Stringer on the Assassins' Trail

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer had a pretty good idea about who’d killed the hired killer, but old Jack London no doubt had enough to worry about, if he didn’t get to a good dentist soon. “The shot that put Saunders on the ground came from behind me,” he said, truthfully enough, “just as Saunders was fixing to throw another round my way. So whoever it was done me, and no doubt others, a considerable favor by ending the career of such a murderous bastard. I think it’s more important to figure out why they sent him to kill me. It had something to do with the president’s train stopping here this afternoon. They were afraid I meant to tell old T.R. or mayhaps his secret service men something. That’s where I get bogged down. For as I’ve already told you, I have no idea what they were afraid I knew. I’d just gotten off the eastbound, on orders from my feature editor, to cover T.R.’s speech and take down anything he hasn’t said a hundred times or more. I’ve been through Granger a few times before, but only to change from one train to another. I’ve gone over my earlier visits to the point of a dull headache, and try as I might, I can’t even recall getting laid in this town. I don’t think that would be of vital interest to the president of these United States in any case.”

  Nate stared soberly across the table at him for an unwinking spell. “You’re leaving out the fuss you had in the Silver Horn with them card players, ain’t you?” he said, softly.

  The undersheriff to Nate’s right perked up. “Nobody told me about no showdown in the Silver Horn.” Then he cocked an eyebrow at Stringer. “How come nobody saw fit to tell me about that, son?”

  Stringer grimaced. “Oh, hell, there wasn’t any real trouble. I saw another newspaper man about to get into a dumb fight and just hauled him out of there, is all.”

  Nate smiled thinly. “He told the boys he was the Sundance Kid and that his pal was Doc Holliday. One of the men he slickered was old Jake Rose. They say Jake didn’t find the joke all that amusing, once he caught on to it.”

  Before anyone could ask him who the other newspaper man might have been, Stringer protested, “Hell, even if your local bully boy and me had shot it out, which we never, it would hardly be an event of national importance, would it? Ham Saunders wasn’t sent after me to correct my saloon manners. He was sent to keep me from exposing something serious…”

  “Wait, now I recall—they said something about plans they didn’t want T.R. to find out about. Does that match up with anything the dying killer might have mentioned toward the last?”

  The deputy coroner shook his head as he took out a notebook. “The nursing sister in attendance thought to take some of his last ravings down. But he mostly muttered about God, Mother, some gal named Betty, and a critter that might have been a dog or a pony. It had to be a critter because I’ve never yet met anything human named Spot.”

  He scanned the notebook. “Hold on. Here’s a string of words put together almost like a sentence. He said he’d have been as well off going for the president direct, as the man they’d assured him to be a prissy reporter. He never mentioned you by name, MacKail, but that does bear out your notion he was after you, personal.”

  The undersheriff yawned and muttered, “It’s my considered opinion that we’re just talking in circles, gents, and my wife is better company than any of you after sundown, no offense. So what say we just agree that whatever the late Ham Saunders was up to, it was no damn good, and that whoever gunned him, likely done the world a favor. It ain’t as if we have the murder of any decent soul to solve, after all.”

  There was a murmur of agreement. Nate said, “He had enough money on him to pay for his hole in the ground. If his pals think he rates a coffin as well, they can just come forward and pay for one.”

  Stringer joined in the dry laughter. “If I follow your drift, Nate, your plan is pretty slick. But do you mind if I add my own modest suggestions?”

  The surly lawman looked blank. “I wish you would,” he replied. “I didn’t know I had a slick plan until just now.”

  Stringer smiled crookedly across the table at him. “I can’t abide false modesty. You figure to grab the dead killer’s pals as soon as they get close enough to old Ham to matter. But I can’t help wondering if they might not fall for your trap just a mite better if they thought he was still alive.”

  “MacKail, what in the hell are you talking about?” Nate asked.

  “Your chance to catch ’em and make ’em tell you what they’ve been up to, of course,” Stringer said innocently. “Staking out potter’s field might work. But if you were to let word get about that Saunders was still alive, and hence still in shape to peach on his pals, they’d feel honor bound to pay him a visit whether they liked him or not, right?”

  “By gum, that just might work,” the deputy coroner said, “and we can keep the body from getting too reeky above ground if we use plenty of ice and rock salt. The clinic would be easy to stake out, once we put out the word he was alone upstairs, with say only one deputy and Nurse Page to ride herd on him.”

  So in the end Nate agreed his plan was a good one, and Stringer felt free to get up from the table with his winnings and go look for some place to stay while he waited for the late-morning train which would remove him from such tedious surroundings. It had to be a hotel or boardinghouse. He’d checked his bedroll and possibles bag through to Cheyenne before getting off in Granger for what he’d planned to be a much shorter stop, and at this altitude the nights were cold, even in high summer.

  As he stood outside, getting his bearings, the surly Nate joined him on the plank walk. “I reckon I owe you a drink, MacKail,” he growled.

  Stringer shrugged. “I’ll drink with you, but you don’t owe me, Nate. It was your job to run me in when you found me with a drawn gun, standing over a man on the ground.”

  “Hell, I know that. I ain’t talking about arresting you lawful. I had to. I’m talking about inside, just now. Most men like to look smart when they get a grand notion. You made it look like I was the smart one. I can’t recall a time anyone ever done that for me afore. How come you’re so modest, MacKail?”

  “This is your town,” Stringer said. “You’re the law here. I’m just passing through. So why would I want to screw you out of a pat on the back, Nate?”

  “A lot of men would have,” Nate replied. “Let’s go have that drink, you good-natured idjet.”

  It was getting later and colder outside by the minute by the time Good Old Nate, as Stringer was starting to call him, said he’d never be able to pull another day’s duty if he didn’t stop drinking and commence to do some sleeping. Stringer didn’t argue with him. His own eyes were trying to cross as he fondly watched Good Old Nate reel away from the bar and out into the night. Stringer wasn’t sure whether he was having so much trouble with his own legs because he was sincerely tired, or whether that last shot of bourbon had been unwise. When the Gibson Girl behind the bar asked him if he was ready for another, he said, “I think I’d like a schooner of buttermilk, if you promise not to tell.”

  She laughed and said she admired a man who could tell when he’d had enough. “There’s hardly anyone else left in here in any case,” she added. “I have to go to the kitchen for your belly-lining. Should anyone else come in, tell ’em we’re about to close for the night.”

  Stringer suppressed a sob of anguish as he watched her trim figure recede from view. Then there was nothing to admire but the moose head over the bar. Someone had for some reason wired the widespread antlers for electricity, and a bitty orange Edison bulb glowed from every tine. “Jesus,” Stringer muttered, “you’re ugly, and I suspect I could throw up just as well, any minute, if you were pretty.”

  But he didn’t. The barmaid came back with a pitcher rather than a mere schooner of cold buttermilk. As she put it before him with a fresh empty glass, Stringer said, “Bless you, and what’s an angel from heaven doing in a joint like this?”

  She laughed, said her name was Opal, and that while she might have to own up to some Cherokee blood, there were hardly any angels on her family t
ree. He didn’t answer until he’d inhaled a full glass of buttermilk and she’d poured him another.

  “You must not have looked close enough,” he said then. “I think you just saved me from waking up in a gutter with a ferocious hangover, and likely a fatal chill if its gets any colder outside.”

  “You don’t look like the sort of gent who wakes up in gutters,” she replied. “I was watching you and that lawman drink earlier. I could tell he was pressing more firewater on you than you really wanted. I’ll bet, left on your own, you can hold your liquor pretty good. You hang out in places like this for company, not to knock yourself out. I can see you’re a long way from home. Where might that be, and what sort of work keeps you on the road so much, ah… ?”

  “My handle is Stuart MacKail. If you don’t like to say Stuart, call me Stringer. I hate to be called Stu.”

  She dimpled. “So would I. You still haven’t told me why you’re drinking so late in such a one-horse town, Stuart. Are you the law? I know old Nate is, and you’re dressed for serious riding.”

  Stringer swallowed more buttermilk and told her he was a newspaper man. She arched an eyebrow. “Sure you are. That’s what I get for being so nosy. I sure hope it doesn’t show, but I was raised on a cattle spread, and I guess I know rope burns when I see ’em. You never got hands like that from playing no typewriter, Stuart Whatever.”

  He reached for his wallet as he slugged some more buttermilk. When he showed her his press credentials, she was willing to dimple instead of scowl at him again. “Well, if that don’t beat all. I could have sworn you was a top hand turned lawman or brand inspector and such.”

  “My old Remington grasshopper doesn’t leave work scars on my hands worth mention,” Stringer said. “The rope burns your keen as well as glorious golden eyes detected are left over from my own growing up. I was born and raised cow in the California Mother Lode country. If you grew up on a cattle spread, you don’t have to ask why I decided there had to be a better way to make a living. I didn’t mind the work as much as I did the pay.”

  She sighed. “Ain’t that the truth? Pumping suds here for the poor old boys who still herd beef, I earn more than a top hand. I reckon your wife must be proud of your grand newspaper job, right?”

  He laughed. “The answer to that question is no, and if you just asked it for practice, I feel it’s only fair to warn you I’m recovering fast from the effects of old Nate’s disgusting habits. I wasn’t matching him drink for drink in any case. So if you don’t watch out, I may wind up sober enough to ask to walk you home by the time this place closes.”

  “You look sober enough now,” she said, simply, “and I mean to close up any minute. Hold the thought, I have to serve one last round on the house so we can get rid of all the other patrons. You can help me close up.”

  He poured himself some more sober-up and thought about that as Opal cheerfully went about the business of serving the other three gents in the joint and warning them they were about to be thrown out any minute. As she bustled about, he decided her figure was a mite prettier than her face, and her face wasn’t bad at all. He might have taken her for one of those dark big-eyed French gals Manet liked to paint, if she hadn’t mentioned Cherokee blood. He decided she might have been funning him. It worked out as well either way. But he still had to decide how far he meant to go along with her other notions. It wasn’t that he was worried about his virtue. He’d kissed worse in his time, and he knew he’d wind up kissing worse in the future if his luck held out. But he didn’t like to be played for a fool, and many a gal had gotten more than his help with the chores and a safe walk home out of him before paying off with a handshake at her front door. It wasn’t striking out that riled Stringer as much as it did most other men. It was their smug notion that all a gal who wasn’t too badly deformed had to do was flutter her lashes at a man and he’d just naturally roll over and butter himself for her.

  Back at his furnished digs in Frisco there was another flirty gal on the second landing who reminded him a lot of this one. So far he’d resisted acting the fool in his own boardinghouse, even the time the gal on the second landing had let him see her bare-assed by accident on purpose. He swallowed the last of the buttermilk as he told himself not to even think about bare-assed women at a time like this.

  Opal returned to her station behind the bar. “There, it won’t be long now. They all know I don’t have to serve ’em drinks on the house if they vex me. What’s the matter, Stuart? You look broody all of a sudden. Are you starting to feel sick, honey?”

  “No,” he said. “As a matter of fact I’m starting to feel just fine. I reckon it was all that sour mash on an empty stomach that was making me feel sick. I don’t feel drunk. Just tired.”

  She reached out to place a hand on his wrist. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “It’s not really that late. We’ll have this place locked up and me walked home well before midnight. Surely you can stay awake that long, can’t you?”

  He nodded. “Sure, why not?” he said, and felt mildly surprised to find he meant it. It wasn’t, after all, as if he had anything better to do. He’d kill as much time as he could, helping the sweet little thing with her chores, and if he couldn’t bed down anywhere else, there was always that buffalo robe warehouse to sneak into. There was no way to lock that open front entrance, and even if there was a watchman on duty, a little drinking money ought to convince him it wouldn’t kill a dead buffalo if a white man caught some shut-eye on its shaggy hide.

  As they went on making small talk, he found himself telling Opal about the train he had to catch in the morning. She heaved a wistful sigh. “Oh, just my luck. I was sort of hoping you’d be here in Granger longer than that. But don’t worry, honey, I’ve a big brass alarm clock by my bed that could wake the dead. So I’ll make sure you catch your train on time.”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  *

  Like most men, Stringer had learned the hard way that when something seemed too good to be true, it usually wasn’t. But try as he might, he just couldn’t figure out the hook in the mighty tempting bait little Opal had dangled so openly for him to bite at, even after he’d been nibbling it a spell.

  The walk home had been uneventful, despite how spooky her street was late at night. He’d been braced for a ladylike brush-off at her garden gate, and when that hadn’t happened, he’d expected mayhaps a sisterly kiss at her door. But she’d just hauled him inside and taken him to bed as if she was as horny as any man, and once they were under the covers, it seemed she was.

  Her Gibson Girl figure felt even nicer naked than it had looked dressed up. He’d gotten to know it better, in the biblical sense, and while he wasn’t surprised by her enthusiastic bumps and grinds, as long as they were bumping and grinding, he felt obliged to suffer through the tears and second thoughts lonely young gals subjected a man to once they’d had their wicked way with him. But as they lay entwined, trying to recall who they might be and how they might have fallen from heaven like that, she just purred, “Oh, that was just beautiful, Stuart. Could you do it to me some more, once you get your breath back?”

  He kissed her again, this time more sincerely, and assured her they were just getting started, adding, “I’m sure glad that old alarm clock is ticking so regular, doll face. For if ever I get enough of you, I fear it’s going to have a time waking either of us up.”

  She gasped. “Oh, how stupid of me. Somehow I forgot all about that train you have to catch in the morning. I guess I had other things on my mind. Let me up. I’d best set it while we’re both sane again. I can’t answer for my memory once a man throws a good screw into me.”

  He wouldn’t have put it so bluntly, the first night with a Gibson Girl. But he had to sort of admire her no-nonsense approach to the facts of life. He said so, fondly, as she rolled over him in the dark. She struck a match to light a bedside candle. “People who don’t know they’re screwing have no business in bed with one another,” she said in a demure enough tone. “I’
ve never seen any sense in all this modesty bullshit.”

  He laughed like hell and watched as she shamelessly set the alarm as if unaware of her naked charms, or the effects they would have to have on any man born of mortal woman. She left the candle burning as she swung back to aim her perky nipples at him in the soft romantic glow. “There. I set it two hours early so we’ll have time to enjoy a good breakfast as well as a good screw in the morning.”

  He took her back in his arms. “I imagine I’ll need a hearty breakfast, indeed, if I don’t want to board that train walking sort of funny.”

  She smiled back at him in the soft light, kissed him, and ran her free hand down between them to feel, giggle, and ask, “Heavens, is all this for little old me?”

  He told her she’d brought it on herself and rolled her on her back to enter her again. “Wait,” she said. “It may work better with the pillows under my skinny behind.”

  “You’ve got a grand behind and you know it,” he told her. “But did you say both pillows, Opal?”

  “I want you as deep inside me as you can get it,” she replied, “and this is a hell of a time to treat a lady so formal. I like it better when you call me honey, honey.”

  So he called her honey and had to agree, once they were at it her way, that two pillows made for a mighty interesting position. She braced a bare heel against either of his collar bones and said. “Move back a little so I can watch it. That’s it. That’s just right, and Sweet Jesus, don’t we look scandalous by candlelight?”

  “We sure do,” he said. “Is that why you left yon candle burning?”

  She dimpled up at him, candlelight flickering in her adoring eyes. “Of course. I used to be married to a man who was too shy to screw open and clean, like this, instead of some kind of sniggering sneak. He wouldn’t even let me take my nightgown off entire.”

  Stringer grimaced. “You don’t have to tell me why you left him or where you learned to act so, ah, natural. Hasn’t anyone ever told you men don’t get a thrill out of hearing about other men in their favorite spots?”