Stringer and the Border War Read online

  As he passed the door of the gal on the second landing, he saw that for once it was shut. The sassy artist’s model never locked up to go to bed. So, she was likely out early or hadn’t come home from that artist’s ball, yet. He chided himself for wondering about such matters. He’d been telling himself, ever since she’d moved in, that nobody but a fool ever messed with gals where he worked or boarded. Yet he’d somehow gotten used to seeing her sprawled bare-ass on her big brass bedstead, blowing violet-scented smoke and knowing looks his way as he passed her open doorway. For, forbidden fruit or not, she sure inspired a man to wake up all the way, and he was beginning to feel the aftereffects of that beating.

  He felt worse by the time he’d toted his bag to the nearby Union Depot and found himself a tall highball and a low-slung seat in the club car. They did book Pullman compartments on the coaster, but he had to change trains in less than nine hours and he knew that once he lay down, feeling this awful, he’d never get up again.

  He was working on his second highball and feeling slightly more human by the time the coaster had paused at San Jose to jerk water and let passengers on and off. He felt good about San Jose. It had been good to him the time he’d spent at Stanford, taking Journalism when he wasn’t punching cows or picking plums as he worked his way through college. So, when a gaggle of giggling young folk came back to the club car as the train pulled out, he assumed they were students from Stanford and that helped, some. But not enough, as they all kept jabbering and laughing like hyenas in… French? What in thunder could that many French folk, or French students, be doing aboard this train while classes were in session?

  As he regarded them for some time, and they never shut up, Stringer decided they had to be the real thing. Some of the gals seemed young enough to be coeds, and a couple were real lookers. But the mostly male crowd seemed a mite long in the tooth to pass for college boys. A couple were balding and one gent was gray over the ears. They were making enough noise for a grammar school class on an unsupervised outing. That might not have bothered him as much if he hadn’t been nursing a dull headache as well as a drink that didn’t seem to help, or if he’d been unable to follow their lingo. He knew just enough French to try. But not enough to get all the jokes, unless he was missing something and they were just a remuda of laughing Jack and Jennie asses. He got wearily to his feet and moved out to the observation platform with his drink. There were two wicker chairs out there. Each looked as uncomfortable as the other. He sat in the one farthest from the door and watched railroad ties recede for a while, then the damned door slid open and an infernal young French gal came out to take the other seat. When she addressed him in English, albeit with a delightful accent, he decided she might not be so infernal after all. For, aside from looking like a cross between the Gibson Girl and Mimi, the upstairs maid, her striped summer-weight dress hid less of her trim figure than it was likely meant to.

  He had to ask her what she’d just said, while he’d still been mad at her. She dimpled sweetly at him to reply, “I asked if we had somehow annoyed you. One could not help noticing a certain savagery in your so sudden departure, hein?”

  Stringer smiled as sincerely as he could manage as he gallantly lied, “Not at all. I just thought you and your friends could use the extra room.”

  She looked relieved and said, “Mais you were there first, non? You must forgive our enthusiasm for your tres dramatique West. It is all so new to us. M’seur, ah…?”

  “MacKail,” Stringer replied, removing his hat for the moment to add, “Stuart MacKail of the San Francisco Sun. I sign my copy as Stringer. It’s a sort of inside newspaper joke.”

  She clapped her hands in delight and almost gushed, “I have read some of your features on the so-Wild West! And I catch on to the joke as well! A stringer is a, how you say, writer of the part time who prefers to be his own master, non?”

  He smiled thinly and put his hat back on, saying, “Closer than most laymen get it, Miss…?”

  “Blanchard. Claudette Blanchard, of Pathe World News.” She replied, adding, “We have been making our own feature, on film, of your so grand West. Mais, just this morning, we learned of an event we mean to capture with our cinema cameras. You have seen, perhaps, our Pathe News Cinemas?”

  Stringer nodded and told her, “I sure have. We call them newsreels. The last one I saw in a ‘Frisco nickelodeon showed a French gent diving off that big tower in Paris with a pair of canvas wings strapped on. I can’t say I thought much of his brain by the time he hit bottom.”

  She sighed and said, “Oui, tres tragique, mais a most exciting feature, non? I, Claudette, was cranking the camera when he, how you say, hit bottom? It was Pierre, inside, who moved in for the close-ups. I confess my resolve failed me when I heard the horrid sound he made in landing.”

  Stringer repressed a shudder as he soberly replied, “I’m glad they’ve yet to figure out how to make moving picture with sound and color, then. Where were the police while all this was going on? Surely someone should have told them a lunatic was about to leap to his death if Pathe News had time to find out about it.”

  She shrugged and explained, “We thought he might, how you say, make it? That German lunatic, Otto Lilienthal, managed to glide to a safe landing more than once before he managed to kill himself. Mais alas, his flights were never captured on film. We, and no doubt the police, were hoping for something less sad in Paris, last summer, hein?”

  Stringer answered, dryly, “I guess he was, too. You say you folks are on your way to another exciting event, today, Claudette?”

  She said, “Oui, a war. Nobody has ever made a moving picture of a battle in full sway before. Cameramen always seem to arrive after everyone is simply lying there.”

  Stringer smiled incredulously and asked, “Are you saying Pathe means to make a moving picture of that battle that’s supposed to take place south of the border near Columbus, weather permitting?”

  He learned he’d have to refrain from even mild American sarcasm when she shot him a worried look and asked what the odds on cloudy weather might be at this time of the year in Chihuahua.

  He told her, “If it rained enough to matter in the Chihuahua Desert, they wouldn’t have to call it a desert.

  As a matter of fact we’ve been having a drought where it’s supposed to rain in the west, this summer.”

  She looked relieved and said, “C’est bon, our film picks up nothing unless the sun is shining most brightly. One can hardly hope to capture the movement of a cavalry charge with a time exposure. There will no doubt be a grand cavalry charge, non?”

  He grimaced and replied, “I wouldn’t bet a week’s pay on either side actually showing up. Mex guerrillas ride into battle if and when they happen to have something to ride. Calling either side cavalry could be stretching it a mite. Villa’s just a bandit, or a patriot if you ask the pobrecitos who don’t like the Diaz Dictatorship any more than he does. Terrazas is just a big cattle baron who’s more fond of his cows than he is of cow thieves and Villa sells a heap of purloined beef north of the border, cheap. So it’s more a feud than a war, or even a revolution. I don’t think even Pancho Villa’s ready to take on the Mex military, yet, and he’s said to lead the biggest guerrilla band in Northern Mexico.”

  She pouted her tempting lower lip and asked him how he knew so much about an event her outfit had just heard of. He said, “I met up with Villa south of the Rio Grande a spell back, and lived to file a feature on him. That’s why my reckless boss has me heading for Columbus to do a follow-up.”

  She stared at him adoringly and gasped, “You are on the way to cover the same story? C’est bon! You must throw up on us!”

  He had to study on that before he dryly replied, “I think you have to mean throw in with you.” And she agreed that seemed close enough.

  He chuckled and told her, “I’d have to ponder that, some. I like to work alone in the field, which is why I keep turning down the better-paying staff position my paper keeps offering. No offens
e, but I fail to see any advantage to either side, Ma’am. I record my observations in shorthand or, more than I’d ever admit to the San Francisco Sun, by memory. I find I pick up my more exciting scoops by moving about, sudden. Correct me if I’m wrong. But don’t you newsreel reporters have to set your cameras up and crank ‘em in one place, aboard a tripod?”

  She nodded but insisted, “Everyone there shall be viewing the battle from the same grandstand. Surely you were not planning to dash madly across the border to take part in it?”

  He agreed that sounded like a swell way to get a nose for news shot off.

  “Throw up on us, then,” she said, “Your knowledge of your West and the customs of its people should prove invaluable to us. While filming a, how you say, roundup in Nevada, one of our poor cameramen got his hat shot off by a tres rude cowboy for reasons that still elude us. Had you been there, one feels certain the misunderstanding could have been avoided, non?”

  He sighed and said, “I wouldn’t bet a week’s pay on that, either. I’ve never understood how the mere sight of an obvious dude inspires such uncouth target practice, either. Was your cameraman wearing a derby or straw skimmer, by any chance?”

  She told him the Frenchman had in fact been cranking his fool camera with a pith helmet on. He nodded soberly and said, “There you go. If only one of the boys pegged a round at such a made-to-order-temptation they were going out of their way to be polite to visitors. Shiny yellow highbuttons have a similar effect on cowhands. If I was with your bunch I’d begin by advising one and all to dress more sensible. It’s considered more dangerous than amusing to comment on the costume details of a gent dressed cow.”

  She nodded and insisted, “That is why you would be of so much help to us. Filming a battle should be difficult enough, without our having to cope with the so-strange customs of, forgive me, a less advanced race.”

  He sighed and said, “I et some fish eggs on French wafers one time. Didn’t strike me as all that advanced, and you’re really going to have to advance your manners a heap if you mean to get along with the folk you’ll have to deal with where we’re headed. The desert rats in and about Columbus ain’t all that primitive. They’re just mean as wolverines by nature. As for the Mex folk you’ll likely meet up with as well, they do tend to act a mite primitive, and they’re just as mean. Don’t ask either breed to forgive you when you assure ‘em your folk are more refined. They won’t.”

  Then the confused worry in her big brown eyes made him relent enough to assure her with a smile, I can forgive such observations because I’m more couth, and because I know it’s true. But I’ve found it best to keep my opinions to myself whenever a gent shooting up the town ain’t aiming at me in particular.”

  She laughed and said she’d try to remember that. Then she shot him a puzzled look and asked if he’d hold still for a personal observation. He told her to shoot and she said, “I am unable to avoid noticing that your own speech seems, how you say, cow for a well-known newspaper writer, hein?”

  He sighed and said, “I get to go through this a heap. I was born and reared in cow country. I was orphaned young and taken in by kind relations who learned to talk English instead of the Gaelic from mighty rustic neighbors during the California Gold Rush. The kids I grew up around spoke English no better, when they weren’t speaking Spanish or Mi wok. I had to learn more fancy English when I decided a writer earned more money for less hardship than a cowhand. So I only talk natural when I’m talking. I hardly ever make a grammatical error when I’m typing and, when I do, my editor fixes it with his blue pencil.”

  She nodded soberly but told him he still sounded more like a boy of the cows than an author. He laughed and said, “It’s a good thing you do your own reportage with a camera, then. You got a lot to learn about us old boys. Mark Twain talks like an English professor and writes like a farmboy. My pal, Jack London, talks like the Shanty Irish guttersnipe he was born and can hardly bear to write words of less than eight or ten letters. Do you really think Sir Walter Scott used thee and thou when he was asking his old woman what was for supper?”

  She shook her head and said, “I said I understood. You are missing my meaning and, oh, I wish you spoke French. I was only trying to pay you the compliment. My point was that anyone can see how valuable your grasp of the roughness of western speech must be in dealing with the species. One doubts a reporter like you has his hat shot off tres often, hein?”

  He grinned sheepishly and admitted, “Not as a joke. The few times I’ve had my hat blowed off, they were aiming at my skull.”

  She nodded and said, “That is why Pathe needs your assistance in assuring only Mexicans draw fire in that battle we are all marching toward, together.”

  “What’s in it for me?” Stringer replied wearily.

  She looked hurt and told and asked, “Do you imply you would expect to be paid for throwing up on us, Stuart?” To which he replied, politely but flatly. “I sure can’t see doing it gratis, to borrow one of your own words. I used to get paid a dollar a day just to herd cows and, no offense, herding Frenchmen through a crowded cowtown without losing a head sounds more complicated.”

  He stared back along the tracks as their train click-clacked for a while before he added, “Sounds like less fun, too. I like to work alone. Gives me a chance to meet all sorts of interesting folks I don’t have to worry all that much about. I don’t like to feel responsible for others, even when they know how to act in tough little towns. Sometimes it’s been all I could do to get myself back to civilization with the story.”

  She looked like she was fixing to cloud up and rain tears all over him. So he said soothingly, “I’ll think about it, though. We got a heap of railroad travel ahead of us before we get to Columbus. This day will be about shot by the time we get to L.A., and Lord knows how long we’ll have to lay over there. That big flood in the Colorado Desert played pure confusion with rail travel inland, and right now train connections are a sometimes thing: We may well have a full night’s ride ahead of us, when and if this fool coaster finally gets us to L.A. So why don’t we just sleep on the notion. I may feel more like defending the honor of France after you give me time to study on it.”

  He saw he’d made a tactical error when she said, “C’est bon. The others will be so pleased when I tell them you are bored.”

  He started to tell her she had to mean on board. He decided he’d better not. The notion sounded boring as hell and he could see she was one of those stubborn gals who just refused to take no for an answer. He figured she’d call a man who refused to take no for an answer a brute. So he stared back along the tracks some more. Staring at her just made him feel brutal.

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  It didn’t take Stringer a whole day and a night to make up his mind. By no later than, say, 10 P.M. Claudette had sort of made his mind up for him. Before that happened she’d hauled him in to have dinner with her French pals. They’d been slumming for local color in the club car, he learned, when he wound up in the private car Pathe had up forward. Having eaten in the diners of the S.P. Line, Stringer couldn’t really blame them for wanting their grub cooked French by a Chinaman who really knew his trade. The French folk treated him decently, even though few of them spoke much English and none of ‘em spoke it half as well as Claudette. The commander of the expedition was an old gent with a spade beard and a Legion of Honor ribbon stuck in his lapel. The half-dozen other men dressed nigh as fancy. The four gals, including Claudette, could have dressed as nice anywhere and been accepted socially. The current Gibson Girl look was all the rage, east and west, with even old Etta Place, the Sundance Kid’s pretty doxie, posing for sepia-tones with her hair pinned the same stylish way. Keeping track of the unfamiliar names of folk who couldn’t say you were wrong was a bother. Stringer settled, for now, with just recalling that the old cuss in charge was called Mon Sewer LaRoche. He was the one who told Stringer where to sit as they all ate buffet, which meant you got to eat with your plate in your la
p. Stringer knew French folk had odd notions about eating. Aside from what they ate, which in this case didn’t seem so odd, Frenchmen just hated to sit down to table with anyone they hadn’t known long enough to trust them with the linen and silver service. It was all right to dine with most any cuss at a public cafe. You had to like ‘em a mite better to feed ‘em informal, like this, just as long as it was understood you didn’t know ‘em well enough to serve ‘em at your family table, which was off limits to strangers with the possible exception of The Pope.

  From the way everyone else laughed and chatted while the cook kept cooking and a shy Filipino kept piling grub on a sideboard or shoving it in people’s laps, you’d never know old LaRoche was treating them like peasants. They were likely used to being treated like that by a member of the Legion of Honor. Hired help in America took a lot of shit from the boss and never let on it bothered them, come to think of it.

  His dull headache seemed gone for good, now. The drinks he’d had earlier had done wonders for his battered skull, and he hadn’t known how hungry he was until he’d noticed even ice cold soup tasted swell. He liked mushrooms cooked in some fancy sauce even better and once he’d enjoyed some spicy goose liver laced with little black things, he opted for a second helping and didn’t ask what the black things might be. Chinese food tasted better when you didn’t ask, too. He didn’t see how the lumps in the goose liver could be anything ominous. They didn’t have much taste of their own. It was Claudette who noticed he sure seemed to like Paddy Something and agreed the truffles added to the enjoyment.