Free Ragtime Cowboys by Loren D. Estleman

Dear Eliza’s a conscientious manager, but she gulls easily. Would you introduce me to your friend?”
    â€œCharmian 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.
    â€œNot Charlie Siringo, the cowboy detective?”
    â€œI 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 .”
    â€œWolf?”
    â€œMy 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.
    â€œNow. 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.”
    â€œHabit. 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.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œLondon’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