It was too blamed hot to more than kiss when they finally reached the shallow Salt River the next afternoon. Concepción seemed so pleased by that surplus sword bayonet, that he let her keep it, along with the dead man’s saddled pony and the old Army mount. He offered her half the money he’d found in the pockets of two dead rascals. She protested that she couldn’t take dinero from a man she’d made love to, lest he think her a mere puta. He told her to consider it a reward for saving his life. She settled for all the metal coinage, including one ten-dollar gold piece, saying nobody where she hailed from accepted paper money in any case, and that the two ponies alone would do her proud in her home village. But when he leaned out to kiss her again she looked away and murmured, “Go with God, Stuarto. I do not wish for you to remember me with tears in my eyes.” So he nodded, swung his buckskin around, and loped off, not looking back.
He forded the Salt a mile or so up and found a well-traveled wagon trace that had to lead to Globe, since there was nothing much else within miles. He rested and swapped mounts a time or two and got into town just before sundown.
Globe, Arizona Territory, was most famous for having been the first place a wild west show was called a rodeo, and having been at least close to the last recorded stagecoach holdup in these United States. Globe was also the seat of Gila County. After that it didn’t have much to say for itself.
The population hovered around five thousand, depending on whether the herd was in town or not. The town fed boiler water to a Southern Pacific spur line really more interested in some nearby copper mines, and in return got to ship out beef from surrounding spreads. There was talk about a big irrigation project any day now. But so far that day had yet to dawn, so Globe mostly dozed in the heat of day and raised a little hell at night.
Not too much hell. A lot of Globe was run by Mormons, who didn’t even hold with tea or coffee. The Mexican and Texican element naturally tended to drink more seriously. But between roundups the hard drinkers tended to be broke.
Stringer stabled his mounts with a livery hand who acted reasonably sober, and got directions to the local Western Union office. There he discovered a wire from old Sam Barca waiting for him, and reading it, he was made to feel sort of dumb.
For without leaving his glass-walled box in Frisco, old Sam had tracked down all sorts of gents by wiring other newspaper men back and forth. Sam wanted to know why on earth he’d ever headed for Globe, if that was where he was right now.
Sam said he’d located Commodore Perry Owens in Seligman, one hell of a ways off, where the Chino crossed the Santa Fe. He added the Sun wouldn’t pay Stringer’s expenses to Seligman, since the ex-sheriff had already granted an interview by wire that they couldn’t print.
Old Owens had cussed the brains of the voters more than he’d cussed the vote count. He was currently running a saloon in Seligman, and since he didn’t dispute the election results in anything more sensible than Anglo-Saxon verbs one couldn’t even repeat in mixed company, the editorial staff of the Sun was satisfied the election had been an honest fluke. However, in view of the language, Western Union reduced to “blank, blank, blank sons of blank blank blanks,” the charge he was given to strong drink these days could have been the reason they’d voted him out. Barca said he was sorry he’d sent Stringer on a snipe hunt, said the Sun would still pay for half of it, and ordered him to come on home.
Stringer started to wire back. But he knew he’d just get hell, and wind up paying for it out of his own pocket. So he crumpled Sam’s night letter and tossed it in the wastebasket.
Outside an old Mex with a pole wick was lighting a streetlamp as the Arizona sky above started to go from tangerine to lilac. But there was still enough gloaming to see by as Stringer heard a rumble and a roar and turned to see a big ore wagon, drawn by a six-mule team, proceeding in his direction down the center of the street at considerable speed.
A boy of no more than six or seven was alone on the driver’s plank, hauling back on the reins as hard as a little kid could, with one bitty foot braced against the brake pole to no avail.
There were several ways a man might try to stop a runaway ore wagon. The heroic way would be to dash out and try to grab the lead mule’s bridle, and likely get trampled to death before the wheels could finish him off. Stringer chose a smarter way. He started running the same way until the whole shebang passed him. Then he swung in, sprinted harder, and hauled himself over the tailgate.
The kid was bawling a blue streak as Stringer crawled over the jagged copper ore to join him. Some of the things the kid was calling the mules sounded even dirtier, coming from such a little shaver. Stringer took the reins from him, braced a bigger booted instep against the brake pole, and wound up teaching the kid some additional mule-skinner words before the infernal team got tired of dragging a loaded wagon with its wheels locked, and gave up, panting and cussing back in mule.
Stringer hadn’t been the only one in town chasing the runaway wagon. He’d just run better. A lady in a mother-hubbard and sunbonnet had the rest of the crowd beat by a fine lead. She rushed to identify the wayward child as “Willy, you’ll be the death of me!” before she hauled him off the rig by his belt, got a good grip on one ear, and smacked him good with her free hand. A gent wearing laced boots and a red face panted to a wobble-kneed halt beside him and gasped, “Hit him again, ma’am. That’s my load he just drove off with!”
But as others joined them, most agreeing the little rascal deserved to be horse-whipped if not lynched, the young mother was bawling as loud as her Willy as she hugged him and shook him and asked if he thought he’d live after all.
Stringer saw the mining man had commenced to treat his lead mule like a long lost child too. So he wrapped the reins around the brake pole and dropped to the dusty street. The gal blubbering all over her fool kid wasn’t the first in the crowd to call Stringer a hero. But she must have been listening, for she let go everything but Willy the Death’s right ear and dragged him over so she could hug Stringer too. She hugged sisterly, but he could still tell she wasn’t wearing any whalebone under that thin, loose summer print. She said he’d saved her only child, which didn’t surprise him much, and added she was in his debt and didn’t know how she’d ever pay him. She was pretty under her sunbonnet, but she didn’t look like that kind of a gal. So he said, “It was on the house, ma’am. I needed the exercise. Nobody was hurt. So all I want is a word with your Willy the Death here.”
She stood the red-faced and tear-streaked kid to attention by his ear and told him to listen to the gentleman, sharp.
Stringer told the kid, “I used to wonder what it would be like to drive a mule team, too, Willy. I was older than you when they let me, and the results were much the same. So I want your word, man to man, you won’t ever try that again until you’ve got at least a hundred fifty pounds of body weight and a twelve-foot whip on your side.”
The kid answered with a wretched sob. His mother hit him again and told him to speak up. Stringer said, “I reckon he answered me right, ma’am. I know I would, were I in his shoes.”
The original owner of the team and rig rejoined them to say, “Well, no real damage done. So I’ll settle for ten bucks, ma’am.”
Before she could answer, Stringer growled, “No you won’t. You was as much at fault as the boy here.”
The mule skinner scowled and said, “Not hardly, stranger. That ornery little cuss had no business crawling up on my wagon and driving off with it.”
Stringer said, “He didn’t drive off with it. He didn’t get the chance. Your mules bolted, as mules will, the moment they sensed a weak grip and no brakes.”
The shorter but stockier man growled, “But that as it may, I never gave anyone but me permission to go anywhere near my mules or my customer’s ore.”
Stringer said, “How could you if you wasn’t watching? Since said ore had to come from the mountains to the west, and since the railroad spur is farther down the street, not where you had all that ore parked, it’s safe to assume you parked it there to enter some saloon or worse, right?”
The outraged property owner looked away, but growled, “Where a man might refresh hisself after a long haul down from the Sierra Apache is his own durn business, ain’t it?”
Stringer shook his head and said, “Not if you want to take this lady and her boy to law. That’s the only way you’ll ever get one dollar off her, and of course the court records will have to show exactly where you might have been at the time this bitty boy proved boys will be boys.”
“What are you, a lawyer?”
“Nope. I can’t charge for legal advice. But ’m telling you free that you’re as much in the wrong as the boy here, and that if I was a lawyer I’d advise her to sue you for nearly killing her child with an attractive nuisance. That’s what the law calls it when a fool leaves anything dangerous that might attract kids unguarded, which is what you done, as any fool can plainly see.”
There was a murmur of agreement from the others all around. The mule skinner said, “Oh, let’s not get all het up about nothing. Like I said, no harm’s been done.”
Stringer took the young mother’s arm and murmured, “Let’s get you and Willy the Death back on the walk before he can change his mind again, ma’am.”
She didn’t argue. She just dragged her fool kid after them by the ear until they were well clear of the crowd. Once he had them on the walk, Stringer let go her arm, ticked his hat brim to her and said, “It was nice meeting up with you folk. But I’m stuck here in Globe at least overnight, and I got to scout up a place to bed down now.”
She brightened and said, “Then I can repay you after all. For I am Prue Reynolds, and I run one of the most respectable boarding houses in Globe!”
Then she glanced down at the shirt he was wearing under his denim jacket and added uncertainly, “Oh, dear, how awkward. You don’t seem to be a saint.”
He smiled uncertainly and replied, “No, ma’am. Just a hero. I doubt I’ll ever make saint.”
She laughed and explained, “I meant latter day saint, or Morman, as the vulgar put it. You have a tobacco tag hanging out of your shirt pocket.”
He nodded and said, “Bull Durham. Red Robin smells even worse. I plead guilty to coffee and even tea, Miss Prue, so let’s say no more about it. I wouldn’t want to upset your other boarders.”
She took his arm back and insisted, “Don’t be silly. I’ve taken in gentiles before. It’s you who might find my house rules a mite bothersome. But you won’t be able to beat my price, in Globe or anywhere else, for I’ll not take a cent from a man who is a hero, however he may mock himself, and we eat the same or better than anyone else, if you can survive apple pie without tea or coffee.”
He said he was willing to try if he could smoke later, out on the steps. She said that sounded fair. So he went with her. His luggage was in the tack room at the livery. But he didn’t think an overnight stay would be worth the fuss.
They led him up a narrower side street that was trying to be tree lined. All the cottonwoods some optimist had planted a spell back were dead. But when they got to her picket fence, he saw a dusty but living rambler rose crawling along it, and the dooryard had been planted with sunflowers, Mexican poppies, and other stuff that could stand up to the Arizona sun as long as it got plenty of water.
Inside they found the parlor filled with other boarders who were barely managing to keep from cussing about supper being so late that evening. The Mormon-hired girls had refused to dish it out until their boss lady got back with Willy the Death, wherever he’d run off to this time.
Prue Reynolds apologized, told her hired gals not to do that no more, and sent Willy the Death off to bed with no supper before she introduced Stringer to her other guests. He noticed that while she told them what a hero he was, and most seemed to agree, she neglected to mention he was gentile as they all went into the dining room to squat and grub.
He managed to get the Bull Durham tag out of sight as he hung his hat and gun up by the dining room door. It was easy enough to just bow his head and grit his teeth as their pretty hostess said grace at the head of the table. The Book of Mormon wasn’t exactly the Good Book Stringer had been brought up on. But as he took both with a grain of salt, he didn’t notice any great difference between her simple prayer and all the others he’d had to sit through, feeling more hungry than religious.
The others must have been hungry, too, judging from the way they dug in to her fine feed. One old gent, who dressed like a parson and looked even snootier, grabbed far and wide for bread and butter, as if he feared an impending famine. A mousy little gal sitting next to him in widow’s weeds kept giving him dirty looks. Stringer didn’t blame her. The hired gals kept bringing more bread from the kitchen as if they had a bakery going back there. Stringer concentrated more on the roast beef and mashed spuds, both swimming in mighty fine gravy. He even found the butter beans served with the more manly food enjoyable, after a long hard ride on short rations. Prue pressed second helpings on everyone. Only the old parsony cuss ate a third. Then they brought apple pie out, each heroic slice served with a wedge of orange cheese, and Stringer forgave their church its ban on coffee when he saw he got to wash the pie down with mighty fine lemonade. They hadn’t stinted on the lemons, and there were still chunks of ice floating in the pitchers the help placed at each end of the table. He was glad the pretty young landlady could afford such fine accommodations. He was glad he wasn’t paying for it too. From the way the others dressed, and from all but that one old slob’s table manners, they were prosperous ladies and gents. He noticed that saints didn’t seem to hold with the usual custom of chasing the ladies from the table after dessert so the gents could talk more dirty over brandy and cigars. That was likely because their church forbade either brandy or cigars. It must have forbade dirty stories as well, for the four or five gals around the table stayed put and joined in the conversation, which seemed to be mostly about water.
The old parsony gent, who seemed to get on with the others well enough when he wasn’t snatching food from their plates, did most of the talking as he held forth on the awful way the gentiles in Washington were running Arizona Territory. Stringer knew enough about the Mormon Corridor or Mormon Delta up Utah way to follow some of his drift. He said his and other Morman families had made the desert blossom as the rose up north by honest toil and common sense. He said, “None of this rain-poor land out here can prosper without irrigation. We’d have starved to death on the shores of the great salt lake if we’d tried to get by as these ninnies down this way do. Think of the truck crops this valley could ship, if only the gentiles would work together instead of fighting one another over marginal and wide-scattered grazing land.”
A slightly younger but wiser-looking Morman in a business suit shot a thoughtful look at Stringer’s riding outfit and said, “Raising stock is the easy way to start, T.S. It takes a lot of money as well as hard work to irrigate desert land, you know.”
Old T.S. struck a proud pose in his chair and said, “We had no money when we came over the south pass with Brother Brigham to the place of revelation. It was desert as dry as any down here. The mountain men warned us corn wouldn’t grow in the Great Basin, and they were right, until we changed it to a new Garden of Eden by damming and ditching the water that had up until then been wasted on the parched salt flats to the west. We’d have starved had we tried to get by as stock men that far from any market, on such marginal range land. But by the time the Great California Rush was on, we were in a position to sell fresh produce to the passing wagon trains at a profit!”
Stringer knew that was true. His grandfather, who’d been a ’49er, had often cussed about the price set on cabbages and turnips along that stretch of the trail. But he didn’t think he ought to bring that up at this late date.
The more thoughtful Mormon businessman said, “That was then and this is now, T.S. Our elders moved west to Deseret simply because in those days it wasn’t under U.S. jurisdiction. They didn’t need money to tame the desert, and while they were at it, the Utes. They were free to experiment. They were free to change the courses of rivers with nobody upstream but a fool Indian to argue about it. This is the twentieth century, and Arizona was never Utah to begin with. A settler now can’t just go out and dam any old dry wash he wants to. He needs a lawyer as much or more than he needs a shovel. The homestead act only gives one free claim to a quarter section. You have to buy all the other land you’d need for even a modest irrigation project. And no doubt some Indian or Mex would run to the federal government, complaining you’d violated his water rights, before you could even get started.”
He sipped more lemonade and added, “Mark my words. It’s going to take the federal government itself to irrigate this part of the southwest right. Only big federal projects, agreed on by all the voters, could untangle all the conflicting interests in these parts. We’ll probably never see that in our time.”
Stringer shot the younger man a thoughtful look and said, “I just came down here through some disputed range and maybe water rights, sir. Since you seem to know more about such matters than me, I’d like your opinion on a notion that just struck me.”
The older man said to call him R.J. and shoot. So Stringer told them all some of his recent adventures, leaving out murder and other misbehavior the Book of Mormon might not approve, of course.
When he’d finished, the mousy little gal across from him was staring owl-eyed at him, as if she thought he might be getting set to rope the lemonade pitcher between them. Parsony old T.S. snorted in disgust and said, “I remember that range war. Like I said, gentiles don’t know how to manage semidesert land. They might have made that valley blossom as the rose. But instead they ruined it by running stock on range that doesn’t get twelve inches of rain a year. Then they fought like animals over the scraps left.”
Stringer said, “The grass is coming back good up near the headwaters. The last I saw of Cherry Creek, it was still running between rains. I just wonder who might own all that water in a thirsty land now.”
The more thoughtful R.J. said, “I can answer that. Uncle Sam. All abandoned homestead claims revert to the federal land office, and they say even the Indians avoid that old battleground now. You know how Indians feel about bloody ground, and in its day that valley got to bleed some.”
The mousy little gal across the table said flatly, “It’s haunted.”
There was an awkward silence. Then parsony old T.S. cleared his throat and said, “The Book doesn’t hold with such talk, Sister Bertha.”
She sniffed defensively and said, “I know what I saw with my own eyes one night. If Brother Joseph Smith could see an angel under an apple tree in New York State, I guess I have a right to say what I saw one night up in that awful valley.”
Stringer nodded at her and said, “I’ve never seen either an angel nor a haunt, Miss Bertha. But I’m listening with an open mind. When and where did you see whatever?”
She stared down at her lemonade glass, blushing, and almost whispered as she told him, “Five or six years back, when my late husband and me came down from Utah, looking for new lands to settle. My husband Seth had heard about the good grass and water up to Pleasant Valley. We drove up there, liked what we saw, and filed on a quarter section. Seth thought we might use the foundations and still-standing chimney of an old ruin we found near the springs that water the valley. But we were still living in our covered wagon when the haunting started.”
At the head of the table Prue noticed how uneasy the mousy little gal was making almost everyone but Stringer. So she said, “We know you and Brother Seth never proved that claim before he was taken from you, dear heart. But surely what you mean to say is that you were run back to Globe by ruffians, perhaps cowboys from the Tonto Basin, rather than, ah, superstition.”
The mousy little gal shook her head stubbornly and said, “I know what I saw. We got along all right with the few cowboys who passed by from time to time. They were looking for strays, not trouble, and my Seth was a man’s man who got on well with even gentiles. He thought I was making it up, too, until one night he saw them too. That’s when we moved back to Globe to find some other way to make a living. He said our claim was all right, but not worth fighting men, let alone haunts, over.”
Another lady got up and left the room with a snooty sniff. But the others stayed, no doubt as curious as Stringer was when he asked her to describe her haunts.
She looked as if she was sorry she’d started the whole deal as she said defensively, “They were sort of shiny and sort of green, like big old fireflies drifting back and forth all around us in the dark. Only they were way too big, and moved way too slow to be fireflies.”
Stringer asked how she felt about railroad lanterns. She shook her head and said, “Not that green and not that bright. They were a pale, pale green, just bright enough to see against the blackness they were sort of floating through. My Seth took a shot at one. He was a sensible man, not a coward. But it just laughed at us and floated off a spell. Then, later, it came back to just float there, like it was trying to tell us something.”
Stringer nodded and said, “Others would seem to have gotten the same message. You say you heard as well as saw that spook light?”
She said, “It’s true. It’s really true, no matter what you all think. It laughed crazy and mean. It didn’t sound human, but it didn’t sound like a critter neither. Oh, I forgot. The night we decided to give up, we heard wolves ahowling all about too.”
R.J. said gently, “There are no wolves in these parts, Sister Bertha.”
And she said, “That’s what Seth said. He said lobo wolves belonged over in Apache country, not on abandoned range where there was nothing for ’em to feed on, save for us. So in the morning we packed up and lit out. We never regretted it. Seth found a decent job down this way and kept it, untroubled by haunts, until that mine cave-in last year.”
Then she leaped up to run out of the room with her hands to her little red face.
In the awkward silence that followed, others excused themselves from the table as well. Stringer didn’t know what to do until Prue Reynolds told him she’d show him to his room now, if he’d like to see it.
She did and he did. It was a sweet-smelling corner room with cross ventilation. She showed him the washstand in the corner and hinted she had indoor plumbing down at the end of the hall if he required, eh, anything else.
He said he wasn’t sleepy, and asked if he could smoke out front. She said he could. So they parted friendly at the head of the stairs and he went down them.
He’d been sitting there about ten minutes, surprised at how good tobacco could taste when one thought of it as forbidden fruit rather than something to do with one’s hands, when the garden gate swung open and a tall gent in a black suit came over to ask-where he might find one Stringer MacKail.
Stringer, had, of course, taken his hat and gun rig out front with him. So he just rose to even the odds as he said, “You’ve found him. What’s your pleasure?”
The stranger opened the front of his frock coat to flash silver in the moonlight and say, “I’m Ed Nolan. Deputy Ed Nolan. We just got an odd wire from Saint John’s that you might be able to help us out with. Is it true you just rode down through Pleasant Valley?”
Stringer sat back down, saying, “I did. Can’t say I know Saint John’s that well. I left from Holbrook.”
Nolan put one boot up on a step to relax it as he nodded and said, “Not many have. Saint John’s got aced out when the Santa Fe chose to run its tracks through Holbrook years ago. Anyhow, there’s a gent in Saint Johns named Barth, Sol Barth, I think. He’s said to be one of the bigger frogs in that little puddle. He says he’s missing some riders. One’s named Gus Warner, and he’s described as an old geezer a mite long in the tooth but a hard worker. The other would be Hamp Coleman, younger than Warner but older than you or me. We was wondering if you might have encountered either in your recent travels.”
Stringer was pretty sure he had. On the other hand he wasn’t dead certain, and explaining dead men could be a bother when one didn’t have to. So he said, “I ran into some riders off the Hash Knife. One was called Montana and another was Pirate. Can’t say what the other two might have answered to. Oh, yeah, I met a stray Army mount up that way too. We parted company at the Salt. Can’t say where he drifted after that.”
Nolan said, “Now that’s sure odd. Barth wired that his man, Warner, was last seen riding a pony with a remount brand. Don’t ask me why. The Army sells ’em off when the oats and Indians are down. You say Warner’s mount was just wandering about on its own up yonder?”
Stringer nodded and said, “It was running loose with neither saddle nor bridle the first time I saw it in Pleasant Valley.” Which was the simple truth when one thought about it, word for word.
Nolan said, “Well, they do tell funny stories about that old abandoned range. Would it be too much to ask why you decided to haunt it some as well?”
Stringer said, “I’ve nothing to hide about my reasons for wanting a look-see. I’m a newspaper man. I thought there could be a story. I’m still trying to figure one out. Having just passed through from one end to the other, it is my considered opinion that there’s nobody living up there now. You’ve heard the tales about haunts chasing new settlers out, of course?”
Nolan nodded and said, “I have. Did you see any spooks up that way, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “Not personal. What were those other riders doing on the same range, if I may ask?”
Nolan shrugged and said, “Their boss didn’t say. He didn’t even tell us what they did for him, let alone why they’d want to be doing it so far from Saint John’s. He just asked us to see if we could find out whatever happened to ’em.”
“That sounds like a boss who worries about his help. But how come you came looking for me, of all people? I’ve never heard of any gent called Sol Barth.”
Nolan said, “Neither had I until I asked around town. Some old timers recall Barth as a merchant and horse trader with a Mexican wife of good family and a finger in many a pie. He must know more about you. He mentioned you by name and suggested you might know something about his missing help. Before you ask how I tracked you down, don’t never stop a runaway team on Main Street if you don’t aim to be well-knowed in a town this size.”
Stringer smiled and said he’d keep that in mind. Then he said, “You can tell Sol Barth for me that I have never been formally introduced to anyone called Gus Warner or Hamp Coleman, but that I may pay a social call on him if ever I’m up his way.”
Nolan said, “I ain’t about to waste money on wires that don’t say more than that. If his boys are gone, they’re gone, until someone tells me where in thunder they may be. Before you turn up missing, MacKail, would it be too much to ask where you may be headed next?”
Stringer sighed and said, “No place, until I rest up some. Then my boss wants me to come on home to Frisco.”
Nolan nodded and said, “If you take the spur down to the main S.P. line, it ain’t too long a trip by rail.”
Stringer said, “I’ve been studying on that. The Santa Fe runs the same way, and I hate to be called a horse thief. I’m stuck with a pair of livery mounts from Holbrook. So I reckon I’ll catch a westbound from there.”
Nolan frowned down at him and said, “I’d have thought you’d seen enough of Pleasant Valley and all the desert north and south of the same by now, MacKail.”
Stringer said, “I have indeed, and it was tedious the first time. But now that I know the way and how much grub to take, I ought to make better time going back.”
Nolan stood in silent thought for a time before he said, “I hope you won’t take this unfriendly. But I am getting the distinct impression someone is bullshitting me. What’s all this high-summer riding through nothing much really about, MacKail?”
Stringer said, “I wish I knew. It wasn’t my idea to begin with. I wanted to publish a story about the Frisco Chinatown. My boss sensed a good feature on Sheriff Commodore Perry Ownes and the old range wars he was involved in. Only Owens is now running a saloon in Seligman, and everyone else involved seems to be dead or scattered. As to ghost stories, they’re only worth writing when you have a good ending, and I can’t even come up with a sensible beginning. My paper’s not about to run a mess of vague rumors about mysterious boomps in the night. So unless I meet a ghost personal going back the other way, I reckon I’ll have wasted a lot of time admiring mighty empty scenery.”
Nolan said, “I’d offer you an armed escort if we had more’n haunt tales to go on. It’s your funeral if you’re holding out on us.”
Stringer said he’d keep that in mind, and Nolan left. Stringer field-stripped his spent smoke lest he shock anyone tending a Mormon garden, and got up to turn in. The house was quiet as he eased up the dimly lit stairs. His room was pitch-black. He lit a match to get his bearings, and let it go out once he had the simple layout figured. He tried to lock the door. There was no key on either side of the spring latch. He frowned and slid a chair over to the door. Its back wasn’t tall enough to lock under the knob, but at least it would slide noisy on the hardwood floor if anyone got sneaky.
Having done all he could, he hung his gun handy on the bedpost farthest from the door, undressed, and gave himself a bath at the washstand in the dark. Then he slipped between the clean, crisp lavender-scented sheets and fell right off, as the past few nights of sleeping on hard ground caught up with him.
But, as ever, Stringer tended to sleep light in a strange bed, even with the door locked. So when the door opened to slide chair legs loud as hell, Stringer was sitting up with his .38 trained before the dark figure outlined by the hall light could get it shut again.
As the room was once more plunged in blackness, Stringer rolled off the far side of the bed, gun still trained, and told his unseen visitor, “I got five in the wheel, all for you, if you don’t say something friendly fast.”
He heard someone whisper, “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
He said, “That makes two of us, ma’am. Let’s keep it like that until you tell me what this is all about.”
She whispered, “Not so loud! I didn’t mean to startle you. I ducked in here because I had to. That nosy old T.S. is just down the hall in the bathroom. I didn’t want him to see me sneaking back to my own room next to the bath.”
Stringer asked, “From where?”
She replied, “I just left a sandwich and a glass of milk in little Willy’s room. I know what a scamp he is, but I fear I’m just not as strict as common sense says we should be when I think of hungry children.”
He had her figured out now. He got back in bed to reholster his gun as he said, “Your secret is safe with me, ma’am. I had a strict mother one time.”
She said, “Not so loud, I pray you. I don’t want the others to know, and that horrid old man down the hall gossips like an old biddy hen. I wish he’d go back to bed. But once he’s in there, he’s likely to stay half the night. I think he reads on the... never mind. I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable?”
As a matter of fact she was, but it wasn’t polite to mention erections to a lady who hesitated to say crapper. So he told her it was jake with him if she wanted to stay a spell.
He hadn’t meant that as seriously as she took it. But when she said, “My, it’s cold in here with all the windows open,” and got in bed with him, he’d have felt even sillier doing anything else. But as he took her in his arms, she stiffened and said, “Heavens! You’re not wearing your nightgown!”
He said, “I don’t own one, and you’re sort of overdressed for occasions like this. So why don’t we just get all this infernal flannel out of the way?”
She gasped and asked what he thought he was doing as she pulled her nightgown down as fast as he could pull it up. He kissed her to keep her from asking such dumb questions. But though she kissed back more sweetly than passionate, and continued to resist his free hand, he gave up and told her, “I’m sorry if I misjudged your odd views on avoiding the cold desert night air. I might enjoy kid games more if I was a kid. But whatever in thunder you think you’re doing, it strikes me as cruelty to animals. So why don’t you just get out of my fool bed and we’ll say no more about it.”
She snuggled closer and said, “I can’t leave until the hallway is clear, and it feels so cozy under the covers with you like this.”
He said, “That does it. Unless we assume Willy the Death was a product of immaculate conception, this conversation is getting dumb as hell. So get up or let’s get to acting grown-up. There are limits to my genteel upbringing, ma’am.”
She asked, “Why are you fussing at me? Have I done something wrong?”
He said, “Not yet,” and kissed her again, harder, as he rolled atop her, jerked the hem of her flannel nightgown just high enough to matter, and got in her awkwardly, but mighty fine.
As she felt his turgid shaft inside her she gasped, “Oh, no, not that!” then wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him deeper, sobbing, “Oh, Lord, please don’t let that horrid old T.S. find out about this.”
He kissed her ear and whispered, “Nobody will, if you’ll just hold it down to a roar, honey. I was hoping like hell you meant it like this when you said you felt eternal to me. But to tell the truth, I thought you was too prim and proper.”
She moaned, “I try to be. But a woman has needs and—oh, sweet chariot, come any time you want!”
He did. He could tell she’d enjoyed it as much or more. From the way she’d damned near raped him, coy as she’d talked her way into bed with him, he suspected it had been some time since she’d been with a man. They’d never gotten around to just who Willy the Death’s father might have been. He obviously wasn’t around at the moment.
As they lay entwined, getting used to each other’s flesh now that the ice had been broken, he started inching her nightgown out of the way some more. She murmured, “Oh, no, I couldn’t. I was raised to be modest, and not even my late husband ever saw me stark.”
He kissed her again and soothed, “That’s all right. I can’t see a thing, and you don’t know what you’ve been missing if you’ve never done it naked before.”
He was right. She protested feebly until her naked nipples were pressed to his bare chest. Then she gasped, “Oh, my, that does feel lovely!” and helped him get the last of the dumb, thick flannel off over her head. But as she took him in her now bare arms and held him close to her soft warm body, he began to wonder how anyone built like this could look like she did in her thin mother-hubbard. Such shapeless outfits could, it was all too true, hide a multitude of sins. But there wasn’t anything wrong with the shapely torso he was enjoying, it was just plain different. As he moved his hips to pleasure her, he explored the rest of her with his hands, and while she said she loved that, too, it was becoming increasingly clear he was not making love to Prue Reynolds.
There was no polite way at this late date to ask a lady who on earth one was laying. He’d just have to wait until they got to stop a while. Then he could use a relaxing smoke as an excuse to strike a match and see who she might be.
Meanwhile, whoever the hell she was had gotten over her shy act, and it was amusing to consider what she’d looked like in the past, doing it on top, if she’d never done it with her nightgown off before. As she bounced above him skillfully, he decided that was likely another attempt at delicacy rather than the whole truth. He’d spent a lot more time getting this far with gals who started out talking sassy and even smoking in public.
After she’d climaxed thrice, or said she had, and begged for mercy until she got her breath back, Stringer dismounted and rolled his bare feet to the floor on the far side to grope for his shirt in the dark. As he dug out the makings, she asked him what on earth he was doing. He said he meant to have a smoke. She protested that tobacco was against her religion. He said that was all right, he’d just smoke it himself, once he got it rolled.
She leaped out of bed, saying she was sure the hall was clear now, and was out the door, dragging her nightgown after her, before he could stop her. All he got to see of her was a pink flash before the door shut, plunging him into the dark again. He chuckled, finished rolling, and smoked until he felt sleepy again.
Willy the Death would surely know who’d brought him a late night snack, right?