by Jonas Ward
“And like I told you, kid—me and your country have parted ways. I got one little side trip to make back to Agrytown, and then it’s north all the way. Hell, I’m even considerin’ a spell at fur trappin’.”
“Then I go along. First on the side trip, and then into the fur venture. I cannot replace Pecos, but I will work hard and not complain.”
“Johnny, you got a cussed streak in you a yard wide.”
“Yours is twice as wide.”
Buchanan chuckled. “Maybe because I’m twice as big. Let’s ride!”
Buchanan set a faster pace now, and soon the pale glow of Agrytown’s lights showed just ahead. Another quarter-mile and the main trail swung left while a narrower, less traveled offshoot continued straight on toward the border. Buchanan reined up abruptly and spoke to the wondering Juan in a curt voice.
“Fun is fun,” he said, “but this is it. Hasta la vista!”
“But, amigo—”
“Go on home, Johnny. You’ve given your folks enough trouble. Me, too.”
“I did not intend to make trouble for you, Buchanan.”
“Sure, sure. But you know where I’d be if you hadn’t pulled that damn-fool shooting last night? Why, man, I’d be at the Whitewater, up in God’s country. And with all my goods.”
“My father will make up your loses,” Juan said.
“I’ll make up my own losses, Johnny.” He wheeled his mount into the main trail, spurred it to a run without another word or a farewell wave. And he kept the horse at that urgent gait until he knew he was out of earshot. Then he slowed to something more comfortable and cursed the necessity for having to give it to the kid like that.
But what else was there to do. The kid had a bad case of the worships, the same disease Buchanan had had back in West Texas. His hero had been Duke Hazeltine, a wandering wrangler and bronc-buster and the best rifle shot in the world. He’d come into Buchanan’s world like a shooting star, made his niche in the boy’s memory, then mysteriously departed—followed closely by a U.S. marshal. Buchanan never forgot the list of charges the government man had told his father were outstanding against Duke Hazeltine. He didn’t mind the manly things like murder, bank robbery and stage holdup; he could understand how a reckless bravo could fall among bad companions. But he never forgave the swaggering, smiling Duke for forging a bill of sale on a partner’s horse. There was something sly and underhanded about that, something that left a bad taste in the mouth.
And so it would be with Juan del Cuervo. He was a young don, the heir to a great ranch. His destiny and Buchanan’s were worlds apart, no matter how close Juan thought they were now. Once he rode with Buchanan he would see how different they were, as different as Buchanan was from Duke Hazeltine.
He put the matter out of his mind, considering it settled. The next subject for thought was Lew Agry and a certain purse. He no longer had Pecos for the job, but neither did the sheriff have bully-boy Peek to protect him. Just what help Agry did have in town Buchanan didn’t know, but he did have one piece of information Pecos had given him on the ride back from the river.
For a long time after his brother and Carbo had departed for Emerson’s, Lew Agry sat motionless behind the desk, feeding bitterly on his rage and frustration. He’d crawled—crawled before them on his belly, and he could see the contempt in Carbo’s last glance as though the man were still in the doorway.
Agry raised his right hand level with his eyes and stared at it intently. “My good right arm,” Simon used to say in the early days, the pre-Carbo days. “I call the tune,” Simon used to say, “and Lew makes them dance.”
But the good right arm had a bad tremble in it now, and only by concentrating so hard that sweat beads appeared on his forehead could he make it hold still. He got up then and closed the curtains before the window, retrieved the gunbelt from the wall and buckled it low on his hip. He took a stance with feet wide apart, left arm hanging loose, right arm crooked slightly at the elbow. He inhaled, and expelled the air slowly from his lungs.
“Go!” he shouted, whipping the gun free of the holster and firing at a chest-high crack on the opposite wall. Agry slid the gun back, unloosed the belt and rehung it on the hook.
He’d lost it, lost the touch and the rhythm, the cat sense a gunfighter must have. Just as hazardous, the slug had passed a good four inches to the right of the spot he’d aimed for. The draw was good enough to stop some cowpoke or farmer, but Abe Carbo would have gotten two shots off in less time, dead center.
That, then, was that. All at once he was past caring about what had gone wrong today, about the whereabouts of his missing deputies. His missing deputies? He unpinned the star from his rough leather vest and tossed it negligently on the desk. They were on their own. It was every man for himself.
He pulled open the well drawer of the desk, reached down and lifted out a strongbox wrapped in a faded bandanna. On a chain beneath his shirt was the key that opened it. The lid came up to reveal a derringer pocket pistol and a long, intricately designed iron key. He took them out, replaced the box, and from another drawer removed the shoulder holster for the sneak gun. When he was harnessed into that he donned his coat and left the office.
There was sound from the saloon and a faint light from the hotel, but the street itself was quiet and empty. Lew Agry walked past the hotel and the mercantile until he came to the windowless, new-looking building that was the Agrytown Bank. An enormous padlock hung between the doors and into it Agry inserted the homemade key he carried. The lock sprung and he let himself inside, moving forward unerringly through the blackness. At the big safe he knelt down, struck a light, and from memory of the many times he had observed the operation correctly, dialed the combination. He also knew what he wanted from the safe, and exactly where it was. One was a heavy sack of gold bullion, the other a suitcase crammed with gold certificates. Together they represented the bank’s principal assets—some twenty thousand dollars.
He departed from the bank by the rear door, lugged his treasure back along an alleyway and entered the hotel’s side door. His own two rooms were a step down the hall and he slipped quietly inside, easing the door shut without a sound. Still moving in the dark, feeling a sense of protection from it, Agry opened a wardrobe trunk and pulled out the empty saddlebags lying in the bottom. These he filled from the sack and the suitcase, distributing the weight evenly, and when the transfer was completed he crossed to the washbowl and pitcher that rested on the small table. He poured the water out slowly, reached into the pitcher with his hand and withdrew Tom Buchanan’s purse. This joined the bank’s money—Simon’s money for the most part—and the saddlebags were tied closed.
Lew Agry gave a long, satisfied sigh and stood erect. It called for a drink, this did. A drink to Lew Agry, the man with the last laugh. The man who turned defeat into victory, bad luck into good fortune. He went to the bureau, uncorked the bottle and let the whisky splash into the glass. What a good sound that was, he thought. What a happy, prosperous, winning sound. He raised the glass. Here’s to you, brother Simon. Here’s to you, friend Carbo. He drank it off and hoisted the bottle again. One for the long voyage, he told himself. East, this time. All the way east, then a boat to England. Bad times in Europe now. Twenty-five thousand gold dollars will go a long, long way. Maybe buy me a castle, put a little Frenchie girl in every room. He poured out a third drink.
“Save a little for a thirsty man,” said a voice out of that dark silence. The tumbler slipped from Lew Agry’s fear-frozen fingers and crashed on the floor.
“Who is it?” he asked hollowly.
“The rannihan, Sheriff. The Mex lover who lives by the gun.”
“What do you want?”
“Got any last words?”
“You wouldn’t kill me here. You’d never make it out of town.”
The cocking of the hammer was a clear, crisp sound.
“I’ll give you your money, Buchanan!”
“Don’t talk about it, Sheriff. Do it.”
Agry, as he moved to the saddlebags, was beginning to make out the big figure in the corner.
“What happened?”
“Pecos changed his mind, that’s all.”
“Is Pecos outside?”
“He’s dead.”
“Too bad.”
“You can tell him when you see him.”
Agry made fumbling noises with the thongs that held the bag closed. His body was bent forward with the head held low. Across the room Buchanan could make out only the man’s general movements, and his attention was directed to the midsection, where Agry would make a last-ditch draw. Too late he saw that it was a gambler’s weapon, a gambler’s cross-body draw.
The little gun with the big caliber rocked the room with sound. Three times the Colt gave answer. Then it, like everything else, was quiet.
Thirteen
Abe Carbo, the man who had seen everything, was hard put to believe what he was seeing now.
He had led the group into Emerson’s disordered yard area, and had been the first to dismount. Brushing the querulous old man aside, he had entered the adobe building with a gun in his fist. There stretched on the floor was Waldo Peek, the indestructible man. His jaw hung in a lopsided fashion, his breathing was a groaning, rasping sound, forced through a broken nose and swollen lips. It wasn’t even a face, Carbo thought, taken with a morbid fascination for the gargoyle ugliness of it.
In those swift seconds Carbo imagined that an enemy made furious enough had done that to him. He shuddered. Then, blindly, the realization came to him that he had spent a lifetime behind a gun because he so desperately feared a physical beating.
Footsteps sounded at his back and Carbo dragged his eyes away from the wreckage of Waldo Peek.
“So?” Gomez said tensely. “Where is the boy?”
“Maybe he knows,” Carbo said, indicating the worried Hamp Horne who stood in the corner.
“They took the Mex with ’em,” Hamp said.
“They? Who?” Carbo snapped.
“Pecos,” he said. “Pecos and the hardcase. The big guy.”
“Buchanan?”
“Yeah. But Pecos got killed up the road. Waldo got him.”
Gomez stepped past Abe Carbo, throwing caution to the wind in his sudden excitement.
“Buchanan?” he asked, echoing Carbo’s disbelief. “He is with Juan del Cuervo?”
Simon Agry pounded in “Good God! Is that Waldo Peek?”
“What the hardcase left of him,” Hamp Horne said. “Me and the old man drug him inside. Ivy got hisself killed at the start of it. He’s outside somewheres.”
Gomez was no longer interested. He had swung around, started for the door.
“Where you going, amigo?” Abe Carbo asked and the segundo’s face broke into a broad grin. He looked like a happy bulldog.
“Home, amigo,” Gomez said. “I’m going home.”
“He’s got the paper you want,” Carbo said to Simon Agry.
“Hand it over,” Simon said, bolstered by the gun in Carbo’s grasp. “I kept my part of the deal.”
Gomez laughed in his face.
“Let’s have it!” Simon demanded.
“Or what, señor?” Gomez nodded his head toward the doorway. “Carbo cannot shoot in all directions at once. In the crossfire your body will be an inviting target.”
“Don’t let him bluff you, Si,” Carbo said goadingly, richly enjoying the play of emotions on Agry’s mobile face. But Simon was mindful only of Gomez’s threat and the fact that he was the most exposed man in the room.
“The hell with a scrap of paper,” he blustered. “A deal’s a deal, and by Judas I mean to collect!”
Gomez laughed again, then held his fist toward Abe Carbo, the thumb pointed upward.
“Until then, señores,” he said and walked out on them. The men inside could hear his voice shouting the news, hear the vaqueros send up a joyous whoop as they wheeled their blooded mounts and sped away.
Buchanan! Gomez thought emotionally. Was there ever such a one for being in the right place at the right time? Never! Viva Buchanan, the patron saint of Rancho del Rey!
“Which trail do we take, Café?” Ramon asked when the juncture was approaching.
“Through Agrytown! I would stop long enough to spit at the ground before the sheriff!”
“I have never seen you in such spirits, viejo.”
“Tonight in my quarters,” Gomez promised, “we will drink until the vat is dry.”
Ramon blinked. Was this Gomez, the man of stone?
Not even the prospect of hanging had saddened Juan’s heart quite so deeply as Buchanan’s forsaking him on the trail. Perhaps it was the abruptness of it, the fact that at the very moment Buchanan announced it Juan’s thoughts had been overflowing with the happy incident of bringing his great friend to the hacienda.
It had been a hard and stunning blow, and Juan found himself almost incapable of sensation, of movement, as Buchanan’s horse pounded away into the night and Buchanan’s harsh words echoed and re-echoed in his ears. Then, letting the animal set whatever pace it desired. Juan no longer cared where he went.
But a mile later he suddenly reined up. Had it been Buchanan’s decision to make? Because the man did not choose to ride with him, was that any reason Juan must ride where Buchanan commanded? No, came the defiant answer, and with that as justification he swung back to find the trail to Agrytown.
Then another argument stiffened his resolve. Why, he asked himself, was Buchanan making this side trip? Answer: To retrieve his purse from the sheriff. And hadn’t the purse been stolen on Juan’s account? Therefore, to aid Buchanan was only simple courtesy—unrelated to friendship, loyalty or any such sentimentality—and only what would be expected of a Del Cuervo. He spurred his mount forward.
When he came to the town, however, he made his way cautiously. It would not do to undo everything that had been accomplished and fall into the sheriff’s hands again. In addition to the unpleasantness of being hanged, such a fiasco would only convince Buchanan of his unreliability, or whatever it was that Buchanan objected to about him.
So he moved along warily, keeping to the shadows, and finally dismounted altogether, hitching his horse to a post and proceeding on foot. His destination was the sheriff’s office, which he imagined to be Buchanan’s destination as well, and when he passed the saloon his mind was flooded with the remembered violence inside the place and right here on the sidewalk. And only twenty-four hours ago. It seemed as if an eternity had transpired since he’d ridden here to kill Roy Agry …
Juan ducked quickly into an alleyway the instant he saw the sheriff’s office door opened and Lew Agry step into the street. He watched as Agry peered carefully up and down, then moved resolutely along the row of buildings. Where was Buchanan? Was he, too, observing the man from concealment?
Now what? The bank! The sheriff was entering the bank, in the dead of the night, and his very furtiveness gave away his guilt. Ai, caramba, what a family of thieves and villains! But where was Buchanan?
Agry was inside the bank now and Juan could only wait to see what would develop. Five minutes later he was still waiting. Ten minutes passed.
At the sound of the shots he froze. Two men put their heads out of the saloon, glanced around the quiet street, and then returned to their drinking. But though the silence had satisfied them, it only worried the boy. He placed the source of the firing at the hotel, and when he saw the clerk come out onto the porch obviously looking for help, he knew that whatever the trouble was it had occurred there.
Well, this was what he had come for, he reminded himself. This was the obligation he must discharge. Juan crossed the street at a lope, decided against a direct entry into the hotel, and went up the alley that stretched alongside. He found the door Lew Agry had used—and all but stumbled over the crawling figure of Tom Buchanan.
“Amigo. You are hit!”
“Is that Johnny?”
“Sí. Can you walk if I raise you, Buchanan?”
“Can you walk?”
“Don’t know. Slug got me in the shoulder,” he said wonderingly. “Don’t know why it caved in the damn legs.”
“Try to stand,” Juan said, helping the big man aloft with an effort.
“Must be built backwards—”
Juan got him out into the alley, had him started toward the street when that exit was abruptly blocked by a group of excited men.
“Hold it where you are!” Amos Agry shouted to them.
“Other way, Johnny. Vamos!”
“I said hold it!” A shot came winging after them.
“Man,” Buchanan said feelingly, “some people just can’t mind their own business.” He reached around the boy’s body, slipped the.45 from its holster and sent back a wildly effective fusillade that scattered their tormentors and gave them the temporary protection of the bank building.
“Let me down, kid.”
“No.” Juan resisted Buchanan’s efforts to remove his supporting shoulder.
“Use your head. We both can’t make it and I got what I came for.”
“Is the sheriff dead?”
“Surprised if he wasn’t. Now let go of me.”
They could hear stealthy footsteps in the alleyway, and shouts on the street beyond directing an encirclement of the area.
“Get out of here, Johnny.”
“Look, Buchanan—the rear of the bank is open!” He got the other man moving toward the door, pulled him inside and locked it closed.
“Now you’ve fixed yourself,” Buchanan said angrily. “How you going to bust out of here?”
“You’ll think of something, amigo.”
“Yeah. Me and Duke Hazeltine.”
“What did you say?”
“I said you’re just another damn loco Mex.” There was a heavy thrusting at the door. “Load this shooter,” Buchanan said, handing Juan the emptied Colt. “Then see if you can find the teller’s cage. There ought to be some weapons handy there.”
