Stringer and the Deadly Flood by Lou Cameron Page B

his mule nibbled experimentally on some salt bush that was struggling to grow amid the greasewood, Stringer cradled the saddle gun with one elbow and rolled a smoke. A black dot that could have been a mounted rider, or most anything else, kept bouncing back and forth in the shimmering air but didn’t seem to be getting any closer by the time Stringer had finished his smoke. He turned to see how Juanita was making out. He swore softly when he saw the gypsy cart looked no farther away and only a mite smaller than it had the last time he’d looked. He calculated rapidly in his head and muttered to himself. “Let’s see. The horizon’s about three miles off to a rider in the saddle. That cart’s moving less than three miles an hour. Rooftops stick up above the horizon. So that makes it another two or three hours minimum before we can even consider a serious stop.” He glanced up at the sun and saw it was a little over halfway down in the west from its zenith. “Ought to be safe to trailbreak before snake time.”
    Then he rolled another smoke. He’d been born too late for the real Indian fighting in the west. But the war with Spain had taught him a thing or two about patience. Nine out of ten times a man was just wasting his time covering the back trail. But that tenth time could leave him feeling dead as well as foolish. He didn’t know which way that water company rider had gone after crawfishing out of sight. There hadn’t been a train through El Centro since then, and even if there had been the gent had been mounted. That meant he had to have ridden cross-country to wherever the gents he worked for might be. Of course, he might have stayed in town to sulk or mayhaps wire home for help. If he’d been sipping Coca Cola in any saloon along Main Street, he’d have had to notice them leaving. But, wherever he was, the company man didn’t seem to be trailing Juanita’s now fairly distant cart.
    Stringer turned to study the wagon ruts that had been left when the cart moved on. He was pleased to see they were not as clear as he’d feared. He was more used to the Mojave and other western deserts, where the topsoil was covered by a more brittle crust of so-called “desert pavement.” Busting through caliche left ruts that lasted until at least one hell of a rain storm. And in desert country it seldom rained. But this odd soil didn’t have a crust worth mentioning. So, while the wheels sank in deep enough, their impressions weren’t sharp, and the gentle ground breezes were already starting to fill the ruts with drifting baby-powder silt. Small wonder then, he mused, that he hadn’t seen any other tracks out here so close to a town.
    He filled his hat with canteen water and fed it to the mule. Then he allowed himself a few gulps and put the wet hat back on. It sure felt good as the rapid evaporation of the desert cooled his head. He was tempted to mount up and ride on while he still felt up to it, but he rolled another smoke instead. By the time he’d smoked that one down, the gypsy cart was just another wavering dot in the shimmering distance.
    â€œWell,” Stringer told his patient mule, “if he don’t want a fight, he don’t want a fight.” So he remounted and set after Juanita at a walk, knowing his riding mule walked faster than the poor brute pulling the gypsy cart.
    It still took quite a while to catch up, and by the time he reached her Juanita looked as if she’d been crying.
    â€œI was so worried, Stuarto!” she cried. “What kept you so long back there?”
    He said reassuringly. “Nothing. But I had to stay put long enough to make sure. I could tell you a tale of Spanish cavalry raiders surprising the daylights out of a supply train down in Cuba one time. But it wouldn’t be polite to tell such war stories to a Spanish lady. Let’s just say I’m a quick learner.”
    She smiled at