Stringer and the Lost Tribe

by Lou Cameron

  Stringer nodded and finished his coffee as he rose from the table.

  Dr. Gore groaned, “Oh, no!” and told his daughter, “That mule-headed fool, Professor Robbins, is on his way up here with his own expedition.” I won’t have it! Robbins is no more than a pothunter filled with crackpot theories about Asiatic tribes!”

  Watson looked concerned and muttered, “That’s just what we need. Two bone hunters digging up dead Indians at once!” Then he added, “We don’t want you doing that no more, Doc. The site manager says you’re not to disturb no more Indian graves until we get to bury the ones as dug up Mary-Jo.”

  Dr. Gore protested, “I have a permit, damn it!”

  Watson replied dryly, “Not from Consolidated Minerals, Doc. It’s on our claim you’ve been digging, and it’s on our heads if said digging has caused us more trouble then we already had.”

  Then he said, “Let’s go, Stringer. The boys are waiting for us down at the town corral. It’s our fervent hope that you can put us on the trail of them Indians. I hope you feel fervent too, for the boys are mighty vexed about little Mary-Jo, and you know how boys feel about strangers when they can’t find anyone else to take their anger out on.”

  Stringer did. So for openers he led the eighteen-man posse to the last place he’d stopped with the treacherous Lola, saying he was backtracking and knowing it was one hell of a ways from that lava tribe and Joe Malliwah et al. It took close to two hours of mighty rough riding, and that served to do wonders for their first enthusiasm. Both the site manager and mine supervisor had tagged along, overweight, in business suits. They sure cussed a lot when Stringer led them through high chaparral, and more than one old boy who was dressed more sensibly bitched about not having chaps on his legs or taps on his stirrups. Stringer got hung up with a branch of sticker-bush through his stirrup now and again, but it didn’t feel so bad when a rider knew where he was going. He finally got them to the watered clearing where he’d last seen Lola. He reined in and called out, “Here’s where I last saw my pony,” and they all dismounted to either scout for sign or flop in the cool ferns.

  The deputy called Jimbo was first to notice anything. “Two steel-shod ponies headed west from here at a lope. How come you didn’t say you was leading a pack-horse, Stringer?”

  MacKail knew how to ask trick questions too. So he replied, truthfully, “I rode this far aboard a paint. I suspect some fool Indian had to be riding the other.”

  That inspired Jimbo to explore further to the west in what Stringer sincerely hoped was poison oak. Meanwhile another company hand had found where Stringer’s heels had scuffed some dry duff the day before. He called out, “Did you head up this slope one time?”

  Stringer replied, “Why should I have?” since he didn’t want them tracking that way.

  But the hand and a couple of others did, cuss them. So just about the time Jimbo walked back to them, muttering about the damned springy duff holding no more sign than a welcome mat, they all heard a holler from up on the ridge above them and Stringer had no choice but to walk on after them, looking as innocent as he could manage.

  CHAPTER SIX

  As Stringer caught up with them around that bay tree he’d been pinned against that other time, Watson pointed up and told him, “You were lucky as hell, Stringer. Look up yonder.”

  Stringer did. The Yana would have recovered that arrow if it had been at all the kind they fancied. Since it wasn’t, it was still stuck deep in the bay bark. Jimbo said soberly, “That’s the same kind of arrow them white boys was stuck with when young Saunders brung ’em in to bury.”

  Watson said, “I noticed. That’s why I just told Stringer how lucky he was. The Diggers must have stole his pony whilst he was crapping or whatever down the other way. Then, before they got around to tracking him, they heard Saunders and his pals up this way. We know how that turned out. Circle out and scout for more sign, boys.”

  They did. It was the mine supervisor, bless his fat hide, who found horse apples and a lot of scuffed-up duff down the far slope and yelled about it a lot.

  As they all joined him, Watson looked around and said, “This must have been where young Saunders was holding the three ponies. He told me they’d heard something and that his pals had scouted ahead on foot. That was where he found them later full of arrows.”

  The site manager spied something in a nearby clump of madrone, blinked in surprise, then reached in to haul out that Paiute bow they’d meant to use on Stringer. The site manager laughed like a clever kid and said, “Here’s the murder weapon. One of ’em, anyway. One of those Diggers must have dropped it as he ran off, likely wounded.”

  Watson took the bow and held it high to examine as he said, “It’s a Digger bow, sure enough. I remember seeing bows like this as we was crossing the Nevada desert, years ago. Doc Gore must be right about ’em being Paiute, Goshute, or whatever. They got no more right to be up in these mountains than we have, the treacherous trespassing sons of bitches.”

  Jimbo looked thoughtful. “Saunders never said him and his pals had enjoyed much of a fight with ’em. He told me he’d just waited for his pals an hour or more and then led the ponies on to find ’em dead on the mountain.”

  Watson shrugged, handed the trophy back to the man who’d found it, and opined, “Saunders told us they were deputy sheriffs as well. His lying pals might have got off a few shots as they went under. There’s no way to ask him if he heard any now. The question is which way the rascals run after they stole Stringer’s pony and arrowed them other boys.”

  Jimbo said, “The pony tracks led west, as far as I could follow them.”

  Stringer, standing west of Jimbo, broke a juniper twig with his fingers, unseen, before he announced, “Someone sure tore past this juniper fast, and to the west as well. Ain’t Mount Lassen over that way? And don’t the Indians up this way call Lassen the center of their world?”

  Watson said he’d never heard that before, but that it made sense. So they all went back down to mount up and ride west, searching for sign and even finding some, they thought, whenever someone noticed where a critter had been at the brush.

  In the end it was the site manager who called a halt, observing, “I got both knees bleeding now, and those Diggers have a hell of a lead on us. We don’t even know that the same band dug up that white child’s casket. I vote we call it a day, boys.”

  Since all the men but Stringer worked for him, and since Stringer knew they were on a fool’s errand for certain, nobody voted against the weary gent. Stringer was tempted to suggest they cut straight over to the wagon trace for easier riding on the way back, but he kept quiet, and, sure enough, Watson brought the motion up and they all agreed they’d busted through more than enough chaparral for the day.

  Once they’d made it down to easier riding, Stringer fell in beside the site manager to ask if he had a light. The now ragged boss man give him a match for the smoke he’d just rolled and got out a tailor-made for himself. Stringer waited until they were chatting casually about the woes of mining mercury in such dumb surroundings before he asked, as if just passing the time, how much cinnabar they were jawing about.

  The site manager shrugged and said, “No more than a few years’ worth, I hope. It’s not a very rich vein, and Lord knows mercury is heavy stuff to carry out of these damned mountains. But the stockholders don’t have to blast and muck hard rock. They got to sit on their asses and clip coupons while we do all the work. So as long as there’s any profit to ’em, we’ll likely be stuck up here.”

  Stringer asked what sort of a profit they were talking about. The site manager replied, “Marginal. The mercury market is down, and you just can’t get hard-rock miners to work for nothing. But as long as there’s any profit at all, the stockholders will want it. Clipping coupons is a mighty easy chore next to figuring a better place to invest your money. You got to get their stock dividends down to less than the banks will pay as interest before the bastards sit up and take notice. I’m hoping that once the Qu
icksilver vein bottoms out they’ll send me back down to San Diego County. There’s still some cinnabar in them coastal hills, and you can get into a real city on weekends.”

  Stringer agreed the gals in San Diego were pretty, and they jawed about less important matters to him as they rode on back to Quicksilver. They were almost there when the mine superintendent drifted up to join them, bitching about the time they’d have to make up by working late that evening at time-and-a-half.

  Stringer kept his mouth shut and his ears open. That gave him a shot at learning a little more without asking nosy questions. He was paid to be nosy, but it made some people proddy, and since he was also paid to know at least a little about a lot of things, he was able to follow most of their mining jargon as he smoked and appeared to admire the hills all around.

  He learned that Trevor, the one in charge of digging and refining the mercury, seemed to have as much resentment of authority as his Welsh name called for, while Porter, the site manager and overall boss, was more easygoing as long as he could tell company headquarters things were going as well as anyone could expect in such dismal surroundings. When Trevor said he was hard pressed for pit props down in the shaft, old Porter told him there were still plenty of oak trees in the valley.

  Trevor winced like he’d been stung by a bee. “You can’t use oak for pit props, look you. The wood is strong, but it doesn’t talk to you before it gives. This is earthquake country, and we like at least a few seconds’ warning before the mountain sits down on us. Fir props are best, and juniper creaks almost as much before it gives. But my lads have cut all the juniper about the valley, and there was never enough fir to begin with, you see.”

  Porter looked annoyed. “We’ll have to send out some well-armed logging crews, then.”

  To which Trevor answered, “Then who gets to blast and muck ore in the meantime? My lads are paid to produce mercury, not lumber, look you. We need more men up here if we’re to make that one vein pay.”

  Porter shook his head. “We can’t take on a bigger work crew than we already have. I’m already providing for close to three hundred people, counting dependents. Even if you could find me a logging crew of celibate monks I’d still have to pay their wages, and we’re operating the company store at a loss as it is. You’ll just have to do the best you can with what you have, Trevor.”

  The mine supervisor snapped, “My lads and I have been doing more than the company has a right to expect from mortal clay, look you. The pit would be dangerous enough with proper timbering, and there’s only so much rock we can move in twelve hours. If you’d sign on more men we could use them as a night shift, once they’d cut plenty of juniper for us. We can’t carry on as we’ve been doing if you really want to show a profit.”

  “I’m only asking you to do the best you can,” Porter replied. “This newspaperman and I were just discussing how much nicer mucking mercury would be down near San Diego.”

  Stringer neither answered nor looked at either of them. He tried to avoid company politics back at the press room of the Sun. Such feuding was for women and childish men. He’d never understood the point. But he did know it seemed to go on in any work crew bigger than two. So he sensed there could be more than an honest difference of opinion here. Mercury wasn’t toxic as a liquid metal. But it gave off fumes that could addle a man’s thinking in time, and, even thinking straight, it would only be natural for the company men who did the hard labor to resent the aboveground management. So the men in and about Quicksilver might not present a solid front to outsiders.

  Stringer was pretty sure that Porter wasn’t worried about nosy reporters. As site manager, he had the power to run anyone he didn’t like clean out of the valley. He’d already forbidden the Gores from messing with any more Indian graves, bless him, and he didn’t seem to give that much of a damn about the whole operation.

  But Trevor was less cheerful and seemed to feel possessive about his own job. Stringer understood his concern about pit props. He’d done features on hard-rock mines before. Could the fat, feisty Welshman have anything else on his mind?

  Stringer couldn’t come up with any angle Trevor could be out to hide from the outside world. Old Sam Barca, way down by San Francisco Bay, could read Trevor’s production figures just by asking for them at the stock exchange. There was neither a way nor a sensible motive to fudge them. And neither Trevor nor Porter figured to be fired if they couldn’t show any profit from this operation. The parent company would just transfer them to some other site, and they both seemed to agree they didn’t much care for this one.

  Stringer was mulling over everything he’d ever heard about petty company politics, unable to come up with even a dumb point that might inspire a mad mining man to hire at least four and perhaps five dangerous folks at the wages dangerous folks demanded, when they all rode into Quicksilver around noon.

  Everyone in town seemed to want to hear about Indians at once. Both Porter and Trevor agreed a lot of them belonged down in the mine. So they said so and made it short and sweet in front of the saloon. Watson told them they’d chased the red rascals at least as far as Mount Lassen, which seemed to cheer most of ‘em up. But the mother of little Mary-Jo wailed, “Didn’t you get my baby back? I can’t stand the notion of her poor bitty bones being passed about by grinning savages.”

  Jimbo, trying to be helpful, suggested, “Aw, ma’am, your kid wouldn’t have rotted all the way to bones yet. She’s only been dead a month.”

  His well-meant words of cheer inspired the young mother to cover her face with her apron and run off screaming.

  Watson shot his deputy a dirty look and growled, “You might have put that more delicate, you uncouth cuss.”

  Stringer felt like riding after the upset mother to assure her the fool kid’s likely stinky little corpse had never been dug up to begin with. But he’d never have played such a trick on anyone if he hadn’t been thinking about the feelings of more than one cadaver’s kin. So he just dismounted, tethered his mount next to the others in front of the saloon, and tagged along after Trevor, knowing the Welshman wouldn’t have left his pony back there if he’d meant to stay down in the mine all that long.

  When the mine superintendent noticed he had company, he asked, “Isn’t MacKail a Scottish name, look you?”

  Stringer replied with a nod, “West Highlands. I don’t mind if you call us Scotch. We called ourselves Alban-ach to begin with, so why pick nits, and what about it?”

  Trevor said, “We lads of Cymru are Celts, too, you see. The English have never understood any of us, or tried to.”

  “You sound like my uncle Don MacKail. He’s always said my CrazyAuntlda—one word—has never been able to understand him, or his cows, because she’s part English. I sort of noticed you and old Porter were unable to agree on the running of a mercury mine.”

  Trevor grimaced. “Oh, he means well, you see. But he’s just lost underground. Would you like me to show you about the operation, then?”

  Stringer smiled. “I’d be back at the saloon right now if I wasn’t interested. I’ve only seen the edges of the layout in the dark so far.”

  He was almost sorry he’d said that, by the time the dumpy Trevor finished showing off the whole shebang to him. The mine itself was little more than a hole in the ground, running down at a thirty-degree slant and twisting just enough so they had to use carbide lamps down near the working face. A trio of sweaty workers, stripped to the waist, were drilling the wall of cinnamon toast with two sledges and a star drill.

  Trevor glanced down at a nearby open box, half filled with dynamite sticks imbedded in sawdust. Then he gasped and demanded, “What’s this, then? You blithering idiots have dynamite enought to blow us out the top of the mountain, just sitting there like your lunch sausages, and the face not ready to blow for hours.”

  The one holding the star drill soothed, “Take it easy, Taffy. We’re meaning to put them sticks in the holes as we drill ’em. You expect us to run in and out of this hole like damned ol
d ants, packing a stick at a time?”

  “I do! And the caps carried separate as well! Good God, man, don’t you know better than to charge a hole before you’ve drilled every one? It’s a shock that sets dynamite off, you see, and you’re swinging nine-pound sledges at that steel in solid rock! I want this dynamite out of here until you’re set to blast, and then I want no more down here at one time than the job really calls for.”

  The one holding the drill protested, “We’re almost done here, Taffy.”

  But Trevor snapped, “You’ll be done for good if you don’t get that dynamite out of here, look you. I’ll not have this pit put at such risk because of your careless lazy ways. Get it out of here this instant. I mean it!”

  Stringer nudged the irate mine supervisor and said, “We’re going to have to go back up anyway. Let me carry the fool stuff for you. That way you both win.” And he picked up the dynamite before Trevor could tell him not to.

  The fat fumer followed after him with both lamps, protesting they were spoiling the sweat-soaked workmen back there at the face. When they got back outside, Stringer asked where they kept the stuff when they weren’t shattering rock with it. Trevor pointed absently at a nearby sandbagged shed, then he called a company man over and told him to put the dynamite away instead. As Stringer handed the box over, glad to be rid of it, Trevor said, “So much for the pit, such as it is. Shall I show you how we refine the ore, then?”

  Stringer nodded, and the supervisor led him along a cinder path, past the telegraph shed, to the big but crudely thrown together smelter.

  Stringer noticed that the four men refining the ore all had Welsh surnames. That didn’t strike him as mysterious. Uncle Don back home was a sucker for a saddle tramp with a Scotch name, whether they could rope worth a damn or not, and the smelter work had to pay a mite better than busting the ore out of the ground.

  Most of the brickwork was just dobe. The boiler plate had of course been hauled in. The operation was so simple that Stringer didn’t have to ask many questions. Mercury was molten at room temperature, so they didn’t need, or want, to use much heat to roast the crushed ore. A wood-stoked firebox cooked the cinnabar in an airtight oven big enough to bunk in, with the fires out and the loading trap open, of course. The mercury boiled out of the rock as a mighty poisonous vapor. Then it drifted into a sort of giant moonshine still to cool down and run down through water-cooled coils as the familiar silvery liquid you could bust out of a thermometer—and did, if you were young and curious enough.