After that, I'll buy you another drink."
They had their drink. "A quiet town," Bowdrie suggested. "A good place to sleep."
"You should have seen it last night. See that gent with the split lip? He got himself into an argument with a big stranger. He had two partners to help, but this stranger, he whipped all three." "Is he still around?"
"Seemed like he was in a hurry when he came into town, but that was before he saw Lucy Taylor."
"What was the argument about?"
"Whether Tuscaloosa was in Alabama or Arkansas." The drunk looked regretfully at his empty glass, but Bowdrie was starting for the door. He was tired of fixing his own grub and he was a lousy cook, anyway. The drunk followed him, talking. "This here stranger said it was in Arkansas. One word led to another, and they started to slug it out. Mister, that stranger was hell on a bicycle! He whipped the three of them."
"Who is this Lucy Taylor you mentioned?"
"Purtiest gal in these parts. Or any parts, for that matter. Lives yonder by the creek where you see all those cherry blossoms. That big stranger, he seen her an' fell like a ton of bricks, and, mister, if that gent can court like he can fight, he's top man around here now, although Lucy is mighty hard to get."
"Who did he fight with? Local men?"
"You know, I been thinking about that. All three of those gents were courting Lucy.
He simply wiped out all the competition at one stroke."
Chick smiled. "Want to know something? That man who did the fighting was born in Alabama. In Tuscaloosa."
"But he claimed it was Arkansas!"
"Know any better way of startin' a fight than by insistin' a man is dead wrong when he knows he's right?"
"He started that fight a-purpose?"
"They were courtin' this Lucy you speak of. He fell for Lucy. If they get beat up, they can't go callin' for days. So how does that brand read?"
Among the cherry trees was a house built of native stone, vine-clad and lovely. Nearby was a stream shaded by willows and cottonwoods, and one big cottonwood loomed over the back porch of the house and the yard before it. A girl in a clean, starched gingham dress was hanging clothes on the line. Her hair was strawberry blond, over a very cute nose a few freckles were scattered, and when she stood on tiptoe to pin clothes on the line, Bowdrie noticed she had very pretty legs. Removing his hat after a careful glance around, he said, "Good mornin', ma'am." She turned quickly, with t]aree clothespins in her mouth. He laughed and she hastily removed the clothespins. Then she laughed too. She was pretty!
"You surprised me. Are you looking for Dad?"
"Who would look for your father when you're here?"
"Wait until I get these things hung out to dry and I'll get you some coffee. Are you the one who is looking for Charlie Venk?"
Surprised, he said, "Why, yes. Were you expectin' somebody?" "He told me you'd be along. Said to treat you real nice. He said you'd had a long, hard ride and were probably all worn out. He said age was catching up with you, and long rides were hard on you.
"I'm no older than he is," Bowdrie protested. "Is he still around?"
She hung the last garment. "Come inside. The coffee should be ready by now." She led the way, speaking over her shoulder.
"You're here two days earlier than Charlie expected."
"Known him long?"
"Only one day. It seems like I've known him forever." She blushed a little. "He's very handsome." She filled the cup. "And he's not like the boys around here."
"No, I reckon he ain't," Bowdrie said dryly.
"He said you were probably a Texas Ranger."
"I reckon he was right, ma'am." Bowdrie glanced at the rows of books on the shelves behind her. Many of the titles were foreign, some French, some German. "You folks keep a lot of books. I never had a chance to get much schoolin'."
"My father taught me. He was a college man. He is a lawyer."
They talked idly and drank coffee. Finally she went to the sideboard and cut a piece of pie for him. He ate it with appreciation.
"You sure can cook, bake, or whatever," he said. "No wonder Charlie was taken with you. Although," he added, "I don't think it was just the cookin'." He paused. "A right curious kind of man, that Charlie Venk."
"I think he's a fine man!" she insisted indignantly. "He said you began chasing him because of a horse he borrowed. Why didn't you give him time to explain?"
Bowdrie looked as meek as he could and said nothing.
"I think it's a shame! You turn a nice young man like that into a criminal! And over nothing!"
Chick Bowdrie looked regretfully into his empty cup. "Trouble was," he replied mildly, "there was a man settin' on that horse he wanted to borrow."
"On it?" She was puzzled.
"Yes, ma'am. Charlie was in a sort of hurry to leave because of some other problems he had, and he needed a horse right bad and this gent objected."
"Well?"
"Charlie shot him out of the saddle."
"I don't believe it!"
"No, ma'am. I don't reckon you do. If a man is young and nice-lookin' and is somebody you know, you just don't believe those things about him, but the State of Texas believes it, ma'am, an' that's why I'm here."
He got up from the table just as a tall older man came into the room. He nodded at Bowdrie.
"Good evening, sir."
The older man turned to Lucy and spoke quickly in French. She glanced at Bowdrie, who was staring at the books on the shelf. He took one down that was printed in English.
It was a copy of Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men.
The girl's father noticed it.
"You must have a gift for choosing the best. Are you familiar with this book?"
"Carried it in my saddlebags for two years. Gent gave me a copy when I was fourteen.
Took me a while to read it." He glanced at the older man. "I never got much schoolin'.
Learned to read some, an' cipher. But Plutarch, I grew up with that book. Used to set by the campfire an' study over it, tryin' to make out what was meant. I finally got around to it."
He glanced from the man to Lucy. "This time it just sort of fell open to the part about Alcibiades. Now, there was a nice-seeming young fellow who came from a good family, had good education, :just about everything.
But he turned out to be a traitor and worse.
"Just goes to show you. A man may be good in some respects, no good in others."
Lucy Taylor flashed her eyes at him, then glanced away. Chick Bowdrie picked up his hat and turned to go. "Reckon I better be gettin' on. I don't want Charlie to get too much lead on me."
"What?" Lucy turned swiftly. "What do you mean?"
. Bowdrie's slow smile gathelred around the corners of his eyes and then he spoke in French. "I heard what your father said, and your reply, so I know that Clarlie saw me and has gone. I know he was hidden not far away when I arrived. And you knew it."
"'You speak French! You told me you had not been to school!" "Ma'am, I grew up down Castroville way, around there an' D'Hanis. Now, when I was a youngster most folks around there spoke both French and German. I learned to speak those languages as soon as I did English.
"You should take no more for granted from an officer of the law than from a horse thief. Both parties might conceal more than they tell."
Charlie Venk had ridden west, then north. Bowdrie knew a showdown was approaching and he was almost sorry. Trailing Venk had been a rare experience. In a time when many men lived by the gun, some of them were men of education and background. John Ringo and Elza Lay, for example, were men of considerable reputation. Charlie Venk was another, yet whatever else he was, he was a killer and a thief.
All that day and much of the next he followed Venk through a maze of tracks. He lost the trail, then found it again. It led across bare hillsides where Venk could proceed swiftly but Bowdrie, for fear of an ambush, must move slowly. He had to ride with extreme care for he was sure that Venk had made up his mind. He
was through running.
Venk knew every trick, and he tried them all. Then Bowdrie came on a wagon loaded with household goods. The driver and a woman sat on the wagon seat; a small child peered between their shoulders.
"Hi!" The driver drew up. "You're ridin' the wrong way! Apaches raidin'! Killed a couple of prospectors night before last and burned some folks out! Better head back t'other way!"
Bowdrie smiled. "Thanks. Have you seen a big man? Ridin' a sorrel horse? Nice-lookin' man, headed the same way I am?"
"Sure did! He he'ped me fix a busted wheel. Bought some ca'tridges from me. You a friend o' his'n?"
"You might put it that way."
"He said he had a friend foller'n him an' he aimed to take that friend right through the middle of Apache country. Said he'd take him right back to Texas if he had the nerve to foiler!"
Chick Bowdrie looked south and west. "I imagine he expected you'd tell me that. See you."
He continued north, but now he rode with greater caution, avoiding skylines and studying country before trusting himself to cross open places. Off to the northwest there was a thin column of smoke. It was not a signal. Something was burning.
Bowdrie turned the roan toward it.
Venk, Bowdrie reflected, was a strange combination. He had rustled cattle, stolen horses, robbed banks, and had killed several men, most of them in gun battles. As to the killing that started Bowdrie on his trail when he shot the man off the horse, all the evidence was not in. There might be more to it than the coldblooded killing it seemed to be.
He was shrewd and intelligent. He could be friendly, and he could be dangerous. He could smile right into your eyes and shoot you dead in your tracks. Whatever else he was, to ride into Apache country meant he had to be either a very brave man or a fool. Or both.
For Bowdrie to follow him was equally foolish. Yet Charlie thought he was playing his ace in taking the risk. Desperate the man might be, but he also knew something about Chick Bowdrie by now.
He could not shake Bowdrie from his trail. Venk had tried every ruse used in wild country. This would be his last attempt.
They were now in northern Arizona. It was the home country of the Mogollon and White Mountain Apache, a rough, broken country of mountains, cliffs, and canyons. Not many miles from here was a pine forest of considerable extent. Bowdrie would have to think and move carefully, for the Apaches were more to be feared than Venk.
Venk was no fool, and in saying he was returning to Texas, he might do just that.
He might also weave a trail through raiding Apache bands, then circle back to pay another visit to Lucy Taylor. Lingering in this country was a foolhardy matter, but better to linger than to act and blunder.
Ten miles ahead of Bowdrie was Charlie Venk. Always before he had been able to talk or laugh himself out of a situation or his skills had been great enoughto elude pursuit.
He now knew the identity of his pursuer, and the could not have missed knowing something about Bowdrie.
He could find no way of eluding his pursuer, and good with a gun as he was, he knew that in any gun battle many things might happen, and Bowdrie would not die easily.
He might kill Bowdrie, but he might also be killed. And Charlie Venk loved life.
He was fresh out of tricks. Several times he believed he had lost the Ranger, but always Bowdrie worked out the trail and kept coming. It was getting on Venk's nerves.
He no longer felt like laughing. Twice lately he had awakened in a cold sweat, and he found himself looking over his shoulder constantly. Once he even shot into a shadow.
He had not had a good night's sleep in weeks.
Now he was riding into Apache country. There was no mercy in Charlie Venk. He was a good fellow as long as it cost him nothing.
Could he have killed Bowdrie without danger to himself, he would have done it.
Nowhere in sight was there movement. Hot sun lay down the valley, but it was cool in the shade and the trail was visible for miles. Cicadas sang in the brush, and somewhere not far off a magpie fussed and worried over something. Charlie Venk needed rest, and this was as good a place as he was apt to find. He would just---
A brown arm slipped from behind and across his throat. Hands seized his arms and he was thrown to the ground. Other Apaches moved in, and he was a prisoner. His arms were bound, his guns taken away.
Blankly he stared into the cruel dark faces around him. He could talk, but his words would fall on unheeding ears. He could laugh, but they would not comprehend. His guns were gone, his muscles bound, his gift of tongue useless.
Charlie Venk stared into the sunlit afternoon realizing the heart-wrenching truth that he was through. He, the handsome, the strong, the ruthless, the untouchable.
He who had ridden wild and free was trapped.
He was too wise in the ways of his country not to know what awaited him. Fiendish torture, burning, shot full of arrows or staked to an anthill.
Chick Bowdrie found the spot where the capture took place, not two hours after Venk was taken. He found the stubs of three cigarettes, a confusion of track; mingled moccasins and boots. He found the trail that led away, several unshod horses and one shod. There was no blood on the ground. No stripped and mutilated body. Charlie Venk had been taken alive.
It was after nightfall when he found the Apache camp. His horse was tied in a thicket a half-mile away, and Bowdrie had changed to the moccasins he carried in his saddlebags.
He was among the rocks overlooking the Apache camp.
Below him a fire blazed and he could see Venk tied to a tree whose top had been lopped off. As Chick watched, an Apache leaped up and rushed at Venk, striking him with a burning stick. Another followed, then another. This was preliminary; the really rough stuff was still to come. There were at least twenty Apaches down there, some of them women and children.
Bowdrie inched forward, measuring the risk against the possibilities. Coolly he lifted his Winchester. His mouth was dry, his stomach hollow with fear. Within seconds he would be in an all-out fight with the deadliest fighters known to warfare.
His greatest asset aside from his marksmanship was surprise. What he must do must be done within less than a minute.
He fired three times as fast as he could lever the shots. The range was point-blank.
The first bullet was for a huge warrior who had jumped up and grabbed a stub of blazing wood and started for Venk. The bullet caught the Indian in mid-stride.
Bowdrie swung his rifle and another Apache dropped, a third staggered, then vanished into the darkness.
Instantly he was on his feet. If he was to free Venk, it must be done now! Once the panic inspired by the sudden attack was over, he would have no chance at all.
A move in the shadows warned him, and he fired. Venk was fighting desperately at the ropes that bound him. Behind the tree, Bowdrie could see the knot. He lifted the rifle and fired, heard the solid thunk of the bullet into the tree, and then, as he was cursing himself for his miss, he saw Venk spring away from the tree, fall, then roll into the shadows.
His bullet, aimed at the knot, had cut a strand of the rope! The Apaches had believed themselves attacked by a number of men but would recover swiftly, realizing it could not be so. Warned by the fact that nobody had rushed the camp, they would be returning.
Bowdrie worked his way to,where the horses were. He heard a sliding sound and a muffled gasp of pain.
"Venk?"
"Yeah." The whisper was so soft he scarcely heard it. "And I got my guns!"
A bullet smashed a tree near them, but neither wasted a shot in reply. They were thinking only of the horses now. The Apaches would think of them also. Suddenly Venk lifted his pistol and shot in the direction of the horses. Bowdrie swore, but the shot struck an Indian reaching for the rope that tied them. Startled by the firing, the horses broke free and charged in a body.
Bowdrie had an instant to slip his arm and shoulder through the sling on his rifle, and then the horses were on them.
Daybreak found them miles away. Bowdrie glanced over at the big, powerfully muscled man lying on the ground near the gray horse. That it had once been a cavalry horse was obvious by the "US" stamped on the hip.
Naked to the waist, Venk's body was covered by burns. There was one livid burn across his jaw.
Venk looked over at him. "If anybody had told me that could be done, I'd have said he was a liar!"
Venk had two guns belted on, and in his wild escape from camp he had grabbed up either his own or an Indian's rifle.
"That was a tough one," Bowdrie admitted.
"You Rangers always go that far to take a prisoner?"
"Of course," Bowdrie said cheerfully, "I could have saved Texas a trial and a hanging or a long term in prison by just letting them have you."
"I guess," Venk suggested, "we'd better call it quits until we get back among folks.
No use us fightin' out here."
Bowdrie shrugged. "What have we got to fight about? You're my prisoner."
"Determined cuss, aren't you?" He put a cigarette in his mouth. "Oh, well! Have it your own way!" He took a twig from the fire to light his smoke; then he said, holding the twig in his fingers, "I might as well go back with you. You saved my life. Anyway--" he grinned--"I'd like to stop by and see that Lucy gal! Say, wasn't she the---!"
He jumped and cried out as the twig burned down to his fingers, but as he jumped his hand dropped for his gun in a flashing draw!
The gun came up and Bowdrie shot him through the arm. Charlie Venk dropped his gun and sprang back, gripping his bloody arm. He stared unbelieving at Bowdrie.
"You beat me! You beat me!"
"I was all set for you, Charlie. I've used that trick myself." "Why didn't you kill me? You could have."
"You said you wanted to see Lucy again. Well, so do I. I'd hate to have to go back and tell her I buried you out here, Charlie.
"Now, you just unbuckle that belt and I'll fix up that arm before you bleed to death.
Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) Page 19
