CHAPTER EIGHT

Later in the afternoon Stringer moseyed down to the tracks to see if the Bean brothers got off that local from the county seat. They didn’t. Stringer wasn’t surprised. No lawyer worth his salt would have managed to get a handle on the total confusion in one mere working day. Stringer had spent the last few hours going through the rats nest of papers on hand at the Jersey Lily, with the two girls finding more every time they recalled a cigar box on a shelf or a cheese box in a closet. Between them they’d found bills dating back as far as 1886, paid or unpaid, as far as anyone could tell, along with court judgments recorded in pencil on odds and ends of handy paper—from the backs of used envelopes to brown butcher’s wrapping. Stringer was mildly surprised to come across a more formal albeit grimy letter from the county board of supervisors, confirming Bean’s appointment as justice of the peace. There was nothing saying he had the power to try anyone for a serious felony.

But in the same cigar box reposed a handwritten finding by “The First District Court of Langtry” sentencing one Hiram Miles to death by hanging the next time he dared to show his cow-stealing face in these parts again. There was no legal record, but Stringer saw no need to doubt Laura when she told him about her father’s Solomonlike wisdom in his judgment of a case involving an Irish railroad worker and the death of a Chinese track worker. Judge Bean had found, after a consideration of all the evidence, that while the Irishman had most certainly shot the Chinaman, more than once, there wasn’t one word covering such rare events in the legal statutes of the state of Texas. Ergo, since there was nothing saying it was wrong to murder Chinamen in Texas, the defendant was found not guilty of homicide but sternly warned not to ever gun a white man in His Honor’s jurisdiction.

Most of the few recorded cases, however, seemed to deal with petty local disputes involving unpaid debts, disputed property lines, unleashed dogs worrying stock, and so forth. It was no way to keep records, but as far as Stringer could make out the few on hand, the casual old cuss had smoothed over most of the disputes with common sense and caustic humor. There wasn’t one thing naming the four Bean kids as the heirs to Bean’s mighty hazy estate, or even proving he’d ever had them.

As the local moved on up the tracks, leaving Stringer rolling a smoke in a pensive mood, he tried to tell himself again that he was, a newspaperman and not an estate lawyer. The way the old man had been running things in Langtry hardly explained why anyone would want to run an investigative reporter out of town, anyway. Nobody out to dispute the estate of a man who was still alive had call to worry about anything he might write for a distant newspaper. Old Bean himself had more political pull than any stranger might. Something more sinister than ownership of the Jersey Lily had to be involved. So what was left?

Stringer lit his smoke and strode across the tracks and into the trees. The sandy soil shaded by the canopy of cottonwood and willow was well-trodden and littered with the trash of hasty evacuation. But he saw no hoof-prints, and the first thatched choza he came to in a clearing was undamaged, albeit deserted. He was exploring a second when he became aware he was not alone after all. He turned to see the heavyset Gordo and two other Mexicans regarding him with considerable distaste. He was glad to see none of them were armed with anything more serious than machetes.

He nodded. “Buen dias, Gordo. I see those cowhands didn’t burn you out, here, after all.”

Gordo scowled. “They never came, after that stupid Roy Bean scared everyone across the river por nada! We just now waded back across, for to read sign, and anyone can see it was a lie he told us. For why did he lie to us, gringo? Is it considered amusing to make women scream and children cry with stories about night riders?”

“Roy wasn’t making it up,” Stringer said. “I was there when a bunch of Double W riders announced serious intent to bust things up here. So they were the ones who lied. I don’t know why. It might have been to get Roy to do just what he did. Later on, I saw some of them getting drunk in One Thumb Brown’s cantina. Look on the bright side. What if Roy hadn’t warned you and they’d hit this camp more serious?”

Gordo scowled. “They had no reason for to bother us to begin with. You say you think they lied to Roy Bean for to get him to lie to us. For why do you think they would do that?”

“For openers,” Stringer said, “they seem to have made you and all your people sore as hell at the Beans, right?”

“Si,” Gordo said, “we have always treated El Patron with respect. Was not right to scare us shitless like that, por nada.”

“There you go,” Stringer said. ‘They call that divide and rule. The judge has always protected you folk. In turn he’s always had a few willing hands to call on when need be. Right now he’s too old and feeble to lick a determined chicken, and has nobody to stand up for him but one grown son and, well, me.”

Gordo raised the blade of his machete to regard it as if he’d just noticed it. “Maybe he has more friends than that, if you can tell us who his enemies are and what they want.”

“I wish I could,” Stringer said, “for if I did, I’d tell the judge and he’d know how to deal with it. It has to be something the law’s not supposed to know about. The judge and everyone else knows you folk are in Texas sort of informal, so that can’t be it. Those riders, last night, as much as accused you wetbacks of running stock through here to say Chihuahua. Before you yell bad names at me, I can see you boys own no ponies and no cow’s been across this sand in living memory, but—”

“That is most stupid!” Gordo cut in.

One of his older companions announced, “They always seek to blame us for things we have not done. Everyone knows no Mejicanos could have run off any of that missing stock. For why do they accuse us?”

“Even if we did wish to run stock down into Chihuahua,” Gordo chimed in, “would we be stupid enough to drive it through Langtry, where everyone could see us? The cow thieves are driving their stolen stock across somewhere else, not into this oxbow where they would be so easy to spot.”

Stringer nodded. “I never said you folk were dumb enough to drive stolen stock through this neck of the woods. How come you seem to feel free to speak for other old boys from south of the border, though?”

“That is no mystery,” Gordo replied. “In our country no gringo can ride far without someone noticing. In Texas it works the other way around. If there was a band of vaqueros raiding the herds north of the border, for why has nobody ever reported seeing any?”

Stringer thought, and nodded soberly, “I follow your drift, and I have to allow you make more sense than those wild-eyed cowboys last night. Where would you run cows across, to say some Mex confederates, if you were a Texas hand in business for himself, Gordo?”

The heavyset youth shrugged. “It would depend on whether I was worried about Los Rurales or working with them.”

The older man who spoke English shook his head. “I do not see Texas thieves paying off the law in Chihuahua. Not if they hoped for any profit. Los Rurales are pigs, and seldom keep their word when bribed, anyway. Beef sells for less in Chihuahua than up here. To make it worth their while, Gringo rustlers would have to drive stolen stock hard, to some dishonest ranchero, and slip back with their ill-gotten gains before Los Rurales caught them, eh?”

Stringer grimaced. “If they had any sense, they’d just drive the beef to some other part of Texas and save themselves a heap of bother. I know a Ranger called Slade was last seen heading north to the greener range up yonder. Old Will Slade could be a jump ahead of us on purloined beef.”

Gordo objected, “Then for why is someone trying to make it look as if we are running the stock through here?”

“Mayhaps to keep folk from guessing where they are running it. I’ll suggest Will Slade have a word with old One Thumb, next time I see him. I can’t get Brown to tell me much.”

As he turned to retrace his steps, Gordo asked, “Do you think it is safe for our people to cross over again?

They have no shelters built on the far side of the river, and Los Rurales could stumble over them at any time.”

Stringer sighed, “I sure wish everyone around here wouldn’t appoint me their damned guardian. I can’t speak for any roughnecks on this side of the border, gents. But from what I know of Los Rurales, you’d be as well off if the Double W hands came after you with murder in mind. How many men and how many weapons do you boys have to work with?”

“Forty or so men and a few tough women and boys,” Gordo said, “Pero mostly with sticks, a few machetes, and a couple of shotguns. Muzzle loaders.”

Stringer grimaced. “You’re in a hell of a mess if anybody attacks you enough to matter. I still think you’d be a mite safer on this side of the river, where Los Rurales can’t get at you.”

The Mexicans agreed. So Stringer shook with all three of them and they parted friendly enough. As Stringer burst out of the tree line again, he found himself somewhat farther down the track, nearer the water tower. As he crossed the track, he spotted a bitty mustard-yellow shack even farther, and since the door was ajar and an old gent in coveralls was lounging there behind an open newspaper. Stringer wandered over for a howdy.

The elderly railroader howdied him back and put aside his paper. “Are you one of our dicks, son?”

“Not hardly,” Stringer said. “I’m Stringer MacKail and I write for the San Francisco Sun. What sort of trouble might the Southern Pacific be in, calling for the services of a railroad dick?”

“Not in this section,” the older man replied. “That’s why I was wondering. The line’s been getting littered with dead bodies of late. Hadn’t you heard?”

“No. I haven’t read today’s papers. Did you say bodies, plural?”

The section hand nodded. “Yep. One old boy scattered across the desert just west of L. A. near the tracks. Dressed too fancy for a hobo. But he still struck the track walkers as a man who’d been thro wed off a train. Then, just this morning, they found another old boy, dressed more like a cowhand, curled up dead in an empty boxcar, over to the San Antone yards. It reads that he got shot in the chest, somewheres else, and crawled into the car to hide out and bleed to death. Sure is mysterious.”

Stringer didn’t think so. But he saw no need to mention the rascal Pat Garrett had swapped shots with in the L.A. yards. The other, of course, had to be the one who’d attacked Pam Kinnerton. He asked the railroader, “Have they any names to go with either of them?”

“Sure,” the old-timer said. “Says so right here in the paper. The one who went diving off a speeding train had an L.A. voting card giving his name as... Let’s see, Dan Logan. The other old boy who bled his fool self to death in the boxcar had Morgan Jones printed on his hatband. So that was likely his name, unless it was his hat maker’s. Neither one’s had any kith or kin come forward for mortal remains or pocket money, though. So betwixt you and me, I’d say they was owlhoots traveling incognecated.”

Stringer agreed, even as the one name, Morgan Jones, rang a bell in the back of his mind. He couldn’t match it up with anyone, but he felt sure he’d come across it before. Maybe the old man was right and Morgan Jones sold hats.

Stringer pointed casually up at the telegraph line running in line with the tracks. “What I really wanted to ask you was how far down the line I’d have to go to send a wire to my home office.”

The old railroader raised an eyebrow. “You mean for money?” When Stringer nodded, he stood up and said, “I can patch you through to Western Union. Cost you a dime a word, though. Half for Western Union and half for, well, the bother.”

“That sounds fair,” Stringer said. “But does that mean anyone can send a wire from here in Langtry, any time he wants?”

The older man shrugged. “Any time I ain’t got more important dispatches to send. My job is watering trains and seeing they don’t bump noses. But as you see, I got lots of time on my hands, so, sure, I make a little on the side as a sort of disofficial telegraph office.”

Stringer said, “I was told there was no way to send wires from here and— Right, never ask a liar if you want an honest answer. I’d like to send a couple of wires, seeing I suddenly got lucky. Do we have a blank pad handy?”

The old-timer nodded and ushered Stringer inside, where both pad and pencil reposed on a plank desk beside his telegraph set. Stringer perched on the stool and quickly blocked out several messages in a row. Then he tallied all the words and reached in his jeans. “Let’s not worry about the thirty cents change I could get Scotch about. How soon do you figure I should come back for some answers?”

The railroader picked up the penciled messages to scan their destinations. “You sure write a lot. I can’t promise service quick as Western Union. Like I said, I got to give first call to railroad business. How does sometime around sunrise sound to you, son?”

It sounded slow for telegraphs if faster than the U.S. mail. But since he was in no position to argue, Stringer didn’t. He said he’d drop by the next day, and headed back to the Jersey Lily to see about supper. It was sort of amusing, the way folk ducked inside again as he strode up the street.

But as he approached the Jersey Lily from the south, he saw a cloud of dust coming his way from the north. As it turned into a passel of riders loping into town on lathered ponies, he decided he might not have scared the whole town all by himself. One of the riders was Sunny Jim.

Stringer stopped and stood his ground in the center of the street, in front of the Jersey Lily. For an awkward moment it seemed the whole bunch meant to ride him down. Then they reined in, just as he was tensing to draw, and nobody said anything for a spell as the dust settled. All but one of the riders wore dusty jeans or chaps. The one who didn’t, wore a dusty skirt and sat her palomino sidesaddle. From the waist up she dressed more mannish, in a charro jacket and flat-crowned Spanish hat. She had a six-gun riding her left hip. She was sort of pretty, to be scowling down at him so ferocious. It was she, rather than Sunny Jim, who told him, “We’re on our way to clean out that Mex shantytown. Any objections, MacKail?”

“Yep,” he said. “I just told ‘em it was all right for them to come back, and you have the advantage on me, ma’am.”

“I’m Belle Rogers,” she said, “owner and operator of the B Bar Lazy Six. Most of these boys are with me. You may recall Sunny Jim and these other two off his spread. Both outfits are missing stock. A lot of stock. So stand aside and let us discuss the matter with those infernal wetbacks you seem so fond of.”

“I can’t do that, Miss Belle. Two reasons. In the first place, I just told ‘em it was all right for ‘em to come back across the river. In the second place, they don’t have your stock. I was just talking to ‘em about such matters.”

She looked more surprised than angry. “You must be dumb as well as loco en la cabeza, MacKail. Can’t you count?”

He nodded. “Yep. I make it fourteen of you, not counting ladies and Sunny Jim, to one of me. I sure hope you folk can count, as well, for I sure don’t want to go down. So if you force my hand, you’ll ride on with at least a couple less, and a dozen of you might not be enough to take on the forty-odd Mexicans on the prod, down by the river.”

One of her men shifted in his saddle, but she snapped. “No! I’ll say when, Pete.” So Pete didn’t draw, after all.

But then a rider on the far side of Sunny Jim said, “I don’t work for you, Miss Belle.” He dismounted behind the shelter of Sunny Jim’s pony and came around afoot, grinning wolfishly at Stringer. “Sunny Jim told me how you crawfished him earlier. I’m his ramrod, Bronco North. I was just telling old Jim how anxious I was to meet such a ferocious stranger.”

“We agreed Sunny Jim ought to run home to his mama,” Stringer replied. “Miss Belle, is this between the two of us, or could I be in real trouble?”

She laughed despite herself. “Bronco, cut it out. Can’t you see we’re smack in town, you fool?”

“That’s what this other fool’s been counting on,” Bronco said. “He figures being pals with that old windbag, Roy Bean, gives him the right to rawhide everybody. But I ain’t scared of Bean or anyone else. Least of all this Mex-loving newspaper boy!”

Belle Rogers reined her pony backward as she told her own men, softly, “Stay out of it, muchachos. They’re both acting dumb as hell.”

Stringer smiled at Bronco North. “The lady has a point, amigo. This is rapidly degenerating into a mano a mano in front of witnesses, and be it recorded I mean to let you go for your gun first, being such a law-abiding cuss.”

Bronco laughed. “Sunny Jim,” he called out, “you count to three for us. That way nobody will ever be able to rightly say just who started what with who, see?”

“Don’t do it, Bronco,” Sunny Jim called back. “You’ve never seen that boy slap leather.”

Bronco scowled, not taking his eyes from Stringer’s gun hand as he marveled, “You sure have old Sunny Jim worried, little darling. I’m still waiting to see how good you are.”

Then his jaw dropped as Stringer’s gun seemed to materialize from thin air, aimed at his startled eyes. That might have been the peaceful end of it, had not a shot rang out behind the tensed Stringer, spooking him as well as the ponies all around, so that Stringer fired without thinking, even as he crabbed to one side and spun to train his smoking .38 on the figure half hidden by gun smoke on the porch of the Jersey Lily.

Then he saw it was Judge Roy Bean, with a frock coat on over his nightshirt and his own six-gun smoking in his fist. “The District Court of Langtry is now in session,” he roared, “and what in the hell is going on out here!”

Stringer felt more sick than amused to hear someone behind him shouting, “MacKail just shot Bronco North, Your Honor. We tried to tell him you wouldn’t like it, but—”

“I’ll ask the questions in this here court,” the old man cut in, seating himself behind one of the packing crates and banging on it with his other six-gun as Stringer turned to see Bronco sitting up with both hands clasped to his bleeding head. “Stand clear so’s I can view the victim, dammit,” old Bean said. “Bronco North, are you dead?”

Bronco just moaned. Belle Rogers called back, “Looks like a scalp wound, Judge. The boys were fixing to shoot it out when you spooked us all like that.”

Roy Bean shook his unkempt white head and decreed, “Gunfights in the township of Langtry is forbit by dammit law. This court fines both culprits a dollar apiece for disturbing the peace, and I got some horse liniment in stock for that split scalp, Bronco. It’ll cost you another buck.”

Everyone there but Bronco laughed. Stringer saw the method in the old man’s madness. He was sure glad old Bean was back on his feet at last. Smiling, Jim said, “Us Double W riders had best take old Bronco home, Judge. Can he owe you the dollar until payday?”

Bean pondered the matter before he growled, grudgingly, “All right. But see he don’t leave the county afore he squares himself with the law.”

Then, as his pals helped the dazed and bleeding Bronco to his mount, Roy Bean scowled at the rest of them. “What in thunder got into all you children this evening? You look like an armed posse out to hang a horse thief high.”

“That’s not far off, Judge,” Belle Rogers called back. “We was on our way to shantytown for a showdown over considerable beef when this loco MacKail tried to stop us.”

Old Bean raised an eyebrow. “Tried to, hell, it seems to me he done it. Who told you that you had any right to pester them harmless greasers, Miss Belle?”

“We just meant to make ‘em tell us about the stock we’ve been missing, Judge. I’m missing over fifty head as of this morning, and other spreads have been raided as well.”

Old Bean snorted in disgust. “Shoot, a real outfit could lose fifty head to horn fly and never miss ‘em. But even saying someone stole your damn old long-horn scrubs, what makes you think my tame Mexicans have ‘em? Anyone with a lick of sense can see them refugees down by the river is farm folk, not riding folk. How many head of mighty sissy stock do you reckon a Mex on foot could herd all the way to Chihuahua?”

The girl turned her head to look for them as she said, “Well, Sunny Jim said he tracked some Double W stock over this way. I don’t see him right now, but—”

“But Sunny Jim is a cowhand, not a Gypsy with no crystal ball,” the old man cut in. “How in thunder can anyone identify stock by its damned tracks? Did he say the Double W brands cows on their hooves?”

There was a murmur of sheepish laughter. “I was just down by the river,” Stringer called out. “I didn’t see one hoof mark or cow chip, branded or not, Your Honor.”

Roy Bean nodded. “Of course you didn’t. Nobody but a damned fool would drive stolen stock through an Anglo town and wade ‘em into Mexico at an oxbow, even if they had horses to ride, which they don’t. It’s small wonder all of you are losing stock to somebody slicker. A ten-year-old kid on a burro could no doubt outsmart the bunch of you.”

There was a grudging mutter of sudden common sense from the remaining riders as the old man’s words sank in. “All right,” Belle Rogers said. “Maybe Sunny Jim was wrong about them wetbacks. I’m still missing fifty head. So I’m open to suggestions instead of remarks about my brains, damn it.”

Stringer moved closer to the porch, digging out a silver cartwheel as he announced to all who might be listening, “I asked the innocent Mexicans where they thought thieves might try to cross the river. Not saying they’re right, for the cows could be most anywhere with a full day’s start, they said Anglo thieves would cross where Rurales aren’t stationed close, and beeline ‘em to some ranch that’s not too deep in Mexican range.”

“There you go,” Roy Bean said. “Stringer, here, ain’t even a West Texas rider, and he’s still got more cow savvy than the rest of you all. I can narrow her down better without even stirring off this porch. Nobody would try too far downstream, because the banks get ever steeper that way for a stretch. There’s a Rurale post upstream, half a day’s ride. I’d try to cut the sign of that missing beef somewheres between the oxbow and Rurale post. If your missing cows is in Mexico to begin with, they’ll be on their way to the Serranias del Burro about now. I’d write ‘em off as lost. We’re talking mighty rough country, filled with even rougher folk. Ain’t no towns in them burro mountains, just bustled-up jaggedy rock and pear. I wouldn’t ride through that stretch of Chihuahua with a company of Rangers. The whole Mexican army is afraid to get near the Serranias del Burro.”

Belle Rogers nodded grimly. “Do I cut sign of my missing beef, I mean to follow ‘em into hell.”

To which Roy Bean replied, “That’s what I just said, child.”

Belle glanced up at the desert sky. “We haven’t time to argue about it. If we don’t cut the trail of that missing beef before sundown, the rascals will gain another twelve hours on us.” Then she swung her palomino around with her quirt twirling above her head as she shouted, “Vamanos, muchachos!” and even though they were all Anglos, they seemed to be riding off after her, due west.

Roy Bean half rose from behind his improvised judge’s bench, banging on the crate with a six-gun. “Come back here,” he shouted. “This court is dammit still in session, and you all don’t know the facts of life in Chihuahua!”

Then, as Belle and her riders rounded the far corner of his Jersey Lily to vanish from his view, Bean sank back down with a curse, coughed, and glared at Stringer. “What are you still here for? You can owe me the dollar. Go after that fool girl and bring her back. I hereby appoints you an officer of this court. So what are you waiting for?”

“I don’t have a horse,” Stringer said. “If I did, I doubt she’d listen, and she’s got plenty of backing. In any case, that’s not the story I came all this way to cover, Your Honor. The theft of fifty cows would hardly qualify as front-page news, you know.”

The old man grunted as he tried to get up again, swore under his breath, and said, “I know. But the massacre that bunch of fool kids is riding into might. I’d go after ‘em myself if I could get my damn legs to work. But somehow, today, they don’t.”

Stringer moved quickly up on the porch, calling out to Bean’s daughters as he grabbed the fat old man’s shoulders. “Take it easy, Your Honor,” he soothed. “You’re just begging for a relapse, getting out of bed so soon.” As Laura and Zulema joined them, he said, “We have to get your father back to bed, poco tiempo, before he catches another chill.”

“I ain’t chilled, dammit,” Bean protested. “It’s hot as hell this afternoon for so early in the year.”

“You’re sweating like a pig, no offense,” Stringer told him, “but a lot of the heat seems to be coming from inside you. Laura, balance him on the far side, and I’ll manage most of the hoisting.”

They got Bean to his bare feet between them and started to walk him inside on his fat old rubbery legs, with him bitching about it all the way. He demanded his guns and a jug of cactus-juice cough medicine some ungrateful child had hidden from him as they got him back in bed, frock coat and all, under two wool blankets and a quilt. Zulema had brought his guns in after them. When he roared even louder for medicinal alcohol, Laura shot Stringer a worried look. Stringer hesitated, then nodded.

“Sipping tequila sedate might cut the phlegm in your throat, if you don’t overdo it,” Stringer told the old man. “But in return for your jug, we want your word you’ll behave yourself. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and stay the hell in bed until you’re all the way well again, you stubborn old cuss?”

Bean laughed, coughed, and said, “My wobbly knees will be the judge of when I’m well or not. They just now told me I could be pushing my old ass beyond the call of duty. But somebody has to get a grip on things around here, son. Since I’ve been sick, it seems everyone’s gone brainless at once.”

Laura came back in with the jug of tequila. She said something about Zulema scouting up a clean glass to go with it. But the old man grabbed the jug, pulled the corncob stopper with his teeth, and spat it out to inhale a heroic swig from the earthenware neck. Stringer was about to take it from him, lest he drown himself, when Bean lowered the jug to his lap, holding it like a baby. “Oh, Lord,” he wheezed, “I’m starting to feel human again. This is good stuff. You never see a Mex dying of pneumonia. It was doubtless the sissy food and drink I was forced to consume in San Antone that nigh to done me in. Bugs can’t get a toehold on a man filt with red peppers and cactus liquor. You’d best have both afore you chase after Belle Rogers, boy. Never drink water south of the border unless you’re fortified inside with hot stuff. The country’s hell on our kind, even if we don’t get sick.”

As the old man took another pull on the jug, Stringer said, “That’s enough for now, Your Honor. I want you to stay sober enough to talk, now that you’re able to make sense at last.”

Roy Bean hugged his jug tighter to his fat belly but didn’t raise it to his bearded face, for now. “I’ve been talking sense to you, son. You’re the one who’s standing there like a big-ass bird instead of riding after poor Little Belle. I told her grandfather, my old guerrilla comrade Jake Hanson, I’d look after the gal for him. Swore it to him as he lay dying say a dozen years ago. But now she’s on her way to be executed by Mex bandits or raped by Mex police, and I can’t even find me a deputy to save her!”

Stringer frowned. “How come she’s Belle Rogers if her next of kin were named Hanson, Your Honor?”

“Rogers is her married name,” Bean explained. “Was her married name, I mean. Her man was kilt in the war with Spain. He was a good old boy, but never left her much, aside from a medal and a fancy letter from the War Department. Her father was old Jake Hanson’s son. Had a serious drinking problem afore it kilt him, even earlier than old Jake hisself. So as Jake lay dying, he willed his considerable herd and water rights to his granddaughter, Belle. I know, because I was the one as notarized his last will and testament. She being still a minor at the time, albeit old enough to ride and cuss, I helt her a ward of my court and made sure nobody messed with her property till she married up with young Johnny Rogers and I could hand ‘em the deed. That should have been the end of it. Only we had that war with Spain and, fool that he was, Johnny left a young wife, a herd of two thousand cows, and the best desert spring for many a mile to go traipsing off with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. I always figured that girl married beneath her. She’s always been stubborn as hell. Now she’s off to get murdered in Mexico over a measly fifty head, and you say you aim to write my story, Stringer? What kind of a newspaperman are you? My story’s about over, and in any case, it’s been told, more than once. I’ve always got a kick out of joshing greenhorn reporters.”

“I know,” Stringer said. “I’ve read the conflicting accounts in our morgue, Your Honor. But my features editor didn’t send me here to do a rehash of your romance with Miss Lillie Langtry or discuss how many men you might have hung in your time. Someone tipped us that there was trouble, real trouble, brewing here for you and yours in Langtry.”

Bean raised the jug to sneak a slug before Stringer could move to stop him. Then he wheezed and said, “You’re barking up the wrong tree, boy. I’ve been in trouble all my life, but I’ve never had much trouble coping with it, until recent. There ain’t a lick of trouble around here that I couldn’t handle if only I was a few years younger. Dame Nature may be getting the drop on me at last. But there’s never been no human trouble I couldn’t handle one way or the other. You see, I ain’t just tough. I’m slick as hell. I reckon that’s how come I’ve outlived most of my enemies as well as friends.” He stared off into space. “I miss my old friends most,” he added in a softer tone. “There was a time I could have ordered that sassy Belle Rogers to behave herself and made it stick. There was a time I had close to forty deputies to do my bidding and— Where are my two boys right now?”

Stringer sat on the edge of the bed to make sure the old man stayed in it as he soothed, “Your boys went over to the county seat to see a lawyer, remember? You had us all worried for a spell, out of your head, with no sensible records to be found about the place, no offense. Roy, Junior fears that gents he calls buzzards might, ah, take advantage of your family if you, well, weren’t here to stand up for their rights.”

The old man snorted in disgust. “I never should have taught them kids to read and write. A half-ass education leads to mighty half-ass notions. Ain’t you never heard of the Texas Rangers or Texas Democrat Party, dammit?”

Stringer said he had, but added, “I know you have friends, Your Honor, but without a scrap of paper between them to even prove American citizenship, your kids could have a time in court against a business or political rival with a brace of slick lawyers.”

“Bullshit,” old Bean said flatly. “My sweet babies all has Texas Rangers, a separate one each, as his or her godfather. Would you like to tell four old Rangers their godchillen was wetback bastards?”

Stringer had to chuckle as he pictured that event. But he still said, “Assuming your heirs have less to worry about than might meet the eye, the target could be your position here, Your Honor.”

Old Bean shrugged. “I don’t care who the party makes J.P. of these parts after I’m gone. I can tell you true he’ll never be no Black Republican in West Texas. We had us a government of damnyankee carpetbaggers during the Reconstruction, and West Texas will never put up with anything like that again! When the party appointed me, the day we saw the last of them carpetbagging bastards appointed by Washington, they told me it would be for life, as long as we kept voting the right way and didn’t mess up too bad. Over the years a few old boys have tried to take this job away from me. As you see, I still got it. Your mysterious plotters could come in yonder door this minute and shoot me dead in this here bed, and they still wouldn’t get my job. The Rangers and state party committee admire me so much they’d appoint someone just like me to carry on the same damn way. The asshole who tipped your paper off that me and mine was in some sort of trouble sure didn’t know much about West Texas politics. Did you really think one man could ride herd here, all this time, without no backing in high places?”

Stringer nodded soberly. “I follow your drift. But if you and your Jersey Lily can’t be the intended target, who or what could be?”

The wily old man cocked an eyebrow at Stringer. “How come there has to be any target? This country’s always been a mite wild. There’s always some damn trouble going on, be it Mex border raiders, Anglo cow thieves, or whatever. Some dude passing through may have picked up some rumors only a dude would take all that serious, and then felt duty bound to bitch about it to you newspaper gents, see?”

Stringer thought, then shook his head. “That would work if someone hadn’t tried to stop me and at least one other reporter from getting here to follow up on such leads.”

Old Bean asked what he was jawing about, and listened quietly while Stringer filled him in on the attacks against both himself and Pamela Kinnerton. When he got to the surly manners of One Thumb Brown and Smiling Jim, old Bean stopped him. “I got Brown’s number. Soon as Will Slade or some other Ranger comes by, I mean to fine Brown considerable for operating a house of ill repute. I’ve a good mind to yank his innkeeper’s permit whilst I’m at it. As for him wanting you out of town before I got back on my feet, he no doubt anticipated this very conversation, figuring you as a pal of me and mine. Old One Thumb ain’t got brains to be a serious plotter. The damn fool should have known my own kids would tell me, soon enough, about that wide-open disgrace he’s opened ahind his hotel. The whole town knows about it. Why should my kids be ignorant? Like I said, you was sent here on a fool’s errand.”

Stringer pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Assuming Brown’s just a greedy moron and that Sunny Jim is even dumber, that still doesn’t get around those attempts to stop at least one other reporter and me from coming here, Your Honor.”

The old J.P. shrugged. “The gal could have tangled with a wandersome rapist more interested in her figure than any job she might have. You can’t say for sure he was fixing to toss her off that train. He might just as well been trying to drag her into the shithouse at the end of the car, right?”

“That’s not the way it looked to either of us,” Stringer said. “But she did have a nice shape. So let’s say you’re right about her. That still leaves the one who tried to ventilate my spine, not make love to me.”

Old Bean had another pull on his jug before he replied in a disgusted tone, “You mean he pegged a shot in your general direction as you was standing betwixt him and Pat Garrett. Have you any notion how many sore losers have tried to kill old Pat since he cleaned up the Lincoln County War, you egotisticated young cuss? What was the name of that cadaver they found in that boxcar, some time after Garrett swapped shots with him?”

Stringer thought. “Jones. Morgan Jones, unless it was the brand of his hat.”

The old man cackled with glee. “There you go. Pat Garrett arrested a cow thief called Bobtail Jones back around Pat’s last try for another hitch as sheriff. He lost the election anyways, but that didn’t do old Bobtail Jones much good. Who’s to say Bobtail didn’t have a kid brother named Morgan?”

Stringer shrugged. “A hat maker works just as well. Jones is a sort of common name.”

The old man grimaced. “Have it your own way. A gunslick by any color going after Garrett makes more sense than some mysterious rival of mine sending a hired gun after you. Ain’t it occurred to you yet that I’ve been flat on my back and out of my head since they carried me home from San Antone? Anybody who was out to do me dirty could have done it most any time, without all this infernal shilly-shally you keep stewing about.”

Stringer sighed. “When you’re right you’re right, Your Honor. Sam Barca and I seem to have made up a chess game when the name of the game was just checkers. With you getting better, things will be getting back to as normal as West Texas ever gets, and don’t take this personal, I see no story here that our readers haven’t read a lot already.”

The old man nodded. “Things is downright tame, next to the way they was back in the late ‘80s, with water wars and such the Rangers and me had to deal with.”

Stringer raised an eyebrow. “Water wars? I don’t recall anything about water in our morgue clippings, sir.”

“That’s likely because the papers has ever been more interested in more colorsome stuff, like shootouts. The west wasn’t won by wildmen, Stringer. They was just the noise as went with the real struggles over land, water, and important prizes like that. I mind the time Jake Hanson first staked out them springs for his B Bar Lazy Six, and how upset some other cow outfits was about it at the time. Old Jake had no trouble chasing off hired raiders. You should have seen and heard all the fancy lawyers appearing afore my court, disputing Jake’s claim with twisty words, when everyone knew he’d found the damned water first.” The old man enjoyed another pull on his jug and sounded sort of sleepy as he continued. “We was ready for ‘em, though, the time Jake died and left his holdings to a she-male minor. I had everything fixed watertight for little Belle afore they got here. So they just yelt, and I just pounded with my six-gun, and after fining ‘em all for contempt of court, I managed to get rid of the infernal buzzards.”

Stringer smiled thinly. “There’s a lot to be said for small-town justice, when it enjoys the support of the community. Who tried to dispute a grandfather’s right to leave his estate to his logical heiress?”

Roy Bean yawned. “I forgot. Had it writ down some damned where, but I don’t fret about settled cases. I think they said old Jake had once been married to some gal back east, and so Belle had distant kin who, being male instead of she-male, had a better claim on her grandfather’s spread. Like I said, it was settled. There’s no way in hell anyone but Belle could claim all that land, cows, and water, as long as she’s alive. So—”

“Jesus H. Christ!” gasped Stringer, leaping to his feet. “I need the loan of a pony, saddle, and saddle gun, Your Honor! For anyone capable of sending expensive lawyers after such a valuable prize, could surely afford a hired gun or more!”

“You got ‘em,” Roy Bean said. ‘Tell Laura to fix you up with all you might need. You’re still going to have to ride like hell if you expect to catch up with that stubborn Belle by sundown, son.”