Chancy

by Louis L'Amour

  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.

  Now, a steer can bust a man considerable, so as he charged I grabbed for my gun and came up with it, but a mite too slow. Luckily, using the crossdraw I'd turned my left hip toward my right hand, and the steer hit me only a glancing blow. I went right over his horns and into the dirt, and my six-gun went a-flying.

  My mouth and eyes scraped dirt and I rolled over, frantic to get away from the steer, and came up to my knees just in time to see him start back at me. Only this time that darned fool pony, scared now, started toward him and busted the mossy-horn right over on his back.

  Coughing and spitting, fighting the dirt from my eyes, I looked around for my gun. It was nowhere in sight. Dark as it was, I knew I'd play hob trying to find it until daybreak, so I edged around toward camp.

  The rest of the herd didn't seem much bothered. They were well-fed, freshly watered, and bedded down in a good spot, and only a few of them that were nearby even showed interest. Me, I limped for camp.

  Cotton was sitting up when I walked in. "What happened to you?" he asked.

  He chuckled when I explained. "Wait up. It's time for me to take over, anyway, and I'll saddle up and collect them."

  We went back out together and he caught up my horse. The rope was still on the steer, which was backed off at the end of the rope, staring at us. I got into the saddle and Cotton eased around and put another rope on the steer, and we threw him and tied his head down. He would be of no mind to run now; and a few days of that would take some of the vinegar out of him. Back at camp again, I went to sleep.

  Corky was up and putting together some bacon and eggs when I opened my eyes. He grinned at me. "Hear you went around and around with that old mossy-horn," he said. "Well, it happens to the best of us."

  "It sure happened to me," I said. "He really tossed me."

  As I started to swing my gunbelt into place, I noticed the empty holster. "Lost my gun," I said. "Keep an eye out for it, will you?"

  Not liking the feel of the empty holster, I dug into my pack and came up with the ivory-handled gun I'd taken off that would-be sheriff back in the Nation. It was a fine gun, one of the best I'd seen, with a great feel to it. I checked the load, then dropped it into my holster.

  "Carry a spare, do you?" Corky said.

  "Picked it up back in the Nation," I answered. "It'll do until I find my own. I feel naked without a gun."

  Bacon and eggs was a rare treat for a cowhand, and about the only time we ever got anything of the kind was when we were close to town, as we were now to Cheyenne. They tasted almighty good and I could see that Corky was a hand with a skillet as well as with his fists.

  "You riding into town?" he asked presently.

  "Uh-huh."

  "Look," he said, "the one thing I wanted in Cheyenne was some canned peaches or pears, or something like that. I get fed up with this grub. How about picking up a few cans for me?"

  "For us," I said. "I like 'em, too."

  And that's just the way hell builds a trap for a man; for between that ornery, no-account steer and a few cans of peaches, I was riding right into trouble—more trouble than I'd ever had in my life.

  Mainly I was riding in to see how Tarlton was coming on. It was time to be heading back up to the Hole-in-the-Wall country, and I felt we couldn't wait. The last thing I wanted was more trouble than I had, but the past has a way of catching up with a man, and right there in Cheyenne it was about to catch up to me.

  Chapter 11

  PUFFED-UP CLOUDS like woolly sheep grazed on the pasture of the sky when I rode into Cheyenne. The wind skittered a few dry leaves ahead of me, and occasionally a gust whipped my horse's tail against the heels of my boots or the saddle leather. I was riding proud, for it was that kind of a morning, and the air was fresh and cool off the mountains.

  Up on a balcony a man was washing a window of the hotel when I came up the street, riding abreast of my own dust. He glanced down at me, and I went on toward the Doc's office and dismounted at the door.

  Doc was at his roll-top desk with a heavy white cup and saucer at his hand. The cup was filled with steaming coffee, and it smelled good to me after my ride. Open before him on the desk was an old ledger in which he was entering accounts, peering at them unhappily through gold-rimmed glasses. Glancing around, he recognized me and jerked a thumb toward the inner room. "He's awake. Go on in."

  It seemed to me that as he started to turn back to his ledger he did a sudden look-back at me, but, eager to see Tarlton, I went on inside.

  Bob was sitting up in bed, and he had been reading. Putting the book aside, he held out his hand. "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life, Chancy! You're looking great."

  "Can't say the same of you, but you're shaping up a sight better then when I last saw you."

  "Have you seen Corbin? He brought me in."

  "No, I haven't seen him," I said, "and we could surely use him. I've hired another hand—seems like a good man."

  "We never had a chance, Otis. Those boys came on us right out of nowhere in what looked like open country. They stampeded our cattle, and killed two of my boys before we ever knew what hit us. We were scattered out, and there was no place to get down and make a stand. Their first fire wounded me, and when my horse went down I lost my sixshooter. I made a stand with my rifle—"

  "We found the place."

  "They circled, too far out. I couldn't get a good shot at them, so they just drove off the cattle and left me there. They knew I was wounded, had no horse, and was without water, and they probably decided I was as good as dead."

  "We picked up your sign. You trailed them."

  "They had our cattle. I trailed them as far as I could, and after I'd passed out, Handy Corbin found me and brought me in here."

  We heard the outer door slam, and Tarlton made a sudden move to rise.

  "Damn it," he said, "Doc was going to mail a letter on the noon stage for me. I wonder what got him started off like that?" He glanced at me. "I wanted to let my family know where I am. Have you got any family, Otis?"

  "No, I surely haven't. Not close-up kin, leastways. I'm related to the Sacketts. There's a passel of them out in this western country, but they don't know me, nor I them."

  We sat there talking, and it was pleasant. Outside a chilly wind was picking up, but in here it was cozy, and I liked Bob Tarlton. To a man who'd never had a real friend before, he seemed like one. He talked of his folks and his home in the East, it was a life I'd never known, nor was I likely to. It was all a far-off thing, remote from these dusty plains, and it seemed farther still from the mountain villages I'd known in Tennessee. It was a genteel life, lived among folks who wore white shirts and black suits, who rode in shining carriages and talked business over coffee and cigars. I'd seen a few pictures of folks like that in magazines, time to time, but I could never figure what they did for a living, if anything.

  Bob Tarlton knew that world, and he talked of college, and business, and shooting ducks for sport, of walking with girls in a park of a Sunday, listening to band concerts and the like. Me, I just sat there turning my hat in my hand, thinking that those stories were like some kind of magic, making me rea
lize there was a world I wanted to understand, and someday to know, myself.

  Back in the hills in Tennessee we had no really rich folks, except for Martin Brimstead, and very few that could be called well-off, except maybe the Dunvegans before I'd wrecked their world. All I knew were horses, cattle, and guns, and I had some memories of knocking around here and there as a boy after I'd left the mountains. I'd seen some eastern towns, but only from the waterfront side, which is no way to judge any place.

  While I sat there with these thoughts in my mind, Tarlton finally got sleepy, so I excused myself and went down the street to get those cans of fruit Corky wanted. Despite the fact that it was chilly, a good many folks were out on the street, and most of them seemed to be just standing talking. When I came along they turned their heads to watch me, and I got a jumpy feeling, as if something was wrong—I wondered if maybe Caxton Kelsey was in town with his outfit.

  At the store, folks kind of stood aside for me. I went to the counter and ordered cans of peaches, plums, and pears. The store had the good smell of drygoods, leather, dried fruit, and such things. There was never any smell so good as the smell of a general store, unless maybe that of a blacksmith shop with the forge working.

  "Just put those cans in a gunny sack," I said. "I've a couple of cowboys a-hungering for them."

  "They'll have to wait, then." It was the marshal's voice, and when I turned around he had a gun on me. "Lift your hands, Chancy," he said. "I'm taking your gun."

  A dozen men had crowded into the door, all of them staring, mean as could be.

  "What's the trouble, Marshal?" I kept my voice low, not wanting to excite anybody.

  "Just unbuckle your belt, Chancy. I'd not like to kill a man in cold blood, no matter what kind of a coyote he is."

  The storekeeper was behind me to my left. There was no room to try anything, even if I'd been of a mind to start a gun battle in a room crowded with innocent folk. Besides, this just had to be a mistake.

  "That's strong talk, Marshal, and you holding a gun on me. What do you want me for? I've done nothing."

  "How about back in the Nation?" The speaker was a big burly man with prominent blue eyes and a red face. "What kind of a chance did you give Burgess?"

  There was something I couldn't figure out, something missing. "I don't know any Burgess," I said.

  "Then where did you get that gun? You're wearing Burgess' gun, and ever'body around here knows it."

  It didn't take any fortune-teller to tell me I was in trouble. Those folks were mad, and most of them had the look of being good men, too. Even the marshal, to whom I'd talked friendly, had no friendly look for me now. And here I stood, a lone man with nobody to stand beside me or to speak a word for me.

  "I took this gun off a man who tried to cut our herd back yonder. He was a no-account, posing as a sheriff."

  The red-faced man pushed forward. "Burgess was a sheriff, and he was a damned good man! Marshal, how long you going to stand there talking? I say we take him out and hang him."

  "Take it easy, Weber. Just keep your shirt on." The marshal measured me coldly. "Where did all of this happen, Chancy? Where were you?"

  "It was back in the Cherokee Nation. I'd just come down out of Tennessee and had come up to this herd Noah Gate's outfit. They'd had trouble with some herd-cutters, led by a man posing as a sheriff and wearing a badge. I bought in with them, and when this man tried to run a bluff and drew on me, I killed him. He was wearing this gun."

  "Alec Burgess wasn't that kind of man," somebody else was saying. "He was decent and law-abiding. Moreover, he was a dead shot with either hand. You'd play hell killing him unless you dry-gulched him."

  "You've got witnesses, I suppose?" the marshal suggested to me.

  That stopped me. For there were no witnesses any more, none but Queenie, and she would take delight in lying to get me hung. "Noah Gates and his outfit were the only witnesses. They are dead ... all of them, so far as I know."

  "Then there isn't even one witness?"

  "Marshal, the only person alive who could testify to what happened is Queenie, that red-headed daughter-in-law to Noah Gates, but she's running with the wild bunch, the same outfit I've been hunting. And she'd swear me into hell any time she got a chance."

  "Drop your gunbelt, Chancy," the marshal said. "I'm taking you in."

  "Will I get a trial?"

  "A trial?" the red-faced man sneered. "You don't deserve any more of a trial than you gave Burgess. Why wait, Marshal? I've got a rope in my wagon. Let's string him up!"

  There were several shouts of agreement, but the marshal turned quickly around. "There'll be none of that," he said sternly. "All right, Chancy. Drop your belt or I'll shoot."

  With careful fingers, I unbuckled, and there was a sinking in me when I did it. What chance was I going to have? I didn't know any Burgess, nor even where the crime was supposed to have happened, nor how. But I had no witnesses, no defense, and it had happened somewhere back in the Territory or the Nation, and I had been there at the time.

  Of only one thing could I be sure. The man of whom they talked, this Alec Burgess, could not have been the man I killed, but how could I prove that? I had been accused and arrested simply because I wore a dead man's gun.

  With the crowd following behind, the marshal took me down to the jail and locked me in the same cell from which I had released Corky Burdette.

  When that barred door slammed shut, I just dropped down on the bunk and stared blanky, too stunned to think about what had happened to me. From the muttering of the men outside I had an idea it wasn't over and all because of picking up a dead man's gun.

  Bob Tarlton was sick in bed, and was not likely to hear of what had happened to me. The boys were out at the herd, and just standing guard over those cows would keep them busy. There was nobody around anywhere to whom I could look for help. But then, I had never been one to expect help. That's one advantage of always being a loner, you've just got to do it yourself whatever has to be done.

  The worst of it was, I didn't even know what had happened. Seemed as if this Alec Burgess had been a well-thought-of man, and he'd gone east and been murdered. Well, that man I'd killed back there seemed a likely one to have done such a thing, but was he? After all, Burgess was some shakes with a gun, they said, and that would-be sheriff wasn't a man to buck anything like that. A dry-gulch, maybe and they'd as much as said that was the way it was. Still, there must have been more to it.

  The marshal had gone back to his desk and seated himself, his rule lying across the desk in front of him. Then he began snuffling through some old "Wanted" posters.

  There was one window in the cell, with three iron bars. From the way the jail building stood, that window must look out on open country. Crow Creek was out there somewhere, and there was brush along the creek, and trees. How long would it take a man to cover that distance if he was out of here?

  "Don't you get to thinkin' you can break out of here," the marshal said from behind me. "Those boys would hang you to the nearest tree right off. They thought a lot of Alec."

  "Look," I said, "no matter what bee you've got in your bonnet, I had nothing to do with killing this Alec Burgess. I took that gun off a would-be sheriff probably the very star he was sporting came off Burgess. I lost my gun last night, so I dug this one out of my blanket roll. Now, if I'm going to be accused of murdering a man you might at least tell me something about what happened."

  His eyes searched mine, and then, reluctantly, he said, "You know better than me. All we know is that Burgess and four other men started for Fort Smith, escorting a wagon with a woman and her husband in it, and two prisoners who were riding the wagon.

  "Nobody heard nothing of Burgess and the others, and then their bodies were found. The prisoners were gone, cut loose. Burgess and the others had been ambushed, all of them killed, including the woman. Finding this gun was the first clue we've come across, but everybody will want your scalp now."

  There was nothing in what he had told
me that was of any help, but I could understand the feelings of the men who wished to hang me. A well-liked man had been killed, too. But it must have taken more than one man to bring it off, and they must have had a strong motive to try it.

  "Who were the prisoners?" I asked.

  "Hood Cuyler and Rad Miller."

  "Rad Miller!" I came off the bed with a lunge that made the marshal step back from the bars. "Miller was one of the rustlers we've had trouble with! Do you think I'd risk my neck to help him get free?"

  "I thought of that, but you might have had a falling out since. Or your whole story may be a pack of lies."

  "Rad Miller is dead. I killed him out on the plains when he was chasing one of the Gates outfit. Handy Corbin can tell you that, so can Cotton Madden."

  "That's another thing," the marshal said calmly. "Handy Corbin is related to Prince, and we have reason to believe Prince was in on that deal."

  "It doesn't make sense. When we had the run-in with that would-be sheriff we'd never met up with Kelsey's outfit."

  The marshal shrugged. "No? You told me they'd been following the herd that Kelsey was playing patty-cake with Gates's daughter-in-law. How do you know there wasn't some tie-up?"

  Of course, I did not know, could not know. In my mind they had been separate incidents, and I could not get rid of the notion. Still, that did not mean there mightn't have been a tie-up. If the Kelsey outfit wanted to deliver Rad Miller, they might recruit help from anybody likely to take a hand and that bunch there where the would-be sheriff tried to cut our herd had been a pack of outlaws.

  None of this was likely to do me any good. Folks out west, where there was only occasionally some kind of organized law, had a way of taking justice in their own hands on the least excuse. My neck would probably be stretched before anybody knew I was the wrong man ... if they would ever know.