L'Amour, Louis - SSC 31

by The Collected Short Stories Vol 2

  Bowdrie thought as he rode. Clyde Ballard would be irritated. Clyde did not hold with killing unless it was in a stand-up fight or in the process of a holdup. An outlaw had to have places to hide and if people were set against you you’d never last long. Often enough they were indifferent, but never if you killed a neighbor or someone they respected.

  Aaron Fobes was another type entirely. There was a streak of viciousness in him. Yet Fobes would not want to cross Clyde Ballard. Not even Luther Doyle would consider that, for Clyde was a good man with a gun. No one of them considered the possibility of pursuit. They had been a long way from Benton when the shooting took place and there was no marshal in Miller’s Crossing.

  With the shrewdness of a man who had known many trails, Chick Bowdrie could guess their thinking now. Clyde would be inwardly furious because the useless killing would make enemies and Miller’s Crossing was a town they must avoid in future rides, and that meant some long, roundabout riding to get in and out of their hideout. Bowdrie was in no hurry. He knew what awaited him at the ride’s end and he was not riding for a record.

  It was almost ten days after the shooting before he rode up to the Sloacum place. He drew rein outside the house as Tate Sloacum came striding up from the barn. “How’s about some chuck?” Bowdrie suggested. “I’ve been thirty miles on an empty stomach.”

  “ ‘Light an’ set,” Sloacum said. “Turn your hoss into the corral. There’s a bucket there alongside the well if you’d like to wash off some dust.”

  When he had washed, he ran his fingers through his hair and went up to the house. He had no Indian blood but he looked like an Apache and sometimes there was hesitance from those who did not know him. There was food in plenty but nobody talked during. the meal. Eating was a serious business. Tate Sloacum was the old man of the house, a West Virginia mountaineer by birth. He had two sons and a hawk-faced rider named Crilley. His wife was a slatternly woman with stringy red hair and a querulous voice. A daughter named Sary served them at table. She had red hair and a swish to her hips. With brothers like hers she was a girl who could get men killed.

  Bowdrie was uncomfortable around women. He had known few of them well. He took in Sary with a glance and then averted his eyes and kept them averted. He knew trouble when he saw it. At twenty-one Chick Bowdrie had been doing a man’s work since he was twelve, herding cattle, breaking the wild stock, and riding the rough string. There had been little softness in his life and few friends.

  Once, when he could have been no older than eight, a man had stopped by the house for a meal. It was wild country with Indians about, and few traveled alone. This man did. When Chick walked out to the corral with him he watched the man saddle up and step into the stirrup. For some reason, he hated to see him go. There had been something about the man that spoke of quiet strength.

  Looking down from the saddle, the man had said, “Ride with honor, boy, ride with honor.” He did not know exactly what honor was but he never forgot the man and he was sure what the man had said was important. A member of the Ballard gang had killed a man who befriended him, and he needed no more reason for hunting him down, and wanted no more. He had enlisted as a Ranger because it was practical. The law was coming to Texas and he preferred to ride with the law. McNelly, a shrewd judge of character, had recognized him for what he was. This young man was destined to be a hunter or one of the hunted, and McNelly reflected dryly that he’d rather hire him than lose men trying to catch him.

  “We demand loyalty,” he suggested. “Absolute loyalty.”

  “I ride for the brand,” Bowdrie replied. “I never take a man’s money without giving him what he’s paid for.”

  “Where is your home?”

  “Wherever I hang my hat,” Bowdrie said. “I got nothing, nobody.” Then he added, “I can read an’ write.”

  “Your home?”

  “Got no home. I was born near D’Hanis. Folks all gone. Mostly Injuns killed ‘em.”

  “D’Hanis? Are you French?”

  “Some. Some other blood, too. I don’t know much about it. I growed up where most of the youngsters spoke French an’ German as well as English.”

  “I know the area. Do you speak Spanish?”

  “I get by. I worked cows with Mexican riders. We got along.”

  That was how it began. Bowdrie thought back to it now, thinking he had taken the right turn, on the right side of the law, and he knew how easy it would have been to go the other way. Sooner or later he might have killed the wrong man.

  “Need a place to hole up,” he told Sloacum, “a quiet place where a man can rest and let his horse eat grass.” Sloacum gestured toward the hills. “We call ‘em the Highbinders. Used to be Comanches. Mostly they’re gone now.” He gestured toward the house. “Come up when you’ve unsaddled, and we’ll have some grub on.” That was before he sat down. He ate well, simple food, well-cooked.

  The two boys disappeared when supper was over but Crilley lingered, stropping his knife on his boot sole. “I seen you somewheres afore,” he said to Bowdrie.

  “I been someplace before, but I never seen you.” He did not remember ever seeing Crilley and did not care if Crilley had seen him. The cowboy might have seen him when he rode for Whipple and could take the information to Ballard if he wished. Bowdrie had to find a trail and Crilley might make it for him. Nor did he care if the Ballards were ready for him. He was ready for them, too.

  He got up and Sloacum glanced at him. “You can sleep in the haymow. Ain’t got an extry bed.”

  “I’ve slept in ‘em before. Better’n most.” He left the house and went to the barn, where he found a big hayloft half-filled with fresh-smelling hay. He spread his blankets and bedded down, the big wide hayloft door open to the out-of-doors and showing a wide stretch of starlit sky.

  He could have been asleep for scarcely more than an hour when he was suddenly wake, gun in hand. He could not have explained how. the gun got there. It was one of those instinctive actions that come to men who live close to danger. Weapons become so much a part of their existence that they no longer seem remarkable.

  Then he recalled what had awakened him. The sound of a horseshoe clicking against stone. Sitting up, he strained his ears to hear, and it came again, the muffled hoof-falls of a horse and a creak of saddle leather. Keeping to the darkness away from the open door, he moved softly to where he could see out. Chick Bowdrie had found little time for romance in his life or he, instead of Tom Ballard, might have been meeting Sary near the corral, but he witnessed their greeting, a healthy if not soulful kiss. If there was no delicacy in the kiss there was no lack of earthy appreciation in it. Chick had not come to witness kisses, so he stood waiting. He had recognized Ballard from other days.

  “Anybody been around?” Tom asked.

  “Uh-huh. Stranger passin’ through. Sleepin’ in the loft right now. He was astin’ Pa for a place where there was water where he could lay up for a while. Pappy thinks he’s on the dodge.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “He ain’t no Ranger, if that’s what you’re scared of. Although he does have one of those new Winchesters like they carry. Looks more like a gunhand. Dark, narrow features. Nose like a hawk. Eyes blacker than a well bottom. Packs two tied-down six-shooters. Walks straight an’ fast. He’s ridin’ a mean-lookin’ strawberry roan.”

  Tom Ballard drew a breath. “Got a little scar, has he? Like a thin sort of dimple below his cheekbone?”

  “That’s him! Who is he?”

  “Bowdrie, Chick Bowdrie. He’s the man who killed Pete Drago a while back.”

  “Is he huntin’ you?”

  “I hope not. Why should he be? He’s kind of on the outlaw side himself, from what I hear. Just ridin’ through, most likely.” The rest was unimportant. Bowdrie tiptoed back to his bed and stretched out. He was fast asleep within minutes.

  He was dipping his head in the water bucket when Sary appeared the following morning. He shook the water from his hair, then wiped his face
and hands on the roller towel beside the back door. “I’m huntin’ a place to lie up for a while,” he suggested. “I’d be obliged for any ideas.”

  “Nothin’ around here.” She eyed him with speculative eyes. “Would you come a-callin’ if you was close by?”

  Bowdrie admitted he was no hand with women but he knew a trail when he saw it. His bloodhound’s instinct told him what to say. “Why else would an hombre want to stay in this country?”

  Sary finished drawing her bucket from the well. “There’s the Highbinders, them low, brush-covered hills you see out past the barn. There’s water there, and a few deer. A body could kill him an antelope if he needed meat. Or even a steer, so long as it isn’t one of ours. Nobody out here kills his own beef,” she added.

  At the table they ate thick steaks cooked well-done and drank black bean coffee. There were cookies, too. Ma Sloacum could cook and bake. Crilley, Bowdrie noted before Tate Sloacum even spoke, was nowhere around. “Where’s Joe? Ain’t like him to miss breakfast.”

  “He got his coffee, then taken offto the hills before sunup,” Ma explained.

  Almost an hour later Crilley rode into the canyon where the Ballards were holed up. He dropped from his horse at the cabin and glanced over at Aaron Fobes, who stood beside the cabin door, “I got bad news,” he said.

  Clyde Ballard came to the door, Luther Doyle and Northup behind him. “What news?” Fobes demanded.

  “Chick Bowdrie’s eatin’ breakfast over at Sloacum’s.”

  “What’s that to us?” Clyde asked.

  “Fobes here, he killed Noah Whipple over at Miller’s, didn’t he? Well, when Bowdrie rode in the other night I couldn’t place him, then it come to me. He pulled into Whipple’s a while back with some bullets in him. They nursed him back to health, an’ he stayed on, ridin’ for Whipple for a few months. I hear he sets store by that family.”

  Aaron Fobes looked sullen. “Bowdrie ain’t got no call to come huntin’ me. Anyway, I can take him or any two like him.”

  “You’d better hightail it, Aaron,” Clyde suggested. “The way I hear it, he’s somethin’ to see with those guns of his.”

  “How’ll he find me?” Fobes looked over at Crilley. “Unless you tell him.”

  “I ain’t tellin’ nothin’ to nobody.” He knew Fobes and the thought did not make him happy. Suddenly he wished he hadn’t been in so much of a hurry to ride over and tell him. He should have let well enough alone. Yet he liked Clyde Ballard and Clyde was a feudist—a fight with one of his men was a fight for all. Crilley had never liked Fobes. He was a mean, difficult man.

  “He’ll find you,” Clyde said. “I’ve heard of him and he could trail a rattler across a fiat rock, but if anybody is huntin’ him they have to burn the stump and sift the ashes before they find him.”

  When Crilley did not appear for breakfast, Bowdrie decided there was but one reason for his absence. Obviously it was something of which the family knew nothing, and such absences were not the usual thing for Crilley, or no comment would have been made. Why, then, had he gone? Only one thing out of the ordinary had happened at Sloacum’s—his own arrival. The night before, Crilley had been sure he had seen Bowdrie somewhere before. Obviously he had remembered where and had ridden to inform the Ballards. If he had ridden into the Highbinders, he would leave a trail, and where a horse had gone, Bowdrie could follow.

  A half-hour after breakfast he was in the saddle, riding east. When well out from the ranch, he swung in a wide circle until he picked up the sign of Crilley’s horse. He rode swiftly, making good time. Ahead of him the trail dipped into a dry wash and turned away from the hills. He followed until the trail came to a clear stream of water, less than a foot deep and flowing over a sand-and-gravel bottom. Bowdrie swung down for a drink and let his horse drink, on the theory that a man never knew what might happen.

  He rode upstream first and was lucky. He found several hoofprints the water had not yet washed away. Riding or walking in the water is not always a means of losing one’s trail. Bowdrie knew a dozen ways of following such a trail. Horseshoes could scar rocks even underwater. Several times he reined in to study the country and the Highbinders, which were close now. His thoughts returned to Joanie, clinging to his arm when he rode to town looking for Noah. She had not known about her father then, although her mother was worried that her husband had not returned as planned. “Bring me something from town, Chick! Please!” What did you bring a girl from town? That was more of a problem than Crilley’s trail. He must find her something, some little knickknack. He would …

  He saw a hoofprint in the clay bank where Crilley’s horse had left the water. The trail turned back along the bank, weaving in and out of thick brush. He never heard the shot. A wicked blow on the head knocked him from the saddle, unconscious before he hit the ground. Something tore at him with angry fingers—and he hit, sagged, and hung.

  When his eyes opened he was staring into a black, glassy world. Something that moved, flowed, a glassy world that mirrored a face, his face. He started to move, but brush crackled and he felt again that sagging feeling. Slowly he became aware. He had fallen from his horse and was suspended in the brush above the stream’s edge. His foot felt cold, and looking down, he saw one boot toe trailed in the water. He lifted it clear. Carefully he looked around. He had fallen into brush which partly supported his weight, but his gunbelt had caught on an old snag, which had helped keep him clear of the water, where he might have drowned, shallow though it was.

  Nearby was a branch that looked sturdier than the others. He grasped it, tested it, and slowly, carefully lifted himself clear. Climbing out of his precarious position was a shaky business, but he managed. He crawled higher on the bank. He had been dry-gulched. They had waylaid him and shot him from the saddle, leaving him for dead. He still had his guns. One remained in its holster; the other had fallen on the bank. He picked it up and wiped the clay from it, testing the action. It was almost sundown, which meant he had been unconscious for hours. Delicately his fingers felt the furrow in his scalp. The blood had dried and caked his hair. Better not disturb it.

  He knelt by the stream and washed the blood from his face, however. Looking about, he found his hat and placed it gingerly on his head. There was no sign of his horse but there was still enough light for tracking. When he had fallen, the roan had bolted. Weaving his way through the brush and then a grove of small trees, he suddenly glimpsed the horse standing in a small meadow, looking at him. When the hammerhead saw him it nickered softly, and actually seemed glad to see him. His Winchester was still in the saddle scabbard. The horse even took a couple of steps toward him.

  When he had first caught the roan from the wild bunch, his friends advised him to turn it loose. “That’s no kind of a horse, Chick. Look at that head. And he’s got a mean look to him. Turn him loose or shoot him. That horse is a killer!”

  They had been right, of course. The roan was such a savage bucker that when he threw a rider he turned and went for him with intent to kill. He was lean, rawboned, and irritable, yet Bowdrie had developed an affection for him. Pet the roan and he would try to bite you. Curry him and he’d kick. But on a trail he would go all day and all night with a sort of ugly determination. Bowdrie had never known a horse with so much personality, and all of it bad. Nor did the roan associate much with other horses. He seemed to like being in a corral where they were, but he held himself aloof. Of one thing Bowdrie was sure. No stranger was going to mount the roan. As for horse thieves, only one had tried to steal the roan, for in a herd of horses the roan would be the last anyone would select.

  The one attempt had been by a man in a hurry and the roan was there. The horse thief jerked free of the tie-rope and leaped into the saddle. The roan spun like a top and then bucked and the would-be rider was piled into the water trough and his screams brought Bowdrie and the marshal running, for the roan had grabbed the thief’s shoulder in his teeth. Bowdrie took the bridle, spoke to the horse, then mounted and rode away. The th
ief, badly shaken and bloody, was helped from the trough. Aside from the savage bite, he had a broken shoulder.

  “What was that?” the outlaw whined. “What … ?”

  “That was Chick Bowdrie an’ that outlaw roan he rides.” The marshal kept one hand on his prisoner while looking down the street after Bowdrie.

  “They deserve each other,” he added. “They’re two of a kind.”

  Bowdrie found the camp by its firelight. It was artfully hidden but the light reflected from rocks and there was a small glow in the night. On foot Chick Bowdrie walked down the grassy bank toward the fire.

  Aaron Fobes was talking. “No call for Clyde to get huffy,” he complained. “I just got him before he could get me.”

  Meat was roasting over the fire, and the two men were doing a foolish thing. They were looking into the flames as they talked, which ruins the vision for immediate night work. There was no sign of the Ballards, nor of Northup. “Maybe he didn’t have a chance, but what difference does that make?”

  “Get up, Fobes!” Fobes started as if touched by a spark from the fire; then slowly he began to rise. “You in this, Doyle?” Bowdrie’s black eyes kept both men in view. “If you ain’t, back up an’ stay out!”

  “I ride with him,” Luther Doyle said. Fobes had reached for his gun as he came erect, and Doyle, who had not quite made up his mind, was slower. Yet Doyle was the deadlier of the two and Bowdrie’s first shot knocked him staggering and he fell backward over the saddles. The second and third shots took Aaron Fobes in the throat and face. Fobes fell forward into the fire, scattering it. Doyle got off a quick shot that knocked the left-hand gun from Bowdrie’s grip, leaving his hand numb. Doyle fired again and missed, taking a slug in the chest. He fell forward and lay still. Chick walked over and retrieved his gun, holstering it, rubbing his left hand against his pants to restore the feeling. Then he caught Fobes by the back of his shirt and lifted him free of the fire. The man was dead.