Free Louis L'Amour by Hanging Woman Creek Page B

fixing to set up some vigilantes, and if they do, Roman Bohlen will have his say about them and what they do.
    “There’s nothing halfway about Bohlen. He’d rather lynch two honest nesters than miss one thief. And anyway, vigilantes have a way of gettin’ out of hand. They start out to make the country safe, and then they carry on to settle old scores. You tell Philo he’d better stay close to home. If Bohlen has his say, Philo will be on the list.”
    “
Philo?
But that’s absurd! Philo would never steal anything, least of all a cow. Why, he’d never even have need for such a thing. It’s ridiculous!”
    “Tell that to Bohlen.”
    It was only an hour later when we rode up to the house.
    Philo came to the door and stood there, shading his eyes at us. He was a sandy-haired man, taller than me, lean and wiry-looking. He had a quick way of walking, a manner a man might think was nervous until you knew him better. Whatever else they might say of him, I don’t think Philo Farley had a nerve in his body.
    He came a couple of steps toward us as we rode into the yard, looking as if he couldn’t believe what he saw.
    “Ann?” He spoke her name in a startled, unbelieving tone.
“Ann!”
    She was off the horse and in his arms quicker’n you could say scat, so I swung my horse to leave.
    He looked up suddenly, pulling back from her. “Pike, don’t ride off that way. Get down and come in.”
    “Got to get back,” I said. “I’m overdue and Eddie will be worried.”
    “Is that the Negro?”
    “You seen him?”
    “He was by this way.” He gave me an odd look. “I had no idea there were two of you over there.”
    “I’ll be going,” I said. Yet I held my horse. “Anything I can do, you just call on me.” I said that to her, to Ann Farley. And then I rode away.
    But at the edge of the yard I almost drew up. My eyes were on the ground and I saw it plain as could be. Not one track, but a dozen. Swinging my horse to the trough, as if on a sudden notion to water my horse, which I did, I took a careful look about.
    There were more tracks at the water trough, some old, some new. And all of them were of those small hoofs wearing leather shoes.

    A MOON WAS hanging low and a coyote was singing when I splashed through the ford and came up to the bench above the Hanging Woman. There was no light in the cabin and I drew up, suddenly scared.
    “Eddie?” I called it low. “Eddie Holt?”
    His voice came out of the darkness near the woodpile, close by but so soft I could hardly believe he was there.
    “Man, am I glad to see you!” I could sure hearthe relief in his voice. “There’s been trouble, trouble enough.”
    “I’ll eat,” I said, “and you can tell me.”
    When I’d stripped the gear from my horse I went into the cabin, where Eddie was laying things out, using a candle hooded by a tomato can.
    “I can trip the propper from under it,” he explained, “and it snuffs the candle. Mostly I been eating before dark, then laying out until late. I sure enough know why that Oliver had him a back door rigged.”
    Eddie had baked a mess of beans and pork, and while we ate he told me there had been several shots at the door. They had broken the globe to our coal-oil lamp, and they had almost set the cabin afire.
    And then a few nights ago there had been night riders.
    “Night riders?”
    “Uh-huh … wearing sheets like them Kluxers from down south. I guess they figured I’d scare.” He chuckled. “I ain’t been afraid of ha’nts since I was a boy an’ was scared by an owl.”
    They had come the first night and ridden circles around the cabin, crying eerily into the night. When Eddie grew tired of it, he called out that when their throats got dry they could drink at the creek. At that they’d really got mad, and warned him to leave before I got back, or they’d hang both of us.
    That didn’t sound like Chin Baker or Shorty Cones. Baker could have gone to shooting right off. It sounded more like some