Bloodthirsty

by William W. Johnstone

  * * *

  Conway was angry and upset. He couldn’t believe Wainwright had dismissed the shooting of Dandy Jack so casually. What was more, when Conway tried to suggest to the former general that Buckhorn might also have had something to do with gunning down the three other Flying W men, Wainwright had laughed in his face and called it a “ridiculous coincidence not worthy of another moment’s thought.” That got a big horselaugh from all the other men in earshot, none more so than that sneering, sarcastic young puke, Leo Sweetwater.

  Sweetwater ranked as one of the biggest sources of Conway’s agitation and not just because he’d laughed loudest and longest along with the others. Hell, he’d been doing that every chance he got since showing up and hiring out his gun to Wainwright. He snickered at everybody, but Conway, who wanted in the worst way to move from the Flying W’s wrangler crew and join the growing force of gunmen being hired for the brand, was one of his favorite targets. Worse than any of that, though, was the way Sweetwater had treated Dandy Jack. His disgusting and disrespectful spiel against the deceased earlier in front of the jail was just the latest example.

  Why Jack put up with it, Conway could never figure out. It wasn’t like Jack was afraid of him. Dandy Jack was a damn legend! Sweetwater was just a punk kid.

  Though Jack did say, without ever mentioning exactly how he knew, that the kid had lightning in both hands. What he also said, a time or two after the kid had treated him rudely, was that Wainwright had hired them to fight side by side, not against each other. Conway had always had the feeling that someday, when the time was right, Jack was going to decide enough was enough and by God, that would be the day he showed everybody by putting the snotty little so-and-so in his place—that place likely being six feet in the ground.

  Before that could happen, the damn half-breed came along and ruined everything.

  Jack was the one headed for a six-foot hole in the ground, and that damn Sweetwater was still strutting around like the cock of the roost, not to mention the stinking breed walking free to boot.

  Maybe Dandy Jack was a has-been. Maybe he was afraid of Leo Sweetwater. And he had sure as hell proved he couldn’t outdraw Buckhorn. But he was still the most important person who’d ever paid a lick of attention to Arliss Conway. Sure, it was mostly when Conway was the one buying the drinks, but Jack was always ready to lend an ear. A drinking buddy and a confidant, that’s what he was. He was a somebody, yet he found time for a common wrangler like Conway and had even promised to put in a good word with the general about Conway joining the gunmen’s ranks.

  Jack was dead and all those others were too ready to run him down and kick his name aside like it had never amounted to nothing. Conway couldn’t let it go. Jack had to be avenged. At the very least, that would help keep his name alive, along with whoever did the avenging. Their names would be linked forever and the scoundrel who’d killed Jack would be blotted out.

  Conway gave thought to what Wainwright had said. “You know how bothersome those red devils can be. I just want the record clear that should any further trouble occur because of this redskin’s presence in these parts, I will have no association with it.”

  There it was. The words were plain as day to Conway. No matter how he acted on the outside or what he said or allowed Sweetwater to say, Wainwright wanted Jack avenged, too. And he wanted Buckhorn to pay. It was just that his high standing in the territory wouldn’t allow him to say any of it right out.

  Conway could see the truth, knew what was actually being solicited. The man who delivered . . . well, Wainwright would find a way to reward him. He could count on that.

  * * *

  Hiram Yost wanted to believe Conway knew what he was talking about, but he could never be sure about one of Conway’s schemes. “Are you certain that’s the way Wainwright wants it?” Hiram asked, his round face puckered tight with uncertainty around the bulbous whiskey-inflamed nose at its center.

  “I heard it with my own ears,” Conway assured him. “I just got done repeating it to you, word for word, for about the third time, didn’t I?”

  The two men were huddled in a dark corner of the Watering Hole Saloon. Despite what Wainwright had said about not wanting any of his men to liquor it up right after three comrades had been ambushed and especially after he’d been laughed at and ridiculed, Conway hadn’t headed back to the ranch with the rest of the Flying W riders. He was convinced he had a mission in town.

  Failing to convince any of the other men who rode for the brand that his interpretation of Wainwright’s words was correct, however, he had resorted to seeking backup from some of the drinking buddies he’d established during his frequent bouts of elbow-bending whenever he came to town.

  Hiram was large and powerful and displayed a seemingly endless supply of gullibility. Plus, Conway happened to know, he owned a big ol’ double-barreled shotgun.

  “I don’t know.” Hiram’s expression remained painfully uncertain. “I listen to you repeating what Wainwright said, but I keep not hearing anything about him directly wanting somebody to go after the half-breed.”

  “I’m telling you it’s there. You got to read between the lines.”

  “I never did understand when people say that. Besides, we ain’t talking about reading. We’re talking about what Wainwright said.”

  “We’re talking about what he meant,” Conway said with an exasperated sigh. “What’s the real problem? You too good to join in on blasting the pinfeathers off some uppity half-breed?”

  “Hell, no. I love making it hot for redskins. Ain’t hardly any of ’em left no more to have any fun with. Last I even heard of was that family Nestor Garth and his two sons run off the edge of Slippery Rock Cliff way back last spring. Boy, the rocks was sure slippery when they got done that day—slippery with Injun blood.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s a real knee-slapper of a story . . . but the thing now is whether or not you’re up for some fun of our own. I need a doggone answer!”

  “Okay. Count me in,” agreed Hiram. “How you figuring on going about it?”

  “Good! That’s what I wanted to hear. You see, I found out where that half-breed is staying. He got hisself a room at the Traveler’s Rest Hotel. Can you believe that? They rented the heathen a room, big as you please. We oughta burn down the whole damn joint just for that.”

  Hiram shook his head. “Oh, no. I ain’t up for—”

  “Never mind. I didn’t mean it. The thing is, I also know which room he’s in. It’s on the second floor. I figure we’ll sneak up there, one from the back, one from the front, to make sure he don’t catch wind of something suspicious and try to slip out. You bring that double-barreled shotgun of yours, right? Armed with that and you weighing about the same as a bull buffalo, I don’t figure that flimsy hotel room door will slow us down much. We’ll bust in together—you going high, me low—and we’ll blast him right there in his bed until we’ve painted the mattress and wall with his blood. How does that sound?”

  “Ought to get the job done,” Hiram said with an eager nod. “Boy, coming up with such a swell plan, I can tell you been hanging around with that ex-general, Arliss.”

  “Don’t let him hear you call him an ex-general.” Conway downed the rest of the whiskey in the glass he held. “Thomas Wainwright is still in command.” A wolfish grin stretched across Conway’s face. “He’s just got hisself a different army now.”

  * * *

  At the first creak of someone starting up the outside stairway, Buckhorn came completely awake and alert. By the amount of star- and moonlight filtering into the alley between the hotel and the neighboring building, he judged about two hours had passed since he settled there, making it about three o’clock in the morning. Mighty late for another guest to be returning to their room, but not impossible.

  Through the gap between steps, Buckhorn looked up and made out the shape of the person ascending the stairs. Large and bulky, almost certainly a male, stepping carefully and carrying something with one end stickin
g out in a straight, somewhat blurred line. A rifle barrel. Maybe a shotgun.

  Buckhorn clenched his teeth. Every instinct he had honed on the cutting edge of surviving a danger-filled life told him that no, this was not some innocent fellow guest returning late from a night of carousing. Here was a man on the hunt. And, just as Buckhorn had anticipated, he was the intended quarry.

  He stayed motionless for the better part of a minute, until he heard the door at the top of the landing open and close, indicating that the hunter was in the second-floor hallway and approaching Buckhorn’s room.

  Whatever happened next, the question that came to mind was how would the hunter exit the building? Back out the way he’d gone in? Or out the front? It seemed likely he would use the rear, where it was darker and emptier, but Buckhorn couldn’t be positive of it. He didn’t intend to miss the opportunity he’d gone to all the trouble to set up by making the wrong guess.

  Silently, he glided across the width of the alley, moving at an angle toward the front of the hotel building. When he reached a position where he had a vantage point on both the front and rear, he squatted in a convenient patch of shadows against the side of the neighboring building and once again waited. He held his drawn Colt pressed to his chest, feeling the steady, unhurried beat of his heart thump against the cold steel.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  First there was a loud, splintering crash followed by some guttural curses. Then came the unmistakable roar of a shotgun accompanied by the rapid-fire crack of a revolver. Then another shotgun blast.

  Looking up, Buckhorn could see flickers of light in the otherwise darkened window that marked his room—the sputter of muzzle flashes from the guns being fired at the lump in his empty bed.

  Ambushing yellow bastards.

  As abruptly as it had started, the gunfire stopped, replaced immediately by the thumping, thudding sounds of heavily booted feet running down the hallway. The reports of a handgun as well as the shotgun carried by the bulky shape he’d seen going up the back stairs warned him he had two men to deal with, the other one having apparently gone in through the front. From the sound of it, though, both were planning on exiting at the rear.

  Two questions remained. Had they spent all their rounds and taken time to immediately reload? Or would they be emerging with empty weapons? Either way, Buckhorn was waiting and didn’t plan on letting them get very far.

  The two ambushers, the bulky one and his taller, leaner partner, burst onto the landing and started down the stairs, practically tripping over one another in their haste.

  Buckhorn let them get about a third of the way down before he stepped out of the shadows in the middle of the alley. With his raised Colt, he commanded, “Freeze or die!”

  A trace of hesitation on the part of the big one caused the lean one to bump roughly against him from behind and above. While they were momentarily tangled together, the lean one extended an arm and began firing a short-barreled pistol in Buckhorn’s direction.

  Buckhorn didn’t hesitate. Unable to differentiate between the two tangled, shadowy forms, he simply emptied all six of the .45’s chambers into the double mass, then smoothly shifted to the smaller Colt Lightning, pulling it from the small of his back. He used it to cover what spilled loosely to the bottom of the steps.

  In the fall, the bulky one somehow ended up on top of the lean man with the handgun. Both bodies were twisted grotesquely. The big one was motionless, unmistakably dead.

  Beneath him, the lean one flailed weakly and made bubbling, groaning sounds. “He’s crushin’ my . . . I can’t . . . oh, God, it hurts.”

  Buckhorn walked closer and stood over them. He looked down into the pain-etched face of Arliss Conway and said, “Twice in the past twenty-four hours I didn’t kill you when I could have. I regret it’s gonna come now . . . at a time that eases you of the pain you damn well deserve. But this time I don’t intend to make the mistake of holding back.”

  The Colt Lightning barked once.

  A black hole appeared in the center of Conway’s forehead and all the agony relaxed from his face.

  CHAPTER 19

  News of the latest shooting in Wagon Wheel, once again involving a Flying W rider as one of the victims and once again with Buckhorn the half-breed being the perpetrator, reached Thomas Wainwright as he was in the middle of breakfast with his beautiful young Mexican wife Lusita. The report was delivered by one of Sheriff Banning’s deputies.

  Wainwright managed to hold his temper in check until after the deputy had departed. Only then, did he let loose a portion of his rage. “Blazing hell!” he roared, pounding a fist down onto the table so hard it caused plates and silverware to rattle and a steaming slosh of coffee to leap out of its cup. “The last thing I need is for word of this kind of notoriety to start spreading out of the territory at a time like this!”

  “Try to stay calm, my husband,” Lusita said softly. “You are always complaining how no one pays adequate attention to our little piece of Arizona. Who of any importance is likely to even notice, let alone care, when it comes to these recent incidents?”

  Wainwright scowled fiercely. “I don’t know. But I’ve been in enough skirmishes to have learned one thing. You never get cocky, never let your guard down. Just when you think you’ve got the battle in your pocket and you relax even the slightest, that’s when Fate will knock you back on your heels every time. Well, not this time, by God. I’ve got too much riding on this to risk letting myself get outflanked now . . . especially not due to that damn lunkheaded Conway or some quick-trigger stinking half-breed!”

  Whatever he meant by this, Lusita did not know the details. She only knew it was some kind of big business transaction involving her own father, himself a wealthy rancher just across the border, and the seemingly insatiable acquisitions by both men of more and more land and cattle. The addition of hired guns—dark, dangerous men like Leo Sweetwater and the more colorful, recently deceased Dandy Jack Draper—was also a part of it.

  The increasing intensity and moodiness she saw in her husband and father as a result of this escalating thing, nor the growing sense of danger she sensed from the presence of the cold-eyed gunmen, nor the vague reports of violence she was aware of in spite of attempts to shield her from it, were not the worst of it, though. Not for Lusita.

  It was the sinking certainty deep in her heart that one of the initial steps in this big, all-consuming enterprise had been the union between her and Wainwright. She just couldn’t actually prove it.

  Her father had never actually demanded she marry Wainwright, the way some old-fashioned patriarchs were known to do, but he’d surely encouraged it. Lusita was so anxious to please her father, as sad and lonely as he was after the death of her beloved mother, that she had agreed.

  Though quite a few years older than her, Thomas Wainwright was still a dashing, relatively handsome man. She could learn to love him, she’d told herself, and live a life of attentiveness and comfort.

  In a matter of months, she knew what a mistake she had made. Yes, she had plenty of comforts in her life and Thomas was reasonably attentive, but so much of his manner was cool and calculated. He wanted a child, an heir. It was soon evident that was the main purpose of their lovemaking, perhaps their whole marriage. When no pregnancy resulted, his coolness increased though he continued to treat her pleasantly and still saw to her material needs.

  As time passed, the attempts at making a child waned and practically ceased completely, which was good, in one sense. But it left young, hot-blooded, unfulfilled Lusita all the more resentful of her circumstances. If Thomas would take the passion he was putting into the big business deal with her father or the angry outbursts such as he was displaying this morning and invest it in their lovemaking, Lusita thought longingly, somewhat bitterly, then maybe things would be different.

  “I apologize for my outburst. That was uncalled for,” Wainwright said to both Lusita and the maid Consuela, who appeared with a cloth to mop up the spilled coffee
.

  “You’re under a great deal of stress. You needn’t apologize,” said Lusita.

  “Sí, it was an accident,” Consuela agreed. “I will clean this spill and then bring you a fresh, hot refill.”

  “That won’t be necessary, I believe I’ve had sufficient coffee.” Wainwright turned to his wife. “With your indulgence, my dear, I believe I shall take my leave from the table. I have some paperwork in my office I need to tend to, and then I mean to ride out to the spot where the bodies of our three riders were found yesterday. I expect the sheriff to be there, conducting his investigation into their shooting. I want to check his progress and also get more details on this most recent shooting incident last night in town.”

  “You won’t be placing yourself in danger, will you?” Lusita asked. “All this shooting and violence . . .”

  Wainwright smiled, appreciating the concern of his lovely wife but not wanting her to be upset. “Don’t worry. I won’t be at risk with any of that. If it makes you feel better, I’ll be sure to have some men with me.”

  Lusita did not return his smile. “That is good. But when it comes to some of the men you’ve hired in recent months and weeks, I have to say some have about them a sense of danger that may be as bad as anything else out there.”

  “That is exactly the idea, my dear. To have those kind of men on our side.” Wainwright rose. “On second thought, Consuela, I will have another cup of coffee. Bring it to my office, please, when you’re finished here. And when you see Armando, have him find Mr. Sweetwater and send him to my office also.”

  Lusita looked up at him. “If you’re going to do some work in your office and then ride out to the . . . murder scene, to meet with the sheriff there . . . do you expect to be back in time for lunch?”