Gunsmith #362 : Buffalo Soldiers (9781101554388)

by Roberts, J. R.

“Well, Bass,” Washington said, “it wouldn’t be right for us to wear these jackets if we wasn’t still Buffalo Soldiers, would we?”

  “It ain’t right for you to be robbin’ and killin’ people while you’re still with the Soldiers, Lem,” Reeves shot back.

  “I got an idea, Bass,” Washington said. “Sit down with us and have a beer. You and your friend. We got lots to talk about. Lots of catchin’ up to do.”

  Reeves looked at Clint, who shrugged and said, “Why not? We said we’d let them call the play. Looks like their play is drinking.”

  “Gordon,” Washington said, “four beers.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  Reeves and Clint sat with Washington and Jefferson. Gordon came over with four mugs of beer.

  “Back to the bar, Private,” Washington said.

  “Yessir.”

  There were others in the place, but by the time Gordon returned to his place at the bar, they had all cleared out. All that was left was the bartender.

  “What’s this all about, Lem?” Bass Reeves asked. “You can’t expect the Buffalo Soldiers to take you back after what you’ve all done.”

  “Well,” Washington said, “nobody knows we done it except for you and Adams here. So all we gotta do is make sure you don’t tell nobody.”

  “How do you expect to do that?”

  “Well…we could kill you,” Washington said.

  “That’s why you led me here?” Reeves asked. “To kill me? Is that why you did all of this? To get me to hunt you?”

  “Not to hunt us,” Washington said. “To find us, which you did. You’re good at yer job, Bass. I was countin’ on that.”

  Reeves sat back and regarded the man. Clint wondered what the relationship was between them. It was something he’d have to ask Reeves later, when they were alone.

  “So what do we do now, Lem?” Reeves asked.

  Washington shrugged.

  “You do what you gotta do, Bass,” he said. “Me and my boys are here, we ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

  “So you’re darin’ me to take you in?”

  “Oh yeah,” Washington said, smiling with teeth that were more yellow than white. “That’s what I’m doin’. I dare ya to take us in.”

  “What if I decide just to take you in, Lem?” Reeves asked. “What if I forget about your boys, let ’em go. Clint and me, we just take you.”

  “My boys ain’t gonna just sit by and let you take me, Bass,” Washington said. “See, we’re in this together.”

  “In what together?” Reeves asked, “Just what the hell is it you think you’re doin’?”

  “I’m gettin’ what’s comin’ to me,” Washington said. “We’re all gettin’ what’s comin’ to us.” The sergeant leaned forward in his chair. “And so are you.” He looked at Clint. “You’re just in the way, Adams. Wrong place, wrong time. I was you, I’d ride out. This is between me and Bass.”

  “I’m not about to let Bass face six men alone, Washington,” Clint said, “so you can forget that. I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but I came all this way with Bass and I’m staying.”

  “Suit yourself,” Washington said.

  “Why don’t we take you right now?” Reeves asked. “There’s only three of you.”

  “Whatever you say, Bass,” Washington said, spreading his arms. “You call the play.”

  Clint eased away from the table a bit, just in case Reeves did just that.

  The black deputy picked up his beer and drained the half that was left.

  Clint drank his as well. He felt they were about to leave.

  “No, not yet,” Reeves said, standing.

  Clint was surprised at how relaxed Sergeant Lem Washington appeared to be. He apparently had no doubt that Reeves was leaving, and that the lawman wouldn’t change his mind and go for his gun.

  “We’ll be seein’ you later, Lem,” Reeves said.

  “I ain’t leavin’ town, Bass,” Washington said. “None of us is. You don’t know my other men, but they’re good boys. They’re ready.”

  “Good,” Reeves said. “They’ll need to be.”

  He backed to the door with Clint alongside him, then turned and walked out. Clint gave Washington one last look, took a last glance at the man at the bar, then backed out the doors.

  Outside Bass Reeves was standing still, hands on his hips. People walking on the boardwalk gave him a wide berth.

  “That was interesting,” Clint said.

  Reeves looked at him.

  “You’re probably confused.”

  “I’m…puzzled.”

  “Let’s go someplace,” Reeves said. “I got some things ta tell ya.”

  “That was fun,” Washington said.

  “Fun?” Jefferson’s muscles were still tense. He’d kept waiting for Bass Reeves or the Gunsmith to go for their gun. “Jesus.”

  “Don’t worry, Corporal,” Washington said. “Everything’s goin’ the way I planned.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  They walked up the street to the other, smaller saloon and took beers to a back table. Some of the patrons had moved over from the Wagon Wheel, and now that they saw Clint and Bass Reeves, they shook their heads and left to go back there.

  “I’ve known Lem Washington a long time,” Bass Reeves said.

  “I figured that much.”

  “We joined at the same time, went to the Academy together, where Jefferson was an instructor,” Clint said.

  “So the three of you were friends?”

  “For a short time.”

  “What happened?”

  “What usually happens?”

  “A woman?”

  Reeves nodded.

  “I don’t wanna go over the whole thing, but she picked me over him…and then she died,” Reeves said. “Lem blamed me.”

  “And Jefferson?”

  “He sided with Lem.”

  “So because you and he had a problem over a woman, he turns from being a Buffalo Soldier lawman to a killer? And takes five men with him?” Clint shook his head. “I don’t buy it. There’s something else going on.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “If I did, I wouldn’t be puzzled.”

  “Well,” Reeves said, “whatever the reason is, I gotta take him and the others in.”

  “Fine,” Clint said, “when do you want to do it?”

  “I guess we shoulda done it in the saloon,” Reeves

  said.

  “We could have,” Clint said. “We’d have three of them already, but what the hell. We might as well take all six of them.”

  “At one time?” Reeves asked.

  “Why not?” Clint said. “We’d have them right where we want them, wouldn’t we?”

  “Lem Washington’s a good man, Clint,” Reeves said. “So is Jefferson. We don’t know about the others, but if Lem says they’re good boys, I’d believe ’im.”

  “Then maybe we ought to find out who they are, and where they are.”

  “That’s a good idea…”

  * * *

  They left the small saloon and walked over to the sheriff’s office. The lawman was seated behind his desk, looked up at them in surprise.

  “Back again? Need help?”

  “We need to know where the other three Buffalo Soldiers are,” Reeves said.

  “They ain’t in the Wagon Wheel?”

  “Three of them are,” Clint said. “We need to know where the other three are.”

  “Or might be.”

  “You check the other saloon?”

  “Just came from there,”Clint said.

  “Hmm…” the lawman said, giving the question some thought.

  “Where’s the whorehouse?” Reeves asked.

  “You think they’d go there?” the sheriff asked. “Ain’t no black whores that I know of.”

  Clint stared at the man. Did he really think black men only went with black whores?

  “That’s okay,” he said. “I don’t think the
y’ll mind, as long as there’s women.”

  “Oh, well, there’s women,” Riggs said.

  “Good,” Clint said. “Just tell us where the whorehouse is, and we’ll take care of the rest.”

  When Clint and Reeves walked into the whorehouse, the madam confronted them, looking the black lawman up and down.

  “Well,” she said, “it seems to be our week for black men, but you’re somethin’ special.”

  “I’m a deputy marshal,” Reeves said.

  “And a great big man,” the fiftyish madam said. “Makes me wish I was younger. Hey, girls, look what I got for you!”

  The girls came out into the hall from the parlor, and most of them were as impressed with Bass Reeves as the madam was.

  They crowded around the big man, touching him, rubbing his arms and his broad chest. He looked over at Clint, as if pleading for help, but all Clint could do was shrug and stay out of the way.

  “Do you have other black men here?” Reeves asked the madam.

  “Oh, are you with them?” she asked.

  “I’m lookin’ for them,” Reeves said, still being touched by the eager whores. He finally decided to address them. “Ladies, I’m here on official business.”

  “I got some official business for you, honey,” a red-haired whore said. “Right here.” She pulled open her robe to show her naked body beneath it. She had pale, small breasts with dusky nipples and a spray of freckles.

  “All right, ladies,” Clint said, “I think you should all go back into the parlor. The deputy has some business to tend to.”

  “What about you, handsome?” the redhead asked. “You got business?”

  “I guess I do. Sorry. Come on, ladies.”

  Clint herded all the sweet-smelling women back into the parlor.

  “Ma’am,” Reeves said, “how many of them are here?”

  “There’s two of ’em upstairs,” she said. “The other one left about an hour ago.”

  “Did he say where he was goin’?”

  “That’s not part of the deal,” she said. “Men come here for pussy, and when they leave, they don’t tell me where they’re goin’. Are you interested in a girl, Deputy?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Well then,” she said, “the two men you’re interested in are upstairs in rooms two and five. I got work to do.”

  She turned and left the hall, passing Clint on the way.

  “We going upstairs?” Clint asked.

  “I don’t want them to panic,” Reeves said. “One of the girls might get hurt. Why don’t we wait for them to come outside?”

  “Good,” Clint said, “then we can take them outside.”

  “Well, before we try to take ’em,” Reeves said, “I’d like to talk to ’em. Maybe we can get them to turn themselves in. Or maybe we can convince them not to follow Washington.”

  “Bass, if you want to try talking to them first, I’ll back you. If you want to try and take them, I’ll back you there, too.”

  “I know you will, Clint,” Reeves said. “I appreciate everythin’ you’ve done for me so far, and I’m sorry this turned out to be so personal.”

  Clint looked into the parlor and said, “I think we better take this outside before you get mobbed by a bunch of hungry whores again, Bass.”

  The black lawman didn’t argue.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Washington waved Gordon over from the bar.

  “Yessir?”

  “You know where the others are?”

  “Last I saw, they was at the whorehouse.”

  “Well, you go and get them outta that whorehouse before they wear off their tallywackers,” Jefferson said. “We all gotta be ready for when Reeves and Adams come fer us.”

  “Sir?” Gordon looked at Washington.

  “I want all three of them here in one hour,” Washington said. “You, too. Weapons ready.”

  “Yessir.”

  Gordon went back to the bar to finish his beer.

  “Leave that!” Washington said. “Just go!”

  “Yessir.”

  After he was gone, Jefferson asked, “Do you think they’ll still follow when they find out it’s personal between you and Bass?”

  “They better,” Washington said, “or they’ll have to face me.”

  The whorehouse was a two-story building that used to be a boardinghouse until the madam took it over. There were five steps up to a porch and the front door. Reeves and Clint took up position on the porch to wait.

  When Gordon reached the whorehouse, he saw the two men on the porch, and recognized them. He turned and ran back to the saloon.

  Washington was surprised when he saw Gordon come back into the saloon.

  “That fast?”

  “I went to the whorehouse, sir,” Gordon said. “The deputy and Clint Adams are on the porch.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “They look like they’s just waitin’.”

  Washington looked at Jefferson.

  “They gonna take our boys out first?” Jefferson asked.

  “No,” Washington said, “that ain’t the way Bass does things.”

  “No? What about Adams?”

  “Bass is the one wearin’ the badge,” Washington said. “Adams will go along with what he says.”

  “And what’s he gonna say?”

  “He’ll tell Adams that he wants to take us all together.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Bass Reeves and Clint Adams? Why would they be afraid to face six men? They’s legends.”

  “Six Buffalo Soldiers,” Jefferson said. “With special trainin’.”

  “Men like them got egos,” Washington said. “They’ll face all of us, and then they’ll die.”

  He looked at Gordon.

  “You just march into that whorehouse right past them.”

  “W-What if they stop me?”

  “They won’t.”

  “What if they kill me?”

  “They won’t,” Washington insisted.

  “Sir—”

  “You have your orders, Private.”

  “Yessir.”

  Gordon left.

  “This woulda been easier,” Jefferson said, “with nine men.”

  Washington pointed a finger at his corporal and said, “Don’t start.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  “Here he comes again,” Clint said.

  Reeves and Clint had both seen Private Gordon earlier, before he’d turned and run back to the saloon. Now they saw him coming back, walking very slowly.

  “Washington told him to walk in, right past us,” Reeves said.

  “He looks scared.”

  “He thinks we might stop him, or worse, kill him,” Reeves said.

  “But we’re going to let him go in.”

  “Right.”

  “Bass—”

  “These are Buffalo Soldiers, Clint,” Reeves said as the black private approached. “They deserve to be taken in head on, all together. No tricks.”

  Gordon reached the steps, mounted them slowly, and walked past them with his shoulders hunched. He entered the house and closed the door behind him.

  “Okay,” Clint said, “no tricks.”

  Gordon was not besieged by whores the way Reeves had been. He was not the physical specimen that Bass Reeves was, so the girls in the parlor ignored him.

  He told the madam he was looking for his friends, and she told him the same thing she had told Reeves, rooms two and five. Gordon nodded and went upstairs.

  He didn’t want to see his friends naked, so he knocked on the doors, then opened them slightly and said the same thing.

  “Time to go. The sarge wants us in the saloon in an hour.”

  “Then I still got time,” Franklin said. “Go away.”

  “I’ll be there!” Carl Weatherby snapped. “Go away.”

  “Where’s Webster?” Gordon asked them both.

  He got the same answer.

  “Who knows?”

  He clos
ed the doors and went back downstairs, nervous about the fact that he still had to go out past Reeves and Adams.

  Should he have warned Weatherby and Franklin?

  Naw, let ’em find out for themselves.

  When Gordon came back out, he looked nervously at Reeves and Clint. Reeves gave him a stony, silent glare, while Clint actually smiled at him.

  “Think we should have asked him when the others were coming out?” Clint asked.

  “Naw,” Reeves said. “He delivered a message to them. Lem probably wants them in the saloon. They’ll be comin’ out.”

  “Hope they don’t panic and go for their guns when they see us.”

  “Washington said they were good boys,” Reeves said. “I don’t think they’ll do anythin’ stupid.”

  As far as Clint was concerned, everything these men had done—especially following Lem Washington—had been stupid, but he held his tongue.

  A half an hour later the door opened and two black men came out, hitching up their trousers and holsters. They froze when they saw Clint and Bass Reeves.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Hello, boys,” Reeves said.

  Neither man spoke, or moved. Clint could tell from Reeves’s reaction that he did not know either of the two men. However, the two men knew who Bass Reeves was on sight. Either that, or Gordon had warned them. If that was the case, they also knew who Clint was, but he didn’t get that feeling.

  So he just stood there silently, while they stared at Reeves and the badge on his chest.

  “You boys know who I am, right?”

  Both men, appearing to be in their thirties, nodded.

  “I had a talk with your boss,” Reeves said. “He’s an old friend of mine, did you know that?”

  “No,” Weatherby said, “we didn’t.”

  “Yeah,” Reeves said, “I think this whole thing might be gettin’ kinda personal. You men oughta think about that. You wanna go to jail, or worse, die because of a personal grudge?”

  The men didn’t respond.

  “Yeah, well,” Reeves said, “you oughta talk to your sergeant about that.”

  Neither man moved.

  “That’s okay,” Reeves told them. “You can go. I just wanted you to know that.”

  The two men went down the steps and headed toward town, but Reeves stepped forward and said, “Hey!”