Read Online Stringer and the Deadly Flood by Lou Cameron - Free Book Online

him. “Thank you for calling me Spanish as well as a lady. My father had some Spanish blood, it is true. Pero, my mother was almost pure Pima.”
    He nodded soberly and declared, “That makes you half-Americano, then. The Pima scouted for the U.S. Cavalry during the Apache wars on this side of the border.”
    â€œI do not know for myself,” she replied. “Mamacita did not like to discuss that side of her family. My father was a Mexican trader. It was from him I inherited this cart. My brother and me, we brought a load of mescal up from Sonora for to sell to the workers along the big water canal to the east. My brother was shot by a mean gringo for some reason. It was about then the water company fired Herberto and so...”
    â€œThat’s none of my business,” Stringer cut in. But then he added, “When we have the chance I’d surely like to go over those mysterious papers his former employers seem so interested in. Whether he left wedding certificates among his effects or not is none of my beeswax.”
    She frowned hard at the rump of the mule ahead of her. Then she asked, “Wedding what? Did you think Herberto and me were man and wife, Stuarto?”
    He said, “I’m not paid to think about such matters. I don’t do the social pages for the Sun. But as long as we’re on the subject of the poor cuss, are you up to telling me about that gunfight he lost with Cactus Jack Donovan the other night?”
    She sighed. “I only know what they told me later. I was surprised for to hear poor Herberto got in a fight with a notorious malo, or anyone else. He was a most gentle person, even drunk.”
    â€œOh, did he drink a lot?” asked Stringer.
    â€œSi,” she replied. “He was most upset about losing his job and even more worried about the big flood he kept warning everyone about. It made him angry when they all laughed at him and said it was most foolish to worry about high water where water is so rare. Pero, he never got angry enough to fight with anyone. To tell the truth, I do not think he knew how to fight. I know he did not wear a gun like you. Don’t you find it strange that a man so mild would wish for to fight a famous gunfighter?”
    Stringer frowned thoughtfully and replied, “It might not have been his notion. Could this Cactus Jack by any chance happen to be on the payroll of International Irrigation?”
    She answered, “Quien sabe? He is, as I said, what my people call a malo, a bad one. Some say his gun hand is for hire, while others say he is simply evil-tempered. For why do you find this important, Stuarto? Herberto is dead, no matter why he was shot down in the streets of El Centro, no?”
    Stringer growled, “I’m not dead, yet, and I find it mighty odd that someone tried to gun me, about the same time, miles away from a less fortunate gent who might have had something he wanted to tell me. I wish I had a better notion what it might have been. To tell the truth, we get lots of crank letters and hardly any of ’em pan out as news worth printing. So mayhaps old Herb was more than a disgruntled employee with odd notions after all. Hardly anyone shoots pure cranks, let alone innocent reporters on their way to listen to pure jabber.”
    She demanded further explanation. So he filled her in on his misadventures in L.A., leaving out any mention of Zelda, who’d no doubt by this time rejoined her husband in San Diego feeling a mite smug about the fun she’d had and the traveling expenses she’d saved on her most recent trip to and from her sister.
    The pretty gal closer to hand and certainly not married took a dimmer view of her own people than Stringer. She said she was of the opinion one of those Chicano kids had tailed him to his hotel and gone home for a rifle.
    Stringer said, “That works fine, I’ll allow. So does a fired and somewhat drunken engineer blundering into a shoot-out