Drake shook his head and said, “I don’t like the sound of any of this. I just signed on to do a simple surveying job.”
“Once men start jockeying for money and power, there’s nothing simple about it,” Buckhorn said.
* * *
Since the surveyors didn’t try to stop him in Gunsight Canyon, Buckhorn rode on. He didn’t follow the trail toward Crater City, though, but angled northeast instead so he could bypass the settlement. By late afternoon he was in the foothills of the mountains where the Jim Dandy and Donegal mines were located.
Buckhorn didn’t want to run into any of Conroy’s men. There was a good chance by now that the word had spread about him “double-crossing” his employer. He didn’t know exactly what Madison had told Conroy, but it was bound to be bad, to paint him in the worst possible light.
Because of that, Buckhorn stayed away from the main trails and worked his way through the increasingly rugged terrain, following gullies and dropping below ridges and generally staying out of sight whenever he could.
He didn’t know this country well at all, but he relied on his instincts to keep him from getting lost. He was confident that he was headed in the right direction, and he was sure of it when a couple of men holding rifles stepped up on a slab of rock overlooking the narrow trail he was using.
One of them was Bannister, the man he had fought with at the Jim Dandy. When Bannister recognized Buckhorn, he let out a curse and started to raise the rifle.
Buckhorn’s Colt cleared leather well before Bannister got the Winchester to his shoulder.
“Careful,” Buckhorn snapped. “I don’t want to shoot you, mister, but I will if I have to.”
“Hold your fire, Buckhorn,” the other guard said. “Chuck, lower that rifle before he lets daylight through you.”
With obvious reluctance, Bannister lowered the rifle.
“We’re supposed to be guardin’ the place from Conroy’s men,” he complained. “This ain’t doin’ a very good job of it.”
“If Buckhorn was lookin’ for trouble, I doubt if he’d ride up out in the open like this,” the other man said. “How about it, Buckhorn? What do you want?”
“I need to talk to Hugh Thornton,” Buckhorn said without holstering his gun.
“Are you by yourself?”
“Do you see anybody else?”
“No, but that might not mean anything. Your job could be to distract us while the rest of Conroy’s men sneak past or get in position to ambush us.”
“I suppose that’s possible, except for two things. One is that I’ve never been a distraction in my life.” Buckhorn’s tone made it clear how farfetched that idea was. “The other is that I don’t work for Dennis Conroy anymore.”
The second guard’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at that revelation.
“Aw, don’t believe him,” Bannister said. “He’s probably lying through his teeth. You can’t trust anybody who’d ever work for Conroy.”
“What if he’d offered us more money first?” Bannister’s companion asked. “You think we wouldn’t have signed on with him?”
Bannister frowned but didn’t have an answer for that. They all knew the answer, anyway. Hired guns followed the money. That was the way Buckhorn had always lived . . . until recently.
“To show you I’m not looking for any trouble, I’ll put my gun away,” Buckhorn said. “I can get it back out again in a hurry, though, if I need it.”
“Reckon we just saw a demonstration of that,” the second guard said. “But yeah, go ahead. Bannister, you keep a tight rein on that temper of yours.”
Bannister mumbled something Buckhorn couldn’t make out. Clearly, he didn’t like it, but he kept his rifle pointed toward the ground as Buckhorn slid his revolver back into leather.
“All right,” the second guard said to Buckhorn. “You claim you want to palaver with the boss.”
“That’s right.”
“What about?”
“That’s between him and me,” Buckhorn said. “But I can tell you this much. He’ll want to talk to me.”
“You know that if you’re tryin’ some sort of trick, you’ll never get back out of there alive.”
“No tricks,” Buckhorn said.
“All right,” the man said, nodding as he reached a decision. “Wait here a minute. I’ll get my horse and ride the rest of the way with you. If you were to show up by yourself, the boys at the mine are liable to be suspicious. They might even get trigger happy. We don’t want that.”
“No,” Buckhorn agreed, “we don’t.”
He waited there with Bannister glaring at him while the other man went to fetch his horse. The second guard appeared a few minutes later, riding through a gap in the boulders that lined the trail. He nodded for Buckhorn to go ahead and fell in alongside him.
“My name’s Dowd,” he said. “Charlie Dowd.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Buckhorn said. “You were mixed up in that Mogollon war, over in Arizona.”
“Yep. Plenty of powder burned in that one, let me tell you. I’ve heard stories about you, too.”
“The bad ones are probably true.”
Dowd grinned and said, “They don’t tell any other kind about men like us, do they?”
It was another mile to the mine headquarters. A couple of times as they rode, Charlie Dowd took off his hat and waved it to let unseen watchers know that it was all right for him and Buckhorn to pass. Dowd was still fully armed and Buckhorn wasn’t holding a gun on him, so the guards had no reason to think that Dowd was being forced to cooperate.
Dusk wasn’t far off when the two men came in sight of the Jim Dandy. Yellow lamplight already glowed in some of the windows of the log building that housed Hugh Thornton’s home and office. As Buckhorn and Dowd approached, a big, shaggy brown dog stood up from where he was lying on the porch and started to bark. That drew Thornton from inside the house.
He had a rifle tucked under his arm as he stepped out onto the porch. He looked surprised to see Buckhorn, but not necessarily alarmed. Dowd’s presence meant that Buckhorn wasn’t looking for a fight.
“Mr. Buckhorn,” Thornton greeted him. “I didn’t expect to see you up here again, at least not so soon. Do you have a message from Conroy?”
Buckhorn shook his head and said, “Nope. I don’t work for Conroy anymore . . . not since Yancy Madison tried to have me killed.”
Now Thornton was really surprised, but he recovered quickly. He suggested, “Why don’t you come in, Mr. Buckhorn? I think you and I have some things to discuss. Perhaps we can be of help to each other.”
“That’s what I’m hoping,” Buckhorn said.
CHAPTER 21
“I was about to fix some supper for myself,” Thornton said as he ushered Buckhorn into the log house. “You’re welcome to join me if you’d like, but it won’t be anything fancy. Just steak and potatoes and some biscuits. And hot coffee, of course.”
“Sounds good to me,” Buckhorn said. Without being asked, he took off his bowler hat and hung it on a nail near the door, next to a broad-brimmed brown hat he assumed was Thornton’s.
“Make yourself at home,” Thornton went on. “There are some cigars in that humidor on the table, if you’re of a mind.”
Buckhorn nodded, said, “Obliged,” and took out one of the cigars. He didn’t smoke much, but as he ran the cylinder of tobacco under his nose, he could tell it was a fine cigar. He bit off the end, set fire to the gasper, and then looked around the room.
The place was comfortably furnished with Navaho rugs on the floors and heavy wooden furniture made from the same sort of logs that formed the walls. On one side of the room was a massive stone fireplace with a set of horns from a bighorn sheep mounted above it. Most of the space on the opposite wall was taken up by a large desk and a set of bookshelves filled with thick, leather-bound volumes on mining, geology, and related subjects. The desk was covered with papers and ledgers, and while it was cluttered, it managed to not be messy. Thornton probably k
new exactly where everything was.
Thornton had left the room. He came back with a cup of coffee that he handed to Buckhorn, who asked, “You don’t eat in the mess hall with your men?”
“That depends. Sometimes I do. I’m not the sort of man to lord it over anybody, but they don’t forget who’s the boss around here, either.”
“How about Bannister, Dowd, and the rest of the men who are here to pack guns, not swing pickaxes?”
“The same holds true for them. It’s all honest work, isn’t it?”
“You’d get an argument from some people about that.”
“A gun is a tool, just like a shovel or a pickax, and the man who wields one can be just as important to a mine’s operation as anyone else.” Thornton’s voice hardened. “I like to think I’m a reasonable, civilized man, Mr. Buckhorn, but I won’t be pushed around, and when somebody tries to force me into a corner, I’ll fight.”
“The way Dennis Conroy is doing, you mean?”
“If he’s successful with that spur line, he’ll ruin me,” Thornton said. “He’ll be able to bring in supplies and ship his ore out a lot cheaper than I can, and he’ll plow those extra profits into making life miserable for me.”
“Won’t you do the same thing to him if you get your railroad in here first?”
“Actually, whether you want to believe it or not, I wouldn’t. I think there’s more money to be made in the long run by cooperating with Conroy. He’ll never see it that way, though. When he competes with a man, he has to crush him. That’s the only way Conroy knows how to operate.”
“From what I’ve seen so far, you’re probably right about that.” Buckhorn paused. “He likes to have somebody else do most of the dirty work for him, though.”
“That’s where men like you come in.”
“And men who work for you,” Buckhorn said with a note of harshness in his voice. “Men like Ernie Gratton and Bannister and Dowd. They’re hired guns, too, no better and no worse than the men who work for Conroy.”
“I’d like to think that’s not true,” Thornton said tightly.
“Think whatever you want.”
For a moment, a tense silence hung between them. Thornton broke it by saying, “You mentioned something about Yancy Madison trying to have you killed. I take it there was some sort of falling-out between you? Or did Conroy issue the order?”
“I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think Conroy had anything to do with it. Madison’s playing his own game.”
Thornton nodded slowly.
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s always smiling, always so charming and affable, but the man’s a snake. Anyone would be a fool to trust him. Why did he turn on you?”
“Because I was poking into things he thought I shouldn’t, and then to make matters worse, I didn’t throw in with him on double-crossing Conroy when he sounded me out about it.”
Thornton’s eyes widened. He said, “Madison really is playing his own game, isn’t he? But I don’t understand. He hasn’t approached me about coming over to my side.”
“That’s because he’s not interested in being on your side. He plans to marry Alexis Conroy and then get her father out of the way, so he’ll control Conroy’s little empire.”
“Good Lord!” The exclamation was startled out of Thornton. “Alexis would never do that, not after she promised me—”
He stopped short, looked like he wished he hadn’t said as much. Buckhorn regarded him intently for a moment, then laughed.
“You and Alexis Conroy? Oh, now, that’s a good one.”
Thornton’s face flushed. He said, “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Not at all. In fact, I sort of believe you. To tell you the truth, I’m not even really that surprised. I guess there’s a reason nobody’s ever really been able to pin down which side Alexis is on.” Buckhorn took a sip of the coffee. “Seems like she’s playing both of them against the middle.”
Thornton took a step toward him and said through clenched teeth, “I ought to—”
“No, you really shouldn’t,” Buckhorn said. “I don’t give a damn whether anything’s going on between you and Alexis. Like I told you, I’m not surprised. You’re a little old for her, but that’s none of my business.”
“The whole thing is none of your business.”
“True enough.”
“What is it you want from me, Buckhorn? Why are you really here? Are you looking for a job?”
“I collected enough from Conroy before I ever got here to pay me for my time,” Buckhorn said coolly. “From here on out, I’m working for myself. But I could use your help.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Oh, it’ll cause problems for Conroy, too. You’ll come out ahead on the deal.”
Thornton shook his head and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There are some folks down on the other side of the Mesteños who are in a bad fix. Conroy’s trying to sweep them aside. If we can help them hold out, that’ll delay Conroy’s railroad project. And any delay for Conroy ought to be good for you.”
Thornton looked interested now. He said, “Tell me more.”
Over the next few minutes, and then during their supper (which was good but not fancy, as Thornton had promised), Buckhorn told the mine owner about how Conroy had acquired the right-of-way for his railroad.
“I don’t have any proof that would stand up in a court of law that Conroy’s men were responsible for the raids on all those ranches south of the Mesteños, and even less proof that Conroy knew what they were doing,” Buckhorn concluded. “But I’ve seen and heard enough to be convinced.”
“Of course it’s true,” Thornton said as he leaned back in his chair. “That’s exactly the way Conroy operates. I’ve seen it over and over again. He’ll get the best of a rival legally, if he can. If he can’t, he’ll bend the law more and more. And if that doesn’t work . . . well, something bad happens to whoever it is who’s in his way.”
“Like Matthew Garrett at the newspaper.”
Thornton’s jaw tightened enough to create trenches in his deeply tanned face.
“Matt Garrett was a good man, a good newspaperman,” Thornton declared. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”
“You own the paper, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“So I suppose you’re the one who had him investigate Conroy’s operation.”
Thornton shook his head and said, “I didn’t have to tell him to do that. Matt did it on his own, because of the sort of journalist he was. In fact, I warned him that maybe he’d better not poke around too much in Conroy’s affairs. I didn’t trust Conroy, and obviously I was right not to.”
“Did Garrett ever tell you about any of the evidence he’d dug up?”
Thornton grimaced.
“No, Matt always liked to play things close to the vest until he had all the facts lined up. I don’t know what he had. I searched the newspaper office after Matt was attacked. His nephew Edward and I both did. But the place was really torn up. Whatever Matt found, it’s possible Conroy’s men took it with them after they pistol-whipped him.”
“But again, of course, there’s no proof it was Conroy’s men.”
Thornton’s hands clenched into big, rugged fists. He might own the Jim Dandy now, but he looked like a man who had swung many a pickax and sledgehammer in his life.
“We both know it was,” he said flatly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if Madison himself was in charge of the attack.”
Buckhorn shrugged in an indication that he felt the same way.
After a moment, Thornton went on, “You said you wanted to ask me for my help, Mr. Buckhorn . . .”
“I want to take some of your men back down to the Calvert ranch,” Buckhorn said. “Conroy’s not going to let what happened pass. He’ll hit the C Cross harder than ever next time.”
“But doesn’t he hold title to the ranch?”
“Technically.
”
“Then he has a legal right to take possession of it, whether we like it or not. And I assure you, I don’t like it. From the sound of it, those people deserve better.”
“If Conroy had something to do with the rustling that kept Ned Calvert from paying off his note, the law wouldn’t look kindly on him moving in and grabbing the land. If you know anybody in Santa Fe, you might want to send them a wire and see if you can get the territorial government interested in taking a look at what’s been going on around here.” Buckhorn paused. “Unless you’ve been doing things you don’t particularly want the light of day shone on, either.”
Thornton let out a bark of laughter, then said, “I’ve bent my share of rules along the way, I suppose, but I can stand to have the law looking into my operation. That’s a good idea, Buckhorn. I’ll send a rider to Fletcher’s Crossing in the morning with a wire to send to the capital.”
“How about letting me have some men to take back to the C Cross with me?”
“That would just be asking for more trouble from Conroy, wouldn’t it?”
“The two of you already declared war on each other.” Buckhorn spread his hands. “How much worse can it get?”
Thornton laughed again.
“You’re right. I suppose I can spare a few men. How many do you need?”
“Four good men ought to be enough. I’d like for Charlie Dowd to be one of them. And for Bannister not to be. He’s carrying too big a grudge for me to want him at my back with a gun.”
“All right. When do you plan to leave? First thing in the morning?”
“I’d rather go tonight.”
“That’s pretty quick,” Thornton said with a frown.
“I don’t expect Conroy to let much grass grow under his feet.”
“You’re probably right about that. You’ll need a fresh horse, too, won’t you?”
Buckhorn nodded and said, “I’d be obliged.”
Once the two men had reached agreement, it didn’t take long to put the plan into action. Thornton led Buckhorn out to the bunkhouse used by the hired guns. Some of them were out standing guard on the trails that led to the mine, but Dowd was there, and when he found out what Buckhorn wanted, he nodded eagerly.
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