Chancy (1968)

by L'amour, Louis

  But all of a sudden a bunch of riders, unheard by me because of the shooting and yelling behind me, came down the trail to the cabin, right toward me.

  There was no place to go. I was caught dead to rights, fair in the middle of the trail, with the moon just showing over the ridge. And my gun was in my holster...

  The riders drew up when they saw me from a distance. "Pike, what the hell's going on out there?"

  It was Caxton Kelsey.

  Chapter 10

  Kelsey had mistaken me for the man called Pike, and this gave me the break I needed. My holster was set for a crossdraw, and my right hand was at my belt. Moving it over, I shucked my gun, the darkness of my body masking the movement.

  "Kelsey," I said, "I've got a gun lined on your belly. I've heard you're a fast man, but I don't think you are fast enough to beat a bullet."

  He never moved. He was no fool, and he was not one to gamble against a sure thing. Nor were the others. They sat very still, every one. But you know who worried me the most? It was that red-headed woman, Queenie. A man you can figure on; a woman you can't. They're likely either to faint, or to grab for a gun regardless of consequences.

  "It's you they're after, then." Kelsey drew on his cigarette and made it glow red in the night. "We'll get you this time. You're afoot."

  "Not any more, Kelsey. I'm riding out of here right now. I'm riding your black. I'm not inclined to shoot unless called upon, but at this range I should get two or three of you, including the girl there."

  Now, you hear about men arguing in the face of a gun, or taking wild chances, but it is a rare thing that you find a gun fighter gambling like that--he knows too much about guns. By now I was within fifteen feet of them, and just out of line of their horses.

  "You could start shooting, or I could," I said, "and I'd dearly love to put lead into you, Kelsey; but the way I figure it, whoever starts shooting gets killed, and somebody else as well, maybe all of us. I don't like the odds, but I don't have a choice. You boys do."

  "What do you want us to do?"

  "Let go your gunbelts. Just unloose the buckles and let them fall. And when you've done that, shuck your rifles and drop them."

  "Cax, you ain't going to let him get away with this, are you?" It was Queenie, and she was mighty angry--ready to spit and snarl and scratch, given chance.

  "Queenie," Kelsey said, cool and quiet, "you make one wrong move and I'll kill you myself. This man means business, and he's got nothing to lose." He chuckled a little. "Besides, I like his nerve. It will be real fun next time we meet when I gut-shoot him."

  They unloosed their belts and let them fall, then dropped their rifles.

  "Now back up the length of your horses," I said, "and get down from your saddles one at a time, Kelsey first."

  Nobody wanted to be a dead hero, and they did just as I said. When they were all down, I told Kelsey to lead his horse up to me. "Now, Kelsey, you be kinda careful," I said. "I wouldn't want you to try to get that horse between us, and if anything goes wrong I'm going to kill you first ... and you were the one who suggested gut-shooting."

  When I had the black, I rode over, starting their own horses moving ahead of me toward the high range.

  When Kelsey and his lot started down the trail, I took time to swing down and gather up a rifle and a cartridge belt. I slung the extra belt over my shoulders and gathered up the others. Then swinging back into the saddle, I started up the trail, shucking shells from the belts as I rode, and stuffing them into my pockets.

  Kelsey and the others were yelling, trying to draw some attention from the outfit at the ranch. The black was a good horse and stepped right out, although he had come a far piece that day. Up on the high ground I glanced back; only the light from the ranch house showed. I kept to the west, testing the night for the smell of dust, which would mark the way taken by the stampeding herd.

  Dawn was reaching red fingers at the sky when the smell of dust became strong, and I began coming up with scattered cattle. We started bunching them, the black and I, and he proved himself a good cow horse, with a liking for his job. Ranging back and forth in the growing light, we gathered strays and pushed them on to join the herd.

  Cotton was out there, bringing up the drag. He swore with relief when he saw me. "Man, I thought you'd caught one! And my pony's durned near wore out with pushing this bunch."

  "Keep right on pushing," I said. "We're heading for Cheyenne."

  There was an idea buzzing in my head. They'd figure we would start for Fort Laramie, and might cut corners trying to head us off--when and if they got horses. If they followed our trail, it was a cinch they'd find us, but I had an idea Kelsey would be impatient to come up with us before we reached Fort Laramie.

  We drove on into the dawning, and when day was full upon us, stopped for water.

  Five of the Gates horses, stolen by the Kelsey outfit, were found among the cattle. They must have joined the herd in the night, knowing the cattle, and had trailed along. We roped them out, and felt better about the hard work ahead, but neither of us was of any mind to talk. Handy Corbin was still missing, and we had not found Tarlton.

  There is something about a morning in the sagebrush country, something about the smell of leather and cows and horses, something about the smoke of a fire on the prairie, of coffee boiling and bacon frying tired as I was--and believe me, every muscle and bone in my body ached--I loved it.

  "Wonder how the boys are makin' out back at the ranch," Cotton Madden said suddenly. "I really do miss ol' Tom. He's been like a daddy to me ... not that he's that much older, only he's been a man grown ever since I first knowed him."

  "He's a good man. They're both good men."

  "You're from Tennessee?" Cotton asked.

  "Cumberland country," I said, "but nobody's waiting for me back yonder."

  He glanced at me. "You on the dodge?" It was a question nobody asked out here, but I didn't take it wrong, coming as it did from Cotton Madden. So many men out here had left home for reasons of health.

  "No," I said, "and there'll be a time when I go back. There's some folks I want to straighten out a mite."

  Suddenly we heard a horse whinny, and you never saw two men roll out of sight so fast. But it was Buck, my buckskin, packing my gear. He'd come on our trail and followed it right along. I never was so glad to see a horse in my life, and it beats all how attached a man can get to a piece of horseflesh. Best of all, I had my outfit back, and my own rifle.

  We hazed the cattle west and south, and the sagebrush levels fell away before us, or lifted in slow waves of hills, one no different from another. There was a reason for our dropping by Cheyenne, for we needed another cowhand--perhaps two if we were to drive this herd north. Moreover, there was a good chance that Tarlton would have gone there, if he was alive.

  Cheyenne was in cattle country. The cattlemen had started moving into the area several years before, and by this time they were well established. I'd find friends here, I knew.

  It was a wild, wild town. It had been hell on wheels, the end of the track, and many of the saloons and gambling houses were still active. It was not a big place ... at its biggest there had been several thousand people there, most of them passers-by, but the ones here now were about half passers-by and about half folks who were settled, or who planned to settle there.

  Leaving Cotton with the cattle, I rode into town, and first off I saw a man with a star. Now, the man wearing the badge was usually a solid citizen, although sometimes he was an ex-outlaw. When I pulled up my horse, this one looked over at me and I swung down. He was a tall, well-setup man with a brown, drooping mustache. He was neatly dressed and carried himself with a confident air, yet without arrogance.

  "Marshal," I said, "I'm with a cow outfit, and I need a couple or three cowhands. I want solid men who'll ride for the brand, no dead beats and no rustlers."

  He took the cigar from his mouth. "I might find some men," he said. "Where you ranching?"

  "We've just started," I
answered. "We drove a herd into the Hole-in-the-Wall country a few months back."

  He stared at me. "You must be crazy! That's right in the heart of Indian country."

  "It's good grass, and there's water," I explained, "and when I left there'd been no Indian trouble. Only trouble we've had," I added, "was with Caxton Kelsey and his outfit."

  That stopped him, as I expected it would. "Kelsey's at the Hole-in-the-Wall?"

  "No, sir. He's riding for Laramie right now, or maybe trailing us here. He's got blood in his eye and he's hunting me."

  So I gave him the whole story, right from the beginning, and he stood there and listened, chewing on his cigar, his eyes sweeping the street. It seemed to me that it was in Cheyenne the way it had been in Abilene, and if I wanted the law to understand my position I'd best tell my story first. If there was a gun battle he would have no choice but to treat both sides the same, unless he knew the real truth of the matter.

  Kelsey's name helped. He was a known bad man--not only a bad man with a gun, but an outlaw. In those days, when you said somebody was a bad man you did not mean that he was necessarily an evil man. It might just mean that he was a bad man to tangle with. Kelsey was all of that, but he was more. LaSalle Prince had an even worse reputation, and Andy Miller was a bad one, too.

  "When you pick your enemies," the marshal said, "you pick them tough."

  "They picked me," I said. "I came to Wyoming to ranch, and if there's trouble it will be because they come riding to fetch it."

  The marshal tipped his hatbrim down. "So happens," he said, "that I've got a lobster up there in my jail right about now that might be just the man you want."

  "In jail?" I sounded skeptical.

  "Don't worry. I wouldn't point you down the wrong trail. He's a good man." He grinned at me. "He's just full of coekleburs and sand, and he wants to fight everybody in town. But I happen to know that out on the range he's a first-class cowhand."

  He reached into his pocket and took out a key. "He's over at the jail, and his name is Corky Burdette. He can ride anything that wears hair, and he'll fight anything that walks. You go let him out and tell him I said he was to go to work for you."

  "Marshal, there's one more thing. Have you seen or heard anything of Bob Tarlton? Or Handy Corbin?"

  "Tarlton's a cattle buyer, isn't he?"

  "He was ... he's my partner."

  "Good reputation." He rolled his cigar in his lips. "I know Handy Corbin, too. What's he to you?"

  "He works for me. He's a good hand."

  "Yes, he is that." The marshal took his cigar from his mouth and glanced at me sharply. "Did you know he was a cousin to LaSalle Prince? They grew up together."

  Well, you could have knocked me down with a pencil, I was that surprised. I could only shake my head. Corbin had said nothing about knowing Prince. In fact, he had not said anything about himself at all, nor had I expected it.

  The marshal turned away. "If I see them, I'll let them know you're in town." And he walked away down the street.

  The jail had a cubbyhole of an outer room, with a desk and a chair, and a saddle thrown into one corner. There were two cells, each with four bunks, and Corky Burdette was seated on a bunk in one of the cells, riffling a deck of worn cards.

  He was a square-jawed man, and I found that he had a blunt, whimsical way about him. He glanced up at me. "The marshal is out," he said. "If you want to leave a message, just whistle it and I'll try to remember the tune."

  "I met him up the street. He said you were a good hand with stock, as well as a peaceful, contented man."

  "I'll bet he did. What else did he say?"

  "That you were to go to work for me." I held up the key. "He also gave me this."

  "Work for you? The hell I will! When I get out of here I'm going to look up a guy I know, and--"

  "Why waste your time fighting around here? Come with me and you can do something besides beating up sod-busters."

  "What if I don't work for you?"

  I shrugged. "In that case I throw the key away. The nearest locksmith is in Denver, and it would take a few weeks to get word down there, get that locksmith sobered up, and talk him into making a new key. Then it would have to be brought back here from Denver. Of course, Indians might lay for the man bringing the key, and it might get lost. In which case they'd have to go back down to Denver, find the locksmith, sober him up--"

  "All right, all right! I can read sign as well as you, mister. Where's your outfit?"

  "Up in the Hole-in-the-Wall country."

  "What?Are you off your rocker? A man could get himself killed up there."

  "You scared?" I said. "Are you a fighter, or just a Saturday night drunk?"

  He came ofl the bunk. "Open that door and I'll show you!"

  "You?" I sneered at him. "Why, I'd pin back your ears, grease your hair, and swallow you whole. If you ever take a punch at me I'll bounce you so high they'd have to shoot you to keep you from starving to death."

  He chuckled suddenly. "Open the door, boss, you've hired yourself a boy."

  Once outside the cell, he took his gun belt and rifle from a hook behind the door, and shouldered the saddle.

  "Let's go eat," I said, "and I'll lay it out for you. Then if you want to call it oft, you can."

  We were sitting over coffee when the marshal came in. "Chancy, I found your man."

  "Tarlton?"

  "He's over at the Doc's office, and he's in pretty bad shape. A rider brought him in just before daybreak. He'd been shot a couple of times, and he'd dragged himself a good ways. You'd better get on over there."

  We got up and I dropped money on the table to pay for our meal, then as the marshal reached the door, I asked, "Who was the man who brought him in? Do you know him?"

  "He didn't give his name. He was a man with a tied-down gun ... sounded like Handy Corbin."

  We followed the marshal out the door and he pointed to indicate the Doc's office. Nothing in this town was very far away. If you walked a hundred yards in any direction you'd be out on the prairie.

  Corky Burdette walked along beside me. "This Corbin ... do you know him?"

  "He works for me."

  "Then you've got a good man," Corky said, "a mighty good man. We worked for the same outfit back in the Nation, and again down Texas way."

  I found Tarlton drawn and pale. A stubble of reddish beard covered his cheeks, although I'd thought of him as a dark-haired man. He was asleep when we came in.

  "How bad is he, Doc?" I asked.

  "He's got a fighting chance. The wounds wouldn't have been so bad if they'd been cared for. But they've become infected, and he's lost a lot of blood, as well as suffered from exposure and physical exhaustion."

  We left and rode out to the herd. The cattle were grazing on good grass, and seemed content. Cotton came to meet us with a rifle across his saddle.

  "Keep your eyes open," I warned. "Kelsey might show up any time." Then I asked Cotton, "Did Handy ever say anything to you about being kin to LaSalle Prince?"

  "Now, that don't make sense. We talked about Prince, but he never said anything about even knowing him. Seemed to me he didn't set much store by him. I sort of figured he'd just heard of him, like I have."

  Corky took first guard, and I rolled up in my blankets. I'd been on my feet or in the saddle for about twenty hours, and I was dead tired. I told him to call me for the next turn.

  When he came in and shook me awake, I could see by the stars that he had let me sleep over my time by a good hour or more. "I was goin' to let you sleep right on through," he admitted, "only I just got too durned sleepy."

  He stood by while I tugged on my boots and had my coffee, and all the while kept listening toward the cattle. "There's something out there," he said in a minute, and he gestured toward the brush along the creek. "I figure it's a varmint of some kind. The critters can smell it, and they're spooky."

  When I was in the saddle, he added, "You watch that ol' blaze-face mossy-horn on the far side
. He's got it in his head to run."

  "I know him," I said. "He's a trouble-maker. Next time the Indians come around hunting beef they're going to get him."

  Now, a body never knows when he starts out to do something just what will come of it, else maybe nothing would ever get done. That night I was riding a hammer-headed roan that had belonged to the Gates outfit, and I headed for the herd and started to sing to 'em.

  So far as I know there's some Welsh as well as Irish blood in me, but when they were handing out the good voices they surely didn't allow me to take after most Welshmen. I couldn't carry a tune in a hand-basket. Maybe that's one reason I like cows--they're got no ear for music.

  So I started out singing "Peter Grey," "Skip to My Lou," and "Buffalo Gals." I made it around the herd a few tunes, singing soft and low, keeping an eye on that mossy-horn with the cross-grained notions in his head.

  By the time I had ridden three times around the herd I knew Corky Burdette had been right. That old mossy-horn was going to make trouble, and not for the first time. He had always been a bunch-quitter, for he had been one of the original Gates herd, stolen by the Kelsey outfit, and I knew him well.

  Whatever had been out there in the brush was gone now, and the rest of the cattle were settling down, but not that blaze-faced steer. He was prodding around, just hunting something to be scared of, so's he could take off and run, stampeding the lot of them.

  There's times when any little noise will startle a herd into running, but those cattle knew me and they knew my horse, and I had an idea they wouldn't be too upset if there was a little fussing around where I was. So I decided to side-line the mossy-horn before he could get the herd to spill over into a stampede.

  Actually, I wasn't about to side-line him, but I figured to tie his head down to his foreleg to persuade him he didn't want to run. My intentions were good, and the steer would suffer no harm from having his neck canted over a bit; but a body can't always have things the way he figures, and I was doing my figuring without remembering the horse I was on.

  When I skirted the herd again, I dabbed a loop on that old steer and busted him, but just as I hit the ground to make my tie, that cantankerous, rattlebrained pony I'd been riding slacked up on the rope and the steer came for me, head down.