“Nope. I’ve had that in my head for two years.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t Brand’s own writing?”
“As sure as sand eats water.”
“You say the paper was under him? How, under him?”
“Just under him. I turned him over to get a hold to carry him out to the horse and the paper was there, folded up.”
“It might have been there before he ever got there.”
“Damn lawyer,” Hurley said impatiently. “Who put it there? I had been in and out of that cabin for two months and no one else.”
“It might have been just a paper he had with him and it fell out of his wallet when the murderer was going through him for the money.”
“Charlie Brand never carried a wallet. When he had a bulk of money like that he kept it belted to him, and papers, receipts and things, in a little leather case he could put in a saddlebag. It was there with the saddle on a post outdoors — hadn’t been opened.” Hurley’s eyes were buried by his squint. “If you want to know how that paper got there I’ll tell you.”
“You mean you know?”
“I mean I’ll tell you. I ain’t a lawyer, but I can figure out how a thing worked. I’ve had two years to figure this. The fellow that killed him left the road about two miles north of Sugarbowl, across the hills on the hoof—”
“Why two miles north?”
“Because that’s the only place along that road you can hide a car where it won’t be seen, where them cliffs are.”
“Why on the hoof? Why not on a horse?”
The prospector looked disgusted. “And exactly where the hell would he get a horse and no one know it?”
“All right. Go ahead.”
Delia put in, “That’s right about the money belt and the leather case. He always took them on a trip.”
“Sure he did. Who says he didn’t? So this fellow hoofs it across the hills and gets to the cabin before Charlie does—”
“Why before?”
“Because Charlie was riding Bert Oakley’s palomino he had got at Sugarbowl, and he had tied him to a post just outside the cabin door. That horse has got a habit when he’s tied, if anybody comes anywhere near except the man that’s riding him, he snorts fit to rip a gut. Charlie would have heard him and gone to the door, and he probably would have got his gun out with all that money on him. But his gun was still in the holster, and where he fell and died he was all of ten, twelve feet away from the door. So the fellow was already there, hid in the cabin.”
“Go ahead.”
“Well, Charlie comes in and the fellow shoots him. It only takes one shot, as close as that. What he wants is the money and he goes after it in a hurry because he don’t know I’m going to be five or six hours late on account of my leg. That belt is good and bulky, and he takes off his coat or jacket so he can strap the belt up high on him and when he puts the coat back on it will be covered when he’s hoofing it back. Them hills is plenty lonesome, but it always might be someone sees him. He thinks I might be coming any minute and he’s nervous and he works fast, trying to get the belt off, and he don’t notice that when he jerks his coat off a piece of paper drops out of a pocket. When he turns Charlie over, working at the belt, he flops him on top of the piece of paper and never sees it.”
Delia was chewing at her lip. Ty was frowning, intent. He demanded, “Why did he hoof it back? Why didn’t he take Brand’s horse?”
“I wish to God he had. Even Ken Chambers couldn’t have locked me up if that palomino had been untied and gone and found two miles north of Sugarbowl. That fellow was smart enough to let the horse alone. Speaking of which.” Hurley squinted at Delia and back at Ty. “Ken Chambers is in Cody now. For all I know he was there Tuesday night when Jackson was killed. Whoever killed Jackson took that piece of paper from him. All I’m doing is telling you what was on that paper, but if I was you and I was really smart I’d get so curious about Ken Chambers I’d split my britches.”
“Do you think Ken Chambers killed Brand?”
“I ain’t saying I think. I say I’d be curious.”
“Have you any reason to suspect him? Any evidence?”
“Just common sense. I know him, that’s all.”
“Could he have done it? Where was he that day?”
“I don’t know. That’s part of what I meant I’d be curious about.” Ty shook his head, scowling, and was silent.
Delia said, “It couldn’t have been Chambers if the ‘mountain cat’ on the paper meant Wynne Cowles. I’m sure it did, Ty. How could there have been any connection between her and Chambers?”
“I don’t know, Del.” Ty let her have the scowl. “That damn paper that no one has even seen except Hurley here, and now it’s gone.” He shifted the scowl again. “Was it good paper or cheap paper?”
“Well — it was white paper.”
“Nothing else on it at all, nothing printed.”
“Not a derned thing.”
“Was it cheap and easy to tear like newspaper, or was it good tough nice white paper?”
“I didn’t tear it. It was just white paper.”
“You carried it in your boot lining for two years. Did it begin to come apart where it was folded?”
“No, it hung together all right. Of course it didn’t improve any as it went along. It got kinda seedy.”
“About as big as your hand?”
“About that. Maybe a little bigger.”
“What was the writing — wait a minute.” From the assortment on the table which he had taken from his pocket with the checkfold, Ty took an envelope, and on the back of it, with his fountain pen, wrote “mountain cat.” He handed it to Hurley, “Was the writing anything like that?”
The prospector squinted at it. “Not a bit. Bigger and more ink.”
“Forget the ink. That depends on the kind of pen you use. Just the kind of writing. Here, Del, you write it. Mountain cat.”
She wrote it on another envelope. Hurley took it and shook his head at it. “That’s even worse.”
“Well, here. Give him the pen, Del. Write it down yourself, as near as you can the way it looked.”
“Not me.” Hurley didn’t take the pen. “Except my name, I ain’t wrote more than a hundred words in forty years.”
“Try it.”
“No, sir. I could do it better with a pick on a chunk of rock.”
“But I just want to get an idea what the writing was like. Turn over that envelope and look on the other side. Was it anything — oh, it’s typewritten. Look at that other one. Anything like that?”
Hurley looked at the inscription on the envelope. “A little more, but not much. This is stubby.”
“Try this one.” Ty tossed another envelope across.
Hurley picked it up. As he regarded it, his lips slowly parted and his squint widened until he nearly had eyes. He lifted them from the envelope and gazed at Ty. “By... all... hell,” he said incredulously. “That’s it!”
“What’s it?”
“That’s the same writing! That’s it!”
Delia reached across and snatched the envelope. She saw, written on paper of good quality: Tyler Dillon, Esq., 214 Mountain Street, Cody, Wyoming.
And in the upper left-hand corner, neatly printed: Broken Circle Ranch — Cody, Wyoming.
She dropped the envelope on the table and Ty picked it up. She said, only half a question, “Wynne Cowles.”
He nodded, glared at the envelope, and then at Hurley. “You mean the writing on the piece of paper was like this?”
“I mean it was that.” Hurley looked as if someone had pulled a coyote out of a hat. “That word ‘mountain.’ I couldn’t mistake that word ‘mountain’ as often as I’ve looked at it.”
“It looks exactly the same?”
“It is the same.”
“I’ll be damned.” Ty stared at the envelope. He looked at Delia. “That’s luck. I got this yesterday at the office, she was sending me a paper connected with her divorce suit, and ordinarily I’d just have tossed the envelope—”