Ragtime Cowboys (8 page)

“If you did, she'd probably bum some off you and burn it in yours.”

“You do all the talking. I'm likely to say something rash and waste the trip.” He folded the glass with a bang.

She was an uncommonly good rider, he'd say that for her. The horse was a fine one, a sleek sorrel with a blaze, and together they raced down as bad a stretch of road as he'd seen without a single misplaced hoof. He himself wouldn't have dared it in his prime: One loose rock, one small hole, and half a ton of mammal rolled over on top of you like a rockslide.

“God spare me from a reckless woman,” he muttered, not low enough to avoid one of Hammett's nasal snickers.

Twenty yards from the top of the rise where the two men waited, the woman leaned back on the reins, slowing the animal. It was a stallion, Siringo knew then; that snort when it caught the scent of his mare couldn't be mistaken. The mare in its turn tossed its head and shook its mane.
Two
reckless females, he thought; just what the situation was missing. He choked up on the bit and his mount settled itself.

The Widow London switched from a canter to a walk and drew alongside the visitors. “Welcome to Beauty Ranch, gentlemen. You're Mr. Hammett, if I remember correctly. Dear Eliza's a conscientious manager, but she gulls easily. Would you introduce me to your friend?”

“Charmian London, Charles A. Siringo.”

She brightened considerably. A striking woman rather than a pretty one, she had a boyish figure and a turned-up nose in a long horse face and buck teeth that altered her appearance greatly when she smiled. He judged her to be nearer fifty than forty—senior to her late husband—but fit, with no gray in the dark hair that hung in a bob to the corners of her jaw. The hat, he saw, was a Montana Pinch, with dimpled crown and a broad silk band, considerably weathered, and too big for her; it must have taken at least a section of newspaper stuffed under the sweatband to keep it from sliding down over her eyes. He seemed to remember having seen a similar rig on Jack London's head in a rotogravure. Quite probably this was it. It made her look younger somehow, like a little girl playing dress-up.

“Not
Charlie
Siringo, the cowboy detective?”

“I was. Now I'm just plain Charlie Siringo.”

A slender hand took his in a man's grip. “How Wolf would have loved this moment! He enjoyed
A Texas Cowboy
.”

“Wolf?”

“My dear Jack. If you like, I'll show you his copy, all scribbled in the margins with his praise.”

He was flattered despite himself, and sad suddenly. He'd have enjoyed discussing his work with the most famous writer in the world, even if the man was a Socialist. Before he could respond, she turned to Hammett.

“Now. What is this Burns business? We met, I believe, at a demonstration calling for the release of Eugene Debs. You told me then you were a writer of fiction, not history.”

“Habit. I was a detective myself, but no cowboy, and I learned early on to lie first and apologize later. I didn't think you were home.”

“I was delayed. The lawyer for Jack's literary estate is in Los Angeles, threatening to shut down a moving picture company if it proceeds with its plans to film
The Sea Wolf
without the courtesy of paying for the privilege. I thought it best to stay close.”

“I dealt with their like,” Siringo said. “I should of brung a rope.”

She slid her hat to the back of her head to study the gathering clouds. “Rain's coming. You can tell me in the cottage why you're here.”

They rode three abreast through the open gate and between more redwoods. To the right, after they'd been riding a while, rose the charred timbers of Wolf House, Jack London's dream home, gone up in flames years ago. Siringo had read of the disaster and felt bad for the owner. He himself had been flush then, and had considered building a place of his own on a more modest scale; the incident had made him put off the project, the only thing predictable about the future being its uncertainty. In retrospect, he wouldn't have been any worse off than he was had he gone through with it. There wasn't a dime's worth of difference, worry-wise, between a man who was flat broke and one who was so deep in debt he'd never climb out.

Farther on, they came alongside an enormous boulder that looked out of place in a clearing in the woods. Charmian removed her hat as they passed it. Hammett followed suit, and signaled to Siringo to do the same, which he did, hoisting his eyebrows in a silent question.

“London's grave,” Hammett whispered. “They rolled a rock on top of it to keep the coyotes from digging it up.”

There was something about the ranch, beautiful as it was in its sylvan setting, that depressed Siringo. It was a holy shrine. Nothing had been overlooked, from the widow's dreamy tones when she spoke of the late writer to the still-standing remnants of the great ruined house, which ought to have been torn down the minute the ashes cooled, and now this rock. He wondered, impiously, if London had come out from under it after three days.

Hatted again, they passed a Fordson tractor idling by a silo built of concrete blocks and then an extensive series of pens where Siringo's nose told him, well before he saw the animals rooting around inside, hogs were raised. Beyond that was a stable. He became alert as Charmian stepped down to hand her reins to a boy who came out from inside.

“Rub down these gentlemen's mounts first, please, Abner. They've ridden all the way from San Francisco.”

The men dismounted. Hammett put his coat back on with the weapons in the pockets. The boy who took their reins was a sullen-faced youth of about nineteen, with a mop of brown hair that needed soap and shears, in filthy bib overalls and rubber boots crusted with manure: Abner Butterfield, who had presided over Wyatt Earp's stables the day his prize racehorse had disappeared. Siringo noticed the young detective appraising him as he led the animals into the stable.

The first drops of rain were plunking their hats when Charmian London led them up a flagged path to the porch of a whitewashed cottage. She was shorter than Siringo, a surprise; she had a long torso and the kind of bone structure that usually belonged to a woman of stature, all loose-limbed, with long narrow hands and feet to match. She pulled open a screen door against the pressure of a noisy spring, hung her hat on a peg, and ran her fingers through her boyishly short hair. Her guests took up two more pegs, Siringo adding his sourdough coat, and scrubbed their feet on a sisal mat after her lead.

They entered a room that took up most of the ground floor, which served as both dining room and parlor, with a plain table under a ship's helm hung with chains from the ceiling, oil lamps mounted on the varnished handles, and rockers for relaxing.

“Eliza's gone to the village for supplies,” said their hostess. “That's good luck for you. She's guileless, as I said, but she can be a fierce old dragon when she realizes she's been taken in. She'd have had a hand throw you both out, and no mistake.”

“And you, Mrs. London?” The cozy domesticity of the arrangement, with the rain hissing now on the roof—a roof without holes—brought out Siringo's soft-talking side; but he was rusty and groped his way.

Her face became homely when it wasn't wearing a smile. “I'm not sure yet. If it turns out you've come to pick my brain for stories you can sell, I'll do the ejecting myself. I was Jack's favorite sparring partner in the ring he built, and he taught me to shoot and fence.” She inclined her head toward a pair of foils with basket hilts crossed on one wall. “I could run you through before you raised either of your weapons.”

 

10

He had to smile at that. The woman had sharp eyes. The Colt was plain in its worn chamois holster, but even Hammett had missed the Forehand & Wadsworth under Siringo's shirt. “We're not here for ideas.”

“We'll see. Are you hungry? We have sandwiches and beer. Becky can't abide turning away even a plagiarist on an empty stomach.”

“Becky?”

“Jack's youngest, by his first wife. She's here on a visit.” She raised her voice. “Becky?” No answer. “She's probably upstairs, reading.”

“One of her father's books?” asked Hammett.

“One of Dickens'.
David Copperfield,
I believe. She's on the second volume. She started the first in January. She makes it a point to read Dickens every winter. A determined child, Mr. Hammett. And no longer a child, as I must keep reminding myself. Sandwiches, gentlemen? Beer? Something stronger? Jack left us well-stocked.”

“Thank you,” Siringo said. “I could eat a horse, and as you can see, Hammett plumb disappears when he turns sideways. And a beer would go good right about now.”

She looked at Hammett, who nodded.

“I'll get them. Make yourselves at home meanwhile.” She left them, her English riding boots clip-clopping on the redwood floor.

Hammett sat, coughing quietly into his fist, while Siringo toured the room. China settings in every design filled a row of glass cabinets. Jack London had been nearly as well-known for his hospitality as for his writings, but they looked neglected now; although not a speck of dust showed, they bore the air of objects that hadn't left their places for weeks, months, maybe years, like books in a library owned by a semiliterate man who wanted to appear educated. The trophies on display—swords, boxing gloves, long guns and pistols, a pick worn to nubs, probably during prospecting days in Alaska—all contributed to the sensation that they were visiting a museum, or more particularly a mausoleum.

Hammett, apparently, had been thinking along the same lines. “Scatter a few heads around and the place might have belonged to Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I met him once.” Siringo lowered himself into a rocker and squirmed around on his saddle sores. “He didn't have anything good to say about London. We shared the same opinion of radicals.”

“He'd've thrown me down the White House steps.” The young man looked around. Reassured, evidently, by a framed photo of London writing with a cigarette drooping from his mouth, he took out his makings. “Hell, I'm out of tobacco.”

Siringo tossed him his pouch.

He examined it. “What is it, horsehide?”

“Buffalo.”

“I thought buffalo'd be coarser.”

“It is, till you get to the balls.”

Hammett smiled. “What happens if I rub it?”

“Turns into a pair of saddle bags.”

He laughed his snarky laugh, opened the pouch, and sprinkled some tobacco onto a paper. He was lighting the cigarette when a young woman entered. She stopped when she saw the two men, who rose, Hammett just behind Siringo.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “When I smelled someone smoking, I thought it was one of Father's old friends. I've missed that smell.”

She looked just under twenty, a pretty, grave-faced girl with blond hair that curled inward at her shoulders, in a sheath dress with an unnaturally low waist, the way women her age were wearing them now. There seemed to be a good figure underneath. Her feet were small in patent-leather pumps that buttoned to the ankles.

“I'm Mr. Siringo, and this is Mr. Hammett. We're guests of your stepmother's. I'm sorry to say we never knew your father.”

“You missed something, I assure you.” A wisp of a smile lightened her features, and Siringo saw the resemblance then. She had her father's deep-set eyes and strong brow, but the shy upward twist at the corners of her mouth had appeared in hundreds of photographs of the oyster-pirate-turned-sailor-turned-prospector-turned-vagabond-turned-world-traveler-turned-bestselling-writer. They were very modern faces, Siringo thought; not at all the grim visages of his contemporaries, men and women resigned to hardship, who only smiled when something amused them. Very little had.

The smile vanished then, like breath from a mirror. “You call yourself guests, but that's no comfort. As long as I can remember, guests in this house have taken advantage of my father's good nature. They borrowed money and didn't pay it back, stole his ideas and sold them to other writers—one of them even left with a dozen of his silk pajamas in his suitcase. Pajamas! Death hasn't stopped them. You're not movies, are you?”

“Movies?”

“Moving-picture people. They're the worst of all. They make away with Father's experiences and imagination and hard work like thieves in the night.”

“Mr. Hammett and I are here only to ask the favor of a few minutes' conversation. We're detectives.”

“You mean like Nick Carter?”

Hammett laughed, this time without sarcasm. “Not as heroic as that; but if it's all right with you, we'd prefer to discuss the details with the lady of the house.”

She beamed—genuinely beamed—and clapped her hands. “A lady! Oh, she'd be amused by that. She says that's Mother's area of expertise.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “She voted for Debs.”

“So did I,” said Hammett. “We met at a rally.”

“Riot, you mean.” Siringo frowned.

“There you are, you willful girl. I could have used help with this tray.” Charmian entered, carrying a silver tray containing a pile of sandwiches, a pitcher of beer, and two schooners gray with frost. It was a feast fit for a troop of cavalry.

“I'd have offered encouragement,” Becky said.

“Sauce! Since you've obviously all met, you may as well join us.” The widow placed the tray on a low table carved from pale wood and filled the glasses from the pitcher. A thick head grew on each. “Brewed on the premises, gentlemen, from hops planted by Jack; for private consumption, hence legal. Thank the Lord Congressman Volstead doesn't prohibit us from drinking, only selling. The sandwiches are liverwurst and ham. Old Pete, dear,” she told Becky. “He died in his sleep last week.”

“Not Pete! Father caught me riding him once and said it was time I learned horsemanship. He was the gentlest thing.” She perched herself on the edge of a rocker, helped herself, and bit into two slices of coarse bread with a thick slice of Old Pete in between.