It was the custom of the country, developed from the need to hunt for food and protect the hearth and home, but also from the feeling that freedom won with the gun might have to be kept with the gun. Here, as in Switzerland, the militia was the people.
Mora ... it all came back to Mora.
Yet might that not be a blind alley? That might be pure coincidence.
He had surmised the killer was a local man, working from local knowledge. He was also sure that something he had done had worried or frightened the killer into attempting to kill him. It might have been the discovery of the brand on the dead horse that started it, but it was evidence enough that the killer was watching.
So why not give him something to watch? Why not offer the killer some bait and draw him from under cover? Suppose Chantry let word get around that he had a source of information, and then he saddled up and rode out? Would he be followed? And if he was followed, would that not be first-rate evidence as to the killer?
Yet that meant setting himself up as a target, deliberately putting himself in the way of being shot at, perhaps killed.
He got up, put the tally book in his pocket and started back downtown. Bess called after him, and he turned. She stood in the door, staring after him. "Borden? Will you be long?"
"Not long. I have to talk to somebody."
He went into the jail and nodded to Big Injun, then opened the door to the space where the cells were. Kim Baca came to the bars. "How long am I going to be locked up here?" he demanded.
"If they're going to try me, why wait?"
"The judge will be along. He's comin' this way." Borden put his hands on the bars.
"Kim, how much of a man are you?"
"What?" The outlaw's face flushed. "What kind of talk is that? I'm as good as any damn man, an' I'll have you--"
"Is your word any good? I've heard that it was."
Kim stared at him, puzzled and wary. "My word's good. I never broke my word for anybody."
"Kim, we've got an open an' shut case against you. We can send you over the road with no trouble. You know that, don't you?"
"I'll get me a good lawyer."
"It won't help much, but you could help yourself by helping me. If you were to help me, my word to the judge might carry weight."
"What kind of help?"
"I'm going to have to leave town, Kim.
Somebody in town wants to kill me. When I go, I want you to watch and see who follows me, at least who leaves town."
"How can I watch from in here? I can't see much from that window."
"Didn't figure you could. You're going to give me your word that you won't try to escape, and I'm going to turn you loose."
"You're what?"
"I'm going to put you on what they call parole. You can set around outside, eat in the caf`e, have yourself a drink, but you can't leave town.
All you've got to do is see who rides out of town and keep your mouth shut."
"You'd trust me? Why, Marshal, I'm just liable to steal one of your own horses and ride out of here. That Appaloosa of yours, now--"
"I'll be ridin' him."
"Well, one of the others, then. How do you know I won't do that?"
"I don't. But I'm bettin' you're a man of your word." Borden Chantry put the key in the lock and opened the cell door. "Come on out, Baca. An' just to let folks know you've a right to be out, I'm walking down to the Bon-Ton to buy you a cup of coffee."
Chapter XIV
Lang Adams was seated near the window when they walked in, and Prissy was at a table with Elsie. Hyatt Johnson was at another window table, and all looked up when Borden Chantry walked in with Kim Baca.
"Well!" Lang looked from one to the other, smiling. "This is a surprise."
"Big Injun won't be around today," Borden said mildly, "so Baca gave me his parole and he'll be around town."
"Taking a chance, aren't you?" Lang suggested.
"I wouldn't blame Baca if he grabbed another horse and left the country."
"He won't do it," Borden sat down and glanced around. Hyatt was watching him, cup poised. Listening, too. "Baca gave me his word, and I believe in him."
Kim Baca shrugged, and glanced at Adams.
"He's a trustin' sort, and there aren't too many left. He still believes in folks, trusts in a man's word. Why, I do believe he'd hire me to care for his horses!"
Chantry turned his eyes to Baca. "Want the job?" he asked gently. "I could use a good man."
Lang Adams shrugged. "Baca, you'll find Chantry that kind of man, but whatever you do, don't cross him. If you ever ran out on him he'd follow you until he died ... or you did. He's like a bulldog ... never knows when to let go."
Conversation picked up and Borden looked out into the night and thought of his next move. He did need Big Injun, and there would have been nobody to care for Baca in jail. Also, he could use Baca.
Secretly, he knew there was yet another reason. Deep inside he was sure Kim Baca was a good man, a better man than most, yet with a taste for expensive horseflesh and not the money to buy it. Yet given a chance, Baca might become any kind of man he wished to be, and Chantry disliked seeing him go to prison where his future would be twisted the wrong way. Given this chance, he might make good. And if so, Borden would do as he promised and speak for him to the judge, a man he knew well as a hard-nosed frontiersman.
The judge believed in stiff penalties, but he was a man of much experience with the world and aware that all are prone to make mistakes. He would, Borden believed, give Kim Baca a chance.
He would also sentence him to hang if he failed to make good. He was that kind of man, harsh yet understanding.
Lang Adams was quiet. He talked a little, and when Borden asked him about Blossom Galey, Lang shot a glance at Baca and did not reply for several minutes. "She's all right," he said at last. "Shorthanded right now, so I may go help her."
"She lost a good hand in Pin Dover,"
Chantry agreed. "Did you know him?"
"To speak to. Yes, he was a good hand ... by all I've heard. Killed, wasn't he?"
"Yeah ... It was Riggin's last case. The one he was working on when he died."
"Too bad. He might have found out who did it."
"Might have? He would have. Maybe he already had, but now we'll never know. We'll never know how much he knew, but we will get Dover's killer."
"You have a lead?"
"A man always leaves tracks, no matter what he does. George Riggin used to say there were no perfect crimes, just imperfect investigations ... Then, when he kills again--"
"You think he did?"
"Of course." Borden was speaking just loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, if they were listening. And there were enough people in this room to let everybody in town know what he thought. "He killed George Riggin, and then he killed Joe Sackett and Johnny McCoy, and he's tried to kill me."
"If I were you," Hyatt Johnson said, from the next table, "I'd be careful. He's done pretty well so far."
"Maybe ... but each time he kills he draws the noose tighter. A man leaves a pattern ... and this man has.
"In fact," he pushed back his chair, "I've got a lead, a good lead. That's why I need Big Injun elsewhere and that's why I'm lettin' Baca out on parole, so I can be free to follow it up. When I get back to town I may know just who did it ... and why."
"Need help?" Lang asked. "All you've got to do is ask, Bord. I'll lend a hand.
Any man in town will."
"I know, but this is a job I have to do myself."
He got to his feet. "Come on, Baca, let's get back to the jail. See you tomorrow, Lang. Or the next day. You hold that turkey hunt open. I'll wrap this one up and then we'll do some shooting."
At the jail he showed Baca to his cell, but left the door ajar. "Good a place to sleep as any, and we've both slept in worse. I doubt if I'll see you tomorrow, but keep your eyes open."
"I'll do that." Baca put a hand on the barred door and moved it a few inches. "You reall
y trust a man, don't you?"
"I trust the right man, Baca."
"You think that killer's going after you?" Baca's eyes searched his face. "You think he'll take that risk?"
"He's got to," Borden said quietly.
"Look at it. He's running scared. He's killed several times, and now I've told everybody that I've got a lead. The way I see it, he doesn't dare take the risk that I do know something.
"The trouble with crime is, you never know who's watching. You may see nobody, hear nobody.
You may be sure nobody is anywhere around, but somebody can be and usually is. There's a bum sleeping in a dark doorway, somebody starting to draw the curtains at an unlighted window, the man who forgets something and comes back up the street. Maybe it's a cowboy who decides to catch himself a bit of sleep under a tree, a woman gathering flowers ... you never know who's around.
"The way I see it, that killer simply has to know. I think he'll follow me to see where I am going and get an idea on what I think I've discovered. And then, when I start back, he'll kill me. Or try."
"You got guts, I'll give you that." Baca sat down on his bunk and pulled off his boots.
"I'm going to get myself some shut-eye."
A few minutes later, sitting on the edge of his own bed, Borden Chantry was nowhere nearly so confident. He pulled off his boots, then sat there in the darkness for a moment, staring toward the blank window.
Mora ... it all came back to Mora.
If he just had the time he might ride down there.
But he did not have the time. He was facing a showdown he had invited by his words tonight.
He undressed and got into bed. He was wondering again who the killer might be, planning for his ride on the morrow. The trouble was that with all his thinking he forgot the most important item.
He forgot to remember Boone Silva.
For the first time in days he felt free. He had never been a man of the towns, although Bess preferred it to the ranch. Still better, she would have liked to live east, in even larger towns. Yet for him, his life was geared to the open range, out there on the sagebrush levels where the cattle grazed and the long winds blew. He rode slowly, savoring the feel of the wind and the vast sweep of distance around him.
He loved the empty lands, the places where no men were, or few men, at least. Yet he was aware he rode with trouble. Somewhere a man was riding to kill him, and that man might have followed him, might be out there now.
Nor was he deceived by the country, knowing it only too well. Some of the land through which he must ride was rugged, but much seemed rolling or smooth to the eye. But there were many arroyos, many folds in the hills where a horseman might ride unseen, many places where a man might lie in wait.
Suddenly, he changed his route. It was the instinct of the hunted man, for he the hunter was now also the hunted. He put his horse up a steep slope, switched back along the slope and topped out on a ridge. Yet with a glance down the far side he crossed over. And only then, when off the sky-line, did he look about.
Nothing ... yet? Was that dust? A vague something seemed to hang in the air, but was it dust or merely the changing colors of the land? The lighter-colored rock or earth of a slope might give the impression of dust.
He rode back, angling away from his trail toward the southwest, then veering back toward the northeast. Several times he paused to listen.
When next he neared the crest of a hill he came to it behind some brush that he could look through without showing anything of himself.
Nothing.
He was uneasy. Was it a sixth sense warning him? A premonition? Or was it simply his knowledge, his awareness that somebody might be hunting him?
Ed Pearson's place was now only a few miles off, and a hunter might deduce that was his destination. So he would circle about and come in from the north. He cut back sharply, went into the scattered cedar and circled around. It increased his distance but also his chances of survival.
Ed's place was in a corner of the hills, a sort of pocket. He had a rough shack, a corral and a lean-to shed. Other than an outhouse standing some thirty yards from the shack, that was all.
The mine tunnel led into the side of the hill not far back of the shack. There was a dump of whitish earth spilled down the slope in front of the tunnel, and some planks to make a runway for his wheelbarrow when he brought out the waste and the ore.
Whether Ed Pearson had found anything was a question. Most of the local people chuckled about Ed's "mine," and agreed among themselves that Ed lived by killing some rancher's beef now and again, and a small plot of ground he farmed nearby.
Knowing the quality of man he was, Borden Chantry approached with care.
A thin trail of smoke lifted from the chimney, and a couple of horses and a burro stood in the corral. A horse whinnied as Borden rode down the trail, Winchester in hand, eyes alert.
Here at this time was a moment of danger, for his enemy could easily have guessed where he was riding and gone on before. Yet there was no sound until the last moment when a droop-eared, liver-colored hound came from the door and barked half-heartedly, then came on, whining and wagging its tail.
"Hiya, boy," Borden said to the dog, then lifting his voice he called out. "Ed? This here's Bord Chantry!"
There was no response, no sound.
Warily, Chantry approached the house. He glanced from it to the mine tunnel.
Nothing.
He glanced quickly around at the hills, seeing nothing. He walked his horse up the small slope to the cabin and got down, rifle in hand.
The old hound whined eagerly and started toward the door, then paused, waiting for him.
"Something wrong, boy?" Borden hesitated, uneasy. Slowly, his eyes scanned the area.
There was a rusty wheelbarrow turned on its side, and various pieces of rusting iron lay about. The place was a shambles of odds and ends of junk. Pearson was a fixer, and always hauled off everything nobody wanted in the expectation that someday it would come in handy.
The gray, rocky soil sloped away toward a gully that carried off the rain. There was nothing at all in sight, yet he had the feeling of being watched.
He went up to the door, which stood ajar.
"Ed?" he put a hand on the door and pushed it wider. It squeaked slightly on rusted hinges.
Inside, the floor was surprisingly clean, swept freshly. On the table stood a coal-oil lamp, still burning but with the wick turned low, a tin plate and a blue enamel cup, a spoon, a fork and a knife. There was a low fire on the hearth, down to coals now, with a slowly steaming coffeepot at the edge of the coals.
A poker lay there, and when he stepped into the door he could see a rumpled and empty bunk of ragged quilts and a moth-eaten buffalo robe.
Items of clothing, old overalls, a pair of worn boots, and some old coats hung from nails in the wall.
A gun belt hung from a peg near the head of the bed where a surprised man might quickly grasp it.
He looked around. A saw and a hammer lay on the floor, a box of candles such as a miner might use, and some odds and ends. There was a bread-box, a barrel that probably contained flour, some few groceries about, and many cans ... undoubtedly some of the supplies he recently bought.
There was no sign of Ed Pearson.
Chantry walked back to the door and standing well back, looked all around ... nothing.
Where was Ed Pearson?
He glanced around the shack once more.
Everything seemed in place, as if the owner had just stepped out and expected to return at once.
The lean-to shed was open enough, and there was nobody in there ... yet what about the mine?
That mine had been the source of a good deal of conjecture. It was widely doubted that any ore existed there, yet Ed succeeded in making a living, and was reported to occasionally have gold dust to sell, or nuggets.
Chantry walked to the cupboard and took down another blue enameled cup, with a little of the enamel chipped from the rim. He
glanced at it, distrusting the cleanliness of such cantankerous old bachelors as Pearson, but the cup was spotless.
He took up the pot and poured himself a cup.
It was black as sin and strong enough to curl a man's hair, but it was hot, and it tasted good.
Cup in hand, he walked almost to the door ... but not quite.
A lizard darted halfway across the doorstep, then stopped, panting.
A rider was coming down the far slope.
Chapter XV
It was not Ed Pearson.
It was a long-geared man on a lean strawberry roan that looked to be built for speed as well as staying power, a mighty good horse for any cowhand to be riding. Suddenly, without knowing why he did it, Borden Chantry unpinned his badge and thrust it into his vest pocket.
The man had a lean, sallow face with greasy black hair hanging to his shoulders. He wore a fancy black jacket sewn with beads and spotted with grease stains. He looked at Chantry for a long minute.
"Howdy," he said.
"'Light an' set," Chantry suggested.
"Passin' by," the man still studied him with blue-gray, flat-looking eyes that revealed nothing. "How far's town?"
"Hour ... maybe more."
The snake eyes did not waver. "Your place?"
"Stopping by," Chantry was waiting, as was the other man. Each was silent, probing, listening for some indication that would tell him about the other man.
The stranger jerked his head to indicate the tunnel. "What's he got?"
Chantry shrugged. "Says it's gold.
Nobody ever found any gold here, and I never saw any of his."
"Beats all ... stayin' in a place like this."
The man looked around, his head turning slowly, without any movement from his body, then the eyes came back to Chantry.
"Who's the law over yonder?"
"Name of Chantry ... used to be a rancher until a freeze-up killed his stock."
"Good with a gun?"
"He gets along."
The stranger turned his horse, then looked back. Chantry shifted his position a little to keep his right hand free, and when the stranger looked back his eyes riveted on Chantry's side above the belt. Instantly, Borden knew that the movement of his body had pushed part of the badge up from his vest pocket. Chantry did not make the mistake of looking down.
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