The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 2 (54 page)

Without doubt the big cowhand had learned something, and he had come to town with it. Someone had followed him, not wanting him alive to repeat what he knew.

Easing away from the circle of talkers around the body, Chick walked back through the alley to where he had seen the horse. Distance was hard to estimate, and the horse might have been right behind the saloon. Yet when he reached the spot, two struck matches revealed nothing.

Not far away was a huge cottonwood, and near it, several smaller trees. It was the logical place. Here Chick found more hoof tracks than he had expected. He also found five cigarette butts. Here a man had waited, at least an hour … for what?

This man was here
before
the big cowhand arrived in town. He must have been here most of the time Chick was in the restaurant. Could he have followed him there? But that did not make sense, because from under the trees the watcher could not have seen the café.

What, then, had he waited for? And the tracks were those of a horse with shoes worn on the outside.

Houdon was waiting for him when he walked back to the street. The body of the man had been moved. The marshal jerked his head toward the street. “What did Jake want at this time of night?”

Houdon was unshaven and he looked tired and irritable. He stared at Chick and absently scratched his stomach. Briefly, Bowdrie outlined the situation, identifying himself to the marshal for the first time. Nothing seemed to arouse the marshal until Bowdrie mentioned the man who had lurked under the cottonwoods.

“Somebody else,” he said, nodding his big head ponderously. “After me, I betcha. Man makes enemies in this here job.” He looked shrewdly at Bowdrie. “Folks sometimes don't take kindly to the law.”

“I think,” Chick suggested, “it was Andy Short.”

The scratching fingers paused momentarily. Other than this there was no reaction. Houdon shrugged. “Ain't from around here, I reckon. You see him, you let me know.”

At daylight Bowdrie was getting a quick cup of coffee and some breakfast at Pedro's. The fat Mexican leaned his big elbows on the oilcloth-covered table. “You savvy Burro Mesa?” he asked suddenly.

Startled, Bowdrie looked up. Pedro glanced around, yawned widely, and put a stubby finger on a spot on the oilcloth. “Here,” he said, “is the Rock Hut. And here is the trail across the mesa. On the west side is another spring. My compadre, he ride in last night. He say a man camps in the brush near that spring.”

         

It was high noon when Bowdrie rode the hammerheaded roan into the scrub near Oak Spring. Burro Mesa loomed on the skyline only a short distance ahead. The morning ride had been a long one and both horse and man were tired.

Well back in the brush, Bowdrie made a fire of dry sticks that gave off no smoke, and prepared a meal of coffee, bacon, and sourdough flapjacks. He stretched out after eating and lighted a smoke. Above him a pin oak was shelter from the blazing sun.

Half-asleep and completely relaxed, some half hour later, he heard a horse approaching. Instantly he was alert. His hand touched the roan and the horse relaxed slowly. He waited, listening. The horse was coming through the pass from the Chisos.

It slowed … a saddle creaked … with a warning signal to the roan, Chick eased himself forward on cat feet.

The horse was drinking at the spring, and as he watched, the rider got up from the ground. It was Rose Murray. She wiped the water from her mouth and looked carefully around.

What was
she
doing here? And where were Yates and Chilton?

He watched her step into the leather and turn west, then mounted his own horse. Was she involved in the plotting? Or had she come upon some clue?

Holding a course that kept him inside the brush, he worked his way along the mountainside in the direction Rose had chosen. Suddenly he drew up.

A horse with shoes badly worn on the outside had come off the mesa from the west. A blade of grass in one of the hoofprints was just springing into place. This could be the mysterious camper in the brush of whom Pedro had told him.

Chick Bowdrie followed on, but slowly. He had good reason to know the skill and trickiness of Andy Short. The quiet, gray-faced man in the nondescript clothes, described to him by the hostler, but whom he had never seen. That the man was a gunman, Bowdrie knew from the Rangers' Bible—his agency's file of outlaws.

At the edge of the pin oaks he drew up, scanned the empty country before him, then moved ahead, alert for trouble. His eyes roved, and suddenly held.

The Rock Hut.

And two horses standing near a mesquite tree. One was the horse Rose had ridden. The other was the horse he had seen once before, the horse of the mysterious rider.

He waited, studying the lay of the land. There was a door, obviously, from the path, leading from the front of the building toward where the horses stood. There was no window on this side, but there was a window behind. A small window.

Swinging down, he moved carefully, closing in. From the window came half-heard voices.

“So, you trailed young Radcliff. What a joke! He's back at your place taking care of Chilton's greenhorn son.”

The girl spoke, too softly.

“You just sit there, Missy. We'll figure out …” The man's voice dissolved into a murmur.

Chick started to move closer, then he dropped to his haunches behind a boulder and some brush. A hard-ridden horse was coming down the trail. It was Rad Yates.

Chick moved away then stepped out from the brush as Yates slid his horse to a stop. His face was a study in cold fury. Bowdrie knew how tricky the situation was. “Rad.” He spoke quietly, striving to keep his voice casual and calm on the other man. “Whatever you're figurin' on, don't do it.” Yates's head snapped around.

Before Rad could speak, he continued, “Think now! You're clean. Nobody has anything on you. We have plenty on Short. Why butt into something where you're not wanted? Turn around and ride out of here a free man. Stay, and you become an outlaw.”

The view was so eminently reasonable that Rad Yates hesitated. What Bowdrie said was true. He was still on the right side of the law. If he went ahead, there would be no return trail.

But the lure of the gold was strong. “No.” He spoke slowly. “I've come too far—waited too long.” He swung to the ground. As he turned he drew.

Whatever he planned failed to materialize. In the instant he swung down, Bowdrie had closed in. As Rad turned, his gun coming up, Bowdrie slapped the gun aside and down and hit him on the chin.

It was a short, wicked blow. Yates tottered and stumbled against his horse, the startled bronc moved, and Yates lost his balance and fell. As he hit ground, Bowdrie kicked the gun from his hand.

Yates came up fast and Bowdrie was too close to chance a draw. But Yates's rising lunge met the battering ram of Bowdrie's rock-hard fist and the bone in Yates's nose crushed under the impact, showering him with blood. The man was game, and shaking his head, he got up. Bowdrie let him rise, taking time for one quick glance toward the Rock Hut. No sign of life there at all.

The idea of Short discovering them frightened him and he stepped in quickly. For all his size, Rad was no fistfighter. He threw a long swing and Bowdrie went inside with a wicked right to the chin that dropped Yates. Grabbing the man's gun and taking his rifle, he threw them, whirling, high over the brush. Then he ran for the Hut.

He was running on soft ground and he heard voices, then stopped. “How come you knowed about this place?”

“I heard you tell Rad you'd meet him here today. Then I realized this
might
be the place.”

Chick heard the chink of metal on metal. “You're hard luck, kid, you shouldn't have come here.”

Andy Short came through the door, his hands and pant legs dusted with dirt, dragging a sack. His eyes went wide and he swung up the gun he carried in his right hand, and fired. The shot was too quick, a startled response to the unexpected sight of the Ranger. It missed.

Chick Bowdrie palmed his Colt and fired, but Short had dropped low and the bullet took him through the shoulder. It knocked him around and his second shot missed, and then Bowdrie put two fast bullets into him.

Bowdrie stepped back, his dark, Apache-like face grim and lonely. He began to shove out the shells for reloading when from behind him he heard Yates's voice. But it was a warning, not a threat.

“Bowdrie! Look out!”

Chick turned … another rider sat his horse, and he held a four-shot Roper revolving shotgun in his hands. It was Houdon, the marshal.

Bowdrie could see Yates, blood still streaming from his nose, and Yates had another cut now—on his skull. But he was not out.

Houdon's face was grizzled and old, his jowls heavy, his small eyes no longer looked dopey or sullen. Now they held amusement, and cunning.

“Killed Andy, did you? Can't say I'm sorry. Andy there could be right slick with a gun.”

Bowdrie watched the man carefully. Slowly, things began to fit together.

“You're the sixth man,” he said suddenly. “You're the last survivor of the Chilton gang.”

Houdon did not change expression for a moment, then he chuckled. It was a slow, fat, easy chuckle. “Yep, an' I'm the one killed Dan. It wasn't Andy, like you prob'ly figured. I took Andy's horse from the livery, knowin' a body could track them shoes. I think that might've turned him against me, what d'you think?”

“You were all trying to find the treasure?”

“We were gonna be partners. But now … well, the deal's off. Knowed I had to move quick when you told me Andy had been layin' for me back o' the saloon.

“I killed that cowpoke, too. Heard he was huntin' around up here.”

Bowdrie was thinking. He held his six-shooter and it was still partly loaded. Did Houdon know that? Or did he think because he had pushed out two shells that the gun was empty? But where were the loads? For the life of him, he could not recall. There should be one empty under the hammer, but was it there, or just above the loading gate?

“How'd you get away? I ran right into that alley,” he asked.

Houdon chuckled. “The office is raised up, maybe two feet off the ground. I went under it, up into the trapdoor. I made that so's I could sweep right out and not have to use no dustpan. Pays to be a lazy bachelor, sometimes.”

He nodded at the gold. “Old Dan never guessed when we made that strike at the RM that I'd wind up with it all. He sure didn't.”

This was the last of the outlaws—what had his name been? Hopper? He had murdered Chilton in cold blood. Had killed two in gunfights, but he was a sure-thing killer, the kind who never gave anyone a break.

Chick Bowdrie smiled suddenly. He was a Ranger and this was his job. He felt the skin drawing tight over his wide cheekbones. He lifted his left hand and moved his hat back on his head. “You know, Hop, I think—” He threw himself in a wild lunge, low down and straight at the horse!

The startled bronc gave a leap, snorting. The shotgun blasted and dust kicked into Chick's face. Then he came up to his knees as Houdon fought the frightened horse and swung up his gun.

Houdon saw it coming, and left the saddle in a leap of agility surprising in a man of his years. He hit the ground in a crouch and triggered the shotgun, but the muzzle was high and the charge of shot blasted by, high and to the right.

Bowdrie's gun clicked on an empty chamber, then fired, then he threw himself into a roll, came up, and fired again.

Houdon took the shot right along the top of the shotgun. Smashing into his chest. He tried to come up, gasping, and Bowdrie shot into him again.

He fell, staring for one awful instant into Bowdrie's face, and then lay stretched out, choking horribly, his fingers working.

Chick Bowdrie turned away and walked to Rose. She stood in the Rock Hut door, her face in her hands.

He looked over his shoulder at Rad Yates. “Can you ride?”

Yates got slowly to his feet. His nose was smashed, and the cut on his head still bled.

“I can ride.”

“Then get on your horse and get out of here. Don't stop until you're somewhere else.”

Rad Yates wiped blood from his face. He started for his horse, then halted. “That Chilton kid … you'll find him in the smokehouse with a headache. He wasn't man enough for the job.”

“Beat it,” Bowdrie said.

Rad Yates walked his horse away, and after a minute Chick told Rose, “Get your horse. I'll load up the gold, then follow.”

“There's blood on it,” she said, dazed.

“Yeah”—Bowdrie's voice was dry—“but it'll buy cows.”

Keep Travelin', Rider

When Tack Gentry sighted the weather-beaten buildings of the G Bar, he touched spurs to the buckskin and the horse broke into a fast canter that carried the cowhand down the trail and around into the ranch yard. He swung down.

“Hey!” he yelled happily, grinning. “Is that all the welcome I get?”

The door pushed open and a man stepped out on the worn porch. The man had a stubble of beard and a drooping mustache. His blue eyes were small and narrow.

“Who are yuh?” he demanded. “And what do yuh want?”

“I'm Tack Gentry!” Tack said. “Where's Uncle John?”

“I don't know yuh,” the man said, “and I never heard of no Uncle John. I reckon yuh got onto the wrong spread, youngster.”

“Wrong spread?” Tack laughed. “Quit your funnin'! I helped build that house there, and built the corrals by my lonesome, while Uncle John was sick. Where is everybody?”

The man looked at him carefully and then lifted his eyes to a point beyond Tack. A voice spoke from behind the cowhand. “Reckon yuh been gone a while, ain't yuh?”

Gentry turned. The man behind him was short, stocky, and blond. He had a wide, flat face, a small broken nose, and cruel eyes.

“Gone? I reckon yes! I've been gone most of a year! Went north with a trail herd to Ellsworth, then took me a job as segundo on a herd movin' to Wyoming.”

         

Tack stared around, his eyes alert and curious. There was something wrong here, something very wrong. The neatness that had been typical of Uncle John Gentry was gone. The place looked run-down, the porch was untidy, the door hung loose on its hinges, even the horses in the corral were different.

“Where's Uncle John?” Tack demanded again. “Quit stallin'!”

The blond man smiled, his lips parting over broken teeth and a hard, cynical light coming into his eyes. “If yuh mean John Gentry, who used to live on this place, he's gone. He drawed on the wrong man and got himself killed.”

“What?” Tack's stomach felt like he had been kicked. He stood there, staring. “He
drew
on somebody?
Uncle John?
”

Tack shook his head. “That's impossible! John Gentry was a Quaker. He never lifted a hand in violence against anybody or anything in his life! He never even wore a gun, never owned one.”

“I only know what they tell me,” the blond man said, “but we got work to do, and I reckon yuh better slope out of here. And,” he added grimly, “if yuh're smart yuh'll keep right on goin', clean out of the country!”

“What do yuh mean?” Tack's thoughts were in a turmoil, trying to accustom himself to this change, wondering what could have happened, what was behind it.

“I mean yuh'll find things considerably changed around here. If yuh decide not to leave,” he added, “yuh might ride into Sunbonnet and look up Van Hardin or Dick Olney and tell him I said to give yuh all yuh had comin'. Tell 'em Soderman sent yuh.”

“Who's Van Hardin?” Tack asked. The name was unfamiliar.

“Yuh been away all right!” Soderman acknowledged. “Or yuh'd know who Van Hardin is. He runs this country. He's the ramrod, Hardin is. Olney's sheriff.”

Tack Gentry rode away from his home ranch with his thoughts in confusion. Uncle John! Killed in a gunfight! Why, that was out of reason! The old man wouldn't fight. He never had and never would. And this Dick Olney was sheriff! What had become of Pete Liscomb? No election was due for another year, and Pete had been a good sheriff.

There was one way to solve the problem and get the whole story, and that was to circle around and ride by the London ranch. Bill could give him the whole story, and besides, he wanted to see Betty. It had been a long time.

The six miles to the headquarters of the London ranch went by swiftly, yet as Tack rode, he scanned the grassy levels along the Maravillas. There were cattle enough, more than he had ever seen on the old G Bar, and all of them wearing the G Bar brand.

He reined in sharply. What the …? Why, if Uncle John was dead, the ranch belonged to him! But if that was so, who was Soderman? And what were they doing on his ranch?

Three men were loafing on the wide veranda of the London ranch house when Tack rode up. All their faces were unfamiliar. He glanced warily from one to the other.

“Where's Bill London?” he asked.

“London?” The man in the wide brown hat shrugged. “Reckon he's to home, over in Sunbonnet Pass. He ain't never over here.”

“This is his ranch, isn't it?” Tack demanded.

All three men seemed to tense. “His ranch?” The man in the brown hat shook his head. “Reckon yuh're a stranger around here. This ranch belongs to Van Hardin. London ain't got a ranch. Nothin' but a few acres back against the creek over to Sunbonnet Pass. He and that girl of his live there. I reckon though,” he grinned suddenly, “she won't be there much longer. Hear tell she's goin' to work in the Longhorn Dance hall.”

“Betty London? In the Longhorn?” Tack exclaimed. “Don't make me laugh, partner! Betty's too nice a girl for that! She wouldn't …”

“They got it advertised,” the brown-hatted man said calmly.

An hour later a very thoughtful Tack Gentry rode up the dusty street of Sunbonnet. In that hour of riding he had been doing a lot of thinking, and he was remembering what Soderman had said. He was to tell Hardin or Olney that Soderman had sent him to get all that was coming to him. Suddenly, that remark took on a new significance.

Tack swung down in front of the Longhorn. Emblazoned on the front of the saloon was a huge poster announcing that Betty London was the coming attraction, that she would sing and entertain at the Longhorn. Compressing his lips, Tack walked into the saloon.

Nothing was familiar except the bar and the tables. The man behind the bar was squat and fat, and his eyes peered at Tack from folds of flesh. “What's it for yuh?” he demanded.

“Rye,” Tack said. He let his eyes swing slowly around the room. Not a familiar face greeted him. Shorty Davis was gone. Nick Farmer was not around. These men were strangers, a tight-mouthed, hard-eyed crew.

Gentry glanced at the bartender. “Any ridin' jobs around here? Driftin' through, and thought I might like to tie in with one of the outfits around here.”

“Keep driftin',” the bartender said, not glancing at him. “Everybody's got a full crew.”

One door swung open and a tall, clean-cut man walked into the room, glancing around. He wore a neat gray suit and a dark hat. Tack saw the bartender's eyes harden and glanced thoughtfully at the newcomer. The man's face was very thin, and when he removed his hat his ash blond hair was neatly combed.

He glanced around, and his eyes lighted on Tack. “Stranger?” he asked pleasantly. “Then may I buy you a drink? I don't like to drink alone, but haven't sunk so low as to drink with these coyotes.”

Tack stiffened, expecting a reaction from some of the seated men, but there was none. Puzzled, he glanced at the blond man, and seeing the cynical good humor in the man's eyes, nodded.

“Sure, I'll drink with you.”

“My name,” the tall man added, “is Anson Childe, by profession, a lawyer, by dint of circumstances, a gambler, and by choice, a student.

“You perhaps wonder,” he added, “why these men do not resent my reference to them as coyotes. There are three reasons, I expect. The first is that some subconscious sense of truth makes them appreciate the justice of the term. Second, they know I am gifted with considerable dexterity in expounding the gospel of Judge Colt. Third, they know that I am dying of tuberculosis and as a result have no fear of bullets.

“It is not exactly fear that keeps them from drawing on me. Let us say it is a matter of mathematics, and a problem none of them has succeeded in solving with any degree of comfort in the result. It is: how many of them would die before I did?

“You can appreciate, my friend, the quandary in which this places them, and also the disagreeable realization that bullets are no respecters of persons, nor am I. The several out there who might draw know that I know who they are. The result is that they know they would be first to die.”

Childe looked at Tack thoughtfully. “I heard you ask about a riding job as I came in. You look like an honest man, and there is no place here for such.”

Gentry hunted for the right words. Then he said, “This country looks like it was settled by honest men.”

Anson Childe studied his glass. “Yes,” he said, “but at the right moment they lacked a leader. One was too opposed to violence, another was too law abiding, and the rest lacked resolution.”

If there was a friend in the community, this man was it. Tack finished his drink and strode to the door. The bartender met his eyes as he glanced back.

“Keep on driftin',” the bartender said.

Tack Gentry smiled. “I like it here,” he said, “and I'm stayin'!”

He swung into the saddle and turned his buckskin toward Sunbonnet Pass. He still had no idea exactly what had happened during the year of his absence, yet Childe's remark coupled with what the others had said told him a little. Apparently, some strong, resolute men had moved in and taken over, and there had been no concerted fight against them, no organization and no leadership.

Childe had said that one was opposed to violence. That would have been his Uncle John. The one who was too law abiding would be Bill London. London had always been strong for law and order and settling things in a legal way. The others had been honest men, but small ranchers and individually unable to oppose whatever was done to them. Yet whatever had happened, the incoming elements had apparently moved with speed and finesse.

Had it been one ranch, it would have been different. But the ranches and the town seemed completely subjugated.

The buckskin took the trail at an easy canter, skirting the long red cliff of Horse Thief Mesa and wading the creek at Gunsight. Sunbonnet Pass opened before him like a gate in the mountains. To the left, in a grove of trees, was a small adobe house and a corral.

Two horses were standing at the corral as he rode up. His eyes narrowed as he saw them. Button and Blackie! Two of his uncle's favorites and two horses he had raised from colts. He swung down and started toward them, when he saw the three people on the steps.

He turned to face them, and his heart jumped. Betty London had not changed.

Her eyes widened, and her face went dead white. “Tack!” she gasped. “Tack Gentry!”

Even as she spoke, Tack saw the sudden shock with which the two men turned to stare. “That's right, Betty,” he said quietly. I just got home.”

“But—but—we heard you were dead!”

“I'm not.” His eyes shifted to the two men—a thick-shouldered, deep-chested man with a square, swarthy face and a lean rawboned man wearing a star. The one with the star would be Dick Olney. The other must be Van Hardin.

Tack's eyes swung to Olney. “I heard my Uncle John Gentry was killed. Did yuh investigate his death?”

Olney's eyes were careful. “Yeah,” he said. “He was killed in a fair fight. Gun in his hand.”

“My uncle,” Tack replied, “was a Quaker. He never lifted a hand in violence in his life!”

“He was a might slow, I reckon,” Olney said coolly, “but he had the gun in his hand when I found him.”

“Who shot him?”

“Hombre name of Soderman. But like I say, it was a fair fight.”

“Like blazes!” Tack flashed. “Yuh'll never make me believe Uncle John wore a gun! That gun was planted on him!”

“Yuh're jumpin' to conclusions,” Van Hardin said smoothly. “I saw the gun myself. There were a dozen witnesses.”

“Who saw the fight?” Gentry demanded.

“They saw the gun in his hand. In his right hand,” Hardin said.

Tack laughed suddenly, harshly. “That does it! Uncle John's right hand has been useless ever since Shiloh, when it was shot to pieces tryin' to get to a wounded soldier. He couldn't hold a feather in those fingers, let alone a gun!”

Hardin's face tightened, and Dick Olney's eyes shifted to Hardin's face.

“You'd be better off,” Hardin said quietly, “to let sleepin' dogs lie. We ain't goin' to have yuh comin' in here stirrin' up a peaceful community.”

“My Uncle John was murdered,” Gentry said quietly. “I mean to see his murderer punished. That ranch belongs to me. I intend to get it back!”

Van Hardin smiled. “Evidently, yuh aren't aware of what happened here,” he said quietly. “Your Uncle John was in a noncombatant outfit durin' the war, was he not? Well, while he was gone, the ranch he had claimed was abandoned. Soderman and I started to run cattle on that range and the land that was claimed by Bill London. No claim to the range was asserted by anyone. We made improvements, and then durin' our temporary absence with a trail herd, John Gentry and Bill London returned and moved in. Naturally, when we returned the case was taken to court. The court ruled the ranches belonged to Soderman and myself.”

“And the cattle?” Tack asked. “What of the cattle my uncle owned?”

Hardin shrugged. “The brand had been taken over by the new owners and registered in their name. As I understand it, yuh left with a trail herd immediately after yuh came back to Texas. My claim was originally asserted during yore uncle's absence. I could,” he smiled, “lay claim to the money yuh got from that trail herd. Where is it?”

“Suppose yuh find out?” Tack replied. “I'm goin' to tell yuh one thing: I'm goin' to find who murdered my uncle, if it was Soderman or not. I'm also goin' to fight yuh in court. Now, if yuh'll excuse me,” he turned his eyes to Betty who had stood wide-eyed and silent, “I'd like to talk to Bill London.”

“He can't see yuh,” Hardin said. “He's asleep.”

Gentry's eyes hardened. “You runnin' this place, too?”