The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 2 (52 page)

“You should take no more for granted from an officer of the law than from a horse thief. Both parties might conceal more than they tell.”

Charlie Venk had ridden west, then north. Bowdrie knew a showdown was approaching and he was almost sorry. Trailing Venk had been a rare experience. In a time when many men lived by the gun, some of them were men of education and background. John Ringo and Elza Lay, for example, were men of considerable reputation. Charlie Venk was another, yet whatever else he was, he was a killer and a thief.

All that day and much of the next he followed Venk through a maze of tracks. He lost the trail, then found it again. It led across bare hillsides where Venk could proceed swiftly but Bowdrie, for fear of an ambush, must move slowly. He had to ride with extreme care for he was sure that Venk had made up his mind. He was through running.

Venk knew every trick, and he tried them all. Then Bowdrie came on a wagon loaded with household goods. The driver and a woman sat on the wagon seat; a small child peered between their shoulders.

“Hi!” The driver drew up. “You're ridin' the wrong way! Apaches raidin'! Killed a couple of prospectors night before last and burned some folks out! Better head back t'other way!”

Bowdrie smiled. “Thanks. Have you seen a big man? Ridin' a sorrel horse? Nice-lookin' man, headed the same way I am?”

“Sure did! He he'ped me fix a busted wheel. Bought some ca'tridges from me. You a friend o' his'n?”

“You might put it that way.”

“He said he had a friend foller'n him an' he aimed to take that friend right through the middle of Apache country. Said he'd take him right back to Texas if he had the nerve to foller!”

Chick Bowdrie looked south and west. “I imagine he expected you'd tell me that. See you.”

He continued north, but now he rode with greater caution, avoiding skylines and studying country before trusting himself to cross open places. Off to the northwest there was a thin column of smoke. It was not a signal. Something was burning.

Bowdrie turned the roan toward it.

Venk, Bowdrie reflected, was a strange combination. He had rustled cattle, stolen horses, robbed banks, and had killed several men, most of them in gun battles. As to the killing that started Bowdrie on his trail when he shot the man off the horse, all the evidence was not in. There might be more to it than the cold-blooded killing it seemed to be.

He was shrewd and intelligent. He could be friendly, and he could be dangerous. He could smile right into your eyes and shoot you dead in your tracks. Whatever else he was, to ride into Apache country meant he had to be either a very brave man or a fool. Or both.

For Bowdrie to follow him was equally foolish. Yet Charlie thought he was playing his ace in taking the risk. Desperate the man might be, but he also knew something about Chick Bowdrie by now.

He could not shake Bowdrie from his trail. Venk had tried every ruse used in wild country. This would be his last attempt.

They were now in northern Arizona. It was the home country of the Mogollon and White Mountain Apache, a rough, broken country of mountains, cliffs, and canyons. Not many miles from here was a pine forest of considerable extent. Bowdrie would have to think and move carefully, for the Apaches were more to be feared than Venk.

Venk was no fool, and in saying he was returning to Texas, he might do just that. He might also weave a trail through raiding Apache bands, then circle back to pay another visit to Lucy Taylor. Lingering in this country was a foolhardy matter, but better to linger than to act and blunder.

         

Ten miles ahead of Bowdrie was Charlie Venk. Always before he had been able to talk or laugh himself out of a situation or his skills had been great enough to elude pursuit. He now knew the identity of his pursuer, and he could not have missed knowing something about Bowdrie.

He could find no way of eluding his pursuer, and good with a gun as he was, he knew that in any gun battle many things might happen, and Bowdrie would not die easily. He might kill Bowdrie, but he might also be killed. And Charlie Venk loved life.

He was fresh out of tricks. Several times he believed he had lost the Ranger, but always Bowdrie worked out the trail and kept coming. It was getting on Venk's nerves. He no longer felt like laughing. Twice lately he had awakened in a cold sweat, and he found himself looking over his shoulder constantly. Once he even shot into a shadow. He had not had a good night's sleep in weeks.

Now he was riding into Apache country. There was no mercy in Charlie Venk. He was a good fellow as long as it cost him nothing. Could he have killed Bowdrie without danger to himself, he would have done it.

Nowhere in sight was there movement. Hot sun lay down the valley, but it was cool in the shade and the trail was visible for miles. Cicadas sang in the brush, and somewhere not far off a magpie fussed and worried over something. Charlie Venk needed rest, and this was as good a place as he was apt to find. He would just—

A brown arm slipped from behind and across his throat. Hands seized his arms and he was thrown to the ground. Other Apaches moved in, and he was a prisoner. His arms were bound, his guns taken away.

Blankly he stared into the cruel dark faces around him. He could talk, but his words would fall on unheeding ears. He could laugh, but they would not comprehend. His guns were gone, his muscles bound, his gift of tongue useless.

Charlie Venk stared into the sunlit afternoon realizing the heart-wrenching truth that he was through. He, the handsome, the strong, the ruthless, the untouchable. He who had ridden wild and free was trapped.

He was too wise in the ways of his country not to know what awaited him. Fiendish torture, burning, shot full of arrows or staked to an anthill.

         

Chick Bowdrie found the spot where the capture took place, not two hours after Venk was taken. He found the stubs of three cigarettes, a confusion of tracks, mingled moccasins and boots. He found the trail that led away, several unshod horses and one shod. There was no blood on the ground. No stripped and mutilated body. Charlie Venk had been taken alive.

It was after nightfall when he found the Apache camp. His horse was tied in a thicket a half-mile away, and Bowdrie had changed to the moccasins he carried in his saddlebags. He was among the rocks overlooking the Apache camp.

Below him a fire blazed and he could see Venk tied to a tree whose top had been lopped off. As Chick watched, an Apache leaped up and rushed at Venk, striking him with a burning stick. Another followed, then another. This was preliminary; the really rough stuff was still to come. There were at least twenty Apaches down there, some of them women and children.

Bowdrie inched forward, measuring the risk against the possibilities. Coolly he lifted his Winchester. His mouth was dry, his stomach hollow with fear. Within seconds he would be in an all-out fight with the deadliest fighters known to warfare.

His greatest asset aside from his marksmanship was surprise. What he must do must be done within less than a minute.

He fired three times as fast as he could lever the shots. The range was point-blank. The first bullet was for a huge warrior who had jumped up and grabbed a stub of blazing wood and started for Venk. The bullet caught the Indian in mid-stride.

Bowdrie swung his rifle and another Apache dropped, a third staggered, then vanished into the darkness.

Instantly he was on his feet. If he was to free Venk, it must be done now! Once the panic inspired by the sudden attack was over, he would have no chance at all.

A move in the shadows warned him, and he fired. Venk was fighting desperately at the ropes that bound him. Behind the tree, Bowdrie could see the knot. He lifted the rifle and fired, heard the solid
thunk
of the bullet into the tree, and then, as he was cursing himself for his miss, he saw Venk spring away from the tree, fall, then roll into the shadows.

His bullet, aimed at the knot, had cut a strand of the rope!

The Apaches had believed themselves attacked by a number of men but would recover swiftly, realizing it could not be so. Warned by the fact that nobody had rushed the camp, they would be returning.

Bowdrie worked his way to where the horses were. He heard a sliding sound and a muffled gasp of pain.

“Venk?”

“Yeah.” The whisper was so soft he scarcely heard it. “And I got my guns!”

A bullet smashed a tree near them, but neither wasted a shot in reply. They were thinking only of the horses now. The Apaches would think of them also. Suddenly Venk lifted his pistol and shot in the direction of the horses. Bowdrie swore, but the shot struck an Indian reaching for the rope that tied them. Startled by the firing, the horses broke free and charged in a body.

Bowdrie had an instant to slip his arm and shoulder through the sling on his rifle, and then the horses were on them.

He sprang at the nearest horse. One hand gripped the mane and a leg went over the back. Outside camp they let the horses run, a few wild shots missing them by a distance. They circled until they could come to where Bowdrie's horse was tied.

Daybreak found them miles away. Bowdrie glanced over at the big, powerfully muscled man lying on the ground near the gray horse. That it had once been a cavalry horse was obvious by the “US” stamped on the hip.

Naked to the waist, Venk's body was covered by burns. There was one livid burn across his jaw.

Venk looked over at him. “If anybody had told me that could be done, I'd have said he was a liar!”

Venk had two guns belted on, and in his wild escape from camp he had grabbed up either his own or an Indian's rifle.

“That was a tough one,” Bowdrie admitted.

“You Rangers always go that far to take a prisoner?”

“Of course,” Bowdrie said cheerfully, “I could have saved Texas a trial and a hanging or a long term in prison by just letting them have you.”

“I guess,” Venk suggested, “we'd better call it quits until we get back among folks. No use us fightin' out here.”

Bowdrie shrugged. “What have we got to fight about? You're my prisoner.”

“Determined cuss, aren't you?” He put a cigarette in his mouth. “Oh, well! Have it your own way!” He took a twig from the fire to light his smoke; then he said, holding the twig in his fingers, “I might as well go back with you. You saved my life. Anyway—” he grinned—“I'd like to stop by and see that Lucy gal! Say, wasn't she the—!”

He jumped and cried out as the twig burned down to his fingers, but as he jumped his hand dropped for his gun in a flashing draw!

The gun came up and Bowdrie shot him through the arm. Charlie Venk dropped his gun and sprang back, gripping his bloody arm. He stared unbelieving at Bowdrie.

“You beat me! You beat me!”

“I was all set for you, Charlie. I've used that trick myself.”

“Why didn't you kill me? You could have.”

“You said you wanted to see Lucy again. Well, so do I. I'd hate to have to go back and tell her I buried you out here, Charlie.

“Now, you just unbuckle that belt and I'll fix up that arm before you bleed to death. We've a long ride ahead of us.”

Strawhouse Trail

He looked through his field glasses into the eyes of a dying man. A trembling hand lifted, the fingers stirred, and the dying lips attempted to form words, trying desperately to tell him something across the void, to deliver a final message.

Chick Bowdrie stared, struggling to interpret the words, but even as he stared he saw the lips cease their movements and the man was no longer alive.

Lowering his glasses, Chick studied the wide sweep of the country. Without the glasses he could see only the standing horse that had first attracted his attention. The canyon between them was deep, but the dead man lay not more than one hundred yards away.

Mounting his hammerheaded roan, Chick Bowdrie swung to the trail again and started down the steep path into the canyon. By this route the man must have come. Had he been dying then? Or had he been shot as he reached the other side? There had been a dark blotch on the man's side that must be blood.

Twenty minutes later he stood beside the dead man. No tracks but the man's own. Falling from his horse, the fellow had tried to rise, had finally made it, struggled a few steps, and then fallen, to rise no more.

Chick knelt beside the dead man. About fifty-five, one hundred and thirty pounds, and very light-skinned for a western man, which he obviously was. He had been shot low down on the left side.

No … that was where the bullet had come
out
. The bullet had entered in the man's back near the spine.

Nothing in the pockets, no letters, no identification of any kind … and only a little money.

The jeans and shirt were new. The boots also. Only the gun belts, holster, and gun were worn. They showed much use, and much knowing care. The trigger was tied back … the man had been a slip-shot.

The dead man's hands were white and smooth. Not the hands of a cowhand, yet neither was the man a gambler. Getting to his feet, Chick walked to the horse. A steel-dust and a fine animal, selected by a man who knew horseflesh. The saddle was of the “center-fire” California style, of hand-worked leather and with some fine leather work on the tapaderos. The rope was an easy eighty feet long, and new.

No food, which indicated the man expected to reach his goal before night. He had been shot not more than two hours before dusk, which implied his destination could not be far off. Surely not more than fifteen miles or so.

A new Winchester rifle with a hundred rounds of ammunition. An equal amount for a pistol, and then, curiously enough, a box of .32-caliber pistol ammunition.

Returning it all to the saddlebags and a pack under the slicker, Bowdrie slung the body over the dead man's saddle, then mounted his own horse.

Four miles from where the body had been found, the tracks of a shod horse turned into the trail. Chick swung down and studied them. The shoes were not new and were curiously worn on the outside. Stepping back into the leather, Chick rode on.

Valverde came to life when Chick rode down the street. A man got up from a chair in front of the livery stable, another put down his hammer in the blacksmith shop. A girl came from the general store. As one person, they began to move toward the front of the Border Saloon, where Chick Bowdrie had stopped.

“Deputy sheriff here? Or marshal?”

A bulky man with a star came from the saloon. “I'm Houdon, I'm the marshal.”

“Found him on the trail.” Bowdrie explained as the marshal examined the body, yet as he talked Chick's eyes strayed to the faces of the crowd. They revealed nothing. Behind him, there was a click of heels on the boardwalk, a faint perfume, then a gentle breathing at his shoulder.

The girl who had come from the store looked past him at the body. There was a quick intake of breath and she turned at once and walked away. Because she had seen a body? Or because she knew the man?

After answering questions, Bowdrie walked into the saloon. The bartender shoved the bottle to him and commented, “Eastern man?”

“California,” Bowdrie replied. “Notice his rig?”

The bartender shrugged, making no reply. Chick downed his drink, filled his glass again, and waited, listening to the discussion in the bar.

There was, he learned, no trouble in the vicinity, and jobs were scarce. Occasionally he helped the conversation along with a comment or a question. Most local cowhands worked years for the same outfit, and most of them were Mexicans. The Bar W had let two hands go, but that was an exception. The Bar W was in old Robber's Roost country, over against the Chisos Mountains.

“That trail I was followin',” he commented idly, “wasn't used much.”

“It's the old Strawhouse Trail. Smugglers used it, a long time back. Only the old-timers know it.”

But the dead man had been riding it. Was he an old-timer returning? Chick threw down his cigarette and crossed to the restaurant.

Pedro opened one eye and looked at Bowdrie. A fat, jolly Mexican woman came from the kitchen. She jerked her head at the man. “He is the sleepy one! Good for nothing!”

Pedro opened the eye again. “Juana have nice restaurant, six leetle ones. Good for nothing! Hah! What can we get you, señor?”

“How about
arroz con pollo
?”

Chick Bowdrie dropped to a bench beside the table, considering the situation. A man had bought an outfit, then loaded for bear, he had come to the border, a man who knew the old trails and who probably had been here long before. From his age, however, the sort of man who would not lightly return to the saddle.

He was eating when the girl came in and stopped near his table. She hesitated, then abruptly, she sat down. She put her hands on the table before her and he glanced at them, carefully kept hands, yet western hands.

“That man … did he say anything? I mean, was he still living when you found him?” She was very lovely, tall, with blond hair bleached by the sunlight.

“He was alive when I first saw him through my field glasses, but by the time I had crossed the canyon, he was dead.” He tasted his coffee. It was cowpuncher coffee, black and strong. “Did you know him?”

“No.” The suit she wore was not new. Excellent material and beautifully tailored, but growing shabby now. “I … I thought he might be coming to see me. I'm Rose Murray.”

The RM. He knew the ranch; from what he had heard earlier, he had ridden over part of it on his way into town. He waited for her to continue, and after a minute she said, “I'd never seen him. He … he knew where something was, something that belongs to my family. He was coming to get it for us.”

Gradually, she told him the story. Her ranch had steadily lost money after the death of her father. Rustlers, drought, and the usual cattle losses had depleted her stock. With only a few hands left and badly in debt, a letter came from out of nowhere.

Long ago an outlaw band had roamed the area and they had raided the hacienda, stealing several sacks of gold coins, a dozen gold candlesticks, a gold altar service from the chapel, and a set of heavy table silver by a master craftsman. Owing to the weight of the treasure and the close pursuit, the thieves had been compelled to bury the loot. Taking only what gold coins they could safely carry, they had scattered.

Two of the six had been slain in a gun battle with the posse and another had been shot down on a dark El Paso street a few weeks later. The writer of the letter, who had not given his name, had gone west. He had fallen in love, married, and gone straight.

Hearing of the collapse of the once great fortune and the dire straits of the girl, his conscience troubled him.

His own wife had died and he was once more alone. Some word had come to him from Texas that worried him, so he had written the girl that he was coming to her.

“He mentioned no children?”

“There was a son.”

When Rose had gone, Chick crossed to the stable for his horse. The hostler walked back with him. “Ain't you that Castroville Ranger? Name of Bowdrie?”

Bowdrie nodded, waiting.

The old man nodded widely. “Figured so. Gent comes in askin' who your hoss belonged to. Seemed mighty interested. I told him I didn't know.”

“What did this fellow look like?”

“Oldish feller, shabby kind of. Thin hair, gray eyes. No color to him but his guns. They seen plenty of use.”

The hostler pointed out the inquirer's horse. Chick looked it over thoughtfully. Dusty and tired. He put a hand on the horse. “So, boy,” he said gently, “so …” The horse was too tired to resent his hand as he picked up the hoof. Holding it an instant to let the horse get used to it, he turned it up and examined the shoe. It was badly worn on the outside. So were the others.

Bowdrie straightened. “Thanks. Do you a favor some time.”

         

At daylight he was out of town and riding for the border. Crossing the river, he pulled up at the house of an old Mexican he knew in Boquillas.

Miguel watched Bowdrie as he came up the walk from the gate where he had tied his horse. He started to rise, but Chick put a hand on his shoulder. “Don't get up, my friend. I have come to talk to the one who remembers all.”

“You flatter an old man, señor. What is it you wish to know?”

When he explained the old man nodded. “
Sí,
I have not forgotten, but it was long ago.” He leaned forward. “It was the Chilton gang, amigo. There were six, I was among those who fought the two who were killed. Before one died he told us one of the others was Bill Radcliff.”

“The Chilton gang …”

Bowdrie remembered them from the files of the Rangers. Dan Chilton, Bill Radcliff, and Andy Short had been the core of the group. Robbing payrolls had been their game, at ranches, mines, and the railroad. “One was killed in El Paso,” he said.

“Radcliff.” Miguel lighted a fresh cigarette. “The killer was never known. Some thought John Selman. He was marshal then. I do not think so.”

“Chilton?”

Miguel shrugged. “Who knows? He was the best of them. Wild, but a good man. My brother knew him. Short was the worst. A killer.”

They talked into the hot afternoon about the border and bad men and Indians and wars. It was only with great reluctance that Bowdrie got up to leave.

“Vaya con Dios.”

“
Adios,
amigo. Till next time …”

         

Bowdrie rode toward Glen Springs Draw. He thought again of Andy Short … it could have been the name the dead man had been saying, shaping the name with his lips as he died.

Sunlight flashed on a distant hillside, and instantly Chick Bowdrie reined the roan over and slapped spurs to his ribs. The horse jumped just as the bullet whiffed past Bowdrie's head, but the roan was startled and the second bullet missed by yards. Only the sunlight on a rifle barrel had saved his life.

The shot had come from the slopes of Talley Mountain, and Chick kept the roan running, dodging from arroyo to arroyo and swinging back toward the mountain whence the bullet had come. Suddenly he eased to a canter, then a walk.

Dust in his nostrils, a settling of dust in the road, and the tracks of a horse … with shoes worn on the outside!

Making no attempt to follow, he turned his horse into the trail that led to the Bar W and the RM. Both outfits had headquarters beyond the ridge, and the trail swung suddenly left into a narrow cut. Hesitating only briefly, Bowdrie started into the opening. The sheer walls offered no place for a sniper, and the low rocks within the cut gave no shelter. He rode slowly, however, his six-gun in hand, and suddenly drew up, aware of a clicking. The sound stopped, and he started on. It began again. Suddenly he smiled ruefully. His horse's hooves were scraping against the eroded stones that lined the base of each wall.…

Shortly before sundown he walked the roan into the yard of the Bar W. The old adobe house, the pole corrals, the sagging roof of the barn gave no evidence of life. Then a rusty hinge creaked and Bowdrie saw a man step from the barn.

He saw Bowdrie in the same instant, and for a moment he hesitated, as if half-inclined to drop the bucket he was carrying and grab for a gun.

Unshaven, big and rough, his shirt was dirty and he had a narrow-eyed look like a surly hound.

There were, Bowdrie noted, six mules in the corral, and several fine horses … he took out the makings.

“Howdy”—his voice matter-of-fact—“takin' on any hands?”

“No.” He jerked his head. “Go try the RM.”

Bowdrie continued working with his smoke, taking his time. “Old place,” he commented, “could stand some work. Figured there might be a job.”

“You figured wrong.”

“Don't rush me, amigo. I'm interested in old places. Why, I'd bet this one was here in the days o' the Chilton gang.”

The name brought no reaction. “Never heard of 'em.”

“Some years back. Nobody ever did find all that loot.”

The big man was interested now. He walked toward Chick. “What loot?”

It was possible, Bowdrie decided, to drop a pebble in this pool and see what happened to the widening ripples. It might cause dissension in the ranks of the enemy. Or create a diversion. “A quarter of a million in gold and jewels,” he said carefully. “It was cached. Somebody right close about knows where it is.”

“You don't say!” The man was interested now. “So, what's the yarn?”

Bowdrie explained, then added, “Ticklish business, huntin' for it. Two of the outlaws must be still alive.”

The man was greedy and interested, but obviously a hired hand who knew nothing. Chick reined his horse around. “Your boss prob'ly knows the story. Oldish man, isn't he?”

“Not more'n twenty-six or seven.” The big man grinned maliciously. “An' pure D poison with a six-gun. You maybe heard of Rad Yates.”

Bowdrie had … no definite record. Bought and sold cattle, gambled a good bit, usually consorting with outlaws and men along the fringe. He had killed, according to report, nine men. All had been in what were apparently fair fights.