Stringer

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer lowered the muzzle of the borrowed Winchester and pointed down the far slope with it, explaining, “I tethered it in the canyon below so I could get close enough to talk to one of you mireros. I knew right off you weren’t the one I saw yesterday. But I didn’t want you to fade away on me as usual. How come you gents do this, anyway?”

  Old Badwater shrugged and asked, “Why do old women lean out the window for hours at a time, just watching? When you are my age you will understand. After one stares at four walls long enough, just the hope of seeing something happen, for God’s sake, will make a watcher out of you.”

  Stringer frowned thoughtfully and asked, “That’s it? You were up here, watching, for no better reason than that?”

  A man has to be someplace, and my daughter-in-law is the queen of shrews. I would ride my old Blue through hell to get away from her till suppertime. But it is nicer up here, away from the dust and the flies of the low range this time of the year. I don’t see why you went to all the trouble to stalk me, muchacho. I am not a bad person. I have done nobody any harm, riding along the ridges just to be alone and at peace.”

  Stringer wondered idly whether Sam Barca would offer space rates for a piece about this. He decided not to write it. Folk in Frisco didn’t know about mireros and the local kids didn’t deserve to have their mythology debunked. He said, “Well, I’ll leave you up here in peace, then, after you answer a couple more questions for me, old-timer.”

  Badwater said, “I have plenty of time to talk. But in God’s truth my daughter-in-law may be right when she says I really don’t know much. I have tried, hard, to learn the ways of you people. But even the Mex Californios seem too concerned with things like clocks and paper money. Now, if you wanted me to tell you how to eat acorns and manzanita without getting sick, or how to snare a fat quail in the chaparral better than your own kids can—”

  Stringer shushed him with a polite motion and said, “I’ve been scouting the hills all about for more serious critters, pard. You heard about the outlaws hereabouts, so you might be able to help me with your savvy of these hills.”

  Badwater looked pleased and said, “I know all there is to know about these hills. I can show you how to tell wild onion from death camas. I know where the rattlesnakes den and where it is safe to bed down in a rock shelter. Hear me, I have roamed these hills since before anyone knew there was gold up here. It is true my people never saw what all the fuss about gold could be, since it is too soft to make knives or arrowheads out of, but I can answer any practical questions about this country.”

  Stringer said, “I know a little about camping out in these hills too. A fair-sized gang would want an out-of-the-way campsite, of course. But they’d need water, grazing for their mounts, and they’d want at least one high vantage point to post a lookout on.”

  “That seems reasonable. If they were not hiding out in such a place they would have been caught by now.”

  “They haven’t been caught, and I’m not the only one looking. I figure the rascals have found some campsite that’s not as well known to us white folk. It’s your turn.”

  The old Miwok stared out across the valley at the hazy blue ridges beyond and took his time before he said, “I hate to admit this, but you people have been here long and you are nosy as hell. The gold seekers looked in places my people were not interested in because it is dumb to hunt where there is no food. I don’t know of a good campsite neither you nor a Mex would know about within two days ride of here. Most of the real good places to camp have long been claimed as homesteads by some damned white family, no offense. A few such places have been abandoned in more recent times because gold gave out or the soil was bad for stock or crops. Do you know that hydraulic site near the headwaters of Manzanita Creek?”

  “I do. They’d hardly be holed up there. This morning we scouted it for sign and there’s none showing they used it as a regular campsite. I’m talking a place where there’s enough tin cans, wood ash and crap of the human and horse variety to spell a longer stay. The rascals have been raising hell around here for at least a few days, so they have to be somewhere when they’re behaving themselves better, see?”

  The old man shrugged and said, “There is no such place within an easy ride of El Dorado. On the other hand, there are whole canyons choked with second growth between here and San Andreas, where they murdered that white girl. Some have water. Others have none or, worse yet, water poisoned by old mining operations. I am glad I am not you. They could be hiding out all sorts of places.”

  “But not within an easy ride of El Dorado?” Stringer insisted.

  The old Miwok nodded sagely and said, “I would look for them a lot closer to the county seat, where all the trouble began, if I had to. It is not my fight. My son is safe in the mine. I am safe up here. They are welcome to my daughter-in-law if they wish to murder or kidnap her. I wish someone would.”

  An hour later old Badwater was still watching the world below from his vantage point in the sky and Stringer was riding into El Dorado again. The afternoon sun was hot as hell’s hinges and he had the dusty wagon trace all to himself, or so it had seemed before young Buck Brown overtook him, yelling for him to stop. Stringer reined in and watched, bemused, as Buck slid his own pony to a stop and dropped to the ground, facing him, with a dead serious expression and his gunhand hovering like a hawk near his .44. Stringer howdied the youth and Buck said, “You’d best get off, too. For we got us some man-to-man talking to do and I wouldn’t want it said I took advantage of my elders.”

  Stringer frowned thoughtfully and slid out of his own saddle with more caution than grace, keeping a wary eye on Buck’s gunhand as he asked, soberly, “What’s your beef, son?”

  Buck snapped, “Don’t you son me, you son of a bitch.

  My mom sent me to find you and deliver you a message she writ. Before I delivers it, you’re going to tell me how come Mom came in and busted up half the house after you rid out last night!”

  Stringer said, “I’ll forget what you just said about my mother, just this once, because your mother is an old pal of mine. As to why she saw fit to beat up her own furniture, I don’t see how it could be your business or mine.”

  Buck started to swear again. Stringer cut in with, “I’m not finished. If you’re asking whether I’ve been messing with your mother, improper, I can tell you I haven’t. Not because I find you that ferocious but because it’s the simple truth. As to her uncertain disposition, I reckon that just seems to run in the family, even if you’re not as pretty. So give me her infernal message and stop trying to convince me you’re Billy the Kid, kid.”

  Buck produced a sealed lavender envelope from a hip pocket and handed it over, saying, “Just so we understand each other, then. I guess I’m as fond of my mom as Bill Bonney was of his.”

  Stringer tore Fionna’s message open as he growled, “That tale of him killing his first man at the age of twelve is pure tripe. His mother was happily married to a mining man named Antrim and didn’t need her honor defended. The kid was run out of town as a common sneak thief.”

  Then he paused to read Fionna’s short note. Teardrops had run the purple ink of a message that was hard to make out in the first place. But in essence Fionna was thanking him for acting like such a sissy, now that she’d had time to study on the matter, and she’d signed it, “Still your pretty bubble?” So he smiled softly and put it away. He told Buck, “She didn’t mention her temper tantrum. So we’d best put it down to female mystery. I want to show you a matter of more importance, Buck.”

  He pointed at a fencepost across the wagon trace and said, “See that mean-eyed cuss holding up that bob wire? He just called us and it’s him or us, so let’s take him!”

  Buck slapped leather, grinning like the fool kid he was. But his gun was still half in its holster by the time Stringer had put three rounds, close together, in the skinny length of cedar.

  As the gunshots echoed away Buck gulped and said, “You know, I’m glad as heck you haven
’t been messing with my mom!”

  Stringer reloaded and put his .38 away again as he dryly observed, “So are your mom and me. I want you to listen tight, Buck. I know you’ve killed your first man and you were at that dangerous age to begin with. I know you think you can eat cucumbers and do other wonders, now. But gunning a man in the back and a no-shit showdown are two different situations entire.”

  The boy protested, “That’s not fair! I did it to save you from a back-shooting, dammit!”

  “I already thanked you and I never said you did wrong, Buck. My point is that you’ve never had a real gunfight. You’ve yet to meet another man’s eyes and decide, in less than a second, if he’s just wind, or really out to kill you, here and now.”

  He reached for his makings and continued, “I hope you never get to. Your mother’s a pal of mine and it’s awesomely easy to guess wrong under the pressure of such moments. Waiting a split second too long can get you killed. Firing too hasty can get you hanged. You’d best simmer down until some of the luster of your new rep wears off. Whether you shave regular or not, the world means to treat you as a grown man, now, Buck—so you won’t have the joy of kid fights anymore. Nobody, ever, considers swinging his fist at an established man-killer. So don’t ever start up with anyone again unless you’re ready to fight him serious.”

  Buck stared soberly at the splintered fencepost and seemed to age, some, as he asked, uncertainly, “Did you really think I was ready to slap leather on you just now, Stringer?”

  His mentor replied, simply, “I didn’t know. I was hoping you wouldn’t. I’ve met many a hairpin in my travels who’d have had you on the ground right now, Buck. So don’t ever do that again.”

  Buck agreed he wouldn’t. They shook on it and parted friendly, and then Stringer rode into town and left his mount out front to enter Miss Gina’s and steady his nerves.

  Lulu had gone back to bed with her Chinee and business was slow now that the novelty of the dead men in the lot next door had worn thin. Stringer swept the other customers with his eyes, saw nobody that looked as if they were spoiling for a fight with him, and ordered a tall cool stein.

  The male barkeep served him but said, “Miss Gina’s waiting for you upstairs, Stringer. Came in by express wagon less’n an hour ago and said I was to tell you she was back as soon as you come in.”

  Stringer thanked him and carried his beer upstairs to investigate the extent of his old pal’s injuries.

  She made it easy for him. As he entered he found her on her bed, fanning herself, with nothing on but a sort of tape corset around her lower rib cage. She asked, “What kept you? I was about to start by myself, you mean old thing.”

  He grinned down at her and said he’d feared he’d have to amuse himself that evening, too, adding, “Are you sure you’re back in shape for such notions, Gina? It’s not every night a gal gets run over by a horse, you know.”

  She laughed roguishly and said, “Get undressed, you silly. I got kicked in the head, ribs, and ass, not my pussy.”

  As he sat on the bed beside her to undress she rolled over to expose her bruised behind, asking him how he liked her lucky horseshoe tattoo. He patted her creamy derriere soothingly and told her she wouldn’t have felt so lucky had that hoof come down on the small of her back.

  She said, “That’s what the doc in San Andreas said. They wanted me to stay the rest of the week, the idjets. I knew if I wasn’t back soon I’d return to find my cash till empty and you no doubt shacked up with some other gal.”

  Then, as he rolled in with her, she took him in her hungry arms and almost sobbed, “Oh, darling, I was so afraid you’d have left for the city by the time I could get back for some of this!”

  He didn’t want to talk about the future before they’d enjoyed the sweet here and now a spell. As he entered her she moaned in pleasure, but still he tried not to put his full weight on her bandaged rib cage. Her big white breasts were exposed above the wrappings, making them look, if possible, more naked. After they’d climaxed together she wheezed, “Jesus, that does knock the wind out of a girl. What if we tried it dog style, next time?”

  He laughed and said, “It’s early and we’ve got plenty of time. Let’s have a smoke and talk some. You poor crippled-up little thing.”

  She let him roll one with his free hand, as long as he held her close with the other arm. But as she struck a match to light him she said, “I have to go downstairs from time to time. You can stay up here and keep this bed warm for us. You look sort of tired, darling. What have you been up to all this time I was away, or should I ask who you’ve been up?”

  “I’ve been riding too hard, in circles, to pester other gals,” he lied. Then he bit the bullet as well as his smoke and told her, “We’re going to have to face a few grim facts, Gina. I do have a job in Frisco, once the sheriff lets me leave the county.”

  She began to fondle him as she said, “Oh, pooh, a gal has a right to get romantical, doesn’t she? I know we’re not exactly pledged until death us do part, lover. Sooner or later the merry-go-round must stop and that’s the only kind of gold rings a gal like me can really hope for. We’ll both go on with our own lives and anyone pretty we can get to share ‘em with us. Meanwhile we got each other and—my heavens, is all that for little old me?”

  He laughed, snubbed out the smoke, and took her up on her sassy offer when she rolled on her hands and knees to arch her spine and present her bruised behind to the light for full inspection. As he entered her from behind with his bare soles on the Persian carpeting he said, conversationally, “That cuss sure rode a big horse, didn’t he? How did you manage to get kicked three times on such short acquaintanceship, honey?”

  She shrugged her bare shoulders above the bandages and asked, “Was I supposed to be taking notes? I just got a glimpse of the hard-riding maniac and the next thing I knew they had me even barer than this on a hospital table. As they examined me they said it looked as if I got that hoof print when the bigger horse reared up and knocked mine galley-west with its forelegs. They could be right. I wasn’t there once we hit. My own pony rolled on me and may have kicked me in the head, getting up. Or I could have just struck the ground with my head. Is any of this important, dear?”

  He decided it wasn’t as he grasped her slender waist just below the bandages and pounded her to glory. As they were climaxing the bedside telephone rang. Gina bit her lower lip and hissed, “That’s my ring. But don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Jesus, I may just have to follow you to Frisco after all! It feels so goooooood!”

  But, naturally, when the phone rang again a few minutes later she rolled half across him and reached for it, her naked breasts braced on his bare chest. She answered, looked puzzled, and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact he is, Sheriff.” Handing Stringer the set, she whispered, “How did he know you were in bed with me, dammit?”

  Stringer took the call, cupping a hand over the mouthpiece to assure her, “It’s the only infernal phone this side of the general store. Where else would he call?”

  She looked less annoyed as Stringer asked where the call was coming from and the sheriff said, “Angels Camp. They got a Western Union here. I’ll be by in a spell to gather up them three dead men. I wired Sacramento and things is starting to make more sense. The one they went to so much trouble to hide answers to the description of a cuss calt Marlowe. Insurance investigator, or he was, till they caught him crooking above and beyond the call of duty. He got out of Folsom Prison less’n a month ago, after doing twenty at hard for robbing more widows and orphans than Jay Gould, and then punching bulletholes in the peace officer sent to inquire about his unusual business ethics.”

  Stringer whistled softly and said, “He did like to ask lots of questions. But I’m still missing something if you’re talking about an insurance swindle, Sheriff.”

  “I’m not.” The sheriff chortled, adding, “Before he wound up in Folsom the late William Marlowe worked for the same insurance outfit as insured all the stages robbed by Murrieta o
r whomsoever!”

  Stringer thought about numbers before he objected, “I dunno, Sheriff. Those robberies took place more than twenty years before this Marlowe gent went to prison.”

  But the older lawman insisted, “I can count, too. Marlowe wasn’t working for the insurance company at the time of the robberies. He wasn’t able to stay honest that long at a time. Sacramento says he only come west after the Civil War and only went to work for them a year or so afore he was caught crooking ‘em. How do you like them apples, old son?”

  Stringer said, “A lot better. Working in their office, he’d have had time to peruse old records and notice the loot from that last robbery was never accounted for. Before he could do anything much about it, he’d have been on his way to prison for doing something else.”

  The sheriff said, “I admire a gent who can think on his feet. What’s so funny?”

  Stringer patted Gina’s bare rump as he replied, “Nothing. I’m thinking on my feet like hell. It’s still sort of wild, Sheriff. One old con with lots of time to plan a big score when and if he ever got out is one thing. He’d have still had to convince those other rascals the treasure could still be somewhere about.”

  “Hell, Stringer, have any of them struck you as great brains, up to now? Finding a dozen or so assholes to go along with even a dumb plan ain’t that hard. I know. My life would be a lot more restful if nobody ever did anything dumb.”

  Stringer nodded and said, “I guess you’ve about wrapped it up, then, Sheriff. With the mastermind dead and the others dead or scared skinny, we’ve no doubt seen the last of ‘em and I sure have a lot of typewriting to catch up on. So—”

  “We ain’t out of the woods yet,” the sheriff cut in, asking, “Have you forgot they kidnapped that Mex gal after Marlowe was killed and, hell, buried?”

  Stringer said, “No. The survivors may have had some half-baked plan to get more information out of her folk. But there aren’t as many of them left. At least one ran over Miss Gina, here, rushing for a train, most likely, and I’ve talked to old Hernan about the robbery. Like half the Hispanics in the county at the time, he’d heard it was about to happen. But he wasn’t in on it. He was up beyond White Pines, hiding from some pissed-off brothers.”