Novel 1968 - Chancy (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  The marshal turned away. “If I see them, I’ll let them know you’re in town.” And he walked away down the street.

  The jail had a cubbyhole of an outer room, with a desk and a chair, and a saddle thrown into one corner. There were two cells, each with four bunks, and Corky Burdette was seated on a bunk in one of the cells, riffling a deck of worn cards.

  He was a square-jawed man, and I found that he had a blunt, whimsical way about him. He glanced up at me. “The marshal is out,” he said. “If you want to leave a message, just whistle it and I’ll try to remember the tune.”

  “I met him up the street. He said you were a good hand with stock, as well as a peaceful, contented man.”

  “I’ll bet he did. What else did he say?”

  “That you were to go to work for me.” I held up the key. “He also gave me this.”

  “Work for you? The hell I will! When I get out of here I’m going to look up a guy I know, and—”

  “Why waste your time fighting around here? Come with me and you can do something besides beating up sod-busters.”

  “What if I don’t work for you?”

  I shrugged. “In that case I throw the key away. The nearest locksmith is in Denver, and it would take a few weeks to get word down there, get that locksmith sobered up, and talk him into making a new key. Then it would have to be brought back here from Denver. Of course, Indians might lay for the man bringing the key, and it might get lost. In which case they’d have to go back down to Denver, find the locksmith, sober him up—”

  “All right, all right! I can read sign as well as you, mister. Where’s your outfit?”

  “Up in the Hole-in-the-Wall country.”

  “What? Are you off your rocker? A man could get himself killed up there.”

  “You scared?” I said. “Are you a fighter, or just a Saturday night drunk?”

  He came off the bunk. “Open that door and I’ll show you!”

  “You?” I sneered at him. “Why, I’d pin back your ears, grease your hair, and swallow you whole. If you ever take a punch at me I’ll bounce you so high they’d have to shoot you to keep you from starving to death.”

  He chuckled suddenly. “Open the door, boss, you’ve hired yourself a boy.”

  Once outside the cell, he took his gun belt and rifle from a hook behind the door, and shouldered the saddle.

  “Let’s go eat,” I said, “and I’ll lay it out for you. Then if you want to call it off, you can.”

  We were sitting over coffee when the marshal came in. “Chancy, I found your man.”

  “Tarlton?”

  “He’s over at the Doc’s office, and he’s in pretty bad shape. A rider brought him in just before daybreak. He’d been shot a couple of times, and he’d dragged himself a good ways. You’d better get on over there.”

  We got up and I dropped money on the table to pay for our meal, then as the marshal reached the door, I asked, “Who was the man who brought him in? Do you know him?”

  “He didn’t give his name. He was a man with a tied-down gun…sounded like Handy Corbin.”

  We followed the marshal out the door and he pointed to indicate the Doc’s office. Nothing in this town was very far away. If you walked a hundred yards in any direction you’d be out on the prairie.

  Corky Burdette walked along beside me. “This Corbin…do you know him?”

  “He works for me.”

  “Then you’ve got a good man,” Corky said, “a mighty good man. We worked for the same outfit back in the Nation, and again down Texas way.”

  I found Tarlton drawn and pale. A stubble of reddish beard covered his cheeks, although I’d thought of him as a dark-haired man. He was asleep when we came in.

  “How bad is he, Doc?” I asked.

  “He’s got a fighting chance. The wounds wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d been cared for. But they’ve become infected, and he’s lost a lot of blood, as well as suffered from exposure and physical exhaustion.”

  We left and rode out to the herd. The cattle were grazing on good grass, and seemed content. Cotton came to meet us with a rifle across his saddle.

  “Keep your eyes open,” I warned. “Kelsey might show up any time.” Then I asked Cotton, “Did Handy ever say anything to you about being kin to LaSalle Prince?”

  “Now, that don’t make sense. We talked about Prince, but he never said anything about even knowing him. Seemed to me he didn’t set much store by him…I sort of figured he’d just heard of him, like I have.”

  Corky took first guard, and I rolled up in my blankets. I’d been on my feet or in the saddle for about twenty hours, and I was dead tired. I told him to call me for the next turn.

  When he came in and shook me awake, I could see by the stars that he had let me sleep over my time by a good hour or more. “I was goin’ to let you sleep right on through,” he admitted, “only I just got too durned sleepy.”

  He stood by while I tugged on my boots and had my coffee, and all the while kept listening toward the cattle. “There’s something out there,” he said in a minute, and he gestured toward the brush along the creek. “I figure it’s a varmint of some kind. The critters can smell it, and they’re spooky.”

  When I was in the saddle, he added, “You watch that ol’ blaze-face mossy-horn on the far side. He’s got it in his head to run.”

  “I know him,” I said. “He’s a trouble-maker. Next time the Indians come around hunting beef they’re going to get him.”

  Now, a body never knows when he starts out to do something just what will come of it, else maybe nothing would ever get done. That night I was riding a hammer-headed roan that had belonged to the Gates outfit, and I headed for the herd and started to sing to ’em.

  So far as I know there’s some Welsh as well as Irish blood in me, but when they were handing out the good voices they surely didn’t allow me to take after most Welshmen. I couldn’t carry a tune in a hand-basket. Maybe that’s one reason I like cows—they’re got no ear for music.

  So I started out singing “Peter Grey,” “Skip to My Lou,” and “Buffalo Gals.” I made it around the herd a few times, singing soft and low, keeping an eye on that mossy-horn with the cross-grained notions in his head.

  By the time I had ridden three times around the herd I knew Corky Burdette had been right. That old mossy-horn was going to make trouble, and not for the first time. He had always been a bunch-quitter, for he had been one of the original Gates herd, stolen by the Kelsey outfit, and I knew him well.

  Whatever had been out there in the brush was gone now, and the rest of the cattle were settling down, but not that blaze-faced steer. He was prodding around, just hunting something to be scared of, so’s he could take off and run, stampeding the lot of them.

  There’s times when any little noise will startle a herd into running, but those cattle knew me and they knew my horse, and I had an idea they wouldn’t be too upset if there was a little fussing around where I was. So I decided to side-line the mossy-horn before he could get the herd to spill over into a stampede.

  Actually, I wasn’t about to side-line him, but I figured to tie his head down to his foreleg to persuade him he didn’t want to run. My intentions were good, and the steer would suffer no harm from having his neck canted over a bit; but a body can’t always have things the way he figures, and I was doing my figuring without remembering the horse I was on.

  When I skirted the herd again, I dabbed a loop on that old steer and busted him, but just as I hit the ground to make my tie, that cantankerous, rattle-brained pony I’d been riding slacked up on the rope and the steer came for me, head down.

  Now, a steer can bust a man considerable, so as he charged I grabbed for my gun and came up with it, but a mite too slow. Luckily, using the crossdraw I’d turned my left hip toward my right hand, and the steer hit me only a glancing blow. I went right over his horns and into the dirt, and my six-gun went a-flying.

  My mouth and eyes scraped dirt and I rolled over, frantic to
get away from the steer, and came up to my knees just in time to see him start back at me. Only this time that darned fool pony, scared now, started toward him and busted the mossy-horn right over on his back.

  Coughing and spitting, fighting the dirt from my eyes, I looked around for my gun. It was nowhere in sight. Dark as it was, I knew I’d play hob trying to find it until daybreak, so I edged around toward camp.

  The rest of the herd didn’t seem much bothered. They were well-fed, freshly watered, and bedded down in a good spot, and only a few of them that were nearby even showed interest. Me, I limped for camp.

  Cotton was sitting up when I walked in. “What happened to you?” he asked.

  He chuckled when I explained. “Wait up. It’s time for me to take over, anyway, and I’ll saddle up and collect them.”

  We went back out together and he caught up my horse. The rope was still on the steer, which was backed off at the end of the rope, staring at us. I got into the saddle and Cotton eased around and put another rope on the steer, and we threw him and tied his head down. He would be of no mind to run now; and a few days of that would take some of the vinegar out of him. Back at camp again, I went to sleep.

  Corky was up and putting together some bacon and eggs when I opened my eyes. He grinned at me. “Hear you went around and around with that old mossy-horn,” he said. “Well, it happens to the best of us.”

  “It sure happened to me,” I said. “He really tossed me.”

  As I started to swing my gunbelt into place, I noticed the empty holster. “Lost my gun,” I said. “Keep an eye out for it, will you?”

  Not liking the feel of the empty holster, I dug into my pack and came up with the ivory-handled gun I’d taken off that would-be sheriff back in the Nation. It was a fine gun, one of the best I’d seen, with a great feel to it. I checked the load, then dropped it into my holster.

  “Carry a spare, do you?” Corky said.

  “Picked it up back in the Nation,” I answered. “It’ll do until I find my own. I feel naked without a gun.”

  Bacon and eggs was a rare treat for a cowhand, and about the only time we ever got anything of the kind was when we were close to town, as we were now to Cheyenne. They tasted almighty good and I could see that Corky was a hand with a skillet as well as with his fists.

  “You riding into town?” he asked presently.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Look,” he said, “the one thing I wanted in Cheyenne was some canned peaches or pears, or something like that. I get fed up with this grub. How about picking up a few cans for me?”

  “For us,” I said. “I like ’em, too.”

  And that’s just the way hell builds a trap for a man; for between that ornery, no-account steer and a few cans of peaches, I was riding right into trouble—more trouble than I’d ever had in my life.

  Mainly I was riding in to see how Tarlton was coming on. It was time to be heading back up to the Hole-in-the-Wall country, and I felt we couldn’t wait. The last thing I wanted was more trouble than I had, but the past has a way of catching up with a man, and right there in Cheyenne it was about to catch up to me.

  Chapter 11

  PUFFED-UP CLOUDS LIKE woolly sheep grazed on the pasture of the sky when I rode into Cheyenne. The wind skittered a few dry leaves ahead of me, and occasionally a gust whipped my horse’s tail against the heels of my boots or the saddle leather. I was riding proud, for it was that kind of a morning, and the air was fresh and cool off the mountains.

  Up on a balcony a man was washing a window of the hotel when I came up the street, riding abreast of my own dust. He glanced down at me, and I went on toward the Doc’s office and dismounted at the door.

  Doc was at his roll-top desk with a heavy white cup and saucer at his hand. The cup was filled with steaming coffee, and it smelled good to me after my ride. Open before him on the desk was an old ledger in which he was entering accounts, peering at them unhappily through gold-rimmed glasses. Glancing around, he recognized me and jerked a thumb toward the inner room. “He’s awake. Go on in.”

  It seemed to me that as he started to turn back to his ledger he did a sudden look-back at me, but, eager to see Tarlton, I went on inside.

  Bob was sitting up in bed, and he had been reading. Putting the book aside, he held out his hand. “I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, Chancy! You’re looking great.”

  “Can’t say the same of you, but you’re shaping up a sight better then when I last saw you.”

  “Have you seen Corbin? He brought me in.”

  “No, I haven’t seen him,” I said, “and we could surely use him. I’ve hired another hand—seems like a good man.”

  “We never had a chance, Otis. Those boys came on us right out of nowhere in what looked like open country. They stampeded our cattle, and killed two of my boys before we ever knew what hit us. We were scattered out, and there was no place to get down and make a stand. Their first fire wounded me, and when my horse went down I lost my sixshooter. I made a stand with my rifle—”

  “We found the place.”

  “They circled, too far out. I couldn’t get a good shot at them, so they just drove off the cattle and left me there. They knew I was wounded, had no horse, and was without water, and they probably decided I was as good as dead.”

  “We picked up your sign. You trailed them.”

  “They had our cattle. I trailed them as far as I could, and after I’d passed out, Handy Corbin found me and brought me in here.”

  We heard the outer door slam, and Tarlton made a sudden move to rise.

  “Damn it,” he said, “Doc was going to mail a letter on the noon stage for me. I wonder what got him started off like that?” He glanced at me. “I wanted to let my family know where I am. Have you got any family, Otis?”

  “No, I surely haven’t. Not close-up kin, leastways. I’m related to the Sacketts. There’s a passel of them out in this western country, but they don’t know me, nor I them.”

  We sat there talking, and it was pleasant. Outside a chilly wind was picking up, but in here it was cozy, and I liked Bob Tarlton. To a man who’d never had a real friend before, he seemed like one. He talked of his folks and his home in the East, it was a life I’d never known, nor was I likely to. It was all a far-off thing, remote from these dusty plains, and it seemed farther still from the mountain villages I’d known in Tennessee. It was a genteel life, lived among folks who wore white shirts and black suits, who rode in shining carriages and talked business over coffee and cigars. I’d seen a few pictures of folks like that in magazines, time to time, but I could never figure what they did for a living, if anything.

  Bob Tarlton knew that world, and he talked of college, and business, and shooting ducks for sport, of walking with girls in a park of a Sunday, listening to band concerts and the like. Me, I just sat there turning my hat in my hand, thinking that those stories were like some kind of magic, making me realize there was a world I wanted to understand, and someday to know, myself.

  Back in the hills in Tennessee we had no really rich folks, except for Martin Brimstead, and very few that could be called well-off, except maybe the Dunvegans before I’d wrecked their world. All I knew were horses, cattle, and guns, and I had some memories of knocking around here and there as a boy after I’d left the mountains. I’d seen some eastern towns, but only from the waterfront side, which is no way to judge any place.

  While I sat there with these thoughts in my mind, Tarlton finally got sleepy, so I excused myself and went down the street to get those cans of fruit Corky wanted. Despite the fact that it was chilly, a good many folks were out on the street, and most of them seemed to be just standing talking. When I came along they turned their heads to watch me, and I got a jumpy feeling, as if something was wrong—I wondered if maybe Caxton Kelsey was in town with his outfit.

  At the store, folks kind of stood aside for me. I went to the counter and ordered cans of peaches, plums, and pears. The store had the good smell of drygoods, l
eather, dried fruit, and such things. There was never any smell so good as the smell of a general store, unless maybe that of a blacksmith shop with the forge working.

  “Just put those cans in a gunny sack,” I said. “I’ve a couple of cowboys a-hungering for them.”

  “They’ll have to wait, then.” It was the marshal’s voice, and when I turned around he had a gun on me. “Lift your hands, Chancy,” he said. “I’m taking your gun.”

  A dozen men had crowded into the door, all of them staring, mean as could be.

  “What’s the trouble, Marshal?” I kept my voice low, not wanting to excite anybody.

  “Just unbuckle your belt, Chancy. I’d not like to kill a man in cold blood, no matter what kind of a coyote he is.”

  The storekeeper was behind me to my left. There was no room to try anything, even if I’d been of a mind to start a gun battle in a room crowded with innocent folk. Besides, this just had to be a mistake.

  “That’s strong talk, Marshal, and you holding a gun on me. What do you want me for? I’ve done nothing.”

  “How about back in the Nation?” The speaker was a big burly man with prominent blue eyes and a red face. “What kind of a chance did you give Burgess?”

  There was something I couldn’t figure out, something missing. “I don’t know any Burgess,” I said.

  “Then where did you get that gun? You’re wearing Burgess’ gun, and ever’body around here knows it.”

  It didn’t take any fortune-teller to tell me I was in trouble. Those folks were mad, and most of them had the look of being good men, too. Even the marshal, to whom I’d talked friendly, had no friendly look for me now. And here I stood, a lone man with nobody to stand beside me or to speak a word for me.

  “I took this gun off a man who tried to cut our herd back yonder. He was a no-account, posing as a sheriff.”

  The red-faced man pushed forward. “Burgess was a sheriff, and he was a damned good man! Marshal, how long you going to stand there talking? I say we take him out and hang him.”

  “Take it easy, Weber. Just keep your shirt on.” The marshal measured me coldly. “Where did all of this happen, Chancy? Where were you?”