Catlow (1963) (21 page)

He rolled on his back, clasped his hands behind his head, and smiled up at her. "First time I ever received a lady, lyin' in bed," he said.

A faint flush showed under the olive of her skin. "Maria," Rosita said, "you had better see to him yourself. I think the senor is recovering more rapidly than we expected."

He was sitting up eating a bowl of soup when Bijah Catlow came in. He was wearing the badge.

Cowan looked at it skeptically. "Where'd that come from?"

"It's yours," Catlow said cheerfully. He shoved his hat on the back of his head and hung his thumbs in his belt. "Figured it would look better, me takin' your prisoners over the border to turn them in."

"You took them over?"

"Sure did."

"Who'd you turn them over to?"

"Well"--Bijah's forehead wrinkled with an expression of mock worry--"that there part bothered me some. I didn't rightly know who to turn them over to, so I went to sleep studyin' about it; and you know, when I woke up they were gone! The whole kit an' kaboodle of them!"

Ben ate soup in silence.

After a minute, Bijah said quietly, "So far's I knew, you had nothing on them, anyway. Not in the States. When they got away it was down near Pete Kitchen's place. I figured the only prisoner you really had anything on was me. And here I am."

Ben finished his soup. "Bijah, I'm going to be here a while. You give me that star, and you ride to El Paso and turn yourself in to the office of the U.S. Marshal there. There's a man there temporarily at least, and he'll handle your case. You do that, d'you hear?"

"Sure." Catlow unpinned the badge. "Liable to get myself shot wearin' that, anyway."

Two weeks later, while Ben Cowan was sitting on the porch at the Hacienda Calderon, Rosita placed a letter in his hand.

El Paso

Dear Ben:

I take pen in hand to inform you we are all pleesed to heer you are comin along fine. Abijah Catlow, on the Wanted List, showed up here and said you said he was to turn himself in. He done it.

He also handed us your report on Miller. He also handed us a paper from Millers pocket locatin the Army payroll stole by Miller. Most of it recovered.

Yrs. Trly,

Will T. Lasho, Dep.

P.S. Catlow broke jail. Aint seen hide nor hair of him.

The first postcard came a year later, from Malheur County, in Oregon.

It said simply: We named the first one Ben.

And down Sonora way a boy rides the range whose name is Abijah.