Stringer and the Deadly Flood (13 page)

Stringer nodded soberly and replied, “I did. The few I talked to about it seemed to hold the view it was a fair fight, Jack.”

The killer shrugged. “Fair or not, that damned fool had no call to cause Blacky so much trouble, MacEwen.” Then he got even more casual as he said, “Speaking of Macs. Do you recall another Mac called MacKail in connection with El Centro?”

Stringer made an effort to look unconcerned as he replied, truthfully enough, “I can't say anyone called MacKail was the topic of conversation when I was passing through. Are we supposed to be after him?”

Cactus Jack grimaced. “Likely not, now that Lockwood can't meet up with the pest. MacKail's a newspaperman with a rep for poking his nose into other gent's business. Lockwood bragged in town that he'd sent for MacKail and that once the story was in the newspapers Blacky Burke and some others would be in a heap of trouble.”

Stringer
tried to sound less interested than he was as he responded, “Do tell? I wonder what the rascal had in mind. I had a look at those company charts he rode off with before I brought 'em back to Blacky. All I could make out was that they said our outfit was digging over here. I don't see how that could get anyone in trouble. Hell, everyone riding back and forth across this desert must have noticed that swamping steam shovel and all this ditch water by now. What sort of secret do you reckon Lockwood aimed to spill to that nosy MacPhail?”

“The name's MacKail, not MacPhail,” Cactus Jack corrected. “As to deep, dark secrets about construction out in open sight of cross-country travelers, your guess is as good as mine. Anyways, I've always been better with a gun than with a shovel.”

There was more shoveling going on along the excavation to their left as they approached the salon tent. As far as Stringer could make it out, the steam shovel farther west was simply gouging out big gobs of dirt. Behind it, workers with shovels, hoes, and rakes had the task of smoothing the banks to a uniform width and more gentle angle. The silt's angle of repose seemed about thirty degrees. Had he been in charge he'd have considered waterproofing the bare mudbanks with cement or at least road tar. It still looked like rain, and while rain was rare out here it tended to make up for it when it arrived. He didn't ask Cactus Jack if those banks wouldn't erode like hell in a good gully-washer. He doubted even Black Burke wanted to think about that if he was getting paid by the mile instead of the future.

But that couldn't be what Lockwood had wanted to tell him. Gut-and-git was a code of the west more often followed than any code the writers of penny dreadfuls had ever come up with. Stringer had tried to sell many a feature on the Rape of the West. Every time he had, Sam Barca had pointed out that their readers didn't give a hoot about natural resources they couldn't get at. The land-loving Amish and landscape painters of the Hudson Valley hadn't been the folk who'd won the west. Few folk had trekked thousands of miles and fought at least that many Indians to admire the scenery and preserve the balance of nature. As Sam Barca liked to remark about the anguished John Muir and other worried naturalists, “A gent could study a butterfly just as well back east. Our readers come out here to get rich.”

So there was no fresh news or a scandal worth reporting if all the water lords were up to out here was messing up a desert. Such doings were called progress and almost everyone out west approved. Nobody cared if range was overgrazed or how
many
trout streams got choked with mine waste as long as the men who got rich at the game paid their bills on time. The home range Stringer had grown up on was a lot more eroded than when the Miwok had gathered acorns on now open slopes of cheat grass and black mustard. The oyster beds of Frisco Bay that Jack London recalled so fondly were now fetid mudflats that stank of Frisco sewage when the tide was out. And nobody cared. So what in thunder could Blacky Burke be up to here that anyone might care about?

CHAPTER
NINE

The outfit had no time clocks. When it got light enough to see, the mostly Mexican crew was supposed to get to work. When it got too dark to see, they were allowed to knock off for the day. Most staggered home to eat the tortillas and beans prepared by their mujeres. A mess tent was set up to feed the Americanos who ran things, along with a few single Mexicans, who of course had their own table and had the expense of gringo rations deducted from their day wages.

Stringer got to eat free, which he thought just as well after he had tasted the cow camp grub they served. As an overlord who wasn't supposed to consort with mere Mexicans unless they were pretty and he wanted to, Stringer had been issued his own tent, and the laborers who'd been ordered to set it up for him seemed surprised but not displeased when he pitched in to help them. He'd have wanted to, even if he hadn't been so good-natured, because he saw right off that the kid driving the stakes was more used to living in an adobe.

Stringer tried not to hurt the young Mexican's feelings when he reset the stakes to hold in case the overcast sky had any wind in mind. It was now too dark, and too hopeless a task in any case, to concern himself with how many of the other tents along the canal were staked securely. If they blew down they blew down. He didn't think his would, now.

A couple more
peones
brought an army cot and the saddle and possibles he'd been worried about to the tent. He said he'd set up the cot and dismissed them with handshakes all around which they seemed to find surprising as well. Once he had his oil lantern going, Stringer went through his old gladstone. He'd seen right off that someone had forced the lock. But as he laid out his belongings on the dirt floor, he felt sure that thieving Mex kids hadn't gone through his personal things. Although nothing was missing, he was certainly glad he hadn't held out on Lockwood's papers or, God
forbid,
hung on to Lockwood's barometer.

He'd known before leaving Juanita's cart that everything south of that fossil beach had to be above mean sea level, and the few pencil lines Lockwood had added to the survey charts had been easy enough to memorize, for all they really told him. His press pass and other identification were on him, no longer in a wallet anyone might want to look at but tucked into the lining of his right boot. One of the nice things about Justins was that the thin, smooth inner lining was separate from the outside leather and one only had to pick out a few stitches with a pocket knife to have a handy hiding place.

He unfolded and set up the army cot. Then he covered it with the tarp and quilts he'd helped himself to before leaving the deserted gypsy cart. As he sat on his lonely new bed and rolled a smoke he wasn't sure whether he was smiling or only remembering the clean odors of poor little Juanita. Outside, someone was strumming a guitar and two mujeres were singing a sad
corrido
about another gal named Guirnaldita who'd died to save her honor. He lit the smoke, blew smoke out both nostrils like a pissed-off bull, and muttered to himself, “This is going to be swell. No later than nine o'clock, nerves all on edge, and I'm supposed to go to sleep with a dirge going on right outside.”

He knew they'd shut up if he went out and told them to. Thinking he was a company gun, they'd jump in the canal if he told them to. But it wasn't their fault he was feeling blue and, come to study on it, scared skinny on top of it. So far it seemed he'd been accepted at face value. He'd noticed in the past that few folk expected a fairly well-known newspaperman to look so cow. The straw boss, Gus, had even nodded to him at suppertime, and the others likely thought a ragged stranger who was willing to draw on their top gunslick had to be cast from much the same metal.

But how long did he have? He was pushing his luck every extra minute he spent in this den of... what?

It was his infernal curiosity—that was what kept him from playing this game smart. He knew he could slip out now, while the slipping was still good. He only had to ride southwest to El Centro and board the first train that stopped there. It was the safe way to play it, the smart way to play it, but then he'd never find out what Lockwood had known, or, damn it, thought he knew, that was worth shedding blood over.

As
Stringer sat there smoking and thinking about trains, it almost seemed as if he could hear one coming, chugging softly in time with that fool guitar outside. Then the guitar stopped and one of the gals who'd been singing laughed and called out,
“Ay, es el tren trabajo!”
Now Stringer could hear for sure the locomotive coming from the east, moaning at the dark clouds above.

He got up and ducked outside to see that the camp had come back to life, with everyone half dressed and some who should have been ashamed of themselves piling out to have a look-see as the work train tooted its whistle and rolled in to a slow stop. He ran into Gus, who cursed and told him, “Keep an eye on the damned kids. The little monkeys get in the way every way they can manage. The sons of bitches in Yuma might have had the courtesy to warn us in advance, goddamn their eyes.”

Stringer had noticed the telegraph poles that ran along every main line in the country. But he hadn't known the camp had telegraph or telephone connections with their base camp closer to Yuma. He didn't comment. He knew Gus didn't like him to begin with, and he'd already figured a few things out just by keeping his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open.

As Gus moved up the line to cuss the train crew, Stringer yelled at a little girl who for some reason wanted to crawl between the train wheels. She shot him a scared look and ran off, to try somewhere else most likely.

He saw cases of supplies being unloaded all along the mostly flatcar combination. He stayed put so as not to get in the way in the tricky light. A couple of cars down they seemed to be running planks down to roll off something important. In the shifting flashes of firelight and inky shadows he could only make it out as something white and on wheels. A wagon to haul dirt most likely. He didn't move closer. He'd have plenty of time to look at it later.

A dark, trim silhouette materialized between Stringer and whatever else was going on over yonder. He'd just had time to make it out as a young woman dressed Anglo in a travel duster and pith helmet before she spotted him as a gringo as well and approached him to ask charmingly, “I'm looking for a Mister Burke, sir.” This was immediately followed by, “Stringer MacKail! What are you doing here, for heaven's sake!”

He grabbed her elbow and drew her off to one side as he murmured, “Easy on that name, Kathy. We may not be among friends in these parts.”

Kathy
Doyle of the
Examiner
sniffed. “I'll be the judge of who my friends are here, you brute. The last time we met you screwed me silly and then scooped me on the death of Kid Curry!”

Stringer sighed and shook his head. “Kathy, your memory of such events fails to jibe with mine by miles. As I recall, we agreed to share the story as friendly rivals, and it was your own grand notion to beat me to the telegraph office and, come to study on it, leave me to await your return in vain, with a hell of a hard on.”

She snapped, “Don't talk dirty. You know you played me false on that one, and I had a hell of time explaining how I scooped you and the
Sun
with a story that simply failed to match the facts.”

He retorted, “Let that be a lesson to you. We made a deal and you tried to doublecross me. Cuss me for the fool I may be, but I'm still willing to make you the same offer. We work together, get the story, and wire it in together?”

“Leaving out my fair white body, which I swear you'll never abuse that way again, just what sort of story are we talking about
this
time?” she asked him warily.

Stringer looked around to make sure nobody could overhear them before he replied. “A real scoop. This water outfit has had two people killed and lost two hired guns to wastage so far. I'm still working on how come. That's why I'm working here undercover, as a hired gun called Don MacEwen. How do you like it so far?”

She eyed him carefully and shot back, “I've a good mind to expose you as the sweet-talking fibber you are, Stuart MacKail.”

But just then they were joined by Blacky Burke and the sullen Gus. It was Gus who asked, “What's going on here? Do you know this lady, MacEwen?”

A million years went by. Then the lovely but treacherous rival reporter trilled, “We were just talking about that, sir. I'm Kathy Doyle from the
San Franciso Examiner.
I feel sure I covered the trial of a Donald MacEwen in Colorado, one time. But he insists I have him mixed up with another train robber.”

Blacky Burke chuckled and said, “So would I, in his place, ma'am. But just for the record, does old Don here look sort of familiar to you?”

She dimpled to them all, responding archly, “Far be it from me to dredge up a past a young man may be trying to live down. Maybe Donald has an identical twin. In any case, the last time I saw him, or thought I had, he got off on lack of evidence. Something must have happened to the witnesses against him. None of them ever
showed
up in court.”