Stringer on Pikes Peak

by Lou Cameron

  The gent who’d died of multiple bullet wounds while wearing Stringer’s yellow slicker had beaten them to the city morgue by a good twenty minutes. A three man forensic team from the El Paso County Coroner’s Office had the cadaver spread out on a slanted zinc table and they were cutting him out of his damp duds as Stringer and the plainclothesman joined them in the basement autopsy theater. The first thing Stringer noticed was that he’d never seen those waxy dead features before. There was a bank of sixty watt Edison bulbs right over the strange stiff and Stringer stared down hard, from more than one angle, before he told them all, flatly, “I don’t even recall him from that chili joint. Of course, if he was seated down the counter with a hat brim shading his face …”

  The lawman who’d found the angle about yellow slickers so interesting cut in to point out, “That works two ways, MacKail. They back-shot him under a street lamp in front of the railroad depot. His face would have been shaded even better under them conditions. So the person or persons unknown threw down on that light gray Stetson and yellow slicker, not nobody’s handsome profile, see?”

  One of the forensic team chimed in with, “You can make that persons, plural, Sergeant Magnuson. We’re saving the yummy parts for our boss, the deputy coroner, but the slugs that went in his back came out the front at an even wider angle. So it’s safe to assume he was hit from behind and to his left by the contents of a little whore pistol, mayhaps in the delicate hands of some whore, whilst someone more manly blew rounds of .44-40 into his back from behind and to his right.”

  Sergeant Magnuson grimaced and growled, “Whatever. An armed and dangerous couple, strolling romantically near the railroad depot after a summer storm should have been able to get the drop on just about anyone. So the first thing we have to find out involves the I.D. of this poor dead bozo.”

  The helpful forensic man replied, “That’s easy. He was packing a union card in his wallet.” As, suiting actions to his words, he reached for a lower workbench against the wall for the wallet among the dead man’s belongings they’d piled near his hat. He handed it to Magnuson, who held it up to the light and opened it to read off, “Timothy Gorman, Steam Fitter as well as paid up member of Big Bill Heywood’s fucking W.F.M.!”

  Another member of the team undressing the cadaver tossed in, “He was packing his own belly gun, a Harrington Richardson .32 in the side pocket of this yellow slicker. Like he might have been expecting just about what happened happening, you know?”

  Magnuson turned back to Stringer, saying, “I don’t think you have as much to worry about as I first feared, MacKail. We’d still better get your story down on paper for the captain to read in the cold gray dawn. Come on, we can do it sitting down in the front office.”

  Stringer didn’t argue about that. But as he followed Magnuson up the stairwell he asked what the plainclothesman had feared so much up front.

  The local lawman explained, “It still works two ways. But if Gorman was mixed up in union skullduggery the odds on him being the intended target from the beginning go way up.”

  He led Stringer into a side office and flicked the overhead lights on as he added, “Try her this way. Gorman knew someone was gunning for him. He was lurking in that chili joint, looking for a chance to make it out of town alive, when that power failure offered him a straw to grasp at. He swiped your yellow slicker, hoping to change his own appearance enough to make it out of town by rail.”

  Magnuson waved Stringer to a seat by the rolltop desk against one wall, sat himself down to haul out a pad of yellow legal sheets, and said, “It didn’t work. Someone was expecting him to leave town and so they had the depot staked out. They recognized him better than he recognized them. Five’ll get you ten we have a handle on it within the week. There are only two sets of suspects. Suffice it to say nobody from out-of-state with no axe to grind for either side works half as well. So let’s just get your short and sweet deposition down on paper and you’ll likely hear no more about it.”

  Stringer objected that he’d been sent to Colorado to find out as much as he could about the current unrest. But since he couldn’t dig up too much dirt in a dinky office late at night, he proceeded to fill Magnuson in on the bare bones facts and figures of his past few hours in Colorado Springs. He felt no call to go into conversations he might or might not have had with gents who might or might not know any more than he did about the death of Timothy Gorman, for Jack London had assured his radical pals that he wasn’t in the habit of inviting finks to even unofficial union meetings.

  When the friendly and reasonable enough Magnuson asked if Stringer had noticed anyone at all sinister since his arrival, it took just a small amount of soul searching before Stringer was able to reply, honestly enough, “Save for some beligerent State Militia, I don’t recall anyone who struck me as all that dangerous for a paid-up union man like Gorman to be around.”

  That seemed to satisfy Magnuson, judging by the way he went on scribbling with his pencil stub. The fact that his words were being taken down with a pencil bothered Stringer more than his conscience at the moment. For whether that had really been Harry Orchard he’d seen slithering into that back room or not, the last victim a union gun would be sent after had to be a union steam fitter on strike.

  The notion of signing a deposition taken down with an easily erasable lead pencil was a lot more worrisome. He was about to voice his doubts as delicately as possible when both the overhead ceiling fixture and desk lamp blinked a few times in unison and slowly faded to yellow, then orange, to black.

  “Shit, not again!” muttered Magnuson as Stringer got out his matches to strike a light. He was holding the tiny flame high, looking about for something more old-fashioned but reliable to light, when the juice went on again, so strong that it blew the ceiling bulb and made the desk lamp throb like a welder’s arc. Magnuson mentioned shit again and added, “Let’s get out of here before they damn-it electrocute the both of us. I don’t know why they ever changed from gaslight to begin with. You always knew where you stood, with gas!”

  Stringer didn’t feel up to discussing the gas explosions he’d covered for his paper. He knew what Magnuson meant and had to go along with him. For he’d covered some electricated accidents since the stuff had gotten so all-fired popular and, unlike simple flood and fire, the mysterious invisible power could get downright spooky.

  He just followed the plainclothesman out into the corridor, where wall lamps were blinking on and off as if they were big fireflies. Magnuson said, “I can finish your deposition from memory, once I get within range of a sensible oil lamp. Where might we be able to find you, in case the higher-ups want to pick some nits with you, MacKail?”

  Stringer said he hoped to be staying at the fancy Alta Vista and that if they wouldn’t let him he’d get word to Magnuson. The lawman didn’t ask for further explanation. They shook on it and parted friendly as the lights winked on and off about them in a festive manner. Magnuson headed back down to watch them finish up with poor Tim Gorman. Stringer strode out the front entrance and nearly took a header down the stone steps with his gladstone when the lights inside and out went off again, and stayed off, apparently for good.

  But despite all the electrical confusion, the thunderstorm that appeared to have started things on the road to ruin had long since blown over to be replaced by a starry Colorado sky, with a bright quarter moon shining down from the east to bathe everything from the slopes of Pike’s Peak looming to the west to the nearest sandstone curbline in its tinfoil rays, so Stringer navigated his way to the nearest corner, got his bearings, and rolled a smoke in the moonlight as he tried to decide which way he really ought to head next.

  He knew better than to seek Jack London out in that back room at this hour. But it wasn’t midnight, yet, and London had said something about a midnight train to Cheyenne. He didn’t think his fellow Native Son would know any more than he did about the killing of a two bit union member. But London might be able to tell him whether the one and original Harry
Orchard had hung around or left that back room to perhaps hunt down other targets wearing yellow slickers in tricky light.

  With the storm blown over and his original rain gear long since perforated by persons unknown, Stringer was, of course, but a long lean outline in his close-fitting denim outfit as he approached the unlit entrance of the railroad depot. So he decided, later, that it had to be his gray Stetson and the gladstone bag he was packing that inspired two barely visible boogers to step out of the inky shadows of the depot’s overhang to block his way. As Stringer’s gun hand swung out to hover just above his pistol grips, one of the sinister silhouettes warned him, “Don’t try it, Stringer. If we meant you serious harm we’d have fired from cover. Other boys are covering us from cover, even as we speak.”

  Stringer nodded soberly and left his gun hand hovering right where it felt like hovering as he replied, “If all you boys are after is a conversation, what say we all go inside and enjoy a candlelight sit-down whilst we chat? To tell the truth, it makes me sort of edgy when I don’t have a good view of a sinister stranger’s eyes and gun hand.”

  His mysterious midnight conversationalist chuckled dryly and told him, “You might wind up more edgy if you knew just who you were jawing with, newspaper boy. We just have a few simple questions for you. If you answer ’em to our liking you’ll be free as that other nosy pencil pusher, London, to leave this part of the world on your own living legs.”

  Stringer dropped into a spread-legged stance without having to study on it as he told them both, flatly, “Let’s talk about my pal before we talk about anything else. Is he still breathing regular, inside yonder waiting room?”

  The dark outline doing the talking soothed, “Take it easy and let us not do anything tense and foolish, Stringer. London just left on the midnight flier, alive and well. It don’t really pull in here from Santa Fe at midnight, but think how dumb a quarter to midnight flier would sound.”

  The other looming mystery broke its silence to say in a more serious voice, “London didn’t know anything about the shooting that took place earlier just about where we’re standing. When we told him about that yellow slicker he thought it was you and said dumb things about getting the son of a bitch as done a good old boy from Frisco Bay so dirty. We convinced him it would be sort of dumb to avenge the death of a troublemaker he’d never met. He said that seeing you’re still alive and, well, he’s off to write about a more serious war betwixt the Japanese Mikado and the Czar Of All The Russians.”

  Stringer smiled crookedly and said, “I didn’t know Russia and Japan were having trouble.” To which his mysterious questioner replied, “Neither did we. In any case it ain’t our fight. Our fight is the coming showdown betwixt the mining men who made these mountains worth looking at and a horde of socialized Huns out to bring down the commerce of these United States in red ruin.”

  Stringer nodded soberly and said, “I take it I’m talking to the forces of law and order as the Mine Owner’s Association defines the term. I heard how horrid the Western Federation of Miners was earlier this evening. The National Guard won’t let me anywhere near the mines shut down by that strike, and you want me to tell you something about what might or might not be going on around here?”

  The more serious of the two dark shadows said, “We know a troublemaker named Gorman was gunned just a few yards from here as he was on his way to meet someone else, wearing your yellow rain gear in the vain hopes of throwing someone else off. After that it becomes sort of confusing. You just came from the city morgue. Who does the law have down for the likely killer, and how come?”

  Stringer relaxed slightly as he detected a hint of puzzled sincerity in the mystery man’s tone. Since he himself had nothing to hide, he quickly filled them in on the little he knew, and when they still seemed as puzzled he added, “Gorman makes little sense as the victim if neither side did him in. You boys have no idea how comfortable that makes me feel, knowing his killers, plural, put all those rounds through the back of my very own rain slicker!”

  The serious one muttered, “All right. We know we didn’t do it, and if Big Bill Heywood’s started to assassinate his own followers we’ll hardly need the National Guard to settle things this time. But why would anyone on either side want to blow you away, MacKail?”

  Stringer growled, “If I had the least notion I’d go after the bastards before they could try again! I just told you how swell it made me feel, knowing it’s just as likely an innocent bystander got back-shot in my place wearing my rain gear!”

  The more cheerful of the sinister pair opined, “Tim Gorman wasn’t all that innocent. As a steam fitter he had the know-how to cause real trouble, for the red flag bastards like to sabotage the machinery before they walk off the job. You might say the murder of Tim Gorman was something like Switzerland. Wasn’t it Napoleon who said that if Switzerland didn’t exist someone would have had to invent it?”

  Stringer replied, “I think it was Voltaire, talking about God. But I follow your drift and 1 wish I could buy Gorman’s killing as malice with him and no other in mind.”

  The serious one said, “We’d better break this up lest the lights go back on and make us all feel a mite malicious. You can go on about your business now, MacKail, as long as it’s understood your business will take you out of town, if you know what’s good for you.”

  Stringer didn’t answer. It would have been dumb to tell at least two gunslicks he didn’t know on sight what he thought of their damned suggestion or, let’s face it, their open threat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Alta Vista Hotel was a mite further and a heap fancier than Stringer had been led to expect. But despite his damp denim and beat-up baggage he had at least three things going for him. Jack London had telephoned the desk clerk from the depot, the lobby was dark as a crypt save for a penny candle flickering feebly here and there, and the same power failure had put their swell new Otis elevator out of service, forcing guests of any appearance to use the stairwell, so Stringer said he didn’t want to wait for the bellhop, left a dime on the desk for the kid to show he was a sport, and got himself and his possibles up to Room 207 before anyone could get a good look at him.

  He had to strike another match to find the room number in the dark at the head of the stairs. Then he had trouble getting Jack’s key to work in the lock, until he figured out why. The door had been unlocked to begin with. He got that straightened out and ducked inside. Then he ducked even better, dropping his gladstone and drawing his .38 as he heard odd clicking and sensed movement in the blackness all about him. He froze on one knee, holding his breath, as he heard a strange voice whisper, “It’s no use. They just won’t work.”

  He sprang back up to grab blindly and, catching hold of a fistful of cloth in the dark, shoved the muzzle of his .38 against whatever he’d grabbed and snapped, “Gotcha! One false fart and you’re dead!”

  To which the mysterious form he was clutching replied, in a much higher tone, “Oh, Mister London, is that any way to talk to a lady?”

  He laughed despite himself and started to tell her he wasn’t the gent she seemed to think he was. But he figured he’d paid for his own education and didn’t owe any free information to burglars of either the male or female persuasion, if that was what he’d just caught. So he growled, “Hold still and let’s just pat you down for weaponry before I remove this weapon from your anatomy.”

  Suiting actions to his words he swung her around to shove her back against the door he’d just shut behind him, pinned her against it tight with his gun muzzle, and let go of her duds to pat her down with his free hand. She felt mighty nice. Her build was Junoesque for her height and, try as he might, he couldn’t find anything on or about her soft torso that felt more dangerous than delightful. She was the one who pointed out he’d already felt for concealed weapons there and, come to think of it, there as well, so he holstered his six-gun and got out his matches to see if she could possibly look as soft and yummy as she felt.

  She could.
As they stared at one another rather red-faced in the matchlight, he saw she was a short busty brunette with cameo features under her upswept Gibson Girl hairdo. A middy blouse of summer weight linen would have left more of her heroic chest measurements to the imagination if their struggles in the dark hadn’t popped more than one strategic button. She clutched at her gaping bodice with one hand as she became aware of a draft, or the way Stringer was staring, and protested, “Oh, look what you’ve done to my blouse, you brute!”

  He said, “You could have wound up pistol-whipped, or worse. Didn’t your momma ever warn you about sneaking into strange men’s rooms after midnight, especially when they’re not expecting company?”

  She answered, “Pooh, I knocked on your silly door, Mister London. When there was no answer I tried the latch and when I saw you had not locked your door I felt safer inside, of course, than out there in that odious dark hallway. Didn’t you get the note 1 left for you earlier this evening, Mister London?”

  The match had burned down to where he had to shake it out and that gave him time to reconsider letting her in on a little secret. He knew he’d never seen her before. If she wasn’t blind as a bat she’d seen just as much of him and yet she still had him down as a doubtless more famous newspaperman. As he struck another match and found a candle to light on the otherwise useless lamp table by the big brass bedstead, he decided to go along with the bedroom farce for now. He said, “If I’d been expecting you I wouldn’t have been so surprised to find you waiting for me in the dark, Miss … ah?”

  “Hovich, Vania Hovich, born and raised in this country but none the less at heart a Slav, like our mutual friend, Doctor Tesla!”