Stringer and the Deadly Flood by Lou Cameron

giggled and said, “I’m a little tired, right now. Pero, I do not have to head back to Sonora just yet. Do you think we could get tired of one another in a month or so?”
    He was sure they could. That was why they called the first month of even a serious relationship the honeymoon. But he knew she didn’t want to hear that. Instead he said, “Well, if you have the time I have the nerve. This is the best time of the year for exploring the desert and I’d like to see just how serious one ought to take old Lockwood’s disaster warnings. The salt flats of that seldom-visited Salton’s Sink can’t be more than twenty to thirty miles to the north—a day each way by cartwheel. Why don’t we talk about what happens next after we have us a look at all that salt?”
    She thought it was such a grand notion that by the time he put out the last of his smoke she was ready to haul him down and wrap her sweet limbs around him again. He didn’t mind. Few men would have. The rain drumming on the canvas above them seemed to inspire them both to a new tempo. But she finally got where she wanted to go and went limp under him while he caught up with her. She protested that she was sleepy and that he’d taken advantage of her weak nature, so he stopped, saying, “I’d best spread some tarps to take advantage of all this free water.”
    Being a woman, she hugged him tighter and insisted they had all the water they needed in the kegs lashed to the chassis outside. So he lay still and just held her, as he knew she wanted to be held, until her soft breathing told him she was asleep. Then he gently rolled off the narrow mattress, covered her with a quilt and, seeing they might not have to worry about water after all, climbed up in the top bunk to stretch out and close his eyes.

CHAPTER SIX

    The next thing Stringer knew it was morning. Some desert quail were bitching about it outside, and he seemed to be alone in Juanita’s gypsy cart. So he swung down to the floor planks, wiped the sleep gum out of his eyes, and hauled on his boots, jeans, and .38 rig to see what was going on out there.
    The rain had stopped. But the sky above was overcast, and the air felt more like spring in greener country than the way it usually felt out here.
    He walked around the cart to find Juanita, naked as a jaybird, hunkered on her bare heels over the greasewood fire she was kindling. She looked more like a naked Spanish lady than the Digger Indian she seemed to be play-acting this morning. He chuckled and told her so. She shrugged and asked, “Who is there to peek out here who has not seen me, and more, in this costume? For why did you put your pants on, querido? Are you ashamed to let me see what feels so good in the dark?”
    He said, “I’d look mighty dumb in just my boots, and I’m not about to walk through sticker brush barefooted. I’m going to backtrack us a ways as soon as I water and nose-bag the mules.”
    She shook her head and said, “I watered and fed them at dawn, you most sleepy but handsome perezoso. Don’t go too far. I mean to feed you as soon as I can get this wet wood to behave.”
    He nodded and strode back the way they’d come the previous day. He knew she’d get the greasewood to burn. That was why they called it greasewood. The stuff wasn’t good for much else. It grew slow, twisty, and impregnated with waxy resin. The rain they’d just had would make all the brush he could see for miles sprout perhaps a fraction of an inch. Each greasewood clump was surrounded by a few feet of bare soil. The tough, thirsty bushes hoarded all the water that fell anywhere near them by poisoning the surrounding soil with a toxin given off by their roots. It made for easy passage between the prickly stuff, and it was here that he scouted for sign.
    There wasn’t much now, thanks to that heavy rain. But here and there he could just make out a