by Jonas Ward
At the house they didn’t know what they were doing. Inside the place were Harley and Betters, but they knew only the general plan, hadn’t been given anything specific to do as Riker and Cato had.
“Who is that scudder out there, anyhow?” Harley asked when another minute of tight silence had passed.,
“The hell with who he is,” Betters growled. “I wanna know where he is.”
“Heard him run off the porch. Damn, I had the son of a bitch cold and he ducked.”
“Is Cato dead, or what?”
“He ain’t moved.”
“Let’s go have a look.”
“Help yourself.”
“What’s the matter with you?” Betters demanded.
“I don’t like that rifle,” Harley admitted. “And what’d Cato ever do for me?”
“For crissake, we can’t stay pinned down in here! Riker was supposed to have the house burnin’ by now—” He broke off, cocked his head to a noise out front. “What’s that?”
It was the sound of wagon wheels, protesting against unaccustomed speed.
“It’s the damn scudder,” Harley announced. “High-tailin’ with the damn buckboard!”
Betters dashed out onto the porch just as Buchanan raced the old wagon abreast of the house. They opened fire at each other on sight, but the moving target eluded Betters. Buchanan’s third shot spun the man halfway around, dropped him to his knees. Harley saw that and ducked out of the fire line and threw some token shots after the retreating wagon, but they passed overhead.
The racket ceased as suddenly as it had erupted, and it took a few more moments of it before the idea got through Harley’s brain that he was the last able-bodied man on the premises.
“Hey, Betters, you all right?” he called out suddenly.
“Oh, you useless son of a bitch,” the voice answered from the porch.
“Watch who you’re callin’ son of a bitch, buddy.”
There was a sound of movement from Cato then.
“Cato!” Harley shouted, crossing to him and kneeling down. “Cato, you hear me? Hey, Cato!” He peered closely. “Jesus—he looks like a mule tromped on him. Cato, can you hear me?”
“Yeah,” Cato said then.
“What are we gonna do?” Harley asked him.
The man pushed himself to his hands and knees and held that position while he moved his head from side to side experimentally.
“You got him, didn’t you?” he asked Harley.
“Hell, no, we didn’t. What are we gonna do?”
Cato climbed all the way up, looked balefully from Harley to the prone figure of Betters.
“What happened to him?”
“Got plugged. And Riker’s dead in the yard.”
“Some deal Gibbons worked out,” Cato said.
“Do we ride out?” Harley asked.
“Some smart deal,” Cato said again, touching his face tenderly, glancing at the figure dangling on the other side of the porch. “Go around and get the fire started,” he told Harley. “Then bring the horses.”
Harley moved quickly, relieved now that someone was directing things. When he reached Riker he didn’t even bother to search for life, just picked the torch from the dust, got it lighted again from the blazing outbuilding and carried it back to the main house. The dry wood took the flame hungrily, noisily, and with a great whoosh the entire roof went up.
He got the horses then, helped boost Betters into the saddle and the three of them went off.
The last ten minutes had given Jack Gibbons no pleasure at all, but now as the brighter glow appeared in the distance he felt some measure of relief. Whatever the trouble was, Riker had the situation under control. Dependable man, Riker, Gibbons thought, making a mental note to give him a fifty-dollar bonus for the night’s work. Something extra for Cato as well, he decided generously.
What a jolt, then, to come upon the smoldering, fire-gutted ruins of Mulchay’s house and find Riker a casualty, dead with a bullet hole in his chest—and not to find the damned Mulchay. Gibbons was surveying the perplexing scene in stunned silence when the Overlord party broke upon him.
Billy Neale went directly to the hanging figure on the still-burning porch, risked scorching himself while he cut the man down.
“By God,” he said, “it’s a Ranger! Those dirty jackals strung up a Ranger!”
“And shot him, both,” another rider commented.
“A Ranger?” Malcolm Lord said in a worried undertone to Gibbons. “What was he doing at Mulchay’s?”
Gibbons looked at him. “I just got here myself,” he said impatiently.
“But Austin will send more. Maybe even troops ...”
“Then we’ll have help fighting Mexicans. Won’t have to do it all ourselves.”
“Yes,” Lord said without enthusiasm. “What is it you’re looking for?”
Gibbons stopped craning his head around.
“Looking for any more of my own men,” he answered. Apgar had already been sent to scout the immediate vicinity; now he came back, exchanged a glance with Gibbons, and shrugged his shoulders.
Neale walked up to the group.
“They can’t be thirty minutes ahead of us, Mr. Lord. What’re the orders?”
“The militia will be after them,” Gibbons said quickly. “There’s nothing Overlord can do now.”
Neale looked at him curiously.
“We all want to pitch in here,” the cowboy said. “This is everybody’s business.”
“How do you mean?”
“A neighbor’s been burned out,” Neale answered simply. “That involves us all.”
“Better to leave it to the professionals, Neale,” Lord told him, coming into the conversation when it seemed that Gibbons was instructing an Overlord hand. “Well, if there’s nothing we can do here, Captain ...”
“Not a thing.”
“Suppose we meet in town tomorrow,” Lord suggested.
“In town,” Gibbons agreed and the Overlord men moved out.
“Now, by God,” muttered Gibbons, “let’s find out what happened here.” He dismounted, strode to where Riker lay. But for all his anger there was little the dead man could explain to him.
“Betters and him didn’t get along none too well,” Apgar volunteered. “Could’ve been a showdown.”
“And where’s the old man? What did Cato do with him?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, God damn it, we’ve got to find out—and quick! If Mulchay is around loose somewhere, shooting his mouth off ...”
“And the woman,” Apgar said. “You got her in a safe place, don’t you?”
There was an insolence in the question that Gibbons would have dealt with swiftly at any other time. But the man was rattled, and wondered himself if she was where he’d left her.
“Beat it into town and tell Kersh what happened. He’ll be able to handle it if things get out of control there.”
Apgar rode off and Gibbons went to the shack for Rosemarie.
Eighteen
There was a strange and unnatural quiet hanging over Scotstown as Buchanan wheeled the creaking wagon into Trail Street. It’s Tuesday night, he told himself; it’s a nine o’clock town. But that explanation didn’t hold for the tension he could feel, the too-quietness, nor tell him why there were at least a dozen armed men in view on both sides of the street, some walking up and down the wooden sidewalks, some gathered in silent, businesslike little groups.
Suddenly one of the armed men stepped out of the shadows, directly into the path of the horse.
“Hold it, cowboy,” he said, grabbing the reins at the bit. “What you haulin’ and where?”
Buchanan considered the man, his tone of voice, weighed it against the urgency.
“I’m taking my friend to the doctor’s,” he said very softly.
“Yeah?” The gunman moved around, looked into the floor of the wagon at the sightlessly staring, comatose face of Angus Mulchay. “Jesus—what happened to him?”
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“I don’t know yet. But he needs help.” He snapped the reins, but the other one jerked the bit again.
“Go when you’re told to, ranny. Now ease that Colt out and hand it over. Also the rifle.”
“Come again?”
“This town’s under martial law. No unauthorized weapons. Let’s have ’em.”
Buchanan’s tongue had begun to play around his lips, a telltale sign of duress. Then Mulchay moaned, a just barely audible sound.
“Where do I pick ’em up again?” Buchanan asked, giving the handgun over, reaching for the rifle.
“They’re stored at the sheriff’s, but don’t come around for a spell. The lid’s on tight.”
He was permitted to go then and drove past the familiar building that housed the dancehall, pulled in to the rail before the Glasgow. He pushed through the doors and it was like a wake in there. Ken Hamlin spotted him first.
“Banquo’s ghost,” the man said, staring.
“I need help for Mulchay. Where’s the doctor?”
“That’s me,” Doc Church said, “but you wouldn’t be remembering the last time we met.”
“Mulchay?” Hamlin asked.
“He’s outside and he’s in trouble. Where do you want him, Doc?”
“Terhune has a sofa in back. All right, Terhune?”
“Anything for Angus Mulchay. Bring the man in.”
Buchanan did, and cradled in those arms the little man seemed littler still. At a glance they all knew their friend was bad off.
“Set him down soft,” Church said, and in his voice there was something very grave. “Hold his head very still.” The doctor examined him then, went over his skull, his neck, the vertebrae of his back with knowing fingers that made diagnosis an almost positive certainty. He went back to the neck region again, and something he touched there crowded the dull, myopic expression from Mulchay’s eyes, replaced it for a long moment with a look of pain that must have been exquisite. Church had released the pressure in an instant, but still Mulchay’s face burned on with some torture he was feeling. His lips parted and he groaned so that each man there winced, felt a terrible thing in the pit of his own stomach.
“Whisky!” Church cried in an agonized voice. “God, bring him whisky!”
It was produced by Terhune, and the doctor saturated his own hand with it, forced his forefinger between Mulchay’s clenched teeth. Mulchay’s mouth worked, tasting it, and his brain remembered. Church poured some into a tumbler, laid the edge of the glass against Mulchay’s lower lip and poured very carefully but unstintingly. Mulchay swallowed, and for another sixty seconds there was no change in his pain-wracked face. Then, almost beautifully, peace came to him. Church poured him another half-ounce.
“Hello, Hamlin,” Mulchay said quite lucidly to the face he happened to focus on.
“Hello, Angus.”
“I went up to Austin. Saw the governor himself.”
“Good thinking, Angus,” Hamlin said.
“Came back with a Ranger. Keroon.”
“That’s fine.”
Mulchay started to shake his head but the movement brought on the pain again and Church was ready with the palliating liquor. The eyes became tranquil again.
“What was I tellin’ ye, Hamlin?”
“About the Ranger.”
“Gibbons killed him. Gibbons and his dogs shot him down. Have ye seen the lass?” he asked abruptly.
“No.”
“Then charge that to his account. It was at MacKay’s they struck me down ...”
“The girl is safe,” Buchanan said, trying to dispel the awful sadness.
“Buchanan! Is that really you?”
“Keep your head still, Angus,” Church cautioned, motioning Buchanan to stand beside Hamlin.
“Ay, there you are!”
“He brought you in,” Hamlin said.
“I was wonderin’ on that. Seem to recall bein’ back at my own place ... mean-faced feller they called Cato ...” The voice kept growing weaker, less intelligible. Abruptly it strengthened. “Doc—do you know when you’re going to die? Do you get the damnedest fluttery feelin’ across your chest?”
“Some do.”
A long sigh went through Mulchay’s body. No one spoke or moved. Finally the doctor laid his ear against Mulchay’s thin chest, reached at the same time for his wrist. He straightened up, lifted the half-empty tumbler to his own lips and finished it neat.
“He’s asleep?” Hamlin asked.
“He’s dead. They broke his neck.”
“Ahh, what a thing!” Macintosh said in a choked voice. “What an awful thing ...”
“Justice!” Hamlin cried out futilely. “We’ll have justice for this! Are you with me? Where’s Buchanan?” he asked. “Where did the lad go?”
The big man walked through the saloon with his head cast down, eyes studying the sawdust floor. He pushed the doors ajar and stepped into Trail Street, colliding with a passing gunman.
“Watch where the hell you’re going, bo!”
Buchanan’s head came up.
“You work for Gibbons?” he asked.
“Sure I work for Gibbons.”
Buchanan hit him on the point of the jaw and the man went down soundlessly. Two others were attracted by the brief encounter and bore down on him, diagonally. Buchanan bent over the fallen man and very deliberately lifted the .45. The gun in his hand began swinging in a slow arc, exploding six times with a kind of staccato rhythm until it was empty. He tossed it away from him, negligently, took another from the limp fingers of his nearest victim and started walking down the middle of Trail Street. Twenty-one times he was fired at, six times he answered, and when there was nothing left in that gun he borrowed a third.
On his left was the lighted window of the sheriff’s office. He turned and strode toward it behind a murderous stream of fire and lead that shattered the glass and plunged the place into darkness. There had been four men in the office. When he kicked the door in there were two—one dead, one dying. Lou Kersh and the fourth man had fled to the jail in the rear of the building, closed the iron door and bolted it.
What he had seen out there had struck the fear of God into the tough mind of Kersh. For he himself had had his fair chance at stopping Buchanan, had knelt by the sill, nerves under control, gun steady—and watched the man walk right into it, keep coming, coming, coming. Kersh fled.
Now he had his ear to the heavy door and he wondered what Buchanan was doing. What he was going to do...
Buchanan had no idea what he was going to do.
He had looked deep into the dead face of his friend Mulchay and turned away, feeling the long-smoldering rage burst into full flame. He had walked out of the room where Mulchay died for the single, simple purpose of repossessing his property and driving the life out of Jack Gibbons. Nothing so far had appeased the anger in him. Nothing short of Gibbons would.
And now he had his Colt and his rifle again. Where then was the man? Did he have to hunt him, or would breaking his goddam martial law bring the miserable bastard back here on the run? That seemed the likeliest, and if it was, it left Buchanan with nothing much to do but wait for him.
A sudden storm erupted across the street, from the blacked-out windows of the dancehall, and whining slugs made furious crisscrosses into the walls and the floor and the very desk he was sitting behind. Then a waiting, watchful silence. Buchanan waited with them, the rifle cradled in his arms, and when the target he had chosen made his shoulders a part of the silhouette he took his shot.
A harsh scream, as much dismay as pain, answered. With that, and until they were ordered otherwise, Gibbons’ Militia left him strictly alone.
Nineteen
For the first hour after she had given in to pure exhaustion, Rosemarie slumbered peacefully. But then her sleep became fretful, she tossed and turned on the blanket, cried out several times. All at once she came awake and sat up, looked around at her strange surroundings in disbelief.
“Who are you?”
she asked the old man across the clearing.
“Fargo Johns, young lady. And you might as well catch some more sleep. Buchanan’s long gone.”
It had come back to her as he spoke and now she got to her feet.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Back down the mountain.”
“It’ll be dark before you get a third of the way. Better you spend the night here, do your travelin’ in the daylight.”
“And not know how Tom made out? I’m afraid I’d go out of my mind, Mr. Johns.”
“You’re liable to get done out of your life,” Fargo said. “Why there’s a cat just below this ridge that’s over three feet ...”
“Please—I don’t want to hear about it.”
“You’ll make a great pair.”
“What?”
“You and Buchanan, if you ever catch up with him again.”
“Catch up? What do you mean?”
“He’s quit the mountain for good. Whatever the trouble is down there, when it’s settled he’s lightin’ out.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Yep. Gonna stand me a drink in Frisco.”
The girl considered that, made no comment.
“Well, Fm off, mister,” she said. “Good-by.”
“Sure wish you’d wait till morning. Seems foolhardy to go down now.”
“I feel I’ve got to.”
“Good luck to you, then.”
She waved to him and started down.
When Billy Neale rode out of Mulchay’s yard toward Overlord he had the curious feeling he should be going in the opposite direction. There was something very peculiar about Gibbons’ behavior, and he was almost certain he had intercepted a signal between the captain and the gunman who rode with him.
“Is that a horse up ahead?” Malcolm Lord asked, breaking into his thoughts. Neale looked up the trail, and sure enough it was somebody’s mount—saddled, bridled and riderless. They came up to it, a chestnut mare that eyed them placidly, and Neale inspected her.
“Well, I’ll be damned—it’s got MacKay’s brand!”
“What’s it doing this far from home?” Lord asked. “I don’t like it, Mr. Lord. Suppose Rosemarie MacKay was riding her?”
