Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) (11 page)

This is a short version of what was said to be his proper name, Ringgold. A mysterious character, evidently of some education, he was born in Missouri in 1844. He took part in the Mason County War as a follower of Scott Cooley, and was arrested. He broke jail and escaped to Arizona. There he allied himself with Old Man Clanton and his boys, and with Curly Bill Brocius.

He killed a harmless rran named Louis Hancock for ordering beer when Ringo wante& him to drink whiskey, and he participated in the ambush of a mule train packing silver in Skeleton Canyon.

Just why Ringo was considered so dangerous doesn't show in his record. Perhaps it was because he was mean and surly when drinking and of uncertain temper at any time.

A sort of legend has grown up about his name, perhaps because it has a nice sound, and it has been used in many stories, including the movie Stagecoach.

I have read a thousand lines telling of how dangerous he was without one line of evidence to prove it.

*

Morning lay sprawled in sleepy comfort in the sunlit streets. The banker's rooster, having several times proclaimed the fact that he was up and doing, walked proudly toward the dusty street. The banker, his shirttail hanging out, was just leaving the front door accompanied by two men, both dusty from hard riding. Outside the bank a rider clad in a linen duster sat astride a blood bay with his rifle across his knees and the reins of three other horses in his hand. The fourth man of the group leaned against a storefront some twenty yards away with a rifle in his hands.

, The bank s door was already wide open and the banker and his escort disappeared within.

East of town the dry wash had been bridged and the sound of a horse's hooves on that bridge was always audible within the town. Now, suddenly, that bridge thundered with the hoofbeats of a hard-ridden horse, and the two men in the street looked sharply around. Behind his house, Tommy Ryan, thirteen years old and small for his age, was splitting wood. He glanced around in time to see a man on a hammerhead roan, the horse's sides streaked with sweat, charge into the street. The man wore a black flat-crowned hat and the two guns in his hands were not there for fun.

The man in the linen duster was closest, and he hesitated, waiting to see who or what was approaching. When he saw a rider with pistols in his hand and a Ranger's badge on his chest, he lifted his rifle, but too late. The rider's bullet cut a long furrow the length of his forearm and smashed his elbow. The rifle fell into the dust.

Numb with shock, the rider sat gripping his arm and staring.

The rifleman down the street caught the second bullet just as he himself fired. He stood for an instant, then turned and walked three steps and fell on his face. One spur rowel kept turning a moment after he fell.

When the shooting was over, one of the banker's escorts lay sprawled in the doorway, gun in hand, and the Ranger stood over him, gun in hand, staring into the shadowy precincts of the bank.

Another man with a badge pushed his way through the crowd that gathered. "Hi, Bowdrie!

I'm Hadley, sheriff. I didn't know there were any Rangers in the country."

"Looks like I got here just in time," Bowdrie commented. He kept a pistol in his hand.

"Some shootin'," a bystander commented.

"Surprise," Bowdrie said. "They didn't expect anybody to come shooting. I had an edge."

Sheriff Hadley led the way into the bank. Two men lay dead on the floor, one of them the banker. He had been shot through the head at close range.

"He was a good man," Hadley said. "The town needed him." He glanced around. "You scored a clean sweep. You got 'em all."

"That's what it looks like," he agreed. His eyes swept the scene with a swift, all-seeing glance. Then he went past the bodies and into the private office of the banker. It was cool there, and undisturbed.

Bowdrie paused for a long minute, looking around, considering not only what he saw but what he had just seen. This room had been the seat of a man's pride, of his life's work. He had been a man who was building something, not only for himself and those who followed, but for his country. This man was putting down roots, enabling others to do the same.

Now he was dead, and for what? That some loose-gunned wastrels might have a few dollars to spend on whiskey and women.

He turned to look back into the bank, where Hadley was squatting beside the bodies. "No business today, Hadley. I want the bank closed."

"Young Jim Cane can handle it," Hadley said. "He's a good man."

"Nevertheless, I want the bank closed for business. I want to look around. Don't explain, just close it."

Tommy Ryan stared wide-eyed at the Ranger. He had been hearing stories of Chick Bowdrie but had never seen a real live Ranger before. Bowdrie's eyes wandered the street, studying the storefronts, the upstairs windows. Who might have been a witness? In a town of early risers, somebody must have seen what happened before the holdup.

"Anything I can do?" The man was tall and well-set-up, with blond hair and friendly eyes. "I'm Kent Friede. I was a friend of Hayes's."

"Nothin" anybody can do, Kent. Hayes never had a chance. Shot right through the skull.

Bowdrie here come in on 'em and made a cleanup. He got 'em all."

"No," Bowdrie said quietly, oblivious of the startled glances from Hadley and Friede.

"I got three. But I didn't shoot at that man inside the bank and he didn't shoot Hayes."

"What?" Hadley turned on him. "Then who---?"

"There was a fifth man who never appeared in the operation. He killed both Hayes and the outlaw inside the bank."

,.! I don t follow, Fnede said. How could that be.

.... Bowdrie shrugged. "Who runs the bank now? Is it this Jim Cane you mentioned?"

"If there's anything let to run. Lucky they didn't get away with any money."

"It's my guess they did get the money," Bowdrie said. "The fifth man got it, and it's my bet he knew where to look."

[] "You're implying it was an inside job?" Friede was obviously skeptical. "I don't believe that. Jim Cane's a fine young man. We all trust him."

Bowdrie waved a hand. "Close it up, Hadley, . And give me the i key. Some things don't fit, but they will before I'm through."

Yet as he walked along the street he was far from feeling confident. The outlaw with the broken arm had been taken to jail and must be questioned. Bowdrie had an idea he would know nothing. The man who planned this job would have been shrewd enough to communicate with only one man, undoubtedly the outlaw killed inside the bank. At least, that was how it looked now.

He believed there was a fifth man involved, but it was no more than a theory and one that might not hold water.

First, his own arrival had not been by chance. He had been tipped that a robbery was planned. Who had tipped him, and why? Who had thrown that note wrapped around a rock into his campsite only a few hours ago? A note that warned him of the holdup and how it was to be carried out? At first glance he had seen that the banker had been killed from close up. Also, when he entered the bank there had been a thin blue tinge of tobacco smoke in the office air, and the smell of tobacco. None of the outlaws had been smoking, nor had the harried banker.

Nor was there any reason for them to enter the private office. The huge old safe was against the back wall some distance away, and it was before this safe that Hayes had been murdered. A man standing in the door of the private office could have fired that shot, yet all Bowdrie's man-hunting experience told him no outlaws would have been in that position. But suppose a man had already been hidden inside the bank?

A small boy stood nearby in bare feet and Bowdrie glanced down into the wide blue eyes and the freckled face. "Hi, podner! Is this your town?"

"'Yup! My pa sank the first well ever dug in this county!"

"Rates him high in my book," Bowdrie said. "Any man who brings water to a dry country deserves credit."

"You stayin' in town?"

"For a little while, I guess. I've got to find the men who did this." He paused.

"It was a dirty deal, son, because there was another man in on this. He not only shot Banker Hayes in the back, he double-crossed his own pals."

The boy nodded seriously. By his own standards as well as those of the country in which he lived, the two crimes were among the worst of which a man could . Be accused.

All was quiet at the jail when he arrived. The wounded outlaw was lying on his bunk staring at the ceiling. Reluctantly he sat up when Bowdrie came to the bars. "You should have killed me," he said bitterly. "I ain't cut out for no prison. I'll die in there." "Maybe you won't have to go," Bowdrie said. "What's that?"

"If you can tell me who was in on this job, you might go free. Who was waiting inside the bank?"

"Huh?" The outlaw was obviously surprised. "Inside? Nobody. The boys went after Hayes.

He opened the bank door." He paused, frowning. "Come to think on it, the banker just walked in. The door was already unlocked. But how could anybody be inside?"

"You tell me." Bowdrie studied the man. The outlaw was surprised and disturbed. "Who planned this job?"

"I dunno. They come to me an' asked if I'd like to go as horse-holder. I'd done a few things with one of those boys before, so I went along. We wasn't to use no names.

Nobody was supposed to ask questions. Him who was killed inside, he was ridin' herd on us. He set this up if anybody did."

"Where was the split to be made?"

"Well"--the outlaw hesitated--"it was to be made after. After we got away, I mean.

Nothin' much was said about it. We done taken it for granted, like."

"'The man who was killed down by the store. Did you know him?"

"Seen him around. He was rounded up, just like me. Those boys had a job planned and they needed help. We wasn't any organized outfit, if that's what you mean."

"Was there any talk about money?"

"Sure! That's why we done it. The big feller, the one who was killed inside, he said we'd make five hundred apiece from it, maybe more. That there a lot of money for somebody like me. Hell, I on'y worked seven months last year, at thirty dollars a month. Stole a few headof stock here'n there, never made more than drinkin' money."

Chick Bowdrie went back to his horse, and mounting, rode out of town. That he was being watched, he knew. Out of curiosity? Or fear? Suspicion was growing, centering around young Cane, who would inherit whatever the banker left.

Easy as that solution was, and Bowdrie could think of a half-dozen reasons for believing it, that simple answer left him uneasy and unconvinced. Riding out of town, he circled around until he could pick up the incoming trail of the four outlaws. They could have reached town no more than fifteen minutes --before he himself. That meant they must have been camped not too far from town, and might have been visited by whoever the inside man had been.

Slowly, a pattern was beginning to shape itself in Bowdrie's mind, although he was careful to remember it was no more than a possibility.

The inside man had known there was money in the bank and he had made contact with an outlaw, perhaps somebody he had known before. At his suggestion that outlaw had rounded up a few men to pull off the job. None of them were to know anything. If captured they would be unable to tell anything because they knew nothing.

It was early and nobody had come over the trail since the arrival of the outlaws.

He picked up their trail without diiiculty. They had made no effort to hide their tracks, until suddenly, by intent or accident, their trail merged with that of a herd of horses. He was more than two hours in working out their trail.

At first it held to dry washes and then wove through mesquite groves higher than the head of a man on horseback. Almost an hour of riding brought him to a campfire of ashes and a few partly burned sticks. He stirred the ashes and found no embers, but when he felt the ash with his fingers, there was still warmth.

Dividing the camp into quarters, he searched each section with meticulous care. They had eaten here, and they had drunk coffee. There had been four men who were joined by a fifth man who sat with them. This man had sat on the ground, one leg outstretched.

His spur had gouged the sand and there were faint scratches near the upper part of the boot.

Studying the situation carefully, he then mounted and rode in careful circles, ever-widening, around the camp. He drew up suddenly. Here, behind a clump of mesquite, a man had crouched, spying on the outlaw camp. Bowdrie muttered irritably. The roan twitched an ear and Bowdrie glanced up. The horse was looking toward the trail with both ears pricked and his nostrils expanding. Speaking softly to the horse, Bowdrie waited, ready.

A rider pushed through the mesquite and came toward them at a fast trot, but his eyes were on the ground and did not see Bowdrie until he was quite near. He drew up sharply. It was Kent Friede.

"Find anything?" Was there an edge to his tone?

"Not much. They camped back yonder, an' they had a visitor."

B "Ah!" Friede nodded. "I suspected as much! Most likely Cane rode out here to give them information." "What makes you suspect Cane? Anybody might have done it." "Who else would gain by Hayes's death?" Bowdrie shrugged, sitting easy on his horse. Something about Friede bothered him, and he decided he would not want to turn his back on him.

It was just a feeling, and probably a foolish one. It was never wise to jump to conclusions.

What he wanted was evidence. ."i"I've not met Cane. What's he like?" "About twenty-five.

Nice-looking man. He's been a cowhand, and he drove a freight wagon. Lately he's been working in a store." -, tao o he come to be Hayes's nelr. Ri 'Hayes cottoned to him from the first time they met, and now he's about to marry Hayes's daughter.

He works part-time in the bank, with Hayes. After the bank closes, he goes over to the store." IJim Cane was in the Caprock Saloon with Hadley when they walked in.

He was a rangy young man with dark red hair and a hard jaw. He looked more like a rider than a banker. Cane turned as they entered and his eyes slanted quickly from one to the other. Bowdrie felt his pulse skip a beat as he saw Cane. A few years had changed him a lot. "'Find anything?" Hadley. asked. The sheriff was a stalwart man, a leather-hard face and co
ld,
careful eyes. A good man to have on your side, a bad man to have on your trail. "Not much." Bowdrie explained about the campfire and the found visitor, near He did the not campfire, mention the unseen watcher, nor what he had "All right to get back to business at the bank?" Cane asked. There was a shade of belligerence in his tone. "I've ranchers coming in for their payroll money."