Finally, Conroy said, “All right, I’m going to take your word for it, Thornton, although it goes against the grain to trust you. If I ever find out that you lied to me about this, though, you’ll regret it. This goes far beyond our business rivalry.”
“Business rivalry,” Thornton repeated. “That’s a nice way of putting it. I see it more as trying to stop a crook from taking over completely.”
“You’re a fine one to talk,” Conroy said with a sneer in his voice. “After the way you’ve been shooting up my survey crew for weeks now.”
“You’re crazy, Conroy,” Thornton snapped. “My men haven’t bothered your surveyors. We’ve been too busy protecting ourselves from all of your schemes.”
Buckhorn frowned slightly. Thornton sounded like he was telling the truth. Lorna McChesney had been responsible for bushwhacking Drake and the other surveyors, that first day Buckhorn had been out in Gunsight Canyon, but there had been other attacks on the crew and she had assured him that neither she nor any of the other ranchers had been involved in them. Buckhorn believed her, just like he believed Neal Drake when the man mentioned the other violent incidents.
Neither of them had had any real reason to lie.
But that left the question: who had been taking potshots at Conroy’s surveyors?
“Just don’t go pretending that you’re perched on some sort of moral high ground,” Conroy continued. “You’re just as shady and ruthless as—”
He stopped short before he accused Thornton of carrying out as much wrongdoing as he had been up to.
“Let’s go,” Conroy snapped at Madison.
“I still think you’re making a mistake,” the gunman said. “Thornton will back down if you push him.”
“Try it, Madison,” Thornton said. “See what it gets you.”
Buckhorn heard hoofbeats and the rattle of buggy wheels as Conroy turned the vehicle and started to drive away. The gunmen went with him, reluctantly. Madison called over his shoulder, “You haven’t heard the end of this, Thornton!”
“There won’t be an end,” Thornton muttered in a voice that Madison probably couldn’t hear, but Buckhorn and Woodrow could. “Not until it’s settled in lead.”
* * *
Thornton waited until Conroy and his men were out of sight, headed back down the trail to Crater City, before he came into the house. He looked at Buckhorn and said, “I guess you heard everything.”
“Yeah, you did fine,” Buckhorn said with a nod.
“I told him we oughta just go ahead and have it out with them scoundrels,” Woodrow put in. “Buckhorn’s got it in his head he’s gonna get even with Conroy and Madison all legal-like, though.” The old-timer blew out a disgusted breath. “Seems like a pretty risky way to deal with a couple o’ snakes like them two.”
“No, I agree with Buckhorn.” Thornton went over to his desk, picked up a pipe that was sitting there, and began packing it with tobacco from a leather pouch that was also on the desk. “What’s your plan for getting Matthew Garrett out of town?”
“Some of your men go into Crater City almost every night, don’t they?” Buckhorn asked.
“They do,” Thornton said.
“I drive ’em in, most times,” Woodrow added. “But you already know that, since that’s how we met up the first time.”
Buckhorn nodded.
“I’m thinking that in some work clothes and maybe an old hat, I won’t stand out nearly as much as I usually do. If I can blend in with some of your miners, I can get to Miss Quinn’s. Then Amos can bring the wagon down there and we’ll hide Matthew Garrett in the back of it. He’ll ride back up here with the rest of us later in the evening.”
Thornton nodded slowly and said, “That sounds like it might work. What do we do then, assuming the plan with Garrett goes off without a hitch?”
Buckhorn looked at Woodrow and said, “Then it’ll be up to Amos to be a talkative old-timer and spill all our secrets the next time he goes into Crater City.”
Woodrow glared at him and blustered, “What the hell do you mean by that? I ain’t some gabby old pelican who can’t be trusted to keep a secret!”
“You don’t understand,” Buckhorn said. “We don’t want you to keep it a secret that Garrett is here. We want Conroy and Madison to get wind of that fact. We also want them to hear that a United States marshal is on his way to the Jim Dandy to hear Garrett’s testimony.”
Thornton said, “I had a man ride down to Fletcher’s Crossing to send a wire to the territorial capital, but I haven’t gotten any response yet.”
Buckhorn dismissed that with a wave of the hand.
“Doesn’t matter, as long as Conroy and Madison believe that they’re running out of time and have to strike quickly to silence Garrett. When Madison makes his try, he’ll be playing into our hands. We’ll be ready for him.”
Woodrow threw his hands in the air and exclaimed, “You had both of ’em just a-sittin’ out there a little while ago, where you could’a shot ’em! What’s the difference?”
“I want Madison to have an attempted murder charge hanging over his head. That way we can force him to testify that Conroy knew about the rustling and the raids on those ranches. If we can prove that Conroy got his hands on them by illegal means, the court will restore those spreads to their rightful owners.”
Woodrow shook his head and said in exasperation, “I never seen nobody who done such fancy figurin’. Seems to me a fella like you would go in more for shootin’.”
“I reckon there’ll be plenty of that before it’s over,” Buckhorn said.
* * *
In a pair of canvas trousers, a homespun shirt, thick-soled work shoes, and a battered old brown hat, Buckhorn looked almost nothing like the nattily dressed gunman who had ridden into Crater City days earlier. When he pulled the hat brim down some to partially obscure his face, he was even more nondescript.
“Put you in a wagon with a bunch of miners, and it’s unlikely anybody will recognize you,” Thornton said late that afternoon as Woodrow was outside hitching up the wagon team for the trip to town. “Especially if you sort of keep to yourself.”
“That’s the idea,” Buckhorn said. He picked up Ernie Gratton’s revolver from the table and slid it into the waistband of the trousers at the small of his back. He tucked in the shirttails loosely around it to conceal the weapon. He already had a couple of dozen extra cartridges in his pockets.
“All right, I’m sending half a dozen men with you,” Thornton went on. “Sid asked to be one of them. Oddly enough, it seems like you made a friend when you walloped him that first night in town.”
“I reckon Sid appreciates an hombre who can throw a good punch,” Buckhorn said with a smile.
“That’s about the size of it,” Thornton agreed. “Amos will drop you at the saloon with the others. You can make your way from there to Miss Quinn’s without being spotted, can’t you?”
Buckhorn nodded.
“I’ll have to,” he said. “The whole plan sort of depends on it.”
“Amos will get a cup of coffee at the café, then take the wagon and head for the whorehouse. That ought to give you time to get there and get everything squared away.”
Again, Buckhorn nodded. He said, “I’ll wrap up Garrett in a blanket and we’ll put him in the back of the wagon. Then Amos will pick up the others, and we’ll head back here. With any luck, none of this will take very long.”
Thornton frowned slightly. This wasn’t the first time they had gone over the plan, and every time this same point seemed to bother him a little.
“That’s going to look odd, the men leaving the saloon so soon after they get there.”
“It can’t be helped,” Buckhorn said. “The longer we have to keep Garrett hidden in the wagon, the bigger the risk.”
“I know,” Thornton said with a nod and a sigh. “I just don’t want anything to go wrong.” His hands clenched into fists. “Conroy and Madison have to get what’s coming to them. After all the harm t
hey’ve done to so many people—including Alexis, because she never would have been hurt if it weren’t for them—they can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
Thornton had played a part in creating the atmosphere that had resulted in Alexis Conroy’s shooting, Buckhorn thought, but he didn’t see that any purpose would be served in pointing that out to the mine owner. Anyway, there was a good chance Thornton already knew it and just didn’t want to admit it, even to himself.
He would have to live with that knowledge from now on, though.
Just as Buckhorn had to live with the knowledge of all the things he had done in his life that had brought pain and grief to people. Some of them had even been innocent people . . .
Amos Woodrow came into the house and reported, “The team’s hitched up and ready to go, and Sid and all the other fellas are climbin’ into the wagon now. How about you, Joe?”
Buckhorn nodded, tugged down the brim of the old hat, and said, “Let’s head for Crater City.”
CHAPTER 36
Thornton had explained the plan to the miners picked to go into town. A couple of them still looked at Buckhorn suspiciously, as if they couldn’t decide whether or not to trust him.
But Sid clapped a strong hand on Buckhorn’s shoulder as the wagon started rolling toward Crater City. He said, “I’m glad we get to fight on the same side this time, Joe.”
“If we’re lucky, there won’t be a fight tonight,” Buckhorn said. “I’d rather get in and out of town without Conroy or any of his men knowing I’ve been there.”
“Yeah, but sooner or later there’ll be a fight, won’t there?”
“Oh, I reckon you can count on that,” Buckhorn said. He smiled. “Especially if Amos does his job right later on, after we’ve got Garrett back up at the mine.”
From the driver’s seat, Woodrow said in an aggrieved tone, “I heard that, dagnabbit! If you think I can’t do the job, you shouldn’t’a given it to me.”
“I never said I think you can’t do it,” Buckhorn told the old-timer. “I think you’ll do just fine. Otherwise I might not have ever come up with the plan in the first place.”
Woodrow snorted and said, “Just don’t go a-doubtin’ me.”
“Never,” Buckhorn promised. Beside him, Sid chuckled.
After that, there wasn’t much talk as the wagon continued on toward Crater City. When the men had started out from the Jim Dandy, the western sky had still been rosy from the recent sunset. By the time the wagon reached the flats, full night had fallen and the lights of the settlement were visible in the distance, twinkling like very low-hanging stars. Because the night air was dry, the ground quickly gave up the heat of the day.
Buckhorn felt his nerves tightening as they approached Crater City. The last time he’d been here, things hadn’t gone at all the way he had hoped they would. This business of trying to do the right thing was sure as hell complicated, he mused. Not giving a damn about anybody except himself had been a hell of a lot simpler and easier.
He knew that he could never go back to the way he had been, though. He had to figure out a way to be like this, or die trying.
The wagon rumbled into town with its load of hard-rock men—and one gunfighter in disguise. Woodrow brought the vehicle to a stop at the corner of the Irish Rose, close to the mouth of the alley that ran beside the saloon. The men began piling out.
Using their movements to conceal his own, Buckhorn slipped into the black shadows of the alley. It would have taken a mighty keen observer to notice that seven men had climbed out of the wagon but only six trooped into the saloon, laughing and talking boisterously as they did so. Buckhorn was already gliding through the stygian darkness next to the building.
He had wandered around the back streets and alleys of Crater City enough while carrying out his previous plan—his failed plan, he reminded himself bitterly—that he had no trouble finding his way to Miss Quinn’s. He was confident that no one spotted him during the stealthy trip.
Buckhorn found himself at the whorehouse’s back door again. He knew that Abner, the big black handyman, usually stayed in the kitchen during the evening, drinking coffee, unless there was trouble somewhere in the house that required his attention. Because of that, Buckhorn knocked softly on the door and hoped that Abner was there to hear the rapping.
A moment later, the door swung open, and Abner’s deep voice began, “You need to go around to the front—”
“It’s me, Abner,” Buckhorn interrupted. “Joe Buckhorn.”
Abner stepped out onto the stoop and frowned at him.
“You look a mite different than you did the last time I seen you,” he said.
“There’s a good reason for that,” Buckhorn said. “I didn’t want to be noticed as I came into town.”
Abner grunted and said, “I reckon not, the way folks are upset with you for gunnin’ down Miss Conroy and young Mr. Garrett. If I’d done that, I wouldn’t want to be noticed, neither.”
“I didn’t do either of those things,” Buckhorn snapped. “Madison or another of Conroy’s men did.”
“Not many folks around here gonna believe that.”
“Probably not, but it’s the truth, and I can prove it if people will give me a chance. I need to talk to Miss Quinn.”
For a second, Buckhorn thought Abner was going to tell him to go to hell and shut the door in his face. But then the big man shrugged and stepped back.
“Come on inside,” he said. “Don’t want nobody seein’ you lurkin’ around back here. You stay here in the kitchen while I fetch Miss Quinn.”
“That’s just what I had in mind,” Buckhorn assured him.
He went inside and Abner closed the door behind him. The handyman gave him another suspicious glare and then left the kitchen through a door that led to a rear set of stairs.
Buckhorn heard music, talk, and laughter from elsewhere in the house. One of the soiled doves was probably playing the piano in the parlor.
He wondered if Sandra was occupied tonight. It was likely that she was. He didn’t feel any jealousy at that thought. A man would have to be a fool to feel jealous because a whore was going on about her business.
Just like a gunman had to go on about his business.
A pot of coffee sat on the stove. While Buckhorn waited, he found a cup in one of the cabinets and poured some of the hot, black brew for himself. It was potent stuff, and its bracing effect was more than welcome.
He was standing beside the stove, drinking the coffee, when a sudden step sounded behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a man in range clothes standing just inside the kitchen. The newcomer had entered from the hallway leading to the front of the house.
Buckhorn kept his face carefully expressionless. His hat was still pulled down, shielding his features to a certain extent. He saw the way the man swayed back and forth. That indicated to Buckhorn that the stranger had had quite a bit to drink.
“Something I can do for you, friend?” Buckhorn asked quietly. He had the cup in his left hand. Unobtrusively, he shifted his right hand so he could reach behind his back and pluck the revolver from his waistband if he needed to.
“Is this . . . th’ kitchen?” the cowboy asked. The slur in his voice went right along with the sway.
“That’s right.”
“Reckon I . . . must’a got turned around. I was . . . lookin’ for the parlor.”
“You’re turned around, all right. Go back up the hall the other way,” Buckhorn suggested mildly. “You’ll find it.”
“I hope so. I want me a turn . . . wi’ that li’l China gal . . .”
The puncher turned and stumbled back up the corridor. When the man was gone, Buckhorn sighed in relief. He hoped the man was drunk enough that he’d already forgotten what had just happened. Even if he happened to mention the half-breed in the kitchen drinking coffee, there was a good chance whoever he spoke to would take it as the ravings of an hombre deep in his cups.
Only a minute or so after that encounte
r, Buckhorn heard steps from the back stairs. Miss Quinn reached the bottom of the staircase, followed by Abner, and both of them came into the kitchen.
Miss Quinn looked agitated and worried as she scowled at Buckhorn and demanded in a half whisper, “What are you doing here?”
“I came for Matthew Garrett,” Buckhorn said, getting right down to business.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m going to let you have him. It’s all over town that you murdered his nephew Edward and shot Alexis Conroy.”
“I didn’t do either of those things.”
“Yes, Abner told me that’s what you claim,” Miss Quinn said. “Am I supposed to just take your word for it?”
“I’m afraid that’s all I have right now,” Buckhorn said. “But think about this for a minute: why would I have gone to all the trouble of setting up that elaborate plan of hiding Garrett out here if all I wanted to do was kill Edward and Alexis?”
Miss Quinn frowned at him and didn’t say anything for several seconds. Doubt began to appear on her face. Finally she said, “That does seem rather odd and pointless.”
“One of Conroy’s men shot Edward Garrett. My money’s on Madison himself. I know he was close by last night. And what happened to Alexis was an accident. Somebody took a shot at me, and she got in the way of the bullet. That’s the truth of what happened.”
“Well, it certainly sounds believable,” Miss Quinn said. “Not very many people in town are going to believe it, though.”
“That’s why I’m still looking for proof against Madison and Conroy.”
“How does Matthew figure into that?”
“I’m going to try again to prod the two of them into coming out in the open.”
The madam stared at him. After a moment she said, “You mean you’re going to use that poor man as bait . . . again.” Her mouth hardened. “Need I remind you, Mr. Buckhorn, that the last time you attempted that, a young man was killed and a young woman was wounded, probably mortally.”
“You don’t have to remind me of anything,” Buckhorn said. “I don’t reckon I’m likely to forget.”
“Then why in the world should I trust you to protect Matthew this time? He’s safe here with us. Why can’t he just stay here?”
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