Chancy (1968)

by L'amour, Louis

  He chuckled. "Well, you've told me, boy. And I kind of think that five or ten years from now I won't have to ask that question."

  "Something more," I said. "I've got an interest in that herd Gates brought in. There's folks who'd like to horn-swoggle me out of it. But they aren't going to do it, and I'll handle it without guns if I can. I'm a peace-loving man, Mr. Gaylord. You remember that."

  After that we went up the street together, Jim Bigbear and me, two tall young men, swinging along the boardwalk with a long, easy stride, our spurs a-jingling.

  At the second bar we saw a black, beautiful horse outside, dusty from the trail. There was a mouse-colored horse tied alongside. "They're here," Jim said. "You want to face them?"

  "No," I said, "he'll have his hat on. I'll wait."

  There were plenty of folks around, and we stood together on the street, watching for somebody from the herd.

  Abilene looked bleak and weather-beaten. Much of the town was still showing raw, unpainted lumber, but there was a sense of pride showing up, and folks were busy painting and planting, trying to make things look better.

  The folks along the street looked to be from everywhere, lots of them foreigners--German, Scandinavian, and Polish, with a sprinkling of Britishers. Some of the people wore homespun, many wore jeans and chaps, but there were plenty of store-bought suits too, and some fine tailored clothes. Nobody liked his clothes creased in those days--that was the mark of the shelf, and the tailored suits were never creased.

  Gamblers, cattle buyers, and local businessmen dressed mighty well, but even the cowhands in off the range put on their best, whatever it was. Nobody wore range clothes to town if he had anything else, unless he was working.

  There were a few farmers in their wagons, usually with their wives and youngsters. Most of them wore flat-heeled boots and suspenders, and they didn't have much to do with the cowboys. The old honkytonks in Fisher's Addition had been closed, and the houses were licensed, like the saloons.

  It was a lesson to a man just to stand there and watch folks go by; it was the well-dressed men to whom folks paid the most mind.

  "How you figure to get your hat?" Jim asked.

  "Why, I'll try to get it without trouble. But if they want trouble, they're going to get it."

  He gave me a sharp glance. "You know how to use that gun?" He lit a cigarette. "If you aren't almighty good with it, you'd better not open the ball, believe me. Andy Miller is good, and chances are that man riding the black horse is just as good maybe better."

  "I can use it," I told him. "I don't know if I use it well enough I guess I've got to pay to find out." Then I added, "If there's gunplay, they'll have to start it. But I've got an idea that I can pull it off without a fight."

  "What do we do?"

  "We wait. Meanwhile we scout around and try to locate the herd."

  "Where were they going?" he asked. "Were they going to sell out here?"

  It was a question I should have asked myself, for what had they to gain by selling in Abilene? I was the one who stood to gain by that; and for all they knew, I might be dead. They might decide to sell out and call an end to it, but they might recapture their dream.

  "They were talking of a green valley somewhere out west," I said. "A place folks had told them about."

  Jim smiled. "Isn't that what we're all hunting for? A green valley somewhere?"

  Suddenly I saw him coming down the street--Wild Bill himself. He was a tall, finely built man with a drooping mustache. He wore a black hat, a black, tailored suit, and a red sash with pistols thrust behind it. He was walking in our direction, and I faced him squarely.

  He looked straight at me. I was a stranger, but there was no wariness in his eyes, only that cool attention he gave every man. I knew he was good. You could feel it. "Mr. Hickok?" I said.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr. Hickok, I'm Otis Tom Chancy. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

  He glanced from me to Jim Bigbear. "Howdy Jim," he said quietly. "This man a friend of yours?"

  "Yes, he is."

  He turned back to me. "What is it, then?" Briefly, I explained about the bill of sale for the herd, how I'd been slugged, and my hat taken. I told him who the man was who'd done it, and about Andy Miller. And then I told him how I hoped to get my hat back. He listened, watching me carefully all the while. Then he said, "Why tell me all this?"

  "Because this is your town. You keep the peace here, and I'm a man who respects the law. If the man who did it wants trouble he can have it, outside of town. I wanted you to know I wasn't hunting trouble. But I want my hat back, and what's in it."

  "Have you any proof the hat is yours?" So I explained about that, and about the bill of sale. "All right," he said finally. "I'll be around."

  After he had walked on up the street, I looked at Jim. "You didn't tell me you knew him," I said.

  "Didn't figure it mattered. We were scouts for the army at the same time, a few years back. He's a good man."

  And just then I saw them.

  Three men came out of a saloon together: a short, thickset mar; with his vest torn in the back; a slender, wiry man with a still, cold face, reddish hair, and a few freckles; and a third one--tall, and good-looking in a rakish, hell-for-leather sort of way. And this one wore my hat.

  Jim Bigbear straightened up, blocking my view. "Don't look at them," he said. "That's Caxton Kelsey."

  Well, I didn't know the names of many folks in this part of the country, but I'd heard tell of Caxton Kelsey on my way to Santa Fe, and since. He was a gunfighter, and by all accounts a holy terror. He'd killed six or seven men that folks knew of, and he was accounted a bad man to tangle with.

  So I just stood still there, giving it some thought. I had used guns since I was old enough to hold one level and take aim, but I'd never considered myself a gunfighter or anything of the sort. I'd been around, I'd shot rifles at Indians when they attacked our freight outfits, but so far as I knew the only man I'd ever killed was that would-be sheriff back in the Territory. And I was smart enough to know I didn't qualify to hold a gun against Caxton Kelsey.

  But I wasn't about to give up all I'd lose if I didn't get my hat back. I didn't know what was between him and that redhead, and it was none of my affair. I just wanted my hat.

  Now, there's more than one way of doing things, and when a body can't come about it one way, he can do it another. Of course, the way I was thinking of might lead to shooting. All I could do was play my hand and keep my chips in the pot.

  We stood there, seeming to pay them no mind, and soon they crossed the street to an eating place. We watched them go in, hang up their hats, and sit down, and then I led the way across the street. As I did so, I saw Bill Hickok take the cigar from his mouth, flip off the ashes, and follow us.

  They were paying no attention when we came in, and I hung Kelsey's hat that I'd been wearing on a hook right alongside my own black one that he'd had. Then we sat down close by, and a moment later Hickok came in and crossed the room to a seat near the wall.

  We ordered coffee. We'd been sitting there maybe three or four minutes before Andy Miller happened to look around and see me. He leaned over and whispered something to Caxton Kelsey, who lifted his eyes and looked right at me and smiled.

  Yes, sir. He just looked at me and smiled, as much as to say:Well, here I am. What are you going to do about it?

  I just grinned back at him. "I've still got a sore head," I said to him.

  He was startled. I don't think he expected that, or anything like it. He shrugged and said, "Don't let it get you into trouble."

  "I'm not likely to. I'm a peace-loving man myself."

  I put two-bits on the table to pay for the coffee, and got up. "So much so that I'm going to leave you boys to eat in peace. Come on, Jim."

  Stepping over to the hatrack, I took down my black hat--my own hat.

  Kelsey sat up straight. "You've got the wrong hat,amigo . That's mine."

  "You had the wrong one," I said, stil
l with a grin. "You just picked up the wrong hat back on the prairie. Now you've got your own back."

  He did not move, but he said in a quiet voice, "Put it down, kid. Put it down while you've got a chance."

  "What seems to be the trouble, gentlemen?" That was Bill Hickok.

  Now, I didn't for a moment figure that Caxton Kelsey was afraid of Hickok. He'd taken his own share of scalps, and he was a good man with a gun, but Hickok was standing about twenty feet back of Kelsey's right shoulder. Jim and me were about ten feet apart, and facing him.

  He was boxed neatly, but he was a warrior, and he knew when he was out of position.

  Before he had a chance to speak, and maybe make an issue of it that none of us could get out of, I said, "This is my hat, Marshal. It's got my initials inside."

  They were there, all right, but stamped so small they could hardly be seen, and the chances were he had not noticed them. Holding the hat, my fingers had already found the bill of sale. Even if I lost the hat, I was going to keep that.

  There were half a dozen other men in the restaurant, and I handed the hat to the nearest one without taking my eyes off Kelsey. "My name is Otis Tom Chancy," I said. "You'll find my initials in the hatband right along the bow in the back of the sweat-band."

  The man took the hat and looked inside. "That's right," he said. "OTC right on the sweatband."

  Hickok said, "I think that settles it, gentlemen. Shall we all relax now?"

  Well, I put on my hat but, boylike, I couldn't resist having my say. As I put it on I said, "I'm glad to have this back. I left a bill of sale stuck behind the hatband."

  Well, for a moment there I thought Kelsey was going to go for his gun. His face turned ugly and he made a half-move to rise. Then Hickok said, "Chancy, your horse is in the livery stable. You'd better get it."

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, Marshal."

  We stepped out on the walk, and we didn't waste any time heading for the stable. Jim stood in the doorway while I saddled up, and then I took over while he threw the leather on his mount. We gathered up our other stock and headed out of town.

  It wasn't until Abilene was just a row of buildings on the horizon that Jim spoke. "You push your luck, cowboy," he said.

  "Well," I said, "it was my hat, and those are my cows."

  "He'll hunt you. He'll come looking for you."

  I was packing my Colt shotgun across my saddlebows, and had my rifle in the boot, close at hand. I was no match for Caxton Kelsey with a six-gun, and I knew it.

  At the second herd we visited they told us where we could find Noah Gates.

  We rode up to the wagon about sundown. Well, you should have seen their faces. They had given me up for dead, and here I was. Maybe the most surprised of them all was that redhead.

  "Figured you was dead," Gates said. He glanced from me to Jim. "What happened?"

  "That redhead over yonder," I said. "She's got herself a man. She set a trap for me and he laid me out with a gun barrel."

  "He lies!" she said sharply. Her face didn't look so pretty right then. Fact is, I never saw so much hatred in a body's face. If somebody does you dirt and gets caught at it, they hate you all the more.

  "Jim found me, or else I might have died," I said. "Then I had to trace her friend down and get my hat back."

  "I don't believe you." Gates's skin was mottled and his eyes were downright mean as he spoke. "Queenie's my daughter-in-law. She wouldn't do such a thing."

  "This man followed your herd all the way from the Nation, maybe further," I went on. "Jim and his Shawnee friends came on their tracks and studied them out. Your Queenie used to slip out of camp of a night and meet this man. I figure she told him about our deal, because he was hunting for that bill of sale. He never found it."

  "Dad," Queenie said, "every word he says is a lie. He's no good, and the sooner we get shut of him, the better."

  "The man's name is Caxton Kelsey," I said, "and unless I'm mistaken he'll be riding out of Abilene, a-hunting me."

  The name did it. Noah Gates knew that name, all right, and evidently he had cause for not liking it, because he turned sharp around on Queenie. "You took up with that murderin' no-account!"

  "He's lying!" she repeated, but nobody was believing her any more.

  "Then all you told us back in Texas was a lie. It was your fault back there," Gates said.

  "Believe whatever you're of a mind to." She stood with her hands on her hips, contempt in every line of her. "Adam Gates was never much of a man, no matter what you thought of your precious son. He was never anything but just a big, awkward farm boy."

  "You married him. You told him you loved him," Gates said.

  "My folks were dead and I had nowhere to go--until Cax came along."

  "He murdered my son and you lied about it."

  She shrugged. "Cax threw the gun down. He told Adam to pick it up, or get out and leave me with him. Adam was always a fool, so he reached for the gun."

  If there was any feeling for the man she had married, it surely didn't show. I had a picture of Caxton Kelsey standing there waiting for that boy to pick up the gun Kelsey just standing there, knowing how easy it was going to be ... then shooting him down before he'd more than laid a hand on the gun.

  "You'd better get out of here," the girl said, "unless you want the same. Cax is coming for me, and he wants the cattle. He's got Andy Miller and his brother Rad, and he's got LaSalle Prince."

  Noah Gates stood there with empty hands, his thin shoulders sagging. Two of their men were dead, two more lay on their backs, too hurt to fight. Five men remained--five tired, worn-down men, none of them gunfighters. Even a dozen of them would have been no match for the gunmen she had mentioned. LaSalle Prince was a notorious badman out of Missouri who had come into the feuds of eastern Texas, a coldblooded killer, with a leaning toward the ambush or the surprise shooting.

  "We've reached Abilene," I said. "I'm going to sell my cattle."

  They stood silent, their faces stubborn against me, but in their eyes was the doubt and fear left by what Queenie had told them. They were thinking of Caxton Kelsey coming against them with his men.

  I was giving that some thought, too, and mean as these fools had acted against me, I wished them no harm. I did not know the full story, but from what Queenie and Noah Gates had said, it seemed clear that she must have been carrying on with Kelsey, and when Adam Gates had come upon them Kelsey had killed him, with her standing by.

  "Whatever you figure to do," I told them, "you'd best be planning. I've a notion that Kelsey is a fast-acting man."

  "We can ride into town and get Hickok," Bowers suggested.

  "He won't leave town," I said. "His job is keeping peace in the streets of Abilene."

  Queenie was staring at me, her eyes filled with meanness. "He'll kill you," she said, "and I'll stand by to see it."

  "There was a man back in the Nation who had the same idea," I said, "and he sleeps in a mighty cold bed tonight."

  Gates had no idea what to do. You can't just up and run with a herd of cattle. They leave too wide a trail, and they are too slow. "He won't dare," he said finally. "We're too close in to a town. Folks wouldn't stand for it."

  "Maybe so," I said. "It's your gamble." They stared at me then.

  "What about you?" Gates asked. "You've got a stake in this."

  "We're going to cut out our cattle, and we're going to sell ... part of them, anyway."

  "And the others?"

  "Maybe we'll try for that green valley out yonder."

  "What if they come up to you--just the two of you?"

  "We'll fight," I said coolly, "and that's what I'd advise you to do. The first thing I'd do would be to tie up that--"

  But she was gone.

  She had been standing near the wagon, but she must have slipped behind it, and from there she had ducked into a draw where she'd had her pony tied.

  "She'd figured on it all along," Gates said.

  "She's going to meet him," I said, "and you ca
n bet they'll come back here."

  "What'll we do?" Gates was asking himself that question as much as anybody else, but I answered him.

  "You've got a choice. You can stay here and wait and fight, or you can try running. If you stay, the thing to do is have only one man in the open. Give your wounded men rifles, and let a couple more get into the wagon, too. Then the rest of you get down out of sight, and when they come up, cut them down."

  "We can't do that."

  "Then you've got to run. Look," I went on, "the Half-Circle X moved their herd this afternoon. You can start off, lose your tracks in theirs. It won't keep them off you long, but you can buy yourself some time."

  "And you?"

  "We'll cut out our bunch and pull out. You lend us one man to help. You'll want somebody to pick up your money after we make our sale, anyway. That way Kelsey might follow us, or he might follow you."

  There was nothing very good about the plan, but it was the best I could think of. There had been a lot of cattle moving over the grass, and following one herd wouldn't be too easy. And not even Caxton Kelsey would be wanting to bust into a strange Texas herd and get himself shot at in hunting for us.

  Ordinarily we couldn't have done it in twice the time, but I'd noticed that a good many of our brands were grazing on the slope of the draw, and all I wanted at this point was a hundred head or so. If I could get that many into town and sell them, I could pay off for the herd. The rest would be so much gravy.

  Reluctantly, Gates agreed, and even as he spoke, Jim was already moving. We rounded up about a hundred and fifty head and started them over the grass. We went due north and away from town, and drove the cattle down into a draw that curved around toward the bed of the Smoky Hill River.

  We saw scattered cattle and a few cowhands rounding them up and pushing them back into the herd, but nothing else. We bunched the cattle in a hollow of the hills and, leaving Jim and the old man to hold them, I skirted the town and rode to the Drovers' Cottage.

  Most of the cattle buyers were in the saloon. There were a lot of cattle around Abilene that year, and I wasn't expecting top prices. The stock we had cut out were mostly fat steers, in better shape than those that had been driven over the Chisholm Trail, and in much better shape than stock held on the prairies around Abilene. It had been a stormy year, cold and wet much of the time, and the grass had grown coarse and washed out. To the east it was much richer, and our stock had moved slowly for the greater part of the drive.