by Jonas Ward
She was quiet for a long moment, marshaling her thoughts. "Buchanan," she said. "Tom. I've sat at a table with men for nearly a year, dealing them cards, and all the odds of blackjack are with the dealer. But I've had them come in—like your friend Bogan the other night— and nothing can go wrong for them. You say you'll pay sixteen and they have sixteen. You say you'll pay twenty-one and they turn up the black jack. Have you seen them?"
"Sure."
"They even do everything against all the rules. They go for five and under with a seven-six showing. And they win."
"I never did."
"And they win," the girl said again. "Then you can see a change in them. They think the gambler's prayer has been finally answered, that they can ride their luck forever and do no wrong." She took a deep breath. "You were lucky last night with those gunmen," Cristy said. "I thought about it afterward. If he had fired that shotgun you would have been killed. If you'd been standing with your back to the doors when the other one shot at you—"
"He didn't and I wasn't," Buchanan said.
"But it was pure chance that neither thing happened!" she insisted. "And now you're going to press your luck against three more of them! It. won't hold out, Tom!"
He let a few calming seconds go by before he spoke. "Don't get blackjack mixed up with life," Buchanan said with a different quality to his voice. "You move around enough and you eventually run across all the types. Like that fella with the shotgun—the big mouth. Him, he can't kill you without making you squirm some." Buchanan turned to her. "Plugging him first wasn't lucky, ma'am," he said, "that was prudent. The same for not standing there with my back to the doors. That was a plain case of caution."
"Do you mean to say you thought you'd be shot at?"
Buchanan smiled. "I mean to say I make a sizable target," he told her. "And as for pressing my luck against those three bushwhackers," he added, "I'm one up on them already."
"How?"
"They don't know I'm coming," Buchanan said.
Cristy had no ready answer to that logic and a pensive silence fell between them. Buchanan rose from the fire, got their blankets and set them the same distance apart as if he were traveling with an6ther man.
"Early start tomorrow. Let's turn in," he said and the girl knew that the time of easy relaxation was over for him. His mind was back on the mission that was taking him to the border.
"I'm going to sit here for a while," Cristy said. "I couldn't possibly get to sleep this early."
"Suit yourself," Buchanan said, sliding beneath his blanket. "Tomorrow night you can get back to your regular routine."
"What do you mean, my regular routine?" she said sharply.
. Buchanan raised his head, surprised. "No offense," he explained. "I just meant you could do as you pleased. Stay up all night and sleep all morning."
"Is that the kind of life you think I want?" she demanded.
"Sounds pretty good to me," Buchanan said, lowering his head again. "Well, good night—"
The girl got to her feet, came to stand above him.
"I don't want to stay up all night and sleep all morning," she said, her voice intense. "I want to live like other women. With a man."
"You will," Buchanan said drowsily, getting comfortable on his side. "You'll get whatever you want."
"How do you know I will?"
"Because you're a real fine girl. 'Night."
Cristy stood looking down at him for a long moment before turning away. She knew that she couldn't have made it any plainer to him than she had. Nor could he.
They arrived in teeming, rowdy-looking Brownsville before noon the next day. Arrived after nearly four hours' riding with hardly a complete sentence spoken between them. Buchanan, not suspecting that he had wounded the girl's pride the night before, got his first hint of her attitude when she declined to be helped down from her horse. And his second when she held out her hand to him, man-fashion.
"Thank you for the safe journey on the trail," she said and the man thought there was something wryly mocking in the way she emphasized the word "safe."
"You're welcome," he said.
"And good luck in your man hunting."
"Thanks," he said, looking around. "This could be a likely town to start with." When he looked back she was walking away from him, full of confidence, self-reliance, and even in the tight-fitting pants and shirt he was reminded again of San Francisco. "So long," he called after her, but she didn't turn.
Buchanan shrugged, then frowned. The girl's steps had carried opposite a saloon entrance just as two hardcase types emerged drunkenly into the sunlight. Cristy moved around them lithely, kept going. So did the liquored pair, in the same direction and in obvious pursuit. And Buchanan made four.
Cristy, full of her own stinging thoughts, was unaware of being followed. Unaware, too, of the dark alley looming on her left. An instant later rough hands were clamped on her arms and she was being forced relentlessly into the alleyway.
Buchanan moved, swiftly—but across his path and into the alleyway before him darted a slim man dressed all in black. The man felled one of Cristy's would-be attackers with a flat-handed blow at the base of the neck. The second one obligingly swung around and was struck twice in the solar plexus and on the point of his jaw. He went. down soundlessly.
Buchanan stood there, watching in admiration an expert at work. There wasn't anything else he could do but watch.
"Are you injured, Miss?"
Cristy blinked her eyes at him—he was hardly taller than herself—and shook her head bewilderedly. The man turned, gave Buchanan a brief, appraising glance, and stepped into the street. He put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly, went back into the alley.
Now he raised his black hat to Cristy and bowed his head. "John Lime, Miss, Sheriff of Brownsville," he said in a courtly voice. "And my deepest apologies for what happened here."
"Nothing happened, really," the girl said. "But thank you very much—"
There was a commotion then as three deputies entered the alleyway from three different directions, picked up the dazed pair from the ground and carted them off without a word.
"Did I detect a Southern accent, Miss?" John Lime said urbanely, offering Cristy his arm and escorting her past the useless-feeling Buchanan.
"I'm from South Carolina," Cristy said.
"Well! My original home is Virginia."
"Well! What a small world we live in." She smiled at him. "My name, Mr. Lime, is Cristina Ford, and you must excuse my strange costume."
"Miss Ford, a lady is a lady no matter what her garb."
"Well, thank you, sir." She glanced over her shoulder. "And may I introduce Mr. Buchanan?"
Lime gave Buchanan a longer appraisal, offered his hand. They shook.
"Are you, ah, with Miss Ford, sir?"
"I don't think so," Buchanan said.
"Mr. Buchanan provided me his protection on the journey from Aura," Cristy said and Buchanan noted how really Southern her voice had suddenly become.
"And you took over from there," Buchanan said. "Some nice job, too."
John Lime didn't acknowledge the praise. He still had questions for the tall man with the well-worn Colt on his hip.
"You're in Brownsville on business, Buchanan?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" "
"I'm not sure yet."
The answer didn't please the lawman. "Are you connected with Red Leech?"
"No," Buchanan answered, thinking that the name rang a bell. Who had mentioned Red Leech?
"What is your line of work?" Lime pressed.
"Well, I was in the freight business for about a week," Buchanan answered truthfully. "I came down here to sort of clear up a few odds and ends."
Lime's unyielding gaze went to the Colt.
"But you are not with the Leech gang?"
"Didn't even know he had one."
"Well, he does. And this town is off-limits to every member of it. This town is also against lawlessness, no matter what you
may have heard elsewhere."
"I did hear it was lively," Buchanan said.
"Lively and prosperous and growing," Lime told him. "A place of recreation and commerce, the queen city of the Rio. But law-abiding."
"That's fine with me, Sheriff."
Lime was finished with him and turned back to Cristy.
"Miss Ford," he said gallantly, "I wonder if I might have the honor of showing you our city?"
"I'd be delighted, Mr. Lime," Cristy said. "And perhaps you'd dine with me at the Palace Hotel?" "Thank you very much, but I really couldn't. Not in this costume."
"Then let's correct that situation immediately," John Lime said, offering his arm again. "At Madame Maude's I'm sure you'll find the latest fashions."
"Oh, I couldn't. Really-"
"But I insist. After all, we Southerners must set the example in hospitality." He nodded to Buchanan. "Good day, sir," he said and swept Cristy away.
Buchanan, suddenly all alone in the alley, moved out onto the boardwalk, stood there with his hands on his hips and watched the departing couple. Now there, he thought, goes one fast-moving gent, and didn't miss noticing how passersby opened up a passage for the sheriff of Brownsville, stood aside and relinquished the right of way without question. Some punkins, Mr. Lime, he thought and then smiled inwardly at himself. Man, alive, don't get sore at him for charming Cristy right out of her boots. She's the marryin' kind, like you told yourself last night.
Buchanan went off in the opposite direction in search of a meal.
Eight
LASH WALL stood in the courtyard of the hacienda and watched the last wagon train of party girls and empty kegs depart for Brownsville. Bronsen and Owens had ridden out to the palace of fun earlier in the day and been indelibly shocked at the full-blown orgy they found in full swing. They'd come to inform Red Leech that the merchants were ready to end their embargo and begin the great smuggling operation.
"Hell, me and the boys are ready, brother!" Leech bawled at them fuzzily and would have fallen on his beard had not his bosomy blonde friend pulled him back down on the couch. Wall had taken charge then, ushering the worried businessmen back to their carriage and assuring them that Leech's army would be in the saddle within forty-eight hours. Bronsen and Owens looked very doubtful as they rode out.
If you're unhappy now, Lash thought, wait until you hear about that extra ten per cent you're giving us.
His next task that morning was to roam the three floors of the house and herd the women into the wagons and buggies. He saved Big Red until last, happily found him passed out, and bribed the blonde with an additional ten-dollar coin to depart with her sisters. In the late afternoon, when Leech woke up roaring for food, drink and companionship in that order, Wall sat down for a council of war.
"We got to sober up and go to work, Big Red," he told the scowling leader. "We start pushing their cotton tomorrow night. And we'll be pushing it every night for next two weeks."
"You mean to say I can't fight Mexicans drunk or sober?" Leech snarled belligerently.
"You can, Big Red," Wall said diplomatically. "But the rest of the boys are only human. And you've got to set them an example."
"Yeah?"
"Sure. That's why you're running things around here."
"I don't seem to be running this shebang, by God!"
"You will when we mount up," Wall told him. "All I've been doing is the staff work, handling the little details. Tomorrow night it's up to you whether we do it or we don't."
"I guess you're right, Lash. Like usual." He lumbered to his feet, tossed the lamb bone he'd been shredding into a corner. "Put the crew on rations starting now. A quart a day per man."
"How about half a quart?"
"Jesus! All right, all right! And no more chummin'. We're a bunch of monks till the job's done^ And Jules Perrott and everybody else sticks close to headquarters. Anything else you can think of?"
"The boys could check their guns and ammo, Big Red. And look the animals over from head to foot."
"Yeah. Go pass the word. Tell 'em I said so and I'll break any bastard in two who gives any argument."
Lash Wall passed the word and it was accepted at face value by all but Jules Perrott.
"My guns are always in good shape," he said surlily. "And so's my horse."
"Meaning you're planning another trip into town?"
"Meaning I don't like to be ordered around. I can make my own rules."
"Jules, what's the big attraction in Brownsville? You got a girl there?"
"I got me a tinhorn gambler on the hook and I don't aim to let him off."
"How much you ahead?"
"Six hundred. Tonight I'm going to bet the roll and break the little son."
"Suppose it's the other way round?"
"It won't be." * - :
"But suppose it is."
Perrott shrugged his bony shoulders. "So I lose," he said.
Lash Wall shook his head. "I've played cards with you, Jules," he said. "You don't like to lose."
"Whatta you mean?"
"I mean you brood about it. You climb inside of a bottle. And then you get mean and start to make trouble."
"Listen, Wall-"
"You listen. You make trouble in Brownsville and that sheriff'll be on you like a blanket. Stay here tonight, Jules. We need your gun for the job. Understand?"
Perrott's thin lips formed a smile. "Sure, Lash," he said. "I understand."
"Those are Leech's orders, Jules. Personal."
"Sure. Big Red himself. I understand."
One hour after the sun set Jules Perrott rode out of the hacienda toward the beckoning lights of Brownsville. Turkey Forbes reported it to Lash Wall and Wall passed a hand across his cheek, finished the gesture with fingers crossed. Somehow he couldn't shake the premonition that this was Jules' night to lose.
Buchanan visited Brownsville's five hotels—if that was the word for them—without finding anyone named Perrott or Gill registered. Playing a long shot, to be sure, but in this case justified by the simple fact that he had no clear picture of the three men he was looking for. To say that they were tough and swaggering and liked to play cards hardly distinguished them in this man's town.
He wasn't discouraged, though—it wasn't his nature to be—and when he learned in the fifth hotel that a night's lodging cost twenty-five cents he decided to invest that much of the two dollars he still owned and continue the search in Brownsville for at least another twenty-four hours.
"We got a fifty-cent accommodation, too," the clerk said, bouncing Buchanan's silver coin on the desk to test its ring.
"What's wrong with the twenty-five-cent one?"
"Nothin', mister. We also got a dollar room. That includes a girl and a towel."
"Sounds like a real bargain," Buchanan agreed. "But just slip me my six-bits change and I'll scout up my own entertainment."
