Son Of a Wanted Man (1984) Read Online Free Page A

up his cup. His coffee was lukewarm, so he went to the stove for the coffeepot. He filled Sackett's cup, then his own. Returning the pot to the stovetop, he sat down, straddling his chair.
    "Sackett," he said slowly, "maybe we've got something. Let's run it into the corral and read the brands." Chantry paused. "This here job was wished on me, but when it was offered I sure needed it. I'm no detective or even a marshal excep' by the wish of these folks in town. I went broke ranchin', Sackett. Drouth, rustlers, an' a bad market did me in, and when I was mighty hard up these folks asked me to be marshal. I've done my best." "You solved the murder of my brother, Joe." "Well, sort of. It was kind of like tracking strays. You know where the feed's best, where there might be water, an' where you'd want to go to hide from some dumb cowhand. It was just a matter of puttin' two an' two together." "Like this." "Sort o* You done any work on this?" "A lot of riding an' thinking. Sort of like picking up the cards and shuffling them all together again, then dealing yourself a few hands faceup to see what the cards look like.
    "Only in this case it wasn't cards, but news items." Tyrel Sackett reached in his breast pocket and brought out three clippings and spread them on the table facing Chantry.
    All three were of holdups, and the dates were scattered over the last two years. Robberies, no shooting, no noise, no clues. The robbers appeared, then disappeared. One robbery was in Montana, one in Washington, one in Texas.
    "Mighty spread out," Chantry commented. Only in Montana had there been an organized pursuit, and the bandits had switched to fresh horses and disappeared. "Had the horses waitin'," he commented.
    "The rancher says no. They were horses he kept in his corral for emergencies, like going for a doctor or something like that." "And somebody knew it." Chantry looked over the descriptions.
    They were vague except for a tall, slim man wearing a narrow brimmed hat. "Funny-lookin' galoot" was the description of the man in the bank. "I think he was meant to be," Sackett suggested. "I think he was meant to be noticed, like that man wearing the polka-dot shirt in Mora." "You mean they wanted somebody to be able to describe him?" Chantry asked. "Look at it. What happens is over in minutes, and your attention focuses on the obvious. You're asked to describe the outlaws, and that polka-dot shirt stands out, or your tall man in the narrow-brimmed hat. You see the obvious and ignore the rest. You don't have a description, just a polka-dot shirt or a tall man in a narrow-brimmed hat. What were the others like? You don't recall. You've only a minute or two to look, so you see what's staring at you." Chantry ran his fingers through his hair.
    "Sackett, until now I've been wonderin' if I'm foolish or not." He got up and walked to the sideboard and opened a drawer, taking out a sheaf of papers. "Looks like you an' me been tryin' to put a rope on the same calf." He sat down and spread out the papers.
    They were wanted posters, letters, news clippings.
    "Nine of them," he said, "Kansas, Arkansas, Wyoming, California, Texas, and Idaho. Two in California, three in Texas.
    Seven of them in the last four years, the others earlier. Nobody caught, no good descriptions, no clues. "Nor were any strangers noticed hanging around town before the holdups. In four cases they got away without being seen so as to be recognized." Chantry picked a wanted poster from the stack. "But look at this: Four bandits, one described as a tall man wearing a Mexican sombrero." "The same man, with a different hat?" "Why not?" Sackett finished his coffee. "All over the west, the same pattern, clean getaways, and nobody saw anything." Borden Chantry nodded toward the stack of papers. "Got two of those in the mail on the same day, and there seemed to be a similarity. I was comparing them when I remembered the wanted poster. Since then I been collecting these, and then I went over to