Borden Chantry (7 page)

The Mexican café was dark.

Holding close to the wall of the saloon, he walked toward the rear, and looking past the corner he could see the great bulk of the Simmons barn. All was black and silent.

He rested a hand on his gun, straining his eyes toward the old barn. Yet he saw nothing…it was something he
heard
.

Something he
felt
.

Hesitating only a second, heart pounding, he crossed toward the barn. His toe kicked a small pebble and it rattled against others. He swore mentally, reached the corner of the barn and edged along toward the door.

It stood open…only a few inches.

He drew a long breath, felt his mouth go dry and his heart pounding in slow, measured beats, and then he stepped through into the darkness.

He felt the blow coming before it hit him. He started to turn, and then something smashed down on his skull and he felt himself falling…falling…falling.…

Chapter 7

H
E GRABBED OUT wildly, seizing upon a boot, but the foot kicked free and he heard running steps. He yelled out, started to rise, then fell back into the straw.

He must have passed out then because the next he knew, several people were standing over him and Prissy was holding his head.

Time Reardon was there, Lang Adams and Alvarez from the Mexican café.

“I hear you yell, señor,” Alvarez said. “I grab a gun. I come to help, but there is nobody, only you on the ground.”

He got up shakily, his skull buzzing. “Thanks, I'll be all right.”

Prissy stood back, and as he raised his eyes, Borden could see somebody…Hyatt, undoubtedly…standing in the door of his house, light streaming past him, looking to see what the confusion was about.

“I got slugged,” he explained. “Somebody was in the barn.”

“Did you see him?” Reardon demanded. “Did you get a look at him?”

“No…no, I didn't. I was lucky not to get killed.”

“You've got a thick skull,” Lang said, grimly. “Or you would be dead. Bord, if you're going to keep on with this, you should have a deputy. You could get yourself killed.”

“I…I'll make out.” He shook his head but it buzzed. “I'm all right. I'll just go along home.”

“You'd better wake up Doc Terwilliger,” Lang advised. “You've got a nasty cut on your skull.”

“Bess will take care of it. She's had experience.” Somebody handed him his hat and he checked his gun. Still in its holster. “You all go along home now. I'll be all right.”

Lang hesitated. “Bord? If I can help…?”

“Thanks, Lang. I'll be all right.”

When they had gone he turned to the Mexican, who was the last to leave. “Alvarez?”

He turned. “Sí?”

“Were you the first one here?”

“Sí…I think so, señor.”

“Did you see anything? Anybody?”

“I…think…maybe. Somebody was in the barn, I think. I hear somebody, and there was a light…then a curse. Curses…then somebody ran.

“Señor?” Alvarez looked up at him. “I think there were
two
people in there. I hear curses, then like a scramble and I am coming running, and something moved…very quick…and was gone.”

“You didn't get a look at him…or her?”

“No, señor.”

“Thanks, Alvarez. You got out there mighty fast.”

“Sí…you are the law, señor, and the law is good to have. There are savages among us, señor. Without the law there is no freedom, there is no safety. I am for the law, señor.”

When he had gone Borden Chantry walked into the barn, whose door now stood wide ajar. All was very still. He felt along the wall to where he knew a lantern had hung…It was still there.

He raised the globe and, striking a match, lit the lantern. For a moment he just looked around. The old stable had that musty smell of a place kept closed, mingled with the smell of hay and the leftover smell of harness now gone.

He walked slowly around, glancing into the stalls, at the ladder to the loft, and the dirt floor at its foot. He stopped by the ladder…nothing. He looked up into the black square of the trapdoor and decided against it.

At the back there was a tack room and a smaller door, and beside that door a barrel with several sticks in it and a wornout broom. A sack lay on the floor near it.

A rifle could have been placed there and hidden under the sack. Yet there were a number of places in which it might have been concealed. No doubt it was gone now.

After awhile, his head throbbing painfully, Chantry walked home, pausing to lean against a building at one point, his head feeling heavy and awkward.

Bess met him at the door, her face shocked at his expression.

“Oh, Borden! Borden, what happened? You've been shot!”

“Not shot.” He tried to grin. “Just rapped on the skull. I'd better sit down, Bess.”

She helped him to a chair, then went to the sink for water. It felt good just to sit down. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. In a moment he felt the soothing touch of the warm cloth as Bess dabbed away the matted blood in his hair.

“It's a nasty cut, Borden, and it's all discolored…bruised.”

“I'll be all right. He was waiting for me, just inside the freight barn.”

“Who was it, Borden?”

“I wish I knew…But I've a clue. A small clue, but a clue.”

“What is it, Borden?”

“No…not now. I'd rather not say, and you'd think it too unimportant…And maybe it is.” He got up unsteadily. “I'm going to bed, Bess. All I need is rest.”

T
HE GRAY, SLIVERY wood of the boardwalks was hot to the touch. The dusty street was empty and still. It was just short of noon, and the town was quiet, waiting, listening.

Judge McKinney sat in the Bon-Ton over an early lunch. He was a big old man in a threadbare gray suit, the vest spotted from food spills at some bygone meal. Under his black hat his hair was gray and thick, his beard the same.

“Sorry to hear about Borden Chantry,” he said to Hyatt Johnson. “He's a good man.”

“A good rancher…At least he was. But do you think he's the man for this job, Judge? Why, he told me yesterday he planned to get a court order from you to examine the bank files. That's unheard of!”

“Not quite, Hyatt. Not quite. It's been done a time or two, and Borden's not a man to go off on a tangent. If he wants to see your files he no doubt has good reason.”

“But I can't let—”

Judge McKinney leveled his cool gray eyes at Johnson. “Hyatt, if I write a court order for Borden Chantry to see your files, he'll see them.”

Hyatt Johnson hesitated. That was not what he wanted, not what he wanted at all. He had been so sure that a word to the judge…Well, he was the banker, and the judge was the authority. Weren't they on the same side? He hesitated, waiting just a moment, then he said, “Judge, I'd never refuse a court order, of course. But the files have confidential information…I am sure you wouldn't want everybody having access to your personal financial information, nor would I. I think—”

“Hyatt,” McKinney smiled, “I doubt if there's anything in those files that Borden Chantry doesn't know. As for my finances, I venture to say that Priscilla could give you a clearer statement on them than you could…or I, for that matter.

“In a town of this size there are no secrets, and I am sure that if Borden Chantry wants information, he should have it.”

“Perhaps.” Hyatt Johnson was irritated, and McKinney noticed it. “I sometimes think he's getting too big a sense of self-importance. Why, he's taking a simple shooting and building it all out of proportion! You'd think the President had been shot!”

“And why not?” McKinney sipped his coffee, then wiped his moustache. “Is not every man important in his own way? Which one of us is not important to someone? I daresay to his family that murdered man was more important than any president.

“Hyatt, self-importance can come to all of us. We have to view things in perspective. I sometimes think that what most bankers need is a few years of reading philosophy, or to get out of the bank and punch cows or trade horses or something.

“Borden Chantry, right at this moment and in this town, is the most important man in our lives.”

Hyatt stared. Was the judge losing his mind?

“I mean what I say, Hyatt. That young man is all that stands between us and savagery. He's the thin line of protection, and when he walks out there on the street his life is on the line every minute he wears that badge.

“We are free to come and go, to make love, do business, buy groceries, play cards, have a drink now and again because he is there. He is our first line of defense…in many respects, the only line.

“The savage is never far from the surface in any of us, but because we know he is there we fight it down. I don't lose my temper and strike somebody because he is there. The drifting cowboy with a chip on his shoulder avoids trouble, because he is there.

“We have freedom, you and I and Priscilla and Elsie and all of us, because Borden Chantry is out there with that badge. To tell you the truth, I think he is the man who should wear it, beyond all others.

“He would shoot…I happen to know that he has…but he has the cool judgment to know when it is not necessary. He has the quiet strength that makes people believe him. He doubts himself, and that is often good, but he does not doubt his ability to handle a situation. He's roped too many wild steers, ridden too many broncs, handled too many tough men to do that.

“I trust him, Hyatt, and you had better do the same. Some people believe the law to be a restriction…It is a restriction only against evil. Laws are made to free people, not to bind them—if they are the proper laws. They tell each of us what he may do without transgressing on the equal liberty of any other man.”

“I never thought of it in just that way.”

“I notice, Hyatt, that you do not wear a gun. Why not?”

“Why, I never thought it necessary. After all, I am a banker…a businessman. I have no need for a gun.”

Judge McKinney smiled. “That's right…Ordinarily you wouldn't have any use for one, and that's because Borden Chantry does have one and he is paid to use it for you.

“You can do business because he is protecting you. There was a time when no man was safe in this town unless armed, and that time may come again. In the meanwhile we have Borden Chantry. My advice to you, Hyatt, is cooperate.”

Judge McKinney brushed the crumbs from his vest. “Hyatt, if Borden wants a court order from me, he'll get it. Why make it necessary?”

“Suppose I preferred not to accept your court order?”

McKinney smiled. “You're too smart for that, Hyatt. Because if you refused a court order of mine, I'd have Borden throw you in jail along with Kim Baca. And, like him, you'd wait for the session of court.”

“You'd do that to me?”

“Why not to you? Or any man?” McKinney swallowed coffee and put his cup down. “If you want me to go to the trouble of preparing that court order, you do it, but if I were you I'd just find Borden Chantry and help him all you can. One of these days you may need him almighty bad.”

After Hyatt had gone, Ed came in from the kitchen. “Couldn't help but overhear,” he commented.

“Nothing secret. A few items the good banker did not quite grasp. You got a couple more of them doughnuts, Ed? They taste mighty good, and Borden's not here yet.”

B
ORDEN CHANTRY AWAKENED to a dull head-ache, and for a time he lay still, staring up at the flowered wallpaper. A little sunlight came in through the window, and the curtain stirred in the faint breeze.

After a moment he closed his eyes, vaguely listening to the sounds from the kitchen where Bess was at work. It was good to just lie still.

Yet lying still solved no crimes, and they were expecting him to be out on the street.

He sat up, very carefully, and swung his feet to the floor. His head swam a little, but waiting just a moment, he stood up. Hand on the foot of the bed, he stood still, trying to see how his body would react, yet as he stood there he saw some straw on the windowsill.

Straw, crushed together by a small bit of mud or manure.

On Bess's windowsill? It was absurd. She was the most careful woman he had ever known about her house…Yet it was there. And the fact of its presence could only mean that somebody had come through that window since Bess had cleaned the room, even since she had last seen it.

She had gotten up in the dark this morning, not to disturb him, and would not have seen it in the dark last night. That meant that yesterday somebody had come through that window, somebody who had been in a corral or barn.

Yet in the daytime such a person would have been seen. And anyway, the house was open.

Which implied the entry had been made last night, and before he was put to bed in here.

There had been somebody in the barn last night, there had been two people, at least.
Had one of them come from his own home?

That was impossible!

Yet, the straw was there. True, there were twenty places, even fifty places from which it might have come.

Why through the window? For how else could it have gotten on the sill? Surely Bess…Bess would have come right in the door, no need for anything else. He had not been home, and Tom would undoubtedly have been asleep.

Billy McCoy?

Suppose Billy had been out? This window in this room would have been a good place to re-enter the house, for this room would be empty, that side of the house obscured. As the parlor, or front room as it was called, was only used when the preacher came calling or some such occasion, Billy would not have dreamed of using that door, and the kitchen door squeaked.

Billy, no doubt…But why? Why in the middle of the night and to the stable?

Slowly, carefully, so as not to jolt his head and start it aching more violently, Borden Chantry dressed, pulled on his boots and slung his gun belt around him. He checked the load of his gun as he always did, even when it had not been used in some time.

He walked into the kitchen, and through the window he could see Billy out there with Tom, throwing a loop at a post. Tame stuff for Billy, who had done some roping, but good practice for Tom, who was younger.

Bess turned quickly. “Borden! You shouldn't be up! Doctor Terwilliger said—”

“I can imagine what he said. How's about a cup of coffee?”

“Sit down…
please!
” She glanced at him, then poured the coffee. “You've no idea how pale you are. You mustn't go out there, Borden, it's turned hot.”

“Just a few odds and ends,” he said. “I'll be all right.” She put the pot back on the stove. “Hear anything around last night, Bess?”