by Lou Cameron
Stringer said, “Someone who didn’t want to sign his own name, of course. He knew Barth was known up that way, figured you might not check with the law, and may be waiting for a reply to that wire, still calling himself Sol Barth.”
Nolan said, “We already thought of that. We got the Western Union office in Saint John’s staked. So far he ain’t showed. The fool kid clerk up there can’t even describe the cuss who sent that wire for us. How do you like the notion he was just trying to make trouble for you, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “Has he made any trouble for me, Ed?”
And Nolan replied, “Not as far as we can see. You’re free to ride on out anytime you like. But if I was you, I’d take some pals with me. It’s starting to look more and more like you got a lunatic showing considerable interest in you, MacKail.”
Stringer hadn’t checked into Prue Reynolds’ boarding house with any luggage. So, tempting as her suppers were, he never went back there. At least one of her boarders was at least a mite odd, too, and he had enough to figure out in these parts.
He ate at a beanery, swore he’d never do that again, and made a few last calls to tie Globe up neat enough to forget as he left it. He rode out after sundown, riding the paint and leading the buckskin, this time packing more grub and less water. Remembering little Concepción with more than fondness, he reined in from time to time to study his back trail. But nobody seemed to be following him in the moonlight.
That left ambushes ahead. So when he got back to the mouth of Cherry Creek, with the sky pearling gray to the east again, he crossed over to the far side and holed up in some palo verde to let the sun and anyone else out to kill him figure out where he might be.
He didn’t sleep all day. Nobody could have, even in the late-afternoon shade. He made himself wait, watering his ponies from time to time and reading all the notes Patty Stern had given him over and over, along with his own notes taken down in shorthand during his recent travels. He had more pieces of puzzle to work with than he likely needed, for try as he might, he couldn’t get them all to fit just right. From time to time he’d come up with an almost good notion. Then he’d see there was no proof, or worse yet, other details that shot the notion full of holes.
He put all the fool paper away, grubbed himself good, smoked too much, and headed out again before the sun was all the way down, but at least a cooler shade of tomato red.
It wasn’t so bad. That unseasonable rain they’d had was starting to show interesting results now. The chaparral looked greener, and the desert pavement between all but the poison-rooted creosote bushes was spangled with tiny little multicolored flowers that looked like microscopic daisies and would go to seed and die within days. A lot of desert flowers got by being seeds instead of anything more alive most of the time. As the shadows lengthened, critters who’d been hiding out were taking advantage of the modest green-out. Gaudy orange and black pelican bugs were feeding on fresh mesquite leaves. Nothing was feeding on them because they tasted awful, even to a lizard.
He spotted a big fat chuckwalla feeding on the little flowers. A baby dragon eating baby nosegays sure looked funny. He knew the snakes would soon be at their most dangerous time of day, so he stopped to swap horses in an open expanse of gray gravel, and it was still close, according to the skittish paint. He spotted the pretty little critter that had spooked her, peeking out from under some yucca, and calmed her down, soothing, “It ain’t, Paint. Red next to black is all right, Jack. It’s red next to yeller that can kill a feller. Haven’t you ever seen a false coral snake before? They’re a lot more common than the real thing, and hell, neither bother you much if you leave ’em alone.”
He mounted up and rode on, knowing the heavier tread of his ponies would warn any snake that wasn’t dead drunk that they were coming. Even the nasty desert diamondback fed on nothing larger than jack rabbit, and had no reason to strike at anything bigger, as long as it wasn’t taken by surprise.
An hour or so later it was too cool to worry about snakes. The next time he stopped to water and swap, he dug out his sheepskin coat. It was even colder tonight than that gal back in Globe had complained about. The air was drier each night after a rain, and couldn’t hold as much heat after sundown.
He stared up at the cold, black star-spangled sky to make sure of his bearings as he cut through the chaparral where no trails ran. His plan was to follow the western rather than eastern high ground this time. He had two reasons. He knew he might spot something looking east that he’d missed looking west, and he knew anyone laying for him would expect him to take the same trail back.
They made good time once they found another deer trail and rode along it at a trot now and again, where it was easy to see. He had to keep warning himself not to let his guard down as mile after mile passed under him with no sign of trouble. He holed up again at dawn amid a nest of boulders topped by mesquite aspiring to be real trees instead of glorified bushes. Things went as well all the way to the head of Pleasant Valley, and as he made camp that one last morning, the view down there looked pleasant as hell.
The grass was still yellow, save at the roots, of course, but the whole valley was now an oriental carpet of tawny grass, golden poppies, and purple desert lupine. Here and again a clump of cotton wood or willow rose from the rug to brag about all the water at their roots. The creek itself was now running low, and its bed was braided with lots of exposed sand. But there was still enough running water to glitter like fool’s gold in the dawn’s slanting sunlight. Stringer was sitting with his back to a boulder, enjoying the view as he rolled a smoke, when he heard hoof steps coming up the slope behind him and spun to his feet, .38 in hand.
He saw it was a shabby little gent on foot, leading a heavily laden burro. The old timer waved at him and called out, “Howdy. I don’t suppose you have any coffee to spare.”
Stringer called back, “No, but I’ll share with you anyways. Where in hell have you come from with that poor jackass?”
The old timer pointed back at the distant Ancha hills dividing this basin from the Tonto, and replied, “She’s a jenny. My name is Mo Glass, and I’ve come from Prescott, bound for the Zuni pueblos to the east.”
Stringer said, “You must like to walk a lot, cutting across the grain like so.”
As he tethered his burro near Stringer’s ponies and broke out a nose bag to water her, old Mo said, “I hate walking. But I’m an Indian trader, and I can’t get the savage bastards to live near railroad tracks. This may be the hard way, but it’s still the short way. I know because I have to torture myself this way all the time.”
As they hunkered down by Stringer’s pot, waiting for it to come to a boil, the old trader told him his simple story. He was headquartered in Prescott, where he could order shipments by rail and from whence his wife refused to stir whether he was there or not. He confided that he had a Zuni gal farther east, and that it served his white woman right. The Indians had learned to trust him over the years. So they depended on him for German coal-tar dies for their blankets, abalone shell and cinnabar for their coin-silver jewelry, and patent medicines for what ailed them. He confided, “My Zuni gal is the daughter of a medicine man. He don’t let on, but you’d be surprised how much of them new aspirin powders he mixes in with his feather shaking. On my way back I’ll be loaded up with mighty fine silver work. In my opinion Zuni work has that gaudy Navajo crap beat hollow. I ain’t as easy about hailing strangers when I’m packing silver. But you don’t have to shoot me if you want some aspirin or coal-tar colors.”
Stringer said he hardly ever murdered his elders, and added, “I’ve heard the same can’t be said for others in these parts. Do you come through Pleasant Valley often, Mo?”
The old man nodded down at the fine view and said, “Just to cross it. I water at the old abandoned homestead down among them willows. Why do you ask?”
Stringer answered, “I’ve been told the Tewksbury who once lived there was picked off carrying water a much shorter distance. Yet you say y
ou’ve never had any trouble down yonder?”
Old Mo nodded and said, “Hardly ever meet anyone this far from all over. I meet a young hand like you, out after strays or whatever, now and again. None of you have ever throwed me down and robbed me of my virtue, or even aspirin powders. I hope you don’t have someone gunning for you, son, for if you do, I’ll just be on my way and you can drink all your coffee. I’m a man with a better head for business than fighting.”
Stringer said, “Simmer down, Mo. I don’t think anyone is out to gun anyone this morning. I did have some trouble going the other way a few days ago. Now nobody seems interested, and you say they let you pass through regular. If I could figure that out, I wouldn’t feel so dumb.”
As they shared Stringer’s coffee and some interesting salami from old Mo’s pack, he brought the old timer up on his recent adventures. The old timer agreed it was a poser. He said, “I’ve often wondered how come nobody ever saw fit to reclaim this range. That’s not my line. But even I can see it’s a handsome spot for a homestead, and you should see some of the dumb places to homestead I’ve passed in my travels across this dusty land. We heard a little in Prescott about the range wars over this way. But I thought they’d been settled years ago.”
Stringer said, “They were. All the participants are long gone. But though others have tried to move in, they’ve all been driven out, like I told you.”
The canny old trader said, “Try it this way. With nobody living within miles, your mastermind can’t be guarding it all the time. He just checks from time to time, or hell, he can get it at the land office whenever someone means to settle anywhere down there long enough to matter.”
Stringer stared at the old man in admiration and said, “That works. That’s why gents like you and Hash Knife riders aren’t bothered when you pass this way. The mastermind neither knows nor cares about casual visitors.”
Old Mo said, “Hold on. We may not be so smart after all. You didn’t file any claims at any land office, did you, son?”
Stringer said, “No. I didn’t even come out here to do a story on the damned old range. But let’s try another tack. What if all this time they’ve been after me not to keep me from lookin down at all that grass, but because they’re afraid I might discover yet another dirty secret they’re trying to hide?”
Old Mo sipped more coffee, commented on how fine it tasted after two whole days without, and decided, “You say they tried to get you smack in town. Yep, if I wanted a man gunned, and he just refused to stay in town, I reckon I’d just try to have him gunned anywhere I could get at him.”
“What about those Mexican cow thieves?” Stringer asked.
The old man laughed bitterly, and said, “Let’s not get into racial prejudice. When a man hires his gun hand out to kill total strangers for pay, who’s to say who he might kill free when he sees the chance? I don’t think we’re talking about nice people, son.”
Stringer nodded and said, “Yeah, old Ed Tewksbury told me there was still some hard feelings between Anglos and Mexicans in these parts. The last of the gang I met up with was a mean old buzzard with the look of a natural killer. That Mex gal I told you about might have gotten more direct revenge than we thought at the time.”
Old Mo finished his coffee, put the tin cup aside with a sigh, and got to his feet, saying, “That was grand, and I’m much obliged. But I have to get going.”
“With the sun coming up instead of going down, Mo?”
The old man nodded firmly, and said, “Heat doesn’t bother me as much as bullets. I like you, son. You seem like a decent young cuss. But, no offense, you seem to draw trouble like a turd draws flies, and whatever you’re mixed up in, it ain’t my fight.”
Stringer didn’t argue or blame him as old Mo repacked the nose bag, untethered his burro, and headed down the slope, not looking back. Stringer could watch them turning to smaller and smaller dots for a long time. He watched the old man fill his canteens at the creek down below. Then he watched them trudge on into the shimmering heat waves until he couldn’t make them out anymore. He walked around his day camp, peering off in all directions until he was sure he had this high spot on the ridge to himself. Then he found some shade, covered his face with his hat, and tried to catch some shut-eye. He wasn’t really sleep, but he knew he’d have to keep his wits about him from here on back to Holbrook. For if they ever meant to stop him out here, where only the gun was law, it would be soon. The Mogollon Rim would be a hell of a place to lay for a man, if you knew he was coming. There were lots of folk in Globe. He’d told lots of ’em where he was going too. If even one was a pal of the mastermind, they had to know he was coming.
CHAPTER
TEN
*
Apparently they didn’t. Stringer might have made even better time if he hadn’t had to scout so many grand ambush sites before passing them on his way back to Holbrook.
The sun caught him outside of town when it rose again. He rode in anyway. It was just starting to get good and hot by the time he reined in at the livery, dismounted with a weary sight, and led the brutes inside.
The livery man looked surprised, and said, “I was beginning to fear we’d never see you or them ponies again.”
Stringer said, “I was worried about that a time or two. But here we are.”
Stringer was free to leave with just his gladstone and the rifle. He knew he could get a decent price for a Krag on Mission Street, back in Frisco. If it hadn’t been so hot he might have been tempted to pay a call on old Madge first. But as in the case of that sneaky gal in Globe, there were all-too-rare times a man got a chance to quit while he was ahead, so there was no sense of tempting fate.
The Bucket of Blood Saloon was closer anyway. The beer was still warm, but had tepid canteen water beat. As he’d hoped, a couple of the early customers knew more about the comings and goings of the Santa Fe than he had before he talked to them.
Stringer was about to leave when Nate, the town law, came in for a cool-off. He joined Stringer at the bar and asked if the long ride to Globe and back had been worth it.
Stringer didn’t kiss and tell. So he said, “It was more hot and tedious than educational. Am I square with the law here?”
Nate said, “Sure, unless you kilt someone else since that last coroner’s jury cleared you. Why? You planned on going someplace else?”
Stringer nodded and said, “I have to. I don’t live around here. I’m hoping to catch the westbound that passes through here just after noonday. First I have to go settle accounts with Lawyer Addams. I don’t think I owe him any money, but I only skip out on bills when I have to.”
Nate said that sounded honest enough. Then Stringer asked him, “Could you rightly say how that gal, Patty Stern, got to be a widow woman? I don’t want to ask her personal when I go over to their office.”
Nate nodded and said, “That could upset her. They say it was a good marriage. He was only killed a year or so back. A lunatic client shot him, right in his office. As we put it together from the notes Lawyer Stern had been taking down as they talked alone up there, the client was an old geezer who was having trouble with a young wife. His vexation was sort of disjointed, and the lawyer had crossed things out and made him start over a time or two. This must have upset him, for he shot Stern considerable and lit out to find another lawyer or whatever. By the time anyone in the street who’d heard the gunfire could connect it to the wild-eyed rascal mounting up out front, he was long gone.”
Nate inhaled some of his own suds before he added, “It’s a good thing lawyer Addams was in court and Stern’s young wife was at the beauty shop that afternoon. The lunatic might have gunned them too. He was a mean old son of a bitch.”
Stringer asked, “Did anyone who saw him say what he might have looked like?”
Nate said, “They did. He was a grizzled geezer dressed shabby and wearing a beard. Why do you ask, at this late date?”
Stringer said, “I thought I might have seen him one time. What do you kn
ow about a merchant called Sol Barth, over to Saint John’s?”
Nate grimaced and said, “Nothing good. He was said to be an ugly cuss who married a pretty young Mex gal and got upset as hell when anyone calt her a greaser. I’m speaking of events before my time though. Old Barth ain’t in Saint John’s these days, even though the odor of his gun smoke lingers on. Say, you ain’t suggesting Sol Barth had something to do with the gunning of Patty Stern’s man, are you?”
Stringer shook his head and said, “No. Someone else is trying to gun me. It’s been nice talking to you, Nate. But I want to settle up at the law office before that train pulls in.”
A few minutes later he was saying much the same to the young blonde herself. She looked like the heat was getting her down, but she managed a wan smile as she told him Lawyer Addams would be back any minute, but that she was sure neither Stringer nor the San Francisco Sun owed them any money now.
He sat down anyway, resisting the desire to ask her permit to smoke, and said, “As long as I got time before my train gets here, I may as well go on being nosy. I don’t want to stir up hurtful memories, Patty, but could I ask a few questions about your late husband?”
She looked more surprised than hurt as she nodded and said, “It doesn’t hurt as much now as it did then. He was murdered by a client right in the next, room, and—”
“I know about that,” he cut in. Then he said, “Lawyer Addams mentioned riding posse under Sheriff Owens a time or two. Your man would have had to be younger at the time, unless you admire distinguished older gents, right?”
She nodded and said, “My man was only seven or eight years older than me, and as a matter of fact, he did some riding for the law in his younger days as well. Before we were married though. Why do you ask?”
He said, “Just trying to separate the sheep from the goats. I don’t suppose he ever told you whether he’d ridden under Sheriff Owens during the troubles down Pleasant Valley way?”