Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) (15 page)

As for himself, he would never make the cabin. He would have to fight it out right here, behind that log.

There was no sound but the bubble of coffee in the pot. He tossed Starr a cup. "Here!" he said.

Curly grabbed it but his eyes sparked. Bowdrie knew where they would be, among the cottonwoods. The toss of the cup had put Curly off guard, but fpr the moment only.

Curly had but one thirig to do. To get away. Bowdrie had to both keep his prisoner and fight off three gunmen.

Bowdrie heard a rustle among the leaves and he turned, drawing as he wheeled. He fired into the brush from which the movement came, and as he fired Starr dropped his cup and lunged to his feet. Bowdrie had anticipated the move and he swung back and down with the barrel of his pistol, stretching Starr unconscious beside the fire.

Bowdrie dropped behind the log and snapped a quick shot at a stab of flame from the brush. Rolling over, he crawled the length of the log, getting closer to the doorway and his rifle.

"Hold it, Bowdrie!" a voice called. "Turn Starr loose an' you can ride oflq." It was the moment he wanted, for they would be listening for his reply and not poised to shoot. With a lunge he was through the door and inside the adobe house. Two bullets struck the doorjamb as he went through.

"You boys come in with your hands up," he called, "and I'll see you get a fair trial!"

"You're a fool!" somebody grumbled. "You haven't a chance. We'll burn you out!"

"Anytime you're ready!"

The fire was blazing brightly and to approach the cabin they must make a frontal attack. He reached around the doorpost and got his Winchester.

In the corner of the adobe was a huge pile of sticks, part of it a pack rat's nest, part of it wood for the fireplace, left by nameless travelers. Taking up one of the sticks, he tossed it into the fire. As the fire blazed up, he detected a slight movement from Curly Starr.

"Curly," he spoke loud enough for the outlaw to hear, "don't make any sudden moves.

If you try to escape, I'll kill you. I don't want to, so don't push your luck."

He waited, and all was still. Nobody wanted to rush him as long as the fire was burning brightly. He threw another stick into the fire. In the next half-hour three of the five sticks he threw landed in the fire. Yet it was a long time until morning.

Starr had witnessed the brief battle with the Indians and had no idea of taking the risk. He reached for the coffeepot, snared it and a cup, and calmly filled the cup.

"Thanks, Bowdrie. All the comforts of home!"

"I should have hit you harder," Chick replied cheerfully. "You've a thick skull."

"You hit me hard enough. My head feels all lopsided. Why don't you be smart and turn me loose?" "They'd kill you," Chick said. "Kill me? Are you crazy?"

Although the outlaws could hear him talking, they would not be able to distinguish the words.

"When the shootin' was goin' on, one of the bullets was aimed for you. Missed by mighty little."

"You're lyin'! Doc an' Tobe are my friends!" "What about Joslin?" Curly Starr was silent.

After a while he threw another stick into the fire and somebody shot at him, but the bullet was high. Later, he glimpsed the flickering light from a fire back in the trees, sixty or seventy yards away.

Starr spoke suddenly. "Did you mean that? About the shot?"

BI "I,,t hit the log right over you, and couldn't have been aimed at me.

Bowdrie waited, studying the fire. He could barely see it flickering but decided to take a chance. Lifting his rifle, he fired three quick shots. He was shooting through underbrush which might deflect a bullet, but at least one shot got through.

Sparks shot up from the fire and somebody swore.

Later, he must have dozed, because he awakened with a start. Undoubtedly the outlaws were waiting until morning, not relishing an attack past the firelight.

Bowdrie crawled to the hole where the spring was. The old gourd dipper was probably dusty, but . . . He dipped up water and poured some over his head, then dipped again and drank.

The spring was right outside the wall, but the first resident or someone later had removed adobe bricks so the spring could be reached without going outside in case of an Indian attack. Suddenly Bowdrie got out his knife and began digging at a brick beside the hole. Carefully he removed several of the crumbling adobe bricks. Then he tossed a couple of sticks on the fire.

Returning, he slipped through the hole and flattened against the rock wall beyond the spring. He waited, but nothing moved.

Placing each foot with care, he moved away from the house. By the time he was close to,he fire the sky was growing gray. One man was asleep, the other was placing fuel under the coffeepot. He was about to step out when the sleeping man opened his eyes and got to his feet suddenly. His eyes focused on Bowdrie, realization hit him, and he gave a startled yip and went for his gun. Bowdrie fired, but the man was weaving and his bullet missed.

A bullet whipped past his face, another hit his holster, half-turning him with its force. He fired again and Doc Bentley fell back against a tree.

Bowdrie swung his gun to Tobe, who, startled by Doc's surprised move, had shot too fast. Bowdrie's bullet caught Tobe Storey in the middle of the stomach and he stepped back and sat down. He started to lift his gun but could not. He fell sidewise and lay on his shoulder against the ground.

Bowdrie swung on Doc but the gunman lifted a shaky left hand. "Don't shoot! I've had it."

"Throw your gun over here. With your left hand."

The gun landed at his feet. "Where's Joslin?'"

Doc made a feeble gesture with his left hand and, thumbing shells into his right-hand gun, Bowdrie ran into the woods. Suddenly he heard an outburst of firing at the cabin.

Ducking through the woods, he ran up to the fire. Ernie Joslin was standing over the fire. He was unsteady on his feet but he held a gun.

He turned toward Bowdrie, lifting his gun. Bowdrie fired. Joslin stood for an instant, then fell fiat, all in one piece. Bowdrie walked over to him and kicked the gun from his hand.

Joslin was staring at him, his face against the ashes and earth. "If I'd known who you was there at first--"

"I knew who you were. I knew you by the cigarette. You threw it away too late. You said you'd never been south of Wichita, but folks around Deadwood don't smoke cigarettes.

It's a Mexican habit, although it's workin' its way north, I expect. Men up Dakota, Montana way smoke cigars. Up north they think cigarettes are kind of ladylike."

He turned to Starr. "Take off.., take off these damned cuffs," Starr pleaded. "I don't want to die with 'em on."

Starr coughed, and when the coughing was over and the cuffs were off, he asked, "You got him?"

"One of us did."

Folding his coat, he placed it under the head of the dying man. Then he opened Starr's shirt. There was nothing he could do.

"Got to your pack. Seen where you put my guns. I was figurin' on a break when Joslin come for me. He killed those men back yonder. Him an' Doc. I never went for killin' m'self. Joslin, he was a bad one. I knowed he didn't like me much, but . . ."

For a long time he was silent and then he whispered, "You write it. The boy . . .

You say Bill Cross is gone. Dead. Buried. Put... it down."

Billy Marsden was not in my outfit. The man named Bill Cross was badly wounded and we buried him in the hills. The killing was done by Ernie Joslin and Doc Bentley.

This is my dying statement.

Bowdrie wrote it, then read it to him. "Good!" He waited, gathering strength, then he signed his name. "You . . . you keep that kid.., straight."

Bowdrie put wood on the fire. A glance at Joslin told him the man was gone. He hesitated to leave Starr, but he went back through the patch of woods.

As he came through the woods, he heard a shot. He hesitated, then went on. Tobe Storey lay where he had fallen.

Doc Bentley lay nearby. His right hand was horribly mangled from a bullet. He had taken Tobe's gun and shot himself.

I "Maybe it's better than hangin'," Bowdrie said aloud; then, athering up the weapons, he walked back to Starr.

"Joslin never liked me." Starr had wiped the blood from his face and had pulled himself into a sitting position. "Figured to have all that bank loot for himself. It's cached under a fiat rock at Granite Spring."

He lay quite awhile, then said, "That Marsden girl? Sure pretty, wasn't she?" His voice trailed off and then he said, "Chick? Bury my saddle with me, will you? Might have some mean broncs where I'm goin'. Man feels the need of... of his own ... saddle."

"Want your boots off?."

There was a flicker of a smile on Curly's lips. "Lived with 'em on. I'll die with 'em, only don't cache me with him. Not with Joslin."

Bowdrie went for the horses and brought them in, and loaded them with the weapons of the fallen men. Suddenly he heard Starr choking and ran to lCim. He had thrown out a hand and was gripping the horn of his saddle as it lay on the ground.

"They got me, kid! Bowdrie . . . I'm pullin' leather!"

Bowdrie dropped beside him and put a hand on Starr's shoulder. His hand had been there for several minutes before he realized the man was dead.

In the cool of the morning with the sun on his shoulders, Chick Bowdrie headed south and east, carrying in his thoughts the memory of a man who died game, and in his pocket another man's chance for a new life.

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At the crossing of the Red River on the Western Trail from San Antonio to Fort Griffin to Dodge City, stood a place established by Corvin F. and Jonathan Doan. It was a rude, hastily thrown together structure of pickets with a mud and brush roof and a flapping buffalo hide for ( door. Later, when time permitted, an adobe store was built to handle the increasing trade as the cattle trails shifted west.

This was the last place at which even the most limited supplies could be purchased.

North lay Indian Territory and the long dusty drive to Dodge. A few miles south lay Eagle Flat, where cattle were rounded up before the final drive north.

Later, a dozen houses were built in the area, as was a hotel The Bat's Cave. Doan's Store and Crossing was known to every cattleman and trail driver, and it is said that somewhere between six and seven million head of cattle were driven over the Western Trail and crossed the Red at Doan's Store. From there it was roughly three hundred miles to Dodge.

During the great days of the cattle drives, nearly every trail driver of note rode this trail, as they had ridden those further east.

Had they kept a register, it would have held the names of most of those famous or infamous who traveled the wild country.

*

Moby Fosdick kept the trading post at Lee's Canyon, and Moby was a hard man. It took a man with a cold eye and a ready hand to do business in the Poplar Creek country, and Moby had been there a long time.

The store was a low-roofed building built in a hollow of the hills just below the falls of Poplar Creek. Lee's Canyon, narrow and rock-walled, was mostly uphill until within two hundred yards of the trading post. Then it tdpped a rise and the trail slid down into the hollow with a creek to the north.

From the store you could hear the roar of the falls, perhaps a quarter of a mile away.

If you just rode up to the post, did your buying and then rode away, you would believe there was only one way in and one way out, both along the Lee's Canyon trail.

A knowing man could tell you there were at least two other trails out of the hollow and into the badlands. One led through a crevice in the rock wall, invisible until close up, an opening that barely allowed room for a man on a horse. If it were a heavy horse, the rider might have to push one stirrup well forward to slip through.

Across the wide spread of Poplar Creek the rock wall reared up for about three hundred feet, but downstream there was a gravel beach perhaps ten feet long.

Moby had often wondered about that beach. He was an old Indian fighter with an eye for terrain, and it looked like water had been running down through some crack in the wall after heavy rains, but no opening could be seen.

Moby planned to someday build a boat and have a look over there. If there was an opening it would be another way out. Busy around the place and with occasional customers, he just never found the time, but it lingered there, in the back of his mind.

The second of the unseen paths was up the face of the cliff itself, the trail beginning among some poplars across the hollow and maybe a half-mile from the post. It wound up the cliff, always hidden behind juniper and ponderosa pine.

Fosdick knew the trails, and the wild bunch knew them. At the head of the cliff trail on a little plateau there was a cave. Once, during an Indian attack when Jerry and Lily Fosdick were youngsters, they had holed up there with Moby and two other men until the attack was over.

Moby had windows overlooking the trail from either side, and nobody could enter the hollow without being seen. So when the rider on the strawberry roan topped the rise from Del Rio, he saw him.

His hard old eyes narrowed with speculation as they watched the shambling, loose-gaited stride of the roan. The rider was a stranger.

Few travelers came by way of Lee's Canyon, and most sought to avoid it. Nobody knew where the Tucker gang holed up, but there were rumors. Fosdick knew the wild bunch but he also knew most of the hands who worked on ranches west of him. The rider wearing the black fiat-crowned hat was nobody he remembered seeing before.

Fosdick strode to the door and shaded his eyes against the setting sun. The trail was empty. He looked off to the south and the hidden road. Nobody there, either.

The stranger was drawing near.

Moby took in the dark, Indian-like face and the two guns. Not many men carried two guns in sight. A lot of them had a hideout. He glanced at the rider's face as he stepped down from the saddle. There was something about that still, emotionless face that gave him a little chill.

He had known this time would come and now he had a decision to make. He had expected it would come with a dozen hard-riding men, not a lone horseman on a wicked-looking hammerhead roan. He looked again. That was probably the ugliest, meanest-looking horse he had ever seen.

"Howdy! How about some grub?"

"Come in! Come in! Lily, set another place. We've got company!" Fosdick turned back to the rider. "You can wash up right outside the door there. Fresh towel an' soap.

Put it out m'self, not an hour ago." He glanced at the roan. "I'll take your hoss around an' give him some hay." He paused. "Shall I take the hull off him or will you be ridin' on?"

"If you've room, I'll stay the night." The rider looked at Moby. "Treat that horse gentle-like, and be careful. He both kicks and bites on occasion. Give him the hay first so he'll know you're friendly."

Fosdick walked to the barn with the roan. Well, that settled it. Hell would break loose now and Jerry would be caught right in the middle. To protect his son he would have to warn the whole Tucker gang.

Jake Rasch in the shadows of the stable. His standing was ,greasy, unshaved face was suspicious. "Who's that in yonder? I seen him ride up an' figured I'd better play possum." "Hit the trail, Jake. You get to Shad Tucker as quick as you can make it. Tell him there's a traveler down here who looks like a Ranger, and he looks pretty salty." "One man?" Rasch sneered. "What's one Ranger goin' to do with all of us? Even with ohe of us?" "You ain't seen him," Ft)sdick said dryly. "This gent's got the bark on! Rough! I can tell! You look into those black eyes and it's like lookin' into two six-shooters with the hammers drawed back."

Jake's expression changed. He grabbed Fosdick's arm. "Black I ey,e,s! Looks like an Apache?" That's him." Fos,d,,ick lifted the saddl,e,,from the roan's back and set,it astride 'What's the matter? rail., a "Chick Bowdrie!" Jake's face paled with excitement. "He's the one cleaned up the Ballard outfit!"

Resolution came to Fosdick. "Jake, you tell Jerry to meet Lily at the cave at sunup tomorrow. I've got word for him. Now, don't i forget!"

"All right," Rasch said. "Bowdrie, huh? If I could only git him!"

"Are you crazy?" Fosdick's contempt was poorly concealed. "If you're smart you'll just forget that. You never saw the day you could match Clyde Ballard, and he wasn't good enough."

"I wasn't thinkin' of givin' him no even break. He's after us, ain't he?"

To kill Chick Bowdrie! As Rasch rode up the cliff trail, he sat hunched in the saddle dreaming of what it would mean. Why, he'd become one of the most famous men in the border country! In all of Texas! And to Jake Rasch Texas was the world.

There'd be nobody to say how it was done. That girl in E
l
Paso, she'd sure set up an' take notice of him if he got Bowdrie.

Three men lay about the fire at Cedar Springs when Jake Rasch returned to camp. Shad Tucker was a big, rawboned young man with features that betrayed the ugly savagery that lay beneath the surface. In a dozen years of outlawry he had come off scot-free in his brushes with the law. He claimed to have killed twenty men. Actually he had killed twelve, only three of whom had had an even break.

He was brutal, ignorant, and disdainful of the law.

"What's up?" he demanded, recognizing the excitement in Jake Rasch.

"Chick Bowdrie's down at the post. He's stayin' the night." "Bowdrie?" His eyes turned mean as he saw the sudden apprehension in Buckeye Thomas's face. "If 'n he's huntin' us, he's askin' for it!"

"Stay shy of him," Frank Crowley advised.

Tucker spat. "He ain't so much! It's time somebody showed this Bowdrie a thing or two."

"Whar-at is Jerry Fosdick? I got word from the old man. He wants Jerry to meet Lily at the cave tomorrow at sunup."

Shad Tucker looked around at him. "You don't need to tell Jerry nothin'. I'll go to the cave."

Buckeye laughed coarsely and Jake's eyes showed his envy. Crowley looked up.

"You think that's wise, Shad? The old man's been a help, time an' again."

"He won't be no more. I been suspicious of him, an' he never wanted Jerry to tie up with us. I reckon it's time we cleaned up Fosdick. We'll take his money and the gal and we'll git all he has in that store. He's got a rifle or two I've had my eyes on for months."

Crowley knew Shad Tucker hated Fosdick because he sensed the contempt Fosdick had for him.

"We'll send Jerry off somewheres an' tell him the Rangers done it."

They all knew about the iron box under the floor.

"Might as well git on with it. Jake, you go down there an' kill Fosdick. You can git him through a window. Then git back here. We'll handle that Bowdrie when he trails after you."

Jake Rasch's face was sweaty. He was chewing on a chunk of beef. "Better wait until mornin'," he advised. "Give Lily a chance to start for the cave."

Back in Lee's Canyon Bowdrie accepted another plate offrijoles and cornbread. Lily, a slender, pretty blond girl, filled his cup with fresh coffee.

"You're not very talkative, Mr. Bowdrie," she said, smiling.

"No, ma'am, I guess I'm not rightly a talking man. I've got lots of figurin' to do.

Anyway," he added, "I know more about horses than folks, and the folks I know are mostly the bad ones. Gives a man a jaundiced opinion, I'm afraid."

"Don't you have a family?"

"No, ma'am. Once, when I was a youngster, but that's a long time ago. I went to work soon's I was able. Never had much time to get acquainted, me being' out with stock all the time." "Don't you have a girl?"

"No, ma'am. I've knowel a few here an' there, but there's not been many where I was.

]don't even have one to dream about. There was a girl out in Tascosa, she was married to an Irish gambler, an' many's the cowpuncher rode miles just to look at her, she was that beautiful. I never rode that way when she was around."

He did have figuring to do. Fosdick had been too long taking care of the roan. Had there been somebody else out there? And where was young Jerry? At this time of night he should have been around.

Fosdick had looked anxious and irritated about something, and then Bowdrie heard somebody riding away. The horse did not go east or west or he would have heard the hoofbeats on the hard trail. He had heard three, maybe four hoofbeats, which meant the rider had crossed the trail, not ridden along it. The rider had ridden toward that apparently impassable wall of cliffs.

His deductions were wrong in one instance. Knowing Fosdick had a son, he assumed the rider was Jerry. Obviously he would be riding to warn the Fuckers, which implied a friendly relationship. Yet when Fosdick returned to the table Bowdrie could not reconcile the man's manner or his personality with what he knew of the Fuckers.

Chick Bowdrie's arrival was no accident. Tucker's gang had made a brief foray into Mexico, killing three people, one of them a woman, and stealing a bunch of horses.

The Mexican government complained and McNelly sent Bowdrie to investigate.

So far the Tucker outfit had been confining their activities to the wilder, less-known areas, but emboldened by success, they had been striking at larger, richer places.

Getting a map of Texas, Bowdrie made ink marks to indicate the locations of the various raids. Then he calculated a probable location of their hideout as the various robberies seemed to radiate out from a given center, which could be Lee's Canyon. He had checked out several badland locations before coming to Fosdick's trading post.

Nobody had wanted to talk about the rough country south of Poplar Creek, although willing enough to talk of other places, so he deduced his search must begin there.

He took it for granted there was some kind of a working agreement or truce between the Tucker outfit and Fosdick. Otherwise he could not have existed there.

Obviously both Fosdick and Lily were disturbed by his presence. Shad Tucker would know Bowdrie was here and would resent his presence. So while he ate, he listened, every sense alert. Outside a coyote was howling.

Bowdrie was finishing his coffee when the coyote stopped howling. No coyote stopped howling suddenly on a moonlit night without reason. Somebody or something had disturbed that coyote. Chick lifted a forkful of beans, his dark eyes intent and aware. Lily's eyes were large and her lower lip was caught under her teeth.

Her brother? Or someone else? Chick's eyes sought her face, watching her expression.

She had lived here, she knew the night sounds better than he. In that instant Jake Rasch's face appeared at the window. Neither Bowdrie nor Lily saw him, but Jake glimpsed the room, seeing what he wished to see.

Chick Bowdrie sat with his back to the door. Opposite him sat Moby Fosdick, and with luck Jake could get them both. His footsteps were catlike as he approached the door.

His heart was jumping like mad. It was the chance of a lifetime! To the devil with Tucker. If he could kill Bowdrie he'd be a big man, bigger than Tucker, and he could always tell Shad he just had to kill him. Yet Bowdrie's reputation was such that when Jake's hand touched the latch, it was trembling.

Six-gun gripped in his hand, he gripped the door latch with his left, and slamming the door back, he fired two quick shots into an empty space!

In the moment when Jake was rounding the corner of the house, Bowdrie got up and stepped to the corner for his saddlebags and Fosdick leaned over to get a light from the fire for his pipe.

Tense, every nerve on edge, Jake had fired at the place where the two men had been sitting. Only then did he realize they were gone. Pale with shock and sudden fear, he swung the gun, looking for Bowdrie.

Chick was standing, his saddlebags in his left hand, his gun in his right. He was standing casually, eyes alert, staring at Rasch.

The outlaw gulped, the sound loud in the room. The old clock ticked twice while horror mounted in Jake's breast. He found himself in the last situation he wanted to be in, facing Chick Bowdrie with an even break.