Buchanan Says No

by Jonas Ward

  Buchanan Says No

  Chapter One

  All night long they had driven the stolen herd so that they could reach the rendezvous at the appointed time. Once there, they had pitched "last camp' a haphazard, temporary arrangement, and then proceeded to wait for the money man throughout that long, hellish, breezeless day. Now it was night again, with a thin crescent moon hanging in a cloudless sky, and there was no relief from the oppressive heat that bore down on them between the steep canyon walls. It was night and still they waited.

  Four of them sat cross-legged beside the cooking fire, playing a listless, meaningless game with what cards still remained from the dog-eared deck. They were rough men, hard-cases, and when the flickering light touched their begrimed, beard-stubbled faces, it revealed in all of them the same tense and brooding restlessness, an Impatience that was surly, dangerous.

  Two others prowled aimlessly about the campsite on foot, pausing out of habit to watch the bored progress of the poker, then moving away again, carefully avoiding each other in the shadows, seeming not even to acknowledge another presence. They walked, separately, from the fire to the canyon's mouth, stared out over the black, craggy land, and silently cursed the man who hadn't arrived with their money.

  The chuck wagon stood off to one side, and out of sight of those by the fire someone was braced against a wheel, drinking stolidly from a tin cup that he filled and filled again from a jug hidden within the wagon itself. This was Durfee, the trail boss, and the jug had been originally intended as a Johnny-go-round marking the end of this unorthodox and nerve-shredding drive.

  But Frank Power had slipped up, for the first time that Durfee could remember. The Major was a lot of things, but above all else he was on time with the payroll. This was the day they'd agreed on, this was the place, but no sign of somebody named Boyd Weston, the jacko packing their money this trip.

  Durfee's own mind, though, had been timed to a release from the hardships and the pressures of the long journey. It was as if, back there in Yuma, a fuse had been sparked inside him, a fuse set for forty days, no more, no less, and this was the fortieth day. Hardly had the sun set when Durfee edged over to his precious cache in the chuck wagon and began the serious process of unwinding.

  But he had to get drunk with care, soddenly but furtively, for though he had hand-picked every man out there, commanded them absolutely, he also knew them for the natural type they were, knew how such a natural thing as whisky could bring on a mutiny.

  Durfee filled the tin cup again, drank from it with the solid conviction that whatever he did was for the crew's own good. He drank, also, with no concern for the safety of the cattle. Buchanan would take care of the herd for him.

  And that Buchanan would, with or without supervision from the drover. He was; in fact, just finishing a two-hour night-tending stint in the saddle, bedding the fretful animals down at a time when they were accustomed to be on the move. The late watch had the duty now, relieving Buchanan and his sidekick, Sandoe, for chow. Both men were surprised to find Durfee lurking at the wagon but made no comment as they secured utensils and helped themselves from the cooking pots at the fire. There was no talk between them, no greeting from the card players, and they moved off into the darkness to eat their supper,

  Mike Sandoe finally broke the silence,

  "More coffee?"

  Buchanan shook his head without breaking the thoughtful gaze leveled at the chuck wagon.

  "Some lousy night this is going to be.” Sandoe said then. "Don't suppose you got the makings?"

  It was asked unhappily, more a statement of sorry fact than a question. But Buchanan reached into the torn pocket of his threadbare shirt, pulled out a depleted tobacco pouch, and passed it over. Sandoe pinched the slim contents between his fingers.

  "Hell,' he said disgustedly, "Save this for the cat.”

  A six-footer himself, well blocked, Sandoe still had to look op when he spoke to Buchanan. And he looked up to him in other ways besides the purely physical. He didn't understand why he felt this deference, wasn't even sure how he stood in the other man's eyes. It was very unusual, this attitude he took, almost improbable, for at twenty-six Mike Sandoe was a gunfighter with an earned rep, a somebody in his own right. Yet he treated the thirty-year-old Buchanan with a regard he had never accorded any other.

  The warrior didn't know quite why. In a special crew like this one of Durfee's, where every man lived by the gun, Buchanan went unarmed except for the rifle in his saddle. In a hard society where notoriety was all, Buchanan's exploits—if they even existed—were completely unknown to the rest. And though this was the stranger's first drive with Durfee, it was obvious that Buchanan was more a veteran of the trail than most of those who had ridden for him from the start. From the very first Durfee passed on responsibility to the newcomer, delegated authority to him, and this was accepted by all hands as a natural thing. Buchanan was just that kind, Sandoe decided weeks before, settling the matter in his mind.

  "Save this for the cat,” he said now, handing back the tobacco pooch, Buchanan accepted it absently, his attention still focused on Bill Durfee at the wagon. Then his body suddenly straightened to its full height and he moved away, advancing lithely in that direction. Sandoe's voice called after him questioningly, but Buchanan strode on without answering. Durfee wasn't aware he had company until the dark ominous-looking figure was looming above him. The trail boss lifted his battle-scarred face with a start.

  "You're half Apache.” Durfee complained his speech an uneven growl. "Whatta you want?"

  "Nine o'clock's come and gone, Bill.” Buchanan said the sound of it good-natured, deceptively mild in the night.

  "Tomorrow's another day; Bucko. Now go away and let me be."

  "The deal ran out tonight, Bill. I want my wages."

  "He'll bring your money in the morning. First thing,” Durfee turned his back, dismissing him with the gesture.

  "This morning,” Buchanan said patiently, "you told me he'd be here this afternoon. This afternoon you said he'd be here by nine o'clock."

  "Can't you see I'm busy, man?" Durfee said sharply, his voice carrying to the fire, halting the game there. "Go take a walk for yourself in the moonlight,"

  "I'm taking a ride for myself," Buchanan said,

  Durfee twisted his head around, eyes blazing, looking in that moment like an enraged bull. "You're what?"

  "I'm going into town," Buchanan told him easily, "Into Bella."

  "Like hell you are!"

  "And I'll need the lend of a mount. You'll find him in the livery when you get there."

  "You ain't goin' no place! You especially ain't goin’ into Bella!" Now the crew was converging on the chuck wagon, lured there by the spectacle of someone actually courting the terrible wrath of Bill Durfee.

  "A deal's a deal, Bill." Buchanan went on, speaking as though this were nothing more than a reasonable conversation. "I agreed to help push these beeves as far as Indian Rocks, which is where we've been since dawn this morning."

  "And where we'll still be at dawn tomorrow!"

  "I agreed to work for ten dollars a day."

  "And to spend the money anyplace in the Territory but the town of Bella!"

  ""Which just happens to be where my money is," Buchanan said.

  Durfee's black-browed head sank threateningly between his massive shoulders. "You implyin' a double-cross, mister?" he said heavily, and the onlookers tensed expectantly.

  "'Well, Bill," Buchanan said with a disarming grin, "you got to admit that there's none of us in this operation you could strictly call deacons of the church."

  Durfee swung on him from the heels. Buchanan slid under the roundhouse and put his face up close to the other man's,

  "Don't do that again, Bil
l,” he said.

  Durfee tried a second time, with his thick knee. Buchanan hip-blocked it, got his own tremendous hand beneath the knee, and lifted abruptly. The trail boss went over backward and down with a jarring fall. Buchanan looked down at him, his own rough and battered face keenly apologetic.

  "A hell of a poor way to part company, Bill," he said regretfully, and turned away. There was a sharp commotion behind him, punctuated by Mike Sandoe's ragged command:

  "Leave it lay, Durfee!"

  Buchanan swung around to find Durfee risen to one knee, his hand frozen to the butt of the half-holstered Remington while his eyes balefully regarded the long-barreled Colt that Sandoe leveled directly at his wishbone.

  "I gave you the benefit of the doubt,” Buchanan said with a kind of sorrow. "I never figured anybody in this crew for a back-shooter."

  Durfee climbed back to his feet, his face sullen.

  "No man that works for me sets foot in Bella," he said truculently. "That's the strictest order in the books."

  "I quit working for you at nine o'clock,” Buchanan said, "So that makes it all right.”

  Mike Sandoe stepped closer to Durfee, slid the Remington free with a swift motion.

  "I guess I quit, too, Durfee," he said, backing toward Buchanan and using both handguns to discourage anyone overly loyal to the drover. Darkness swallowed both men and then they were saddling fresh horses from Durfee's meager string,

  "You sure you want to come along?" Buchanan asked when they were mounted.

  "Hell, no," Sandoe admitted. "But I sure don't have a choice now,”

  "You moved pretty quick back there, kid. Much obliged."

  Sandoe looked at him. “I’m as quick as I have to be.” he said. "And don't call me kid."

  They rode on without further conversation, and for Buchanan's part, he was glad that the break with Durfee had been final and unsentimental. Forty days ago he'd never laid eyes on the hot-tempered little ramrod, only met him then after a slight, disagreement. It was down in Yuma, in a bar in the Mexican quarter that was not only a cool refuge from the desert sun, but the cheapest oasis in town. Durfee had come in with two other riders, and one of them had promptly objected to the dark-eyed girl filling Buchanan's lap. According to him, Buchanan was claim-jumping. And when the girl kicked her bare foot at him, and insisted in down-to-earth Spanish that she was comfortable where she was, why, a fight just naturally started.

  The senorita, as Buchanan remembered, hadn't been as quick getting up from there as she might have been. Durfee’s companion got in two quick ones with his heavy fists before Buchanan could get the lady out of the way. Then, more happy than angry at the break in the siesta, and neither drunk nor out of condition, the tall man concluded the entertainment and settled the matter: The girl could sit on Buchanan's lap to her heart's content.

  Durfee and the second man stayed out of the brief ruckus, showing only one bit of partiality when they revived their unconscious friend with a bucket of kitchen water. Even more surprising, Durfee invited him to drink from his own bottle of honest-to-God American rye whiskey. Buchanan accepted the hospitality gracefully, and the next clear thought came two nights later. By then he was no longer in the little Mexican bar. He was not even in Yuma. He was in a chuck wagon, being carried along on a strange cattle drive. Strange because the beeves moved between dusk and dawn, and called as little attention to themselves during the daylight hours as the crew could manage. Moreover, so Durfee told him, the two of them had a firm agreement: Buchanan was working for Durfee when he was fit to sit a saddle again. A deal is a deal, Buchanan told himself, and a job was a job—though it was obvious that this herd of Chihuahuas had come north of the border without benefit of bill of sale. But Durfee, as it turned out, hadn't stolen the animals himself. Mexicans had, from other Mexicans, and Durfee took delivery outside Yuma in exchange for U.S. Army-issue rifles and ammo. All this innocent crew was doing was providing safe passage for the herd to a man in Bella, California Territory.

  Boyd Weston was the name Durfee had mentioned this morning, and Mr. Weston hadn't come through on his part of the bargain. But Buchanan felt that he'd done his fair share, and now he meant to collect his wages. All in all, he was happy to have the episode end in this fashion.

  He'd ridden with happier crews than Durfee's bunch, and, if anybody asked him, professional gunmen were pretty dull company on the trail. Also, it had gone against the grain to do everything they did so furtively, to keep looking over their shoulders for both the law and the soldier boys with their embarrassing questions. The night was no time for an honest man to do his work.

  They had been riding for nearly an hour when the lights of a busy town clustered on the horizon. Impulsively, each man leaned a little forward in the saddle, urged his horse to a smarter pace. Those lights promised much, and these two had eaten enough dust in forty days to be in a prime mood for promises fulfilled. Mike Sandoe stared directly ahead and Buchanan glanced at him, marking the tight set of the gunfighter's mouth, the hunger and the longing, and he hoped for Sandoe's sake that this Bella was a broad-minded town. For himself, Buchanan understood why the place was off limits to Durfee's crew. Those who were swinging this operation obviously headquartered in Bella and hardly wanted a liquored-up crew detailing it in every bar and bordello in town. And, for himself again, Buchanan had no other intention but to pick up his pay and quietly move on, northwest to the gold fields, perhaps to have a personal look-see at this San Francisco town and make himself a couple of million dollars like every other son. As for Bella, it would be in and out quick, without fuss, fight, or foolishness.

  "Ain't we never gonna get there, Buchanan?" Sandoe said plaintively, and Buchanan laughed.

  "Man,” he said, "how'd you like to have your life depend on these nags?"

  For answer, Sandoe kneed his jaded mount. The effort got him nothing but an uncomfortable quarter-mile stretch from the horse, grown surly from the stiff and unaccustomed pace.

  But every trail ends, even the one into Bella, and then they were topping the rise and hitting the long curve that opened onto Signal Street. They entered the town at an easy lope, peace in their hearts, and wheeled in before a place advertising itself as "Sam Osgood's Livery Stable— Horses for Sale & for Hire—Honesty Is the Best Policy."

  The riders dismounted and stretched their tired muscles indelicately. A sleepy-eyed boy came out of the livery office.

  "Help you, mister?" he asked, directing the question naturally at Buchanan.

  'Take care of these two beauties first-class," Buchanan told him, "Comb, curry, and feed. You might even hose them down if it suits you,”

  "Yessir," the boy said, hooking a hand around each bridle knowingly and leading the animals into the stable proper. Buchanan followed, helped with the unsaddling, and then moved off to one side with his own war bag. When he came back he wore a gun belt at his waist and a Colt .45 hung easily below his hip.

  "What names are these for?" the boy asked,

  "Charge it to Mr. Bill Durfee's account," Buchanan said. "He’ll be along for them in a day or so." He rejoined Mike Sandoe. Sandoe stared at the addition.

  "I almost thought you didn't own any weapon but that Winchester. Must say it looks real natural."

  Buchanan grinned. "Man likes to feel dressed in town."

  "And you also figured you might have to persuade somebody?"

  Buchanan began to shake his head when the voice of the stable boy cut in.

  "There's no Mr. Durfee on our books, mister!"

  "How about Mr. Boyd Weston?"

  "Oh, sure," he said.

  "Then charge their keep to him. Where would I most likely find Boyd Weston this time of night?"

  "His wife's staying at Bella House," the youngster said, pointing the length of Signal Street "I just now collected her buggy.”

  "Obliged," Buchanan said, reaching automatically for a coin, stopping midway and grinning sheepishly when he realized he didn't even have that much to his name.
"Much obliged, boy," he murmured again, and started off down the street with Mike Sandoe, walking with a renewed purpose now, forcing the shorter man to widen his stride to keep abreast. Being stony broke was nothing new to the big man. Being held out on was.

  Chapter Two

  Half an hour earlier a great white stallion had wheeled into Bella's brightly lighted main drag, raising a cloud of choking dust and scattering humanity in its path with an arrogance conferred by the broad-backed, ramrod-straight man who forked the saddle. Frank Power was neither heedless of the disturbance he created nor unaware that lesser men raised their fists as he passed and cursed him out fervently. Power's entrance into the town was calculated to make an impression on Bella, put his name on everyone's lips. He meant to leave no doubts that in this little corner of the world. Frank Power ran things.

  He had this town tamed, but should some stranger resent his insolence with some quick-triggered show of anger, the man would learn to his immediate sorrow that Power tempered his show of bravado with a certain amount of caution, a measure of insurance. For closely in his wake, like an echo, came a pair of sharp-eyed riders—a blunt double warning not to resent being nearly trampled on to the point of taking direct action.

  Having made his entrance, and having progressed into the obviously more prosperous end of town, Power brought the snorting stallion under closer rein and eventually drew n beneath the pretentious, white-pillared portico of Bella House, a sprawling, four-storied frame building whose bulk dominated all of Signal Street. The nearest challenge came from Troy's, directly across the way, but though the gambling place and saloon was half a block long, it was only one story high.

  Frank Power dismounted, tossing the reins negligently over the horse's head to the waiting colored lad, and climbed the entrance stairway in his brisk, forceful fashion. He seemed unmindful of the glances of those who sat in the rockers on the wide porch, seemed not to have noticed the gleaming black, red-trimmed buggy tethered to the rail And for all any stranger could tell, there was no connection between this well-dressed man and the two nondescript horsemen who melted into the shadows beyond the lights of the hotel.