by Jonas Ward
Gibbons would have liked to do the gallant thing, throw another of his fighters into the arena, and another, and another until the defeat had been wiped from the record. That would have been noble Caesar’s way, but Caesar probably didn’t have Jack Gibbons’ particular problems. For though he had infused a certain esprit de corps into his militia they were hardly what a commander would call a dedicated company. What they were were hard cases, the lot of them, and every time he gave an order they first considered what was in it for them. Gibbons thought he had convinced them that the very size of their force was its own best protection, but beyond that simple law of the pack they felt no moral compulsion toward one another. Besides that, it would not strike them as reasonable to take on singlehanded the man who had stopped Hamp Leach.
Still, the fellow had to be handled. Not only because he was living proof that the militia wasn’t the best in Texas, but also because of Gibbons’ nagging suspicion that he might be a Ranger. And if he had been sent from Austin his handling had to be done in a certain way.
Well, Gruber would be back before long with Kersh’s squad, and surely then there’d be enough for the job.
Five
Angus Mulchay was one of those outspoken, nimble-witted pepper pots who always either instigated some action or naturally gravitated to the very eye of it.
That and his own violent brush with Hamp Leach earlier led him to feel that he had a special companionship with this fellow Buchanan, and convinced him that he had some proprietary interest in the big stranger.
He felt the same about the body of Hamp Leach. “Leave him lay I” little Mulchay commanded when more sensitive souls went to cover the sprawled corpse with an old horse blanket. “Leave him lay, boys. There’s a lesson there for all of us.”
“Mr. Mulchay!” Rosemarie scolded.
“There is, lass, there is!”
“And what’s the lesson?” Hamlin inquired.
“The Sermon on the Mount,” Mulchay recited. “And the meek shall inherit the earth.”
His audience heard and ran their eyes over the roughshod Buchanan, remembering the unmeekness in him when Leach had thrown down the gauntlet a few minutes ago. Someone on the fringe of the group laughed.
“And what is humorous?” Mulchay demanded.
“You,” the man told him. “But you don’t mean to be.” Mulchay was preparing a devastating rejoinder to that when Malcolm Lord appeared from the private room and began making his way out through the saloon proper.
“Well, now,” Mulchay said, shifting targets, “did we break up the big secret powwow? I notice you all scurryin’ for home soon as the pistols start poppin’.”
“Mulchay,” Lord said thinly, “I’ll thank you to stay out of my affairs.”
“Somebody’s got to watch you sharp. And where’s your new friend, the Brownsville butcher boy?”
“That mouth of yours,” Lord said, pausing between the swinging doors, “is going to buy you an early grave. Mark my words!” He was gone then and Mulchay kept staring at the exit somberly.
“Boys,” he said at last, “there’s trouble coming to the Big Bend. It’ll be hell on horseback if we don’t prepare ourselves, and quick.”
“You’re always seeing trouble, Angus,” Macintosh told him.
“I see what’s plain to see. Or do you think Black Jack Gibbons came to pay Scotstown a social call?”
“What did he come for?”
“We’ll all find out soon enough,” Mulchay predicted, “but by then it’ll be too late.”
The men’s voices sounded all around Buchanan’s head like so many droning flies, and held about as much interest to him. He was not geared for town life, had no feeling for it, and as he stood here now looking down into a half-empty whisky glass the big man was asking himself unhappily just what the hell kind of living he was meant for. From the top of the mountain the lights down here had looked warm and inviting, promising a night of companionship with other men. But all that had gone down the trough in sixty seconds, and when Fargo asked him what kind of good time did he have all he could answer was that he had killed a man he’d never even seen before.
He raised his melancholy glance to find the girl watching him from the back bar. There had been the start of something there, too, he remembered, the possibility of a little harmless dallying that might have been good for both of them. But there was no mischief in her eyes now, no smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
She’s got you all pegged out, Buchanan told himself. You couldn’t even get the right time from her now.
“Drink up, laddie, and Rosemarie will pour another,” Hamlin offered heartily.
He shook his head and stood erect.
“Had enough,” he said. He thought, Enough of everything for this night.
“Where you off to?”
“Going to take some air,” he said, swinging from the bar.
“But how about your money?” Hamlin protested and Buchanan looked over his shoulder at the currency and coins scattered on the floor.
“Use it to bury him with,” he said and walked out of the place, leaving a studied silence in his wake.
“Now there’s a type for ye,” Macintosh commented.
“Footloose and fancy-free,” Angus Mulchay said. “Just like I was thirty years ago.”
“Ay, I saw the resemblance at once,” Hamlin said. “Only you’ve shrunk a foot since your wild days.”
“Size ain’t all. You notice I didn’t shy from that bully when it was my chance.”
“And wound up on the back of your mug.”
“Where d’ye suppose he came from?” Macintosh asked.
“And where did he come across the gold Hamlin bought?”
“You’ll never know, boys,” Mulchay said sagely, “and you’ll likely never lay eyes on him again. I say we tip the bottle all around and drink one to a gunfighter ... Rosemarie, what’s up, lass?” The girl was retreating along the bar, her head bent low, and Mulchay looked around at his friends. “What’s gotten into MacKay’s niece?” he asked. “What did I say?”
“Somethin’ about us never seein’ the fellow again. I don’t think that was in the lass’s plans for him.”
“You mean she’s taken with him?”
“From the minute he strolled in.”
“With that wildness on him?” Mulchay asked incredulously.
“A moment ago you were drinking his health.”
“And will again, for he’s a man’s man. But he’s not what any innocent lass should be fillin’ her head with.”
“Maybe not,” Macintosh said, “but she’s gone off into the black night nevertheless.”
Rosemarie fled through the storeroom, her mind in a storm of confusion, and came out onto a dark alley. She found herself next standing in the center of Trail Street, looking in every direction but seeing no sign of Buchanan.
“Mister!” she called plaintively, taking a dozen aimless steps north. “Mister!” Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness, her ears strained for some sound of him. She retraced her steps, went another short distance the other way. “Wait up, mister!” she cried out, feeling even sadder for the very reason she had no name to call him by. She was standing now in the center of Trail Street, a somehow forlorn figure, lost-looking, and made incongruous by the gaily colored bar apron tied at her waist. Beyond her was; the familiar front of the Glasgow, beyond that the flickering lights of Armston’s Dance Palace. She didn’t want to serve drinks any more tonight, and she didn’t want to be danced with. In fact, she had a vast number of things she didn’t want to do, except be alone, and she started walking toward the river.
A deep voice reached out of the night and caressed her.
“Want any company?” Buchanan asked.
“You! You were there all the while?”
“No, but I wasn’t sure which particular mister you were looking for.” He came out of the shadows. “Still ain’t.”
“I know every other name in Scotstown,” she expl
ained quietly.
“Tom Buchanan.”
“Rosemarie MacKay.”
Silence descended over them and they stood looking at each other steadily, seeing only the character outlines of each other’s face, and a great many seconds in time passed, between them.
At last she spoke.
“Mr. Mulchay said you would not pass this way again.”
“No.”
“You only came by for a bit of fun, didn’t you?”
“Something like that.”
“Are you—do you make your way with the gun?” By her hushed hesitancy Buchanan understood that the question went to the roots of her own principles. He also understood that during these past few moments the smoldering fires of his own healthy desires had been stirred, knew for the first time how keen his loneliness had been on that mountain. But some contrariness in the man would not let him compromise her.
“I don’t make my way with anything,” he told her true. “I’m a bum, a saddlebum—” and then the pixie took hold of him and he laughed. “If I owned a saddle, that is,” he added.
And she laughed.
“You mean you ride without a saddle?”
“Without a horse.”
“But where do you live?”
A casual twist of his head took in the whole Sierra Negras. “Up there,” he said.
“In those fierce mountains? All by yourself?”
“Pm partners with an old gent.”
“And you’re going back now?”
“Might as well. Got to be there tomorrow anyhow.”
“Seems such a lonely life for a—younger man. I mean, sort of wasteful.”
“You’re telling me it’s wasteful,” Buchanan agreed with warmth. “All work and no profit.”
“I meant, well, physically ...”
“Yeah, there’s wear and tear.”
“I’m talking about the years of a person’s life,” the girl said impatiently. “A man wasn’t intended to spend them alone.”
“No,” Buchanan said, suddenly thoughtful. “I guess not.”
“And there’s certainly better places to be right here in the Big Bend than on top of that mountain.”
“You know something, you got the lonelies tonight yourself.”
“Ay.”
“Well, then, let’s do something together.”
“Oh, yes! Do you like to dance?”
“Till the cows come home.”
“Then it’s off to Armston’s,” she said, linking her arm through his and leading him back toward the dancehall. “Fine night, isn’t it?” he asked her.
“Fine and dandy,” she assured him. “I have the feeling that anything could happen on a night like this.”
Six
They wheeled into Trail Street, seven of them riding abreast of each other, and a bystander marked the arrogance of that, the seizure of the right-of-way. He also noted the armament—not only revolvers but rifles in their saddles—and he watched them pass before he went his own way, uneasier than he had been a moment before.
Rig Gruber signaled the party to a halt some fifty feet before the Glasgow.
“Just you and me better go in to see Gibbons,” he told Lou Kersh. “The rest of you spread yourselves in front of the place and wait.”
“I could use a drink, Rig,” one of them complained.
“That’s just what Hamp said, Mac, and Hamp ain’t with us no more.”
Mac spit into the dust to show what he thought of that. But he held his seat while Gruber and Kersh dismounted, hitched reins to the rail and entered the saloon.
“So you’re back,” Angus Mulchay said, the official greeter. “And brought another bully-boy to test the champion.”
The cold eyes of both gunmen studied him impassively, taking his measure. But whatever decision they came to was their own secret as they passed on toward the closed door without speaking. While Gruber knocked, Lou Kersh directed the same impersonal glance at the sprawled figure of Hamp Leach. The door opened a crack, then Gibbons pulled it ajar and let them inside.
“Where’d he go, Cap?” Gruber asked.
“He’s not at the bar?”
“No”
“Did you pass anybody coming in?”
“Couple of families in wagons. No single rider his size.”
“Then he’s still around,” Gibbons said. “Let’s go look him up.”
“One question,” Kersh said. “What’s so important about him, whoever he is?”
“Whoever he is,” Gibbons answered, “he shot and killed a militiaman on duty.”
Kersh was unimpressed by the army like jargon.
“Hamp drew, didn’t he?” he asked dryly.
“You’re missing the point,” Gibbons told him, his own voice testy. “We’re an organization, all of us together, and what happens to one happens to all. Our reputation in this town and every other town depends on how we take care of our own men. Is that clear, mister?”
“It’d be clearer,” Kersh said, “if it were anybody but Hamp Leach.”
“Personalities don’t enter into it. But if you still need a reason to take this ranny, let me tell you that I think he could be from Austin.”
“That’s a lot different,” Kersh agreed. “Been expecting some trouble like that since we hit Laredo.”
“And this is the only way they could handle it. Most people don’t realize it, but at fifty strong we’re more than twice the size of all the Rangers put together.”
“So they send one at a time.”
Gibbons nodded. “And he’s supposed to take as many of us as he can.”
Kersh smiled cynically. “Hard work for poor wages,” he said. “Even the boys at Alamo got better odds than that.”
“And no boys have it better than Gibbons’ militia,” Gibbons told him. “Don’t you forget it, Kersh.”
“No complaints, Captain.”
“Then let’s flush this bird of ours.” Gibbons opened the door and the three of them passed through into the saloon. Abruptly, Gibbons stopped. “For God’s sake,” he snapped at the remaining bartender, “are you going to leave this man’s body here the whole night?” But the bartender shrugged his round shoulders. He only worked here, the gesture said; when Mr. Terhune got back, speak to him about it.
“We bury our own dead, Black Jack Gibbons,” Mulchay said then.
“And you might be talking your way into a grave, old man,” Gibbons told him, then switched his attention to Hamlin. “Isn’t there an undertaker in town?” he asked.
“Simmons does a nice funeral,” Hamlin answered civilly. “None of your fancy caskets and all, but he gets them under the ground in fine style.”
“And where is Simmons?”
“Bein’ Saturday, he’s up the street, playin’ the fiddle and callin’ the reel.”
Gibbons took a twenty-dollar gold note from his vest, carried it to the bar. “Send for him,” he told the bartender. “Tell him I want Sergeant Leach laid out in military fashion.”
“It’s all bought and paid for,” Mulchay said.
“By whom?”
“By the same lad that so calmly plugged your sergeant, and him with a borrowed weapon ...”
Gibbons’ hand came down on the bar top hard. “As you just explained,” he said angrily, “we bury our own dead.” With that he strode from the place, Gruber and Kersh at his heels.
Angus Mulchay followed, showing none of the temperate caution of his neighbors. So far as they were concerned, Gibbons and his gunmen could come and go with no interference from them. Especially they could go. Mulchay was back within sixty seconds, his face alive with concern.
“There’s a gang of them—a whole dirty gang of them!” he said, outraged.
“Have a wee knock, Angus,” Hamlin advised, “and be thankful they’re not out there on your account.”
“Ay,” Mulchay retorted, “it’s the lad’s turn tonight. Tomorrow it’s me, then you. And next, you, Macintosh ...”
“Don’t talk
daft, man. What harm have I done the likes of Black Jack Gibbons?”
“You made the mistake of settlin’ riverland that the almighty Malcolm Lord wants. You stood with me and MacKay and wouldn’t sell out.”
“And still won’t. But what’s that to do with anything?”
“Lord brought Gibbons to Scotstown, right?” Macintosh nodded.
“And Gibbons don’t roam the border for his health, right?”
“So it’s said.”
“Said? Man, I was there not two weeks after the massacre. I saw the graves with me own eyes.”
“We know, we know,” Hamlin told him.
“Then know something else,” Mulchay said. “Lord and Gibbons are going to make a grab at our holdings.”
“My title is clear,” Macintosh protested. “I’ll have the law on them!”
Mulchay laughed in his friend’s face.
“By law do you mean Bart Taggart, him so stiff with the misery he cannot even walk the length of Trail Street? Or the deputy, him more interested in dancin’ Saturday night than whatever befalls?”
“The law in Austin, then,” Macintosh said, suddenly less confident. “I’ll have a Ranger down here to protect my rights.”
“Better hitch up your buggy right quick then,” Mulchay said. “You’ll be there in a week. Maybe they’ll even send two Rangers back with you—two against Gibbons’ cutthroat army.”
They were soberer men now than they had been two minutes ago.
“What is it you suggest, Angus?”
“That we do now what we would have done in ’37. Defend ourselves, man!”
“But this isn’t ’37. Why, I haven’t even bought one of those new rifles ...”
“We’ll fight them with anything we can lay hands on,” Mulchay told him. “Knives and clubs, rocks—anything.”
“But Gibbons is all proper military, so they tell me. Cavalry and the like, and every man a veteran of hard combat.”
“There’s one,” Mulchay said, pointing to Leach. “Personal bodyguard to the great poobah himself.”
“But it took the lad to lay him out. Most likely a gunfighter in his own right.”
