Stringer and the Deadly Flood (20 page)

Stringer was more cheered when, late in the afternoon, he spied a big tractor bumping over the train tracks at him with a little train of farm wagons trailing behind its slow but powerful wheels. Stringer leaped to his feet with a happy cry as he recognized old W.R. Brown driving the tractor with a not at all displeased expression. The friendly Coopers and some of the other nester families who'd treated him neighborly right after he'd buried Juanita were aboard the overloaded wagons as well.

As they greeted each other like survivors of a battle meeting later in the rear area, W.R. Brown explained dryly, “You told me to act more neighborly. Me and old Cooper had just plowed that extra length of drainage when the canal commenced to run into it like hell. We could see there was way more water than one canal or even a river could hold. So we got cracking, picking neighbors up as we moved to such high ground as there was. It wasn't near high enough. By the time we got in sight of the railroad bank every wagon I was towing was bed deep in the water and trying to float
off
with the current. But old Betsy here was just too big and heavy and, thank God, strong enough to hold us all together 'til the water put all our wheels back on the ground.”

Cooper joined them to catch the last of that and add, “None of us would have made it if it hadn't been for old W.R. and his monster machine. We lost our housing, our crops in the field, and damn near our lives. But every time I look at my wife and family since, nothing else seems to matter.”

W.R. said, “There you go. Our land is still there as well.” He turned back to Stringer, explaining. “The water had narrowed down to sort of cut a regular channel by the time it got low enough for us to swing west for town. I don't mind saying Old Betsy had a time getting us across that stretch. She was wheel-hub deep and chewing deeper out in the middle, and no mule team could have hauled one wagon through the mudflats spread all about on both sides. That first boiling wave tore all the greasewood and lizards up by the roots and left the land scalped Cheyenne style. Drilling fruit trees in ought to be a heap easier, once we head back to rebuild.”

Cooper sighed. “If it ain't under water for keeps, you mean. Remember that rider we met out yonder who said Salton's Sink was more like a Salton Sea right now, and still rising?”

W.R. grimaced as he replied, “Hell, don't be so pessimisticated. Desert flash floods always dry up in a few days. By this time tomorrow you'll be bitching about the dust again. Ain't that right, pard?”

Stringer nodded, even though he wasn't at all sure about that. These half-drowned nesters needed food and shelter more than they needed more to worry about. So he told them, “Unless you folk salvaged some tents, you'd best get to looking for some place to stay here in El Centro. When I left my hotel, quite a spell back, they'd already hired out most of the rooms they had and it's been getting more crowded here in El Centro ever since.”

W.R. Brown, who seemed to be in charge whether anyone else had anything to say about that or not, turned to call out, “All right, you folk back there. We're moving on just a mite. So all of you hang on tight, hear?”

Stringer waited until the improvised trackless train passed on, waving back to the one little girl who waved at him, and then he seated himself to write their desert saga down in shorthand while it was fresh in his memory. It was nice to report a bright
spot
amid all this tragedy. For it was a tragedy, whether or not the survivors themselves were injured in mind and body. Even if the new Salton Sea was stopped no higher than that fossil beach out yonder, rebuilding figured to be a heartbreaking and bankroll-busting task. If the now briny water rose much higher, of course, the settlers north of the tracks at the very least would be ruined. Those who'd bought sections south of the tracks had nothing to feel smug about either if the Colorado started searching for another outlet once it filled everything below sea level to the brim.

Huntington's engineer had said he figured it would take at least a few years for the rogue river to fill the basin to the north. That might mean time to work out a new channel or even get the Colorado back in its own channel, given time, determination, and above all money. If all the threatened settlers, the water trust, the railroad, and mayhaps the government got right at it and soon, there was an outside chance of snatching success out of this disaster. But to date the flood victims were still stunned, the National Guard was more interested in shooting looters than ditch digging, and both the railroad and the water trust were issuing statements denying any responsibility for this act of God, as they'd likely wind up calling human error.

Stringer took his notes inside the saloon and sat at a table to recompose his news feature, knowing there was no way the
Sun
was going to have space for half the sad tales he'd just heard. One beer and two smokes later he had the draft he meant to wire in. He was just about to rise from the table and go send it when an elderly Hispanic in a torn shirt and muddy pants moved to hover over him and ask,
“Permiso, señor?”

Stringer told the polite old gent to sit down and name his poison, but added, “I've got just about all the survival stories we could possibly use, sir.”

The older man sat across from him to reply. “They told me you were the one who was writing everything down,
señor.
I have no important tale of my own to tell. Through the grace of God most of my family and I we outraced the crest of that flood. But my eldest daughter did not make it out with myself and the others. I thought, since you have been talking to so many others who made it to safety...”

Stringer cut in. “This may be a wild guess. But would your name be Herrerra, and are we talking about a young lady called Maria?”

The older man's face lit up and he gasped, “
Si!
Oh,
si, si,
but do not toy with a father's hopes, señor!''

Stringer
reassured him. “She's alive and well. I thought I saw a family resemblance.”

Herrerra pleaded, “Never mind...please, sir, where, oh where is our little Maria?”

“At the Hotel Imperial,” Stringer said. “She made it here with me and some friends of mine. We booked her in just down the hall from my room. Come on, I'd better go with you.”

He didn't say why he offered to accompany the now-impatient father as he stuffed the notes in a hip pocket and rose, adjusting his gunbelt. Maria's father was packing a .45 Walker Conversion, and while Stringer had warned Cactus Jack to behave himself the erstwhile hired gun hadn't been reformed all that long. But Hispanic fathers could leap to conclusions about whether a
gringo
was behaving himself or not.

When they got to the Hotel Imperial, a rambling two-story structure of timber and ‘dobe, Stringer led Maria's father up to her room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Then old Herrerra tried the latch and, finding it unlocked, opened the door on Maria's empty room.

Stringer didn't think this might be the time to knock on other doors up here along the dark hallway looking for Maria. So he led the now-reworried father back down to the desk to ask if Miss Herrerra might have checked out.

The desk clerk recalled no such incident, but added that since he'd been mighty busy with new arrivals pestering him for rooms he just didn't have to hire, the lady might have just gone out for supper or a stroll.

Stringer turned to Herrerra and said, “There you go. Why don't you just find a seat down here in the lobby and sooner or later Miss Maria ought to turn up.”

The older man shook his head gravely. “I must get the good news to the rest of my family. Maria's poor mother has not stopped weeping since last we saw our daughter. We are down near the south end of town, staying with, our friends, the Garcias. Maria knows them, of course. Would you be so kind as to tell her where her family is the moment you see her?”

Stringer agreed and heaved a silent sigh of relief as the girl's father left. Then he went back up the stairs, two at a time, to dash down to Cactus Jack Donovan's door and knock on it hard as he called out, “Whether you have company or not, we got to
talk,
Jack!”

On the far side, a bedspring groaned and Stringer heard spurred boots coming to the door. Cactus Jack opened it to stare out at Stringer sort of owl-eyed, with fire water on his breath. Stringer pushed his way inside and saw to his relief the bed was now unoccupied. He quickly told the gunslick, “Maria's father is in town, looking for her. She's not in her room.”

Cactus Jack almost sobbed as he told Stringer his sad tale. “She's mad at me. She said she liked me but that she admired some other son of a bitch better and didn't want me kissing her. But you know how gals always say no when they mean yes, so I kissed her anyway and then she slapped me and run out crying. You say old Herrerra's in town, pard? Well, then, point me at him so's I can tell him I mean to marry up with his daughter. You was right about it being better to talk to a Mex gal's daddy first.”

Stringer shook his head and said, “You're too drunk to go courting, Jack. Whether Maria really loves another or not, her old man's not likely to want a gringo son-in-law with rot-gut on his breath. Why don't you just lie down and sleep it off? Now that things are starting to settle down again you'll have plenty of time to court the little gal of your dreams the right way.”

Cactus Jack swayed uncertainly, then said, “I got to go out and track down that other son of a bitch she said she admires more than me. I'll bet he's a sissy Mex who smears perfumed bear grease in his hair.”

Stringer looked at him with disgust. Still, he tried to calm the mean drunk. “She might not have anyone else in mind at all. Come morning, you just take a good bath, find yourself a clean shirt, and rub some stink-pretty in your own curly locks before you go making a sap of yourself, Jack.” He took the drunken man's arm, turning him around and heading him back to bed.

The wiry and normally agile gunslick started to argue, then stumbled on over to the bed and took a belly-flop across it, suddenly out like a light.

Stringer stared soberly down at him and muttered, “You and old Samson have a lot in common, you murderous cuss. Strong men approach you at their own peril. But you're just mush in the hands of a pretty young gal.”

He tried to put Maria Herrerra and her uncouth swain out of his mind as he went back down and headed for the telegraph office, recomposing his news feature mentally. Then he block-lettered half a dozen pages, feeling mighty wistful about the
old
Remington he'd left up in Frisco. If they ever got a so-called “portable” typewriter down to less than thirty pounds he meant to be the first in line to buy one.

The new telegraph clerk who'd just come on whistled at the length of the message. “At a nickel a word this is sure going to cost your paper, Mister MacKail. You'd save a heap if we sent in at night-letter rates.”

Stringer said, “I know. But I get hell from my boss every time I do that. The pressroom is open around the clock, and while I can't call this a scoop at least it's pretty good as a follow-up.”

The clerk agreed to get it right out, since the wire traffic was subsiding now that the whole outside world had a handle on the disaster. His cheery observation failed to cheer Stringer worth mention. As he paused to roll a sunset smoke he told himself sternly not to feel so smug about the love-sick Cactus Jack. For who but a total Samson would have trusted that infernal Kathy Doyle,
again,
after she'd already proven herself a career woman who put her own career first no matter how often a man made her come, or leastways got her to say she did. Right now he didn't buy a word she'd ever said.

As he lit up, he heard a train whistle and ambled over to the nearby tracks to watch a troop train roll in. He'd already wired Sam Barca that the National Guard had been called out. All they were doing at the moment was climbing down out of the boxcars and lining up in their blue shirts and khaki britches, nickel-plated bayonets fixed on their bolt-action Krags, for God's sake. Stringer made a wry grimace. One could always tell peacetime military by how spiffy they looked. Not like that time in Cuba. Those poor soldier boys hadn't charged the Dons with nickel-plated bayonets, goddamn it. It made the still-young Stringer feel old as he pulled down the brim of his old Rough Rider hat and headed back to the hotel.

He checked in her room, but Maria Herrerra hadn't returned yet, and he wasn't about to look for her in Donovan's room. It had been a long day, he'd done the best he could by his feature editor. So he headed for his own hired room to call it a day.

That was where he found Maria Herrerra. He almost drew on her as he stepped into the dark room to see her sitting upright on his own bed. She sobbed, “Oh, where have you been all this time! I have been so worried! Your friend tried for to rape me and I had nobody else to turn to!”

Stringer shut the door, sat down beside her, and hauled off his bandana to dab
away
her tears as he consoled her. “I don't think old Jack meant to scare you that much. He's just sort of crude. But never you mind. I've got good news for you, honey. I just talked to your father. He and your mother and the others made it after all. They're staying at the Garcia's place. Your father told me you knew where that was.”

She clapped her small hands together gleefully and replied,
“Es verdad!
It is just a short walk from here, and they are all alive? Oh, I must go to them, my pronto!”

Stringer agreed and helped her to her feet. “I'd best escort you over,” he offered. “The streets outside are crowded with all sorts, including tin soldiers and, no offense, but you're still showing more leg than the average Gibson Girl.”