Stringer

by Lou Cameron

  As they rode out, Tomas suggested, “Your ponies can’t be too far. Our land is fenced.”

  Stringer said, “I noticed. Dotty, hand me that lamp, will you? I’m sorry about your grandfather, but there may be some silver lining to this cloud after all.”

  Mamacita was too upset to watch. But the two younger members of the old man’s household did, as Stringer put the lamp on the tiles near the hole and only had to dig a bit more with his own hands before he grunted and said, “Yep. I was sure I put a bootheel on something hollow, just before we had so much nosy company.”

  Uncle Don hunkered down to help as, together, they hauled the clay-coated, rusty strongbox up into view. The older MacKail said, “Jesus H. Christ! I thought we’d agreed Joaquin Murrieta was just a fairy tale!”

  Stringer got out his pocket knife and went to work on the rusty hasp as he explained, “Murrieta didn’t hold up that stage, Uncle Don. But the boys who did must have thought they were fighting for the same lost cause. Old Hernan rode with ‘em. He was the one MacSorley hit. So when he had to fall back, still hanging on to this loot, the others just kept riding and never came back.”

  From the corner where she still held the dead man like a sick child, his daughter protested, “Is not true! My mother and father eloped just before the robbery. They were hiding up near White Pines when the stage was stopped.”

  Stringer smiled at her gently and said, “That’s what they always told you. Some things are best kept from the children. It works as well if a wounded young vaquero made his way to his true love the night of the robbery and persuaded her to run away with him and nurse him some. If it’s any comfort, your mother’s family may not have known they were looking for anything more serious than a wayward daughter and her caballero. The reason your uncles never caught ‘em up around White Pines as they were providing such a fine alibi is that their sister and her wounded lover hadn’t made it that far, yet. It was summer, they had their love to keep ‘em warm, and a gal can dig buckshot out of her man almost any old place. By the time her brothers did catch up with ‘em they were really up at that rock shelter of fond memory and, since everyone had cooled down some by then, they lived happily ever after.”

  Uncle Don said, “No they didn’t. She died dirt poor and he just died crazier than I ever thought he was if he’s been sitting all these years on all that money!”

  Stringer popped the lid open and they all gasped to see how the lamplight shone on old silver dollars. Stringer said, “He had to keep it hidden. Or at least he thought he had to. He never did consider himself a bandit. He thought he and his comrades were out to win a war. So, being honest, or stupid, depending on how one may look at it, he held on to the loot all these years, waiting for his fellow patriots to come back for it.”

  Having had time to get a rough count on the contents by now, Stringer added, “I don’t see enough here to fund a real revolution. It should come to less’n two thousand. I’m sorry, kids, but at least you’ll be able to hang on to your land, now.”

  Tomas was young, so he asked, “Don’t we have to turn that in to the law, Stringer?”

  Uncle Don growled, “Let ‘em live on the tax money we’ve been paying ‘em for years, son. Finders keepers, I always say, and we found this under the house old Hernan built atop it, right?”

  Stringer explained, “The stage line went out of business years ago. Before they did, the insurance company made good on their loss and got ‘em to fire lots of honest men. Some honest men, anyway. My uncle’s right. You’d just be stirring up old troubles if you told anyone about this modest amount of money and, hell, who’d help you out with the bank after you proved you were so dumb?”

  After they’d thought about it some, it did seem as if the money just about made up for the loss of old Hernan. Tomas went out to round up their ponies as the MacKails explained some financial facts of life to Dotty, since her mother was still too upset to pay much attention. By the time Stringer and his uncle were ready to leave, things seemed about as much in order as a household with a recent death ever got.

  Riding for town, Uncle Don observed, “Young Dotty has a head on her shoulders. Verdugo tells me she’s a natural-born sneak, too.”

  Stringer said, “It’s theirs to invest wisely or blow on a funeral. There’s nothing more we can do to help them without we both get in trouble. I don’t think your distant kinsman, Angus MacSorley, would want that old case brought up again, either.”

  Uncle Don nodded soberly and said, “Always thought Angus might have been in on it. But he made up for it by doing his duty once the bandits blowed his best friend away and, so far, he’s been straight as any drunk ever gets.”

  As they rounded a bend and saw the lights of El Dorado ahead, Uncle Don mused aloud, “What I still don’t get is why in thunder so many folk had to die for such modest rewards. Adding up just the ones you and me shot between us, and even assuming we got more than half the original gang, a couple of thousand dollars don’t split thick enough to pay for the time and trouble, let alone the risk they must have at least considered afore we proved it was a fool notion!”

  Stringer said, “I fear we can blame that on Old Angus MacSorley as well. He didn’t know what was in that strongbox. But the only important thing he ever did in his life was to shoot at Hernan as it vanished from human ken for a spell. So, over the years, he just filled that infernal box with all the gold it could have held and—”

  “And that old-time insurance dick who questioned him about it whilst buying him drinks figured he’d know how much them bandits got!” cut in Uncle Don, adding rather smugly, “I’m glad I ain’t old and full of shit. That Marlowe gent fairy-taled his younger sidekicks into a whole lot of trouble over nothing much. It’s a good thing young Buck Brown gunned the murdersome cuss. It no doubt saved his confederates a lot of trouble. I’d be mad as hell if I went to all that fuss for so little money, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hell, Uncle Don, look at all the trouble we just went to for no reward at all.”

  The older MacKail chuckled and said, “That’s true. I didn’t even get to screw nobody. But it sure was fun!”

  Stringer didn’t answer. He could see how his uncle might have taken his being in the company of a half-dressed Gina right. He could only help nobody knew about the other gals at this late date.

  They reined in near Miss Gina’s. The sheriff’s ponies and buckboard were still in the lot next door. When Uncle Don wanted to enjoy a peek under the soggy tarp covering the wagonload Stringer told him not to be so nosy about the ones they no longer had to worry about and added, “I want a few words with the law before they light out again.”

  Uncle Don said all that gunsmoke had made him thirsty in any case and they entered to find the place crowded, noisy, and full of tobacco smoke. Miss Gina waved at them from where she was holding court down at the end of the bar, seated on the same in red velvet, as the sheriff and his deputies drank more sedately all around her hips. As the two MacKails joined the party Miss Gina smiled down at them to say, “I must say you’ve been a busy boy since last I saw you, dear. The boys were just telling me about it. I’m so sad about that old Mex dying. Is there anything we can do to help?”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “They’ll be all right, once they get him buried and the place tidied up. I don’t see the ugly old gal you used to have tending bar here, Gina.”

  The sheriff laughed and said, “I can explain that, old son. Miss Gina, here, just run a nose count for us. That gal was the love toy of the Chinee we got in the buckboard right now.”

  Miss Gina said, “That’s right. I hired them both about the same time, a week or so ago, as close as I can pin it down. The gent you may have noticed behind the bar, earlier, was new help, too. As we’ve been putting it together, I’m lucky to be alive and well tonight, for I seem to have hired a whole crew of drifters recruited by that awful Marlowe man.”

  Stringer removed his hat to examine the bulletholes in it by improved illumination as he a
sked her, “How many, all told, are we talking about here, Gina?”

  The sheriff said, “Four, aside from the dead Chinee and his gal. All the others working here has worked long enough to be trusted employees.”

  Miss Gina said, “I ought to be spanked for hiring that many teetotal strangers. But it’s hard to get help up here in these hills with the mine so close. Aside from the oriental and the one who said he was a barkeep, I hired another kitchen helper and a man-of-all-chores to swamp and unload beer kegs and such.”

  Stringer put his hat back on and said, “That’s only three. Who was the fourth man the law just mentioned, Gina?”

  She said, “Customer. Has to be. A recent regular who spent lots of time talking to that treacherous Lulu hasn’t been in all day and, as nobody left knows him, he has to be one of them, too.”

  The sheriff patted his vest and said, “I got their descriptions all writ down. Doubt we’ll ever see hide or hair of ‘em again, for it works out as we figured. Marlowe had his gang filter in a few at a time. They took jobs here and about in town, and rid more mysterious when they got off duty. Counting the ones Miss Gina, here, was being used by, I’d say more than half of Marlowe’s gang, including Marlowe, paid for the error of their ways and should have seen the light by now. In case they ain’t, I just phoned San Andreas. The railroad station there is staked out. But to tell the truth, I hope they get away. Trying the small fry would just be a bother, now that the mastermind is accounted for.”

  Stringer asked, “Who do you figure for the mastermind, Sheriff?”

  The older man blinked and said, “Hell, who could it have been if not Marlowe his fool self? The others was just no-goods he picked up to throw in with him, old son.”

  Stringer shook his head and said, “That won’t work. Marlowe may have been the one who figured out their treasure hunt in the first place, but he was killed, right in this taproom, early in their game. They got rid of his body. Then they went on to kidnap the Montez girl and, just tonight, raise a lot of other hell. So who do you reckon suckered that poor Chinee to roll that fire cart at us if it wasn’t someone a lot smarter?”

  The sheriff swore under his breath and Gina said, “I told you he was smart as well as good-looking. I’m sure glad I was in San Andreas instead of here while they were kidnapping that Mex gal. What’s your alibi, Sheriff?”

  “Oh, suffering snakes, I was at the county seat as well, and I ain’t sure I like the drift this conversation is taking. Are you saying someone local was ahint all this recent noise, Stringer?”

  The younger man nodded and said, “Marlowe and his gang of outsiders had to have help from one of our own. I figure old Marlowe sold his snake oil to someone more important in these parts and, once Marlowe was killed, said local brain took over. The new head of the gang was smarter than Marlowe, who got himself killed as a ruthless but unimaginative fool. If you’ll recall, Sheriff, they started out just mean. They stole such documentation as they could get and pegged shots at innocent bystanders like me and that poor Helen Marsh. The mastermind who took over was as ruthless, but a heap smarter. First they kidnapped Dotty Montez, hoping to extort secrets from her family.”

  “That wasn’t so smart,” the sheriff objected. “We just established old Hernan died poor as a Mex ought to. So how could he have knowed much?”

  Stringer said, “The mastermind didn’t know there was nothing to the legend of Murrieta’s last loot. Pay attention to the pattern I’m drawing for you, Sheriff. The new leader shifted from wild and wooly to slick and sneaky, more interested in recovering the loot than scaring folk. When the kidnapping didn’t work, they decided to go dig up the Montez property tonight, knowing they’d be out for the evening. That dumb attack was the result of good help being hard to find, as Miss Gina says. The whole Montez family was supposed to be with my uncle, here, at the M Bar K. When the search party found ‘em home, they just started to act dumb as usual and the rest you all know.”

  Gina gasped, “The party line! Someone must have been listening in when you said those folk were spending the night at your aunt and uncle’s, remember?”

  The sheriff thought that was a grand notion. But Stringer shook his head and said, “There ain’t that many telephones in these parts, yet, and nobody who hasn’t been here a long-trustworthy time has one, save you, that is, Gina.”

  The buxom brunette atop the bar gasped, “Are you accusing me of being a crook, after all the other things I’ve been to you, you bastard?”

  He smiled sheepishly up at her and said, “I wish it didn’t work out that way, honey. But you did know I thought the Montez family was over at the M Bar K and I don’t recall telling the whole town it would be a good night to visit the Montez spread uninvited.”

  She snapped, “So what? Are you going to let him talk to me like that without any proof, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff said, “Them’s mighty serious words, Stringer, even if this young lady gossips more than most. I can’t see that as a felony, and let’s not forget she was one of the victims of the gang.”

  Miss Gina said, “That’s right. One of them ran me down and almost killed me, miles away from other victims of their wicked ways!”

  The sheriff agreed with her. But Stringer said, “Aside from it bending coincidence all out of common shape, it works better another way. There was only one rider going far too fast down a twisty country road in the dark, Sheriff. She wasn’t coming back from San Andreas. She was on her way to San Andreas, to establish an alibi, when she rode her pony into the ground and wound up on the same, rolled, kicked, and unconscious. When she came to on that table she changed the direction she’d been going and made up the tale about another rider from whole cloth.”

  “That’s a lie!” Miss Gina protested, adding, “I can show you all the bruise I got from the fore-hoof of that big black thoroughbred, dammit!”

  Stringer said, “Or the hind-hoof of a smaller cow pony. And by the way, Gina, you never did explain how you could make out the color of a strange mount in almost total darkness.”

  The sheriff was staring up at her more thoughtfully, now, so she tried, “Well, it looked black. I could have been wrong in the dark. Is that a crime?”

  The sheriff told Stringer, “Get to some crime, old son. I know there ought to be a law against reckless riding, but there ain’t. What would she be seeking to alibi with all this foolishness?”

  Stringer said, “Her involvement with the kidnapping of Dotty Montez, of course. It wasn’t supposed to go the way it did. She saw her crew had messed up and knew just saying she’d gone down to San Andreas that day might not be enough. She wanted to be there when and if anyone asked where she’d been at the time of the water fight at the hydraulic site. So she changed her duds and rode like hell. She made it most of the way before her luck ran out, then used her accident as part of her alibi. The rest you know, Sheriff.”

  “Like hell you say. What was that part about her changing her duds, Stringer?”

  “Oh, she was dressed as a man in a charo outfit while she was acting as lookout and leader for her dumber followers. Dotty Montez mentioned the fact nobody dressed Mex saw fit to answer her in Spanish or any other lingo. Miss Gina, here, was one of the two I let get away. The other was likely the gent who was working the day shift behind this bar, earlier.”

  Miss Gina protested, “I never knew Pete and that Chinee were crooks until one wound up dead and the other long-gone, dammit!”

  Stringer said, “Sure you did.” Then he turned back to the sheriff and added, “You’re going to want to take her whole crew in, including any gals upstairs who ain’t local. Do I really have to tell you why?”

  The sheriff shook his head and said, “I can count. The only way to hide a gang that big among innocent help is to have no innocent help.”

  He stared up at the velvet-clad mastermind and said, “We’ll all be heading down to the county seat, now, ma’am. I won’t cuff you if you promise to come along like a lady.”

  She must
not have wanted to. She rolled backwards across the bar in a swirl of red velvet to drop from sight behind it as a bullet ticked Stringer’s hat brim and shattered glass behind him. Then things started to get exciting.

  Stringer shoved his uncle one way and the sheriff another as he dropped to one knee, slapping leather. By now most of the gents in the joint had hit the floor and would have gone deeper had the sawdust been any thicker. So it was safe to assume anyone on his feet with gun in hand had to be on one side or the other and everyone acted accordingly.

  Stringer nailed the day-shift barkeep, who was supposed to be long-gone but was actually firing from near the piano. A less familiar face bounced a deputy off the bar with a bullet in his hip before Uncle Don evened the score with a deadlier shot. The sheriff had survived more than one such situation, so he was smart enough to turn as the barkeep on duty at the moment swung a big sawed-off ten-gauge up from the depths. It went off with a hell of a roar when the sheriff put a less noisy shot close to his heart.

  Meanwhile Stringer fired at whoever that was pegging shots his way from the dark kitchen doorway. The gunslick tossed his gun out, stepped into view with his hands up, grinning sheepishly, and then his legs buckled and he was down, too.

  There was a long moment of sober silence. Nothing was moving enough to matter in the blue haze of gunsmoke. The sheriff turned to the deputy who’d been hit and asked, “How bad are you hurt, Rafe?”

  Rafe leaned back against the bar and replied, “It feels more numb than hurtsome, Sheriff. But I feel I rate a ride on that buckboard instead of my pony, for now.”

  Then the sheriff nodded and said, “We may have to commandeer another wagon. I want all you gents to listen tight. Everyone in here who can still get to his feet had better do so, with his hands held high, till we can separate the sheep from the goats.”

  As the nearest bewildered miner started to rise the sheriff snapped, “Slim, take two men topside and check out the cribs. I want everyone in this here house of ill repute lined up so’s I can repute ‘em one way or the other, and I want that sudden!”