The Chick Bowdrie Short Stories Bundle

by Louis L'Amour

  It was early and nobody had come over the trail since the arrival of the outlaws. He picked up their trail without difficulty. They had made no effort to hide their tracks, until suddenly, by intent or accident, their trail merged with that of a herd of horses. He was more than two hours in working out their trail.

  At first it held to dry washes and then wove through mesquite groves higher than the head of a man on horseback. Almost an hour of riding brought him to a campfire of ashes and a few partly burned sticks. He stirred the ashes and found no embers, but when he felt the ash with his fingers, there was still warmth.

  Dividing the camp into quarters, he searched each section with meticulous care. They had eaten here, and they had drunk coffee. There had been four men who were joined by a fifth man who sat with them. This man had sat on the ground, one leg outstretched. His spur had gouged the sand and there were faint scratches near the upper part of the boot.

  Studying the situation carefully, he then mounted and rode in careful circles, ever-widening, around the camp. He drew up suddenly. Here, behind a clump of mesquite, a man had crouched, spying on the outlaw camp. Bowdrie muttered irritably. The roan twitched an ear and Bowdrie glanced up. The horse was looking toward the trail with both ears pricked and his nostrils expanding. Speaking softly to the horse, Bowdrie waited, ready.

  A rider pushed through the mesquite and came toward them at a fast trot, but his eyes were on the ground and did not see Bowdrie until he was quite near. He drew up sharply. It was Kent Friede.

  “Find anything?” Was there an edge to his tone?

  “Not much. They camped back yonder, an’ they had a visitor.”

  “Ah!” Friede nodded. “I suspected as much! Most likely Cane rode out here to give them information.”

  “What makes you suspect Cane? Anybody might have done it.”

  “Who else would gain by Hayes’s death?”

  Bowdrie shrugged, sitting easy on his horse. Something about Friede bothered him, and he decided he would not want to turn his back on him. It was just a feeling, and probably a foolish one. It was never wise to jump to conclusions. What he wanted was evidence.

  “I’ve not met Cane. What’s he like?”

  “About twenty-five. Nice-looking man. He’s been a cowhand, and he drove a freight wagon. Lately he’s been working in a store.”

  “How’d he come to be Hayes’s heir?”

  “Hayes cottoned to him from the first time they met, and now he’s about to marry Hayes’s daughter. He works part-time in the bank, with Hayes. After the bank closes, he goes over to the store.”

  Jim Cane was in the Caprock Saloon with Hadley when they walked in. He was a rangy young man with dark red hair and a hard jaw. He looked more like a rider than a banker. Cane turned as they entered and his eyes slanted quickly from one to the other. Bowdrie felt his pulse skip a beat as he saw Cane. A few years had changed him a lot.

  “Find anything?” Hadley asked. The sheriff was a stalwart man, a leather-hard face and cool, careful eyes. A good man to have on your side, a bad man to have on your trail.

  “Not much.” Bowdrie explained about the campfire and the visitor. He did not mention the unseen watcher, nor what he had found near the campfire.

  “All right to get back to business at the bank?” Cane asked. There was a shade of belligerence in his tone. “I’ve ranchers coming in for their payroll money.”

  “Will you have the money they need?”

  “I’ve sent to Maravillas for it. We lost eight thousand dollars,” he added.

  “Payroll money? Somebody must have known it would be there.”

  “Everybody knew. We’ve been supplying ranchers with payroll money for years.”

  “Eight thousand? That could hurt to lose. Can you make out?”

  “You mean, will it break the bank? No, it won’t. That bank belongs to Mary Jane now, and I won’t let it break.” He spoke with cool determination, yet there was something more in his tone. A warning?

  “You should make out,” Friede commented, “as long as no rumors get started. What if there was a run on the bank?”

  Jim Cane turned his eyes to Friede. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like to see Mary Jane broke and me thrown out.”

  Bowdrie watched the two men. Hadley had tightened up, ready to avert trouble if it began. Out of such a quarrel might come something revealing.

  Friede put down his glass. “I’ve no trouble with either of you. If Hayes wanted to take in a saddle tramp, that was his business, and if Mary Jane wants to marry a drifter, that’s hers.”

  Cane balled his fists. “Why, you—!”

  “Easy does it!” Hadley interrupted. “Kent, you watch your tongue. I’ve seen men killed for no more than that.”

  Friede shrugged contemptuously. His face was white and drawn, but not with fear. This man when cornered could be deadly. “Don’t start anything, Cane, or I’ll have my say. Some people don’t like wet stock.”

  Jim Cane looked as if he had been slapped, but before he could reply Kent Friede turned away, an ugly triumph in his expression. Cane stared after him and his hand shook as it lifted to the bar as if to steady himself. Then without a word he walked out.

  Hadley stared after them. “Now, what did he mean by that?” Hadley glanced at Bowdrie. “Friede seems to know more than he lets on.”

  Bowdrie made no comment, but behind his dark, Indian-like features his mind was working swiftly. The deep, dimplelike scar beneath his cheekbone seemed deeper, and his face had grown colder. Leaving Hadley in the saloon, he crossed to the bank.

  There were things here he must check before the bank was permitted to reopen, but more than that he wanted to be alone, to think. Letting himself in, he closed and locked the door behind him, then stood looking around.

  It was late afternoon and the sun was going down. Most of the townspeople were at home preparing for supper. Only hours before, two men had died here, killed by a man they trusted, but who was the man?

  For almost an hour he sat in the banker’s chair reconstructing the crime by searching through his experience and what little he had learned for the motivation. After a while he went to the old filing cabinet and rummaged through the papers there and in the desk. Finally he stepped out on the street, locking the door behind him.

  The Hayes house was just down the street and he turned that way. In answer to his knock the door was opened by a slender, dark-haired girl with lovely eyes. Eyes red from crying. “Oh? You must be the Ranger? Will you come in?”

  Bowdrie removed his hat and followed her through the ornate old parlor with its stiff-collared portraits of ancestors to a spacious and comfortable living room. He realized then that he had come to the wrong door. The parlor entrance or “front door” was rarely used in these houses. The kitchen door was the usual entrance. The table, he noticed as he glanced into the dining room, was set for three, although but one plate was in use.

  “Please don’t let me interrupt your supper,” he protested.

  She glanced at him quickly, embarrassed. “I … I set Dad’s place, too. Habit, I guess.”

  “Why not? And the other is for Jim Cane?”

  “Have you seen him? I’ve been so worried. He’s taking this awfully hard. He … he loved Dad as much as I did.”

  Her voice was low and he caught the emotion in it and changed the subject.

  “I hope to finish my work tomorrow and be riding on, but there are some things you could tell me. Was Kent Friede sweet on you? I mean, was he a suitor?” Bowdrie could not recall ever using the expression before, but believed it was the accepted one. There was so much he did not know about how people talked or conducted themselves. So much he wanted to know.

  “Sort of. As much as he could be on anyone. Kent’s mostly concerned with himself. Then … well, he’s not the sort of man a girl would marry. I mean … he’s killed men. He is very good with a gun. The best around here, unless it is Sheriff Hadley.”

  Bowdrie’s black
eyes met hers. His expression was mildly amused. “You wouldn’t marry a gunfighter?”

  She flushed. “Well, I didn’t mean that … exactly.”

  Bowdrie smiled, and she was startled at how warm and pleasant it made him look. He had seemed somehow grim and formidable. Maybe it was because she knew who he was. “Your coffee’s good.” She had almost automatically filled his cup. “Even a gunfighter can enjoy it. But I know what you mean. You want to be sure when you cook supper there’s somebody there to eat it.”

  The door opened suddenly and there was a jingle of spurs and Jim Cane stood framed in the opening. His face was drawn and worried. His eyes went sharply from Bowdrie to Mary Jane. “You here? Why can’t you let this girl alone? She’s lost her father, and—”

  “Jim!” Mary Jane protested. “Mr. Bowdrie has been very nice. We have been talking and sharing some coffee. Why don’t you sit down and we will all have supper?”

  “Maybe the Ranger won’t be able to. There’s been a killing. Kent Friede was found dead just a few minutes ago.”

  Bowdrie put down his cup. He had been looking forward to a quiet supper. It was not often he ate with people. “Who found him?”

  “I did.” Cane stared defiantly. “He was lying in the alley behind the bank, and if you think I killed him, you’re dead wrong!”

  “I didn’t say …” Bowdrie got to his feet. “Thank you, Miss Hayes.”

  Kent Friede lay on his face in the alley back of the bank with a knife between his shoulder blades, a knife driven home by a sure, powerful hand. His body was still warm.

  A half-dozen men stood around as Bowdrie made his examination. Chick was thinking fast as he got to his feet.

  This was all wrong. Kent Friede was not the man to let another get behind him. Nor was there any cover close by. The alley was gravel and not an easy place to creep up on a man unheard. This was cold-blooded murder, but one thing he knew. It had not happened in this alley.

  He withdrew the knife and studied it in the light of a lantern. He held it up. “Anybody recognize this?”

  “It’s mine!” Tommy Ryan’s eyes were enormous with excitement. “It’s my knife! I was throwin’ it this afternoon. Throwin’ it at a mark on that ol’ corner tree!”

  Bowdrie glanced in the direction indicated. The knife would have been ready to anyone’s hand. He balanced the knife, considering the possibilities.

  Kent Friede was dead, the body found by Jim Cane. Only a short time before, the two had almost come to blows before a dozen witnesses, and Friede had made his remark about wet stock. Bowdrie heard muttering in the gathering crowd, and Cane’s name was mentioned.

  Sheriff Hadley joined them. “This doesn’t look good, Bowdrie. People are already complainin’ that I haven’t arrested Jim Cane for the bank robbery. Now this here is surely goin’ to stir up trouble.”

  “Have you any evidence? Or have they? A lot of loose talk doesn’t make a man guilty.”

  “No evidence I know of,” Hadley agreed. “I’d never have suspected anything was wrong at the bank without you bringin’ it up. What gave you the idea?”

  “Tobacco smoke. Somebody was inside the bank before the outlaws got there. After tipping me off to the robbery and its time. Whoever it was figured I’d come a-shootin’ and kill all or some of them and maybe get killed myself. In fact, I think he counted on that.

  “Then during the gun battle outside he finished off the two inside and got away with the money. If I’d been killed too, there was just no way anybody could figure out what happened. He’d have the money and be completely in the clear.”

  “Looks like he is anyway,” Hadley agreed ruefully. “This Friede, he might have known something.”

  “He knew a lot, a lot too much. You see, Sheriff, he knew who that other outlaw was. He knew the fifth man. He followed somebody to that outlaw camp and he crouched down in the mesquite and heard them planning it.”

  Bowdrie arranged for the body to be picked up and then walked back to the hotel, where he had taken a room. In the hotel he bundled the bedding together to resemble the body of a sleeping man; then he unrolled his blankets and slept on the floor.

  The gun’s report and the tinkle of falling glass awakened him. The bullet had smashed into the heaped-up clothing on the bed, then thudded into the wall. He got up carefully and eased to a position near the door. Outside somewhere a light went on and he heard an angry voice. He looked into the alley. It was dark, empty, and still.

  He waited. A few people came out on the street, and he heard more complaints about drunken cowboys and disturbed sleep.

  He studied the line the bullet must have taken to break the window, penetrate the heaped-up bedding, and crash into the wall. It was, he reflected, the thud of the bullet into the wall that had awakened him, almost the instant of the report.

  From beside the window he studied the situation. The bullet could have come from a dark corner of the livery stable, a place where a man might wait for hours without being seen. At night there was very little activity in town. Even the saloons closed by midnight.

  Pulling on his clothing, he went into the street, moving toward the livery stable. The door gaped wide. There was a lantern hanging from a nail over the door, but nobody was around. A hostler slept in the tack room at the back of the stable during the busy times.

  Stepping inside the door, he glanced around. He saw no cigarette butts, although when he squatted on his heels he detected a little ash. Taking a chance, he struck a match. There was some ash and a few fragments of tobacco. He scraped them together and put them in a fold of a sheet torn from his tally book.

  Standing on the corner in the shadow of the barn, he saw he was no more than fifty yards from Jim Cane’s cabin. He walked past the cabin, staying in the dust to make no sound. No light showed.

  He walked past the sheriff’s office and back to the hotel, passing the tree where young Tommy Ryan had been practicing throwing his knife.

  Morning dawned bright and clear. Bowdrie went out into the street, feeling good. He knew the killer was both puzzled and worried.

  A well-laid plan had backfired. Too many things had gone wrong, and now the killer did not know but what something else, something he had not thought of, might also have gone wrong. One way out remained. To kill Bowdrie. The Ranger knew more than he was expected to know and at any moment he might achieve a solution that would mean the collapse of all the killer’s schemes and his own arrest.

  That he had been marked for death on the day he rode into town, Bowdrie was well aware. That he survived the initial shoot-out had been the first thing to go wrong. Of course, even before that, Kent Friede had spied on the outlaw camp, but of that the killer had no knowledge at the time, and that situation had been remedied. Bowdrie remained.

  He walked across the dusty street to the restaurant. Every sense was alert. What happened must take place within the next few hours. His hands were never far from the butts of his pistols. When he reached the restaurant door he looked around. Jim Cane stepped out of an alley and crossed the street toward him.

  Bowdrie went inside and sat down. He knew the killer. He knew just who the other outlaw was and what he had done. The difficulty was that he had no concrete evidence, only several intangible clues, things that weighed heavily with him, but nothing he could offer a jury.

  Jim Cane pushed open the door and strode across to his table. “How about the bank? Hadley says it’s okay to open.”

  “How about a cup of coffee?” Bowdrie suggested. Then, as Cane seated himself, he added, “Sure, you can open up, and good luck to you. However”—he leaned closer—“you might do something for me.” He went on, whispering.

  Cane stared at him, then swallowed his coffee and left the café. Chick Bowdrie stirred his coffee and smiled at nothing.

  Tommy Ryan came to the door and peered in; then he crossed to the table. “Mr. Bowdrie,” he said, “I got somethin’ to tell you. I seen who took my knife.”

  Bowdrie glanced at him
sharply. “Who have you told besides me?”

  “Nobody. On’y Pa. He said—”

  “Tell me later. Why don’t you sit over at that table, drink a glass of milk and eat a piece of that thick apple pie? On me.”

  Sheriff Hadley entered. He was a strapping big man and as usual he walked swiftly, his gray hat pulled down, the old-fashioned mule-ear straps flapping against the sides of his boots.

  He dropped into the chair across from Bowdrie. “Bowdrie, I figured it only right to talk to you first. I got to make an arrest. It’s no secret who done it. I’ve got to arrest a thief and a killer.”

  “Why not leave it to me?” His thick forearms rested on the table and his black eyes met those of the sheriff. “You see, I’ve known almost from the start who the guilty man was. Things began to tie up when I first saw those bodies lyin’ on the floor in the bank. That dead outlaw? That was Nevada Pierce.”

  “Pierce? You sure of that?”

  “Uh-huh. You see, I sent him to prison once. And his description was in the Rangers’ Bible. Lots of descriptions there, Hadley.”

  Their eyes clung. “You mean … you got Jim Cane’s description, too?”

  “Sure. I spotted him right off. Jim used to run stock across the Rio Grande. That was four, five years ago.”

  “You knowed he was a horse thief and you haven’t arrested him?”

  “That’s right, Hadley. You see, we live on the edge of lawless times. Lots of men got their first stake branding unbranded cattle. It surely wasn’t theirs, but nobody else could prove a claim to it either. Afterward some other boys came along later, so to even things up, they switched brands.

  “Now, maybe that’s stealin’, Hadley. By the book I guess it is. Nowadays it would surely be stealin’, for there’s no unclaimed stock runnin’ around. It all belongs to somebody. It hasn’t always been easy to decide who was a crook and who wasn’t.