by Tim Champlin
Belcher nodded. “I don’t reckon you’ll be able to ride with us.” It was a statement.
“No. Got things to do.”
“Too bad.” Belcher sounded relieved.
Charvein touched the brim of his hat and pulled the mule around toward Lodestar. As he rode off, he felt their eyes boring into him—the tingling sensation between his shoulder blades that presaged a bullet.
But nothing happened, and he continued riding for ten minutes before venturing a look back. They were already small in the distance, moving away from him on the trail of the escapees.
It had been a foolish notion, thinking he could ever find or catch up to Denson Boyd. His pursuit of Boyd would have to wait. Right now, he’d take Lucy home, regroup, and decide his next move.
* * *
Buck Rankin awoke gradually, feeling like he had the worst hangover of his life. His nose was clogged, his mouth dry and tasting of dirt. He rolled over and sat up on the dust-covered floor, muscles aching. The chronic pain in his hamstring was as familiar as an old adversary.
For a minute he couldn’t recall where he was or what had happened. He wiped his eyes carefully. One of them was stuck shut. When he got his eyes working, he took in his surroundings and saw he was in some sort of vacant room. The sun’s rays slanted through a big shard of broken glass in one of the windows. The sun was high, just past noon.
He was suddenly seized with a paroxysm of sneezing. When he stopped, he untied his bandanna, shook it out, and blew brown dirt out of his nostrils. His head ached, his throat was parched, and his big frame felt heavy, loggy, lifeless. Thinking was an effort. Sitting on the floor, he inhaled deeply. His breath was wheezy. Damned near drowned in dust, he thought.
Flashes of the recent past crossed his mind. He recalled leaving the posse behind and striking out in the storm for Lodestar. That must be where he was now, but he had no clear memory of getting here. He concentrated. It was disconcerting not being able to remember everything in detail. Even in his heavier days of jousting with John Barleycorn, he’d always been able to recall everything the next day.
He remembered being terrified of something. He tried to conjure up a mental image of it. A figure… someone following and calling his name. Had that really happened, or was it just the wind and fatigue and his imagination? He squeezed his eyes shut. A man’s frame. A familiar voice. Schooner Douglas! From his own posse. He’d panicked at the apparition and fired. Why? Fear? Anger that the big man had followed him? Who knew? His own horse had bolted at the gunfire. Details began to fall into place. He relived the last part of that ordeal, when he had staggered up the long slope into the teeth of the gusting wind, pushed open a door, and fallen inside this building. He must have passed out from exhaustion or lack of breathable air. Had he killed Schooner Douglas? He pulled his Colt and checked it. Three expended shells in the cylinder. Three was enough. Even drunk, he was a good shot. If Douglas had actually been there, he would have taken some lead.
Rankin punched out the empties, then fingered cartridges from his belt loops to reload.
“What now, Buck, old boy?” he husked aloud to himself. He’d abandoned that no-good posse so he could operate on his own, acting on a hunch that the two escapees were in Lodestar. He was determined to capture or kill these two kidnappers and rake in the entire reward.
But, first things first. He had to find water. He’d lost his mount with the canteen on the saddle. A low flame of thirst burned his throat. He fantasized about plunging headfirst into the cool waters of the Carson River, cleansing his hair, eyes, nose, and throat, if not his lungs.
He got to his feet, feeling like a wounded bear. His leg pained him, but he hardly noticed, so much a part of his life had it become. Walking stiffly to the front door of the vacant building, he looked out into the deserted street. At least the dust and wind had subsided, and the sun was shining. No one in sight. No sound. A light breeze fanned his face as he stepped into the street. It was so quiet that to maintain the hush he instinctively refrained from clumping along the boardwalk. In case the men he sought were hiding somewhere in this ghost town, he didn’t want to advertise his presence. But the place felt dead. He sensed he was the only living soul here. He ducked in and out of each building he passed. Finally spotting a forlorn-looking saloon with one batwing door missing, he went inside.
Someone had been here recently. Lots of scuff marks and boot prints on the dirty floor. He was sure his quarry had been here. Going into the back room, he poked around through the boxes and barrels, disturbing a mouse. He found a half case of sarsaparilla and breathed a sigh while he carefully worked off the cap and tasted it. He grinned. Never had sarsaparilla tasted so good. He hauled the case out front and set it on the bar, where he emptied two bottles and started on a third before he began to feel more human. Perhaps he could find some tinned food that was still edible, although he didn’t have much hope of that. Continuing his explorations, he found evidence of recent human presence in several other buildings. Piles of fairly fresh horse manure littered the streets. Several horses, at least, he thought. Deposited within the past two days. Lodestar was anything but a ghost town. After poking into most of the buildings up and down Center Street and three more on side streets, Rankin was thoroughly sick of dirt, litter, pack rat droppings, broken glass, rusting cans, and all the usual trash left to be covered by the patient dust of time.
Tired, he sat on the edge of the boardwalk on the shady side of the street. He thought of the posse and wondered if they’d started back to Virginia City. It would be more like them to be dithering and arguing about what to do and which way to go, trying to figure out if they’d been abandoned. Amateurs, he thought. But he had other things to occupy his mind. He’d rest a bit during the hottest part of the day, then see if he could locate his horse. Buck Rankin was tougher than dust storms, ghost towns, posses, and especially fugitives who had a big price on their heads.
Going inside a barbershop, he lay down on the floor. He was very tired. The ordeal of the night before had taken more out of him than he liked to admit. Growing older was not something he would do gracefully.
He dozed in the heat.
Charvein was hot, tired, and thirsty. But as Sandoval’s mule plodded into Lodestar, Charvein found himself thinking more and more about Lucy. Pretty and young, she was a bright spot—something nice to ponder instead of mulling over the recent brutal episodes. During the two or three days it would take them to ride back to Carson City, he’d get to know her better. The trip should be uneventful, though he couldn’t bet on that. At least Sandoval, who’d observed the weather here for four years, had assured him the night wind would not blow again for several days. The cessation of wind-borne dust would be a blessing.
He caught a movement, and his heart rate quickened. But it was only a tumbleweed bouncing along to fetch up against the front of the barbershop fifty yards ahead of him. To the end of the street and then on to Sandoval’s cavern. He wondered what Sandoval and Lucy would say when they saw him returning so soon.
He rode past the barbershop.
“Hands up, mister!” came a command from behind him, accompanied by the sharp double click of a pistol being cocked.
His heart sank.
SEVENTEEN
Not again. Twice in the same day. Could he be lucky a second time?
Slight pressure on the reins brought the tired mule to a standstill. He raised his hands to shoulder height and waited, not turning around. I’ll force him to shoot me in the back, if that’s what he has in mind.
He heard scuffing steps approach. A man holding a pistol circled around in front of him, staying several yards away.
“Sorry to do this, mister, but I have need of your mule and your water.” He cleared his throat and spat while motioning with the weapon. “Get down.”
Charvein dismounted and stepped to one side. There was something familiar about this man, he thought, trying to see the face shaded by the hat brim. With a jolt, he recognized Buck Rankin—ol
der, rougher-looking, but it was the same hard man he’d known as a deputy U.S. marshal.
“Buck? Is that you?”
The man’s head snapped up and he stared intently. No sign of recognition in the bloodshot eyes.
“Marc Charvein. Railroad detective a good while ago. You took a couple prisoners off my hands after they’d robbed the U.S. Mail coach back in’75.”
“Is that so?”
It was obvious Rankin still didn’t recall. This man had apparently been through a lot since their last meeting. “A bunch of summers have rolled over us since then. What’ve you been up to, Buck?”
Rankin looked confused.
Charvein had to be careful. The man’s mental state might be delicate if he’d recently abandoned his posse and killed Schooner Douglas. Obviously, this wasn’t the Buck Rankin he remembered.
Holding Charvein with his eyes and his Colt, Rankin moved toward the mule. “Back up.”
Charvein obeyed, still trying to sound relaxed and casual. “That ain’t my mule, Buck, but you can borrow him if you really need to.”
Rankin led the mule a short distance away and mounted.
“You sure we’ve met before?”
“Hell, I’d know you anywhere, Buck.” A lie. “You likely met a lot of people in your line o’ work, but surely you remember me—Marc Charvein. We were both in and out of Virginia City and Gold Hill around the time the miners hit the Big Bonanza. Those were boom times, weren’t they?” he kept up his familiar patter.
Rankin lowered his Colt but still held it, resting his hand on the saddle horn.
Charvein tried another tack. “Buck, if you’re on the trail of those two escapees from Carson who kidnapped the girl, I can tell you where they went.”
Rankin became instantly intent. “How do you know about them?”
“I was after Denson Boyd,” he replied, deciding to tell at least part of the truth. “Followed him here. Then his two ex-partners showed up with their woman hostage. We had a run-in.” He took a few easy steps toward Rankin. Maybe he could catch the ex-marshal off guard and jump him. Buck’s reactions seemed sluggish. “Were you riding a sorrel with a California saddle?”
“Yeah. You seen him?”
“Sure did. He was wandering loose.”
“I gotta get him back.”
“Too late. Those two men you’re after got away with him and are headed across the playa toward Virginia City right now.”
“Damn your hide! You better be tellin’ me the truth.” He raised his Colt again.
Charvein spread his palms to show he had nothing to hide. “If you don’t believe me, I can show you their tracks on the edge of town.” If he could get them all chasing the same convicts, he and Lucy could make their getaway, leaving Sandoval in his hideaway—once again the sole occupant of Lodestar.
“How long they been gone?” Rankin was more alert, attentive.
“Since just after sunup.”
“Why didn’t you go after them?”
Charvein shrugged. “They weren’t my worry. I was deputized to find Boyd. But he escaped in another direction last night.”
Rankin’s eyes narrowed, and he seemed to focus. “Drop your gunbelt.”
“What for? Buck, you and I are on the same side of the law.”
“I’m borrowing your mule, whether you like it or not. If I get my horse, I’ll turn this animal loose to find its way back to you—provided you got him trained right.” He raised his Colt again. “Show me those tracks, and I’ll decide if they were made by the two I’m looking for.”
Charvein had a sense of events repeating themselves as he unbuckled his gunbelt and let it fall at his feet. “Follow me.” He turned and began walking toward the upper end of the street.
He’d gone only ten yards when a rifle shot cracked.
Eeee-Haww!!!
Charvein whirled in time to see the mule jump and buck. Rankin’s Colt went flying as he grabbed for the saddle horn with both hands.
Another shot from somewhere took Rankin’s hat off. The mule leapt up and down in a jolting, stiff-legged panic, flinging the ex-marshal out of the saddle. Rankin rolled out of the way of the flying hooves and grabbed his pistol out of the dust. He scrambled toward the gaping doorway of the nearest building. Another shot tore splinters from the hitching rail a foot behind the fleeing man.
Charvein had no time to look for the origin of the shots, but he sensed they weren’t meant for him as he dodged desperately around the mule, trying to retrieve his gunbelt on the ground.
The mule finally galloped off toward the lower end of Center Street, and Charvein grabbed his gunbelt just as a slug kicked up dust close to his hand. The shot came from Rankin’s direction; Charvein sprinted the opposite way, throwing himself behind the corner of the stone church.
Panting, he crouched, pulled his weapon, and scanned the buildings. Another rifle shot blasted the stillness, and he saw the puff of smoke come from behind a ruined watering trough fifty yards away. Who the hell was that?
Rankin had apparently spotted the smoke as well, and he returned fire. But he was out of effective pistol range.
A figure sprang up from behind the trough and dashed between two buildings. In the two seconds of exposure, Charvein recognized the faded brown and red poncho. Sandoval!
Charvein fired two quick shots toward Rankin’s hiding place, then sprinted through the open front door of the church. A minute later, Sandoval entered the nave from a side door near the ruined baptistry.
“You don’t have to help me,” Charvein said. “I think I can probably handle Buck Rankin. He’s out of his head.”
“Rankin!” The name slithered from Sandoval’s lips like the foulest curse. His black, hooded eyes were reptilian, set in a face of stone.
“You know him, too? He acts like he doesn’t remember me from our lawman days.”
“Does a sinner not know Satan?”
Charvein wondered what stirred such venom as the two of them slid up to either side of the open doorway and looked across the street. There was no sign of Rankin.
Charvein noted the rifle in Sandoval’s hands. “You could have hit him dead center with that,” he said, recalling the shot in the dirt that spooked the mule, and the second bullet that had taken off Buck’s hat.
“Could have,” he replied, clenching his jaw.
For a moment, Charvein didn’t speak. “Buck was acting strange, but I don’t think he’d have shot me. He ordered me to point out the tracks of the two escapees he was hunting. I put his posse on the same trail a couple miles out on the playa earlier today.” He looked at Sandoval’s impassive face, trying to assess his motivation. “You didn’t want to shoot him from ambush just to get your mule back—I understand that. But now we have to deal with him, somehow.”
* * *
Sandoval remained silent, staring across the street at the weathered building that sheltered Buck Rankin.
“That was Rankin’s horse we found and sold this morning,” Charvein added. “I was just trying to get Buck out of town and chasing the same tracks. Then we’d be rid of them all.”
Something else was eating at Sandoval. “Buck Rankin is the reason I’m here in Lodestar.” He paused, and Charvein concealed his surprise as he waited for him to continue.
“Rankin forced himself on my wife… threatened her with a knife… I walked in on him having his way with her…” He struggled to force out this information in short, breathless bursts. “Shot at him in bed. Wounded him in the leg. But I was half-drunk and blind with hate, and my bullets went wild and hit her, too…” Sandoval was breathing hard now, slim hands convulsing on the rifle stock. “That damned Rankin howled like the very devil himself. Blood everywhere… I scooped up my wife and ran. Threw her across my saddle and rode like the wind… She was dead even then, but I didn’t know it.” He choked back a sob. “I was a wanted man… Shook off a posse in the mountains… Caught a wild burro, managed to reach Lodestar. Buried my wife near here in a secret place. Almo
st starved at first. Survived on rabbits and gopher rats.” He drew a deep breath and looked at Charvein. “I’ll be hanged for murder if I go back.”
Charvein absorbed this shock, then said, “Surely any jury would consider what you did justifiable.”
“No. A dark-skinned man can’t shoot a deputy U.S. marshal and walk free, no matter the circumstances.”
“Any witnesses?”
Sandoval shook his head. “His word against mine. And he has friends who will back up his story.”
Charvein knew he was right. “Where did this happen?”
“Little place called Chilton, Nevada, south of Carson. A mining town where Buck Rankin came to escort a prisoner back to Virginia City for trial. He thought my Linda was fair game because she was a cook in a cantina.”
He let this sink in. “How do you keep from being recognized and arrested when you make trips to Virginia City for supplies?”
“Thousands of people come and go there all the time. This happened four years ago. I have a friend in Virginia City who lets me stay at his casa while he takes my money and buys my supplies. I come and go by night. As time passes, my crime has been forgotten, by everyone except me—and Rankin.”
Charvein wanted to probe for more details. But tears formed in Sandoval’s eyes, and his Adam’s apple worked as he tried to swallow his emotion. Not the time for more questions.
“Maybe we can just run him off,” Charvein suggested, sounding unconvincing even to himself.
“My mule has run back toward the cavern,” Sandoval said. “If we can smoke Rankin out, and disarm him, we’ll give him a canteen and send him across the playa on foot.”
Charvein glanced at his friend. “Might as well shoot him. It’d be more merciful than sending him out there to die. He’s been through quite an ordeal already; he’d never make it across.”
“Why should I care about that? My heart is stone. We’ll give him a chance. If God wants to save him, He can.”
“But you couldn’t bring yourself to shoot him?”
