by Lou Cameron
“I sure did,” Stringer replied. “Who told you boys about it?”
“Uncle Will Slade,” Sam Bean said. “More than one of Miss Belle Rogers’s hands made it back alive, and when one of ‘em said he recognized an ambusher he rid over as a Double W rider, the Rangers rounded the whole bunch up.”
“Not all of ‘em,” Roy, Junior said. “Just the eight as confessed. They was acting under orders from Bronco North. Most of the crew didn’t know Bronco had been stealing stock from his own spread as well as others. The Rangers are still searching for Bronco, along with Sunny Jim. They sure were sneaky sons of bitches.”
Stringer nodded soberly. “That’s no lie. Where would Ranger Slade be right now?”
“Up to our place, with Papacito,” young Sam said. “There’s other Rangers all about. Papacito and Uncle Will are both sort of confounded by all the funny stuff that’s been going on.”
Stringer nodded. “As well they should be. I’m glad to hear His Honor is feeling up to investigating. I was sort of worried about him and that galloping pneumonia. By the way, what did you boys find out about your dad’s situation at the county seat?”
“The lawyer we looked up said we was worried over nothing,” Roy, Junior said. “He recalled both our folk, and said we could prove we was born in Texas if we had to.”
“We ain’t bastards, after all,” Sam added, with a self-satisfied smile. “They told us Papacito married our mamacita right and proper. Her name was Virginia Chavez and she was already half Anglo, from a good family over New Mexico way.”
Stringer nodded. “That’d make her a U.S. citizen. So you kids are Americano on both sides, after all. Did they say just how your poor mother passed away, Sam?”
Sam didn’t answer. Roy, Junior sighed. “She never died having Zulema, like some say. She run off. She married our dad, had us four kids, and then just run off with a younger gent. Nobody knows where. I reckon that’s why Dad don’t never talk about her.”
Stringer suspected such a hurt to a proud older man might account for a fantasy about a distant unattainable true love as well. But he just said, “I’d best get on up to the Jersey Lily, now, boys. First I have to see if I got any answers to some wires I sent one time.”
He rode along the tracks to the shack near the water tower. The same old-timer was lounging in the doorway. When he spotted Stringer he got to his feet. “You sure picked a swell time to show up at last, MacKail. I got me a freight train due any minute. But here, I got some answers to them wires you had me patch through. Now get out of my way if you don’t want that pinto spooked and wet.”
Stringer reached down to take the bundle of hand-lettered yellow forms with a nod of thanks. He scanned them as he slowly walked his pony on up to the Jersey Lily. The sarcastic remarks of his boss, Sam Barca, didn’t surprise him much. The wire from the New York cable service might have, if it didn’t confirm some suspicions he’d already had.
As he approached the Jersey Lily, he saw a buggy as well as enough horses for a posse tethered out front. If Judge Bean was presiding over anything calling for such a crowd, he was doing so inside. As Stringer dismounted, Will Slade stepped out on the porch to regard him with some interest.
“Ain’t that Bronco North’s pinto pony?” the old Ranger asked.
Stringer tethered the pinto. “If it is, Belle must have Sunny Jim’s. The bastards shot the roan and palomino we were riding. What’s going on inside?”
“Something interesting as hell, if you say pretty little Belle is still alive,” Will Slade said. “Where’s she at?”
Stringer pointed south with his thumb. “Having tea with a Mex tia she knows. I thought it best to scout ahead and see how safe things are for her. Bronco and Sunny Jim tried to kill her down Mexico way.”
The wily old Ranger shot a thoughtful look at the pinto Stringer had ridden in on. “Is it safe to assume them murdersome rascals won’t be coming back from Mexico?”
“I cannot tell a lie,” Stringer said. “But just how serious do you Rangers take death by misadventure in other countries?”
Will Slade smiled thinly. “We do worry about such matters taking place in Texas. What happens in Mexico ain’t none of our business, unless we like the victim personal. I hope you kilt the bastards entire, son?”
Stringer nodded. “Had to.”
The old Ranger said that was good enough for him and Texas.
Then Stringer mounted the steps to see what was going on inside. He saw little Zulema in the doorway, and asked her if she’d run down to fetch Miss Belle if he gave her a nickel. She said she’d be proud to do it for free, since she was mighty tired of the grown-up talk inside.
Stringer followed the Ranger in. Judge Bean was holding court in the same frock coat over a fresher night shirt, seated at the card table, facing the door. Four others, three men and a woman who hourglassed nicely from the rear, were lined up facing Bean with their backs to Stringer. But that didn’t prevent him from removing his Rough Rider hat politely. “Morning, Miss Pamela,” he said. “I was wondering how come you fibbed so much.”
Pam Kinnerton, if that was her name, turned to face him with a startled gasp. The man at her side, a good-looking slicker with a weak chin, asked her, “Do you know this cowboy, dear?”
Pam gulped. “Mr. MacKail assisted me when I was here a few days earlier, Cedric. There was a ruffian on the train who was bothering me.”
Behind them Judge Bean banged on the table with a six-gun butt. “Order in this here court, God damn it,” he snapped. “What are you doing here alive, Stringer? Wasn’t you and poor little Belle Rogers massacred in Mexico a good three days ago?”
“I’m sure it looked that way,” Stringer replied, “even to the ones on our side. I take it this hearing is in connection with Belle’s estate, Your Honor?”
“It was, until just now,” Bean said. “This here Cedric gent is that disticated kin of Belle’s I told you about afore. Cedric Penderson. The other two gents are his infernal lawyers. The lady you just called Pamela is his wife, Miss…”
“Why Mary-Ann!” called Belle Rogers from the doorway as Zulema led her in. “What are you doing back here after all these years?”
“Order in the court,” Judge Bean said. “Howdy, Belle. We was just now discussing what Mary-Ann Penderson née Austin and her husband, your damn cousin, was doing in these parts. First of all, would someone help me get all these damn names straight?”
“Her name ain’t Mary-Ann, Papacito,” little Zulema Bean piped up. “When she was here before, Mr. Stringer, here, called her Pam, just like he said.”
From the shadows near the beer cooler Laura Bean called out, “That’s true, Papacito. You met her too. Only you had her mixed up with Miss Lillie Langtry, I fear.”
Old Bean cocked an eyebrow. “Hell, she ain’t that beautiful, no offense, Mary-Ann. I didn’t recognize you all gussied up in them city duds. But it’s coming back to me now. How come you come back, the first time, saying you was another old gal entire?”
“I think I can explain, Your Honor,” Stringer said.
Bean leaned back wearily. “I wish you would.”
“Great minds must run in the same channels,” Stringer said. “I just now scouted ahead before sending for Miss Belle. This other lady came out from L.A. ahead of her husband a few days ago. She and that British reporter gal I told you about before are one and the same.”
Pam/Mary-Ann didn’t answer. Stringer was staring at her husband to see how he took it. Old Cedric would have made a good poker player. “Why in thunder would anyone want to do a fool thing like that?” Judge Bean demanded.
“I’m still working on that,” Stringer said. “I just now got confirmation no such reporter has ever worked for the Manchester Guardian she was using as her cover tale. Kinnerton’s not far from Penderson when a lady needs a new handle in a hurry. Her finishing-school accent helped her sound sort of British. But the more I thought about the odd way she behaved, the harder it was for me to buy a Briti
sh paper sending a reporter to Texas from the west coast. A New York cable service that keeps track of such matters just confirmed my suspicions that far. So let’s get on to the good stuff.”
One of their lawyers snapped, “See here, I’ll not allow our clients, Mr. and Mrs. Penderson, to be badgered like this.”
Judge Bean banged on the table. “Do you know what in seven kinds of hell is going on here?” he demanded. “I know I don’t, and if you don’t, shut up or I’ll jail you for contempt of this here court!” He added, “We don’t have a proper jail. But I’m sure Will Slade will be proud to handcuff you to a tree for a spell. How about that, Will?”
“Anything you say, Judge,” Slade replied.
“This court is still hearing evidence off Stringer MacKail,” Bean said. “Go on, witness.”
The lawyer on the other side of the would-be claim jumpers protested, “This is highly irregular. This man has yet to be so much as sworn as a witness, and—”
“Take that son of a bitch out and chain him to a tree,” the old J.P. cut in.
Then Will Slade said, “I’m sure he’ll shut up, Judge.”
“Well, he’d better,” Bean replied. “I don’t need to swear folk I know as well as Stringer. Keep talking, son.”
“There’s not much to explain, Your Honor,” Stringer said. “As I put it together, old Cedric, here, came out here years ago to diddle his kinswoman, Miss Belle, out of her land and even more valuable water rights. When that didn’t work, thanks to you, he courted and eloped with Miss Mary-Ann Austin, here. That gave him a less valuable spread, but at least some income to work with as an absentee owner. I take it the two of them have since been involved in the real estate boom out around L.A. I also take it old Cedric hasn’t done as well as he felt he ought to, selling orange groves and such. There’s a mess of other slickers in the same line, and no doubt he’s always felt sort of broody about not getting his share of a long-lost grandfather’s estate.”
“I told him he couldn’t have it, years ago,” Judge Bean said. “Get to the damn point, son.”
“As absentee owner of the Double W,” Stringer said, “it must not have taken anyone with a crooked streak long to discover Bronco North was ambitious as well as dumb and mean. Miss Belle, here, was widowed, with no heirs of her own, after the first grab at her holdings petered out. So the plan, in sum, was for Bronco and his boys to murder Belle, making these two the owners of both the Double W, the B Bar Lazy Six, and the best water for miles. To avoid discussing her demise with the Rangers, or even you, Your Honor, Bronco staged some fake cattle raids, making the rest of you think Mex cow thieves were doing it. Sooner or later Miss Belle was bound to do what she just did, so she could wind up dead down Mexico way, with nobody suspecting her grief-struck as well as long-lost kin.”
As old Bean stared thoughtfully up at the couple from L.A., Cedric Penderson said, “That’s preposterous. I was nowhere near Langtry when Cousin Belle was attacked!”
His wife turned to Stringer. “I swear I had nothing to do with it, no matter what you think of me, Stuart!”
Stringer nodded wistfully. “That’s no doubt why you acted so suspicious. It was dumb to pussyfoot about here in Langtry, pretending to be someone else. It must have struck you as dumb, too, in time. That’s how come you lit out, sudden, to go home and tell Cedric, here, you saw no point to the mission he sent you on.”
“For heavens sake, it wasn’t what you could call a mission,” she protested. “You know very well where I was and who I spoke to the short time I was here. I defy you to prove I had anything to do with that Bronco person. I never knew him. He came to work for us long after I’d left the Double W for good.”
“I know,” Stringer said. “Cedric, here, just sent you to look into rumors of mysterious goings on, right?”
She nodded. “Exactly. We heard, out on the coast, that trouble was brewing here, and since we did own property in these parts and nobody could tell us just what seemed about to happen—”
“You were suckered,” Stringer cut in, pointing at her weak-chinned husband. “He knew full well what was going on. He started the mysterious talk, along with the mysterious cattle raiding. He sent you, knowing the country girl he’s always taken you for, no offense, wasn’t going to uncover anything even if she managed to get here.”
Cedric Penderson made a sudden bolt for the door. He was able to avoid Stringer’s grab for him. Then old Will Slade pistol-whipped him across the nape of the neck and laid him low.
There was a stunned moment of silence. Then Pam/ Mary-Ann fell to her knees beside the unconscious man to hold his now hatless head. “Oh, you brutes!” she sobbed. “I told him we should never come back here to this disgusting one-horse town.”
Will Slade asked Stringer, laconically, “How come I done that? Anyone could see he was fixing to bolt. I still don’t see why.”
“I can tell you, Will,” old Roy Bean said. “When Stringer met the lady on the train from L.A., another gent was trying to kill her. Stringer tossed him off the train instead. The sneaky son of a bitch you just put on the floor put her on said train with a flim-flam story as made no sense. He wasn’t sending her here to do nothing. He wanted her found dead alongside the tracks, with him holding all the alibi cards. Lord knows that’s one hell of a way to treat such a good-looking Texas gal. But her dead, and then Belle dead, guess who’d have wound up owning the combined properties of a wife and distant kinswoman?”
Both lawyers were staring down at their client in utter horror now. His wife looked more disgusted as she let his head fall to the floor with a dull thunk and rose to her feet, white-lipped and eyes blazing. Then she kicked him until Will Slade moved in to make her stop. “Save some for the hangman, Miss Mary-Ann,” he said.
Judge Bean brightened. “By God, that’s right. They did gun some of Belle’s riders, at least, working for the sneaky rascal. This court hereby sentences the sneaky rascal to hang by the neck until dead, dead, dead, and if God has mercy on his soul, he ain’t no God of mine!”
“The state of Texas is going to have to try him, Judge,” the old Ranger pointed out gently. “But don’t you worry. Texas is sure to hang him high, no matter how many slick lawyers he has.”
The two frozen-faced lawyers the Pendersons had brought before a local civil hearing came untucked at that. But only one announced, in a disgusted tone, “He won’t have our firm defending him!”
“Good,” Judge Bean said. “Maybe I won’t have to chain you dudes to a tree after all.”
Having done his duty for the day, Judge Roy Bean went back to bed with his jug. By the time the Rangers had dragged the chained and semiconscious Cedric Penderson out of their mule-drawn Black Maria and tossed him in with some less disgusting criminals they were transporting to the nearest state court, the two gals he’d tried to have killed had become such chums that Stringer felt a mite left out. Belle invited her childhood neighbor out to her place as a guest while they sorted out the mess Pam/Mary-Ann’s treacherous husband had made of both their spreads, seeing they had so much in common.
Stringer hoped they wouldn’t get around to him, as he saw them off with his hat tipped polite and proper to them both. He knew they likely would. They seemed to be in that “all men are beasts” frame of mind as they lit out.
He rejoined the men gathered around the Black Maria in time to hear Will Slade assuring the two lawyers that they were free to head back to the west coast. “Your former client is the sort of yellow bird that sings, once it’s caged,” the old Ranger explained. “We got us a state prosecutor who knows how to trick every detail outten a culprit in the shade of the old gallows tree without actually promising ‘em nothing, in writing, at least.”
Slade saw Stringer and nodded. “We’d like a written deposition from you, when you get the time. Put everything but that shootout in Mexico on paper, have Judge Bean or some other notary stamp it for you, and mail it to us.”
Slade took one of his cards from a vest pocket and hand
ed it to Stringer. “Them two ladies may have to bear witness if the rascal don’t confess entire. I just now told ‘em, and they both said they’d be proud to tell both judge and jury just what they thought of such a scumbucket. State residents swing more weight with a Texas jury, anyways.”
Stringer nodded and glanced casually at Penderson and the other prisoners through the wire-mesh and padlocked doors of the Black Maria. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of yet another familiar face, and asked Slade how come they seemed to be taking One Thumb Brown along as well.
“Smuggling,” the Ranger said. “I told Roy Bean we couldn’t run the cuss in just for setting up a rival drinking establishment. But I had my boys check him out, if only to make old Roy stop cussing, and guess where he was getting all that pulque, without no import license?”
Stringer chuckled. “I can see how having a hotel guest on friendly terms with old Bean might have worried him. I take it Sunny Jim was only doing Brown a favor on his own?”
“If there was any closer connection betwixt Brown and Penderson,” Slade said, “we’ll get it out of ‘em soon enough. Like I just said, us Rangers only have to arrest the bastards. The courthouse gang worries about the picksome details. It’s been nice talking to you gents. See that we get that deposition within the week, Stringer.”
But as he turned to go, Stringer said, “Hold on. If Brown’s not in the hotel business anymore, who might be running his old hotel?”
“Judge Bean says he might take it over,” Slade said, “once he’s over that cough he can’t seem to shake. Meanwhile, I hear the head chambermaid, some Mex gal, is riding herd on the place as a sort of public duty.”
Stringer nodded. “I suspect I know the lady you mean. I got a train to catch in any case.”
Slade walked over to where he’d tethered his pony, mounted up, and called out to the crew of the Black Maria. “Vamanos, I want these jailbirds put away by suppertime, hear?”
As the Rangers got moving, one of the lawyers turned to Stringer to ask about the hotel he’d just mentioned. “We don’t even have a place to sit, now that Mrs. Penderson has driven off in that carriage, and the next westbound express doesn’t get here until late afternoon today.”
