed and watered to keep leaving such a handy paper chase. But mayhaps they were worried about you losing their trail after dark, despite their efforts to stay on open alkali crust all the way.”

  She asked what he was talking about, adding, “Of course we’ve managed to trail my beef. That’s what me and the boys set out to do.”

  “You mean that’s what some slickers want you to keep doing till you ride into their ambush, outside the jurisdiction of Judge Bean or the Texas Rangers. Can’t you see it yet? Old Roy Bean just told me you have a disputed claim to the water rights your grandfather left you.”

  “Pooh,” she said, “that was settled years ago.”

  “You mean it was settled that nobody can lay claim to those valuable springs your grandfather found as long as you’re around to defend your rights to them. You’re an only child, as well as a childless widow. Add it up.”

  She did and murmured, pensively, “I do have some distant kin, back east. But they haven’t been pestering me of late.”

  “Judge Bean and their own lawyers told them it was a waste of time and money to dispute you in court, Miss Belle. But gaze about and tell me if this looks like a court of law to you right now.”

  She didn’t answer. “By Jimmies,” one of her riders said, “the man could be right, boss-lady. I told you, starting out, that fifty head wouldn’t be worth it, did we run into Rurales or bandits down this way.”

  There was a murmur of agreement from among her other hands. She rose on the one stirrup of her sidesaddle to stare thoughtfully off to the unknown south for a time before she sank back down. “Well, my water’s worth more than any fifty cows, even if there was still fifty left,” she admitted grudgingly. “But who could be treating me and my cows so sneaky, Stringer?”

  “I can’t say. I’m just guessing when I say it’s possible they had old Roy Bean beat up and left for dead lest he recall some names. I doubt even he could keep distant kin from claiming your spread and springs, with you dead down here in Chihuahua, bushwacked by persons unknown or at least not named by your heirs.”

  The same sensible hand who’d spoken up before said, “We’d best get you home, Miss Belle. Even if he’s wrong about your kith and kin, he’s got a mighty good point about Mexico!”

  “All right,” she sighed. “It makes more
sense to guard what’s mine back home, and let the Rangers worry about petty cow thieves or whatever.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief as she swung her palomino’s head north and led off with a gentle lick of her quirt. Stringer fell in at her left. “I’m pleased to see you’re not as stubborn as Roy Bean said you might be, Miss Belle.”

  “Uncle Roy would have me in a pinafore and pigtails, did I pay him any heed,” she replied with a weary laugh. “He can’t get it through his own mule head that I’m a woman grown. He still tries to treat me like the bitty granddaughter of an old sidekick. Mayhaps it makes him feel older, admitting how much time’s run under the bridge since I needed protecting.”

  Stringer wasn’t up to arguing with a lady, packing her own gun, that they could all use some protecting this far south of the Rio Grande. Lord willing, if nobody had heard that shot she’d fired back there, they’d be back on the safer side well before sunrise. They were heading home slower than they’d ridden this deep into Chihuahua, but it wasn’t for him to set the pace. So he didn’t try. As long as it stayed dark, it made more sense to travel quiet, anyway.

  Or so he thought. They’d recrossed the playa and were back on the trail through the pear flats when all hell busted loose.

  A rider behind Stringer shouted, “Ambush!” just as he was hit by one of the shots coming at them from every damned direction at once. “Wrong way!” Stringer shouted as Belle’s palomino started to bolt straight at the flashing guns ahead. Then, as he overtook her, Belle’s light-colored pony, drawing more fire than his roan, staggered and went ass-over-teakettle in a cloud of dust. Belle didn’t go down with it because Stringer hauled her off her sidesaddle just in time with his free arm. It cost him the Winchester, and she lost her hat. Then he’d swung her up behind him, pillion, and they were running broadside to what seemed a whole damned army throwing lead their way. It made them a harder target than if they’d been riding directly toward or away from the guns, of course. But the roan was still hit, more than once, before they made it to cover.

  “Hang on, we’re spilling!” Stringer yelled, and let go the reins to turn and grab Belle with both arms as the roan fell. They landed with him on the bottom as they hit, then her on the bottom as they finished rolling. He leaped to his feet, his left hand around her wrist and his right hand gripping his six-gun. “Come on,” he grunted.

  “This is no time to laze about in the God damned open!” She didn’t argue until they’d bulled their way through enough cactus to tear hell out of their duds and scratch their hides as well. “Where on earth are you dragging me, damn it?” she panted.

  “Keep your voice down,” he said. “We’re in a mess of cactus, of course. Did you like it better back there in the open?”

  “Not hardly,” she answered. “But slow down. It’s more fun to let them guess than to leave ‘em a clear trail of busted-up pads.”

  He stopped, panting for breath as he tried to get his bearings. He saw they were in a clear patch, surrounded by tall pear on all sides. “I think we can make her this way without getting punctured to death,” he said. “I doubt anyone can trail us over such shadowy sand, this side of sunrise.”

  She asked what happened after sunrise, and he said, “We’ll worry about that when it comes. We still have the better part of the night to work with. The shooting’s already died away back there. If enough of your boys to matter got away, they might chase after them instead of us, see?”

  She gulped and tried not to sob. “I know they got old Slim and Windy Bill. Lord knows if anyone else got hit back there. Who do you reckon we run into, Stringer?”

  “Hard to say,” he said. “Either bandits or Rurales could have been drawn by that shot you fired a while back. On the other hand, someone could have been watching you all the time and circled to cut us off when they saw you were turning back. The who isn’t half as important right now as getting away from them alive is.”

  He found another natural lane through the pear jungle and led her down it a twisty way until it opened up into a modest natural clearing and just ended there. “Well, we’re boxed in a blind alley,” he said. “But we’ve got two guns between us and, with luck, nobody knows we’re here. Our best bet is to hunker down and fort up. Unless you can come up with something better.”

  Belle sank to the soft sand. “I’d say the next move is up to them. We’ve lost our canteens and… right, we can’t die of thirst surrounded by cactus pads. I can think of worse places on this desert to be stuck. I wish it was a mite warmer, though. It’s already chilly, and it’ll surely get colder before sunrise.”

  He flopped down beside her. “Don’t worry. Once the sun comes up, it’ll be hot as hell in here.”

  She laughed bitterly. “You mean, if we live that long, don’t you?”

  Then she gasped and rolled against him, burying her face in his chest as they both heard another fusillade of gunfire in the distance. He put a comforting arm around her, and as the last shots faded away, said, “Hang tough, honey. I made ‘em at least a mile away. That means at least some of your hands busted clear. Or they did until just now, at least.”

  “Hold me tighter,” she said. “My hide’s all goosebumped and my innards are all butterflied. I can’t tell if I’m getting scared or horny. It’s been a spell since I’ve felt either.”

  He kissed her. She kissed back, then pulled away and chided, “Hold on, now. It’s just as likely I’m scared. I surely have more reason to be scared than horny. For even if my boys get away, I can’t see ‘em coming back for us without an army, and I doubt the state of Texas would go to war with Mexico again over just the two of us.”

  “Any survivors are more likely to report us dead,” he said. “So I fear it’s up to us to rescue our own hides. That may not be easy, but—”

  “Oh, Lord!” she cut in. “We’re both afoot, miles south of the border, with every man’s hand against us, and you say we got to make it on our own?”

  He patted her shoulder. “I just said it might not be easy,” he replied.

  By the time the moon was directly overhead, the two of them had told each other the story of their lives. Then, despite the chill in the late night desert air, they got to sweat bullets while they waited for the treacherous moonbeams to start slanting the other way instead of straight down at the betraying footprints they’d left in the sand between the cactus walls of their maze. At last inky shadows began to fall across the sand again. “Bueno,” Stringer said. “If anyone meant to search through here before morning they’d have done it by now.”

  She shuddered against him. “How do we know they won’t move in on us at dawn?”

  “Dawn won’t come for a good five or six hours,” he said soothingly.

  “Bullshit,” she protested. “I figure four, since it’s after midnight.”

  “Either way,” he said, “you’d best try to catch some shut-eye. I’ll keep watch as you nap a spell. Even as little as an hour’s sleep can do wonders for your legs if you have to run a mite.”

  She sighed. “I know. I’ve worked many a roundup on occasionsome catnaps. But I’m too wound up to sleep right now.”

  “Try,” he insisted. “It may be the only chance you get between here and the border. We’re as safe in this hidey-hole as Mexico ever gets, and I’ll be watching over you.”

  She said that sure was nice of him and comforting to her. But after she’d snuggled quietly against him for a time, she sighed and said, “It’s no use. You never should have kissed me or called me honey.”

  He chuckled fondly. “Relax. I won’t trifle with you in your sleep, honey.”

  “There you go again,” she said. “I ain’t worried about you taking advantage of me in my sleep. I’d likely shock you outten your boots if I had the gall to tell you what’s been going through my dumb head.”

  “Try me,” he said. “I don’t shock easy.”

  So, after a long hesitation, Belle began to toy absently with the collar of his loose jacket as she softly murm
ured, ‘I can usually manage to fall off after a hard day, sleeping by myself. But I was married-up for a while, married happy, and it just don’t feel natural to go direct to sleep in the arms of a good-looking man. It might not bother me as much if you was old and ugly, or if I knew for sure this wasn’t the last night on this earth I’d get to spend with any sort of man.”

  He said the same thoughts had occurred to him, rolled her on her back, and kissed her some more until they were both breathing funny and his free hand had somehow found its way up under her voluminous whipcord skirts. She stiffened and moaned, “No, wait,” as his questing fingers discovered she was wearing nothing under the long skirts. Then, as he began to pet her, she tried to cross her thighs, twisted her lips from his, and sobbed, “Lord have mercy, I was only speculating, damn it! You’re taking unfair advantage of a poor, helpless, horny widow woman!” But then, as he stopped, she asked, “Are you trying to tease me, you cruel thing?” So, to prove he wasn’t trying to be cruel, he had to do it to her right.

  It wasn’t easy, even once they got their gun belts and some duds out of the way. But they managed, and once he’d entered her, she marveled, “Oh, Lord, I’ve never done it all dressed up like this before. It makes me feel even more naked betwixt the legs, and you feel so naked where it counts too!”

  But after they’d gone crazy on the firm sand a while and he’d brought her to climax twice, Belle sighed and said, “That was lovely. But all things considered, I think it would have been even nicer with our duds off, pard. What do you think?”

  ‘I think you’re right,” he said. “But this is hardly the time or place. I’d sure hate to get caught with my pants down, literally, so I’d best haul ‘em back up and put my gun back on. Do you reckon you could fall asleep now?”