by Lou Cameron
The dossier on Walter Bluefeather bore out everything Stringer had already learned. Miss Victoria was just mentioned as old Walter’s lawful spouse, with a BIA number entitling her to rations and hunting ammunition if the family oil well ever ran dry. They didn’t seem to care what color she’d started out. But Lawyer Lacey was recorded as a U.S. Citizen, meaning white, granted power of attorney by reason of family relationship.
Stringer asked, “Wouldn’t it be just as fair and a lot less bother if you let an oil well Indian just hire the white rep of his own choice, Miss Helen?”
She shook her head and explained. “They used to allow that. No doubt you’ve heard of the notorious Indian Ring that ran hog-wild under the Grant Administration?”
He nodded but still looked puzzled. So she said, “From what I know of Walter Bluefeather, an Arabian rug merchant would have to get up mighty early to pull any wool over that Indian’s eyes. But I fear that like every other race, we have dimwits and drunks among us. Add that to illiteracy, a poor grasp of English, and the money and land grants Uncle Sam showers on reasonably well behaved Indians, and it’s a mighty tempting chicken coop for any fox, red or white. I could tell you tales of Indians being taken to the cleaners, even with all the regulations in place to keep that from happening.”
He said, “Your boss already did. Walter Bluefeather doesn’t seem to be having in-law trouble. But tell me what would happen to his oil money if he was to somehow wind up dead? Wouldn’t his lawful spouse inherit his estate?”
Helen nodded grimly and said, “That was one of the things poor Mister Davis was talking about, just before he was killed in that dreadful saloon. He said he was going to talk to Bluefeather about entailing his estate to his oldest male blood relative of pure Osage descent.”
Stringer whistled softly, asked if Davis might have done that before he was gunned, and when she said she didn’t know, he put the Bluefeather papers aside to go through the others, observing, “I might just have another talk with Victoria Bluefeather nee Lacey. She asked me to, and we may not have covered everything she knows. Can’t see her as a master crook. But then, if master crooks were easy to spot we’d call ’em dumb crooks.”
He leafed through the other dossiers on oil well Indians and failed to find Lacey listed as their white front. None of them seemed to be named Whitepony. When he mentioned that to the white Cherokee gal she said, “Heavens, I told you when you told me of that shoot-out that Willy Whitepony was no longer considered an Osage. Neither the Cherokee nor Creek would take him in as even a guest, after what he pulled on his own people. Would you take in a rascal who couldn’t even be trusted by his own people?”
He said, “We do it all the time. General Santa Ana got to dwell in New York City after the Mexicans couldn’t stand him any more. But maybe Washington isn’t as sophisticated, or maybe it’s too sophisticated about the smell of skunks.”
He closed the last dossier neatly and began to roll the smoke she said he could as he continued, “If the late Willy Whitepony was in bad with all three nations in this neck of the woods, he must have had some other reason for being in Indian country. How do you like him as a hired gun?”
She grimaced and replied, “I never liked him as a reservation Osage. He was obviously hired to murder you. He might have been the same one who murdered poor Mister Davis. Anyone can say they come from Texas and the witnesses who said anything at all said the killer was dressed cow hand.”
Stringer sealed the smoke with his tongue and lit it before he decided, “That works. It was dark back there by the piano and so many cow hands in these parts look Indian, when one looks close, that nobody bothered to look close. Most of the old boys in the Pronghorn at the time don’t seem to have looked at all.”
He took a deep drag, let it out with a sigh, and said, “I sure thank you for your time and trouble, Miss Helen. But I still fear all I’ve found out for certain today, is that I’ll be leaving town tomorrow, with or without all the answers. I’d rather try to get out of a contract with Standard Oil than a deal with old Bill Tilghman. So my time is running out, even as I sit here jawing about it, and I’d best get on down the road.”
As he got to his feet she rose as well and asked him where he might be going next. He shrugged and replied, “If I knew I’d be proud to tell you. No matter which way I wander I seem to wind up moving in a circle. I might ride out to the Rocking Tipi again, and then I might just pick up my possibles and leave early. It’s a hot stinky day for riding or even walking, and no matter where I ride or walk to I seem to get the same answers.”
She sighed and said, “I wish there was more I could do for you.” Then she brightened and added, “I know. Why don’t you meet me here after work and we can talk about it some more as you walk me home!”
He started to leap at the chance. Then he recalled what that philosopher had said about sanity and said, “I’ll try. But don’t hold me to it, Miss Helen. For I might get shot, or find something out, between now and… What time did you say this office closes for the day?”
She told him six P.M. and he repeated his warning not to bet the old homestead on it before he left, trying to tell himself not to be a total fool. Helen Tenkiller was so pretty it hurt. But he already had at least two Tulsa gals to worry about. Or might it be already three?
Finding his way back to where Pearl Starr was holed up was easy enough. Getting in to see her again was more complicated. Cousin Henry didn’t seem to be there. But the white boy who’d disarmed him that first time told Stringer on the steps that Miss Pearl had already seen him and didn’t want to be disturbed right now, since she was taking a bath.
Stringer said, “I can wait. I know my way to her sitting room, old son.” But as he tried to step inside, the gunslick stiff-armed Stringer back against the railing and would have sent him ass-over-tea-kettle to the dust a full story down, if Stringer hadn’t caught the rail.
Stringer didn’t aim to go that way. So he bounced back off the rail and planted a fist in the tough’s smart-ass smirk. The tough must have known more about gun fighting than fist fighting, from the way he landed flat on his back inside, bawling blue murder and groping for his gun. Stringer didn’t want him to do that so he kicked the cuss in the balls as he drew his own gun and, while the resultant noise wasn’t quite as loud as gunfire might have been, it was loud enough. So Pearl Starr came running in to join them, covered with soap bubbles and a towel that might have done more to hide her wet curves if it had been bigger.
As she took in the scene the young madam said, “Oh, it’s you again. Have you gone mad with passion or is there something else I could do for you, MacKail?”
He said, “An Indian with a mean rep and a Colt ’74 tried to shoot me in the back today. I was wondering, seeing you know so many vile-tempered Indians, what you might be able to tell me about that.”
She said, “Let’s talk about it inside. Cut that blubbering, Clem. Haven’t you ever been kicked in the balls before?”
The man writhing on the floor groaned, “Not recent, and I’ve never enjoyed it. I’m going to get you, Stringer, as soon as I can get to my own feet again, hear?”
Stringer didn’t answer as he followed Pearl Starr into that same sitting room. He wondered if she noticed that towel was only covering some of the front of her and that her bare back and all was turned to him as she said, “Pay no attention. Nobody gets nobody without my permit and I ain’t made up my mind about you, yet.”
She sat on the same davenport, patted it for him to sit beside her, and made a faint attempt to cover all her naughty parts with the damp towel until she saw she couldn’t, let it fall to her lap, and stuck her bare chest out bold as brass to observe, “Oh, well, it ain’t as if I have anything to hide. I’m sure you knew I had a nice pair to begin with, right?”
He grinned at her and said, “You’ve got a mighty handsome set to show off, Miss Pearl. But could we talk about my back, now?”
She shrugged her bare shoulders and said, “No Cherok
ee I know would gun anyone in Tulsa without my say-so. I have enough on my plate. Cousin Henry had to hop a freight this morning when he was told Bill Tilghman knew he was in town and didn’t like it all that much. I got the BIA pestering me about some of the romantic marriages I arranged for oil well Indians, too. So this’d hardly be the time I’d want to start another feud. You told me last time that you wasn’t out to cause trouble for me and mine. I took you at your word. I’ll thank you to be good enough to take mine.”
He said, “I just heard words to the effect that neither Creek nor Cherokee thought much of a renegade Osage who preyed on his own kind, Miss Pearl. But as long as we’re on the subject, might the Indian agent you were having trouble with have been the late Mister Davis?”
She shrugged again and said, “Him, too. But it’s that prissy straw boss, Manson, who keeps threatening to put us all in jail for defrauding the government. Do you reckon that if my girls went to bed with their Indian husbands, at least once, they’d be able to prove all them marriages were fake?”
He laughed despite himself and said, “I doubt it would upset the Indians and, no offense, your girls could likely endure one more slice from a loaf that’s already been cut a mite. But getting back to Davis, and taking you at your word, the fact he had reservations about his wards marrying up with white sporting ladies could hardly be the secret he was killed to keep from telling anyone. He’d already told his boss and Manson was alive and well when I spoke to him no more than an hour ago.”
The naked adventuress seated at his side said, “Well, I don’t have nothing to hide from you, as you can see.”
Then, as she caught the amusement in his eyes she added, “I mean secrets worth killing folk to hide. It’s no secret I’m built swell and take after my dear momma when it comes to men. I meant that did I have something to hide from you, we wouldn’t be having this flirtation. Cousin Henry would have gunned you long afore he had to hop that freight.”
He smiled thinly and said, “Maybe. I don’t seem to kill as easy as someone here in town must want.”
She smiled back to say, “That proves my point. I could likely take old Clem out, myself. But when Cousin Henry goes after a man that man is as good as dead. Cousin Henry ain’t no backshooter. He beat a deputy marshal with a rep, just a spell back, and it was face to face in broad-ass day. You can look it up.”
Stringer sighed and said, “I don’t have to. President Teddy Roosevelt pardoned old Henry for the killing when the Cherokee Council convinced him their wayward youth would never be naughty again. Didn’t he rob a bank a day after they let him out of jail that time?”
She grinned like a mean little kid and said, “He needed some traveling money, didn’t he? He only promised not to shoot any more federal lawmen. I just told you he left town to save old Bill Tilghman’s life, didn’t I?”
Stringer chuckled and said, “It’s all in how you look at such attempts at reformation, I reckon. I’m glad he’s left town, too. Although it surely would have made a news story if your considerate cousin had decided to face Bill Tilghman fair and square.”
He thanked her for easing his mind on so many matters and got up to leave. She rose as well, hardly bothering to hold the limp towel to her privates as she said, “I got to rinse this soap off, now. It’s starting to itch. Would you like to come along and scrub my back?”
He said he surely would, if only he had the time, and he might have meant it if he’d awakened alone in bed that morning. For she was mighty pretty, even with clothes on, and about as clean at the moment as a gal like her could get.
She shot an arch look back at him as she wigwagged the other way and asked how much time he figured a mere man could last with the likes of her. Then they both laughed and she walked on back for her bath, striding hot, as if it was up to him to follow or die frustrated.
He left, feeling wistful about passing up a chance to go down in history as the lover of someone famous. But since his code didn’t allow him to boast of his conquests, and since even a gent who did could hardly call Pearl Starr much of a conquest, it was likely just as well.
He didn’t see old Clem on duty in the vestibule as he strode through. The reckless youth was doubtless enjoying some bed rest right now. That reminded Stringer that he felt as if he’d been dragged through the keyhole backwards, so he went next to his hotel for a long hot soak in a tub of his own and a short nap, if Irene would just stick to her switchboard long enough.
CHAPTER TEN
The pretty little breed he’d had breakfast with looked sleepy-eyed, herself, as Stringer started to pass the desk with a wave and let it go at that, for now. But Irene called him back to tell him, “That Mister Barca from San Francisco has called you by long-distance, twice.”
Stringer said, “That must have been thrilling. Did old Sam say what was so important?” and she replied with a studious frown, “He did, if I can remember it right. He said to tell you that the police out yonder have just arrested some big shot about bad things he was doing to the drinking water and that you didn’t have to worry about the hired gun he’d sent after you because there was only that one, called Holt, and you shot him instead. Where have you been all this time?”
Stringer sighed and said, “Getting shot at by someone the San Francisco Waterworks just couldn’t have had on the payroll. The shoot-out with Holt seems to have made me famous here in Tulsa and I have been asking questions I’d never have thought to ask if I hadn’t added one and one to get three. Did my boss have anything else to say, Honey?”
Irene shot a warning look at the room clerk reading a magazine in a comfortable lobby chair and told Stringer, “He said you was to come on home because he was only planning on so much copy, I think he said, and that you’d been here long enough to write a book. Does that mean you got to leave right now?”
He owed the sweet little thing common courtesy. So he tried to sound sort of heart-sick as he said, “Not this instant. But all good things come to an end, alas, and I sure hope I’ll be man enough for proper goodbyes, later tonight.”
She motioned him closer and leaned across the counter to tell him in a whisper, “I’m not sure I can make it tonight. I just got a Western Union wire from down home and it seems my fool kid brother is on his way here to seek his fortune in the rock-oil business. They didn’t say when he’d be arriving. He might not get here for another day or more. But should he blow in on the train, tonight…”
“He might not understand.” Stringer cut in, adding, “Mayhaps it’s best if you just kiss me off at the depot. I’m still not sure when that ought to be. I still have a few last straws to grasp at before I leave, and I know I’m not leaving this side of a bath, forty winks and a decent meal.”
She dimpled and whispered, “I can see you look bushed, but you did have a mighty nice scrub, you said, just this morning at my place, right?”
He said, dryly, “I’ve been sweating some, since. We’ll talk about it later, once I figure out what I’m talking about.”
He dragged himself upstairs, almost fell asleep and drowned in the luxurious soak he treated himself to, and then he hauled a bitty brass alarm clock from his Gladstone and set it to wake him in four hours. They said Thomas Edison got by on only four hours sleep every day and old Tom was a hardworking cuss.
But it seemed Stringer had barely dozed off, bare-ass in his daylit bed, when the infernal alarm went off with a head-splitting clamor and, by the time he’d fumbled for it and hurled it against the far wall, he was awake enough to swing his bare feet to the floor and curse them until he woke up entire. He’d bought such an indestructable alarm clock with such procedure in mind. So as he got up and tottered after it to make it stop ringing, he wiped the last sleep-gum from his eyes and promised his growling stomach he’d sate it as soon as he got dressed, damn it.
By the time he’d polished off a second cup of coffee in the cafe down the street, it was just after six and that nice little Helen Tenkiller would be leaving for home without him if he didn’
t run like hell for the BIA.
He ordered another coffee instead. A man who thought with his glands instead of his brains could make a fool of himself, even when his glands were more wide awake.
By the time he left the cafe he had his head awake, at least, and he felt more spring in his step than there’d been when he’d strode away from Pearl Starr’s kind offer.
He thought about her some more as he trudged over toward the sprawling Tulsa railroad yards. Pearl Starr was no prettier but a lot more sinister than any other ladies he’d met in these parts. Yet, taking her story with a grain of salt, she had had him in her power and hadn’t even screwed him, and she openly admitted she was in the business of getting around BIA regulations for fun and profit. So he failed to see what else a gal who covered her bare behind so casually might have to hide.
In the glory days of the late Sam and Belle Starr the gang had never been distinguished for subtle moves. Old Sam had been a not-too-bright thief and old Belle had sheltered thieves and fenced their loot for more fun than profit. Henry Starr and his white kissing cousin, whether they kissed all that much or not, were if anything, less cautious than their late uncle. As Pearl had pointed out, the current muscle of the clan had a rep for just going after anything or anybody he wanted. Hiring someone else to do such chores was hardly Henry’s way.
That left redheaded Victoria and the lighter and darker breed gals, Helen and Irene, to go over again for nits. But he saw no reason to strain his brain any more about she-male suspects when there so many rough men in town. One of ’em was a railroad yard bull who popped out from between two tank cars to ask Stringer who he was and where he thought he was going.
Stringer flashed his press pass at the semiliterate and added he was looking for the Standard Oil refinery. The yard bull waved his club at a tall skinny pipe flaring smoky red flame into the darkening sky to the east as he said, “They’re just under yonder burn off if you want to try. I doubt they’ll let you in at this hour, though. The office is likely closed for the night and I doubt the lobster shift will let you through the gate.”