Stringer

by Lou Cameron

  By the time the pressure was up he was running low on matches and the moon, of course, was higher. He fed some steam to the big pump and noted with approval that despite its rusty outside it proceeded to build water pressure with the soft purr of well-oiled machinery. He was about to test the innards of that gritty old pressure hose when he heard hoofbeats, coming fast, and hunkered down, gun drawn, to see what would happen next.

  What happened was that five dimly visible mounted figures reined in near the shed on shore. They didn’t call out to him so he saw no need to announce his presence to them.

  Two of them dismounted and hauled a third smaller figure from the saddle. He could just make out they were holding a bound female between them as they frog-marched her to the shed and locked her in. Someone laughed and the two hadn’t dismounted rode off. The two left to guard the captive proceeded to build a fire near the shoreline as if they meant to stay a spell.

  Stringer took advantage of the noise they were making with their own bustle to swing the float around on its kedge lines. He could always decide not to kill them after he’d had time to figure out what was going on over there. Meantime, while one pistol against two was slicing the odds thin, one pistol against two saddle carbines at this range would be pure stupidity.

  As they got their fire going he could see them better. Aside from having their saddle guns handy by the fire they looked like the two saddle tramps who’d been chasing Dotty Montez earlier. Their mounts were tied up closer to the shack and if that wasn’t Dotty’s paint pony over there they’d sure been chasing lots of gals on paints of late.

  Stringer sighted his water cannon as best he could, took a deep breath, and opened the valve. The hose just under his crotch didn’t burst, after all, as a stream of water ten times the pressure and volume of your average fire hose lashed out to blow the nearest one ass over teakettle.

  Their fire went out at the same time and the one still in shape to do anything about it winked his carbine at Stringer. The slug screamed away from striking one of the A-frame beams and then he screamed as Stringer washed him and his sins away.

  The throbbing hydraulic rig was designed to rip mountains apart, so Stringer closed the valve once he’d rolled both limp forms away from the shore to where he couldn’t roll them anymore. He waded ashore, six-gun in hand, to see if they’d had enough.

  They had. He was glad he only had to stare down at them by moonlight. One seemed to be missing his fool head, and the other was missing half his duds. But his guts had wrapped around him as he’d rolled across the wet gravel.

  Stringer holstered his gun and ran to the shack. He kicked open the door as Dotty gasped, “Leave me alone, you brute!” He’d hauled her to her feet and had her wrists free by the time she figured out who he might be. She sobbed, “Oh, Stuarto, I am so frightened!”

  He said, “That makes two of us. Let’s get out of here before those others come back!”

  They did. He shoved Dotty on her paint and led it to where he’d left Sidewinder in the woods. As he mounted up she pointed the wrong way and he said, “Not hardly. If those others heard that carbine shot they’ll do one of two things. They’ll either ride back to see how come, or they’ll lay low and wait for someone foolish to come along that trail toward ‘em.”

  “But, Stuarto, that is the only trail back towards El Dorado.”

  “I just said that. We’d best bust on up to the higher ground and fort up a spell.”

  Less than a mile upgrade through second-growth weed-tree tangle they came to a natural nest of granite boulders atop the ridge. They tethered their mounts on the far slope and lay side by side in the pine duff lining the hollow between the pale moonlit granite. Stringer made sure he had six in the wheel, and Dotty said she wished she had a gun as well. He said he wished she did, too, and added that as long as she was wishing, a rifle would be even better.

  She shivered closer to him and asked, “Do you think they’ll find us here, Stuarto?”

  He said, “That depends. Two men might hesitate to follow our sign through the great unknown, at night, till they had some notion who they were following. What I did to their sidekicks would discourage most men from taking chances with anything so ornery. On the other hand, if there’s more than two for us to worry about, they might act braver. So let’s study on that. You know more than I do about all this, Dotty. What happened and who were they?”

  She said, “It’s cold up here at night and I have only this low-cut blouse for to protect my shoulders.”

  He put his free arm around her to warm her as he insisted she discuss more important matters than the weather.

  She said, “I was on my way into El Dorado to buy some cough syrup for my poor grandfather when they jumped me, all at once, from every direction. They tied my wrists behind me and one slapped me every time I tried to discuss the matter with them. The rest you know.”

  “No, I don’t. The two I hosed down looked like the ones who were after you earlier. What about the other two?”

  She said, “They were Mexicans. At least they were dressed as old-fashioned vaqueros. I tried speaking Spanish to them, but I only got slapped for my pains. Only one of the brutes dressed Anglo said a word to me. He kept calling me ‘girlie’ and said I might live longer if I kept my pretty trap shut. So most of the long ride was spent in most tense silence.”

  “I can imagine. Was one of them wearing a black charro outfit, riding a black horse? I’ve a reason for asking.”

  She shook her head and said, “One wore very dark leather chaps and bolero. His mount was a black stud. Why do you ask, Stuarto?”

  He said, “That would fit a gent playing mirero with us all afternoon. It’s a good thing I changed mounts late in the day.”

  She said she didn’t understand. He explained, “Someone was interested enough in my whereabouts today to send a bullet across my bow in town. I never heard the muzzle report. That spells a high-powered rifle from the hills overlooking town. Later I spotted a rider dressed charro on a black horse. He spotted me as well, but likely took me for just one of Uncle Don’s hands when he saw I was keeping company with a palomino.”

  He shifted his weight, crunching pine duff, and added, half to himself, “On the third or fourth hand, I could be playing chess with scum playing checkers. Have you seen any of those spooky watchers lately, Dotty?”

  She snuggled closer, saying, “All the time. I don’t know what they find so interesting about me and my goats, but every once in a while they are up there, watching, for whatever they watch for. My people do not worry much about los mireros, Stuarto.”

  He said, “I’ve noticed. Let’s stick to the flesh-and-blood rascals who kidnapped you. It seems obvious they weren’t out to, well, mistreat you indecent. That leaves ransom as their only sensible motive. But my Uncle Don says your folk are sort of poor—no offense and, usually, none of my business. But I have to know, Dotty. What could your folk have that others might want bad enough to kidnap you to get at?”

  She sighed and said, “Nada. Not a thing I can think of. My mother’s family used to have a lot more land and they ran cows instead of goats. But, over the years our family fortune has been whittled away by sharp Yanqui laws and perhaps, to be fair, bad business methods on the part of my poor grandfather. He was only a simple vaquero when he married the only daughter of the Sepulvedas. He was very good with stock, but had a lot to learn about banks and buying things on credit. I tried to tell those villains they had kidnapped the wrong person if they were expecting my family to buy me back. But the one who would talk at all to me said I had a lot to learn and to shut up.”

  Stringer frowned and suggested, “Could your ma, or maybe your grandpa, maybe have some hard cash put aside for a rainy day?”

  She said, “Don’t be silly. Where would they get it? The war department sent us some money when my brother, Pete, was killed in Cuba. We used it to keep the bank from taking the last of our land. The pension we get for poor Papacito dying in the Sheep Ranch Mine is sp
ent as fast as it arrives. How could those bad men even think we’d have money around the house?”

  He said, “Try it this way. Your grandmother was a Sepulveda and even I know that was one big rich Californio clan. Your grandmother would have come with a handsome dowry, wouldn’t she?”

  Dotty laughed bitterly and explained, “My people counted land and cattle, not money in any bank, as their wealth. The dowry of which you speak was the rancho itself. You can see how much is left of it. My grandmother was only a distant relation of the grandees you speak of in any case. As for what my poor old grandfather may have contributed to the marriage, he did not even own his own horse. He was only a handsome vaquero with a strong back and a mind that was perhaps a little weak before it became so obvious. I still think they kidnapped me by mistake. I am fair, for a Mexicana. Perhaps they took me for a rich Italian girl.”

  He shook his head and said, “By the time they’d tried to grab you more’n once they must have noticed who you were, Dotty. I swear not a thing makes sense around here. Why in thunder would anyone gun a librarian just to steal old books, kidnap a dirt-poor goat-ranching gal—no offense—or, come to think of it, shoot at me, lest I publish a column and a half on a robbery that took place fifty years ago?”

  “Perhaps they think all of us know, or knew, something?”

  “That works for Helen Marsh. She could have identified the fella Buck Brown shot, maybe, as the gent who checked out books on Murrieta without a library card. They hid his body, I suspect, under a pile of otherwise worthless placer to keep us from making up our minds on just who he might have been. But you never even saw the rascal and they seem to be after me, not Buck, making revenge a mighty poor motive. Hold still. I hear something!”

  She held still so close he could feel her heart beating. He strained his ears until he figured out what was browsing down the slope and told her, “Deer. Munching twigs.”

  She asked, “If the deer have come back out, does not that mean we are alone up here after all, Stuarto?”

  He nodded and replied, “I just said that. We’ll lie low a spell longer to make sure. Then I’d best get you home. Why are you all wrapped around me like that, Dotty? I told you there’s nothing to be scared of.”

  She rolled on her back in the pine duff, hauling him half atop her with her strong young arms. He kissed her—any man would have. But as she tongued him, sassy as hell, he had to consider just how young those strong arms were. So he murmured, “Hold on, now, Dotty. I don’t mind keeping a young lady warm, up to a point. But while I know you mean your kissing sisterly, I find it sort of, well, sort of naughty.”

  She hugged him tighter and asked, “Is there anything naughty about a man and woman who find one another lovable making love? Surely you’re not out to convince me you are a virgin, Stuarto.”

  His own virginity wasn’t the topic of conversation and he said so. The warm-blooded little blonde laughed, mighty womanly for her tender years, and told him not to worry about things she saw no reason to worry about. As she was working on his buttons and trying to assure him, he could only mutter, “Well, I tried, Lord,” and take his beating like a man.

  One of the most annoying things about party-line gossip was that it often seemed to be true. But he was too smart to ask how she’d gotten so experienced, and thus enjoyed the fancy of every man to enjoy an apparent virgin who moved like a woman of the world. She’d worn nothing under her skirt that evening to begin with and, once he had his gun rig off and his jeans down around his boots, they just crunched hell out of the pine duff she was bouncing her bare behind on so warm and tender.

  She giggled when she felt his first ejaculation inside her and, as if she’d read his mind, whispered, “Don’t worry, I know how to take care of myself, querido,” into the ear she was chewing. Then she bit it, groaning, “Ay, Jesus, Maria y Jose, me too!”

  After that it seemed only natural they should strip down total and do it right. She suggested they’d make less noise with the duff if she got on top, so he let her, even if she turned out to be mistaken. It sounded like popcorn popping under her bare knees as she bounced up and down up there, her naked breasts bobbing silvery in the moonlight. In the end he said the hell with the crunching and rolled her over to finish right, with an elbow hooked under each of her knees out to the side, and her silvery pelvis grinding in time with his deep thrusts.

  Later, at they shared a smoke and goose bumps in the cool shades of evening he of course began to feel like the shit he’d call any other man who’d behaved so disreputable with a sweet little innocent thing like Dotty. She had to be starting to think again, as well. For despite the way she was fondling his privates with her free hand at the moment she murmured, “We’re going to have to agree to some ground rules, now, cowboy.”

  He wondered if telling her he was already spoken for by the gal on the second landing would work. Dotty said, “You can see how much I like you, Stuarto. I confess I tried to flirt with you when Pete used to bring you home for supper, but of course you paid no mind to a skinny little girl.”

  He admitted she’d filled out nicely since then. She said, “I want to screw you some more before we have to get home. But I hope you understand that once we get there, this never happened?”

  He said, “I wasn’t planning on kissing and telling.”

  “Bueno. A girl has to worry about her reputation in a small town. I hope you won’t feel hurt, querido, but I’m not ready to be spoken for, or even have one particular hombre sparking me in particular.”

  He assured her he’d respect her little secret, and as he snubbed out their smoke she forked a naked thigh across his waist and put it in for him again. So it was pushing midnight by the time he finally got her home.

  Maria Montez had been frantic for hours, of course, although from the way she started scolding Dotty in Spanish, at first, she hadn’t known the girl had been kidnapped. Stringer didn’t want to know how often Dotty stayed out sort of late, so he didn’t ask. When Maria found out what had really happened she got even more excited, woke up Tomas, and would have woken up old Hernan, had that been possible. Stringer told her, “I mean to telephone the law from town. Meanwhile, bar the doors and don’t open up to anyone who isn’t me or wearing a badge. I doubt they’ll be back tonight if they’ve a lick of sense. But how many guns do you have on hand in case they’re really stupid?” Tomas rummaged under some baskets and produced a fairly modern repeating twelve-gauge and an ancient pepperbox revolver. He declared his intent to slay any desperado who came within a mile of the loopholes. Stringer nodded and said, “That twelve-gauge going off this close to town ought to run ‘em off whether you hit anyone or not.”

  From his bunk in a far corner old Hernan muttered, bleary-eyed, “Bah, a shotgun is not a weapon a man may use with honor. It does not kill cleanly. The wounds it makes are most cruel.”

  They told him to go back to sleep. He rolled over with his face to the wall, muttering about honor. Stringer hesitated, then bid them good night, made sure they locked up after him, and rode on into El Dorado.

  He was more concerned about calling the law than anything else until he tethered his palomino in the lot next to Miss Gina’s. But as he headed inside, walking kind of funny, he regretted that last sort of showoff orgasm with Dotty. For women and rain were a lot alike: There seemed to be none at all for long dry spells and then a man got more than he could use. But, as the Indians said, there was no sense rain-dancing if a man was afraid of getting wet.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  *

  He didn’t see Gina Tancredi anywhere in the downstairs crowd. He hoped she wasn’t lying in wait for him upstairs, before he could steady down some. The ugly gal behind the bar filled a beer schooner for him without being asked and told him, “Miss Gina won’t be back tonight after all. She’s in the hospital at San Andreas. She just telephoned to say I was to tell you when you came in.”

  Stringer frowned and asked, “How did she wind up in the hospital, f
or God’s sake?”

  The barkeep said, “God didn’t do it, her horse did. Fell with her and rolled her as she was heading back from San Andreas. It don’t look too bad, though. They taped up her ribs and said if she don’t cough blood this side of noon tomorrow, they’ll let her come home, I get off in less’n an hour, if it’s a piece of ass you’re worried about.”

  He didn’t answer. Even ugly innocent-looking gals seemed sort of sassy in Calaveras County these days. He said he had to call the law and asked if he could use Miss Gina’s. She shook her head and said, “I can’t let you in her room till she gets back.”

  She seemed worried about her employer’s inanimate possessions, at any rate. He was wondering how he could get at that telephone without getting at such an ugly gal when young Buck Brown approached him and said, “Mom sent me in to gather up old Gramp MacSorley. Is he here, Mr. MacKail?”

  “I told you you could call me Stringer, Buck. He could be here in all this confusion. I’ll help you look for him. Meanwhile, do you know anywhere else I could get to a telephone? It’s sort of important.”

  The youth said, “We got one at the Double B. That’s how Mom keeps tabs on me so tedious. Oh, Lord, there the old fool is, and don’t he look drunk, even for him.”

  They joined old Angus MacSorley in the corner he’d chosen to sit in, on the floor. Stringer helped the younger and lighter-muscled Buck haul the old man to his feet. Old Angus opened his eyes and insisted he hadn’t done it, damn it, whatever it might be. Stringer saw the kid needed help and he really wanted to get to that telephone, but after that it was all sort of rather-not. The last person on earth he wanted to see after a roll in pine duff with a sassy Mex gal, and a temporary lull in his affair with an Italian lady who gave French lessons, had to be Fionna MacSorley Brown, the dreamgirl of his pimple-picking days!

  But a man did what he had to, and when Fionna came out to help them unload old Angus and carry him inside he saw that—cuss her hide—she was even lovelier than he’d remembered. The years and hard living had been gentle with her fine-boned features, and she made it worse by laughing with delight and kissing Stringer like he was long-lost family. He supposed, to her, he was, if half they said about the old country was true. He didn’t feel at all like family as he kissed her back, for he was now a man grown tall, and the five or so years between them didn’t seem half as important as it might to a thirteen-and eighteen-year-old.