Borden Chantry

by Louis L'Amour

  “It was morning when he first came, but I wasn’t awake yet. He came back later. He explained why he had come and that his brother and several others had contributed. They said I had helped them, they wished to help me. I was to take the money and go to San Diego, where another one of the miners I helped had a house in which I could live. The climate would be right for me, and the money would care for me.”

  “Pretty nice,” Chantry said. “Did you talk about anything else?”

  “Well, he asked about the town and the people. He did say something to the effect that he’d seen a man on the street whom he thought he remembered from New Mexico.”

  “Did he describe him?”

  “Oh, no! And I thought nothing of it because a lot of the men from here have been down there. Some of the cowhands from the ranches try to work further south when cold weather comes. Can’t blame them. It’s cold out on that range.”

  “Don’t I know?” Chantry agreed, grimly.

  Lucy brought the tea and sat quietly.

  He sipped his tea, while she talked of western mining camps, and the hard times. What did he know, after all? That Joe Sackett had come to town to help Mary Ann. That he had given her some money, that he had deposited more in the bank, and that he had left. He had been assaulted by Kerns and Hurley, had taken care of them, but had never arrived at the hotel.

  Somebody had shot him in the back…but where? Sackett had his coat off at the time…why?

  Sackett was no tenderfoot, so how had somebody come up behind him? Was it somebody he knew and trusted?

  “Was there anybody else here at the time?”

  “There was nobody here in the morning,” she said thoughtfully. “Not when he came, at least. And when he came back?” She paused, thinking. “Well…I’ve forgotten. There were several here, not for business, just dropping in to visit or have a drink.”

  “Do you know Boone Silva?” he asked suddenly. Her expression did not change.

  She shrugged one slender shoulder. “I’ve heard of him.”

  “The second time he was here,” he suggested. “I mean Sackett. What time did he leave?”

  She had the cup almost to her lips but she stopped and put it down. “Why, I don’t remember! He was here, and he was reading a magazine he picked up. I had grown tired so I went up to bed. Maybe Lucy can tell you.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Yes, he was here. He read the paper and drank some coffee.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “No, I don’t think he drank. Coffee was all he had. After he read the paper he went to wash his hands, and then came back. And right after that, he left.”

  “Did he say where he was going? What he was going to do?”

  “Mary Ann offered him a room here.” She looked up at Chantry. “We have extra rooms. Sometimes people we know do stay over, and sometimes when somebody has too much to drink, we put them in one of the spare rooms. But he said he would go to the hotel.” She paused, suddenly frowning. “You know, when he left…I thought maybe he wasn’t feeling well. I asked him again to stay, but he just shook his head and went on. Once I thought he was going to fall, and I started toward him, but he straightened up and went on.”

  On? To where?

  Some had said he was staggering, looking like he might be drunk. But he drank little, if at all.

  He had only coffee.

  “Lucy Marie? I want you to think. Who made the coffee?”

  “Why, I did. I usually do, although once in awhile Mary Ann would.”

  Doped coffee? For what purpose? He had already given them money, and planned to give Mary Ann more. Lucy Marie? He looked at her thoughtfully. Lucy Marie and somebody else, trying for a little money on their own?

  He doubted it. Yet the thought was there.

  “Was Blazer in here that night? I need witnesses,” he said then. “Somebody who can tell me where Sackett was going, what he planned to do.”

  Mary Ann spoke reluctantly. “What men do who come here is their own business, and I don’t want to know or ask questions unless they feel like talking. Some of them are lonely, and they just want to talk. We’re used to that. Some of the cowboys never see a woman for months at a time and when they come in they want to talk. They’re just lonely, as much as anything.

  “Yes, Mr. Blazer was here, but so was Hyatt Johnson and Lang Adams. They were just sort of making the rounds, I guess.”

  “Time Reardon came by, too,” Lucy Marie commented, “but he didn’t stay long. He was looking for somebody, I think.”

  Borden Chantry finished his tea. He put the cup down carefully. It was elegant china, and he tried to identify the pattern so he could tell Bess about it.

  “That coffee,” he said, “were you alone in the kitchen when you made it?”

  “Oh, Lord no!” Lucy Marie laughed. “That kitchen is the busiest room in the house. There’s always somebody coming or going.”

  He stayed a little longer, asked a few more questions, and wished he could think of something to ask that might uncover some information he could use. But he was no good at questions. Still, he had an idea there had been something in that coffee, for Sackett seemed to have been affected soon after drinking it. There seemed to be no reason why either of the girls would have doped his coffee…Yet something happened to Sackett, something that left him staggering and uncertain after leaving Mary Ann’s.

  At the door he said good-bye, put on his hat and drew the door shut behind him. For an instant, he stood there, his eyes sweeping the terrain before him, then he moved into the shade of the nearest cottonwood and stood again.

  Where had Sackett been going when he left Mary Ann’s? Logic said the hotel. He had left his horse earlier at McCoy’s. He had no reason to go anywhere except the hotel or perhaps to the Mexican café or the Bon-Ton to eat. Supposedly, he was a stranger in town.

  Had he met somebody at Mary Ann’s? There’d been no mention of it, yet it could have happened. Had he encountered someone after leaving Mary Ann’s?

  Looking due north, and some three hundred yards away, was the old freight barn where Chantry had been rapped on the skull. Less than a hundred yards off, the Mexican café. And across the street and just a bit farther, the McCoy place. His own place was about three hundred yards to the northwest, and mostly west, so as he walked away he began to retrace the steps Sackett had taken.

  It was sandy, weed-covered ground with a few scattered patches of prickly pear. Near the Mexican café there were a couple of trees, and his own house stood in a cluster of them.

  Supposing…just supposing, Sackett had been hot? Supposing he had himself removed his coat, carrying it over his arm?

  Supposing also that instead of going directly to the street west of Mary Ann’s, he had gone northwest past the back of the Mexican café?

  The Corral Saloon, except for the door at the rear, had a blank wall. The old freight barn was empty and deserted. There would have been a moment there when Sackett was not in the view of anybody.

  There was no use looking for tracks at this late date, for aside from the element of time, numerous dogs, children and occasional horses or cattle had walked or been driven over the area in passing from one place to another.

  Another thought came to him. The arroyo in which he had found the saddle was only a little way off to the east.

  Again he came back to the thought of motive. Someone with a hate for the Sackett family? The desire for the gold he carried?

  Yet how could that fit into the killing of Pin Dover, and of George Riggin—if he was killed…and of Johnny McCoy?

  Or was there any connection at all? Riggin had believed Dover’s death was murder…why? And Dover had been punching cows in the Mora area where Sackett came from. It was a feeble connection, but at least a connection.

  He started suddenly toward the freight barn. Yet when he had taken no more than a dozen steps, he turned sharply left and in a few steps had the Mexican café between himself and the town.

  He went on home.<
br />
  Bess was sewing when he came into the house. She looked up. “Are you all right?”

  “Sure,” he said, “a mite tired, is all.” He dropped into a chair, putting his hat on the table, his spurs jingling as he moved his boots to an easier position. “Saw Mary Ann.”

  Bess looked up. “How is she?”

  “Frail,” he said. “Frail. Sackett was bringing her money. Enough so’s she could go out to the coast. Seems a lot of the miners she nursed through that epidemic think highly of her.”

  He described her appearance as best he could, and told of the parlor and its furniture, the few pictures, and whatever he could remember.

  “I don’t see what all you men see in her,” Bess said stiffly. “She’s really not very pretty, and she’s so thin.”

  “Well, she’s sick. But it isn’t only her, Bess. Some of the men go there because it’s a place to meet, and she has the latest newspapers there. Why, she’s got more papers than I knew was published, and magazines, too.”

  He tipped back in his chair. “Damned if I can make head or tail of it, Bess. I guess I’m just not cut out for this job.”

  “Why bother? The man’s dead, isn’t he? You can’t bring him back. Maybe he needed killing.”

  “A man who would ride a couple of hundred miles to bring money to a sick woman? No, he didn’t need killing, but somebody thought he did.

  “I don’t think it was the money. I think somebody was scared.”

  “What about Kim Baca? You told me that he’d admitted planning to steal Sackett’s horse.”

  “Right. But he’s a horse thief, not a killer. Not that he couldn’t if he had to. He’s faster than most.”

  What he should do, he reflected, was get a tablet and write it all out. Who his suspects were, what there was to make him suspect each, and where they were at the times of the shootings.

  Suddenly, he flushed, embarrassed that he had not thought of that. Where, for example, had each of them been when Johnny was shot? When he was slugged?

  He was a fool. Old George Riggin would have been smarter than that.

  Riggin…only then did he remember the thin notebook he had taken from the hidden saddle pocket.

  It might hold all the answers.

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  HE SAID NOTHING about the book. It was the usual little notebook, the sort many ranchers called a tally book, and in which they kept count of cattle out on the range, or notes on range conditions. Most men carried such things in their heads, but if you ran a lot of stock such a tally book was handy.

  Supposing George had actually named a name? Supposing that book held the solution to the crimes? Was that what he wanted? Or was he afraid of what he might find there? After all, he knew everybody in town, was friendly with them all, even Time Reardon…And the killer had to be one of them.

  He turned it over in his mind, sorting out the little he had learned, trying to find a pattern.

  The killer, he thought then, would be nervous. The killer knew him although he did not know the killer, and the killer would be watching his every step, seeing when he got close, laughing when he drifted away from the truth. Yet there was another point to be considered. The killer might be getting nervous.

  What was the old saying? The guilty flee when no man pursueth? Supposing the killer believed he was closer to a solution than he was? Of course, that had already happened, for the killer had tried to kill him…or warn him off.

  The boys came in for supper and he glanced at Billy, who hastily averted his eyes. Now what was the matter with him? Acted as if he was guilty of something, but that was silly. Next thing, he’d be suspecting Bess…or Tom.

  There was much talk as usual, but his mind was elsewhere. His thoughts reverted to Boone Silva. Silva could be riding into town any time in the next few days, and he would choose his time carefully. Borden Chantry had one small advantage…Boone Silva would not realize that he was expected.

  It might make all the difference in the world.

  When supper was over he watched the boys help Bess wash and dry the dishes, then he took a cup of coffee and went into the parlor.

  Bess looked around in surprise when he opened the door, for the parlor was rarely used except to receive the preacher or some other notable, but tonight he wanted to be alone.

  “I’ve got to study on this,” he said.

  “Of course,” she agreed. It was not the quietest place with the boys around, but he enjoyed their presence nonetheless.

  As he went through the door he picked up Sackett’s saddlebags. Seated on the sofa, he rested them between his feet and unbuckled the straps.

  He hesitated a moment, some inner delicacy making him uncomfortable at thus invading the privacy of another man’s belongings. He was himself an essentially private man, friendly but reserved, standing a cool sentry before the doors of his personal life. He had equal respect for the privacy of others.

  Suddenly, his hands froze where they were. That strap…the one he had just unbuckled…had been fastened in the next to the loosest hole, and that wasn’t logical. A man carrying anything in saddlebags would cinch them tight so nothing would be lost. Yet if someone had gone into the bags, and had been in a hurry to strap them up, they might have been left just so.

  He shook his head irritably. Who around here would do a thing like that? Bess…certainly not. Tom? No. Billy? He thought about that. No, Billy was an honest boy and he knew him as such. There had been countless times when Billy might have picked up something around town, but he never had.

  He reached into the saddlebag and took out a small sack of .44’s, a square of pemmican and a small sack of cold flour, an emergency ration often carried on the trail in earlier days. There was a tight coil of rawhide string, perhaps ten or twelve feet of it, such as a man might carry for rigging snares, use as piggin strings, or a variety of ways around a campfire or on the range. It was something handy to have, often useful.

  In the other bag there was little else. A spare bandanna, a small packet of letters, some writing materials, and some odds and ends that might have been carried by any man riding across country.

  The letters, all but one, were addressed to Joe Sackett. That one was addressed to Tyrel Sackett.

  Two were from a girl in Santa Fe, the very formal letters of the time, yet betraying a deep interest…The first was obviously a love letter. The second was almost identical to the first in tone, telling the small happenings of every day, urging him to come for a visit, and expressing anxiety about his “trip,” obviously this one, from which Joe Sackett would not return.

  There was a quiet sweetness in the letters that was touching, despite the formal language.

  Borden swore softly, bitterly. Somebody would have to write to her, and he thanked the Good Lord it would not have to be him. When a man was killed the circle of ripples on the pool widened to affect many others than himself. It would seem so light a thing, the death of one man, yet who knew how wide the effect might be?

  The letter addressed to Tyrel Sackett was simple enough.

  Deer Ty:

  Met a feller name of Heine Kellerman. Used to prospect around. He wos inn camp the time the cholery used up the boys an Mary Ann Haley stood by us all, nursin us throo it. Tells me she’s down eastern Colo. way, almighty sick with lungfever. Him an some of the boys done collected muny to send her. Figgered youd be wishful of puttin in an seein it taken to her.

  Con Fletcher is riden down from Leadville with sum more muny in his poke.

  Cap Rountree

  That must have been the letter that began it all. Or, at least, began Sackett’s part in it. Whatever was going on—if there actually was a connection—had started before that, with the death of Pin Dover. Yet why was he killed? Maybe for something even before that.

  Returning the letters to the saddlebags he strapped them up again. Nothing there, except that he might have had an identification right off if Hyatt had given them up, for Joe Sackett’s name was h
ere, in several places.

  The worst of it was, he no longer had any excuse for not notifying the Sackett family. Their address was now in his hands. The identification was positive.

  Once notified, the Sacketts could be here within four or five days, maybe a bit longer, and he had no solution to lay in their laps.

  They had a reputation for strict honesty, but for being hard-nosed about one of their own being killed. And he wanted no interference until he had something to offer.

  George Riggin had been killed when he seemed to have reached a conclusion, or was close to one. He got up suddenly and drew tight the curtains. Then he sat down and took out Riggin’s tally book.

  On the first page, obviously an old list, were some brands and the number of head found with each. They were out-of-state brands, and evidently a count of cattle picked up on the range, found with rustlers or something of the sort. There was on the next few pages a day-to-day arrest records for drunks, brawls, domestic squabbles and the like. It was routine stuff.

  On the fourth page: DOVER, PIN, Investigation of Murder.

  No known enemies…Deceased had two dollars in his pocket…no known criminal associations. Reputation for honesty. Good average hand. Has a woman in Trinidad, going on eight years. No gambling losses or wins of more than a few cents in several years. Jealousy, robbery, and enemies ruled out. No rustling in area. His horse wasn’t taken. No tracks near body. Saturday night drinker. Good-natured drunk. Local work; worked two summers for Borden Chantry, three for Blossom Galey. Employed by Blossom Galey at time of killing. Last previous job in Mora for S-Lazy S-S.

  The Sackett brand…there was the tie-up, but what did it mean? Joe Sackett had come to town on a simple, peaceful mission. Pin Dover had quit one job in Mora, ridden north, and gone to work on a place where he had worked before, and probably within the past few months or over the years many a cowhand had done just that. It was the very pattern of existence for them.

  Shortly after his return he had been shot.

  Borden Chantry shook his head, then went back to the tally book, keeping his place with a finger on the line he was reading.