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

fell into his arms, moaning with fright, and Chick struck a match with his thumbnail.
    The wounded man was Hawkins.
    "What did you jump me for?" Hawkins did not seem badly hurt, but it was too dark to see. "Can't a feller have a little fun without you hornin' in?"
    "Not when the girl doesn't want him," Bowdrie replied.
    "Huh! You'd help one of Zaparo's outlaws rather'n an American?" The moon, rising nout above the mountain ridge, provided small light. How, Bowdrie wondered, had Hawkins known the Mexican was one of Zaparo's gang? Such gossip might be going around, of course. Still...
    "Mount up," he said. "We'll ride back to the cantina. And you, Hawkins, consider yourself my prisoner."
    "Me?" Hawkins was startled. "A prisoner? What for?"
    "Mount up," Bowdrie replied. "I think you're just the man I've been lookin' for."
    Hawkins became suddenly quiet. "So?" he said. Nor did he utter another word during the ride back to the cantina. Bowdrie took him through a back way, guided by Chiquita, to one of Padilla's spare rooms, where he handcuffed him to the bed.
    Bowdrie's hasty shot had done little damage. It had, judging from a quick examination, hit Hawkins's large belt buckle at an angle, glanced off, and ripped his shirt at the elbow, scratching the skin and momentarily numbing his arm and hand.
    "You were lucky," Bowdrie said briefly, "or maybe you weren't, depending on whether you prefer a bullet to a rope."
    "What's that mean?" Hawkins demanded.
    Leaving him handcuffed, Bowdrie went into the cantina, where Broughten was watching a poker game and a half-dozen others were hanging about. One of them was Ferd Cassidy.
    Chick nodded to him. "When you get ready to ride," he commented, "don't wait for Hawkins. He's under arrest."
    Broughten turned sharply and Cassidy put his glass down on the table.
    "What's he done?" Cassidy asked.
    "He followed one of Padilla's girls into the desert and got rough with her." Bowdrie paused, then added, "While I have him, I'd better speak to him on some other matters."
    "What matters?" Cassidy's eyes were cold and ugly.
    There was a tenseness in the man that went beyond what could be expected. Suddenly Bowdrie was wondering. Why not the K-Bar outfit? A tough lot, close to the scene, yet so far as he knew, nothing of the kind had ever been held against them before.
    Of course, there was always the first time, and if they were tipped off to the amount of loot . . .
    A man came in the door, glanced around, taking in the tableau with casual interest; then he sat down at a table near the door. He was young, blond, and wiry-looking.
    Nobody seemed to notice his arrival.
    "Just a little investigation," Bowdrie replied. "Hawkins knew that Pablo, Chiquita's riend, was one of the Zaparo outfit. We're trying to learn all we can about Zaparo, and I'm curious as to how he knows."
    The room was very still. Two Mexican cowhands who had been standing at the bar quietly left, and an older man with gray chin whiskers eased himself off his chair, and putting on his hat, went out a side door.
    "Thought all of Zaparo's outfit were dead," Cassidy said. "Looked like it," Bowdrie replied, "but it seems some of them were suspicious of Juan Piron . They'd seen him talkin' with some gringos, and it didn't look good to them."
    Cassidy shrugged. "Well, whatever, but don't hold him longer than you need to. We've got work to do."
    The K-Bar boys left, mounted, and rode away. Bowdrie went to the bar and ordered a beer, turning the matter over in his mind. There was small chance the cowhand would talk, and a better-than-even chance he had nothing to tell. It might be nothing more than a cowhand going after a girl he believed might listen to him.
    Bowdrie had an unhappy feeling that he was making a fool of himself. Certainly he would no longer be welcome at the K-Bar. Ranch hands were clannish, and a move against one of their number was a move against all. Yet he could not rid himself of the notion that he had a fingerhold on the