Law Of the Desert Born (Ss) (1984)

by L'amour, Louis

  He stopped, mopping his face with a handkerchief. The canyon broke away before him, and he dropped into it, sliding and climbing to the bottom. When he reached the bottom, he started off toward the flat country at a swinging stride. A half hour later, his shirt dark with sweat, the canyon suddenly spread wide into the flat country. Dust hung in the air, and he slowed down, hearing voices.

  -Give ‘em a blow.” It was a man’s voice speaking. “Hear any more shootin’?”

  -Not me.” The second voice was thin and nasal. “Reckon it was any ears mistakin’ themselves.”

  -Let’s go, Eaton,” another voice said. It’s too hot here. I’m pinin’ for some o’ that good XY well water!” Gatlin pushed his way forward. Hold it, sheriff! You huntin’ me?”

  Sheriff Eaton was a tall, gray-haired man with a handlebar mustache and keen blue eyes. If you’re Gatlin, an’ from the looks of you, you must be, I sure am! How come you’re so all-fired anxious to get caught?”

  Gatlin explained swiftly. Lisa Cochrane’s back there, an’ they got her,” he finished. Sheriff, I’d be mighty pleased if you’d send a few men after her, or go yourself an’ let the rest of them go to Tucker with me.”

  Eaton studied him. What you want in Tucker?”

  -To bid that ranch in for Lisa Cochrane,” he’ said flatly. Sheriff, that girl saved my bacon back there, an’ I’m a grateful man! You get me to town to get that money in Lawyer Ashton’s hands, an’ I’ll go to jail!”

  Eaten rolled his chaw in his lean jaws. Dave Butler come over the Cut-Off with me, seen this ranch, then, an’ would have it no other way but that he come back here to settle. I reckon I know what he wanted.” He turned. Doc, you’ll git none of that XY water today! Take this man to Ashton, then put him in jail! An’ make her fast!”

  Doc was a lean, saturnine man with a lantern jaw and cold eyes. He glanced at Gatlin, then nodded. If you say so, sheriff. I sure was hopin’ for some o’ that good XY water, though. Come on, pardner.”

  They wheeled their horses and started for Tucker, Doc turning from the trail to cross the desert through a thick tangle of cedar and sagebrush. Mite quicker thisaway. Ain’t nobody ever rides it, an’ she’s some rough.

  It was high noon, and the sun was blazing. Doc led off, casting only an occasional glance back at Gatlin. Jim was puzzled, for the man made no show of guarding him. Was he deliberately offering him the chance to make a break? It looked it, but Jim wasn’t having any. His one idea was to get to Tucker, see Ashton, and get his money down. They rode on, pushing through the dancing heat waves, no breeze stirring the air, and the sun turning the bowl into a baking oven.

  Doc slowed the pace a little. “flosses won’t stand it. he commented, then glanced at Gatlin. “I reckon you’re honest. You had a chance for a break an’ didn’t take it.” He grinned wryly. “Not that you’d have got far. This here of rifle o’ mine sure shoots where I aim it at.”

  “I’ve nothin’ to run from,” Gatlin replied. “What I’ve said was true. My bein’ in Tucker was strictly accidental.” The next half mile they rode side by side, entering now into a devil’s playground of boulders and arroyos. Doc’s hand went out, and Jim drew up. Buzzards roosted in a tree not far off the trail, a half dozen of the great birds. “Somethid dead,” Doc said. “Let’s have a look. Two hundred yards farther and they drew up. What had been a dappled gray horse lay in a saucerlike depression among the cedars. Buzzards lifted from it, flapping their great wings. Doc’s eyes glinted, and he spat. “Jim Walker’s mare,” he said, “an’ his saddle.” They pushed on, circling the dead horse. Gatlin pointed. “Look,, he said, “he wasn’t killed. He was crawlin’ away.

  “Yeah”-Doc was grim—“but not far. Look at the blood he was losin’.”

  They got down from their horses, their faces grim. Both men knew what they’d find, and neither man was looking forward to the moment. Doc slid his rifle from the scabbard. Jim Walker was by way o’ bein’ a friend o’ mine, he said. I take his goin’ right hard.

  The trail was easy. Twice the wounded man had obviously lain still for a long time. They found torn cloth where he had ripped up his shirt to bandage a wound. They walked on until they saw the gray rocks and the foot of the low bluff. It was a cul-de-sac.

  -Wait a minute, Gatlin said. Look at this. He indicated the tracks of a man who had walked up the trail. He had stopped there, and there was blood on the sage, spattered blood. The faces of the men hardened, for the deeper impression of one foot, the way the step was taken, and the spattered blood told but one thing. The killer had walked up and kicked the wounded man.

  They had little farther to go. The wounded man had nerve, and nothing had stopped him. He was backed up under a clump of brush that grew from the side of the bluff, and he lay on his face. That was an indication to these men that Walker had been conscious for some time, that he had sought a place where the buzzards couldn’t get at him.

  Doc turned, and his gray white eyes were icy. “Step your boot beside that track, he said, his rifle partly lifted.

  Jim Gatlin stared back at the man and felt cold and empty inside. At that moment, familiar with danger as he was, he was glad he wasn’t the killer. He stepped over to the tracks and made a print beside them. His boot was almost an inch shorter and of a different type. figger so,” Doc said. But I aimed to make sure.

  -On the wall there,” Gatlin said. He scratched somethin’.

  Both men bent over. It was plain, scratched with an edge of whitish rock on the slate of a small slab, Cary done … and no more.

  Doc straightened. He can wait a few hours more. Let’s get to town.

  ***

  Tucker’s street was more crowded than usual when they rode up to Ashton’s office and swung down. Jim Gatlin pulled open the door and stepped in. The tall, gray-haired man behind the desk looked up. “You’re Ashton?” Gatlin demanded.

  At the answering nod, he opened his shirt and unbuckled his money belt. “There’s ten thousand there. Bid in the XY for Cochrane an’ Gatlin.”

  Ashton’s eyes sparkled with sudden satisfaction. “‘You’re her partner?” he asked. “You’re putting up the money? It’s a fine thing you’re doing, man.”

  “I’m a partner only in name. My gun backs the brand, that’s all. She may need a gun behind her for a little while, an’ I’ve got it.”

  He turned to Doc, but the man was gone. Briefly., Gatlin explained what they had found and added, “Wing Cary’s headed for town now.”

  “Headed for town?” Ashton’s head jerked around. “He’s here. Came in about twenty minutes ago!”

  Jim Gatlin spun on his heel and strode from the office. On the street, pulling his hat brim low against the glare, he stared left, then right. There were men on the street, but they were drifting inside now. There was no sign of the man called Doc or of Cary.

  Gatlin’s heels were sharp and hard on the boardwalk. He moved swiftly, his hands swinging alongside his guns. His hard brown face was cool, and his lips were tight. At the Barrelhouse, he paused, put up his left hand, and stepped in. All faces turned toward him, but none was that of Cary. “Seen Wing Cary?” he demanded. “He murdered Jim Walker.”

  Nobody replied, and then an oldish man turned his head and jerked it down the street. “He’s getting his hair cut, right next to the livery barn. Waitin’ for the auction to start up.”

  Gatlin stepped back through the door. A dark figure, hunched near the blacksmith shop, jerked back from sight. Jim hesitated, alert to danger, then quickly pushed on.

  The red and white barber pole marked the frame building. Jim opened the door and stepped in. A sleeping man snored with his mouth open, his back to the street wall. The bald barber looked up, swallowed, and stepped back.

  Wing Cary sat in the chair, his hair half-trimmed, the white cloth draped around him. The opening door and sudden silence made him look up. “You, is it?” he said. Ifs me. We found Jim Walker. He marked your name, Cary, as his killer.”

  Cary’s lips ti
ghtened, and suddenly a gun bellowed, and something slammed Jim Gatlin in the shoulder and spun him like a top, smashing him sidewise into the door. That first shot saved him from the second. Wing Cary had held a gun in his lap and fired through the white cloth. There was sneering triumph in his eyes, and as though time stood still, Jim Gatlin saw the smoldering of the black-rimmed circles of the holes in the cloth.

  He never remembered firing, but suddenly Cary’s body jerked sharply, and Jim felt the gun buck in his hand. He fired again then, and Wing’s face twisted and his gun exploded into the floor, narrowly missing his own foot.

  Wing started to get up, and Gatlin fired the third time, the shot nicking Wing’s ear and smashing a shaving cup, spattering lather. The barber was on his knees in one corner, holding a chair in front of him. The sleeping man had dived through the window, glass and all.

  Men came running, and Jim leaned back against the door. One of the men was Doc, and he saw Sheriff Eaton, and then Lisa tore them aside and ran to him. Oh, you’re hurt! You’ve been shot! You’ve … !”

  His feet gave away slowly, and he slid down the door to the floor. Wing Cary still sat in the barbershop, his hair half-clipped.

  Doc stepped in and glanced at him, then at the barber. “You can’t charge him for it, Tony. You never finished!”

  *

  Author’s Note:

  BODIE

  There was a time when a man with a few drinks under his belt who wished to impress people would proclaim himself a “Badman from Bodie!”

  Bodie, California, was a rich camp, and a tough one. On one day in 1880 they had three shootings and two stage holdups, and the town was just getting warmed up. Another man noted six shootings in one week and made no mention of various, knifings, cuttings, or other passages of arms.

  In approximately three years, from 1879 to 1881, miners took something over $30 million in gold from the mines of Bodie. Laundrymen were getting rich panning out the dirt they washed from miners’ clothing.

  It is reported that Rough-and-Tumble Jack, Bodie’s first badman, was explaining how tough he was when someone saw fit to challenge him. He and his antagonist went outside and opened fire on each other-at point-blank range. Rough-and-Tumble Jack staggered back into the saloon, but his opponent, with one arm broken, reloaded his gun by holding it between his knees and then went back into the saloon and finished the job. jack became one of the first to bed down in Bodie’s Boot Hill.

  Much of the town still remains, although a fire in 1932 swept away many of its buildings.

  *

  DESERT DEATH SONG

  When Jim Morton rode up to the fire, three unshaven men huddled there warming themselves and drinking hot coffee. Morton recognized Chuck Benson from the Slash Five. The other men were strangers.

  “Howdy, Chuck!” Morton said. “He still in there?” “Sure is!” Benson told him. “An’ it don’t look like he’s figurin’ on comin’ out.

  “I don’t reckon to blame him. Must be a hundred men scattered about.”

  “Nigher two hundred, but you know Nat Bodine. Shakin’ him out of these hils is going to be tougher’n shaking a possum out of a tree.”

  The man with the black beard stubble looked up sourly. “He wouldn’t last long if they’d let us go in after him! I’d sure roust him out of there fast enough!”

  Morton eyed the man with distaste. “You think so. That means you don’t know Bodine. Goin’ in after him is like sendin’ a houn’ dog down a hole after a badger. That man knows these hills, every crack an’ crevice. He can hide places an Apache would pass up.”

  The black-bearded man stared sullenly. He had thick lips and small, heavy-lidded eyes. “Sounds like maybe you’re a friend of his’n. Maybe when we get him, you should hang alongside of him.”

  Somehow the long rifle over Morton’s saddlebows shifted to stare warningly at the man, although Morton made no perceptible movement. “That ain’t a handy way to talk, stranger,” Morton said casually. “Ever’body in these hills knows Nat, an’ most of us been right friendly with him one time or another. I ain’t takin’ up with him, but I reckon there’s worse men in this posse than he is.

  “Meanin?” The big man’s hand lay on his thigh. “Meanin’ anything you like.” Morton was a Tennessee mountain man before he came west, and gun talk was not strange to him. “You call it your ownself.” The long rifle was pointed between the big man’s eyes, and Morton was building a cigarette with his hands only inches away from the trigger.

  -Forget it!” Benson interrupted. “What you two got to fight about? Blacide, this here’s Jim Morton. He’s lion hunter for the Lazy S.”

  Blackie’s mind underwent a rapid readjustment. This tall, lazy stranger wasn’t the soft-headed drink of water he had thought him, for everybody knew about Morton. A dead shot with rifle and pistol, he was known to favor the former, even in fairly close combat. He had been known to go up trees after mountain lions, and once, when three hardcase rustlers had tried to steal his horses, the three had ended up in Boot Hill.

  “How about it, Jim?” Chuck asked. “You know Nat. Where’d you think he’d be?”

  Morton squinted and drew on his cigarette. “Ain’t no figurin’ him. I know him, an’ I’ve hunted along of him. He’s almighty knowin’ when it comes to wild country. Moves like a cat an’ got eyes like a turkey buzzard.” He glanced at Chuck. “What’s he done? I heard some talk down to the Slash Five, but . Nobody seemed to have it clear.

  “Stage robbed yestiddy. Pete Daley of the Diamond D was ridin’ it, an’ he swore the robber was Nat. When they went to arrest him, Nat shot the sheriff.”

  “Kill him?”

  “No. But he’s had off, an’ like to die. Nat only fired once, an’ the bullet took Larrabee too high.”

  “Don’t sound reasonable,” Morton said slowly. “Nat ain’t one to miss somethin’ he aims to kill. You say Pete Daley was there?”

  “Yeah. He’s the on’y one saw it.”

  “How about this robber? Was he masked?”

  “Uh huh, an’ packin’ a Winchester .44 an’ two tied-down guns. Big black-haired man, the driver said. He didn’t know Bodine, but Pete identified him.”

  Morton eyed Benson. “I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, and Chuck flushed.

  Each knew what the other was thinking. Pete Daly had never liked Bodine. Nat married the girl Pete wanted, even though it was generally figured Pete never had a look-in with her, anyway, but Daley had worn his hatred like a badge ever since. Mary Callahan had been a pretty girl, but a quiet one, and Daley had been sure he’d Win her.

  But Bodine had come down from the hills and changed all that. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, dark hair, and a quiet face. He was a good-looking man, even a handsome man, some said. Men liked him, and women too, but the men liked him best because he left their women alone. That was more than could be said for Daley, who lacked Bodine’s good looks but made up for it with money.

  Bodine had bought a place near town and drilled a good well. He seemed to have money, and that puzzled people, so hints began to get around that he had been rustling as well as robbing stages. There were those, like Jim Morton, who believed most of the stories were started by Daley, but no matter where they originated, they got around.

  Hanging Bodine for killing the sheriff-the fact that he was still alive was overlooked and considered merely a technical question, anyway-was the problem before the posse. It was a self-elected posse, inspired to some extent by Daley and given a semiofficial status by the presence of Burt Stoval, Larrabee’s jailer.

  Yet, to hang a man, he must first be caught, and Bodine had lost himself in that broken, rugged country known as Powder Basin. It was a region of some ten square miles backed against an even rougher and uglier patch of waterless desert, but the basin was bad enough itself. Fractured with gorges and humped with fir-clad hogbacks, it was a maze where the juniper region merged into the fir and spruce and where the canyons were liberally overgrown with manzanita. There
were at least two cliff dwellings in the area and a ghost mining town of some dozen ramshackle structures, tumbled in and wind worried.

  -All I can say,” Morton said finally,that I don’t envy those who corner him-when they do and*if they do.”

  Blackie wanted no issue with Morton, yet he was still sore. He looked up. What do you mean, if we do? We’ll get him!”

  Morton took his cigarette from his lips. Want a suggestion, friend? When he’s cornered, don’t you be the one to go in after him.”

  Four hours later, when the sun was moving toward noon, the net had been drawn tighter, and Nat Bodine lay on his stomach in the sparse grass on the crest of a hogback and studied the terrain below.

  There were many hiding places, but the last thing he wanted was to be cornered and forced to fight it out. Until the last moment, he wanted freedom of movement.

  Among the searchers were friends of his, men with whom he rode and hunted, men he had admired and liked. Now they believed him wrong; they believed him a killer, and they were hunting him down.

  They were searching the canyons with care, so he had chosen the last spot they would examine, a bald hill with only the foot-high grass for cover. His vantage point was excellent, and he had watched with appreciation the care with which they searched the canyon below him.

  Bodine scooped another handful of dust and rubbed it along his rifle barrel. He knew how far a glint of sunlight from a Winchester can be seen, and men in that posse were Indian fighters and hunters.

  No matter how he considered it, his chances were slim. He was a better woodsman than any of them, unless it was Jim Morton. Yet that was not enough. He was going to need food and water. Sooner or later, they would get the bright idea of watching the water holes, and after that… .

  It was almost twenty-four hours since he had eaten, and he would soon have to refill his canteen.

  Pete Daley was behind this, of course. Trust Pete not to tell_ the true story of what happened. Pete had accused him of the holdup right to his face when they had met him on the street. The accusation had been sudden, and Nat’s reply had been prompt. He’d called Daley a liar, and Daley moved a hand for his gun. The sheriff sprang to stop them and took Nat’s bullet. The people who rushed to the scene saw only the sheriff on the grotind, Daley with no gun drawn and Nat gripping his six-shooter. Yet it was not that of which he thought now. He thought of Mary.