Bowdrie's Law (Ss) (1983) by L'amour Louis

Author:L'amour, Louis [L'amour, Louis]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-12T06:26:13.875000+00:00

He said--"

!"Tell me later. Why don't you sit over at that table, drink a glass of milk and eat a piece of that thick apple pie? On me."

Sheriff Hadley entered. He was a strapping big man and as usual he walked swiftly, his gray hat pulled down, the old-fashioned mule-ear straps flapping against the sides of his boots.

He dropped into the chair across from Bowdrie. "Bowdrie, I figured it only right to talk to you first. I got to make an arrest. It's no secret who done it. I've got to arrest a thief and a killer."

"Why not leave it to me?" His thick forearms rested on the table and his black eyes met those of the sheriff. "You see, I've known almost from the start who the guilty man was. Things began to tie up when I first saw those bodies lyin' on the floor in the bank. That dead outlaw? That was Nevada Pierce." "Pierce? You sure of that?"

"Uh-huh. You see, I sent him to prison once. And his description was in the Rangers'

Bible. Lots of descriptions there, Hadley."

Their eyes clung. "You mean.., you got Jim Cane's description, too?"

"Sure. I spotted him right off. Jim used to run stock across the Rio Grande. That was four, five years ago."

"You knowed he was a horse thief and you haven't arrested him?"

"That's right, Hadley. You see, we live on the edge of lawless times. Lots of men got their first stake branding unbranded cattle. It surely wasn't theirs, but nobody else could prove a claim to it either. Afterward some other boys came along later, so to even things up, they switched brands.

"Now, maybe that's stealin', Hadley. By the book I guess it is. Nowadays it would surely be stealin', for there's no unclaimed stock runnin' around. It all belongs to somebody. It hasn't always been easy to decide who was a crook and who wasn't.

"So you know what I do? I judge a man by his record. Suppose a man who's rustled a few head in the old days goes straight after that? The country is settlin' down now, so if a man settles down an' behaves himself, we sort of leave him alone. If we went by the letter of the law, I could jail half the old-time cattlemen in Texas, but the letter of the law isn't always justice. It was open range then, and two-thirds of the beef stock a man could find was maverick. If a man goes straight, we leave him alone."

"What do you mean?" Hadley kept his voice low. "You call robbin' banks an' killin' goin' straight?"

"Not a bit of it. If Cane had robbed a bank or killed anyone, I'd have arrested him.

He had nothing to do with it."

Their eyes met across the table and Bowdrie said, "That Rangers' Bible of ours, it carries a lot of descriptions, like I said. It has descriptions of all the crowd who used to run with Pierce.

"There was one thing always puzzled Pierce, and that was how the Rangers always managed to outguess him.

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