by Jonas Ward
“Then get the crew mounted. Tell them to scatter and find that bastard Buchanan.”
“What for?”
“Just find him. Find the bastard and bring him to me.”
Four
A cotton-ball cloud drifted lazily across the sun. Its shadow swept along the earth, flowing like lava across the dips and swells of the desert. Presently it reached the edge of a dry riverbed overhung by drought-withered trees. In their spindly shade the two men squatted by their tiny fire.
Johnny Reo said, “Don’t criticize the coffee, amigo. Someday you’ll be old and weak yourself.”
Buchanan grunted, finished his coffee, and stood up to kick sand across the fire, Reo said, “You in some kind of hurry to go somewhere?”
“Not so you’d notice it,” Buchanan drawled. “But it’s sort of hot to stay put.”
“Never leave till tomorrow when you can leave today. That it?”
Buchanan poked his big scar-dimpled jaw toward the west. “Ought to be a town out there someplace.”
“All right,” Reo complained, and reached for his hat. He planted it on top of his carrot hair and headed for his horse. The Mexican rowels of his spurs rattled softly.
They rode up from the riverbed onto a plain studded with a spindle tracery of ocotillo and catclaw. Reo said, “You ain’t thinking of looking for a job, are you?”
“Why?”
“I’d hate to think I’d joined company with a working stiff. My policy—never do an honest day’s work unless it’s absolutely necessary.” He grinned; the grin made a glistening slash across his face, made him look young and brashly devil-may-care.
Buchanan said, “I’ve never seen it chiseled on stone tablets that a man can’t earn his keep.”
“Don’t be such a farmer,” Reo said. “Work yourself to death, and then somebody’s got to take up a collection to bury you. Gracias, amigo, but it ain’t for me. Havin’ fun, that’s what we’re alive for.”
“Kind of hard to have fun when your belly starts growling.”
“Steal a chicken, then,” Reo said irreverently, and laughed at Buchanan. They topped a low rise, and from that vantage point saw a sleepy town not more than six or seven miles down the road. Heat waves shimmered and made the town look as if it was made of liquid.
Buchanan observed, “You could go straight. That ever occur to you?”
“Straight to where?”
“Someplace where you won’t figure to end up gut shot out in the brush with the coyotes picking at you.”
“Quit carping on it,” Reo said. Buchanan shifted his glance and let it lie upon him. When Reo wasn’t laughing, he had a sad face. He said defiantly, “I sleep all right.”
“Sure.”
“You some kind of missionary or what?”
“Just being friendly, Johnny,” Buchanan said. His great good nature showed through in the mild smile with which he dismissed the budding argument. His candid eyes appraised Reo without any particular expression.
But Reo complained, “I’m the same fellow you were looking at before.”
Buchanan laughed. “You’ve got a lot of trust, haven’t you?”
“I always figured a man could only trust his dog and his enemies.” Reo nodded toward the town ahead. “You reckon that town’s got a bank worth bustin’?”
“I hadn’t given it a lot of thought.”
“That’s your whole trouble, then,” Reo told him. He shifted his seat on the saddle and plucked a rawhide thong from a concho. Chewing on the thong, he tipped his hat far forward across his eyes and said, “How come you came to be a friend of that old buzzard Sentos?”
“That was back in peaceable times. I used to drop by his wickiup now and then on the old Reservation before Uncle Sam moved them out on the desert.”
“Drink a little illegal-brewed tulapai and swap lies, hey? But you wouldn’t have become a friend of his unless you’d proved you were tough enough to keep from turning purple when they pulled a few pranks on you.”
“Something like that,” Buchanan said. “I was pretty good in a handkerchief fight in those days.”
“Kill anybody?”
“Didn’t have to,” Buchanan said.
Reo grinned at him. “Reckon I can believe that, too,” he observed. “For a peaceable man, you must’ve found yourself quite a mite of trouble here and there. And I ain’t missed the fact you’re a long way from home.”
Buchanan said, “Maybe I have to be.”
“A preacher like you? Aagh.”
Buchanan dismissed it with an amiable grin. The fact was, there was nothing back in West Texas for him to go back to. His father had been a rancher who’d gone broke—a drought and the bank had seen to that—and then Buchanan’d hired on as foreman of a little Border ranch. It got rustled clean. Chasing after the rustlers had taken him into Mexico; one thing led to another, and pretty soon Buchanan was hiring out his fists and his guns. And by now what Reo said was true: Thomas MacGrail Buchanan was a long, long way from Alpine, West Texas.
It was a misty mother-of-pearl twilight, made that way by steam coming up off the creek at the back of town. The town, as ugly and lonesome as the desert around it, was gradually melting into the earth from which it came.
The lean, hawk-shaped man came out of the livery stable with an angry glower. That was Trask, sizzling because Warrenrode had fired him.
He saw two men standing in front of the cantina fifty yards away. Ben Scarlett and Cesar Diaz. Diaz was a scrawny little gunman; Ben Scarlett was an enormous slab of a man, hewn from gigantic material. Trask had seen Scarlett hurl a two-hundred-pound teamster across the length of the barroom in the Golden Rule.
Trask went along to the cantina. In a black rage, he hissed at the two men, “I want to talk to you.”
Ben Scarlett said, “Sure, partner,” and Cesar Diaz glanced only once at Trask out of black, clever eyes. The three of them went back under the shelter of the porch roof and waited in silence while two men ambled into the cantina. A freight wagon rumbled past; chains clattered in the ox-yoke rings.
“The old man fired me,” Trask said.
Scarlett said, “Hell, that’s too bad.”
“I aim to hit the trail,” Trask said, “soon as you two boys help me take care of some unfinished business with a drifter.”
Cesar Diaz peeled his mustache-coated lip back from his teeth. “Three of us against one drifter? You must have a powerful hate going for you.”
Trask said, “Me and Lacy been saddle partners four years. Son of a bitch killed Lacy.”
“What?” said Scarlett.
“Chingado,” said Diaz.
Trask’s cold glance shifted from face to face. “You boys with me?”
Ben Scarlett said, “Lacy was a pretty good man, huh?”
Diaz said, “All right. Where do we find this here drifter?”
“We’ll find him,” Trask said. He turned toward the door of the cantina and stopped short. Coming up the street were two riders. One of them was a rangy redhead in buckskins. The other one was a man-sized gent with truck-horse shoulders and long, whipcord legs and a battle-scarred face.
Trask said, “We just found him.” With an abrupt snap of his wiry shoulders, he headed inside the cantina. “Come on. We’ll work out how we’ll brace him. I want the bastard’s head in a basket.”
Buchanan and Johnny Reo tied up in front of the Golden Rule saloon and climbed onto the porch. A cowhand went by, nodded and smiled, and when the cowhand was gone, Buchanan mused, “A friendly face, a sleepy town.”
“Sodom and Begorra,” Reo scoffed. They went inside.
A keg and plank bar stretched along the side wall. Several card tables were operating. The faro dealer droned, “Jack loses, five wins.” The big saloon was half full.
Walking across a floor of blistered, warped planking Buchanan and Reo reached the bar. A few men gave them incurious glances. The barkeep came down the slot and inquired with his eyebrows, and Reo said, “Whiskey and two set
ups.”
When the barkeep put a bottle in front of them, Reo looked at the label and said, “This stuff’s eighteen years old, it says here. Small for its age, ain’t it?”
Buchanan had a taste of it. “More like eighteen days old, if you ask me.”
The barkeep gave both of them a long look and drifted away down the slot.
Reo said, “I hope one of us can pay for the cougar sweat,” and cocked an eye at Buchanan.
Buchanan reached into his pocket, brought out a meager handful of coins, and counted. His eyes wandered toward the bar, where four flies were wandering around in search of crumbs from bar sandwiches. Johnny Reo’s hand swept out, palm curled, and whipped across the surface of the bar. He held the fist up under his nose and slowly opened it; the four flies flew out of his hand. He grinned. “Ain’t lost my speed yet,” he said. It made Buchanan glance at Reo’s six-gun, belted low at the hip and tied down.
In the yellow lamplight silver and gold coins fluttered across the card tables, and a haze of tobacco smoke hung under the low-raftered ceiling. Johnny Reo glanced toward the front door and stiffened slightly; he spoke without moving his lips. “Recognize the gent up front?”
Buchanan glanced that way with studied casualness. The corner of his vision picked out a small, sharp-edged Mexican bristling with guns and knife.
“No,” he said.
“Name of Cesar Diaz. A little gent with a big talent with toad-stickers and six-guns. I seen him lay a few banditos out, down in Chihuahua.”
“He’s looking for somebody,” Buchanan observed.
“Him and the big ox with him. Never saw that one before. Buchanan, I surely wish you’d see fit to wear your gun now and then.”
“Now and then,” Buchanan said, “I do.”
“Heads up,” Reo murmured. “He’s comin’ our way.”
Buchanan, facing the bar, was lifting his glass; he did not look over his shoulder. “Which one?”
“The big ox with his nose right next to his ear. Wonder who he is?”
“Maybe Saint George,” Buchanan said. “Maybe the dragon.”
The big man was two inches taller than Buchanan and outweighed Buchanan by an easy fifty pounds, which made him about as big as a house. He had a rubbery leer. He aimed for a spot between Buchanan and Reo and rammed his way in with his elbow.
“Make some goddamn room,” the giant growled testily.
Politely Buchanan and Reo each moved away a foot. Buchanan met Reo’s amused glance. The giant glowered at Buchanan. “Ain’t I seen you someplace?”
“I’ve never been there,” Buchanan drawled. “The name’s Buchanan.”
“I’m Ben Scarlett,” the giant said, as if it were all the introduction that was required. The best his expressionless face could do was twitch now and then, as if to drive away flies.
Reo was looking toward the front door, toward Cesar Diaz. The little Mexican was standing back against the wall with his arms folded, making an act of being uninterested.
Reo glanced across Scarlett’s bulk at Buchanan. “You recognize this card game, Buchanan?”
“I’ve played it before,” Buchanan replied.
Ben Scarlett said, “Huh? Hey, what you two doing? Ain’t nobody going to rig Ben Scarlett for a cross play.”
“Then back out of it,” Johnny Reo said. “Stick your finger back in your nose, moose.” He grinned brashly.
Scarlett’s attention moved back and forth. He said uncertainly, “If you two lay a finger on me—”
“If we do,” Buchanan said softly, “you won’t forget it soon. Now, I’m a peaceable man, but I can’t vouch for my friend here. Maybe you ought to back away and find a place where you’ll get more elbow room.” Scarlett slammed his fist down on the bar. The room rocked; two bottles fell over. Scarlett demanded, “Are you givin’ me orders, pilgrim? Because I ain’t—”
“You’re throwing raw meat on the floor,” Buchanan said flatly. “And you’re getting red in the face. Now, I’m known for my gentle disposition, friend, but there are limits. If you want to play a game, then you just go right ahead and get started.” Scarlett spluttered. Johnny Reo raised his hand weakly, as if in benediction, and deliberately turned his back to Scarlett to bring himself squarely around to face Cesar Diaz.
Before Reo had completed the maneuver, Scarlett was growling inarticulately. He grabbed Buchanan by the shirtfront.
Buchanan’s battle-scarred face looked almost regretful. Reflexes brought his swinging fist up before Scarlett even had a chance to firm his grip on Buchanan’s shirt. The fist drilled in like a steam hammer, and there was no man alive who would be unaffected by the muscular, pile-driver force behind that blow. Ben Scarlett’s breath whooshed out in a volcanic eruption. He folded over a few inches and right there began to lose interest in the front of Buchanan’s shirt.
There was nobody Buchanan disliked more than a man who fought for fun. Scarlett’s clumsy approach to the age-old ritual had brought Buchanan’s dander up. Buchanan measured Scarlett, brushed the thick-armed guard aside, and aimed a shoulder-driven punch at Scarlett’s jaw.
Scarlett’s face was slick with sweat; Buchanan’s blow slid off. Somebody said maliciously, “Bust him, Ben.”
And Buchanan heard Johnny Reo’s voice: “Pull that gun, Diaz, and I’ll ram it down your teeth.”
A hard sadism clamped itself down on Ben Scarlett’s face. He swarmed in, right into the sledge of Buchanan’s fist. Scarlett backpedaled. The diamond-hard edges of Buchanan’s great fists hooked into Scarlett’s big belly; the pair of flat echoes slapped around the saloon. But Scarlett was big enough to absorb punishment, and his beady eyes narrowed down with canny earnestness. His face, as much as it was capable of expression, filled with a leer of sensual pleasure.
It was short-lived; it lasted only until Buchanan slammed him full in the face with his fist. Scarlett made a curious noise. He took a sickening jolt in the belly, jackknifed, and bent wearily right into the path of Buchanan’s almost indifferently aimed left fist. It connected with the blunt point of Scarlett’s jaw. He reeled and fell like a chopped tree.
Fully angry now, Buchanan braced his legs. “Get up.”
Scarlett brought him into focus. “Forget it,” he muttered, and fingered his jaw gingerly.
A long, hawk-bodied shape filled the front door, drawing Buchanan’s attention, and Reo’s. It was Trask. Trask didn’t move or speak; but the distraction gave Cesar Diaz time to go for his guns.
Johnny Reo’s forty-four cleared its holster in a blur. Under the low ceiling its roar was ear-splitting. It hit Diaz no more than a half-inch off dead center. Diaz slammed back against the wall and slid down, leaving a red smear on the wall above him.
Reo’s gun lay trained in his fist—trained on Trask. Reo said in an easy way, “Make up your mind before you die of indecision.”
Trask’s eyes roamed from face to face. He settled on Buchanan and slowly raised his index finger accusingly. “You.”
Ben Scarlett was getting painfully to his feet. The town marshal rushed in like a volunteer fireman, all red-faced and out of breath in his claw-hammer coat. Trask turned on the marshal with vicious sarcasm. “You’re late, Yancey. The corpse beat you to it.”
Yancey had a look at Cesar Diaz’s body and then looked at the gun in Reo’s fist. “You kill him?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you call yourself?”
“Unless I want me,” Reo said, “I don’t call.”
Trask said, “Him and that big drifter there. Arrest them both, Yancey. The drifter picked a fight with Ben Scarlett to cover up murderin’ Diaz.”
Reo said, “Seems to me it was the other way around.”
The marshal tramped forward like a bantam cock and threw his head back to glare balefully at Buchanan and Reo. “You two coming peacefully?”
Reo said, “We’re not coming at all, Marshal.”
Buchanan said, “It was a fair fight.”
“Uh-huh,” said Reo. “T
errible the way I lose my temper.” He grinned at the marshal and waggled his gun.
Yancey was full of bluster and bravado. “This is the law talking, friend.”
“Talk all you want,” Reo said obligingly. “Just remember, the gun is mightier than the word.”
Trask was kneeling by Diaz’s corpse. When Trask got to his feet, he said to Reo, “You was just lucky.”
“No. I’m good.”
Ben Scarlett stumbled against the bar and croaked for whiskey. Looking at Scarlett, Reo said admiringly to Buchanan, “Amigo, when I grow up, I want to be just like you.”
Looking over the two hard-bitten strangers, the marshal was hesitating. That was when Trask said angrily, “Arrest them, Yancey. The redhead murdered Diaz, and the other one helped him do it. He shot Lacy dead this morning, and Mike Warrenrode posted him out of the country.”
Buchanan said, “You’re forgettin’ to mention that Warrenrode posted you out of the country too, Trask.”
“You’re a liar,” Trask said.
There weren’t too many things that could get Buchanan angry, but that was one of them. He opened his mouth to speak, but Yancey talked faster.
“Both of you shut up. Redhead, use that gun or give it up to me. But think about what happens if you kill yourself a law officer.”
“You act like that badge is made out of six feet of armor plate,” Reo said.
“Naw. I just don’t reckon you’ll kill me in front of all these witnesses. Not when you know the badge will just get up and come after you on somebody else’s shirt.”
Trask was gloating silently. Buchanan said, “You’re taking Trask’s word?”
The marshal said, “I know Mike Warrenrode. I don’t know you.”
Someone in the crowd spoke out. “That there’s Buchanan, Yancey. He’s the man killed Mike Sandoe in a gunfight.”
Reaction hit the crowd like an abrupt intake of breath. Yancey’s eyes widened and strayed toward Buchanan’s hip. No guns there. Yancey’s bravado returned.
Johnny Reo said, “It appears like if you want to find the law around here, all you got to do is look inside Mike Warrenrode’s pocket.”
