Buzzards Know

The Coachella Kid left a plain trail. After killing Deputy Jack Welden with an iron cot leg, he stole a gun and ammunition, saddled one of the sheriff’s horses and headed straight for the desert. It all happened only a few minutes after the jury had been sent to deliberate on the guilt or innocence of the Coachella Kid, who was charged with first degree murder.

It was the first time the Kid had ever been tried—his first time to face a judge and jury. Only luck had allowed him to travel his crooked trail this long. Several times he had escaped the clutches of the law by the narrowest of margins. Twice he had killed deputy sheriffs—but no one could prove it. The Coachella Kid was a cold-eyed killer, contemptuous of the law; and for five years he had nursed a bitter hate against Dave Fulton, the sheriff who had finally arrested him.

The Coachella Kid was a small man, wiry as a bobcat, soft-spoken; he was not over thirty-five years of age. There was nothing conspicuous about him. He had been very quiet during his trial, until the sheriff, speaking from the witness stand, recited a brief résumé of what he knew about the Coachella Kid’s past. Then the Kid got to his feet.

“Me and him loved the same girl five years ago,” he said, barely loud enough for the jury to hear. “He got her by lyin’ to her about me. He’s scared I’m goin’ to make him pay for them lies; so he’s tryin’ to git me hung.”

Then the Kid sat down and refused to talk any more.

But the Kid was free now, well mounted and armed. Men saw him ride through Yucca City; and they recognized the sheriff’s black horse. Ten miles farther on he rode the length of the Main street at Signal Rock, where he was seen and recognized. It would have been easy for him to circle both towns.

At the Smoke Tree ranch he stopped to water his horse and fill an enormous canteen, which he had stolen from the sheriff’s stable. There was only one cowboy at the ranch at the time, and he did not know the rider was an escaped prisoner until the sheriff arrived an hour later.