Borden Chantry Read Free

pockets. Three gold eagles…a handful of change. A red bandanna handkerchief…no papers of any kind.
    Removing the thong from the gun hammer, he drew the man’s six-shooter, smelling the barrel. No smell of powder smoke, only gun oil. He checked the cylinder…five bullets. Fully loaded, as most men let the hammer down on an empty chamber when riding across country. It was safer that way. He did it himself.
    Well…no gunfight. The gun had not been fired and the man had not been expecting trouble, as the thong was still in place. His first action would have been to slip that free.
    There was a bullet hole through the man’s shirt near the heart. No blood around it to speak of, but that was often the case.
    He looked again at the body, frowning a little. Disturbed, he studied it. What was bothering him?
    The shirt…that was it. The shirt was too large for the man’s neck. Of course, a man needing a shirt would buy what he could get…but there was a difference here. This man’s clothes fitted to perfection…finely tooled black boots, the silver spurs polished, the black broadcloth pants fitted perfectly, and so did the fringed buckskin jacket, beautifully tanned to an almost white. This was a man who cared about his appearance, a neat, careful man, so why the too large shirt?
    Well…There might have been many reasons and it was time he got back home. He started to slip the gun back into its holster, then glanced at it again.
    It was a gun that had been much handled…The holster, too, was worn. Polished and in good shape, but worn. It was the gun and the holster of a man who knew how to use a gun, and who would have been good with it.
    â€œBig Injun? What do you think?”
    The Indian stood up. “He good man…strong man. He ride far, I think. No drink. No smell. No bottle. Face strong…clean.”
    Borden rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, studying the dead man again. Big Injun didn’t like it and neither did he. Something was wrong here.
    â€œMurder,” Big Injun said. “This man…no know he would be shot. Sudden, I think.”
    Uneasily, Borden Chantry stared at the dusty floor. Damn it, was he going to have problems now? Why couldn’t the dead man have been the drunken brawler he had expected?
    Big Injun believed the man had been shot from ambush. Or, at least, shot when he did not expect it. Perhaps by someone he trusted…But in the street? Who? And the man was a stranger. Could someone have followed him?
    It was a one-street town…one business street, at least, with a few side streets and back streets on which there were residences.
    His small white house was rented from Hyatt Johnson, a square, four-room house with a white picket fence around it, a few feet of lawn, with some flowers carefully cultivated and watered by hand, and behind the house a small red barn and a corral.
    Across the lane to the left there was a considerable pasture where he ran a dozen head of cattle and a few horses. Borden Chantry always kept a half-dozen horses, his best riding stock, in the corral at the barn.
    He went down the lane and through the back gate. He could hear a faint rattle of dishes from the kitchen so he went up the steps.
    â€œOh, Borden! You’re back!” Bess came to him quickly. Her eyes scanned his face. “Was it bad? Is everything all right?”
    â€œHe’s in jail. I recovered the horses.”
    â€œAre you all right?” She held his arms, looking up into his face.
    â€œSure. It was nothing.”
    â€œSit down. There’s coffee, and I’ll fix some eggs.”
    â€œI’ll have the coffee, but I had breakfast with Lang. There’s been some shooting down there. A man’s been found dead in the street.”
    â€œAnother one? Oh, Borden! I wish…I wish we could move back east. Anywhere. I don’t want Tom growing up with all this shooting and killing. All this violence.”
    It was