by Lou Cameron
Stringer said, “The grass is coming back good up near the headwaters. The last I saw of Cherry Creek, it was still running between rains. I just wonder who might own all that water in a thirsty land now.”
The more thoughtful R.J. said, “I can answer that. Uncle Sam. All abandoned homestead claims revert to the federal land office, and they say even the Indians avoid that old battleground now. You know how Indians feel about bloody ground, and in its day that valley got to bleed some.”
The mousy little gal across the table said flatly, “It’s haunted.”
There was an awkward silence. Then parsony old T.S. cleared his throat and said, “The Book doesn’t hold with such talk, Sister Bertha.”
She sniffed defensively and said, “I know what I saw with my own eyes one night. If Brother Joseph Smith could see an angel under an apple tree in New York State, I guess I have a right to say what I saw one night up in that awful valley.”
Stringer nodded at her and said, “I’ve never seen either an angel nor a haunt, Miss Bertha. But I’m listening with an open mind. When and where did you see whatever?”
She stared down at her lemonade glass, blushing, and almost whispered as she told him, “Five or six years back, when my late husband and me came down from Utah, looking for new lands to settle. My husband Seth had heard about the good grass and water up to Pleasant Valley. We drove up there, liked what we saw, and filed on a quarter section. Seth thought we might use the foundations and still-standing chimney of an old ruin we found near the springs that water the valley. But we were still living in our covered wagon when the haunting started.”
At the head of the table Prue noticed how uneasy the mousy little gal was making almost everyone but Stringer. So she said, “We know you and Brother Seth never proved that claim before he was taken from you, dear heart. But surely what you mean to say is that you were run back to Globe by ruffians, perhaps cowboys from the Tonto Basin, rather than, ah, superstition.”
The mousy little gal shook her head stubbornly and said, “I know what I saw. We got along all right with the few cowboys who passed by from time to time. They were looking for strays, not trouble, and my Seth was a man’s man who got on well with even gentiles. He thought I was making it up, too, until one night he saw them too. That’s when we moved back to Globe to find some other way to make a living. He said our claim was all right, but not worth fighting men, let alone haunts, over.”
Another lady got up and left the room with a snooty sniff. But the others stayed, no doubt as curious as Stringer was when he asked her to describe her haunts.
She looked as if she was sorry she’d started the whole deal as she said defensively, “They were sort of shiny and sort of green, like big old fireflies drifting back and forth all around us in the dark. Only they were way too big, and moved way too slow to be fireflies.”
Stringer asked how she felt about railroad lanterns. She shook her head and said, “Not that green and not that bright. They were a pale, pale green, just bright enough to see against the blackness they were sort of floating through. My Seth took a shot at one. He was a sensible man, not a coward. But it just laughed at us and floated off a spell. Then, later, it came back to just float there, like it was trying to tell us something.”
Stringer nodded and said, “Others would seem to have gotten the same message. You say you heard as well as saw that spook light?”
She said, “It’s true. It’s really true, no matter what you all think. It laughed crazy and mean. It didn’t sound human, but it didn’t sound like a critter neither. Oh, I forgot. The night we decided to give up, we heard wolves ahowling all about too.”
R.J. said gently, “There are no wolves in these parts, Sister Bertha.”
And she said, “That’s what Seth said. He said lobo wolves belonged over in Apache country, not on abandoned range where there was nothing for ’em to feed on, save for us. So in the morning we packed up and lit out. We never regretted it. Seth found a decent job down this way and kept it, untroubled by haunts, until that mine cave-in last year.”
Then she leaped up to run out of the room with her hands to her little red face.
In the awkward silence that followed, others excused themselves from the table as well. Stringer didn’t know what to do until Prue Reynolds told him she’d show him to his room now, if he’d like to see it.
She did and he did. It was a sweet-smelling corner room with cross ventilation. She showed him the washstand in the corner and hinted she had indoor plumbing down at the end of the hall if he required, eh, anything else.
He said he wasn’t sleepy, and asked if he could smoke out front. She said he could. So they parted friendly at the head of the stairs and he went down them.
He’d been sitting there about ten minutes, surprised at how good tobacco could taste when one thought of it as forbidden fruit rather than something to do with one’s hands, when the garden gate swung open and a tall gent in a black suit came over to ask-where he might find one Stringer MacKail.
Stringer, had, of course, taken his hat and gun rig out front with him. So he just rose to even the odds as he said, “You’ve found him. What’s your pleasure?”
The stranger opened the front of his frock coat to flash silver in the moonlight and say, “I’m Ed Nolan. Deputy Ed Nolan. We just got an odd wire from Saint John’s that you might be able to help us out with. Is it true you just rode down through Pleasant Valley?”
Stringer sat back down, saying, “I did. Can’t say I know Saint John’s that well. I left from Holbrook.”
Nolan put one boot up on a step to relax it as he nodded and said, “Not many have. Saint John’s got aced out when the Santa Fe chose to run its tracks through Holbrook years ago. Anyhow, there’s a gent in Saint Johns named Barth, Sol Barth, I think. He’s said to be one of the bigger frogs in that little puddle. He says he’s missing some riders. One’s named Gus Warner, and he’s described as an old geezer a mite long in the tooth but a hard worker. The other would be Hamp Coleman, younger than Warner but older than you or me. We was wondering if you might have encountered either in your recent travels.”
Stringer was pretty sure he had. On the other hand he wasn’t dead certain, and explaining dead men could be a bother when one didn’t have to. So he said, “I ran into some riders off the Hash Knife. One was called Montana and another was Pirate. Can’t say what the other two might have answered to. Oh, yeah, I met a stray Army mount up that way too. We parted company at the Salt. Can’t say where he drifted after that.”
Nolan said, “Now that’s sure odd. Barth wired that his man, Warner, was last seen riding a pony with a remount brand. Don’t ask me why. The Army sells ’em off when the oats and Indians are down. You say Warner’s mount was just wandering about on its own up yonder?”
Stringer nodded and said, “It was running loose with neither saddle nor bridle the first time I saw it in Pleasant Valley.” Which was the simple truth when one thought about it, word for word.
Nolan said, “Well, they do tell funny stories about that old abandoned range. Would it be too much to ask why you decided to haunt it some as well?”
Stringer said, “I’ve nothing to hide about my reasons for wanting a look-see. I’m a newspaper man. I thought there could be a story. I’m still trying to figure one out. Having just passed through from one end to the other, it is my considered opinion that there’s nobody living up there now. You’ve heard the tales about haunts chasing new settlers out, of course?”
Nolan nodded and said, “I have. Did you see any spooks up that way, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “Not personal. What were those other riders doing on the same range, if I may ask?”
Nolan shrugged and said, “Their boss didn’t say. He didn’t even tell us what they did for him, let alone why they’d want to be doing it so far from Saint John’s. He just asked us to see if we could find out whatever happened to ’em.”
“That sounds like a boss who worries about his help. But how
come you came looking for me, of all people? I’ve never heard of any gent called Sol Barth.”
Nolan said, “Neither had I until I asked around town. Some old timers recall Barth as a merchant and horse trader with a Mexican wife of good family and a finger in many a pie. He must know more about you. He mentioned you by name and suggested you might know something about his missing help. Before you ask how I tracked you down, don’t never stop a runaway team on Main Street if you don’t aim to be well-knowed in a town this size.”
Stringer smiled and said he’d keep that in mind. Then he said, “You can tell Sol Barth for me that I have never been formally introduced to anyone called Gus Warner or Hamp Coleman, but that I may pay a social call on him if ever I’m up his way.”
Nolan said, “I ain’t about to waste money on wires that don’t say more than that. If his boys are gone, they’re gone, until someone tells me where in thunder they may be. Before you turn up missing, MacKail, would it be too much to ask where you may be headed next?”
Stringer sighed and said, “No place, until I rest up some. Then my boss wants me to come on home to Frisco.”
Nolan nodded and said, “If you take the spur down to the main S.P. line, it ain’t too long a trip by rail.”
Stringer said, “I’ve been studying on that. The Santa Fe runs the same way, and I hate to be called a horse thief. I’m stuck with a pair of livery mounts from Holbrook. So I reckon I’ll catch a westbound from there.”
Nolan frowned down at him and said, “I’d have thought you’d seen enough of Pleasant Valley and all the desert north and south of the same by now, MacKail.”
Stringer said, “I have indeed, and it was tedious the first time. But now that I know the way and how much grub to take, I ought to make better time going back.”
Nolan stood in silent thought for a time before he said, “I hope you won’t take this unfriendly. But I am getting the distinct impression someone is bullshitting me. What’s all this high-summer riding through nothing much really about, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “I wish I knew. It wasn’t my idea to begin with. I wanted to publish a story about the Frisco Chinatown. My boss sensed a good feature on Sheriff Commodore Perry Ownes and the old range wars he was involved in. Only Owens is now running a saloon in Seligman, and everyone else involved seems to be dead or scattered. As to ghost stories, they’re only worth writing when you have a good ending, and I can’t even come up with a sensible beginning. My paper’s not about to run a mess of vague rumors about mysterious boomps in the night. So unless I meet a ghost personal going back the other way, I reckon I’ll have wasted a lot of time admiring mighty empty scenery.”
Nolan said, “I’d offer you an armed escort if we had more’n haunt tales to go on. It’s your funeral if you’re holding out on us.”
Stringer said he’d keep that in mind, and Nolan left. Stringer field-stripped his spent smoke lest he shock anyone tending a Mormon garden, and got up to turn in. The house was quiet as he eased up the dimly lit stairs. His room was pitch-black. He lit a match to get his bearings, and let it go out once he had the simple layout figured. He tried to lock the door. There was no key on either side of the spring latch. He frowned and slid a chair over to the door. Its back wasn’t tall enough to lock under the knob, but at least it would slide noisy on the hardwood floor if anyone got sneaky.
Having done all he could, he hung his gun handy on the bedpost farthest from the door, undressed, and gave himself a bath at the washstand in the dark. Then he slipped between the clean, crisp lavender-scented sheets and fell right off, as the past few nights of sleeping on hard ground caught up with him.
But, as ever, Stringer tended to sleep light in a strange bed, even with the door locked. So when the door opened to slide chair legs loud as hell, Stringer was sitting up with his .38 trained before the dark figure outlined by the hall light could get it shut again.
As the room was once more plunged in blackness, Stringer rolled off the far side of the bed, gun still trained, and told his unseen visitor, “I got five in the wheel, all for you, if you don’t say something friendly fast.”
He heard someone whisper, “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
He said, “That makes two of us, ma’am. Let’s keep it like that until you tell me what this is all about.”
She whispered, “Not so loud! I didn’t mean to startle you. I ducked in here because I had to. That nosy old T.S. is just down the hall in the bathroom. I didn’t want him to see me sneaking back to my own room next to the bath.”
Stringer asked, “From where?”
She replied, “I just left a sandwich and a glass of milk in little Willy’s room. I know what a scamp he is, but I fear I’m just not as strict as common sense says we should be when I think of hungry children.”
He had her figured out now. He got back in bed to reholster his gun as he said, “Your secret is safe with me, ma’am. I had a strict mother one time.”
She said, “Not so loud, I pray you. I don’t want the others to know, and that horrid old man down the hall gossips like an old biddy hen. I wish he’d go back to bed. But once he’s in there, he’s likely to stay half the night. I think he reads on the… never mind. I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable?”
As a matter of fact she was, but it wasn’t polite to mention erections to a lady who hesitated to say crapper. So he told her it was jake with him if she wanted to stay a spell.
He hadn’t meant that as seriously as she took it. But when she said, “My, it’s cold in here with all the windows open,” and got in bed with him, he’d have felt even sillier doing anything else. But as he took her in his arms, she stiffened and said, “Heavens! You’re not wearing your nightgown!”
He said, “I don’t own one, and you’re sort of overdressed for occasions like this. So why don’t we just get all this infernal flannel out of the way?”
She gasped and asked what he thought he was doing as she pulled her nightgown down as fast as he could pull it up. He kissed her to keep her from asking such dumb questions. But though she kissed back more sweetly than passionate, and continued to resist his free hand, he gave up and told her, “I’m sorry if I misjudged your odd views on avoiding the cold desert night air. I might enjoy kid games more if I was a kid. But whatever in thunder you think you’re doing, it strikes me as cruelty to animals. So why don’t you just get out of my fool bed and we’ll say no more about it.”
She snuggled closer and said, “I can’t leave until the hallway is clear, and it feels so cozy under the covers with you like this.”
He said, “That does it. Unless we assume Willy the Death was a product of immaculate conception, this conversation is getting dumb as hell. So get up or let’s get to acting grown-up. There are limits to my genteel upbringing, ma’am.”
She asked, “Why are you fussing at me? Have I done something wrong?”
He said, “Not yet,” and kissed her again, harder, as he rolled atop her, jerked the hem of her flannel nightgown just high enough to matter, and got in her awkwardly, but mighty fine.
As she felt his turgid shaft inside her she gasped, “Oh, no, not that!” then wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him deeper, sobbing, “Oh, Lord, please don’t let that horrid old T.S. find out about this.”
He kissed her ear and whispered, “Nobody will, if you’ll just hold it down to a roar, honey. I was hoping like hell you meant it like this when you said you felt eternal to me. But to tell the truth, I thought you was too prim and proper.”
She moaned, “I try to be. But a woman has needs and—oh, sweet chariot, come any time you want!”
He did. He could tell she’d enjoyed it as much or more. From the way she’d damned near raped him, coy as she’d talked her way into bed with him, he suspected it had been some time since she’d been with a man. They’d never gotten around to just who Willy the Death’s father might have been. He obviously wasn’t around at the moment.
As they lay entwined, getting us
ed to each other’s flesh now that the ice had been broken, he started inching her nightgown out of the way some more. She murmured, “Oh, no, I couldn’t. I was raised to be modest, and not even my late husband ever saw me stark.”
He kissed her again and soothed, “That’s all right. I can’t see a thing, and you don’t know what you’ve been missing if you’ve never done it naked before.”
He was right. She protested feebly until her naked nipples were pressed to his bare chest. Then she gasped, “Oh, my, that does feel lovely!” and helped him get the last of the dumb, thick flannel off over her head. But as she took him in her now bare arms and held him close to her soft warm body, he began to wonder how anyone built like this could look like she did in her thin mother-hubbard. Such shapeless outfits could, it was all too true, hide a multitude of sins. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the shapely torso he was enjoying, it was just plain different. As he moved his hips to pleasure her, he explored the rest of her with his hands, and while she said she loved that, too, it was becoming increasingly clear he was not making love to Prue Reynolds.
There was no polite way at this late date to ask a lady who on earth one was laying. He’d just have to wait until they got to stop a while. Then he could use a relaxing smoke as an excuse to strike a match and see who she might be.
Meanwhile, whoever the hell she was had gotten over her shy act, and it was amusing to consider what she’d looked like in the past, doing it on top, if she’d never done it with her nightgown off before. As she bounced above him skillfully, he decided that was likely another attempt at delicacy rather than the whole truth. He’d spent a lot more time getting this far with gals who started out talking sassy and even smoking in public.
After she’d climaxed thrice, or said she had, and begged for mercy until she got her breath back, Stringer dismounted and rolled his bare feet to the floor on the far side to grope for his shirt in the dark. As he dug out the makings, she asked him what on earth he was doing. He said he meant to have a smoke. She protested that tobacco was against her religion. He said that was all right, he’d just smoke it himself, once he got it rolled.