“She was a good woman, Billy. A very good woman.”
“Yes sir, I know that. And he worked hard after that, he laid off the booze…Ma tol’ me all about it because she heard of it. She knew Blossom…They’d been friends, sort of. Then Ma died and after a spell he an’ Blossom took up where they left off.
“One night he had him a meeting set up to take her to a dance. He got all fixed up to go out and he stopped by in Time Reardon’s. He run into some fellers there an’ they started buyin’ him drinks. Next thing he knew he passed out, an’ somebody else taken Blossom to the dance. That-there ended it.”
“How do you know all this, son?”
“Ma told me some of it then, when Pa was drunk. Or from fellers around town, I heard it. Then Auntie Blossom, one day she told me that Pa drank too much. That I should try to get him to quit.
“He did quit. He was soberin’ up to talk to you and to Blossom. He said that to me. ‘I got to do it, Billy,’ he said, ‘I got to see Chantry an’ tell him what I know, and then I got to see Blossom.”
“‘You fixin’ to marry her, Pa?’ I asks him, an’ he said, he didn’t think there was much chance of that now, but he just wanted her to be all right. He said he had to be sober so’s you’d believe him. That nobody’d pay much attention to a drunk, an’ he couldn’t blame them.”
“Sit down, Billy. You want a glass of milk?”
“No, sir. I am goin’ back to bed. It come to me all of a sudden an’ I figured you should know.”
“Thanks, Billy. That’s the first good break I’ve had. It gives me somewhere to start.”
“I’ll go to bed then.”
“Billy? Did you know Pin Dover?”
“Pin? Aw, sure! He worked with Pa, some. Sure, I knowed him. Boy, was he good with that rope! Pa said Pin would never amount to nothin’ because he was always driftin’. He never held no job long.
“He got on over to the Bar B with Pa an’ was doin’ right well. He was segundo over there, and the boss liked him. Gave him an up to forty a month, an’ promised him if he stayed on he’d raise him again…An’ not many punchers ever got raises.
“Well, you know what he done? He quit. He flat out quit! He told Pa folks were tryin’ to tie him down. Tryin’ to get him to buy things, and he said things weighted a man down so’s he couldn’t travel.
“That was when he taken out for Mora.”
“Where?” Borden Chantry caught Billy by the arm. “Did you say Mora? Down in the Santa Fe country?”
“Yes sir. Mora. Pin, he worked for an outfit down there before, an’ said he was goin’ back.”
“You go to bed, Billy.” Borden Chantry got to his feet and returned to the bedroom. He had a hunch, and it was a hunch he had to follow now.
Not tomorrow…now.
Chapter 10
* * *
RETURNING TO THE bedroom he tugged on his boots, then buckled on his gun belt and took up his hat. On second thought he slipped on a jacket as the night was cool.
Frowning, he remembered the sound of whatever it was that had awakened him. Standing in the kitchen, he considered that, then shook his head. No matter. He would walk over to the office now even if it was the middle of the night.
He walked to the kitchen door and stood a moment, looking out into the yard, then toward the barn. The horses were bunched at one side of the corral, heads up, ears pricked. He could barely make them out, but the heads of two of them were against the lighter sky.
Something was bothering them, something close to or inside the barn.
He thought at once of the saddle. It was here, in the house. In the bedroom, in fact.
But no one would be fool enough to come here after a saddle…And why the saddle?
He turned suddenly and went to the bedroom. As quietly as could be, he took the saddle from under the bed and ran his fingers over it.
Old George Riggin had never done anything on impulse, nor anything without its reason. If he had left his old saddle to him, there had to be a reason. Borden knew that one of the reasons he had been offered the job of marshal was that Riggin had suggested him for it. He had once told him so, and said that if anything happened to him he wanted Borden to take over.
The old saddle was smooth, polished, in excellent shape considering its years. Suddenly his expert fingers sensed something different. He felt the place again.
On the left side, between the skirt and the stirrup leather, Riggin had made a small pocket, and into it he had slipped a book…a tally book such as ranchmen use when keeping a count of cattle on the range or in the stock pens.
Slipping the book out of the pocket, he put it in the inside pocket of his jacket. Going to the drawer, he got out a handkerchief and slipped it into the pocket where the book had been. Now, if somehow the saddle came into the hands of the killer, he might suspect nothing. He might never realize something else had been in that pocket.
Leaving the saddle under the bed, he put on his hat and went to the door. A moment he hesitated, listening into the night, but he heard no sound. Stepping out, he closed the door softly behind him.
Yet this time he did not take his usual path along the south side of the café building to the street, but went behind it and along the north side, emerging in front of the post office. His heels sounded loud in the stillness of the night.
A faint light showed from the café, but that was usual even when the place was locked as it was now. No other lights showed. He walked past the post office and, putting his key in the lock, entered the marshal’s office. The jail consisted of four cells behind the office along a corridor.
A light glowed from Kim Baca’s cell, and as Borden entered, somebody stirred in the cell nearest the office. The door stood open. Big Injun, gun in hand, was watching him.
“It’s all right, Injun,” he said gently. “I had to come to the office for something.”
He opened the top drawer of the desk and fumbled with several booklets. They were brand books, listing brands from the various states. A couple were printed under the states in question, the others had been put together by George Riggin to enable him to recover stolen stock.
Choosing the book for New Mexico, one of George’s own compiling, he ran a finger down a page, then another. On the next to the last page he found it…S-Lazy S-S…Sackett.
Sackett!
Shocked, he stared at it. He knew the name well, as did most frontiersmen. The Sacketts were cattlemen in New Mexico and Colorado, a feudal family from Tennessee, if all the stories were right. And if you nudged one Sackett they all woke up.
That was what Reardon had suggested, with no names mentioned.
A Sackett had been murdered…or at least a man riding a Sackett horse. If the stories were true, at any moment a troop of them would come along the trail to ask questions, and they were the kind of men who got answers.
Solve the crime and solve it fast. Meet them with the murderer in prison and the evidence gathered.
He grinned sourly. All too easy to say, but how to do it?
“Marshal?” It was Baca calling. “Is that you?”
“Go to sleep, Kim.”
“Marshal, I got to talk to you. Besides, I’m not sleepy.”
He walked back to find Kim Baca standing at the bars. “When it comes to that, I don’t think much of your bunks. The grub’s good enough, but those bunks!” He shook his head with disgust.
“Marshal, I sent for you. I want to talk a little, and you’d better listen. I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe we can help each other.”
“No deals. You were caught with the goods, Kim.”
“Hell, don’t I know it? But look, I’m going to lay it on the line. I’d no intention of stealing that team. I spotted another horse comin’ up country…a sorrel horse.”
Borden walked back to the office and took a spare chair and brought it back. He sat down, straddling the chair and facing the cell. “All right, let’s have it.”
“Look, I like horses…good h
orses. I spotted that sorrel’s tracks coming up the trail and liked that nice swinging stride. Then I saw the horse tied to a hitch rail down the country, just like I said before. I trailed him up the country and when I got a look at the rider I was fit to be tied.”
“Well?”
“Marshal, I’m no damn fool. That horse belonged to Joe Sackett. He’s a brother to Tell Sackett, an’ Tyrel. Remember Tyrel? Who was in that land grant fight down near Mora? Well, he’s hell on wheels with a pistol, and his brothers Orrin and Tell are as good or better.
“I wanted that sorrel so bad. Ever’ time I saw it I broke into a sweat, but I didn’t want it bad enough to steal it from a Sackett.
“Well, it made me so mad to think I’d come all that way trackin’ a horse I couldn’t have that I just blew my skull and stole that team. I was a damn fool, but better a damn fool than a dead man.”
“Kim, was anybody else trailing him?”
“No sir, there wasn’t. Believe me, I’d know. He spotted me somehow or other and just dropped off the world there for awhile. I still don’t know what he done or how he did it, but Marshal, you’re a good man. I’d not like you to have to meet Tell Sackett…although it’s said they are reasonable, law-abiding men…as long as there’s law.”
“I am the law here, Kim. I’ll enforce it.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Kim, if that man was Joe Sackett, or whoever he was, he was carrying money, quite a lot of money. Did you see any of it?”
“Sure. He paid cash wherever he went. But you know me, Marshal, I never stole a dime in my life. My trouble is I like better horses than I can afford. I steal horses…sure. But I never robbed no man or woman of money. Never rustled a cow, either, other than eatin’ beef out on the range.”
Borden Chantry studied the young man before him. He had heard a good deal about Kim Baca. He was good with a gun, good enough to need to fear no man, although he was rightfully wary of the Sacketts. He was also a good cowhand when he chose to work, a good trailer, and a rare hand at breaking horses.
The thought of such a man going to prison irritated Chantry, yet that was most certainly where he would go, and he was lucky to get off so easily. Horse stealing was a major offense in a land where a man’s life might well depend on his horse, and to take his horse was to leave him to die in a land of such vast expanse and so many enemies.
“You got any idea why Sackett was coming here?”
Baca shook his head. “I got some ideas but they’re mostly reasons why he wasn’t coming here. He wasn’t coming to buy cattle, for instance. He passed some good herds, passed some that would have sold quick for cash.
“He didn’t waste any time, either. He came right along, not like he was in any crashing hurry, but not loafing, either. He just kept a-coming.
“There was one thing, though. When he came into town he wasted no time. He went right over to see Mary Ann Haley.”
“Do you know her?”
“Naw, I got me a girl friend. Only I know her like ever’body does…to say howdy on the street. There was one time when—”
“What?”
“Well, I was only a youngster then…seventeen, maybe…but I figured I was pretty salty. Maybe I was. Anyway, there was this big miner…at least he was a miner when he worked…He tried to bully Mary Ann. He wanted money from her. Told her he’d break up her joint and put her out of business unless she paid him.
“One of her girls…one I knew from the time she was just a farmer’s daughter…she told me about it.”
“So what happened?”
“I sort of took him aside, and as the Sacketts would say, I read him from the Book. Trouble was, I was only seventeen and he didn’t take me serious…not at first. I had to straighten him out a little and put him on a trail to California.”
“Did he go?”
“Last I saw he was headed right. He wasn’t seeing very good but he was on his way.”
“Sackett went to see Mary Ann?”
“Well, he went to her house, and they let him in. He wasn’t there long…not at first. But I figure he knew them. Knew Mary Ann or somebody there because I got a look through a window and he was a-settin’ there drinkin’ coffee with them.”
So the next thing was to see Mary Ann Haley. He got up. “You get some sleep, Baca. If you recall anything else, anything at all, I’d be glad to know.”
He hesitated. “You know, Baca, I’m just a sort of a help-out peace officer. I’m not cut out for this job, but although you may not think so, there’s got to be law in this country. This man Sackett wasn’t killed in any shooting, he was murdered. He was shot from ambush or maybe by somebody he was sitting down with. Anyway, he was shot in the back at close range.
“I’ve got to get that man, Baca, and I will.”
“You don’t think it was me?”
“No, I don’t. Not unless you got me fooled, but I think you may know more than you think. You’ve got time to set and think. Well, you go over it. You go over everything you saw, then tell me.”
Daylight was just breaking when Chantry got back to the house. He stirred up the fire in the kitchen range and put on water for coffee. He was asleep with his head on his arms on the kitchen table when Bess came in. When she had the coffee made, she shook him awake.
“What happened, Borden? What got you up?”
“I thought I heard somebody in the night. I went out and looked around. Then Billy woke up and remembered something and I went out to the office.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Well, it was important. Bess, Billy remembered the brand on that sorrel horse. I checked it out and the brand belongs to some of the Sackett family.”
“I’ve heard of them. Killers, aren’t they?”
“No, Bess, they are not. You’d ride many a mile to find better citizens or men than them Sacketts. They are mountain people from Tennessee, but good folks. They’ve done some shooting here and there, but this is a hard country, Bess, and it needs hard men to settle it.”
“That’s why I want to move, Borden. I want to go back east. I want to go to Vermont.”
“What would I do there, Bess? I don’t know anything but cattle.”
“You could farm. You could get some kind of a job.”
“Bess,” he said patiently, “we’ve been over this time and again. There’s fifty men in this town that used to farm back east and couldn’t make it. Now they are here, some of them doing well. I’d never fit in back there, Bess.”
“I’m afraid, Borden. I’m afraid you’ll be killed. You’ve been shot at…several times. Oh, I know! You didn’t tell me about it, but Priss did. Everybody in town is talking about it, and she likes you, you know. She always has.”
“I’ll be all right. Men never built anything, Bess, without there was some dying and some suffering. I don’t want to die. All I want is to be with you and Tom, but I’m doing a job somebody has to do…and who else is there?”
“Lang Adams. He’s at least single.”
“Not for long. He’s courtin’ Blossom Galey.”
“I know. She’s a fine woman…a little…well, she’s been around men too much, out on that ranch. She’s a little too free-talking. She’s just grown up with all those cowboys around.”
“Lang could do worse, believe me.”
“Borden…I wasn’t going to tell you, but…well, I heard something last night, too.”
“When?”
“You were asleep. I heard something, but I didn’t get up. Somebody was around the barn, Borden. I lifted the curtain a little and I could just make him out…not who it was…but it was a man. He went into the barn, then came out. He came up to the back porch and looked through the screen.”
“And you didn’t call me?”
“Borden, you’d have come out of a deep sleep, and he was already out there in the dark. He’d have had every advantage.”
He pushed back from the table and went outside, studying the ground. A few blurred
tracks…the edge of a book sole, clean-cut and sharp. In the barn he found a half-inch of a heel track. It was sharply cut…New boots, or almost new.
He remembered his one thin clue. Lying on the floor of the mule barn after he had been hit, he had grabbed out and his fingers had slipped off a boot…a well-polished boot, that felt almost new.
Borden Chantry walked back into the house, liking the smell of bacon frying. He could hear the boys stirring around in their room as he sat down.
He was going to have to pay attention to boots. He was going to have to find somebody who wore brand-new boots.
And that reminded him that he had to see Hyatt Johnson.
Today.
And he had to see Mary Ann Haley.
When he got up from the table and reached for his hat, Bess turned around, a fork in her hand. “Borden? Be careful.”
He walked outside in the bright morning sun and looked toward the McCoy house.
How could he be careful when he had no idea who he had to be careful of?
Somebody in town wanted to kill him. Somebody in town was getting very, very worried.
For somebody time was running out…somebody who had shot before, and would again, at any instant.
Chapter 11
* * *
IT WAS EARLY for the bank to be open, so after a walk along the street to see if all was well, stopping to speak to Blazer and Elsie, Chantry strolled back to the Bon-Ton, took his usual seat and waited for Ed to bring him coffee.
Two drummers sat in the corner, and a cowboy from west of town was sitting, hat tilted back, dusty spurred boots tucked back under his chair, cooling his coffee in his saucer. He looked to be all of seventeen, but that was a common age for cowhands. In fact, one of the greatest herds ever taken out of Texas to the north had been in charge of a man…and he was definitely a man…of just seventeen.
Responsibility, like hard work, came very young on the western ranges.
He had scarcely seated himself when Prissy came in. He could see at once that something was worrying her. She looked around quickly and crossed immediately to his table and sat down opposite him. Her eyes were large with excitement.
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