Bloodthirsty

by William W. Johnstone

  “Just look at how everybody is pulling together,” she fairly gushed. “I’ve never been more proud of our little town.”

  “Nothing like a common cause, especially facing up to a threat of some kind, to make folks get over petty differences,” Buckhorn said.

  “The two biggest surprises, I must say, are Sheriff Banning and my brother Carl. Do you think we can trust him?”

  “Carl?”

  She shook her head. “No. Banning. I can’t help thinking that he jumped over to our side awfully quick.”

  “I figure he’s been a man straddling the fence for quite a while. He got caught under the influence of Wainwright early on, I’m guessing, when he wasn’t so sure of himself and Wainwright wasn’t quite so bold and demanding. As Wainwright grew more powerful and took to throwing his weight around more and more, well, Banning didn’t necessarily like the things he was seeing and hearing, but by then he was already trapped by what he’d allowed and by what everybody, including himself, expected out of him. It took something big, like what was revealed to him this morning, to finally yank him down off that fence. Lucky for us, he came down on our side and I think he can be counted on to stay there.”

  “You make a pretty convincing case. I hope you’re right.” Justine’s expression took on an added earnestness. “That still leaves Carl. I don’t mean I doubt his trustworthiness. Not as long as he’s sober, that is. But that’s just the thing. He’s disappointed me so many times when I thought he’d finally beaten down the alcohol, only to have him crawl right back into the bottle again.

  “Still, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him like he’s been the last couple days—ever since he pitched in and helped save Deputy Gates from that shoot-out in the middle of the street. And then you asked him to look after Goodwin. He even had the idea of spreading false word about Don Pedro down in Mexville and it seems to have paid off. I want to believe that this time it’s going to last but . . .”

  “Then do it. Believe in him. Maybe that’s what it’ll take to help him keep the alcohol beat down for good.” Buckhorn watched her tuck a corner of her bottom lip between her teeth and nibble at it as she pondered his advice. Forgetting a piece of advice he himself had recently received, Buckhorn lifted his cup and took a swallow of the coffee.

  Too late, he remembered the warning from Justine’s brother about what a bad cook she was. If her coffee was any indication, the term bad didn’t begin to cover it. Her coffee was so terrible it made the recent awful brew he’d gotten at the sheriff’s office seem almost tasty. Buckhorn managed to keep down the gulp he’d taken but then immediately began looking for an opening to jettison what was left in the cup without her noticing. If nothing else presented itself, he thought, he would even welcome the attack they were preparing for.

  “Of course I’ll keep believing in Carl,” Justine said. “I really feel that this time he may have reached a place where he can keep the alcohol under control.”

  As if on cue, Carl and two other men came into sight on a path that would take them right past where Buckhorn and Justine were sitting. The three were carrying a bundle of hollow pipes, fifteen-foot lengths and about two inches in diameter, hoisted up on their shoulders. Carl was in the lead.

  When they got close enough, Justine said, “Where are you going with those?”

  “Up behind Clyburg’s blacksmith barn,” answered Carl. “Goodwin’s found a spot that shows real strong indication of there being some water down in the ground there. Since everything is pretty well taken care of as far as barricading and posting men, we thought we’d go ahead and use whatever time we’ve got to sink some pipe and see if we hit sign of anything.”

  “Is it really the best time for that?” Justine asked.

  “Why wait?” Carl said. “Like I said, most everything else is taken care of or in the process of being wrapped up. The next move is up to Wainwright, and there’s still the chance he might go and confront Don Pedro before he gets around to us. Might as well put the waiting time to good use.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Buckhorn said, using the exchange between Justine and her brother as a diversion to pour the rest of his coffee onto the ground beside his boot heel, then shift his foot to cover it up. All he had to worry about was the boot leather disintegrating from the contact and falling off his foot. “Maybe we can meet Wainwright and his boys with a flood when they show up.”

  Carl shifted the weight of the pipes on his shoulder and said, “Maybe. I’d love to stand here and talk some more about it but, if you don’t mind, these pipes aren’t exactly light. We need to get ’em unloaded so Goodwin can get started on what he calls his artesian well.”

  “I’ll be along in a little bit,” Buckhorn said. “I want to see this.”

  Carl and the other men trudged off under their load.

  “I didn’t mean for that to sound like I’m in a hurry to break up this conversation we’re having,” Buckhorn told Justine, abruptly realizing how it could have been taken that way.

  She smiled. “I understand. I’d like to see how they go about it, too. It’s my duty as a news reporter to observe. Especially if Goodwin succeeds in hitting water. That would be the biggest story I’ve ever run since . . . well, since I’ve taken over the Sun Ledger.”

  Noting how her tone and expression turned suddenly somber, Buckhorn said, “So let’s tag along and have a look together.”

  “I’ll come along in a little bit. I’d better take care of a couple other things first.”

  “Can’t they wait?”

  “One of them is to check and see if I’ve gotten any response from the telegram inquiries I sent out about the rebellion situation down in Mexico. I told the telegrapher to send word right away if anything came in, but with all this other excitement going on he might have forgot.”

  “The way we’ve lighted a fire under Wainwright—and maybe Don Pedro, too—I don’t think whatever’s going on with the rebellion is gonna be as important to them as it was before. Not until they’ve dealt with us and this whole business about a new water source.”

  Justine didn’t say anything for a minute. Her gaze drifted once again over the stir of activity still taking place around them, as if drinking it in deeply, savoring every morsel of it. “God, I wish Gerald was here to see this, too,” she said quietly. She gave a nervous, self-conscious little laugh. “Along with about a million other reasons I wish he was still here.”

  It was a touchy matter, but Buckhorn felt like he was expected to say something. “You miss your husband a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Tremendously. He was the love of my life and the most fair and decent man I ever met. He had the talent to work for a bigger paper anywhere in the country, but he liked it here, liked the whole big, sprawling, raucous West, as he used to put it. He wanted to do more than just report the news and events. He wanted to tell the West’s stories and he felt Wagon Wheel was an almost perfect place to start from.”

  Buckhorn cleared his throat. “The last time we were talking and got on the subject of your husband, you sorta clammed up. Didn’t want talk about him at all.”

  “I usually don’t. I’m not sure why I feel the need now.” Justine turned her head and regarded Buckhorn intently. “No, that’s not true. I know exactly why I want to tell you about Gerald. I want you to know the truth about how he died, Buckhorn. They killed him, that’s how. I can’t prove it, but I know with every fiber of my being that dirty bastard Wainwright was behind it.”

  “And you wanted me to know that because . . .”

  “The other night when we all met in my kitchen after you’d learned about the plans for creating Silverado, you made a remark about simply killing Wainwright. You said that was how you used to do things and that, in a roundabout way, it was why you’d come here in the first place. Is all of that true?”

  “I already answered that.”

  Justine continued to regard him, her gaze probing deep. Then, abruptly, she said, “Good. You
see, I want very much for Thomas Wainwright not to come out of this alive. I realize that must sound awful and that’s why, before I told you, I wanted you to understand my reasons. I know I have no right to ask and I can’t afford to pay you anywhere near what you probably get for hiring out to do something like that. Plus you said you’re out of the business, anyway. It’s not like you haven’t already done a lot of good in your short time here. For whatever it’s worth and however you can rationalize it, I hope the thing you said you came here for remains among your priorities.”

  Buckhorn smiled thinly. “Considering how Wainwright and his top gun, Sweetwater, have their own reasons for wanting me dead, you can rest assured that I fully intend to make them that way first.”

  CHAPTER 39

  As the last sliver of a boiling red sun was sinking behind the horizon, two things happened almost simultaneously in the town of Wagon Wheel. On the south end, coming up through Mexville, a rider arrived at a hard gallop. On the north end, in a weedy patch of ground out behind Clyburg’s blacksmith barn, Martin Goodwin slammed his sledgehammer down on the third section of pipe he was driving into the ground and from out of the hollow iron sleeve came a gurgling, bubbling spray of muddy brown water.

  For several seconds, the small crowd of onlookers who’d wandered over to watch Goodwin conduct his well drilling stood in dumbfounded silence, as if neither comprehending nor believing what their eyes were seeing.

  When the truth of what they were witnessing finally sank in and the spell suddenly broke, a celebratory cheer burst forth like the water itself surging up out of the ground. The joyous sound spread and grew louder until others came scurrying to see what was going on.

  All the while, water sprang forth like a geyser— higher and higher, turning cold and clean and sweet to the taste. Before long, grown men were stomping around in the mud, scooping handfuls of the wonderful liquid to their mouths and splashing one another like a bunch of frolicking little kids.

  It was this scene that the rider from the south, after gaining clearance to get past the guards posted at the barricades, came upon. He was one of the men who’d initially stayed behind in Mexville but it was obvious he had been riding hard for some time.

  He paused to absorb the scene and a smile briefly touched his mouth then his expression turned serious again and his eyes returned to searching faces in the crowd. When his gaze locked on Buckhorn and Carl Orndecker standing together on the fringe of the splashing and carrying-on, he nudged his horse over to them.

  “Tinto,” Carl said, recognizing the man. “Too many times in the past I have visited your neighborhood in search of something to drink.” Smiling, he spread his arms wide. “Now I welcome you to my part of town for a drink of something even better.”

  “Sí, señor,” said Tinto. “It is a most wonderful thing taking place here.”

  Over at the well, the sheriff and Goodwin were shouting for everybody to settle down, telling them to hurry up and bring any containers they wanted to fill before Goodwin capped the pipe for a while in order to rig a shutoff valve and spigot to gain better control over future discharge.

  “But to the south, where I just came from,” Tinto continued, “things are not so good. It is very bad. The gunfighter armies of Don Pedro and Señor Wainwright have broken into a bloody battle at the Olomoso hacienda. Many men have been killed or wounded.”

  “Is this battle still going on?” Buckhorn asked, suddenly oblivious to the frivolity taking place all around them.

  “I did not get close enough to see with my own eyes,” Tinto reported earnestly. “I met one of the servants from the hacienda who had fled. He told me. He said both sides suffered terrible losses and the hacienda was in flames, total ruin threatening. The last he saw, the Wainwright men were riding off but promising to return and finish what they had started.”

  Buckhorn and Carl exchanged looks.

  Carl’s eyebrows lifted. “Whoa. I’d say this night is turning out better and better. Goodwin’s water has shown up but it sounds like Wainwright’s gun wolves aren’t going to. At least not any time soon. I’d say that’s a mighty good trade.”

  “Sure sounds like it,” Buckhorn agreed. Then he said to Tinto, “This fella you ran into, this servant from the hacienda—you have reason to trust him pretty good? You think he’s telling it straight as far as what happened at Don Pedro’s hacienda?”

  Tinto responded quickly and firmly. “Sí. He is the cousin to my first wife’s sister-in-law. He has long been in the service of Don Pedro and he was very frightened. I believe he was telling the truth.”

  Buckhorn nodded. “That’s good. I’m curious, though. What made you decide to head down that way in the first place?”

  “I heard the talk about Don Pedro hiring the man with the water stick. Like you, I got curious,” Tinto explained. “I know some vaqueros who work for Don Pedro. We get together to play cards from time to time but have not done so for quite a while. I decided to try my luck at playing cards with them and I thought I could ask about the man with the water stick at the same time.”

  “That’s reasonable enough, I guess,” Buckhorn said. “I don’t want you to take offense but this is mighty serious business so we have to treat it that way. That means I have to ask my friend Carl about you, just to make sure. You understand?”

  “Sí, I think so,” said Tinto, though he did not look as certain as his words.

  Turning to Carl, Buckhorn said, “How about this fella? You know him well enough to trust what he’s telling us?”

  “I know him mostly from my drinking trips down to Mexville. I guess that’s not the most solid basis for making judgment,” Carl admitted. “But, still, I got no reason not to trust Tinto. I see no reason for him to be feeding us a falsehood as far as what happened between Wainwright and Don Pedro.”

  “No, neither do I. That makes you right about this night turning out better and better. That sets me to thinking on how we might be able to turn it even more to our favor.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Let’s rope in the sheriff and Justine and Goodwin,” answered Buckhorn, “and I’ll explain what I have in mind.”

  * * *

  Considering who he was talking to and all the wild schemes already in play, Sheriff Banning’s tone was only mildly incredulous as he said, “So we turn into the invaders? Take a force of men and ride out to hit the Flying W before Wainwright heads for Don Pedro’s again . . . That’s what you’re suggesting?”

  “It’s a thought that crossed my mind,” Buckhorn replied. “I’m tossing it out to see what the rest of you think, that’s all.”

  “I think it’s a damn good notion,” Carl chimed in with ill-concealed eagerness. “It’s bold and unexpected and it not only means hitting Wainwright when he’s already bloodied and weakened, it would save the damage that the town would be certain to suffer—no matter how good we got it blocked off—if we continue to wait for the Flying W gunnies to hit us here.”

  Buckhorn, Banning, Carl, and Justine were huddled outside a far corner of the blacksmith barn, discussing the idea Buckhorn had put forth. Goodwin and Deputy Pomeroy remained over by the wellhead, maintaining some semblance of order as folks brought buckets and barrels to fill before Goodwin temporarily capped the water geyser.

  “I think taking the fight to the Flying W would be a good idea, too,” Justine declared. “Like Carl said, we’ve done a good job of fortifying the town for an attack here. Why risk it if we don’t have to? We have enough able-bodied men to send a sufficient force out there and still leave an adequate number behind to guard the town in case of something unsuspected.”

  “I don’t have an objection against hitting the Flying W, either,” said the sheriff. “In fact, the more I hear, the more I like it. I’m just playing devil’s advocate, that’s all, to make sure we think everything through before we go ahead and act too rashly.”

  “I’m all for that,” Buckhorn said. “We want to take advantage of the situation, not trade on
e set of problems for another.”

  “There’s another advantage that could possibly be seized by taking the Flying W ranch headquarters,” Justine said. “Everybody’s heard of the big safe Wainwright has in his office out there. Where he keeps not only money, supposedly, but also all the deeds and related paperwork to the land he’s gobbled up in the past year or so. I don’t know if it’s true or who’d be willing to admit it, but there’s even been talk that he holds markers on some of the businesses around town.

  “My point is this—everybody knows damn well how a lot of that land was taken by force. Now that we have a sheriff again”—Justine’s eyes cut meaningfully to Banning—“and there’s the added leverage of the town possessing its own water supply, I bet we could get that whole paperwork pile reviewed by territorial legal authorities who’d find a good portion of it not legally binding. That would be one more blow to keeping Wainwright’s Silverado from ever coming about.”

  “It damn sure would,” agreed her brother. “And it would provide some good people another chance to reclaim their land and move back in again.”

  “I’ll do my part . . . meaning, what I should have done in the first place.” Banning met Justine’s gaze, though he spoke in a somewhat subdued voice. “I know some strings to pull that’ll bring in the right authorities. Once they show up and start digging, not much doubt they’ll turn up exactly the kind of things in question.”

  “From my standpoint, that sorta ranks as frosting on the cake,” Buckhorn said. “First order of business is still to ride out there and deal with whatever’s left of Wainwright’s gunnies. We’ll want to hit ’em just before daybreak. I figure for sure you and me in the mix, Carl. Beyond that, the rest of you know the right townsmen to pick to go with us. You gonna be in on the raid, Sheriff, or you figure it best for you to stay and keep watch over things here?”