The Chick Bowdrie Short Stories Bundle by Louis L'Amour

Author:Louis L'Amour [L’Amour, Louis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-8112-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-21T04:00:00+00:00

The wind had a way of rippling the grass into long waves of gray or green, and it stirred now, rolling away over the sunlit prairie. Bowdrie, astride the appaloosa gelding he had bought in Deadwood, rode beside his prisoner.

Curly Starr, his chin a stubble of beard, stared bleakly ahead. “You won’t get me much further! Ogalalla’s ahead, an’ I’ve friends riding the cattle trails.”

“You talk too much. I’ve prob’ly just as many friends as you’ve enemies among those herds, too. You stole too many horses, Curly. I’ll be lucky if I get you back to Texas unhung.” He paused. “What happened to Tobe an’ Doc?”

“How would they guess you’d ride fifty miles west out of Deadwood? That you’d ride fifty miles out of your way to keep me away from them? But you’re back on the cattle trails now, an’ they’ll find us.”

It had been a hard ride. On impulse Bowdrie had taken his prisoner out of Deadwood on the same night he left Clare Marsden at the door of the IXL. He headed due west, only later turning south and heading for the tall-grass country.

Ogalalla, which lay ahead, was a tough trail town and a dozen Texas herds were gathered nearby. Bowdrie had friends there, as did Starr. When things went well for him, the big outlaw was a friendly, easygoing man who had punched cows with many of the trail hands. Those friends would not forget.

Bowdrie kept his plans to himself. He had no intention of going into Ogalalla at all. He would camp at Ash Hollow, then head south again, keeping west of Dodge on a course roughly parallel to the proposed Nation Trail, until inside the Texas boundaries. At that time he would veer west toward Doan’s Store and Fort Griffin.

“They’ll be good hunters if they find us,” Bowdrie commented. Starr looked at him, but said nothing. He had been watching the stars, and was puzzled.

At dusk they camped in a canyon where a few ash trees grew and which had been named Ash Hollow by Frémont. They made camp close to the spring, and then taking Starr with him, Bowdrie went down to a moist place in the brush where gooseberries and currants were growing. When they had picked a few to supplement their supper, they walked back.

“You takin’ these irons off me? I’ll sleep better if you do.”

Bowdrie smiled. “And I’ll sleep better with them on, so why don’t you just settle down an’ rest? Nobody is going to turn you loose unless you get a smart Texas lawyer.”

Despite their continual bickering, the two men had come to respect and even like each other during the ride. Curly Starr was typical of a certain reckless, devil-may-care sort of puncher who often took to the bad trails when the country was wild. He was not an evil man, and under other circumstances in another kind of country he might never have become an outlaw.

Bowdrie was not fooled by his liking for the man. He knew that at the first chance Starr would grab for a gun or make a run for it.

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