Escape From Five Shadows Page 9

  Manring shrugged. “Forget about it then.”

  “I can, Earl, but you can’t. I just told you why.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”

  Bowen started to turn away.

  “Wait a minute—” Manring’s hand came out to take his arm. “Listen, there’s no sense in arguing over it. Let’s get down to cases…you either want to go or you don’t. Which is it?”

  “I haven’t heard any plan yet,” Bowen said.

  “That’ll come.”

  “It’ll come right now, or I don’t.”

  “I’ll tell you part of it,” Manring paused. Then, his voice was lower as he said, “You know what happens at the end of the canyon.”

  “We climb,” Bowen said.

  “That’s right. Have you figured how we’re going to cut a road up through the rocks?”

  “It isn’t my problem.”

  “It wasn’t mine either,” Manring said, “till I was taken on Renda’s survey party. That was over a month ago…when we planned this swing through the canyon. We got up to the end and he says, ‘How in hell we going to get out of here?’ Right then is when the idea came. I said to him, ‘What’re you worrying about those big rocks for when you got a gang of Yuma boys on your payroll?’ He stopped to listen and I told him how at Yuma we cut whole cell blocks out of granite and shaped them just right. He thought about it and then says, ‘You’re making work for yourself, aren’t you?’ That’s when I told him. I said, ‘Well, it’s not so bad if you got dynamite.’ ”

  “So he’s going to use it?” Bowen prompted.

  “It’s already ordered,” Manring said. “Should be here by next week.”

  “Earl, are you going to tell me you talked him into using dynamite?”

  “I put the idea in his head. You can call it whatever you want.”

  “You think,” Bowen said, “he would’ve plotted down that canyon without planning on dynamite?”

  “Renda don’t know anything about road building!”

  Bowen paused. “Let me ask you something else, Earl. Do you know how to use dynamite?”

  “I saw enough of it at Yuma.”

  “That’s right, you saw it…but there’s only one man here you’re sure ever worked with it. That’s where I figure in. You’ve got the plan, but you need me to set it off.”

  “You’re taking on a lot of credit all of a sudden,” Manring muttered. “Next you’ll tell me you were planning on it all the time.”

  “No,” Bowen admitted. “I never thought of breaking out of here as being worth blowing somebody up.”

  “Well, think about it now,” Manring said quietly. “Think about this afternoon, the way that gunhand busted Chick Miller…think about them watching you, looking for the littlest excuse to bust you…and let me know what you come to.”

  That same evening, Lizann Falvey learned from her husband that a convict had been killed. She thought of Bowen, and for some time was very sure that he was dead. Willis did not know the convict’s name. He knew only what Renda had told him—that a convict had tried to run away and Brazil had no choice but to shoot him. By then, the convicts were locked in the barracks for the night and Lizann had no way of finding out whether or not the man had been Bowen.

  She considered asking Renda directly, but almost immediately decided against it. Her interest in Bowen could arouse Renda’s suspicion and she could not risk any word or action which might do that. Not now. Not with the plan that would enable her to leave here already in her mind. She had thought it out carefully and deliberately. It was the simplest way, as far as Lizann’s part in it was concerned, and it offered the least chance of error. Still, the decision to carry out the plan remained with Bowen.

  The next morning Lizann was up before six o’clock and standing at the window as the wagons made their slow turn coming away from the barracks. There. Bowen was in the third wagon. She watched him until the wagon passed through the gate, relieved now in knowing she would not have to go to the trouble of—as she heard it in her own mind—breaking in a new man. Now her only problem was to get Bowen alone.

  The opportunity came the next Sunday. It came unexpectedly and Lizann was almost unprepared for it.

  Willis had left for Fuegos by midmorning. For almost an hour after that Lizann gazed out of the window watching the convicts standing along the front of the barracks. Bowen was among them. Bowen, and next to him, the man who had been with him in the punishment cell.

  He could be sent to the stable again, Lizann thought. She went into the bedroom and changed to her riding suit, but when she returned, Bowen was still there.

  Be patient, she thought. But even while thinking this she decided to take her horse out.

  Frank Renda closed his door behind him as Lizann stepped outside.

  “Going for a ride?” Renda asked.

  How do you answer a question like that? Lizann thought and decided not to answer it at all. She started across the compound and Renda fell in next to her.

  “You’re not very sociable today.”

  “Is today different from any other?”

  “It’s Sunday. The day of rest…Rest for most.” Renda was looking toward the convicts. His eyes found Bowen and Pryde and he called out to them. As they came toward him Renda said, “But no rest for these two.”

  “The stable?” Pryde asked.

  “What’d you think?” Renda said. “That’s your permanent Sunday job.”

  Inside the stable, Lizann watched Pryde pick up a broom and walk down to the far end. She heard Renda say to Bowen, “Saddle up my chestnut.”

  As he moved to Renda’s stall, Lizann said, “Ask him to saddle mine, too.”

  Renda glanced at her. “You like to be waited on, don’t you?”

  “No more than you do,” Lizann answered.

  Renda shrugged, looking at Bowen then. “Do what she says.”

  Now—Lizann thought.

  “Frank,” she said, turning to leave the stable. “Have him bring it over to me…I’ve forgotten something.”

  She walked out, not waiting to hear Renda’s answer, then took her time crossing the yard, glancing indifferently from the convicts to the guard at the main gate. She entered her adobe, leaving the door open, then hurried into the bedroom. From the top drawer of the dresser, she took the .25-caliber Colt revolver and returned with it to the front room. As she did, looking out through the open door and across the wide expanse of yard, she saw Renda ride out of the stable toward the gate. A few minutes later Bowen came out leading her sorrel.

  Lizann smiled and she was thinking: Frank, if you knew how easy you were making it.

  She remained back out of the doorway, now holding the revolver at her side, hidden in the folds of her full riding skirt. Bowen approached the ramada, then halted at the edge of the shade. He could not yet see her, but he called out, “Here’s your horse.”

  Lizann answered, “Come inside.”

  Bowen hesitated. He glanced toward the barracks, then let the reins fall and entered the adobe. He nodded, seeing Lizann. “You worked that good.”

  “Thank you.” Lizann smiled momentarily. “Where is Frank going?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “He made it very easy for us.”

  “I can still get caught in here. Brazil’s about.”

  Lizann moved toward him. “I heard a man was killed the other day and I thought it was you. I was almost sure it was.”

  “If it was,” Bowen said, “you’d have to break in a new man.”

  Lizann hesitated. “I’m never quite sure what you’re going to say.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  She moved closer to him and put her hand on his arm. “I was thinking of you, Corey. Not just a man who’s willing to help me.”

  Bowen said nothing.

  Lizann’s eyebrows raised. “What happened to our beautiful friendship?”

  “It’s as beautiful as it ever was.”

  “Do you still want
to help me?”

  “If it means helping myself.”

  Lizann gazed up at him, studying his face. “You seem farther away, Corey. Do you feel I’m not acting like a lady?”

  “I haven’t been picturing you as one.”

  She dropped her eyes. “I was, once. Before I was brought here.”

  Come on, Bowen thought. Get to the point.

  “It isn’t just Renda and having to live here like a prisoner—which is more than any woman should be asked to bear. It’s also my husband.”

  “We’ve been over your husband before.”

  “I thought you were more understanding.”

  “I’m trying to understand one thing—why you brought me in here.”

  Her eyes lowered again. “If you really knew what kind of a man my husband is…The way he treats me—”

  “Look,” Bowen said patiently. “I’m convinced. Let’s get to the point.”

  She looked at him calmly now, without pretense. “You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”

  “It wouldn’t matter one way or the other,” Bowen said. “Do you have something, or don’t you?”

  Lizann’s hand came out of the folds of her skirt and she pressed the barrel of the revolver against Bowen’s belt buckle. “I have this,” she said and caught the momentary surprise in Bowen’s eyes as he saw the revolver. “Will it help?”

  Bowen nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “It’ll help.”

  “Then it’s yours,” Lizann said. “On one condition.”

  Bowen’s hand went to the revolver. The short barrel remained pressed against him and he could feel her finger on the trigger. “What’s the condition?”

  “How you escape from here is your business,” Lizann said. “You can have the gun and use it however you like. That will be no concern of mine. I’m not asking you to take me with you.”

  “What’s the condition?” Bowen asked again.

  “That you kill my husband first,” Lizann said calmly.

  9

  The second letter from Lyall Martz, the Hatch & Hodges attorney, arrived on the Saturday afternoon stage. It came unexpectedly, for Karla had written to him only the day after talking to Bowen, Tuesday, and there had not been time for her letter even to reach Prescott, much less receive an answer already.

  Her father watched her. “Well, go ahead and read it.”

  “I’m afraid to,” Karla said.

  “You’re not going to change what’s inside by staring at the envelope.”

  “It’s bad news,” Karla said tonelessly. “Either he’s decided not to work on it or else he’s run up against a stone wall.”

  “Sis, that’s some gift you have—being able to read letters without opening them.”

  She glanced at her father. “It has to be one or the other. Mr. Martz hasn’t even received my letter yet. He couldn’t have been working on it—he needed the information he asked for first.”

  “Then,” Demery said, “he couldn’t have run into a stone wall…not yet.”

  Karla nodded dejectedly. “He’s decided he can’t spare the time. That must be it.”

  “Sis, if you don’t hurry up and read it, I’ll have to.”

  “I will,” Karla said.

  Demery watched her finger work open the envelope, take out the letter and unfold the pages bearing Lyall Martz’s large, down-slanting scrawl. He watched her—a frown, a somber tight-lipped expression on her face, now biting her lower lip lightly, thoughtfully, now her lips parting and not biting them, her eyes opening, opening wide, glancing up, but only for part of a moment, concentrating on the letter again, and her mouth began to form a smile. She looked up again and the smile was in her eyes: a moist, glistening smile that struck John Demery as the most genuinely happy smile he had ever seen in his life.

  “Bad news?”

  Karla’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

  “Are you going to read it to me,” Demery said, “or do I have to guess.”

  She stared at him, still smiling, and handed him the letter. “Read it out loud.”

  “This must be some letter,” Demery said. He began to read:

  Dear Karla,

  As soon as I accepted this “spare-time job” as you call it, I had to admit to a weakening of the will. I am afraid my giving in has touched off a complete breakdown of my mental faculties, for now I must admit to even a weakening in the intellect department. (Don’t tell your father that, though he wouldn’t understand it anyway.)

  Demery looked up, but before he could speak Karla said, “Go on, read.”

  After I wrote to you [Demery continued] outlining the information I needed, it occurred to me: how is Karla going to get information from a man locked up in a convict camp? That could be difficult even for Karla. Then I realized that all I need do was talk to McLaughlin myself. He was at the trial and, of course, he saw the bill of sale. Which I did.

  Mac stated that the handwriting on the bill of sale was clearly an imitation of his own, and a fairly good one, especially the signature. My reasoning then eliminated both your friend Bowen and the other one, Manring, as the forger. It is possible that they know how to write but highly improbable they write well enough to copy the ornate signature Mclaughlin has been practicing for fifty years.

  That pointed to a third man. I asked Mac if the identity of the forger was established at the trial. He recalled that it had not even been brought up. He also told me that Manring had worked for him once before, though had denied it at the trial. Could Manring have procured a blank bill of sale at that time? Yes, but that had been three years ago, Mac stated. Only six months before the trial, he had purchased new stationery and forms. The bill of sale was of the new batch.

  Now, so far we have established that there must be a third man. But, who?

  Probably anyone who worked for McLaughlin could have come by a blank bill of sale. He admitted that. But again, we eliminated three-quarters of his hands on the basis of not being able to write at all. So it must be a man who wrote well enough himself to copy another so exactly. Still, a man who worked for McLaughlin.

  His bookkeeper? No, Mac said. He kept his own books since firing Roy Avery. McLaughlin looked at me and I looked at him and that, Karla, was how it happened. You see, McLaughlin always tended his own paper work until deciding a man of his holdings should have a bookkeeper of his own. (It took him twenty years to decide this.) So he hired Avery, who lasted two months. He did nothing dishonest, then. But Mac didn’t care for him in general and when he fired him they had an argument over the justice of it.

  If the identity of the forger had been investigated at the trial, Mr. Avery’s name would already appear in the record. That is how obvious it was his doing. Being obvious, Roy Avery of course left Prescott at the time the two men were apprehended. But—and it is questionable whether this is evidence of nerve or imbecility—Mr. Avery returned to Prescott upon learning there had been no mention of him made at the trial. Hence, he was arrested right here in Prescott, McLaughlin having agreed to proffer charges.

  Yesterday morning Roy Avery signed a statement admitting his part in the case. He stated that his dealings were with Earl Manring only, that he had never met a Corey Bowen, had never even heard of him until the trial.

  As far as he knew, Manring had planned to take the cattle alone. If Bowen helped him, Avery stated, then he was fairly certain Bowen was working at what he believed to be an honest job. Avery reasoned it this way: if Bowen knew it was rustled stock, he would have demanded a close to equal share in the profit. Knowing Manring, Avery said, Manring would never have agreed to that. Therefore, since Bowen did go along, Avery believes he was drawing nothing more than trail wages. We must compliment Mr. Avery on a piece of uncommonly sound reasoning.

  This morning, Karla, I filed a motion for a new trial. The date has not yet been set, but I think your friend has a much better than average chance of winning an acquittal. And I generally do not make predictions.

  Incidentally,
the court record stated that neither of the two men had been arrested previously. However that meant only that the Prescott sheriff’s office did not have a wanted dodger on either of them. Tracing Manring’s past seemed almost impossible to begin with and after a wire to the Tucson authorities, and receiving a negative reply, I gave up on him. However I was able to find out something about Bowen.

  His last job was with a cattle company headquartered in the San Rafael valley. But before that he seemed to have spent most of his time mining. His record showed his first job had been with the Moctezuma people in Bisbee. I wired them and found out he had lived there most of his life. His father had been a mine foreman with Moctezuma and Bowen worked for him on and off, sometimes going up into the hills alone to try his own luck, until the father was killed in a mine shaft cave-in. Shortly after that, Bowen left Bisbee. He worked for a horse trader about two years then joined the San Rafael cattle outfit. His mother had passed away some time before the father and as far as I can discover, your friend has no other kin in the territory.

  Girl, if all this sounds overly quick and simple, put it out of your head. I have been working harder at my “spare-time job” than at my regular practice or for Hatch and Hodges. It is fortunate, Karla, that you have a pretty face (even if your father does claim you are half boy), or you never would have talked me into this.

  I expect to be in Willcox some time next month and look forward to seeing your mother and sisters. If I have time, I will stop by Pinaleño on the way back.

  With love,

  Your Uncle Lyall

  “Your Uncle Lyall,” Demery repeated, looking up at Karla. “I hope he isn’t claiming kinship from my side of the family.”

  Karla was still smiling. “And you said he’d be wasting his time.”

  “He hasn’t proved anything, Karla.”

  “He has for me.”

  “And now you’ll want to go up and tell your friend about it.”

  “I have to take the mail anyway.”

  “Not today, you won’t. It’d be dark before you got back.”

  They were in the main room, standing near the roll-top desk and now Karla glanced toward the open door. “I might have time.”