Stringer and the Hell-Bound Herd Read online

  He was more worried about her having been grabbed or thrown over the side than he was about whether she liked him or old “Edward” best. Having her paged was as likely to get her hurt as to save her if she was being held against her will in some other stateroom. So Stringer eased up a flight of steps to the deck above and found some lifeboat shadows to hunker among as, sure enough, the city lights of Sacramento hove into view as the steamer swung more broadside to the shore. He wondered, later, where old Echo had been lurking. The steamer put in and almost everyone bustled down the gangplank in the tricky light to fan out across the quay in search of greeters or at least a ride before he spied mighty familiar body movements under a faintly visible straw hat and blonde head. He let her get a good lead, of course, and almost wound up steaming further up the river. But they just cussed him for a damned fool when he ran down the gangplank the boys were hauling in.

  He didn’t head across the quay the way Echo had gone. He knew his way around the state capital and it was her own business why she’d decided to abandon him for the Western Pacific Railroad. He knew she couldn’t be trusted to tell him the truth, if she knew the full truth, and it was up for grabs who’d taken the most advantage of whom up to now. Since she seemed so determined to play a lone hand from here on it made a heap of sense to let her “Win”. He hadn’t figured out what he meant to say once she looked in her handbag for his bankroll in any case.

  He leaned against a pile of cargo crates and rolled a smoke as he gave Echo plenty of time to “escape.” After he’d smoked it down, he headed for the nearby stockyards, striding faster as the cool night air of the Sacramento Valley cut through the thin denim of his jacket, and arrived on the civilized side of midnight to discover that they’d nonetheless called it a night. The moonlight gleamed on a tossed horn hither and yon in the otherwise inky sea of penned stock, but Stringer couldn’t get any two-legged critters to show interest in him, even when he called out, until he’d done it more than thrice and lit yet another smoke.

  That got a night watchman to come his way between the pens, swinging a lantern and cussing between yawns. He complained, “There ain’t nobody here but us cows, cowboy.” To which Stringer replied, “I noticed. I’m with both the San Francisco Sun and the M Bar K of Calaveras County. Could you tell me how many, if any, such cows have been run in with that Tarington herd bound over the mountains for that mining camp in Nevada?”

  The watchman shook his head to answer, “They never tell me shit. But that’s fair, for I don’t give a shit. If you want to jaw about cows, you’d best come back after cocks-crow, when you can tell a cow from a sheep around here. The foreman of the day crew ought to know whose stock is penned where to head wherever.”

  Stringer picked up his gladstone with a weary sigh, muttering, “I reckon a few winks wouldn’t kill me after the long day I’ve just had. Do they still ask six bits a night at the Drover’s Rest up that way?”

  The watchman nodded and said, “Cost you a whole dollar for a flop, come fall roundup. Lucky for you, things are slow in High Summer and…Hold on, did you just now say some asshole’s fixing to drive a herd over into the Great Basin?”

  Stringer nodded and said, “Contract herder answering to the name of Tarington, according to my notes. You mean nobody mentioned it to you here in the stockyards?”

  The watchman shook his head and sounded more awake, now, as he replied, “I’ve heard the name in connection with the cattle industry. Can’t say I’ve ever had any dealing with the cuss.” Then he added with a dry chuckle, “It’s likely just as well. I hate to work for poor folk. Shoving cows out under a desert sun in August sounds like a sure road to poverty, if you ask me.”

  Stringer had only asked whether or not the cows in question might or might not have left for the high country yet, but he had no call to argue that point with yet another old-timer in the beef business. It would have been a heap more interesting to meet up with someone who thought it was a good idea to herd stock across sage and salt flats in High Summer, so they shook on it and parted friendly. The Drover’s Rest stood across the dusty dirt road from a more brightly-lit saloon and Stringer had meant to enjoy a nightcap or more before turning in. But as he noticed how far away those bright lights seemed to be, as he strode on and on to them, he decided he was as ready for bed as he was likely to get without endangering his health. So he turned his back on the temptations of the saloon and limped up the plank steps and into the bleak barnlike lobby of the Spartan establishment.

  The cherry-nosed old cuss behind the desk agreed to hand over a room key and even a towel and bar of soap for six bits, but noted he was not authorized to extend eredit, even to guests who showed up sober with baggage. So Stringer chuckled wearily and hauled out all the change in his jeans and, when he saw he was a few cents short, he said, “I’m going to have to break a bill on you, pard.” To which the room clerk replied he could likely wrangle change for a sawbuck. But when Stringer opened his billfold and hauled out the few bills Echo had felt up to leaving him, he swore more in admiration of her sheer gall than true rage. Then he chuckled and said, “Perfidy, thy name is woman. For it was a woman, not me, who went to the trouble of cutting bond paper from some waste basket to the very size and shape of paper money. She must have known in advance it would feel about the same in the dark.”

  The room clerk muttered, “Uh, huh, that sure sounds like a woman I was shacked up with in Seattle one time. But we don’t hire rooms on credit, even to fellow victims, no offense.”

  Stringer started to get rid of the worthless scraps of office paper, decided to put them in a hip pocket instead, and assured the older man, “I’m not licked, yet. Two can play perfidy and I just might have my money, after all.”

  He drew the skinny roll of bills from Echo’s purse out of his shirt pocket and peeled one off as he added, “Don’t ask me to explain about the gal I just came up the river with and I won’t ask you the details of your misadventure in Seattle that time.”

  The old-timer chuckled and told him he was missing a great yarn, then he took the bill Stringer offered him, held it up to the light to make sure, and added, “This is only a flophouse, not a damned bank, cowboy. How in thunder am I supposed to break an infernal fifty dollar bill when we ain’t got more than thirty in the damned till?”

  Stringer blinked in astonishment at the silver certificate handed back to him. It got worse when he unrolled the apparently modest wad in search of something smaller. There wasn’t anything smaller. Instead of five twenty-dollar bills from Echo’s purse he’d helped himself to three fifties and two hundred-dollar bills!

  After he’d laughed like hell a spell Stringer calmed down with an effort and tried, “You ought to be able to trust me for the fifteen cents I’m short in change, seeing how rich I turned out this evening through no fault of my own.”

  But the room clerk shook his head firmly and stubbornly replied, “I just work here. I don’t make the rules. It’d be just as tough for the boss to change a fifty in the cold gray dawn and he’d be sore as hell at both of us if I let you beat me down on the price of a flop!”

  Stringer scowled and said, “Damn it, I have to flop some damned place and we both know it says in black and white on each and every bill that said bill is legal tender for all debts public and private!”

  The older man shrugged and said, “Feel perfectly free to write to your congressman about this establishment and its cruel policy on making change in the middle of the damned night. You’re asking me to bust a fifty for less than one damned dollar, for Pete’s sake!”

  Stringer started to offer more for the damned room. Then he had a better idea. He bet the room clerk a nickel he couldn’t store his gladstone behind the desk, and after they’d settled on a dime he went across to the saloon, knowing such a noisy place had to have more than thirty dollars in the till.

  The place was even more crowded than its bright lights and ragtime piano music had led him to expect, crossing the dirt road at this hour. But it wa
sn’t a happy-looking crowd despite the bright lights and ragtime tinkle from the upright coin-fed player piano against a back wall. From some of the looks he got as he bellied up to one end of the bar, Stringer could see they weren’t too sure of him, either. Close-knit neighborhood saloons tended to be that way late on a week night. The tall curly headed barkeep took his time drifting over. When he finally got around to asking Stringer to name his pleasure the more smoothly shaven but at least casually dressed intruder replied with a sheepish grin, “I’m thirsty enough to drink anything that’s wet. But before I get in more trouble, I feel beholden to warn you I don’t have anything smaller than a fifty dollar bill on me.”

  The barkeep got a tad more friendly looking as he confided, “You let us worry about making change, as long as you can pay for as much in the way of wetness as your heart may desire. You staying at the hotel across the way, in case we have to get you home in a wheelbarrow?”

  Stringer nodded, not caring to lie outright, and said he’d like to commence by buying a boilermaker for the both of them. So that got his one fifty dollar bill broken, even though the barkeep pocketed the price of his own drink and said he might have it later. Stringer took his time with the one drink actually served. At fifty cents a throw nobody could afford to drink fast. It was small wonder the crowd seemed so morose. As the only late-night joint near the stockyards the saloon had one of those disgusting monopolies Teddy Roosevelt kept promising to put out of business any damned old year now.

  He rolled a smoke thoughtfully to nurse along with his drink as he decided whether to hang around for a second one. His nose for news told him he was never going to find out much more about the recent odd events in the beef industry unless he asked a heap of possibly pesky questions. And anyone could see most of these old boys worked in and about the beef industry. On the other hand he’d knocked around enough to know how regulars of a tightly knit drinking crowd felt about strangers asking almost any questions at all. He’d heard morose types growl, “What’s it to you?” when politely asked where the pisser might be. It was almost always safer to let the barkeep set the tone in a strange saloon. When even the help gave you the cold shoulder it was time to move on, soft but sudden, in hopes of a warmer welcome almost anywhere else.

  The player piano stopped so abruptly that Stringer glanced its way. But apparently nobody had done anything mean to it. It had just used up a nickel’s worth of plink-plank. A drably-dressed but not bad looking young gal he hadn’t noticed before stepped over to the bar to ask the curly-headed barkeep for some more music. He argued with her some before he slid a nickel, or maybe a slug across the fake mahogany to her, grumbling, “The damned customers are supposed to keep the damned music going, Sally.”

  She muttered something about cheap cowpokes and went back to feed the player piano some more as Stringer dug out the bond paper Echo had no doubt cut to the dimensions of paper money with no personal malice against any particular sucker. A lady who lived such an active life no doubt liked to plan ahead for any opportunities she stumbled across in her adventure.

  As he’d suspected by the dimmer light across the way, the bond paper was covered with typewriting on one side. There was enough to tell him he’d likely been right about her salvaging it from some office wastebasket. There didn’t seem to be anything to indicate what sort of business the obvious business letters had dealt with. There were no names or addresses and a bitch about a gross of some damned something having been ordered some damned time and apparently never delivered struck Stringer as more tedious than informative. He started to put them away again, knowing his brain always worked better after a night’s sleep. As he tucked the roll back in his hip pocket a female voice asked, “Lord have mercy, that couldn’t have been real money you were counting just now, could it?”

  When he saw it was the pretty but hungry-looking gal in the shabby summer dress of speckled gray he quickly whipped the wad back out to show her, saying, “I only wish. But I met a lady almost as pretty as you aboard the Sacramento Steamer and look what she put in place of the dollar bills I started out with.”

  The taproom tramp regarded Echo’s handiwork dubiously and told him, “I think you’re funning me. I saw when Curly cashed a fifty dollar bill for you before. Where’s this wicked gal off the Sacramento Steamer if she got all your money, honey?”

  Stringer smiled thinly and replied, “She’s likely spending some of it in a club car betwixt here and Donner Pass about now. Didn’t your mother ever tell you that once you clean a man out you’re supposed to get clean away, before he wises up?”

  She shrugged and confided, “Apache got my mamma before she could tell me the facts of life. I grew up in an orphan asylum and learned „em on the road after I growed big enough to take care of myself. How come you’re trying to pretend you’re broke? Are you afraid I’m out to roll you or do you just think I’m too ugly?

  Before Stringer could answer, the barkeep had drifted close enough to mutter, “Cut it out, Sally. You know the boss don’t hold with outright hooking in here.” To which she replied with a sniff, “I ain’t no damned hooker. I’m just an orphan in the storm. Ask this gent here if I was trying to peddle him my pussy, you mean thing!”

  Curly shot a curious glance at Stringer, who soberly replied, “As a matter of fact, we were just talking about the price of beef, Miss Sally, here, knowing so much more than me about the Sacramento stockyards.”

  The girl looked as astonished as the barkeep, but kept her mouth shut and let Curly be the one who answered, “Aw, come on, we both know Sally here has yet to offer that kind of meat for sale!”

  But Stringer looked innocent and replied, “It was worth my asking. For, to tell the truth, I’ve asked many a soul who looks more like a top hand and, so far, nobody’s been able to tell me more than Miss Sally about a mighty curious cattle operation.”

  The barkeep cocked an eyebrow at the drab, who licked her lips and said, “Ask him. He just told you how confused I seem to be.” So Stringer grabbed the reins with, “I answer to MacKail. My uncle would be Big Donald MacKail of Calaveras County, but that’s not what I want to know about cows moving through here right now.”

  A morose-looking individual drinking alone on the far side of Sally growled into his beer schooner, “I’ve dealt with the M Bar K and they’re okay, Curly.” The atmosphere seemed to thaw some, so Stringer took advantage of it to explain in a louder tone, “My uncle was offered a fair price for some beef on the hoof, only he asked me to look into it when he discovered it seemed bound over the mountains into the Nevada Desert instead of the Frisco market where the army’s bidding the price out of sight day by day.”

  The lone drinker didn’t move from his chosen spot, but growled, “You must mean that herd old Chuck Tarington’s contracted to deliver to some mining camp over yonder. Your uncle had good reason to suspect old Chuck had finally gone over the edge. Never had much in the way of brains to begin with. But I can’t say he’s a crook. Stupid, I’ll allow, but he’s good for the money. Your uncle should have gone along with the deal. Too late now, though.”

  “You mean Tarington’s made up as big a herd as they want over in that mining camp?” asked Stringer.

  “Made it up and moved it out, earlier this very week.”

  Stringer frowned thoughtfully and silently signalled the barkeep to serve the old grump and the girl as he marveled, “That’s one on me, then. For I’d been led to believe Tarington was still amassing beef over yonder in your yards. How long ago did you say they moved out?”

  The older man shrugged and grumbled, “I ain’t Chuck Tarington’s mother.” But then he brightened, turned, and called out, “Hey, Pete, don’t you work over in the northwest stretch of the yards?” To which an even more morose-looking old-timer in bib overalls replied, “I might. What’s it to you, Waco?”

  Waco, if that was his handle, pointed at Stringer to reply, “This young jasper in the army hat wants to know about Chuck Tarington, and he’s buying.” So the grumpy
cuss called Pete came over to the bar, muttering, “Tarington paid cash for such grain and water as his scrub stock used up. I told him he’d never make it to the Stillwater Range with „em this time of the year, but since he didn’t leave owing us any money, there was no call to stop him, was there?”

  Stringer indicated another drink was required on that side of him and let Curly serve it before he cautiously said, “You strike me as a gent who knows a mite about cows, Pete. You say that herd aimed the wrong way looks like poor stock to begin with?”

  The old-timer inhaled some of the bourbon Curly had served him without being asked, washed it down with beer, and said, “Lord, I love it with a label on the bottle when I can get it. But I ain’t telling you Tarington lit out with a puny herd of scrub stock because you want to hear he’s loco. I’m telling you because it’s true. I ain’t saying ever’ damn head will drop dead along the way, but like I told old Chuck, he’s sure to lose enough to the buzzards to eat up any profit he can possibly make off the few he delivers alive in Wagon Springs.”

  The one called Waco grunted, “Did you say Wagon Springs, that ghost town in the Still waters north of Table Mountain and just east of the Carson Sink?” And when Pete said that sounded about right Waco shook his head stubbornly and said flatly, “There ain’t nobody there to deliver any damned beef to. The one mine there bottomed out years ago and was never much of a lode to begin with.”

  The yard worker who’d apparently waved the mysterious herd off on its mysterious way shrugged and said, “Don’t look at me. I told „em they’d never get there. So what difference might it make whether ghosts eat steak and potatoes or not?”

  Before the two old-timers could get into a more serious argument, Stringer soothed, “I just got it on good authority that the gold mine at Wagon Springs has been reopened by a new outfit with more up-to-date refining methods. Growing up in the Mother Lode country, I learned long ago that the first wave of prospectors barely scratched the surface and…”