Stringer

by Lou Cameron

  Having made up his mind, the sheriff posted one of his men to see none of the kids messed with the cadavers and led the way into Miss Gina’s to get out of the sunlight as it started to get more serious. Stringer waited until they were being served at the bar by the ugly gal in her kimono before he suggested, “If that older gent was the mastermind, how come the gang hung around after he was killed, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff said, “Hell, if they’d started out with any brains they wouldn’t have needed no mastermind, would they?” Then he asked the girl how come she was serving, asking, “Don’t you work the night shift, Lulu?”

  She pointed at the male barkeep down at the far end and said, “As long as I’m up I may as well help with this crowd, Sheriff.”

  He said, “Well, go help somewhere’s else, then. I got a dirty story I want to tell Stringer, here.”

  She shrugged and drifted off. The sheriff said, “Son, there are three good ways to spread word far and wide. There is telegraph, telephone, and tell a woman. I know that old fart we found couldn’t have been the leader. But let’s not tell the entire county how smart we are. Let ‘em guess. I got enough on my plate just trying to figure out what the sons of bitches want!”

  “Isn’t money the root of all evil, Sheriff?”

  “Well, some evil, at any rate. Wear a badge as long as me and you’ll find out how dumb some folk act about screwing, too. There’s plenty of money in more than one county bank. I’ll tell you, private, I got ‘em staked out, too.”

  “Maybe they figure you might have. Maybe they’re after money that may not be so well guarded, Sheriff.”

  The older man sipped some beer, shook his head, and said, “If one more cuss mentions the strongbox from that long-ago stage I’m going to pour this beer all over his fool head, and I’m thirsty, too.”

  Stringer didn’t mention it. But the sheriff went on, “Men who know this country have searched for that box for fifty years. Are you trying to tell me outsiders figure to look for it at this late date?”

  “No sir. You just told me not to.”

  “All right. Say there was something in one of them fool books about Murrieta that got somebody all fired up to look some more. In the first damn place, nobody around here with a lick of sense thinks Murrieta pulled that robbery!”

  “Maybe that’s why they stole the old county records, once they decided Captain Harry Love was full of crap about those poor vaqueros he murdered for the reward.”

  The sheriff frowned and said, “I wish you hadn’t said that, old son. Now I’ll have to send to Sacramento for duplicate copies and, if they don’t have any, I’ll just wind up mad as hell at everybody.”

  Stringer wished him luck, drained his stein, and said he had to see about a train back to Frisco. The sheriff said, “Don’t you dare. You’re one of the few possible witnesses with enough brains to pour piss out of his boots!”

  Stringer said, “Dammit, Sheriff, I’ve a job I have to get back to in the city!”

  The older man said, “Shoot, you’re boarding free with kin. It won’t bust you to stick around a few more days, old son.”

  Stringer rolled his eyes heavenward and insisted, “Look, they lost two men in San Andreas and three up here. If that other one who ran Miss Gina down wasn’t in a hurry to catch a train he must be dumb as hell. That adds up to half a dozen out of action whether they got what they were after or not!”

  The sheriff nodded and said, “I’m glad you see it my way, old son. I can count, too. There’s at least one left over, more likely two, if the one playing mirero wasn’t with the four who brung the Montez girl to that shack. I never said you had to stay here forever. Just till we see what happens next. If nothing happens, we can assume they gave the game up as too big a boo. If they make another move, we’ll likely catch ‘em.”

  “Damn it, Sheriff, we don’t even know what they’re after!”

  “I know. That’s why I want to catch ‘em, so’s I can ask ‘em. I want you to give me the rest of this week, Stringer. Ain’t you got no curiosity at all?”

  Stringer smiled despite himself and said, “I used to think I had. That’s why I left Calaveras County in the first place.”

  “Well, stick around and you might learn something. Meanwhile I mean to wire Sacramento and see if we’re missing much about that old robbery.”

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  *

  Mama Montez came out to give him another bear hug as Stringer tethered his pony out front. As she dragged him inside she said Dotty and young Tomas had gone up in the hills to see about deer for supper. He sighed and said, “Great. It’s always a good notion to let the kids go out and play when there are kidnappers in the neighborhood. No offense, ma’am, but don’t you have any common sense at all?”

  She sat him down and put a coffee pot on the coals as she told him, simply, “One must eat, no matter what. They are both armed, if only because it is not possible to take deer with one’s bare hands.”

  Stringer knew that if they had so much as a dab of refritos in the house she’d have offered more than coffee. He said, “Look, my uncle just mentioned a yearling that’s too stunted to drive to market this fall and there’s no sense wasting grass on a runt, so—”

  She cut in to protest, “Oh, no, what would the neighbors think?”

  He said, “You don’t have any neighbors close enough to watch you eat, Mamacita. I know you’re proud. That’s no doubt why you all eat so regular. But you’re talking to family, almost, and we have to be practical. It’s not safe for the kids to be up in the hills at times like these.”

  From his corner old Hernan bestirred himself to mutter, “We can not stay here. We must all go back up to the cave.”

  Stringer shot the old man’s middle-aged daughter a questioning glance. She shrugged and said, “He speaks of the long ago when he eloped with my mother. For weeks they hid in a rock shelter among the big trees, up beyond White Pines.”

  Stringer said, “He could be making sense, for him. I could get you some grub and extra blankets and I wouldn’t have to worry about you as much if you were forted up in the high sierra. For those rascals seem to need a map to find their way around here.”

  She shook her head and said, “He is feebleminded. You have less excuse, Stuarto. Who would mind our goats? Who would keep those Italian children from wrecking this casa? Besides, the cleft in the rocks he speaks of is too small to hold us all.”

  “You know the place yourself, Mamacita?”

  “Si, my mamacita showed it to me when I was little and Papacito could still sit a horse. We went there several times just for to get away from the heat of August and the flies. My mother found the place where I was conceived most romantico. All I can say is that they must have been very much in love and not too interested in sleep. For her bridal chamber was little more than a few yards of overhanging rock, and the earth floor sloped alarmingly above a sheer drop.”

  Old Hernan protested, feebly, “Was a good cave, child. More than once your mother and me heard them searching for us in the valley below. They never thought to look up at the granite cliffs above them. Nobody bothered us but bats. Your mother was afraid the bats would tangle in her hair, but of course they never did.”

  Stringer raised an eyebrow and muttered, “Yeah, that must have been muy romantico indeed. We’d best come up with a better hideout for you folk. It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of room at the M Bar K, you know. My aunt and uncle enjoy company, and her pie isn’t too bad.”

  Old Maria looked horrified and said, “You must have been out in the sun too long. What do you take us for, homeless gitanos who must beg for posada from…from…”

  “Gringo is the word you’re searching for,” he growled, adding, “Uncle Don won’t mind if you want to call him a gringo. He’s sort of proud of it. I know we smell funny and all, but it’s not as if we were strangers, and it would only be for a few days. The sheriff figures to catch the last of those rascals within a few days, if th
ey haven’t cleared out already.”

  Old Hernan sat up, blinked owlishly, and announced, “They shall never catch Joaquin Murrieta. Only a silver bullet can kill such as he.”

  Stringer told him, gently, “They’re not after him, viejo. Haven’t been for some time. We’re talking about Anglo outlaws from the here and now, see?”

  “Si, Joaquin Murrieta. Sometimes he called himself El Mejicano as well as other nombres. But as I look back across the gulf of time I see it must have been our Joaquin, himself. The vigilantes would have caught anyone less than he. Every Anglo and half the Spanish in the county combed the hills for him after he stopped the El Dorado stage. But they might as well have been searching for the wind, or the phantom he was in the chaparral.”

  Stringer shrugged and said, “No ghost put that pistol ball in that driver and carried off the strongbox, crowing like a rooster, viejo.”

  “Bah, what do you know of such matters, muchacho? Were you there?”

  “Not hardly, but since you brought it up, were you?”

  The old man repressed a shudder and mumbled, “I was up in the high sierra with my Rosa. Ask her if you do not believe me.”

  Stringer didn’t see how that was possible. Even the brothers who’d gone after their wayward sister and her dumb but handsome lover were dead, now. He said, “Well, whoever or whatever robbed the stage that night could hardly be after your granddaughter. So like I was saying—”

  “They are after me!” old Hernan cut in, adding, “It was me they wanted, not the child. I wanted to go out to them and give myself up. But this daughter of mine is too stubborn, and too strong for me.”

  Stringer looked at Maria. She sighed and said, “Tomas had to help me. We should not have told him when my daughter failed to return for supper. He went loco en la cabeza. More loco than he is now, I mean.”

  Stringer shushed her and moved over to the old man, hunkering down to say, “I figured their intent was ransom, viejo. What is it you think they want from you?”

  He sobbed, “I did not betray them. It may be true, as some say, that one of our people told the Anglos about Joaquin’s plans, so they could send out the stage with a different crew. But it was not I. Why would I do such a thing to my own people?”

  “Right, you were too much in love to worry about reward money. But let’s talk about money anyway. Is that what the gang is after, viejo? Do they think you have some money under the mattress?”

  Maria said, “You are upsetting him, Stuarto. There is no money under any mattress in this casa. I should know. I have been turning them over once a week all my life.”

  Old Hernan said, “I am no Judas. I would never betray a hero of my people or anyone else for Yanqui silver. Shame on you for ever thinking I might, Stuarto.”

  “But you did know they were planning to stop the stage that night, didn’t you?”

  Maria grabbed Stringer’s shoulder to haul him back, insisting, “Of course he knew. Every Hispanic for miles knew our boys were planning another blow against the gringo. Leave him alone, Stuarto. He was up in the high sierra with my mother on the night of which you speak. The vigilantes discussed the matter with him many times when he was able to speak more clearly. They questioned all our young men and it did not go well with those who did not have a good, how you say, alibi. Come, sit over here and behave yourself. Your coffee is almost ready.”

  Stringer returned to his stool by the beehive fireplace. But as she poured he told her, “I think I’ve got it. If your father was even considered worth talking to, his name would have appeared on their list of suspects. Such lists become a matter of public record, and the county records on that old robbery have been lost, strayed, or stolen.”

  “But, Stuarto, the vigilantes questioned many of our people at the time. They even questioned my mother’s brothers and it was a good thing they could prove they were chasing a runaway sister in the high Sierras instead of chasing stagecoaches. The vigilantes had to accept their alibi, because while high in the mountains they had a few tense moments with some Anglo prospectors who, in the end, turned out to be fair-minded men indeed and told the others they knew the greasers, who, as they put it, had been making them most uneasy up near White Pines at the time of the robbery. Would you like some goat cream in your cup? Alas, we seem to have run low on sugar.”

  Stringer assured her the weak but bitter reheated coffee was just right and added, “The names of your uncles would have been in the same files. But your uncles are no longer with us, Mamacita. No doubt a lot of folk with Spanish surnames have died since that night. But your father’s still alive, he admits he knew at least some of that old gang, and the new gang no doubt wants him to offer an educated guess about the whereabouts of you know what.”

  She laughed, bitterly, and said, “I have always wondered where that strongbox wound up, too. Look around you, Stuarto. Does it look to you as if either my father or my uncles ever found that Yanqui treasure? After they got used to the idea of my mother in the arms of a mere vaquero they invited him to go along on many a spare-time hunt for the unrecovered loot. They came back with many a deer and on some occasions an unbranded calf they did not wish to leave orphaned in the cruel hills. But they never found that strongbox.”

  “Maybe not. But the point is that they looked, like everyone else. So that gang from Lord knows where feels it’s safe to assume the loot is still around here someplace.”

  “Why do you say around here, Stuarto? Calaveras is a most large county, no?”

  “It is. But the rider who was packing the loot was either the one old MacSorley wounded or someone else. If he was hit he’d have found it a chore to pack all that heavy coinage more than a few miles, and we’re only a few miles from where they stopped the stage.”

  “What if he was not the bandito the shotgun messenger hit?”

  “He’d have just kept going and we wouldn’t be talking about the fool strongbox. Since it’s been rumored for years said strongbox never left the county, it works like this: The wounded bandit, with the loot, got left behind in the general dash for freedom. Since he wasn’t found by the mighty determined vigilantes, that adds up to his seeking shelter with some local Californio family. As your father just said, nobody of that nature would consider betraying a hero, as bandits with big sombreros were called in those days. So after a time he died and—”

  “For how do you know he died, Stuarto?” she cut in.

  He said, “That’s simple. Had he lived, he’d have lit out later with the loot, and I’ve great faith in country gossip. If that old strongbox is anywhere in Calaveras County the man who was packing it hid it somewhere and then died. For had anyone else known where it was, it would have been recovered long ago.”

  From the corner, old Hernan murmured weakly, “Murrieta wants his just share of the dinero. Most, of course, will be spent for to buy more guns to resist the invaders. But Joaquin always keeps a third for himself.”

  His daughter said, “Pay no attention. He is talking in his sleep.”

  Stringer nodded and said, “His dreams must be interesting. I’m not sure there was ever a strongbox left behind and I know old Joaquin Murrieta was a dream to begin with. But the gang we have to worry about, now, may not be as smart as me. So they may still be planning to strike again. You folk aren’t safe here. I want you to come on over to the M Bar K till we find out if they’ve had enough or whether they’re loco en la cabeza, too.”

  She said she’d discuss it with her kids when they got back.

  He said that wasn’t good enough and made her promise his own kin could expect them for supper. When she said she wasn’t sure they could make it that soon, goats and all, he insisted, “Promise you’ll get over there this side of sunset at the latest, then. I’ve already discussed it with my Uncle Don and he says he won’t take no for an answer, either. So we’ll say no more about it, Mamacita.”

  He put the awful coffee aside, got to his feet, and said he had other chores to tend. She asked if he’d be out at his
uncle’s when she arrived with her brood. He said he would. It was a lie, but he had to get them out there some damned way.

  The mirero atop Robles Ridge froze in his saddle and murmured, wistfully, “You’re good,” when he heard Stringer cock Uncle Don’s Winchester behind him. As Stringer stepped clear of the chaparral he’d been playing lizard in for a good half hour he saw that, up close, the skyline spook he’d been stalking looked more like an old gray Miwok on an old gray mare. The mirero didn’t seem to be armed with anything more lethal than the braided leather quirt hanging from his skinny brown wrist. He was dressed Mex but, like most Indian riders, wore no spurs on his battered old boots. Still gazing off across the hollow El Dorado and surrounding pastures occupied, the old man softly asked, “Permiso to see who’s covering me?”

  Stringer said, “Sure. Smoke if you gottem.” The mirero swung his mount broadside to stare down at Stringer reproachfully and say, “I know you. You are one of the MacKails. Why have you come up here after me? I am not on your range.”

  “Let’s just call me a curious cuss. Yesterday one of you weird watchers was on MacKail range, and a few minutes later I caught some others in the company of a kidnapped girl.”

  The mirero nodded and said, “I heard about that this morning. It was not me you saw yesterday. I was not watching, yesterday. It was my son’s day off at Sheep Ranch. My daughter-in-law is only vile to me when he is not home.”

  Stringer was sure the old man was capable of making more sense than Dotty’s grandfather, if only one could get him to. He asked, “You say your son works for the Hearsts?”

  The old man told him, “My son is Dave Badwater. He married a terrible Mex called Sally. I am Joe Badwater. She hates me. Where did you leave your pony? Surely you do not walk so high in the hills.”