Case Closed—No Prisoners

On the third day after the robbery, Sheriff Walt Borrow gave up and wired Austin. On the fifth day, late in the afternoon, a rider swung down at the hitch-rail in front of the saloon. Leaving the roan standing three-legged at the rail, he passed the saloon and went into the sheriff’s office next door.

The rider was a young man, lean, and broad in the shoulders. Watchers glimpsed a hard brown face, wide at the cheekbones, a firm straight mouth, and a strong jaw. But it was the rider’s eyes that stopped those who saw him face-on. They were intensely black, their gaze level and measuring. There was something about his eyes that made men uneasy, with a tendency to look quickly away.

“Looks like an Indian,” Bishop commented. “Reminds me of Victorio, the Apache. I seen him once.”

“I know him,” Hardy Young said. “By sight, anyway. He’s a Ranger from the Guadalupes.”

Within the hour everybody within a radius of five miles knew that Ranger Chick Bowdrie was in town. What they did not know was that the saddle tramp who loafed in the Longhorn Saloon was Rip Coker, also a Texas Ranger.

Coker had drifted into town the day before, a grim, blond young man looking down-at-heel and broke. He let it be known that he was down to his last few dollars and ready for anything. With his horse for a stake he sat in a poker game and won enough for eating money. Most of the time he was just around, drinking a beer now and again and keeping his eyes and ears open.

The story of the robbery was being told around. Outlaws had hit the Bank of Kimble just before daylight to the tune of forty thousand dollars, and as Hardy Young commented to John Bishop, “That’s a nice tune!”

Awakening as they did each morning, the townspeople had no idea what had taken place until Mary Phillips stopped Sheriff Borrow as he passed the Phillips home en route to breakfast and asked him to look for Josh.

“Ain’t he to home, ma’am?” Borrow was mildly surprised. He had no idea that bankers got up so early.

“Somebody came to the door just before daylight and Josh answered it. He called back to me that he would be back in a minute, then he stepped out and I heard the door close. I dropped off to sleep and when I awakened he was still gone. That isn’t like him.”

Walt Borrow was undisturbed until he saw the bank’s door ajar. Pushing it wider, he found Josh Phillips lying in a welter of gore, and the banker just managed to gasp out a few words before he died.

“Forced me!” he gasped, and lifted a hand horribly blackened by fire. “Threatened to burn … Mary, too!”

A question from Borrow elicited a few more words.

“Strangers! A … hawk …” His voice broke and he struggled for words. “Red!”

The town was enraged, but the rage was tempered by wonder, for there were no tracks, and nobody seemed to have seen anything. The outlaws had come and gone unseen, unheard. Only the body of Josh Phillips, the safe they forced him to open, and the forty thousand missing dollars proved their visit.

Stabling his horse in the livery stable an hour after his arrival, Bowdrie seemed not to notice the saddle tramp currying his horse in the next stall.

“Forty thousand was the most money the bank had in four months.” Coker spoke softly. “How does that sound?”

“Like somebody was tipped off,” Bowdrie agreed. “Keep your ears open.”

John Bishop intercepted Bowdrie as he was entering the hotel with his saddlebags. Bishop was a tall young man with a crisp dark beard and an attractive smile.

“I led the posse that hunted for tracks,” he said. “I’d be glad to help in any way.”

“You found nothing?”

Bishop had a fine-featured but strong face. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it. “Nothing I could swear to. There was some wind that night, and blown sand would make the tracks look older.”

Bowdrie thanked him and went into the hotel. He wore a black flat-crowned, flat-brimmed hat, a black silk neckerchief, gray wool shirt, and black broadcloth trousers over hand-tooled boots with California spurs. His two guns were carried low and tied down, a style rarely seen. His eyes, as they slanted across the street, missed nothing.

Leaving his saddlebags in his room on the second floor, he returned to the lobby and passed through the connecting door into the restaurant adjoining. Only two tables were occupied, the nearest one by a man wearing a black suit, his hair plastered down on a round skull and parted carefully. His face was brick-red, his eyes a hard blue.

The girl who waited on Chick had red hair and a wide, friendly smile. She put down a cup of coffee in front of him.

“I always bring coffee to a rider,” she said. “My pop taught me that.”

“He must have been a wise man as well as an Irishman,” Bowdrie said. “May I ask your name?”

“Ellen. And you are right about the Irish. My other name is Collins. My father was a sergeant in the cavalry.”

A shadow loomed over the table. The big man in the black suit stood there, a napkin tucked under his chin, a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Howdy, suh! Mind if I join you?” Without waiting for a reply, he seated himself. “Name’s Hardy Young. Cattle buyer. Ain’t so young as I used to be, but just as hardy!”

He laughed loudly, then leaned over and whispered hoarsely, rolling his eyes from side to side as if to see who might be listening.

“Heard you was in town, suh! Frightful thing! Frightful! Always aim to help the law, that’s what I say! Now, if there’s anything you want looked into, you just ask Hardy Young! I know ever’body hereabouts!”

Bowdrie measured him for a cool half-minute before replying, and the hard blue eyes became uneasy. Hastily the man gulped a swallow of coffee.

“Thanks,” Bowdrie replied. “This job will not take long.”

Young stared, momentarily taken aback.

“None of them are very complicated,” Bowdrie replied. “The ones planned so carefully are often the easiest. This case doesn’t appear to be as difficult as many we get.”

Hardy Young mopped his mustache with the back of his hand and sucked his teeth noisily. The blue eyes were round and astonished.

“That sounds like a Ranger!” he said. “It surely does!”

Bowdrie was irritated. He was nowhere near as confident as he sounded, but the man angered him. Yet he knew that once a job was complete, thieves were always somewhat worried. Had they been seen, after all? Had they forgotten some vital thing? In a robbery so carefully planned, the planner might have overlooked something. Hardy Young was obviously a busybody and a talkative man. If he repeated what Bowdrie had said, it might lead the thieves into some impulsive act.

If they acted suddenly, they might betray themselves, and without doubt they had a spy in the town. Somebody had informed them of the amount of money in the bank.

“Then you figure to close this case right up?”

Bowdrie shrugged. “No great rush. This is a nice little town and as soon as I report back to Austin they’ll give me another job, maybe tougher than this.

“This case won’t be tough. Their boss forgot one important item, and it will hang them all.”

“Hang them?” Young looked startled.

“Phillips was killed, wasn’t he? We’ll hang them all—except,” he added, “the man who gives us information. He’ll get off easy.”

Young clutched his knife and fork desperately. The food he had ordered brought to Bowdrie’s table lay untouched before him.

He leaned forward. “There is such a man, then? You already know such a man?”

Purposely Bowdrie hesitated. “If there isn’t,” he said, “there will be. There’s always one man who wants to dodge the noose.”

After Young had left the table, Bowdrie lingered over his coffee. Something about the man disturbed him. At first he had believed him an irritating busybody; now he was not so sure.

Despite his comments to Young, Bowdrie had literally nothing upon which to work. Bishop had found no tracks, but as suggested, the wind might have wiped them out. Phillips’s last words seem to imply the outlaws were strangers, and then there were his incomprehensible words about a “hawk … red.”

The thieves had known when to strike and their clean escape seemed to indicate that they had covered the distance to their hideout under cover of darkness.

There seemed no answer to that, unless … It came to him with shocking suddenness. Unless they never left town at all!

Strangers, Phillips had said, and in a town the size of Kimble the banker would know everyone, and Sheriff Borrow had told him there were no strangers in town but the saddle tramp called Rip who had arrived after the robbery.

Ellen returned to his table with the coffeepot and sat down opposite him. “You should be careful,” she warned. “Men who would rob a bank and torture a man as they did Mr. Phillips would stop at nothing.”

“Thanks.” He glanced at her thoughtfully. “You must see everything and hear everything in here. Have there been any strangers in town? They all come here to eat, don’t they?”

“No, not all. But there was a man … I used to see him around San Antone when I was a little girl. His name was Latham, I think. He was here, but I saw him only once.”

“What became of him? Did he have a horse?”

“I don’t think so. He walked along the street, then he stopped outside and smoked a cigarette. After that he went around the corner and down the alley. I did not see him again.”

Bowdrie’s dark features revealed nothing, but his heart was pounding. This might be the first break.

Latham, the man she had seen, could have been Jack Latham, one of the Decker gang of outlaws.

Standing in front of the restaurant, he would have had a good chance to study the bank. Yet he had been on foot and he did not disappear in the direction of the livery stable or the town corral. Behind the double row of business buildings that faced Main Street there were only dwellings. If Latham had turned down an alley it could only have been to go to one of them.

Jack Latham was on the Fugitives List as a cattle rustler, a horse thief and killer. He was known to have worked with Comanche George Cobb and Pony Decker.

Ellen was right, of course. Such men would stop at nothing. They were utterly ruthless, dangerous men. Yet this robbery was unlike them. Behind this one was a different kind of intelligence, someone with new techniques, a new approach.

He talked for a while to Ellen, simply the casual conversation of the town, the restaurant, the people. He learned nothing new but did acquire some knowledge of the community, its thinking, and its ways.

Returning to his room, Chick dropped on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. Then he sat very still, thinking.

And in the stillness of the unlit room he heard a movement.

His eyes went left, then right. Nothing. The hair prickled on his scalp and then he felt rather than heard a stealthy movement.

He sprang from the bed and turned swiftly, gun in hand. The rising moon illumined the room, but he could see nothing. It was empty, ghostly in the moonlight.

Once more he glanced around the room; then very cautiously he lighted a lamp. He had started to move away when he detected a faint movement among the blankets on the bed. Gun in hand, he reached with careful fingers and jerked the blanket back.

There, in a tight, deadly S, lay a sidewinder, one of the deadliest of desert rattlesnakes, a snake that does not coil but simply draws back its head and strikes repeatedly.

The snake’s gaze was steady, unblinking. Man and reptile watched each other with deadly intensity. The room was on the second floor and the chance that such a snake had come there of its own choice was next to impossible.

Moving carefully, Bowdrie got a broom left standing in a corner, and a broken bed slat standing beside it. Using them as pincers, he lifted the snake and dropped it from the window. He heard the soft plop when it hit the ground.

After a careful examination of the room he undressed, got into bed, and went to sleep. He slept soundly and comfortably.

The sun was chinning itself on the eastern mountains when he awakened. His door was opening softly, stealthily. A big, carefully combed head was thrust into the room. Hardy Young found himself staring into the business end of a Colt.

“Stopped by t’see if you was havin’ breakfast! I’m a-treatin’, such! I was tryin’ to be careful so’s if you was still asleep I’d not wake you up.”

The blue eyes roamed uneasily over the room. Chick sat up and reached for his pants with his left hand. “Mighty kind of you.” He invited, “Come in an’ set. I’ll get dressed.”

Young was manifestly uneasy and kept looking around as Chick dressed. “Sit down on the bed,” Bowdrie suggested. “It’s more comfortable.”

He slung on his gunbelts and dropped the free gun into its holster. As he did so, he brushed lightly against Young, enough to make him stagger and drop to the bed.

His face gray, Young bounded to his feet as if stabbed.

Bowdrie smiled pleasantly. “What’s the matter, Hardy? Scared of something? You needn’t be. I threw it out of the window.”

“Threw what out?” Young blustered. “I got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”

The man’s guilt was manifest and Bowdrie gripped the front of his stiff collar and twisted hard. His fingers were inside the collar and as his hand turned, his fist pressed against Young’s Adam’s apple. He shoved Young hard against the wall, still twisting.

The man’s eyes bulged, he gasped for breath, and his face began to turn blue. Bowdrie slowly relaxed his grip, letting Young catch his breath. Then with his free hand he slapped Young across the face.

“Who’s in this with you, Young? Talk, or I’ll skin you alive!”

Bowdrie relaxed his grip a bit more. Gasping hoarsely, the big man said, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about! Honest, I don’t!”

Bowdrie jerked him away from the wall and kicked him behind the knees, and let go. Hardy Young hit the floor with a crash that shook the building.

“You’d better talk while you can. If you don’t, Latham or one of the others will!”

Young’s hand was at his throat but at the mention of Latham’s name a kind of panic went through him. Bowdrie could almost see the man’s mind working. If Bowdrie knew about Latham, how much more did he know?

“Get up!” Bowdrie said. “Get up an’ get out! You’ve got until four this afternoon to talk. After that you hang with the rest of them!”

He was pushing his luck, he knew, but he had a feeling that Hardy Young was genuinely frightened. If the man would talk, it would save time, much time. Had the snake been Hardy’s own idea? Or had somebody else done it or put Hardy up to doing it?

By riding Young, he might force them into a revealing move. When such men moved suddenly, they often made mistakes. Obviously somebody was worried or they would not have tried to get him killed by a rattler. Undoubtedly they believed he knew more than he did, which had been nothing.

Following a hurried breakfast, Bowdrie saddled the roan and rode out of town. His theory of the previous day, that the outlaws were still in Kimble, was still valid. Yet it would be impossible for a group of men to remain hidden for long in such a small town. Certainly there could not have been sufficient food for more than a few days, and he suspected they had already been in town longer than planned.

Drawing rein under some trees on the slope near the edge of town, Bowdrie sat his saddle, studying the place. His view was a good one, and as he studied the layout his eyes turned again and again to a large ranch house almost hidden in a grove of cottonwoods.

A huge barn, several corrals, various outbuildings. The barn backed up to an arroyo that wound through the low hills on the edge of town.

It was very hot now and the air was breathless. Chick mopped his face and neck. Squinting against the glare, he used the trees as a screen and rode down, crossed the trail, and entered the arroyo. He found no tracks and scowled with disappointment.

Yet he knew no track could long endure in this sand.

He was riding along immersed in thought, and the sharp jerk at his shoulder almost failed to register until he heard the metallic slam of the gunshot.

A frail tendril of smoke lifted from a rocky knoll, and touching a spur to the roan’s ribs, Bowdrie sent him up out of the arroyo and on a dead run for the knoll itself. Another rifle shot rang out but the bullet missed, and the roan went charging up the knoll. Bowdrie’s gun was in his hand, but the knoll was empty!

Amazed and angry, he took a quick swing around among the rocks. If the shot had come from here, the marksman was gone.

Perplexed, he looked all around. The grass was disturbed but he found no distinguishable tracks. Horses and cattle had been on the knoll, and there was a confusion of tracks, scratches, and scuffed earth.

His shoulder was smarting by the time he reached town. The shot had merely split the fabric of his shirt and scraped the skin.

He swung down at the livery stable and glanced over at the two or three loafers. “Anybody want to make a half-dollar caring for a horse?”

Rip Coker was seated on a box. “How about me? They cleaned me at poker, and a half a dollar would buy me a couple of meals.”

They walked into the barn, Bowdrie giving instructions.

“Who owns the big house over by the wash?” he asked when they were alone.

“I thought of it, but that’s the Bishop place. He’s well off, and one of the leading citizens. He and his brother put up money to help build both the church and the school. John Bishop is the mayor.”

“What’s his brother do?”

“Red? He ranches down in Mexico. He’s never here, and hasn’t even been here so far as I know, even though the Bishops sort of regard this as their town, and always contribute to worthy causes.”

Bowdrie outlined all that had happened and what little he had learned, adding what Ellen had told him about Latham.

“Sounds like him. From all I hear, that banker looked like a Comanche had worked on him. He was badly used.”

Ellen came immediately to his table when Bowdrie seated himself in the restaurant a few minutes later. “Does Sheriff Borrow eat here?” he asked.

“He was in, looking for you, perhaps an hour ago. It might have been two hours. I’ve been pretty busy until now.”

“Thanks. If he doesn’t come in, I’ll look him up.”

The outer door opened and when he glanced up, the newcomer turned out to be John Bishop.

“Any luck, Bowdrie?” His eyes went to Chick’s shoulder. “Don’t tell me you’ve been shot?”

“I didn’t tell you,” Bowdrie said sharply. “It seems you’re a good guesser. From where you stand, that could be a thorn scratch or a barbed-wire cut, but if you’d like to believe it was a shot, you’ve the choice.”

“You seem to be touchy. Is the case getting on your nerves?”

“Of course not. You haven’t been a Ranger, Bishop. Most cases are routine. All a man needs is a little time and patience. All this case needed was a fresh viewpoint. It’s like I told Hardy Young, the boss in a case like this always overlooks something. That’s a beginning. Then somebody gets scared and they talk so they won’t have to hang like the rest of them.”

“At least you’re confident. That’s more than Borrow can say.”

“He doesn’t know all that we know, and his experience in crime has been local. In the Rangers you run into everything. But even Young was surprised when I mentioned Jack Latham.”

Without seeming to pay attention, Bowdrie was watching Bishop for a reaction. If there was any, it was well hidden.

Bishop’s eyes were on him and Bowdrie felt a tide of recklessness welling up within him. He had no evidence at all, but regardless of what Coker had said of Bishop, that ranch was simply too well located for what had been happening. He pushed his luck.

“The well-planned crimes are often the simplest. A plan is a design like that of a weaver, and all you have to do is get hold of one of the threads and it all begins to unravel.”

“And you’ve found the thread?”

Bishop’s eyes reflected his skepticism, but under that lay something else. Apprehension, maybe?

“I’ve got two or three threads,” Bowdrie said. “The trouble with well-planned crimes is that the planner is never content. He always wants to take another stitch here or there. The first thread was that this mysterious crime was simply too mysterious. It was overdone. Nobody saw anyone entering or leaving town and there were no tracks. The second thread was the hour of the crime and the way it was done.

“Then came the added touches. A snake in my bed that was intended to kill or scare me. The next touch was the shot somebody took at me, which indicates whoever did this crime is not sure of himself. Or somebody connected with it isn’t sure.

“That was pure stupidity. I was sent alone on this job, but if I got killed you’d have a company of Rangers in here turning over every stone in town.

“It also proves what I suspected from the beginning: there were no tracks because the thieves never left town. They are here now, right in Kimble.”

“That’s absurd!” Bishop sounded angry. “This is a nice little town. Everybody knows everybody else. Why would they stay in a town with everybody hunting them? I was on the search myself and we found nobody.”

“Exactly. Nobody thought of searching houses, merely of getting out on the trails. A thief would be running, so they would chase him. All the thieves had to do was sit tight, and with friends in town, that would be easy.”

“Friends?”

“They had to have friends. Somebody had to tell them when there was enough money in the bank to make it worthwhile.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Bishop said. “I am afraid you’re going off on a tangent.”

“It makes a lot of sense,” Bowdrie persisted. “Whoever pulled this job is outsmarting himself. That shot today, for example. As a miss it was very revealing.”

“Revealing? How do you mean?”

“How does a man vanish off the face of the earth? I don’t believe in magic, Bishop. I am a practical man.”

Bishop shrugged. “I know nothing of crime, so I hope you find the guilty men. We’ve tried very hard to build a law-abiding community here. Sheriff Borrow and I worked out a plan to protect the town from just this sort of thing.”

“It was a good setup,” Bowdrie replied mildly. “Sheriff Borrow told me about it.”

“We’ve tried very hard to build a good community here. That’s why we all contributed to the church and the school.”

“That makes sense.” Bowdrie smiled. “A good community is a prosperous one. One with money around.”

John Bishop threw him a sharp glance, as if trying to see meaning behind the comment. Bowdrie’s expression was innocent.

“You’re ranching yourself, are you not?” Bowdrie inquired. “Horse ranching, I think? I’ve noticed some fine horses around town, some with plenty of speed.”

Bishop did not reply. His fingers gripped the cup Ellen had brought him.

“By the way,” Bowdrie continued. “What’s Red doing now?”

The fingers on the cup tightened. Bishop looked up, and the pretended friendliness was gone from his eyes. “He’s ranching in Sonora.” Bishop pushed back his chair. “I’ll see you later.”

He stood up and turned to go, but Chick’s voice stopped him. “By the way …” Bowdrie’s tone was gentle. “Don’t leave town, and tell your brother not to.”

Bishop turned sharply around. “What do you mean by that? I told you …” He paused, gaining control of himself. “I am beginning to see what you have in mind, but it won’t work, Bowdrie. Don’t try to frame me or my brother.”

Bowdrie got up and stepped past him to the counter where Ellen was standing. “Let me treat Mr. Bishop,” he said cheerfully. “I enjoy doing it. In fact, I plan to arrange for all his meals … as long as he will need them!”

“Don’t start anything you can’t finish!” Bishop’s eyes were mean. “I am a friend of the governor!”

Bowdrie smiled. “Perhaps, but is he your friend?”

Bishop slammed the door and Chick smiled at Ellen. “You know, I always did like a girl with freckles on her nose!”

He walked outside and glanced along the street. He was displeased with himself. He had not intended to push Bishop so far, although in his own mind he was sure he was merely a smooth crook. Under the guise of being a public-spirited citizen he could have planned and pulled off this robbery without being suspected. What the case had needed was a fresh viewpoint, someone from outside the town, unimpressed by Bishop.

The worst of it was that Bowdrie had pushed too far without a bit of proof. He was sure that Bishop and his brother had engineered the robbery and killed Josh Phillips. Moreover, he was sure they had tried to kill him, but he could prove nothing. Yet Bishop was worried; that much was obvious.

Coker was loafing in front of the saloon. “Get on your horse and light out of here,” Chick advised. “The first telegraph station you hit, wire to McNelly. Ask him to come runnin’.”

“You’ve been talkin’ to Bishop?”

“He’s our man, I’m sure of it.”

“I’ve been thinkin’. It’s possible. Nobody would notice extry horses over there, nor a few extry men around. He carries a stock of grub and he’s the only place aside from the restaurant that could feed men for more than a day or two.”

“I’m going to see Borrow, but you’d better get out fast. I’ve a hunch my talk with Bishop will blow the lid off. He’s supposed to be smart, but doesn’t have sense enough to just sit tight.”

The sheriff’s office door was closed, but Bowdrie turned the knob and stepped in. He stopped, the door half-closed behind him. Just beyond the corner of the desk and inside the bedroom door Bowdrie saw a pair of boot toes turned up.

He sprang past the desk and stopped with his hands on the doorjamb. On the floor, lying on his back, was Sheriff Walt Borrow, the manner of his death obvious. Under his breastbone was the haft of a knife.

Bowdrie stopped and touched the dead man’s hand. It was cold. He straightened up and glanced around. The picture became clear when he saw the chair in the shadows near several coats hung from a clothes tree.

Crossing to the chair, Bowdrie seated himself. He was facing the doors but well back in the shadows. Whoever sat in the chair would see whoever came in from the street, but Borrow, coming in from the glare of the sun, would not have seen his killer.

Near the chair were three cigarette butts, lying where the killer had dropped them. Borrow, as did most men of the time and the area, smoked cigars. Cigarettes were a Mexican custom only beginning to cross the border, so these might have been smoked by someone living south of the border.

Here the killer had waited. There was no evidence of struggle, and Borrow had been a strong, tough man. The killer might have struck from his chair, but it was likely that he had risen as Borrow drew close and driven the knife upward to the heart. Soundless, abrupt, and final.

But why?

Bowdrie recalled the old man’s kindly features at their first meeting. “I’m stumped,” Borrow confessed. “The answer keeps naggin’ at me. It’s right on the trail edge of my thinkin’, but I can’t quite get it out into the open.”

He had glanced at the blanket roll Chick was carrying. “Might’s well leave that here. You won’t need it at the hotel.”

And the tight roll of his poncho and blankets still stood in the corner where he had left it, yet the roll was neither as tight nor was it rolled in quite the same way now. Why would Borrow, or anyone, open his blanket roll?

Dropping to his knees, he pulled the roll loose. As it opened, a fold of paper fell out. Taking it up, Bowdrie opened it for a quick look. It was all he needed. Instantly he was on his feet.

Hurriedly bundling the roll together, he tossed it into a corner. The door opened almost in his face, and Ellen, the freckles dark against the paleness of her face, stood there.

“Oh, Mr. Bowdrie! Please be careful! They’re after you!”

“Who is?”

“They were talking out in back of the restaurant. They did not guess anyone was around. One of the men said they would get you when you left the office.”

“Then they saw you come to the door. That’s bad, Ellen!”

“I thought of that. If they ask, I’ll tell them you forgot to pay for your meal and I came after you.”

“Good!” He reached into his pocket and counted out some money. “There! That’ll pay for what I ate and the next two meals, if I should forget again.”

He put the money in her hand. “Now, do something for me. If you see that lantern-jawed blond drifter they call Rip, get to him and tell him what is happening. Tell him where I am but not to come here. Understand?”

She turned away quickly, clutching the money in her hand. She paused an instant, flashing him a quick, frightened smile. “Good luck, Chick!”

He listened to the click of her heels on the walk, hoping she would not be stopped. He watched her enter the restaurant, from which she would be able to watch the trail into town.

They would not wait long now. If he did not appear on the street, they would come here. They had proved themselves to be impatient men. Somehow they had discovered the sheriff had finally found the solution and had killed him. Now they must kill Bowdrie.

Chick took stock of his position. The sheriff’s office was separated from the saloon by a gap of about thirty feet. On the other side there was nothing but an open slope.

The building comprised four rooms. Two solidly built cells on one side of a narrow hall, on the other the office itself, and farther along, the sheriff’s living quarters.

Bending over the dead man, he removed his gunbelt and pistol. The pistol was fully loaded. From the gun rack he got down the sheriff’s old Sharps and his Spencer as well as a double-barreled shotgun. From a drawer he took ammunition for these guns and arranged it in neat rows on the desk.

Then he took up the body and carried it to the bed, where he straightened it out and covered it with a blanket.

Bowdrie knew that in this situation he could not depend on Rip Coker. The Ranger would go through hell and high water to do his duty, but the telegraph operator might be a friend of the Bishops or of Young. He would undoubtedly send his message both to McNelly and to Major Jones, who was actually in charge in this area.

The wise course was to depend on neither. The problem was his, to be solved here and now. Even if the message got through, there was small chance they would arrive in time. If they did, an arrest might be made without a fight through sheer numbers, but considering the type of men he was facing, even that was doubtful. Chick Bowdrie preferred to make arrests without trouble, but such occasions were rare in a land where the border was so near, escape so possible.

Undoubtedly the robbery had been pulled off by Red Bishop and the Decker-Latham outfit. John Bishop and Hardy Young had no doubt planned it, knowing of the money in the bank and choosing the time. Riders would attract no attention on Bishop’s ranch, and there was plenty of cover for going and coming.

Due to the sheriff’s recollection, Bowdrie knew how the bandits had arrived as well as where the shot came from that was meant to kill him.

The afternoon was warm and still. No breath of wind stirred the thick dust in the long, hot street. The false-fronted buildings across the street looked parched and gray.

Bowdrie mopped sweat from his face, loosened his neckerchief, then sat down behind the desk. There was a bucket of water in the shadowed bedroom, but no food.

Food did not worry him. This fight would be history before he had a chance to be hungry again.

He hoped to kill no one, but he was alone against five or six desperate men who had shown their style in torturing Phillips.

Nor could he expect help from the town. None of them would believe Bishop was a thief. Nor did they know Borrow was murdered. There was a pot of coffee on the stove. Hot though it was outside, he poured a cup. It was strong and bitter, but he liked it.

Down the street he heard a few steps on the boardwalk, then silence. Well, if he got himself killed, he had no family to worry about it. He was a loner. His family was the Rangers, his world was his job.

Ellen … now there was a likely lass. But even if she were interested in him, how could he ask any girl to marry a man who might end up on a slab at any moment? Still, a lot of the Rangers were married, and happily, too.

Bowdrie walked back to the cells, and keeping his head from in front of the small window, he peered out. There was a pile of scrap lumber back there, and watching it, he saw the grass stir. So they had a man out there, too.

He walked back to the office, and at that moment Bishop called out, “Bowdrie? Step over here a minute, will you? I’ve got something to show you.”

“Bring it over here, John,” Chick called back. “I’m not going to make it that easy for you.”

He was impatient for them to get on with it. He had lain for hours without moving when stalking someone, but when the chips were down, he disliked waiting.

“Whoever fired that shot from the rocks gave you away, John!” he called out. “I know all about that old watercourse now!”

Somebody swore and Bishop stepped back out of sight. Then there was silence.

Bishop was handling this all wrong. He had the total sympathy of the townspeople, but now they would begin to wonder. Why was John Bishop, their mayor and leading citizen, trying to kill a Texas Ranger? Bowdrie had yelled, hoping others would be listening, and wondering now.

In the midst of the stillness Bowdrie had a sudden inspiration. Taking a couple of rawhide riatas Borrow had hanging on the clothes tree, he knotted one over a nail over the door to the bedroom, and crawling across the floor, knotted the other end over a nail near the outside door.

Crawling back, he took a turn around the doorknob, rigging a crude pulley. Then he fastened the end of his riata through an armhole of Borrow’s poncho in such a way that by pulling on the riata he could make it move by the window. The light was such that anyone outside would see movement but could not detect who or what it was unless standing right outside.

He pulled the poncho opposite the window, then pulled again. Instantly the poncho jerked and a rifle bellowed. Bowdrie was watching, and when the rifle flashed, he fired.

There was a crash of glass and a startled yelp. If he hadn’t hit somebody, he had at least scared him. His shot was followed by a scattered volley that broke much of the front window.

Keeping the Spencer in his hands, Bowdrie waited. Sweat trickled down his chest under his shirt. He wiped his hands on his pants. A searching shot struck the wall over his head, but he knew they could not see him, although given time, they might figure out his position. Bishop and Young must both have seen the inside of this office many times.

He refilled his cup, sipped coffee, and sat back in his chair, waiting. He had two front windows and a side window, and the glass in the front windows was more than half gone. By now the people around town were wondering just what was going on.

He waited, not wanting to waste a shot and hoping they would believe he had been hit.

Nothing happened. Chick yawned. If they waited long enough, the Rangers would be here. Of course, they could not know that. Yet even if he left the office somehow he was handicapped in not knowing the men he was fighting.

A shot rang out and a bullet cut a furrow in the desk and buried itself in the wall. Another struck the floor and ventilated the wastebasket. They were probing with fingers of lead.

He reached for his cup and caught a glimpse of movement from the window on the second floor of the harness shop across the street. There was a curtain inside that window, but he could detect a reflection of movement.

A man was inching his way along the rooftop to fire from behind the false front of the building next to the harness shop and directly opposite. The man was getting into position to fire down into the office. He was out of sight behind the false front but dimly reflected in the window over the harness shop.

Bowdrie took a swallow of coffee, put the cup down, and took the Spencer from his lap. He studied the window and then the roof. Taking up the Spencer, he took careful aim, drew in a breath, and let it out slowly and then squeezed off his shot.

The heavy rifle leaped in his hands, firing right into the false front of the building. A pistol bullet would penetrate several inches of pine at that distance, and the .56-caliber Spencer would not be impeded by the half-inch boards on the front opposite.

He heard a rifle clatter and fall into the dirt; then a man slid to the roof edge, clawing madly to keep from sliding on the steep roof, then falling.

The man scrambled up, obviously hurt but moving. As he started to run, Bowdrie, with only the wide posterior for target, squeezed off another shot. There was an agonized yell and the man disappeared.

Bowdrie thumbed two shells into the Spencer, then hit the floor as a hail of bullets riddled the windows and the door. One bullet ripped through the desk, leaving a hole in a half-open drawer right in front of his face.

The shooting died down and he got up just in time to see a man sprinting across the street. Bowdrie fired and the runner drew suddenly to his tiptoes, then spilled over into the dust. “If you weren’t one of them,” Bowdrie said aloud, “you used damn poor judgment!”

He slipped down the hall to the back cell. There was still a man behind the lumber pile, but there was no chance for a shot.

Returning to the office, he stood well back in the room and searched the line of buildings opposite. He could see nothing.

He put down the Spencer, mopped his face, and reached for the gun. Dust stirred on the floor and he wheeled, his grasp closing on the shotgun. Comanche George Cobb stood in the side door, his pistol in his hand.

Bowdrie saw the man’s eyes blaze, and the pistol thrust forward; he saw the man’s thumb bend as it pulled the hammer back, and Bowdrie squeezed both triggers on the shotgun.

Cobb’s body jerked as if kicked by a mule, and he took a staggering step backward before he fell, a spur hooking itself on the doorjamb.

“Two gone,” he muttered, “and maybe one wounded.”

He started to move, then froze in mid-stride as his nostrils caught the faintest smell of smoke.

Smoke, and then the crackle of flames!

Grabbing up shotgun shells, he jammed them into his pockets; then he reloaded the shotgun itself. Testing the sheriff’s pistols for balance, he thrust them into his waistband.

Flames crackled outside and smoke began to curl up from the floor and into the windows. Evidently they had gotten under the building and set fire to it.

Outside, men waited to cut him down the minute he showed himself. He might get some of them, but they would surely get him.

Suddenly he remembered something seen earlier. He glanced up. A trapdoor to the loft over the office. Now, if there was only a second trapdoor to the roof, as was often the case when access was left for possible repairs …

Leaping atop the desk, he shoved the trap aside, and grasping the lip of the opening, he pulled himself up. Though smoke was gathering even there, Bowdrie made out the square framework of a trapdoor in the roof. Closing the trapdoor behind him, he raced along the joists, shotgun in hand, unfastened the hasp, and lifted himself to the flat roof.

The rooftop slanted down slightly to allow rain to run off. Bowdrie looked over the edge. There was no one in sight, as they evidently believed Comanche George was still there.

Swinging his legs over, he hung for a minute, then dropped, knees bent to absorb the shock. He hit the ground, staggered, recovered, looked quickly around, his shotgun poised for firing.

There was nobody in sight.

A quick dash and he was behind the Longhorn Saloon. Opening the back door, he stepped in. A half-dozen men stood near the wide front window, watching the street. Opposite, plainly visible in the window across the street, was John Bishop.

The bartender turned his head, and when he saw Bowdrie, his face paled. He drew back, his hands falling to his sides.

Bowdrie walked quickly to the front door. The fire destroying the sheriff’s office could be plainly heard.

“Hope it don’t burn the whole town!” somebody commented.

“What started Bishop on a rampage? Who’re those fellers with him?”

“Don’t know any of ’em. Strangers. Somebody said that Ranger killed Walt Borrow.”

The roof of the building collapsed suddenly, and John Bishop stepped into the street, a red-haired man beside him. From down the street Hardy Young was approaching.

“Stand aside, men!” Bowdrie said, and as they turned, he said quietly, “Red Bishop robbed your bank. John Bishop murdered Borrow because your sheriff had found him out. The dead man out there is Jack Latham, the outlaw. Keep out of this!”

He stepped into the street as Hardy Young came up to the Bishops. Where was Decker, the man Bowdrie had shot when he fell from the roof?

Bowdrie stepped off the walk. “Bishop! I arrest you for robbing the Bank of Kimble, for the murders of Josh Phillips and Walt Borrow!”

The three men turned, staring as if at a ghost. John Bishop had an instant of panic. “How in …!”

“Drop your guns. You will get a fair trial!”

“Trial, hell!” Red Bishop’s gun started to lift, and Bowdrie fired the shotgun. One barrel, then the other. The group were close together, the distance no more than sixty feet.

Red Bishop was shooting when he took the shotgun blast. John Bishop caught a good half of a load of buckshot and toppled back against the hitching rail. He was fully conscious, fully aware.

Hardy Young was running away down the street. He was running, crazed with fear, when the horsemen rounded the corner into the street. He glimpsed them and tried to turn away, and they saw him and tried to rein in. Both were too late.

The charging horses ran him down and charged over his big body, trampling him into the dust.

Rip Coker was in the lead, McNelly right behind him. “Bowdrie? You all right?”

Automatically Bowdrie extracted the shells and reloaded the shotgun. “All right,” he said. “Case closed—no prisoners.”

“Where’s Cobb? And Decker?”

Bowdrie explained in as few words as possible. “Borrow finally figured it out. There’s a draw comes in from the south on Bishop’s land. Riders could come right up from Mexico, then follow that draw right to his ranch. Nobody need see them at all.

“Once you forgot who Bishop was and just looked at the situation, it almost had to be him. Borrow left a note in my bedroll just in case. He should have the credit for this one.

“I think,” Bowdrie added, “you’ll find the bank’s money in Bishop’s house. If they aren’t carrying it on their bodies.”

“Good job, Bowdrie!” McNelly said. “Thanks!”

Bowdrie lifted a hand. “There’s coffee waitin’ for me inside. Come an’ join me, if you’re of a mind to.”

He turned toward the restaurant, suddenly tired. It was cool inside, and Ellen was standing by a table with the coffeepot in hand.

Someday, he thought, someday he might find a town like this, a place where he could stop, get acquainted, and build something.

“Your family will be glad you’re safe,” Ellen said.

“I’ve got no family,” he replied. “I’ve got nobody. Only the Rangers and a mean roan horse. That’s all I got. Maybe it’s all I’ll ever have.”

As he sat down, she was pouring his coffee, and he was tired. Very tired.