Buckhorn

by William W. Johnstone

  Hoofbeats and shouts sounded not far away. The men from Crater City were still after him, and for the moment he was unarmed. He looked around for the Colt, tension drawing his nerves taut as he did so.

  He knew the gun couldn’t have gone far when he dropped it, and less than a minute later he spied a shape on the ground that had him pouncing for it. He felt better immediately as soon as his hand closed around the Colt’s grips.

  He had lost his hat, too, but he didn’t take the time to look for it. Finding the gun was a lot more important.

  “Son of a bitch!” a man called. “He must’ve ridden right off into the crater!”

  “Listen!” another searcher replied. “That sounds like an injured horse.”

  The horse wasn’t making as much racket now, but the animal was still obviously in pain. Buckhorn wished he could put the horse out of its misery, but the gunshot needed to do that would bring his enemies down on him right away.

  He crouched next to a scrubby mesquite instead, hoping its shadow would conceal him. The floor of the crater was dotted with the bushlike trees. Buckhorn slid among them as he tried to put some distance between himself and the horse.

  His pursuers had mounts. He needed to get his hands on one of them and continue his journey to Hugh Thornton’s mine.

  Otherwise his battle against Conroy and Madison would come to an end here in this crater, this mark in the earth where some celestial force in ages past had struck a blow against the planet. Disaster had rained down from the heavens that day, and now it was poised to strike again—on a much smaller scale, of course. That thought put a grim smile on Buckhorn’s lips as he ghosted through the darkness.

  “Over here!”

  “Careful, boys! That redskin’s a killer!”

  The shouts allowed Buckhorn to avoid the searchers. He reached the edge of the crater and moved along its curving face. The slope wasn’t sheer; he would be able to climb out without any trouble.

  A shot cracked somewhere behind him. The horse’s cries of pain stilled. Buckhorn grimaced. The animal had deserved a better fate. At least the horse wasn’t hurting anymore.

  Most people didn’t get the fate they truly deserved, he mused. Otherwise there would be a lot more suffering in the world. But at least that way more of the suffering would land on the people who had it coming.

  “Spread out!” a man ordered. “But be careful. Don’t get too far apart.”

  Buckhorn nodded in the darkness. They were searching the bottom of the crater for him, so they were probably on foot. More than likely, they had left their horses up on the flats, with one man to hold them.

  That was the man Buckhorn wanted to find.

  He climbed up the short slope and pulled himself onto level ground, stretching out on his belly as he waited for a shout to tell him if he’d been spotted. When he didn’t hear anything, he crawled away from the edge, then came up on hands and knees and looked around.

  Somewhere off to his right, horses stamped and blew. Buckhorn started in that direction, staying low so the scrub brush would conceal his movements, at least to a certain extent. After a few minutes, he spotted the horses up ahead. Their dark bulks stood out against the lighter-colored terrain around them.

  A whiff of tobacco smoke drifted to him. The man who had been left with the horses had rolled himself a quirley. That wasn’t a very smart thing to do. Buckhorn figured he was dealing with a townsman or a miner, not a professional gunman.

  It was quite likely that Dennis Conroy had put a bounty on his head, in addition to sending Madison and the rest of the hired killers after him. The promise of that payoff would have half the men in the area gunning for him, at least. Maybe more.

  Buckhorn had faced steep odds before, but these were some of the steepest.

  One thing at a time, though. That was the way to proceed. Right now, the most important goal was to get his hands on a horse.

  He dropped back to hands and knees as he approached the horses and the man guarding them. Buckhorn moved in absolute silence. He knew he could get close to the sentry without the man ever knowing he was there, but the horses were a different story. If anything gave him away, it would be one of them.

  As Buckhorn moved behind the guard, he was breathing so shallowly he almost wasn’t breathing at all. He braced himself with a hand, got a foot underneath him, and rose as his gun whispered out of its holster. He stepped closer and lifted the Colt to strike . . .

  That was when one of the horses spooked, just like Buckhorn had worried might happen.

  The horse must have smelled him. It whinnied, pulled hard against the reins as the guard held them, and tried to rear up. The man exclaimed, “Whoa! Whoa there, you—”

  As he did that, he turned enough to catch sight of Buckhorn from the corner of his eye. The man tried to twist out of the way as the gun fell. He couldn’t avoid the blow entirely, but it landed on his shoulder instead of his head. He yelled in pain, then bellowed, “Up here! He’s up here!”

  The guard had the reins of all six horses in his left hand. With his right he clawed at the gun on his hip. Buckhorn lunged and struck again just as the man cleared leather. This time the Colt thudded solidly against the man’s head, denting his hat and knocking him to his knees. Buckhorn kicked the man in the face and then made a grab for the reins as the man let go of them.

  The sentry sprawled on his back, senseless from the kick. Buckhorn managed to get hold of one set of reins. The horse tried to jerk away from him, but Buckhorn held on for dear life, even when the skittish animal almost pulled him off his feet.

  The other horses were already scattering. Buckhorn knew that if he failed to catch this one, he would be left on foot with several men nearby who wanted to kill him. They would be afoot, too, but that wouldn’t lessen the odds against him.

  He jammed the Colt back in its holster, then used both hands on the reins to haul the horse’s head back down. He had only moments before the other men charged up and opened fire. Talking quietly but urgently to the horse, he tried to calm the animal down.

  As soon as it stopped jumping around enough, Buckhorn got a foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle.

  The horse steadied even more at feeling the weight of a man on its back, as it was accustomed to. Buckhorn tightened his grip on the reins and dug his boot heels into the animal’s flanks. The horse leaped forward and broke into a run.

  Back toward the crater, shots slammed through the night as the rest of the hunting party emerged from the depression. Buckhorn wasn’t really worried about them hitting him, but he hunkered forward anyway and urged the horse on to greater speed. They were already out of handgun range, but he wanted more distance between himself and his pursuers.

  Rifles began to crack. The horse never broke stride, and Buckhorn didn’t hear any bullets come close to him. He rode hard toward the mountains looming to the north.

  After a while, there were no more shots behind him.

  But he had no way of knowing what trouble might still lie ahead.

  * * *

  It helped that he had been through the area where the Jim Dandy mine was located, and one of the trips had even been at night like this. He was able to find where he needed to go. The hour was late, probably after midnight, by the time he arrived in the vicinity of the mine.

  Buckhorn fully expected Hugh Thornton to have guards posted. He hoped they wouldn’t have itchy trigger fingers. The last time he had left here, he had been on friendly terms with Thornton—well, maybe “friendly” was too strong a word, he reflected—but at the very least they considered each other allies.

  As long as the guards gave Buckhorn a chance to identify himself, he didn’t think they would start shooting.

  He estimated he was within half a mile of the mine, riding along a narrow trail between a pair of twelve-foot-high rocky bluffs that made the horse’s hoofbeats echo, when the challenge came.

  “Hold it right there, mister!” a man shouted from the darkness. As Buckhorn
reined in, his eyes searched the shadows, but he couldn’t see the guard.

  “You’re covered,” a second man warned. “Don’t try anything, or we’ll open fire.”

  Buckhorn said, “Take it easy. I’m a friend.”

  “Anybody can claim that without it bein’ true. Who are you, mister?”

  “Joe Buckhorn.”

  That drew a startled curse from one of the men. He continued by shouting, “Drop your guns! Drop ’em right now!”

  Buckhorn didn’t obey the order. Instead he said, “What the hell’s the matter with you? I told you, I’m not looking for trouble—”

  “Get him!” one of the unseen men shouted.

  Buckhorn heard boot leather scrape on the rocky bluff to his right. He twisted in the saddle and looked up in time to see a man plunging toward him in a daring leap from the top of the bluff. The hurtling shape blotted out the stars like a bird of prey dropping from the heavens on a hapless victim.

  Buckhorn was far from a victim. He didn’t want to start a shoot-out and lose the few potential allies he had in this part of the territory, so he jabbed his heels into the horse’s flanks, hoping the animal would leap ahead and carry him out of the path of that diving tackle.

  With a half-second’s more warning, it might have worked. As it was, even though the man hit the horse’s rump behind the saddle, he was able to reach out, loop an arm around Buckhorn’s neck, and drag Buckhorn to the ground with him.

  Both men hit hard. The horse, spooked again, jumped away from them as Buckhorn rolled over and tried to surge to his feet.

  The other man came up with him, and came up swinging. Buckhorn leaned away from the punch, but it still clipped him on the side of the head with enough force to stagger him. As he caught himself, he said, “Wait a minute! There’s no need to fight—”

  Another man landed on his back, knocking him forward. Buckhorn managed to stay on his feet, but the attacker wrapped his legs around his waist and tried to get a stranglehold on his neck.

  “I’ve got him!” the second man yelled. “I’ve got him!”

  He was too optimistic. Buckhorn twisted around and drove himself backward, ramming the man against the bluff. The man said, “Ooof!” and lost his grip with arms and legs. As he slipped down, Buckhorn kicked out behind him like a mule and caught the man in the jaw, snapping his head around.

  Boot leather slapped on the trail as more men charged toward Buckhorn. One of them shouted, “Don’t kill him! The boss wants him alive!”

  That made Buckhorn wonder for a second if these men worked for Conroy instead of Thornton. That didn’t really make sense, this close to the Jim Dandy, but he didn’t know why Thornton’s men would be attacking him like this.

  After that he didn’t have time to ponder the question, because figures closed in all around him and he found himself in the middle of a melee. His fists flew every which way, smacking into bone, sinking into bellies, landing with enough force to send shivers up his arms.

  He took some punishment, too, as he was battered back and forth. He struggled to stay on his feet, because he knew if he went down, they might stomp the daylights out of him, even though they were supposed to take him alive. They could do a lot of damage without killing him.

  Buckhorn couldn’t be sure how many opponents he had. Three or four, at least. He smashed one man in the face and sent him flying backward, but as he did that, another man hit him in the small of the back and made his spine arch in pain. He knew he’d be pissing blood for a couple of days—if he lived that long.

  The pain made him even more furious. He let out a whoop, not caring which side of his ancestry was coming to the fore now. An elbow came up under the chin of a man battling with him and jerked the hombre’s head back so far his neck must have come close to snapping. The fella collapsed.

  That left two of the enemy on their feet. They drew back slightly. Buckhorn was glad for the brief respite. It gave him a chance to catch his breath a little.

  He was about to lunge forward and take the fight to the other two when hoofbeats suddenly thundered on the trail. Several riders came into view, charging around a bend in the path. One of them carried a torch high over his head. The garish light splashed over the trail and caught Buckhorn in its glare.

  “Hold it!” a familiar voice ordered. “I don’t want to blow a knee out from under you, Buckhorn, but I’ll do it if I have to!”

  With his chest heaving and his fists hanging in front of him, Buckhorn stood there and squinted up at the riders as they reined to a halt a few yards away. The one in the lead pointed a long-barreled Remington revolver at him. His whiskery face was set in grim lines instead of his usual affable expression.

  “Woodrow,” Buckhorn said. “What—”

  “Grab him, boys, and tie his hands behind his back!” the old-timer ordered.

  The guards who were still on their feet moved in on Buckhorn and were joined by a couple of the riders who had galloped up with Woodrow. Buckhorn recognized one of them as Sid, the miner he had laid out with one punch the night he’d arrived in Crater City. That had been only a few days earlier, but it seemed a lot longer than that to Buckhorn.

  “Sorry, Buckhorn,” Sid muttered. He grabbed Buckhorn’s left arm and twisted it behind his back. One of the other men had his right arm in the same position. He felt rawhide thongs looped around his wrists and drawn tight.

  “Woodrow, what the hell is this?” Buckhorn demanded. “I thought Thornton and I were on the same side.”

  “So did he,” Woodrow said, “but now you’re gonna be lucky if he don’t find the tallest tree he can and string you up from it!”

  CHAPTER 32

  When Buckhorn’s hands were tied securely behind his back, his captors lifted him onto the back of a horse. Woodrow took the reins.

  “You’re not going to tell me what this is all about?” Buckhorn asked.

  “I reckon you know,” the old-timer said curtly. “If you don’t, you’ll find out soon enough, the minute Hugh Thornton gets his hands on you.”

  The other men mounted up and they headed for the Jim Dandy mine, leaving the battered guards behind them.

  “At least tell me how you knew I was out here tangling with those guards,” Buckhorn said. “I can’t figure out how come you showed up right when you did.”

  “Shoot, that’s easy enough,” Woodrow said. “There are guards on every trail leadin’ to the mine, and every bunch has a bull’s-eye lantern with ’em. The boss has fellas watchin’ for a signal back at the mine. One of those boys climbed up high enough to flash a warnin’ to us before he jumped into the fracas.”

  “You make it sound like you were expecting me to show up.”

  “Not expectin’, maybe, but Mr. Thornton thought you might come to the mine and try to pull another fast one.”

  “Another fast one?” Buckhorn repeated. “What in blazes does that mean? I’ve played it straight with Thornton. I haven’t lied to him about anything.”

  Woodrow frowned over at Buckhorn and said, “I wouldn’t go talkin’ like that to him if I was you. He’s a levelheaded hombre most of the time, but right now he’s liable to blow up if you give him any excuse. If he does, he’ll probably just shoot you.” Woodrow paused, then added, “And I can’t say as anybody would blame him.”

  Buckhorn was baffled as to what the old-timer was talking about, but as he thought about it, an ominous idea began to form in his brain. After they had ridden on for a short time, he said, “This is about Alexis Conroy, isn’t it?”

  “You best shut your mouth,” Woodrow said. “Most folks in these parts set a heap of store by that gal, even the ones who think her pa is a lowdown bastard.”

  “Is she dead?” Buckhorn asked in a flinty voice.

  “No . . . but Doc Cranford says it’s touch-and-go whether she’ll live or not. He thinks her chances are pretty slim.”

  That news put a bitter taste in Buckhorn’s mouth. He didn’t really want to ask the other question that was on his m
ind, but he had to know.

  “What about Edward Garrett?”

  “The boy’s dead.”

  Buckhorn grimaced at that flat declaration, then sighed. He wasn’t surprised by what Woodrow had just told him, but he’d been clinging to the hope that Edward had pulled through somehow.

  Edward’s death and Alexis’s shooting were two more scores to settle with Yancy Madison and Dennis Conroy, Buckhorn thought—if he lived long enough.

  After only a few more minutes of riding, they came in sight of the mine. The main house, Thornton’s headquarters, was ablaze with light. As the riders drew up in front of the building, the big, shaggy dog on the porch stood up and growled, as if it, too, blamed Buckhorn for everything that had happened.

  The door swung open and Hugh Thornton stepped out of the house. His face was haggard and washed out. He looked like he had aged ten years since Buckhorn had seen him last. He stared coldly at Buckhorn and said, “I thought you might show up here and try to feed me another passel of lies.”

  “I never lied to you, Thornton,” Buckhorn said. “And I didn’t shoot Alexis Conroy or kill Edward Garrett.”

  “It’s all over Crater City that you did.”

  “The people who are spreading those stories, they’re the ones who are lying! Who’s making all those claims? Yancy Madison?” Buckhorn let out a harsh laugh. “Good Lord, why would you believe him?”

  “Madison’s not the only one. Other people saw you gun down Alexis. Ernie Gratton, for one.”

  Buckhorn drew in a sharp breath. He hadn’t expected that revelation. Why would Gratton, who worked for Hugh Thornton, support Madison’s lie?

  Buckhorn didn’t have any idea, but he understood better now why Thornton felt the way he did. Gratton was his man and wouldn’t lie to him. Unless . . .

  “Gratton’s sold out,” Buckhorn said. “Conroy got to him and paid him off to back up Madison’s story. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

  “No, the only explanation that makes any sense is that you’ve gone kill-crazy,” Thornton snapped. He lifted a hand and gestured wearily. “Take him and lock him up in the toolshed. No, wait. He might get his hands on something he could use to cut himself loose.” Thornton thought for a second, then said, “Put him in the powder magazine.”