Stringer on the Assassins' Trail Read online

  “So, it makes no sense to ship green robes this far west if a tannery farther east means to process them.”

  The older man spat again. “Hell, who says they have to come from the north herd? Last I heard, the north herd had been shot off almost entire.”

  “I know,” Stringer said. “I read the feature a mighty fine writer called Stringer wrote about the last of the high plains buffalo. I know there’s still a small herd on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. But you can’t tell me your boss got all these robes from anywhere in the Great Basin to the west. It never was buffalo country. The ones on Antelope Island are sort of Mormon pets, kept by Utah as a sort of reminder of the old days. I’ve heard an assimilated Indian called Walking Coyote kept a fair-sized herd of buffalo on the west slopes of the Great Divide a spell back. But we’re talking a good ten years or more, and the old Indian is dead, wherever his buffalo may be. Such fair-sized herds as there still may be are all east of the divide, or they’re supposed to be. If your boss knows of say some untapped western herd the old market hunters overlooked, we could be talking real money here.”

  London chimed in, “Whatever money you may have in mind, I’ll bid higher, MacKail. For east or west of the Divide, young gals will always need carriage robes, and you’re all too right about the critters getting scarcer every year.”

  Stringer was wishing sincerely that the fool would stop using his real last name. But there was no way to mop up such spilt milk now without making the old watchman even more suspicious. Stringer could see the old timer was uncomfortable about just where, or how, his employer had come by a warehouse full of green robes. So he changed the subject to the pending visit of the presidential special. The older man brightened and said he’d never seen a president before.

  London managed, with obvious effort, not to denounce T.R. as an enemy of the people. “Well, I knew better than to vote for him,” he said. “But I would like to see what all the fuss was about, and if that’s not a train whistle I just heard off to the east, the owls sure get up early in these parts. What say we make a truce, MacKail? We can both mosey over to the tracks together, hear the speech, and come back as one to bid against one another, fair and square, after the train leaves.”

  Stringer could see others outside strolling toward the tracks in considerable numbers. “Well, all right,” he said, “but no tricks.” Then he told the old-timer, “We’ll be back later. Are you coming to see the show?”

  The old-timer sighed. “I want to but I can’t. If the boss gets back before you do, I’ll tell him to expect you gents. It’s Mr. MacKail, and… ?”

  “Mugwump,” London said, adding, “Horatio T. Mugwump, dealer in fine furs and leather. Let’s go, MacKail.”

  Stringer had to laugh despite himself. But as they got out of earshot he growled, “What call did you have to use my real last name back there, damn it?”

  London chuckled. “I’d have called you Cleopatra, had I known you were so sensitive about being taken for a Scotchman. What difference does it make? He’ll never see either of us again, and it’s not as if we ran off with any of his stinky robes.”

  As they joined the crowd drifting toward the tracks, Stringer agreed it probably wasn’t important. Since there were at least four more important gents to worry about in the crowd, he put the charade in the warehouse out of his mind to pay more attention to his current surroundings.

  He didn’t spot any of the disgruntled cardplayers. The crowd was so thick now that whether they were part of it or not was impossible to tell. They got to the sunbleached open platform, but gave up any thoughts about trying to climb aboard once they saw how many others had beaten them to the vantage place.

  London swung around to drop his rump on the platform’s edge. “Wake me when it’s over,” he said. “What will you bet the windbag tells us to walk softly and carry a big stick? I wish he’d take his own advice and— Stringer, duck!”

  Stringer did, just in time, as a slug of lead passed through the space his denim jacket had just been filling, almost creased the crown of London’s hat, and hit a lady on the platform smack in the butt. From the way she screamed, it hadn’t struck her funny. There was a second shot, closer. Nobody else yelled.

  By this time Stringer had spun on one knee and gotten his Smith & Wesson six-gun out. The crowd that had been behind him was parting like the red sea for Moses, save for one total stranger in darker denim who stood his ground, his own .45 trained on the man he’d just missed. But before either he or Stringer could fire, his knees buckled and he lay sprawling in the dust.

  “Thanks, Jack,” Stringer said, not turning his head. “That makes us even. But who in thunder was he? I’ve never seen him before.”

  Nobody answered. When Stringer risked a look around for London, the other newspaperman wasn’t there. But a couple of all too visible gents with badges pinned to their vests seemed to be pointing their own revolvers his way. “Drop that gun and grab for some clouds, cowboy!” one of them said.

  Stringer hadn’t been a cowboy in some time. But he still thought it wise to drop his gun and grab for some clouds. As they moved in, the one in charge snapped, “That’s better. Now suppose you tell us why you just gunned a man inside the limits of Granger Township, you durned old maniac?”

  Stringer sighed. “I can’t prove my sanity. But I can prove I never gunned anybody, if you boys would be good enough to ask my gun.”

  As the leader of the team kept him covered, the other moved in warily to pick up Stringer’s unfired and now mighty dusty .38. He sniffed at it and muttered, “I’ll be switched with snakes if he don’t seem to be telling us the truth, Nate.”

  The more cynical Nate grimaced. “That other stranger could have just suffered a heart attack,” he said. “But I’m inclined to doubt that, and Miz Warner, yonder, just got shot in the ass for sure.”

  Stringer started to turn to see what they were doing about the wounded woman on the platform. But Nate snapped, “Hold still and keep them hands high, damn it. I want you to keep ’em high, all the way to the lockup. Then I mean to pat you down for the gun you really used. Let’s get out of this infernal crowd.”

  Stringer protested. “You can’t arrest me, damn it. I haven’t done anything.”

  “It is our custom, here, to arrest some damned body every time someone gets shot,” Nate said. “And two folk just did. Have you any notion who else we might arrest, if not yourself?”

  Stringer sighed. “No, I reckon you can arrest me, after all, and I was so looking forward to the president’s speech.”

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  *

  Stringer wouldn’t have known about the sunset if there hadn’t been a tiny grated window above the bunk of his bolt-together patent cell. There were three such cells lined up along the back wall of the local lockup. The cells to either side were empty. They’d been kind enough to put him in the middle one, under the only window. As it kept getting darker, nobody seemed to want to light any lamps along the narrow corridor of the cell block. They hadn’t offered him any supper either.

  Stringer wasn’t afraid of the dark, and he doubted a night in jail with neither bread nor water would kill him. But he sure could have used some information. The surly Nate hadn’t told him anything since he’d been arrested. His more agreeable sidekick, whose name seemed to be Spike, had made sure he was still there, say two hours ago, and admitted that the lady they accused him of shooting in the ass wasn’t wounded mortal. Spike also told him that while the doc figured the man he’d gunned was done for, he was still alive, albeit still unconscious. Spike had simply shrugged when Stringer insisted he’d never fired the only gun they’d managed to find on him after a strip search.

  They’d left him to ponder the error of his ways with neither his watch, tobacco, or even a belt to hang himself with. So it was shaping up to be a long tedious night. Stringer paced like a caged tiger, partly because he couldn’t sit still right now, and partly to tire himself out enough to catch s
ome shut-eye once he hit the bare steel-spring bunk. With any luck he’d probably be able to straighten it out with the judge come morning, if they had such civilized customs in this neck of the woods. Old Spike had just smiled when he’d asked when he got to see a lawyer or bail bondsman.

  It had gotten almost pitch-dark, and Stringer was forced to slow down some, lest he bust his nose or bark a shin, when he heard a mysterious voice whisper, “Hey, Ham, you in there?”

  It was the best offer he’d heard so far. So Stringer climbed atop the bunk, found he could just about get his own head to the grated window, and whispered back, “Are you sitting a pony or just tall as hell?”

  His invisible night caller whispered back, “This is no time for joshing, Ham. We heard you got winged and taken. Are you in any shape to ride if we can get you outten there?”

  Stringer had to think about that. But he was a fast thinker. So he said, “I doubt it. I’m able to stand up now and again, but I got a cracked rib and my rein arm in a sling. Busting out right now could be pressing my luck. Tomorrow night makes more sense, if you still love me.”

  There was a moment of silence, or judging by the soft noises he could hear, they were talking it over further from the grate. The next whisper he heard, although he couldn’t be sure, could have been coming from another sneaky cuss. “Have you gone loco en la cabeza, Ham?” it hissed. “That old gal you shot figures to charge you with everything but membership in the Sioux Nation once they get her back on her feet. How come you done such a fool thing in the first place? It was that rascal MacKail you was supposed to lay low.”

  So Stringer MacKail tried to sound sincerely sheepish as he whispered, “He ducked. They got him locked up too. So you can tell the boss the law doesn’t have the least notion about the truth of the matter. You surely don’t expect me to talk. They don’t have a thing on me they can prove, and like I said, I ought to be fit to bust out in a day or so.”

  There was another, longer, interval of conspiracy Stringer was unable to hear. Then his unseen visitor asked, “Where are they holding MacKail right now?”

  “They seem to be holding us separate,” Stringer replied, truthfully enough when one studied on it, “lest we cuss each other through the bars. I’m all alone in here. I sure could use some tobacco.”

  The rider outside muttered to himself or someone else then returned to Stringer. “Here, I can just get some makings through this infernal grate. Old Abe says that as long as you’re in there, you’d best see if you can find out where they’re holding MacKail.”

  “How come? Are you fixing to rescue him too?”

  “Don’t be funny. You was sent to make sure he never got near the president with his information about our plans, and to tell the truth, the boss is more anxious to see MacKail dead than he is to see a fuck-up like you alive. So you’d best be able to tell us where he is when we come back to save your fool ass, hear?”

  “I’ll do my best,” Stringer said. “When will I hear from you boys again? Same time tomorrow?”

  There was another consultation away from the grate. Then yet another sort of whisper was directed soberly at Stringer: “How come you haven’t lit up, seeing you was so anxious to smoke, Ham?”

  “It can wait,” Stringer said. “This is more important.”

  It didn’t work. “Ham, what was the name of that gal you was sparking over to Green River a month or so back, the one with the yaller hair?” his invisible questioner asked thoughtfully.

  “Hell,” Stringer said, “who remembers a gal that far back?” and that didn’t work either.

  His unseen visitor said a dreadful thing about his mother and called out, “Vamanos, muchachos! We’ve been slickered by the law!” From the resultant sounds of pounding hooves, his message must have been taken to heart by one and all. It sounded like about four ponies lighting out.

  Stringer sighed, climbed back down, and sat on the edge of the bunk to roll as tight a smoke as he could manage in total darkness. The owl-hoot rider had included a book of newfangled paper matches with his gift. Stringer had a hell of a time with them until he recalled one had to strike them on the book they came in. When he finally got his smoke going he was sorry, for the tobacco was scented with violets and mint. It felt as if he was trying to smoke a cough-drop, and what sort of sissifìed assassin could have given a grown man such odd stuff to smoke?

  He’d naturally formed a mental picture of some good old boys dressed cow, out there in the night. The only real men he’d ever caught smoking perfumed tobacco had been foreigners. No real American smoked anything but real tobacco.

  But given a choice between perfumed tobacco and none at all, Stringer made do, as he pondered how he’d come by such exotic makings. The last one, who’d busted out in Border Mex when he caught on, figured to be a southwesterner. Accents didn’t show much when everyone was whispering. The one who’d given him this funny tobacco along with fancy matches hadn’t sounded like a foreigner or even a dude. So he was either an American country boy who’d picked up bad habits from recent immigrants, or a recent immigrant who’d learned English in cow camps. It worked as well either way, when a man was whispering in the dark.

  Stringer put that angle on the back of the stove to simmer as he tried to recall the whole conversation. They’d confirmed the suspicion that the rascal Jack London had nailed just in time, had been out to gun him and nobody else. Nobody with a lick of sense went after a man amid a crowd of witnesses unless he had a mighty good reason. But Stringer just couldn’t make sense of the reasons he’d managed to barely get at.

  If they knew who he was, they knew he was an investigative reporter who might or might not be able to wrangle an interview with someone as important as the president. But after that it got confusing as hell. Because Stringer just didn’t have any information about anyone old T.R. was likely to find important, or even interesting.

  He’d lit his second awful smoke and was going over every news item he’d covered in recent memory, when a door opened to spill lamplight into the cell block. Spike came to his cell door with a ring of keys. “Well, this must be your lucky day, after all,” he said, “and… say, where’d you get that tobacco, or are you smoking a bouquet?”

  As Spike unlocked the door, Stringer told him it was a long story. “What’s up?” he asked as he got to his feet. “Did they finally get in touch with my paper, as I begged and pleaded this afternoon?”

  “Yep,” Spike said. “Better yet, more than one witness has come forward to say things went about the way you said. Then they dug a round from a female rump that matched the four rounds of .45 still in the gun of the man you downed—I mean the one we thought you downed. The slug they dug out of him was a .36, likely from a bitty whore pistol, and please don’t tell me your Smith and Wesson had five .38’s in its wheel. You’d be surprised how much we can figure out for ourselves. You’ll be free to leave as soon as you tell me where you got that smoke. I like to feel that when I strip search a man, I don’t miss much.”

  As Stringer stepped out he said, “If that wounded gunslick is named Ham, some of his pals just slipped me these peculiar makings through the rear grate by mistake. Before I get into it any further, your boss and any other lawmen you might have on hand had best put our heads together. They mean to bust him out, and they’re involved in some plot they don’t want President Roosevelt to hear about.”

  The county seat was Green River, a good ride or modest train trip east. But of course the county coroner had a part-time deputy in Granger, and of course he wanted in on the meeting, along with the town law and an undersheriff of Sweetwater County. So the back room of the saloon across from the lockup was sort of crowded and smoky as Stringer filled them all in on the little he’d learned from the late Ham Saunders. He was late because he’d died just before sundown, cussing delirious. They knew his last name because there were enough yellow sheets out on him to conclude any hired gun with such an interesting collection of scars and tattoos had to be the one and original Ham
Saunders.

  “It’s sure odd how a man can shrug off some bullet holes and die from others,” the deputy coroner remarked. “Over the years that rascal managed to pick up fourteen such wounds on various parts of his anatomy. Three in the chest, before that bitty .36 round did him in this afternoon.”

  Stringer had picked up some decent Bull Durham as soon as they’d given him back his belongings. He added a smoke ring of his own to the haze above the table, then he told the medical expert, “His pals didn’t know how bad he’d been hit. I’ll hazard a guess none of them could have been in the crowd at the time. So it’s as likely neither they nor their boss has much of an in with the local courthouse gang.”

  The surly town lawman who’d arrested him that afternoon scowled at Stringer and demanded to know just how he’d meant his remark about their fine new courthouse.

  Stringer smiled. “I mean it lets you and your’n off the hook, Nate. Every town, large or small, has its inner circle that gets all the latest in or about the courthouse. If the mastermind who sent Ham Saunders after me was in tight with the gents who run this town, he’d have known better than to mount a rescue effort for his pet gun slick. He knew I’d been taken in. He knew Ham had been taken in and wounded, but not how badly. Any barkeep in town could have told him the lady Ham shot instead of me hadn’t been hurt too badly. But after that they were just guessing. They didn’t know any details. Just the confused gossip going around town after a few moments of confusion, followed by the quick way you and Spike tidied up.”

  Mollified, Nate smiled for the first time Stringer could recall. “Hell, I could have told you none of my boys was in on a plot to kill you, MacKail. If they had been, you’d be dead.”

  The deputy coroner, who seemed to feel he was in charge whether he was or not, said, “Nobody in this room has been accused of an attempt on this newspaper man’s life, or even shooting that lady in the ass. The question before the house is who shot Saunders and how come anyone was shooting at anybody.”