Read Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) for Free Online

hair! Do not tell me the young one with the smile, the I"
    Bowdrie's memory was good, and no such Mexican had been among the dead. Yet, how could that be? An ambush with one man escaping? The sort of men he had been picturing would never let anyone escape. There was something wrong here, something...
    "Fourteen men were dead on the ground, Chiquita," he explained.
    "The Rurales?" Padilla asked.
    "No, it was other bandidos, gringo bandidos perhaps. I do not know." His eyes studied the innkeeper. "Zaparo is dead, sehor, and you were his friend, I think. Now it does not matter except that I must find those who killed him. A killing is an evil thing no matter who is killed, and his killers were evil men."
    He paused. "I think this Juan Piron betrayed Zaparo." He caught Padilla's wrist.
    "Do you know who that someone was, amigo? Have you seen Piron talking to someone? Even here, perhaps?"
    There was a brief flare of realization in Padilla's eyes, but he merely shrugged.
    "Perhaps he talks here. I do not remember."
    Bowdrie glanced at the girl, still on her knees where she had fallen. "Chiquita, if your lover was a man of Zaparo, and if he looked as you have said, he was not among the dead. I remember each face, each man. He was not among them."
    "'Gracias, senor.
    She got to her feet, eyes bright with happiness. Padilla got up suddenly and left the room. Chick caught the girl's hand. "Chiquita, you can help me. Zaparo was not a good man, yet not so bad as some. He stole precious things from churches in Sonora.
    They must be found and returned. Your lover was not killed, so he will come to you, no? If he does, send him to me. He can help me."
    "You would not betray him, sehor? To the Rurales? We are to be married soon."
    "I wish to speak to him, that is all. What he has done was in Mexico, but now he can change. Zaparo is dead, but those who killed him must be found. Your man can help me."
    Bowdrie awakened suddenly, hours later, lying across his bed above the cantina. Music sounded from below, but it was not that which awakened him. A dozen horses were tied at the hitching rail outside the gate of the patio. From where he lay he could see across the patio and into the lighted window opposite.
    Ferd Cassidy suddenly appeared in the room, but moving as if he had just risen from a seat. Then Broughten came into the room with Hawkins. Only nine or ten miles from the K-Bar this was undoubtedly a hangout for the men from the ranch.
    Bowdrie went to the basin, still in the half-light from the window opposite, and splashed cold water on his face. Then he combed his hair before picking up his hat.
    As he started for the door, a surreptitious movement arrested his attention and he froze in position, watching.
    The Mexican girl, Chiquita, was leading a saddled horse toward the gate, obviously not wishing to be discovered. He waited an instant, then stepped out into the night.
    The girl was outside the gate, where she slipped into the saddle and started walking her horse along the trail.
    At almost the instant she got into the saddle, the dark figure of a man showed against the lighted window opposite, then vanished. As Bowdrie started for the gate himself, he saw the man mount and ride after the girl. Where could she be going at such an hour? Who was following her?
    Stepping quickly into the stable, Bowdrie saddled and bridled the roan. Gathering the reins, he stepped into the saddle and followed them down the trail, keeping to the grassy shoulder. Within a few minutes he glimpsed the man ahead; then he seemed to vanish.
    Worried, Bowdrie reached the spot only to discover that the desert broke away into the steep bank of a wash. Starting down the side, he glimpsed the outline of a rider against the night, a rider some distance off, but who could only be Chiquita. What had become of the man following her?
    Glancing right and left into the deeper shadows, he decided that rider must have ridden either up or down the wash, knowing perhaps that