Catlow (1963) (8 page)

He got to his feet. "Bijah ... this is government business if you cross the line into Mexico. It's up to me to stop you."

Bijah grinned at him, peeling off his shirt. He was a well-muscled man, and the muscle was all power, as Ben Cowan had reason to know. "Stop me, then. But I'd still like to have you in with me. You'd be worth the lot of this crowd."

"You'd have to go far to beat the Old Man," Ben said. "That one's an old wolf from the high country. You turn him loose on Miller and you'd have nothing to worry about."

"I fight my own battles."

Ben put on his hat. "Sorry I can't talk you out of this, Bijah, but I didn't much figure I could." He put out his hand. "We'll meet again."

"You keep your ears pinned back when we go, or I'll notch 'era for you. This is the big one for me, Ben, an' all bets are off."

Ben Cowan stepped out into the night and walked past Merridew, who sat in the darkness near the gate. He went by, and then he came back.

"You know Miller?"

"I know him."

"He's out to get Bijah--sooner or later he'll try."

"Catlow don't need no help."

"I know that. I carry the scars to prove it, but four eyes are better than two."

Cowan walked out into the street and paused there, glancing each way. He had his own back to watch, for Miller would be thinking of him first. But Ben was used to it--in his business the hunter was always the hunted as well.

He thought back to Cordelia Burton, and for a minute he felt a wistful longing, the yearning of a homeless man for a home and all that it can mean. He thought of how it would be to be sitting at a table with her across from him, the soft glow of lamplight on her face.

He shook his head, dismissing the thought. An officer of the law made little enough money ... of course, a man could always file a homestead ... and there was good range here in Arizona. He'd ridden over a pretty piece of it, time to time.

He had almost reached the Shoo-Fly, where he had left his bedroll, when he saw the shadows of two men on the ground before him. The rising moon had thrown their shadows on the street, otherwise he would have had no warning. Even as he glimpsed them, one shadow vanished and the other drew back close to the building.

Were they waiting for him? Had the other man gone around the building to take him from behind? He hesitated a moment only, then turned on his heel and walked back to the saloon called the Hanging Wall, and went inside.

Several men loafed at the bar in desultory conversation, and there were three or four more around a table where a tired card game continued. One of these men looked around as he entered. It was Rio Bray.

Ben Cowan ordered a beer and waited. A moment passed, and then the door was pushed open and Miller came in. He started for the bar. His step faltered when he saw Ben Cowan, but he put his head down and came on, stopping a little distance away.

Miller leaned on the bar and pushed his hat back. Despite the cool night, he was suddenly perspiring. His eyes avoided Ben's. It was obvious that Miller had not suspected he was in the saloon.

Ben glanced down at his whiskey. Well, he wanted Miller, and there he was.

Why not take him now?

Chapter
Nine.

Miller knew him, and the instant Ben started for him, Miller would be likely to draw a gun. Ben Cowan turned the idea over in his mind and decided to wait.

They stood not fifteen feet apart, with three other men between. Rio Bray had moved around to the other side of the table where he had been watching the card game, and stood now where he could keep an eye on Cowan.

Moreover, one of the men, sitting alone at a table, was Milton Duffield, an ex-U.S. marshal, now a postal inspector, and a dangerous man with a gun. Duffield was a good man, with many local friends, but temperamental, and there was no certainty as to what he would do if a situation developed into gunplay. And he had been drinking heavily.

Ben Cowan suddenly remembered that his bedroll was back at the Shoo-Fly, and he had best retrieve it before the restaurant closed for the night.

Tucson at that time had no hotel. Those who had no friends in town bedded down wherever they could find a likely spot. There were a couple of abandoned houses used as camping spots by drifters--it was in one of these that Catlow had holed up. Word was passed on by word of mouth, and the houses were continually occupied by somebody. But most travelers bedded down in an empty corral or under a parked wagon.

Rio Bray strolled up and leaned on the bar beside Ben. "Howdy, Marshal! This here's a long way from the Cross Timbers."

Bray glanced down the bar at Miller. "Sure does beat all what a guilty conscience will do for a man, Marshal. Really starts a man sweating."

Miller's quick glance was filled with hatred, but Bray grinned back at him. "Better watch where you sleep, Marshal. Lots of folks around here are mighty careless where they leave their knives."

Miller put down his glass and went to the door. Ben Cowan watched him go, knowing that once outside Miller would dodge for shelter and probably wait for him to emerge.

"He ain't goin' no place tonight, Marshal," Bray said confidentially. "There's Apaches raiding around the country and Tucson's the safest place to be. Anyway, the Fifth Cavalry are going to give another band concert tomorrow night, and that's worth waitin' for."

Obviously Rio Bray had had more than a few drinks and was in a jovial, somewhat taunting mood. Ben was quite sure that Bray did not like him, and he felt no regret over that. Bray was a tough man and a good one, but a man who would have hit the outlaw trail sooner or later, regardless of circumstances.

"Yes, sir ... a band concert! This town ain't no just ordinary town, Marshal. Why, just t'other day an hombre named Mansfield started himself a circulating library ... got himself a whole stack of books to lend out!"

Rio Bray gulped his beer. "Why, this here's a regular metropolis! Now, I tell you--"

"Excuse me," Ben said abruptly, and turned swiftly to the door at the back.

He went through the short hall, then opened the door and stepped out into the darkness. Instantly, he moved to the right, and held still an instant to let his eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, all the while listening for the front door to close. Grimly, he reflected there was small chance of anybody going out that front door for a few minutes. Not if they suspected, as he did, that Miller was waiting out there.

Ben went around the corner of the building. The night was still. Somewhere, off beyond the town, a coyote yapped. The space next to the saloon was wide enough for a wagon to be standing there, a big freight wagon. He moved past it, his hand close to his gun. When he was half the length of the building he paused and studied what he could see of the street.

Opposite the saloon there was an adobe, the awning in front of it shielding the walk and most of the wall of the building in shadow. As he looked that way, something stirred behind him and he threw himself against the wagon on his left, drawing as he fell against it. He felt the whip of the bullet, then the thunderous roar of the shot between the walls of the two buildings. His answering fire was only an instant later, and he immediately ran toward the back, his pistol ready for a second shot.

All was dark and silent. He waited, listening, but there was no sound; and then, from some distance off, somebody chuckled.

Ben Cowan hesitated, wanting to follow up that shot and find out who thought it was so funny, but his better judgment won and he went out into the street and made his way to the Shoo-Fly. With his bedroll he went through the alleys to the edge of town and bedded down there among some mesquite and cat-claw where he could not be approached without considerable noise.

It was daylight when he awakened.

Returning his bedroll to the Shoo-Fly, he ordered breakfast, and then went down the street to the back of the Hanging Wall.

He had no trouble finding the boot-prints of the man who had tried to kill him, for one of them was superimposed on his own track. Carefully, he worked out the trail.

Whoever had tried to kill him had not come around the building, but had followed him from the saloon.

He returned to the Shoo-Fly and his breakfast was brought to him. As he ate, he recalled man by man those who had been inside the Hanging Wall when he left through the back door. His memory for faces was good, but he could find no reason to suspect any particular man. Perhaps Miller had come back into the saloon as Ben left through the back.

He thought of Rio Bray, but dismissed the idea. Rio was close to Catlow, and Catlow would not want him killed ... or would he?

Bray's random talk might have been simply the beer's effect, but it might have been more. Had Bray been holding him there for a reason?

"The trouble with you," Ben told himself, "is that you're suspicious of everybody."

But in his business a man had to be.

Cordelia Burton was up early, as was her habit. Her father was quiet, and left for his saddle shop earlier than usual. As she worked, her thoughts kept reverting not to Bijah Catlow, but to Ben Cowan.

She had never seen his face clearly, for it had always been shadowed by his hat brim, but she was sure she would know him if she saw him again, and curiously enough, she wanted to.

What sort of man was he? She was accustomed to quiet men, for a great many western men were' quiet, not given to unnecessary talk. Was he really as sure of himself as he seemed?

"Mother," she said suddenly, "I'm going uptown."

Her mother glanced at her, mildly amused. "Bijah was here ... before daylight."

"Bijah?"

"He must have been. I found this tucked under the back door."

Cordelia took the note, somehow less interested than she would have been a day earlier. She read:

When I come back, you and me will have a talk. If you need help, you go to Ben Cowan.

Abijah

He was gone, then. He had told her that he would be going one of these days, that he had some business in Mexico.

She would miss him, for nobody was more gay, more exciting, more full of fun ... and yet, she reflected, there was no one to whom she would feel freer to go for help in case of trouble, the kind of trouble Miller could bring to herself and her family.

If she needed help, he said, she was to go to Ben Cowan. She remembered Bijah saying they had been friends since they were boys, and he had referred to Cowan with respect. Well, she needed no help, and she didn't need Ben Cowan. Nonetheless she found herself wondering what he looked like in broad daylight. You could learn little about a man from seeing only his chin and jaw line. But there had been strength in that jaw, and a quiet strength in the way he talked.

It was excuse enough to go uptown, but it was not the excuse she used to her mother. Cordelia was nineteen, and at an age when most girls were married, and many already had families, but Cordelia was not to be stampeded into marriage. She had made up her own mind long since; if she did not find the man she wanted, she would settle for nothing less. Bijah had seemed to be the man, but she was not sure, and that was enough to warn her. In spite of all his good qualities, and they were many, there was a curious instability about Bijah Catlow that disturbed her.

Occasionally, he had spoken of owning a ranch, of buying cattle, of building something. He spoke of these things, yet they never seemed real to her coming from him, and she feared they were not real to him either. They represented what his better judgment told him he should do. Now, walking up the dusty street, she suddenly realized that Bijah might do none of the things he planned ... he would do many things, but not those things ... unless ...

There was no sign of Ben Cowan on the street. From under her bonnet she kept her eyes busy as she walked. The usual loafers were along the Calle Real and the other streets she passed. Horses dozed at hitch rails, and here and there a freight wagon was discharging its load.

She stopped to talk to Mr. Kitchen, who ranched south of Tucson, about getting one of his hams. Pete Kitchen had tried large-scale farming in Arizona before anyone else, and was doing well, although occasionally his pigs sprouted so many Apache arrows that they were referred to as "Pete Kitchen's pincushions."

She ordered the ham, talked to Pete about General Allen's venture in bringing honey bees into Arizona, and kept her eyes busy. She would like to try keeping bees herself, she decided. Until General Allen brought his bees to Tucson early in 1872 all their honey had been brought up from Rancho Tia Juana, in Baja California.

She wanted to ask Pete if he had seen Ben Cowan, but she hesitated. Finally, after all her small talk, and just as she was turning away, she said, "Pete, have you seen that new United States Marshal who is around town?"

Pete nodded. "I saw him--he was headed south just after daybreak. He looked to me like a man with something on his mind."

Gone.... And he might not come back.

Kitchen glanced at her. "You worried about Catlow? That marshal ain't about to catch up to him."

"No ... it isn't that. I--I had a message for him."

Pete turned away. "If he stops by my place, I'll tell him. I'm goin' back tonight."