Her quick, homey manner brought relief to the tension, and instead of fear there was a growing levity, as though each had become conscious that he held a seat at a very dramatic show. Underneath it all, however, there was the taut strain of nervous tension. Of them all, Nelly and the stage driver seemed the least affected.
Judd, his own danger alleviated for the moment, opened the case he had carried into the room along with the small box with the coffee, and brought out a mandolin. While they waited for water to boil, he sang, in a fair tenor, “Drill Ye Tarriers,” a song sung by Irish railroad builders, and inspired a healthy applause. He then sang “Sweet Betsy from Pike” and “Jenny Jenkins.” The listeners came up with requests and the singing continued.
Bowdrie remained quiet against the wall. More than the others possibly could, he realized his own inadequacy. He knew his skill with guns, and that few men were better on a trail, but here he had only the devious path of a man’s thinking to follow. He was moving in the dark, only aware that the killer might give himself away. How that was to happen, he did not know. Later, he might ask more questions.
Somehow, tonight, within this shack, the issue would be decided. And it was a narrow place for shooting.
DeVant moved his chair against the wall, a position from which he could survey the room as well as Bowdrie, and from which he could move swiftly to attack, defend, or seek the doubtful shelter of the bunk’s corner.
At this moment Peg Roper awakened and sat up, obviously confused by the singing, the smell of coffee, and the crackle of the fire. Swinging his feet to the floor, he caught one spur in the ragged blanket. Disengaging it with care, he sat up, blinking around him, his sleepy little boy’s face oddly puzzled under his shock of unruly hair.
“What’s comin’ off?” Peg asked. “I go to sleep in a morgue and wake up in a party.”
“Folks kept dropping in,” Baker said. “We’ve a special guest, a Texas Ranger.”
Roper looked uneasy, but said, “Well, he seems a quiet Ranger. Knows how to keep his place.”
Bowdrie smiled and put his shoulders against the wall. It was a thick wall and it felt good, about the only security he was likely to enjoy.
Colson found several cups back in the darkness and brought them to the table. He rinsed them with rainwater from the barrel outside the door.
Stadelmann appeared to be dozing and probably was. A man could doze and still catch some of the talk, although nothing important was being said. In fact, everyone seemed to be keeping to casual talk between songs.
Baker changed all that. “How d’you expect to find your man?” he asked Bowdrie. “He ain’t just goin’ to walk up an’ tell you, you know.”
“No problem,” Bowdrie replied. “Biggest thing in my favor is that he knows he’s guilty. A guilty man is afraid of makin’ mistakes, of givin’ himself away.”
Peg Roper’s eyes went to the girl, sitting quietly by the fire, watching the coffee. They stayed on her as she took a cup and poured, taking it first to the Ranger. He thanked her while Roper watched them. Obviously he was curious about her, so strange to such surroundings. Roper rubbed his unshaved chin ruefully. He looked miserable to try to make a play for the girl, but from the looks of it the Ranger had the inside track. Although he did not appear to be doing anything about it. Maybe it was because the Ranger was protection.
Bowdrie tasted the coffee with real appreciation. He was vastly comfortable now, with the cup in his hands, hot coffee in his belly, and that wall behind him. When the side of that mountain started to move back yonder, he had an awful, sinking feeling inside of him and he had been the most scared he’d ever felt. Only the fact that he was riding the roan, a once wild mustang, saved him. The bronc knew what to do, and did it.
Thunder growled in the canyons like a surly dog over a bone, and the fire blazed up, adding light to the room.
Bowdrie let his eyes go closed. One man here was a murderer, but which one? He was a man quick to make decisions, even impulsive. He was utterly ruthless, with a sharp, cold mind and a contempt for human feelings and life. If unmasked he would begin shooting, without warning if possible, and he would not care who got in the way. Yet Bowdrie did know a little about him.
The killer had washed his hands back there at the shack where he murdered the old man. He had washed the blood off the bench and hung up the pan. The old man would not have done that, as he was notoriously untidy.
Bowdrie opened his eyes. “The man I’m looking for,” he said, “just stumbled across an old miner an’ killed him, prob’ly thinkin’ the old man had more’n he did have. He did this just along the way whilst followin’ a man who he knew had money.”
“You’ll never get him,” Baker said. “What do you have to go on?”
“Very little,” Bowdrie admitted, “but we don’t always need a lot. No man can escape the pattern of his habits. He leaves sign in the minds of people just as he would on a trail. People observe things and remember things they often don’t recall until questioned or until the memory is stirred up in conversation.
“That wouldn’t stand before a jury,” DeVant said.
“No jury will ever get this case,” Bowdrie said. “This gent makes up his mind on the sudden. I’ll draw a pattern of sign to corral him, an’ when he realizes I’m closin’ in, he’ll go to shootin’. Then he’ll die.”
“Or you will. Ever think of that, Ranger?”
“Of course. It is an accepted risk in my business, but Rangers are enlisted because they’re fightin’ men an’ when they go out they don’t go alone. When I go down that dark trail there’ll be a man ahead of me.”
“Killer or no killer,” Colson said, “we’re warm an dry in here.” He gathered up bits of moss and sticks fallen from the woodpile and tossed them into the fire. “Only, if you expect to get your killer, get him before we get the stage started. Shootin’ frets my horses.”
Bowdrie went to the fire to refill his cup, and felt their eyes upon him. Perhaps more than one man here had reason to fear a Ranger. Mentally he reviewed their faces, but none rang a responsive chord. His eyes avoided the fire, knowing the time it takes to adjust back to shadows after gazing into the flames. Time enough for a man to die.
He glanced at Roper. “Driftin’?”
“Sort of. I been punchin’ cows on the Nueces. Figured I’d head for Mobeetie.”
“Good place to stay shut of,” Baker commented. “That black-headed two-gun marshal is poison.”
“Not no more,” Colson replied. “Killed by a drunken gambler who pulled a sneak gun on him.”
Bowdrie glanced at him. “You boys on the stage lines get all the news.”
“West-bound driver told me. Carried one to the other, news travels fast.”
Stadelmann glanced at Roper. “If you’re through with that bunk, I’d like a try at it.”
“She’s all yours.” Roper moved closer to Bowdrie, studying him. Bowdrie was a man he had heard about.
Bowdrie was not eager to bring the matter to a head now, with the night before them. If he was correct and the killer would elect to shoot it out, this was no place for it. Some innocent person might be killed. Yet soon the light would be blown out and they would try to sleep, and the man with the money would be alone in the dark.
There were detached clues but they pointed in more than one direction, and somehow he must force the issue.
DeVant helped him, without realizing it. “Whoever he is, you’ve got him trapped. With both roads closed, there’s no way out.”
“There is, though.” Bowdrie was casual. “There’s a canyon runs north of here. Looks like a dead end when you ride into it, but she branches out right quick. It would take a rider with nerve and a good horse to make it. That canyon’s prob’ly runnin’ ten foot deep in water about now.”
“That’s not for me!” DeVant was emphatic. “I’ve seen those canyons after a cloudburst.”
Ed Colson tamped the tobacco in his pipe and lighted up again. Bowdrie could feel
Baker watching him but Big Stadelmann was looking at the girl again.
Lew Judd replaced the mandolin in its case, then moved nearer to Nelly. If there was only some way out! Some means of getting away. He was afraid for Nelly, and for himself. He must have been the man the killer was following, yet how could he have known he was carrying money?
“Need wood,” Judd said suddenly. “I’ll go after it.”
He got up quickly and went out, and Bowdrie felt a twinge of impatience. Didn’t the man realize how obvious he was? He must be going outside to cache the money belt. Or was it something else? Why cache the money belt when he would have to recover it again in broad daylight?
Stadelmann got up quickly. “I’ll help him. He can’t handle enough for all night.”
Stadelmann lumbered toward the door and nobody looked at anybody else. As the door opened they all heard the rain and Colson walked over to the fire. Nobody spoke, but all were listening.
Nelly Craig’s face was pale as death, and Bowdrie got up, reaching for his slicker. He saw the fear in her eyes and knew she was afraid to be left alone. Bowdrie glanced over at Roper. “If the lady needs anything, see that she gets it, will you?”
Outside the night was black, but for an instant the opening door sent a shaft of light into the rain-streaked darkness. The door closed behind him and Bowdrie stood still.
Somewhere he heard a footstep splash in a pool. He listened and heard no sound but the rain. Where were Judd and Stadelmann?
He turned toward the stable. The stage horses were there as well as his own and the horses ridden by those who had not arrived on the stage. He grinned into the night as he realized what would happen if somebody tried to mount his roan. The horse merely tolerated Bowdrie, but it turned into a fiend if anyone else tried to mount it.
Rain slashed at his face. The stable loomed before him. There was no sound from within, nor could he hear a sound from elsewhere that would lead him to believe anyone was gathering wood. Straining his eyes into the darkness, he suddenly saw starkly revealed in a flash of lightning a huge, looming figure!
Bowdrie sidestepped quickly but his boot came down on something that skidded from under him, and he fell, catching a ringing blow on the skull as he went down. Lights seemed to burst in his brain and he rolled over in the wet, struggling to rise. Another blow stretched him flat and then he rolled over and rain poured over his face. He heard the splash of what sounded like a horse’s hoof, then silence.
He tried to rise and the move caused a rush of pain to his head and he blacked out. When he opened his eyes again he had the feeling minutes had passed. He struggled to his feet and stood swaying, his head throbbing with pain.
Who could have hit him? Only his hat and his slipping in the mud had saved him from a cracked skull. He fought back the pain in his head. He had stepped, slipped, and the man had hit him.
A big man . . . Stadelmann!
But he could not be certain. It might only have been somebody who looked large in the night, somebody with an enveloping raincoat.
He swung back the door and almost fell down the steps. They stared at him, amazed. Stadelmann, his big face stupid with surprise, DeVant, Baker, Judd . . .
“What happened?” Roper was on his feet. “You’re all blood!”
“I got slugged. Somebody slugged me with a chunk of wood.”
Nobody moved. Bowdrie’s eyes went to Stadelmann. “You were outside.”
“So was I.” Baker smiled contemptuously. “So were Judd and DeVant, but nobody was out for long.”
Nelly came to him with a hot damp cloth. “Here, let me fix your head.”
Bowdrie sat as she bathed away the blood, trying to force his thoughts through the foggy jungle of his brain. Were they all working together? Who could he suspect? Peg Roper and Stadelmann had been in the dugout before the stage arrived. Had they planned a holdup? What of Baker? Where had he been? He had apparently come up after the stage arrived, but Bowdrie had seen no tracks on the road he had followed as far as the landslide. No rider had come over the mountain ahead of him.
He was a blockhead! Somewhere here a killer was lurking, ready to kill again. It was very likely that killer who had made an attempt on him a few minutes past, and had he not been fortunate enough to slip in the mud he would be lying out there now, dead as a man could be.
How could he be sure several of these men were not wanted? Or that they were not a gang, working in concert?
Peg Roper acted strangely when he awakened, and Baker had taken pains to let Roper know there was a Ranger present. Had he been afraid Roper would make a break and give them away?
Bowdrie was angry. He did not like being slugged; he liked still less being made a fool. He wanted a trail he could follow, not this feeling around in the dark for an enemy he could not even see. He almost hoped it was Baker, for he had come to dislike the man.
“You know,” Judd said, “I thought I heard a horse when I was outside.”
Bowdrie’s head came up so sharply he winced with pain. “You did,” he said. “I heard it too.”
“Must be a horse missing, then.” DeVant was cool. “What’s the matter, Ranger? I thought you fellows had all the answers.”
Bowdrie got to his feet again and put on his hat. His head had swelled and the hat fit poorly.
“Want some protection, Ranger?” Baker taunted.
Bowdrie turned at the steps. His black eyes were cold. “Stay here! All of you! I want nobody outside, and if I see anybody, I’ll shoot!”
He went out into the night, and it seemed even darker than before. Crossing to the stable, he struck a match and held it high.
The horses turned their heads and rolled their eyes at him. He counted them, struck a fresh match, and counted again. All were here.
Savagely he threw the match to the floor and rubbed it into the ground with his toe, stepping away quickly so as not to be standing where he had been when he held the match.
He had distinctly heard a horse, but no horses were missing, hence there must be some other rider around. Someone who was not inside the dugout.
He considered that. The shelter they had found was half a sod shanty, half a dugout in the side of a low hill. So far as he could see, there was no place to get in or out but the door. On the other hand, he had not examined the back of the room where Colson had found the coffeepot.
He had heard a horse, but Judd had not been robbed. If the killer was the kind of man Bowdrie believed, he would not leave without robbing Judd.
Bowdrie went back to the dugout. “No horses missing,” he said.
“I heard a horse too,” Stadelmann said.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Ranger?” Baker smirked.
“Where’s Colson?” he asked suddenly.
For the space of three breaths no one replied. Baker looked quickly around, frowning. DeVant got up uneasily. Nelly broke the silence. “Why . . . why, he’s gone!”
“When did he go?” Judd asked. “I don’t recall when I last saw him.”
DeVant looked at Bowdrie. “Colson is a big man, Ranger, but why would he slug you?”
“Don’t be foolish!” Baker interrupted angrily. “Why would he want to do that?”
Chick Bowdrie was very still, thinking. “Did any of you talk to him at the last station?”
They looked at each other, then shook their heads. Nobody had. Were there any stops between here and there? No stops.
Colson? Why had he not thought of him? Because he was, or seemed to be, the stage driver. “If it was him,” he muttered, “he had this better planned than I thought.”
Baker smiled. “If it was him, Ranger, how did he get out of this dugout without being seen? And where did the horse come from?”
“He didn’t go up the steps,” Roper said. “I was settin’ there all the time.”
The coffeepot! Bowdrie stepped around Judd and went into the dark area behind the sideboard. There was a pool of water on the earthen floor from a leak in the roof. He held the
lantern high. There was also a wrecked bunk and some old debris. Away from the firelight, the muddy space was damp and cheerless. He looked around; then suddenly they heard an irritated, half-uttered “Damn!” The light of the lantern disappeared.
He called back, “There’s another room back here. It was where he kept his horse!”
They crowded to look. Beyond the dank, dark space there was a door, not to be seen from the front of the dugout, and the small room beyond it was tight-roofed and dry. There was hay on the floor and a crude manger. Beyond was a door that led outside.
DeVant peered through the peephole in the door. “He must have stood here and watched us at the woodpile. He could see us by lightning flashes, so he knew when to leave.”
Judd shoved them aside and plunged past, opening the door to the outside, charging through the dwindling rain to the far side of the woodpile. “It’s gone! My money’s gone!” he wailed.
White and stricken, he stood over a hole in the woodpile where sticks had been hastily thrown aside. “You hid it here?” Bowdrie asked.
“And he must’ve stood by that peephole watching me hide it.” He stared at Bowdrie. “It was all I had. All! And all she had, too!”
Ed Colson, then, had been here before. Instead of being spur-of-the-moment, this robbery had been part of a carefully conceived plan. Colson had robbed the prospector by taking advantage of an unexpected opportunity, but his appearance as a stage driver was deliberately planned. He must have lurked beside the trail, boarded the stage at some steep grade where it moved slowly, climbed over the back, then knifed or slugged the driver. He must then have taken the reins, gambling that in the darkness no one would know the difference.
The breakdown was undoubtedly deliberate, but the blocked trails and the arrival of Bowdrie had been no part of his plan.
Peg Roper threw wood on the fire and stepped back, watching the flames take hold. DeVant dropped back into his chair and gathered the cards into a stack. Baker smiled, looking around at Bowdrie. “Well, Ranger, now what happens?”
Chick Bowdrie studied a spot on the back of his hand with perplexed eyes. It was a round, red spot slightly fringed on the edges. It was blood. He ignored Baker and shifted his glance to Roper. “You were the first one here?”
Collection 1983 - Bowdrie (v5.0) Page 17
