"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 cachethe 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 g.
Nelly Craig's face was pale as death, and Bowdrie got up, g 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 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 fiat 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."
Ne!!y 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 ]udd had not been robbed. If the killer was the kind of man Bowdrie believed, he would not leave without robbing ]udd.
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?" ]udd 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 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 be?n here before. Instead of being spur-ofthe-moment, this robbcffy had been part of a carefully conceived plan. Colson had rob)ed 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?"
"Yeah. The place was cold an' empty. I knew nothing about no back room. I just broke up some kindling an' got a fire goin'. Once she was burnin' pretty good, I put some chunks on the fire an' laid down. I was played out."
"You were next, Stadelmann?"
"Uh-huh. Roper there, he was asleep or pretendin' to be when I come in. I put more wood on the fire an' set down at the table. About that time other folks started arrivin'."
Bowdrie picked up his cup and Nelly filled it from the pot. He sat down in an empty chair with his back to the wall. Right from the start this had been a tough one.
He had been searching fora man he had never seen and of whom he had no description.
He had found himself among a group of people, any one of whom might be guilty. Now the least likely of them all seemed to be the man he must find. And that man was gone. Or was he?
"Roper? The way I understand it, you an' Miss Craig were in here all the time?"
"Uh-huh, only Baker never did go clear out. Just his head an' shoulders."
DeVant's yellow eyes followed Bowdrie with that same malicious gleam as his fingers riffled the pasteboards.
Nelly and Roper were near the fire. Judd, his face drawn and bitter with the loss of his life savings, stood nearby. Baker and Stadelmann were at the table with DeVant.
Finishing his coffee, Bowdrie took off his wet slicker and hung it on a nail. Then he dried his hands with infinite care, his dark Apache features inscrutable as he carefully thought out every move. What he would now attempt to do was fraught with danger.
He turned suddenly. "Stadelmann! Baker! Get up, will you, please?'"
Puzzled, they got to their feet. Baker was on the verge of a sarcastic comment when Bowdrie said, "Now, if you will go into the back room and take the body of Ed Colson down from the rafters."
"'What?" Stadelmann exclaimed.
Judd was staring, jaw hanging.
"Don't bring the body in here, just take it down."
DeVant was watching him, alert and curious. Lew Judd passed a shaking hand over his chin. "You . . . you mean he's aeaa.
"Murdered and robbed after he had robbed you, Judd, by the only man who could have done it." "What? What do you mean. Baker demanded. "Why, DeVant did it," Bowdrie said, and the two guns thundered at once. Bowdrie stood still, his .44 Colt balanced easy in his hand, while DeVant sat perfectly still, a round hole over his right eye.
Slowly he started to rise, then toppled across the table. Nelly Craig screamed. White-faced, Baker stared from one to the other, unable to grasp what had happened. Bowdrie stepped over to the dead man, and unfastening his shirt, removed Lew Judd's money belt and passed it to him. Judd grasped it eagerly. "Thank God!" His voice trembled. "I slaved half my life for that!" Peg Roper stared at Bowdrie, and exclaimed, "Did you see him throw that gun? DeVant had his in his lap with his hand on it, an' Bowdrie beat him!" "How could you know?" Baker asked. "How could you possibly know?" Bowdrie fed a cartridge into his pistol and holstered it. "I should have known from the beginning.
Ed Colson killed that prospector, and he probably killed the stage driver. "Somehow, DeVant got wise. Maybe he actually heard or saw something back there on the grade.
Maybe he was following Judd himself.
"Judd an' Stadelmann went afar wood and I followed them. Colson had been to the back of the dugout before, and he went there again. He slipped out, tried to kill me, and robbed Judd's cache almost as soon as Judd hid it. He thought he pulled it off, but DeVant had seen him go.
"Probably DeVant knew who to watch. Naturally, Roper and Nelly were looking toward the dugout door where Baker had gone. DeVant was a quiet-moving man, anyway, who knew from card-cheating the value of doing things by misdirection. He got back there, knifed Colson when he came back with the money, and shoved the body across the rafters.
Then he just quietly came back into the room. I doubt if the whole operation took him more than two or three minutes.
"Remember, nobody knew there was another room then. All he would seem to have done was to get up and move around." "What about Colson's horse?"
"Turned it loose with a slap on the rump. DeVant had no reason to be suspected. He planned to ride out on the stage with the rest of you. It was cold, unadulterated gall, but he might have gotten away with it. Only when I was in that back room a drop of blood hit my hand.
"Figure it out. Who was missing? Only Colson. Where could that drop have come from except overhead? It had to be those low rafters. Who had the opportunity? DeVant.
"Baker said DeVant was outside, but he wasn't. That indicated to me that DeVant was moving around. Probably Baker thought he had gone out because he was not in sight, but he wasn't paying that much attention."
"I wasn't," Baker said. "I was expecting gunfire out there." Nobody said anything for several minutes; then Lew Judd sat down and looked at his niece, smiling. "We're going to make it now, honey," he said.
Stadelmann crossed to the bunk and stretched out on the hard boards. He was soon asleep. Roper hunkered down near the fire.
"It is almost morning," Baker said. "Maybe the stage will get through."
"I hope so," Judd said sincerely.
Chick Bowdrie said nothing at all. He was sitting against the wall, almost asleep.
*
ESPANTOSA LAKE
Long ago it was believed that the lake and its shores were haunted, and over the years it became a place of legend, ghostly sightings, and mysterious disappearances.
On the Upper Presidio Road, which lead from Coahuila in Mexico to the Spanish settlements of Texas, it was in the beginning a favored stopping place. Trains carrying supplies to the missions stopped here, and outlaws lived in the brush country around it. Indians camped here, but rarely were their camps on the lake shore itself. They preferred to camp away from the water.
It has been said that a wagon train loaded with silver and gold camped beside the lake one night and in the morning was gone. Supposedly the ground beneath it sank suddenly, swallowing up all the wagons, stock, and people of the train. In any event, none of them were ever seen again.
The shores of Lake Espantosa were said to be the place where the lost colonists
of Dolores disappeared. An attempt was made by a party of English people to establish a colony. After much hardship and struggle they gave up the effort and were headed for the Gulf Coast and a ship home to England. They camped on the shores of Espantosa and vanished, wiped out, some say, by Comanches.
*
STRANGE PURSUIT
Years had brought no tolerance to Bryan Moseley. Sun, wind, and the dryness of a sandy sea had brought copper to his skin and drawn fine lines around his pale blue eyes. The far lands had touched him with their silence, and the ways of men as well as the ways he had chosen brought lines of cruelty to his mouth and had sunk thoughts of cruelty deep into the convolutions of his brain, so deeply they shone in the fiat light of his eyes.
"No, I don't know where he is. If I did know, I wouldn't tell you. Don't tell me I'm going to hang. I heard the judge when he said it. Don't tell me it'll relieve my soul because whatever burdens my soul, I could care less, it will carry to the end. I lived my life and I'm no welsher.'
Chick Bowdrie sat astride the chair, his arms resting on the back, his black hat on the back of his head. He found himself liking this mean old man who would cheerfully shoot him down if he had a chance to escape.
"Your soul is your problem, but Charlie Venk is mine. I've got to find him." , "You won't find him settin' where you are.' "Known him long?"
"You Rangers know everything, so you should know that, too."
The old outlaw's eyes flared. "Not that I've any use for him. He never trusted me an' I never trusted him. I will say this. He is good with a gun. He is as good as any of them. He was even better'n me. If he hadn't been I'd have killed him."
"Or was it because you needed him? You were gettin' old, Mose."
The old man chuckled without humor. "Sure, I could use him, all right. Trouble was, he used me."
"How was that?" Bowdrie took out a sack of tobacco and papers and tossed them to the prisoner. "I figured you for the smartest of them all."
"Just what I figured." Mose took up the tobacco and began to build a smoke. "Don't think you're gettin' around me, I just feel like talkin'. Maybe it is time they hung me. I am gettin' old."
Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) Page 17
