Stringer and the Oil Well Indians

by Lou Cameron

  She turned back to Tilghman and snapped, “You just go on and arrest me, if you dare.” So Tilghman nodded and said, “I mean to, Ma’am. Seeing you’re fully dressed, as if you might have been planning on going somewhere tonight, in any case, we’d best all wander over to the office, now. We’ll see what the federal prosecutor has to say about you making bail, if I can still get him on the telly-phone.”

  Tilghman got to his feet. So did Stringer. But the beautiful suspect stayed seated, insisting, “You don’t have a thing on me. Not a thing that you can make stick, and you know that as well as I do.”

  Tilghman stared across at Stringer to say, “What am I supposed to do now, pistol whip her and drag her back to my office? I sure hate to do that, even when I got solid proof.”

  Stringer said, “Well, you might have, Bill. It all depends on what any good druggist can tell you about the refreshments she just served. You just commented on her being dressed as if to go out, and Bull Durham might have beat her to that Buick they both must have known about, so…”

  “Oh my God!” Helen cut in, reaching for Stringer’s untested cup as she said, “First I’m supposed to be a master criminal and now he says I’m out to poison folk!”

  Then, before either man could stop her, Helen Tenkiller had swallowed the whole cup of lukewarm coffee and leaned back in her chair with a triumphant smile, saying, “There. Do I look like I’ve just drunk poison?”

  Bill Tilghman chuckled down at her and told Stringer, “I’d say she’s got you, old son. What makes you such a suspicious cuss?”

  Then, before Stringer could answer, Helen went over backwards, chair and all, and began thrashing on the floor like a snake some mean cuss had kicked into a branding fire!

  As Tilghman dropped to one knee at her side he wailed, “Don’t just stand there, Stringer! Do something!”

  So Stringer ran to the sink, filled a pot with fresh water, and hunkered down on the other side of the dying girl. But she seemed to be dead before they could find out if the water might have helped or not.

  As she lay dishrag limp between them, Stringer said, “It must have been something like strychnine.” To which the older lawman replied, morosely, “Quicker acting than strychnine. I’ve seen coyotes last longer than that after swallowing such bait. I take back what I said about you being suspicious, old son. I had no idea she was that desperate.”

  Tilghman got slowly to his feet as he added, “She must have had a really guilty conscience, to do a fool thing like that. Had she just stuck to her guns, the odds were better than even on her walking free, you know.”

  Stringer got up and emptied the pot into the sink as he replied, “You heard me tell her I’d have never had call to poke into their business if they’d just left me the hell alone. But I reckon you know better than me how many folk wind up in prison, or worse, because they can’t stay calm under pressure.”

  Bill Tilghman nodded and said, “I used to say more than half the men Judge Parker had to hang were too stupid to know which leg they was pissing down when they forgot to unbutton. You’re going to have to stick around until we do the paperwork on this complexicated case, even if all the crooks seem to be dead.”

  Stringer nodded grimly and said, “That’s all right. As long as I have two stories, now, for the price of one railroad ticket. Do you need me here any more, tonight, Bill? I thought I’d like to get back to my hotel and write some of this down while the details are still fresh in my head.”

  Tilghman nodded but asked Stringer to send some of the boys out back to help him tidy up the kitchen. Stringer did so and it was only a short walk back to the Osage Inn.

  As he entered, he saw Irene had left, bless her, no doubt to meet her fool kid brother. He didn’t care. He’d about recovered in that department, but a night alone in bed could hardly hurt him.

  As he passed the desk, the night clerk called out, “Hold on, Mister MacKail,” and as Stringer turned back, he saw a gal in a travel duster rising from where she’d been sitting amid lobby rubber plants. She held out her hand to Stringer, saying, “I’ve been waiting here in hopes of an interview, MacKail. I’m Swensen from the Washington Post.”

  As he shook with the pretty thing he noticed her hand was warm and soft as her smile and figured the back of his own neck would have felt even warmer if old Irene had been there to stare at it. This other gal didn’t look all that much like a Swensen, since her hair and eyes were both soft shades of brown and she was built petite under that travel duster and perky straw boater. He said, “Pleased to meet you, pard. But don’t you find it sort of unusual, interviewing other newspaper folk?”

  She dimpled up at him to reply, “There’s always a first time and it’s not as if we worked for papers on the same coasts. The two of us seem to be covering this oil well Indian angle and while I have my own copious notes on the subject, they tell me you’ve been having more excitement. I think we could both file hotter stories if we put our heads together and compared coverage.”

  He smiled crookedly and told her, “I’d sure like to put my head next to yours Miss Swensen. But I fear my boss would have a fit. Another newspaper gal who said she was my friend just tried to scoop us on an oil well fire and…”

  “It’s out.” She cut in, adding, “There’s not much news in an oil well fire to begin with, unless you’re watching it. The byline I’m willing to share with you is a lot bigger, and I’ve a fifth of I.W. Harper and three pads of shorthand at my hotel just down the street. So what do you say?”

  Stringer glanced over at the desk. The clerk was pretending to read his own newspaper instead of staring right at them. So Stringer said, “That sounds more proper than inviting a lady up to my room. Lord knows I seem to have the time. I’ll be stuck here in Tulsa at least a few more days. But I have to say I’ve been burnt more than once sharing news with members of the unfair sex. It’s not that I’m greedy. But it hardly seems fair that I do all the work and you get all the details, gratis. No offense, but you just got here and they told you true when they told you I’ve been having an exciting time in Tulsa.”

  She said she was sure she could make it worth his while and then, before he could tell her she didn’t look like that kind of gal, she added, “You might say I arrived with notes you couldn’t have taken out here. My editor just got them from the horse’s mouth before he put me on the train with orders to go get some background material to explain Teddy Roosevelt’s latest outburst.”

  Stringer frowned down at her thoughtfully and said, “I met the president in the Yellowstone park just a spell back. I got to hunt poachers with him and Jack London. I can’t recall either of ’em mentioning Tulsa or even rock-oil, though.”

  She nodded and said, “I just told you it was a new news item. Before I dangle some bait for you, do we have a deal?”

  Stringer chuckled fondly and said, “Not hardly. I’ll dangle some for you. I just now come from covering the deaths of some mighty crooked crooks who’d been robbing oil well Indians blind. Before I share note one on a story that almost got me killed I’d sure like to know what you suspect I missed.”

  She took his arm and led him deeper into the rubber plants as she confided, “It’s too hot to let another soul in on. I know all about your recent shoot-outs. Such gossip travels fast in a town this size. All I need from you are the ways one spells all the names and such other details.

  Put together with what I have, you’ll be able to file a much better story and I’ll admit my own copy will read better spiced with what you’ve found out here, on the scene. Come on. We can talk about it at my place.”

  Stringer could tell he’d about recovered from his earlier overindulgences with other ladies as he inhaled some of this one’s musky perfume. But, trying to remember what that wise old philosopher had said about sanity, he said, “You’ll have to do better than that before you lead this poor mortal down any primrose path, pard. You just now said I had a mighty exciting scoop of my own to keep and cherish. Do I really look dumb enough
to share it with a rival paper for a belt of I.W. Harper and a hint that you might know something I don’t?”

  She sighed and said, “They warned me you were a hardcased pro and I can’t say that lowers you in my esteem. But do I have your word you won’t hold out on me if I give you all I’ve got?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her to say, dryly, “I hardly ever hold anything out of a lady who gives me her all.”

  She blushed, fluttered her lashes, and said, “Don’t talk fresh. We don’t know one another that well, yet.” Then she glanced all about, as if to make sure no other newspaper folk were lurking behind a rubber plant, and said, “All right. I’ll give you the gist of it, so you can make up your mind how far you want to go with me. President Roosevelt likes to think of himself as a Westerner who admires bears, buffalo, Indians and so forth. He thought it was amusing and simple justice when we learned back East about all the rock-oil they’d discovered under land a lot of Indians had been granted at gun point, whether they wanted it or not. So when a certain senator proposed a bill that would return the civilized tribes to their original lands in the swamps and moonshine hills east of the Mississippi, our Teddy got out his big stick and forgot what he said about speaking softly. It seems he enjoys swapping droll stories with a young part-Cherokee vaudeville star called Will Rogers and thinks the Oklahoma Indians have paid their dues twice over. So he’s put his own bill before Congress, giving more property rights to any Indian who speaks English and can read and write. He says this nonsense requiring a prosperous Indian to be sponsored by even a trash white is unjust as well as silly. How do you like my own angle so far?”

  Stringer chuckled and replied, “A lot better than tinhorn lawyers and Pearl Starr are likely to, if old Teddy can make it stick. The trouble with trying to grant full equality to the noble savage is that even some breeds like to feel sort of savage on the government dole. Only a very few Indians have oil wells on their property and many a trash white would take a government handout if it was offered. But you sure do raise an interesting angle and I can see how to work it in as, say, at least an extra half column.”

  She nodded and said, “My own feature will run longer and more interesting, once we put our heads together. So why don’t we just do that, MacKail?”

  He thought, nodded, and they went on over to her place to get started. But once they’d shared some of that I.W. Harper after he’d seen what she looked like with her loose travel duster and dumb hat hung up beside his hat and jacket, it was tough to get started writing.

  So it was a good thing, after all, that the local authorities had asked Stringer to stick around a few days. It took close to five before the government had wrapped up the case and told him he was free to go.

  If it had only taken three or four days, it seems doubtful Stringer and old Inga, as he’d learned to call her halfway down that first bottle, would ever have gotten around to putting one word down on paper.

  THE END

  YOU CAN FIND ALL OF LOU CAMERON’S STRINGER SERIES AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS:

  STRINGER (#1)

  STRINGER ON DEAD MAN’S RANGE (#2)

  STRINGER ON THE ASSASSIN’S TRAIL (#3)

  STRINGER AND THE HANGMAN’S RODEO (#4)

  STRINGER AND THE WILD BUNCH (#5)

  STRINGER AND THE HANGING JUDGE (#6)

  STRINGER IN TOMBSTONE (#7)

  STRINGER AND THE DEADLY FLOOD (#8)

  STRINGER AND THE LOST TRIBE (#9)

  STRINGER AND THE OIL WELL INDIANS (#10)

  STRINGER AND THE BORDER WAR (#11)

  STRINGER ON THE MOJAVE (#12)

  STRINGER ON PIKES PEAK (#13)

  STRINGER AND THE HELL-BOUND HERD (#14)

  STRINGER IN A TEXAS SHOOT-OUT (#15)