Borden Chantry by Louis L’Amour Read Free Book Online Page A

You had the name of being a top hand. Now you’re in trouble. We
can
send you to the pen, and you wouldn’t cotton to that any more than me.
    â€œBack yonder when I nabbed you, I could have shot you and nobody would have cared or even asked how come. I didn’t. I took you in without a fight.”
    â€œYou was slick. I got to admit it. And I was too damn sure of myself.”
    â€œWell, whatever. Thing is you know I’ll play square if there’s a way I can do it, and I’m not against givin’ you a break if you come clean. You know a good deal more than you’ve said. You tell me and I’ll try to talk Johnson out of pressing charges.”
    Kim stared into his coffee cup, and Chantry felt sympathy for the man. Right now Baca was trying to study out how much he could trust Chantry.
    â€œAll right…You’ve been square. Trouble is I don’t know much…Only that somebody stole that sorrel before I could. Right from under my nose.”
    â€œDid you see it done?”
    â€œNo, I never.”
    â€œDo you know who did it?”
    That hesitation again. “No…no, I don’t.” Kim put down his cup. “Look, Marshal. I stood around the street watchin’ for that horse ’n rider. They never showed…and then I saw the rider.
    â€œSo where’s the horse? I studied on that, an’ knowin’ which way the man would come into town, I started studyin’ on places that horse might be. I pegged it for one of two places. Either that stable with the corral and the two-room shack over east or Mary Ann Haley’s.”
    The shack over east would be Johnny McCoy’s…but why Mary Ann’s?
    He asked the question, and Baca shrugged. “He went there…that rider did. He went mighty early in the morning when they aren’t receivin’ guests as a rule, only they let him right in.
    â€œI figured they knew him, the way they opened up for him, so I checked their stable. No horses but their driving horses for their rig. So then I went to the other place…That horse was sure enough there, but I heard stirrin’ around inside and I took myself away from there.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œI come back that night, real late…and I seen a man ridin’ off on that sorrel, slippin’ off mighty quiet-like. I know a thief when I see one, and that man was a thief.”
    â€œWould you know him if you saw him?”
    â€œN…no. No, I don’t think so. He was kind of humped over in the saddle so’s you couldn’t make out his height.”
    Borden Chantry opened the cell door and stepped out, closing it after him. “Take your time with the coffee, Baca, and give it a thought. You’re a good man on a trail. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
    He went into the street and stood there, pulling his hat brim down against the glare. A wagon was coming slowly up the street and Johnson’s dog got up lazily and moved out of the way.
    Well, what did that get him? That Mary Ann Haley had seen the dead man. Had welcomed him…or somebody had…like a friend.
    He shook his head. That didn’t jell with what he already knew or surmised about the victim…What business could he have with a woman like Mary Ann? That early in the morning when they weren’t in the habit of receiving guests?
    He tried to add it all up, and came to nothing. “You’re not much of a detective, Borden,” he told himself.
    A stranger had ridden into town with a poke of money, gold, probably. The following morning he was dead…murdered. His horse had been taken out and killed…the brand cut away.
    Two things he knew—or was sure of in his own mind: The murderer was a local man, and he had not wanted the victim identified.
    Which made the brand all-important.
    He turned to start down the street and came face to face with Frank Hurley.
    Hurley made as if to turn away but Chantry saw