Monument Rock (Ss) (1998) (16 page)

Breathing hard, he walked back. It was utterly impossible, yet the gunman had someho
w
outdistanced him. He turned again, looking down the long alley.

Rad Yates?

It simply could not have been Andy Short. No man of the age he had to be could sprin
t
sixty feet while Chick Bowdrie was covering less than thirty. And yet the man wa
s
gone.

Several men were gathered around the body and one had lighted a match to examin
e
him. Pedro came from the back door of the restaurant, stuffing his shirt into to
o
tight jeans. Closer by, Houdon came from his office, buckling his belt.

Without doubt the big cowhand had learned something, and he had come to town wit
h
it. Someone had followed him, not wanting him alive to repeat what he knew.

Easing away from the circle of talkers around the body, Chick walked back throug
h
the alley to where he had seen the horse. Distance was hard to estimate, and th
e
horse might have been right behind the saloon. Yet when he reached the spot, tw
o
struck matches revealed nothing.

Not far away was a huge cottonwood, and near it, several smaller trees. It was th
e
logical place. Here Chick found more hoof tracks than he had expected. He also foun
d
five cigarette butts. Here a man had waited, at least an hour ... for what?

This man was here befor
e
the big cowhand arrived in town. He must have been here most of the time Chick wa
s
in the restaurant. Could he have followed him there? But that did not make sense
,
because from under the trees the watcher could not have seen the cafe.

What, then, had he waited for? And the tracks were those of a horse with shoes wor
n
on the outside.

Houdon was waiting for him when he walked back t
o
the street. The body of the man had been moved. The marshal jerked his head towar
d
the street. "What did Jake want at this time of night?"

Houdon was unshaven and he looked tired and irritable. He stared at Chick and absentl
y
scratched his stomach. Briefly, Bowdrie outlined the situation, identifying himsel
f
to the marshal for the first time. Nothing seemed to arouse the marshal until Bowdri
e
mentioned the man who had lurked under the cottonwoods.

"Somebody else," he said, nodding his big head ponderously. "After me, I betcha.

Man makes enemies in this here job." He looked shrewdly at Bowdrie. "Folks sometime
s
don't take kindly to the law."

"I think," Chick suggested, "it was Andy Short."

The scratching fingers paused momentarily. Other than this there was no reaction.

Houdon shrugged. "Ain't from around here, I reckon. You see him, you let me know."

At daylight Bowdrie was getting a quick cup of coffee and some breakfast at Pedro's.

The fat Mexican leaned his big elbows on the oilcloth-covered table. "You savvy Burr
o
Mesa?" he asked suddenly.

Startled, Bowdrie looked up. Pedro glanced around, yawned widely, and put a stubb
y
finger on a spot on the oilcloth. "Here," he said, "is the Rock Hut. And here i
s
the
t
rail across the mesa. On the west side is another spring. My compadre, he ride i
n
last night. He say a man camps in the brush near that spring."

It was high noon when Bowdrie rode the hammer-headed roan into the scrub near Oa
k
Spring. Burro Mesa loomed on the skyline only a short distance ahead. The mornin
g
ride had been a long one and both horse and man were tired.

Well back in the brush, Bowdrie made a fire of dry sticks that gave off no smoke
,
and prepared a meal of coffee, bacon, and sourdough flapjacks. He stretched out afte
r
eating and lighted a smoke. Above him a pin oak was shelter from the blazing sun.

Half-asleep and completely relaxed, some half hour later, he heard a horse approaching.

Instantly he was alert. His hand touched the roan and the horse relaxed slowly. H
e
waited, listening. The horse was coming through the pass from the Chisos.

It slowed ... a saddle creaked ... with a warning signal to the roan, Chick ease
d
himself forward on cat feet.

The horse was drinking at the spring, and as he watched, the rider got up from th
e
ground. It was Rose Murray. She wiped the water from her mouth and looked carefull
y
around.

What was she doing here? And where were Yates and Chilton?

He watched her step into the leather and turn west, then mounted his own horse. Wa
s
she involved in the plotting? Or had she come upon some clue?

Holding a course that kept him inside the brush, he worked his way along the mountainsid
e
in the direction Rose had chosen. Suddenly he drew up.

A horse with shoes badly worn on the outside had come off the mesa from the west.

A blade of grass in one of the hoofprints was just springing into place. This coul
d
be the mysterious camper in the brush of whom Pedro had told him.

Chick Bowdrie followed on, but slowly. He had good reason to know the skill and trickines
s
of Andy Short. The quiet, gray-faced man in the nondescript clothes, described t
o
him by the hostler, but whom he had neve
r
seen. That the man was a gunman, Bowdrie knew from the Rangers' Bible-his agency'
s
file of outlaws.

At the edge of the pin oaks he drew up, scanned the empty country before him, the
n
moved ahead, alert for trouble. His eyes roved, and suddenly held.

The Rock Hut.

And two horses standing near a mesquite tree. One was the horse Rose had ridden.

The other was the horse he had seen once before, the horse of the mysterious rider.

He waited, studying the lay of the land. There was a door, obviously, from the path
,
leading from the front of the building toward where the horses stood. There was n
o
window on this side, but there was a window behind. A small window.

Swinging down, he moved carefully, closing in. From the window came half-heard voices.

"So, you trailed young Radcliff. What a joke! He's back at your place taking car
e
of Chilton's greenhorn son."

The girl spoke, too softly.

"You just sit there, Missy. We'll figure out . . ." The man's voice dissolved int
o
a murmur.

Chick started to move closer, then he dropped to his haunches behind a boulder an
d
some brush. A hard-ridden horse was coming down the trail. It was Rad Yates.

Chick moved away then stepped out from the brush as Yates slid his horse to a stop.

His face was a study in cold fury. Bowdrie knew how tricky the situation was. "Rad."

He spoke quietly, striving to keep his voice casual and calm on the other man. "Whateve
r
you're figurin' on, don't do it." Yates's head snapped around.

Before Rad could speak, he continued, "Think now! You're clean. Nobody has anythin
g
on you. We have plenty on Short. Why butt into something where you'r
e
not wanted? Turn around and ride out of here a free man. Stay, and you become a
n
outlaw."

The view was so eminently reasonable that Rad Yates hesitated. What Bowdrie sai
d
was true. He was still on the right side of the law. If he went ahead, there woul
d
be no return trail.

But the lure of the gold was strong. "No." He spoke slowly. "I've come too far-waite
d
too long." He swung to the ground. As he turned he drew.

Whatever he planned failed to materialize. In the instant he swung down, Bowdri
e
had closed in. As Rad turned, his gun coming up, Bowdrie slapped the gun aside an
d
down and hit him on the chin.

It was a short, wicked blow. Yates tottered and stumbled against his horse, the startle
d
bronc moved, and Yates lost his balance and fell. As he hit ground, Bowdrie kicke
d
the gun from his hand.

Yates came up fast and Bowdrie was too close to chance a draw. But Yates's risin
g
lunge met the battering ram of Bowdrie's rock-hard fist and the bone in Yates's nos
e
crushed under the impact, showering him with blood. The man was game, and shakin
g
his head, he got up. Bowdrie let him rise, taking time for one quick glance towar
d
the Rock Hut. No sign of life there at all.

The idea of Short discovering them frightened him and he stepped in quickly. Fo
r
all his size, Rad was no fistfighter. He threw a long swing and Bowdrie went insid
e
with a wicked right to the chin that dropped Yates. Grabbing the man's gun and takin
g
his rifle, he threw them, whirling, high over the brush. Then he ran for the Hut.

He was running on soft ground and he heard voices, then stopped. "How come you knowe
d
about this place?"

"I heard you tell Rad you'd meet him here today. Then I realized this might be th
e
place."

Chick heard the chink of metal on metal. "You're hard luck, kid, you shouldn't hav
e
come here."

Andy Short came through the door, his hands and pant legs dusted with dirt, draggin
g
a sack. His eyes went wide and he swung up the gun he carried in his right hand
,
and fired. The shot was too quick, a startled response to the unexpected sight o
f
the Ranger. It missed.

Chick Bowdrie palmed his Colt and fired, but Short had dropped low and the bulle
t
took him through the shoulder. It knocked him around and his second shot missed
,
and then Bowdrie put two fast bullets into him.

Bowdrie stepped back, his dark, Apache-like face grim and lonely. He began to shov
e
out the shells for reloading when from behind him he heard Yates's voice. But i
t
was a warning, not a threat.

"Bowdrie! Look out!"

Chick turned ... another rider sat his horse, and he held a four-shot Roper revolvin
g
shotgun in his hands. It was Houdon, the marshal.

Bowdrie could see Yates, blood still streaming from his nose, and Yates had anothe
r
cut now-on his skull. But he was not out.

Houdon's face was grizzled and old, his jowls heavy, his small eyes no longer looke
d
dopey or sullen. Now they held amusement, and cunning.

"Killed Andy, did you? Can't say I'm sorry. Andy there could be right slick wit
h
a gun."

Bowdrie watched the man carefully. Slowly, things began to fit together.

"You're the sixth man," he said suddenly. "You're the last survivor of the Chilto
n
gang."

Houdon did not change expression for a moment, then he chuckled. It was a slow, fat
,
easy chuckle. "Yep, an' I'm the one killed Dan. It wasn't Andy, like you prob'l
y
figured. I took Andy's horse from the livery, knowin' a body could track them shoes.

I think that might've turned him against me, what d'you think?"

"You were all trying to find the treasure?"

"We were gonna be partners. But now . . . well, the deal's off. Knowed I had to mov
e
quick when you told me Andy had been layin' for me back o' the saloon.

"I killed that cowpoke, too. Heard he was huntin' around up here."

Bowdrie was thinking. He held his six-shooter and it was still partly loaded. Di
d
Houdon know that? Or did he think because he had pushed out two shells that the gu
n
was empty? But where were the loads? For the life of him, he could not recall. Ther
e
should be one empty under the hammer, but was it there, or just above the loadin
g
gate?