“I’ll be all right. He was waiting for me, just inside the freight barn.”
“Who was it, Borden?”
“I wish I knew…But I’ve a clue. A small clue, but a clue.”
“What is it, Borden?”
“No…not now. I’d rather not say, and you’d think it too unimportant…And maybe it is.” He got up unsteadily. “I’m going to bed, Bess. All I need is rest.”
* * *
THE GRAY, SLIVERY wood of the boardwalks was hot to the touch. The dusty street was empty and still. It was just short of noon, and the town was quiet, waiting, listening.
Judge McKinney sat in the Bon-Ton over an early lunch. He was a big old man in a threadbare gray suit, the vest spotted from food spills at some bygone meal. Under his black hat his hair was gray and thick, his beard the same.
“Sorry to hear about Borden Chantry,” he said to Hyatt Johnson. “He’s a good man.”
“A good rancher…At least he was. But do you think he’s the man for this job, Judge? Why, he told me yesterday he planned to get a court order from you to examine the bank files. That’s unheard of!”
“Not quite, Hyatt. Not quite. It’s been done a time or two, and Borden’s not a man to go off on a tangent. If he wants to see your files he no doubt has good reason.”
“But I can’t let—”
Judge McKinney leveled his cool gray eyes at Johnson. “Hyatt, if I write a court order for Borden Chantry to see your files, he’ll see them.”
Hyatt Johnson hesitated. That was not what he wanted, not what he wanted at all. He had been so sure that a word to the judge…Well, he was the banker, and the judge was the authority. Weren’t they on the same side? He hesitated, waiting just a moment, then he said, “Judge, I’d never refuse a court order, of course. But the files have confidential information…I am sure you wouldn’t want everybody having access to your personal financial information, nor would I. I think—”
“Hyatt,” McKinney smiled, “I doubt if there’s anything in those files that Borden Chantry doesn’t know. As for my finances, I venture to say that Priscilla could give you a clearer statement on them than you could…or I, for that matter.
“In a town of this size there are no secrets, and I am sure that if Borden Chantry wants information, he should have it.”
“Perhaps.” Hyatt Johnson was irritated, and McKinney noticed it. “I sometimes think he’s getting too big a sense of self-importance. Why, he’s taking a simple shooting and building it all out of proportion! You’d think the President had been shot!”
“And why not?” McKinney sipped his coffee, then wiped his moustache. “Is not every man important in his own way? Which one of us is not important to someone? I daresay to his family that murdered man was more important than any president.
“Hyatt, self-importance can come to all of us. We have to view things in perspective. I sometimes think that what most bankers need is a few years of reading philosophy, or to get out of the bank and punch cows or trade horses or something.
“Borden Chantry, right at this moment and in this town, is the most important man in our lives.”
Hyatt stared. Was the judge losing his mind?
“I mean what I say, Hyatt. That young man is all that stands between us and savagery. He’s the thin line of protection, and when he walks out there on the street his life is on the line every minute he wears that badge.
“We are free to come and go, to make love, do business, buy groceries, play cards, have a drink now and again because he is there. He is our first line of defense…in many respects, the only line.
“The savage is never far from the surface in any of us, but because we know he is there we fight it down. I don’t lose my temper and strike somebody because he is there. The drifting cowboy with a chip on his shoulder avoids trouble, because he is there.
“We have freedom, you and I and Priscilla and Elsie and all of us, because Borden Chantry is out there with that badge. To tell you the truth, I think he is the man who should wear it, beyond all others.
“He would shoot…I happen to know that he has…but he has the cool judgment to know when it is not necessary. He has the quiet strength that makes people believe him. He doubts himself, and that is often good, but he does not doubt his ability to handle a situation. He’s roped too many wild steers, ridden too many broncs, handled too many tough men to do that.
“I trust him, Hyatt, and you had better do the same. Some people believe the law to be a restriction…It is a restriction only against evil. Laws are made to free people, not to bind them—if they are the proper laws. They tell each of us what he may do without transgressing on the equal liberty of any other man.”
“I never thought of it in just that way.”
“I notice, Hyatt, that you do not wear a gun. Why not?”
“Why, I never thought it necessary. After all, I am a banker…a businessman. I have no need for a gun.”
Judge McKinney smiled. “That’s right…Ordinarily you wouldn’t have any use for one, and that’s because Borden Chantry does have one and he is paid to use it for you.
“You can do business because he is protecting you. There was a time when no man was safe in this town unless armed, and that time may come again. In the meanwhile we have Borden Chantry. My advice to you, Hyatt, is cooperate.”
Judge McKinney brushed the crumbs from his vest. “Hyatt, if Borden wants a court order from me, he’ll get it. Why make it necessary?”
“Suppose I preferred not to accept your court order?”
McKinney smiled. “You’re too smart for that, Hyatt. Because if you refused a court order of mine, I’d have Borden throw you in jail along with Kim Baca. And, like him, you’d wait for the session of court.”
“You’d do that to me?”
“Why not to you? Or any man?” McKinney swallowed coffee and put his cup down. “If you want me to go to the trouble of preparing that court order, you do it, but if I were you I’d just find Borden Chantry and help him all you can. One of these days you may need him almighty bad.”
After Hyatt had gone, Ed came in from the kitchen. “Couldn’t help but overhear,” he commented.
“Nothing secret. A few items the good banker did not quite grasp. You got a couple more of them doughnuts, Ed? They taste mighty good, and Borden’s not here yet.”
* * *
BORDEN CHANTRY AWAKENED to a dull head-ache, and for a time he lay still, staring up at the flowered wallpaper. A little sunlight came in through the window, and the curtain stirred in the faint breeze.
After a moment he closed his eyes, vaguely listening to the sounds from the kitchen where Bess was at work. It was good to just lie still.
Yet lying still solved no crimes, and they were expecting him to be out on the street.
He sat up, very carefully, and swung his feet to the floor. His head swam a little, but waiting just a moment, he stood up. Hand on the foot of the bed, he stood still, trying to see how his body would react, yet as he stood there he saw some straw on the windowsill.
Straw, crushed together by a small bit of mud or manure.
On Bess’s windowsill? It was absurd. She was the most careful woman he had ever known about her house…Yet it was there. And the fact of its presence could only mean that somebody had come through that window since Bess had cleaned the room, even since she had last seen it.
She had gotten up in the dark this morning, not to disturb him, and would not have seen it in the dark last night. That meant that yesterday somebody had come through that window, somebody who had been in a corral or barn.
Yet in the daytime such a person would have been seen. And anyway, the house was open.
Which implied the entry had been made last night, and before he was put to bed in here.
There had been somebody in the barn last night, there had been two people, at least. Had one of them come from his own home?
That was impossible!
Yet, the straw was there. True, th
ere were twenty places, even fifty places from which it might have come.
Why through the window? For how else could it have gotten on the sill? Surely Bess…Bess would have come right in the door, no need for anything else. He had not been home, and Tom would undoubtedly have been asleep.
Billy McCoy?
Suppose Billy had been out? This window in this room would have been a good place to re-enter the house, for this room would be empty, that side of the house obscured. As the parlor, or front room as it was called, was only used when the preacher came calling or some such occasion, Billy would not have dreamed of using that door, and the kitchen door squeaked.
Billy, no doubt…But why? Why in the middle of the night and to the stable?
Slowly, carefully, so as not to jolt his head and start it aching more violently, Borden Chantry dressed, pulled on his boots and slung his gun belt around him. He checked the load of his gun as he always did, even when it had not been used in some time.
He walked into the kitchen, and through the window he could see Billy out there with Tom, throwing a loop at a post. Tame stuff for Billy, who had done some roping, but good practice for Tom, who was younger.
Bess turned quickly. “Borden! You shouldn’t be up! Doctor Terwilliger said—”
“I can imagine what he said. How’s about a cup of coffee?”
“Sit down…please!” She glanced at him, then poured the coffee. “You’ve no idea how pale you are. You mustn’t go out there, Borden, it’s turned hot.”
“Just a few odds and ends,” he said. “I’ll be all right.” She put the pot back on the stove. “Hear anything around last night, Bess?”
“Around here?” She turned her back to the stove. “No. Was there something?”
“Don’t mention it, but I thought Billy might have gone out.”
“Billy? Of course not! Well…I didn’t see him go out.”
They discussed it quietly, keeping their voices low. Did Billy know something he did not? He should ask him, but now was not the time. Sometime when he wasn’t playing with Tom and when they could be alone, man-to-man style.
“Oh!” Bess suddenly remembered. “Kim Baca wants to see you, and Hyatt Johnson asked for you to drop in when you could. He said to tell you he’d had a talk with the judge.”
Kim Baca…?
Chapter 8
* * *
BORDEN CHANTRY WALKED slowly out to the street, then turned left and was passing the restaurant when Lang rapped on the window. He went in.
Prissy was there, over a cup of tea with Elsie, and Borden sat down opposite Lang.
“You should be in bed,” Lang said. “I’m waiting for Blossom.”
“She coming in?”
“She’s in. She’s got a sick hand out to the place and wanted to talk to Doc about him.” Lang looked at him. “Man, you must’ve taken a rap. Who would ever think anybody’d be in an old barn?”
“I knew there was somebody there,” Chantry said, absently, “but I wasn’t expecting to get rapped on the skull.”
“You knew?”
“Sure. Trouble was there were two somebodys there, and I don’t think one of them knew the other was there.”
“I’d stay out of dark corners if I were you, Bord. Somebody is out to get you, that’s plain enough.”
He paused. “If you need help, Bord, I’d be glad to serve. So would some of the others. That way you could get some rest and the town would be protected, too.”
“I’ve got help.”
“You have? Who?”
“The killer himself. He’s scared. Something I’ve done, or something he thinks I am about to do has him running scared. He killed McCoy before he could talk to me. Johnny was sobering up. Now you know Johnny. He’s been hitting the bottle hard, so if he was sobering up there had to be a reason. He knew something, and he was going to tell me, but if I know Johnny, he wouldn’t trust himself to remember or not to get drunk again, so he’d have written it down.”
“Or told Billy.”
“No, he wouldn’t tell Billy. Kids talk too much, and then he wouldn’t want the boy in jeopardy. He would have left a record, somehow.
“You know Johnny and I worked together, and Johnny worked for me a time or two, also. A couple of times when he could feel the urge coming on, he got in touch with me or with somebody, or left written word so we’d be able to take care of the cattle.
“He might have had a weakness, but along with it he had a sense of responsibility…And Johnny knew how I feel about the law.”
“You’d better get to his house before the killer does, then.”
“I’ll get there. Don’t worry about that.” Chantry pushed back from the table. “I’ve got to get up the street. I’ve got to see Hyatt.”
Prissy stopped him at the door, and said, very softly, “Borden, old Mrs. Riggin was asking me to have you stop by. She’s mighty poorly these days, and you know she and George always had a warm feeling for you.”
He felt a sharp sense of guilt. “I know…and I haven’t been by to see her. I’ll do that…today.”
“Now, Borden. Do it now. She’s quite worried about you, and she was insistent that you come by.”
“Well,” he hesitated, irritated by the necessity. He had to see Hyatt. If the banker had sent for him it almost certainly meant that he was willing to tell what he knew. Moreover, he did not feel like walking and was not up to saddling a horse. “All right, I’ll go.”
As he walked outside, Time Reardon was standing on the walk in front of his Corral Saloon. He took the cigar from his mouth and watched Chantry up the street, and Borden was aware of his gaze. There was no sign of Kern or Hurley, but without doubt they were close by.
Big Injun was sitting in front of the jail, and that reminded Borden of Kim Baca, who also wished to see him. Yet there was only so much a man could do. Reluctantly, he crossed the street to the bank side, then walked across the lot south of it and past the Jenkins house, which was the next one to Hyatt’s own home, which was almost half a block further along, and by itself.
Mrs. Riggin’s house was a small, pleasant and flower-girdled house on the edge of a small patch of woods. He opened the gate and went up the walk. When he rapped on the door he heard her steps, quite slow and feeble now, as she came to the door.
He removed his hat, and stood waiting, hoping his hair wasn’t mussed. She opened the door and smiled weakly. “Borden Chantry, you naughty boy! You haven’t been by to see me!”
“I reckon not, ma’am. I been busy, but I was figurin’ on—”
“Bosh! You’d forgotten all about me! Well, come in an’ set. I’ve got some of those ginger cookies you used to set store by. Can’t make ’em like I used to, but when I had to see you I just put together a batch of ’em, just like I used to when you was a boy.”
She put a blue and white dish with a dozen cookies on the table, and sat down in her old rocker with the antimacassar on the back. Borden lowered himself gingerly into a chair opposite her.
George Riggin had been a tall, thin old man, forty or fifty pounds lighter than Chantry, and Borden never trusted the chairs. They always seemed too flimsy.
“Borden, you’re a busy man so I’m not about to waste your time with chitchat. Folks tell me you’re huntin’ the man who killed that stranger, and who now has prob’ly killed Johnny McCoy.
“Johnny was a good boy, a real good boy. Used to run errands for me, like you done. He rode with George a time or two, too. George trusted him…used to talk to him some. More’n he ever talked to me, even.
“George never felt like crime was a woman’s affair, but he talked of some of his cases with Johnny. Johnny knows a good bit of what George was thinkin’, too.
“Like that Pin Dover killin’. George was sure it was murder. He done tol’ me that much. Murder, he says, out-an’-out murder! And I heard him say as much to Johnny.
“Why should anybody kill Pin? He was harmless enough. Given to driftin’, never much account ’cept as
a cowpuncher. Tried mindin’ other jobs here and yon but he never done much good at ’em. Yet there he was…murdered.
“George said it was done a-purpose by somebody Pin didn’t even know. So why should he be killed? George asked himself that question and the only answer he could get was that Pin had been killed for something he knew, or something somebody thought he knew.
“George was a pretty good detective, you know. He had the patience for it. He always said there was no such thing as a perfect crime, just imperfect investigations, and he was determined to stay with the Pin Dover case until he had found the guilty man. He was gettin’ close, too. That’s why he was killed.”
“You think he was murdered?”
“I know it. I tried to tell them but they thought I was just a silly old woman. And then, when they finally went out to look around, the ground was all trampled up…right up to the edge of that bank.”
She put her cup down. “Borden, you’ve been working with cattle since you were big enough to straddle a horse. Did you ever see a herd of twenty or thirty head go right up to the edge of a bank unless they were driven?
“It was cattle wiped all those footprints out, and whatever sign there may have been, cattle hooves, obviously driven by somebody, because you know cows would walk along the rim if they had to. But a herd of them would never go right up there unless somebody was pushing them…No reason for them to go. The grass was all et off up there, and the cow trail led around the foot of the cliff where George rode.”
Borden put down his cup. George Riggin was no fool. A mighty cool head, and so was his wife. He’d known Ma Riggin since he was knee-high and she’d never been addled…a bright, interested, lively old lady. When you came to think of it, getting hit by a falling rock in this country was about the last way you’d expect a man to die.
“Did he ever give you any idea who he suspected? Or had he gone that far?”
“I think he had a mighty good idea. No, he never talked about his cases at home, on’y once in awhile he’d say something. If anybody knew what he thought, it was Johnny McCoy. That was why Johnny came to me the other day.”
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