by Lou Cameron
STRINGER
AND THE
BORDER WAR
STRINGER SERIES #11
LOU CAMERON
STRINGER AND THE BORDER WAR
Copyright © 1989 by Lou Cameron.
First ebook edition copyright 2012 AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.
Trade ISBN 978-1-62064-160-6
Library ISBN 978-0-7927-9078-5
Cover photo © iStockPhoto/dmathies
STRINGER
AND THE BORDER
WAR
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
MORE EBOOKS BY LOU CAMERON
CHAPTER
ONE
They’d been told to lay for him on the southwest corner of Montgomery and Market. That meant the son of a bitch who’d sent them knew the way Stringer usually walked to work from his hired digs on Rincon Hill. There were six of them. That meant the son of a bitch was serious. They began by falling in around Stringer as he was crossing Market and shoving him facedown across the streetcar tracks, in front of a rush hour streetcar bound for the Oakland Ferry. That didn’t work. Stringer turned his dive to the tracks into a forward somersault, just in time, and was up and running by the time steel flanges were chewing hell out of the fashionable straw skimmer he’d just bought to go with the business suit he had to wear in town.
He knew better than to run far. As the hired thugs chased after him, he spotted a swell niche in a cast-iron storefront and spun to face all six of them with his back protected. That still left the rest of him up for grabs. His only consolation was that six guys tended to get in each other’s way as they all tried to knock his block off at once, and he knew the coppers wouldn’t stand for much of a brawl in downtown Frisco during the morning rush unless the fix was in.
The fix was in. The tough young newspaper man and erstwhile cowhand put the one with the blackjack on the pavement with a left hook, and crippled the one with the knife with a kick to the kneecap, by the time he’d lost one sleeve of his jacket and felt one eye swell shut. But the four left were better boxers, which was, no doubt, why they were still left, and where, for Chrissake, were the fucking coppers?
With more elbowroom to throw punches from, one of the grimly silent attackers landed a right cross that made Stringer see stars and taste a little blood. He somehow managed a counterpunch. But there wasn’t as much steam in it as his brain had directed his fist to deliver. His legs were starting to feel like empty rubber boots under him. He knew, even as he kept punching back, that he’d be going down any time, now, and he knew they meant to stomp to ten and then some.
But, just as Stringer caught one punch with an elbow and another with his floating ribs, another gent joined the party to grab two of the thugs by the scruffs of their necks and smash their heads together before he demolished the face of a third with a ham-sized but rock-hard fist. Stringer threw a left hook at the sole survivor, sucker-punching him as he stared in horror at the beefy giant who’d just demolished his pals. That left all six on the pavement in various stages of moaning disrepair. But before Stringer could fall down beside them to wait for the paddy wagon, his moose-like savior dragged him around the corner by one arm, suggesting, “You need the services of a druggist I know as much as you need a morning in Police Court, Laddy Buck.”
Stringer didn’t argue. For, aside from the logic of his old pal’s suggestion, nobody ever argued with Gentleman Jim Corbett about anything if it could possibly be avoided.
San Francisco’s answer to John L. Sullivan was now pushing forty and he’d put on even more weight after being retired from the ring by Battling Bob Fitzsimmons in ‘97. But, as he’d just shown, he was still a fine broth of a boyo against mere thugs of mortal clay.
As Gentleman Jim steered the equally tall but much slimmer Stringer around a beer dray, to haul him across the side street to the druggist he had in mind, Stringer felt obliged to mutter, “That was neighborly as hell of you, Champ, but I sure hope you’re just passing through town. I can’t even tell you who sent those bastards, and their boss, whoever he may be, isn’t going to be happy about what you just did.”
Gentleman Jim grinned wolfishly to reply, “Let’s hope they come after us again before I have to check out of the Saint Francis tonight, then. Lucky for you, this evening will be me last performance at the Orpheum. I told you the last time we met on the Oakland Ferry that I’m on the same bill with Cole Younger and Frank James. They lecture the youth of today on the wages of sin, and I warn them never to be leading with your right. It’s a grand shiner you’ll be having if we don’t fix it fast, and I see you stopped a stiff one with your upper lip as well. Have you tried your front teeth of late, Laddy Buck?”
As they entered the hole-in-the-wall drugstore to be enveloped in medicinal smells and dim light, Stringer ran a stiff tongue hard over the backs of his front teeth to feel with considerable relief that none seemed loose, after all.
A gnomish little druggist came out of the gloom at them with a suspicious expression, recognized Gentleman Jim, then smiled and said, “You sure are hard on sparring partners, Champ. Let’s see, now … I’d say we have a three leech job on our hands.”
The two of them led Stringer into an even smaller back room and sat him on a bentwood chair. As the druggist took a jar of fat, wet-looking leeches from a shelf, Stringer protested he didn’t need one on his mouth, damnit. But Gentleman Jim growled, “Don’t argue with the doc. Would you rather be wandering about for a week with a fat lip, or get it over with here and now? I know a fancy French eatery in New York where people pay good money to be eating snails and such. It can’t feel half as disgusting to let a slug sip a bit of yourself, right?”
So Stringer submitted. In truth it didn’t hurt, and one got used to the cold wet creatures after they’d stuck to your face a few moments. The druggist put two on Stringer’s swollen eye and just one to his bruised lip. Stringer could already feel the swelling going down as Gentleman Jim told the druggist about their grand brawl on Market, before turning back to Stringer to ask who they might have been fighting.
“I just told you I don’t know, damn it,” Stringer muttered from under the bloodsucker on his lip, “I do a lot of features for my paper and you know how sensitive some gents are. Those bully boys could have been sent after me by a water commissioner I exposed a spell back. On the other hand, I’ve been doing some stuff on a big shot realtor who’d like to move Chinatown to the mud flats north of Hunter’s Point, now that the east slopes of Nob Hill have gotten more fashionable.”
Gentleman Jim whistled softly and said, “I wish my troupe wasn’t booked next week for San Jose. It sounds to me as if you could use a little help, and if Old Cole, Frank, and me were to pay a little visit to the fine office of that big shot…”
“I can’t say for sure it’s him.” Stringer cut in, trying not to smile at the picture, lest the leech on his lip lose its grip.
All three of the slimy buggers were bigger, heavier, and a lot warmer, now. The druggist noticed that, too. He peeled them off and stuck three fresh, hungry ones to Stringer’s face as the battered newspaper man muttered, “Aw, shit.”
Gentleman Jim told him to shut up and tough it out, adding, “You should have seen how many they put on my face the night I lost to Fitzsimmons. But, by the next day my own mother, at least, could have recognized me. There’s nothing like leeching a shiner before it can set purple and green on you. L
eeches don’t help much once that happens and it’s a pain in the ass to have people asking you, weeks later, about the door you walked into.”
None of this was fresh news to any Edwardian who led as active a life as Stringer, and as a matter of fact his face was already feeling a lot better. There was something to be said for old-fashioned druggists, even though some fancy new sawbones did hold that treating bruises with live leeches was sort of unsanitary. Stringer’s nose for news twitched and inspired him to ask the druggist what he did with leeches after they’d sucked on someone for a spell. The druggist looked blank, then said, “I put ‘em back in a jar with a little water and let ‘em get hungry some more. Takes ‘em a few days before they’re fit to use again. Why do you ask?”
Stringer grimaced and said, “Germs. Modern Medicine holds that sickness is spread from one person to the next by germs. So how do you know leech bites can’t spread, say, the siph from one of your customers to the next and, by the way, who was the last gent these buggers on my face sucked on?”
The druggist chuckled and said, “As a matter of fact, these particular leeches last enjoyed a good meal on the battered face of a pretty lady. Her husband has a drinking problem. Other than that, she didn’t look sick to me.”
Gentleman Jim chimed in with, “Leech bites don’t spread nothing bad. Take it from one who knows. Considering some of the places I’ve boxed in me time, by now I’d have come down with the clap and worse if they did.”
The three of them laughed, and since the damage had been done, if such treatment was damaging, Stringer submitted to a few rounds with the leeches. When the druggist handed him a mirror to view the results, he smiled and said, “I’ll be damned. It worked. Now all I need is a new suit.”
Gentleman Jim walked him to a nearby Army & Navy store but didn’t go in with him, saying he had to get back to the theatre before an acrobat stole the Flora Dora dancer he was working on. So they shook on it, and as the ex-champ turned to leave Stringer felt obliged to call out, “Hey, Champ—that’s one I owe you. I won’t forget it.”
To which the burly Corbett replied with a shrug, saying, “Aw, go on, Laddy Buck. You’d have done as much for me, wouldn’t you?”
Stringer nodded, soberly, and said, “I guess I would have. Why do you suppose guys like us act so foolish, Champ?”
CHAPTER
TWO
When Stringer arrived at the San Francisco Sun a little late, he was wearing a blue denim jacket and matching jeans in place of the suit he’d ruined in the fight. As he entered the little frosted glass box they kept Sam Barca in, the crusty, bald feature editor glanced up from his cluttered desk to dryly remark, “I give up, where’s your rough rider hat and six-gun, Cowboy?”
Stringer sat down across from Barca and reached for the Bull Durham makings he’d managed to preserve along with his shirt. He said, “I could have used my .38, just now. The sissy suit you expect me to wear to this office got torn off me by a gang of Barbary Coast types. Didn’t you tell me you covered the story when they cleaned up the Barbary Coast, Sam?”
Barca sighed wistfully and replied, “That was a big mistake. There was a time when all the real villains in town could be found in one place. Tell me about the bunch you just ran into, old son.”
Stringer did. When he’d finished, Barca nodded soberly and opined, “I told you there was little reward in sticking up for Chinamen in this town. I don’t think I’d be doing either you or Gentleman Jim a favor if I ran what you just told me. Anyone can see they got to a precinct captain at the very least. You’d both better lay low a while.”
Stringer began to build his smoke as he replied, “Corbett’s leaving town with his vaudeville troupe tonight. I’d be happy to go on home to the Mother Lode country if my Uncle Don’s woman, Crazy Aunt Ida, could cook, and I admired being a poor relation. But I can make more money here in ‘Frisco by accident than I could ever make in cattle country on purpose, which is why I gave up herding cows to begin with. So…”
“I got an out-of-town feature for you.” Barca cut in, adding, “I was considering you for it in any case. Didn’t you meet up with a border bandito called Francisco Villa while you were covering the demise of Judge Roy Bean a spell back?”
Stringer licked the seam of his straw colored cigarette paper to seal the contents before he nodded and said, “They call him Pancho. He hates us pretty good. But, he made an exception in my case when we both had to shoot it out with the same troop of rurales. Los Rurale’s seem to hate everybody. What’s old Pancho Villa been up to, now?”
Barca rummaged through the clutter on his desk as he muttered, “You’re not going to believe this. I know I don’t. But, oh, here we have the tip from the wire service.”
Barca scanned the torn-off yellow sheet without offering to show it to Stringer as he said, “Right. The event is to take place just south of Columbus, New Mexico. Ever been there?”
Stringer lit his smoke thoughtfully before he decided, “Just to jerk water. Never got off the train. I suspect they squeeze the boiler water from the cactus all around. Columbus is one dry little town. I’m being mighty complimentary when I call it a town. Didn’t know it was on the border, though. The rails have to twist a mite through that stretch of hilly desert. So I’d guess Columbus was a good five miles north of the border, which is only an imaginary line that far west of El Paso.”
Barca said, “No matter. This tip is too crazy to be true in the first place and, if there’s anything to it, five miles ain’t that long a buggy ride. They say the grandstand’s being built just north of the border, with a fine view south into the just-as-dismal state of Chihuahua.”
Stringer blew a thoughtful smoke ring and stared through it at the older man to reply, “Grandstand? You mean like they’re fixing to have a ball game or stock show just south of the border, Sam?” To which Barca replied, in a tone of disgusted disbelief, “Or something indeed. Pancho Villa and his rebels have agreed to hold a public battle with the private army of one Don Luis Terrazas. Him we know more about. Terrazas is probably the biggest, and certainly the most hated, ranchero in Chihuahua. Villa keeps stealing his cows and feeding them to poor people like he thinks he’s some sort of Mexican Robin Hood. So add it up.”
Stringer did, to say, “I can see why they want to have a shoot-out, Sam. But in front of a grandstand, at a set time and place? That sounds dumb as hell, even for Mex gunslicks.”
Barca nodded and replied, “I never said I admired the way they make war down yonder. It seems a gringo promoter got word the two sides were fixing to have a battle royal in any case. So he propositioned both sides to hold it just south of his grandstand by cutting them both in on the proceeds. Tickets to view a real battle are going at a buck a seat and, of course, they’ll make as much again on soda pop and souvenir programs. I hadn’t even thought of the hired hacks they’ll be running out to the battlefield from the nearest rail stop until you just mentioned it. Unless they’ve been paid in advance, which I doubt, only the winning side figures to collect from the promoter, of course.”
Stringer chuckled dryly and said, “Here’s to Yankee ingenuity, then. Sometimes it’s tougher to see why the Mexicans seem to hate us so much. But, young Pancho struck me as a pretty slick guerrilla leader, the one time we met. Do you really think he’d go along with such a loco en la cabeza notion?”
Barca shrugged and answered, “For money? Why not? You can buy a Mex virgin for less than a Frisco whore demands, and El Presidente Diaz has been selling off the whole country as he’s saving up for his retirement.”
Stringer brightened and said, “Hey, there’s a story I know to be true. A rich American widow just bought more than a million acres of Tehuantepec, as a sort of winter home, and had the ten thousand or so families living on it evicted as squatters by Los Rurales. I hear a young Indio called Zapata has been gathering his own rebel army down that way and…”
“Nobody cares.” Barca cut in, adding, “The Diaz regime is in good with Washington, as well
it should be, considering how the Yanqui Dollar is valued by the greedy bastards. There’s no news in Mex rebels, as a rule. They’ve been trying to overthrow Diaz since he seized power back in ‘76 and, like I said, he knows how to get along with us. The human interest in this angle about a battle to be held as a public spectacle is that it’s sort of amusing as well as unusual, see?”
Stringer scowled and said, “Unusual, yes. Funny, no. I got to see some Spanish-speaking gents die, gutshot, down in Cuba during the War With Spain. They say folks drove out from Washington to view the Battle Of Bull Run, too. Nobody got to laugh much as the boys in blue and gray went down full of minie balls and grape shot, Sam.”
Barca shrugged and said, “Slant the story serious, then. I’ll still pay space rates and traveling expenses and, while you’re out of town, I’ll see what I can find out about your torn-up suit. Big shots don’t like to send thugs after a reporter once they know his paper’s on to ‘em. So, what do you say?”
Stringer sighed and got to his feet, saying, “Might as well. I’m as likely to get killed here as there. So I may as well get paid while I’m ducking, right?”
Knowing the time table of the Southern Pacific Coaster by heart, after riding it so often, Stringer knew he had just time to run home and dress right for cactus country before he had to catch his train. In his boarding house on Rincon Hill, he left his new denim outfit on, since it was neater to wear to a social gathering than the similar but badly-weathered denim he usually wore in the field. He hauled on his spurred and tight but well broken-in black Justins. He replaced his shoestring tie with a black sateen kerchief, rolled so that the ends hung down like a tie. He checked his face in the pier glass and saw that while his tanned face looked somewhat the worse for wear, he hadn’t grown enough chin whiskers to matter since he’d last shaved. He ran a comb through his light brown hair and put on the old rough rider hat he’d brought back from Cuba. Knowing how sissy the West Coast had gotten since he was a boy, he left his six-gun rig in his gladstone with the other possibles he was toting along. Then he locked the bag, locked his garret room door after him, and headed down the narrow stairs.