“I was looking the layout over before I came the rest of the way on down,” Buckhorn explained. “Since you already seem to know about me, then you ought to know that folks have been poking guns in my face or tryin’ to ambush me ever since I showed up in these parts. I was just aiming to be cautious.”
“But you weren’t cautious enough, were you?” said Josephine, definitely with a taunting lilt to her voice. “You let me move up behind you.”
Buckhorn felt the burn of embarrassment crawl onto his face.
“Afraid there’s no getting around that,” he muttered.
“So what’s this talk you’re lookin’ to have that made you think you had to be so careful about comin’ forward with it?” Milt wanted to know.
Buckhorn started to answer but then stopped short. His humiliation suddenly flared to a spurt of anger and he said instead, “I’ve said all I’m gonna say lying here on the ground like a worm. You want to hear any more, let me get to my feet. Otherwise, to hell with you.”
One of the rifle-wielding wranglers who’d accompanied Milt up from the ranch took a step forward and said, “You’d better watch your mouth, mister, or you’re gonna find it mighty hard to do any talkin’ out of it.”
Milt raised a hand, holding the wrangler in check. He returned his glare to Buckhorn, seeming to consider, then said, “Okay. Go ahead and push yourself up as far as your knees. Real slow. Remember you got four guns trained on you, so keep your hands out away from your body or you’re apt to make one of us twitchy.”
Buckhorn did as instructed.
“Now, even slower, unbuckle your gunbelt and push it back behind you.”
Again, Buckhorn complied.
“All right. Get on up the rest of the way. Just be sure to do it—”
“I know. Real slow,” Buckhorn finished for him.
As he rose to his feet, Buckhorn swept his gaze over the rest of those arranged in a semicircle before him. Milt remained directly in front. To either side of their boss stood two lean, leathery-looking wranglers, both appearing to be in their middle to late twenties, with nothing to mark them as particularly distinct or memorable.
Farther to Buckhorn’s right, comprising the tip of the semicircle on that side, stood the girl, Josephine. In addition to being the only female in the group, there was plenty else that was distinct and memorable about her. Early twenties, Buckhorn judged her to be, nicely filled out with mature, all-woman curves that not even her simple attire of corduroy riding skirt and plain white blouse could subdue. She had her father’s penetrating eyes, though blue in her case, dominating a finely sculpted face surrounded by a spill of blond hair touched with traces of red.
She, too, held a Winchester in a leisurely, confident manner, and the set of her jaw along with the way those blue eyes met and challenged Buckhorn’s appraising gaze gave every indication she wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger again.
Slowly, first with one hand and then the other, Buckhorn reached up and brushed the dust from the front of his clothes. Then he raised both hands and adjusted his hat.
“There. You’re on your feet and primped up good and proper,” Milt said. “Now let’s hear whatever it is you came here to get off your chest.”
“Actually,” said Buckhorn, responding to Milt while feeling the expectant looks of the others also trained on him, “the talk I came here to have is with your brother Dan. So, since I can see you’ve got important ranch chores hanging fire, it’d save time and re-telling if you just took me to him direct.”
One side of Milt’s mouth lifted in a sarcastic sneer.
“Well, it sure is nice of you to worry about me and the boys being kept from our ranch work. And don’t think we don’t appreciate it. But you let me worry about that part of it. You got us real curious about what you came here to say, and we’re anxious to hear it, even if we have to listen twice.”
Buckhorn shrugged.
“If you say so. Seems like a waste of time, though, if you ask me.”
“Nobody did,” Josephine pointed out.
“Besides,” Milt said, “you ain’t gonna be talking to my brother any time soon, anyway. Happens he’s not around. He’s off on—”
“A business trip,” Buckhorn cut in, finishing the lie for him. Then he added, “I’ve heard all about those frequent business ventures your brother seems to be away on whenever anybody comes around.”
“That may be.” Milt’s expression was turning more suspicious. “But so far I ain’t hearin’ where his business is any of yours.”
“We still got time to get to that.” Buckhorn shrugged again. “But it sure sounds to me like you’re gettin’ the shitty end of your partnership. Dan goes sportin’ around on business trips all the time while you’re stuck here in the heat and dust with all the hard labor and the day-to-day grind. That’s a mighty poor bargain, especially with you being the older brother and the original owner of the ranch and all.”
That struck a sour chord in Milt. He took a step closer to Buckhorn, baring his teeth as he said, “You let me worry about that, Mr. Big Mouth. What you’d better start worryin’ about is—”
Milt’s display of anger was a mistake on two counts. First, his uncharacteristic outburst jerked the focus of his wranglers and his daughter to him and away from Buckhorn. Second, he stepped within Buckhorn’s reach.
Exploding with greased-lightning speed, Buckhorn shot his left arm forward and then swept it upward, knocking the barrel of Milt’s Winchester high and loosening his hold on it. In the same motion, Buckhorn twisted his upper body to his left, reaching with his right hand and clamping his own iron grip just ahead of the rear stock. Sliding his left hand down the barrel and grabbing there, too, he yanked the weapon away from Milt, pulling him another step nearer at the same time. As the rancher leaned in, now fighting for balance, Buckhorn’s right elbow swung up and across in a slashing blow to the older man’s jaw. Milt was knocked backward, his feet tangling as he toppled away.
Letting his momentum whirl him farther to his left, Buckhorn quickly re-adjusted his grip on the rifle until he was holding it similar to a soldier preparing for a bayonet thrust. Which was exactly how he used it, ramming the muzzle forward at an upward angle and driving it under the chin of the wrangler who’d been standing on that side of Milt. The head of the young man, attempting to brace himself as he raised his own rifle, snapped back from the impact and he emitted a sharp gagging, hacking sound as he dropped the gun and twisted away, knees buckling.
Without hesitation, Buckhorn spun back the other way, to his right, where the remaining wrangler was bringing his Winchester to bear. Buckhorn continued his hard turn. As he did, he released his left hand’s grip on the front stock of the confiscated rifle and, wielding it only right-handed now, extended his arm and swung the edge of the barrel as hard as he could, slamming it against the side of the young wrangler’s head. The heavy chunk! of metal against meat and bone came just an instant ahead of a discharge from the wrangler’s gun, but the impact of the blow was enough to divert the weapon’s aim and thereby send the round harmlessly into the dirt.
That left the girl, Josephine, as the only one still standing against Buckhorn. Even as he’d rifle-whipped the second wrangler he feared that his attempt to turn the tables on those who had the drop on him, as smooth and fast as his moves had been, had taken too long, was going to come up short.
Except for the one thing that wasn’t in his calculation. Emotion. Josephine’s instinctive concern for her father, seeing him knocked to the ground by the elbow smash, had overridden what became her secondary instinct, to retaliate against Buckhorn. Vaguely, he recalled hearing her cry of “Father!” as he was wheeling away from throat-thrusting the first wrangler.
As the second wrangler was hitting the ground, Buckhorn spun to face Josephine full on. He found her just starting to correct herself from the lunging step she had automatically taken toward her father, instead stopping short and now, realizing her mistake, beginning to bring the ai
m of her rifle back to Buckhorn. But it was too late and Buckhorn was too fast.
He batted her Winchester away with a sideways swat of his own, at the same time stepping close, wrenching the gun from her grasp with his free hand, then throwing a hard shoulder bump that backed her up three jerky steps.
Regaining her balance, her hands balled into trembling fists that she held at her sides, Josephine glared at him and hissed, “You dirty, sneaky bastard! Look at those men—you hurt them bad!”
“Man pulls a gun on me,” Buckhorn replied, his voice like a file scraping on rock, “I usually hurt him to death.”
“What about women? You gonna hurt me bad, too—or are you gonna go ahead and just gun us all down? Like you probably came here for to begin with!”
“Lady, if I came here to gun anybody,” Buckhorn told her, “I’d do it face on and it would be all over by now.”
They stood there glaring at one another. Josephine was breathing hard from exertion and stress. It was hard for Buckhorn not to let his eyes linger on the rapid rise and fall of her breasts.
The wrangler who’d taken the muzzle thrust to his throat was squirming a bit on the ground, inhaling and exhaling noisily, raggedly. Milt, who’d received the least amount of punishment next to his daughter, was pushed up on one elbow and doing some groaning of his own. The other wrangler was out cold.
Buckhorn recalled that the ranch boss hadn’t been wearing a sidearm. Jerking a thumb, he said to Josephine, “Go to your father. Circle wide, don’t even think about trying to pick up any hardware on the way.”
While the girl was doing as told, Buckhorn gathered up the fallen rifles and stripped the two fallen wranglers of their gunbelts. All of this he put in a pile and then took time to strap his own gunbelt back on. That made him feel better, whole again.
Leaving Milt and Josephine huddled together, Buckhorn went to check on the wrangler he’d struck in the throat. The fellow was breathing noisily and with some difficulty.
“Just stay still and take it easy,” Buckhorn advised him. “You’ll be okay.” He turned to father and daughter. “What are they expecting down at the ranch?” he asked of them. “You got any more signals set up?”
They both just glared at him some more.
“Don’t be stupid,” he told them. “Unless you want to see more people hurt, tell me what it will take to put everybody else at ease until we can all go down there and I’m given the chance to say what I came here for.”
After hesitating, Milt said, “Three more shots, spaced like Joey did before. That’s the all-clear.”
“What about the wild shot your man got off?”
“That’ll be okay, as long as they get the all-clear before much longer.”
Buckhorn motioned to Josephine—“Joey” her father had called her.
“Get up there in that open spot where they can get a good look at you. Wave your arms up over your head while I fire off the rounds.”
“You love spoutin’ orders, don’t you?” she said, not moving.
“Do what he says,” Milt told her. “If he wanted us dead, he’d have done it by now. Let’s try to make it through this like he said, without anybody else gettin’ hurt.”
Sighing, Joey went to the open spot and began waving her arms. Edging up behind and off to one side, where he could peer down through some bushes, Buckhorn triggered the blasts from his Colt. Down below, he could see everyone who had been intently looking up at the crest abruptly appear to relax and otherwise show signs of relief in their body language.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Buckhorn said to Joey. Then, as his hands automatically began punching out and replacing the three spent shells, he added, “Go grab a canteen off one of the horses your father and his men rode up on. We can use it to roust the two injured wranglers. The sooner we get them on their feet, the sooner we can go down and get this over with.”
Joey’s eyes burned into him as she said, “This ain’t gonna be over with, mister—not completely—until I get you under the muzzle of my gun. Comes to that and I put you on the ground again, I guarantee you won’t be getting back up a second time.”
Buckhorn met her fiery gaze and let one corner of his mouth twitch momentarily upward.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Now go get the canteen.”
CHAPTER 27
It wasn’t until they were well within the confines of the Slash-Double R ranch headquarters before those awaiting them started to catch on that everything wasn’t quite right, in spite of the all-clear signal.
The battered condition of the two young wranglers drew the attention of Slim Bob and the men who’d been shoeing horses. They came forward, just curious and rather slowly at first, but then, with frowns deepening at what they saw, their steps quickened.
As for Larraine Riley, all she had to do was take one look at the expressions on the faces of both her husband and daughter in order to sense they were unsuccessfully trying to mask some kind of trouble.
“What is it, Milt? What happened?” she asked, moving close as he reined his horse at a hitch rail in front of the house.
“What the heck happened to Tully and Sweetwater? Who’s this here other fella you brung with you?” Slim Bob wanted to know, his tone more strident and demanding.
It was Buckhorn, riding up just behind Milt, who answered. “Before you worry too much about who I am,” he said, “you might want to take note of what I am—and that would be the hombre who has a drawn Colt .45 resting atop my saddle horn, aimed square at your boss. Something else probably worth noting is that your friends here have all been disarmed. Now if everybody else just stays calm and hears me out, none of that will really matter. But if any of you take a notion to get excited and maybe overreact, then it won’t turn out good.”
Slim Bob’s long, weather-seamed face pulled into a scowl that made the seams even tighter and deeper.
“You see here, you. Nobody just rides up and—”
“Back down, Bob,” Milt interrupted him. “Do what he says, for the reasons he says. I don’t want anybody hurt worse, not if we can help it.”
“But what about those men who obviously are already hurt?” Larraine demanded.
“That’s a fair point,” Buckhorn said. “If somebody wants to ease those boys down out of their saddles and make ’em a mite more comfortable, I won’t object. But, before that, you in the red shirt”—he tipped his head toward one of the pair who’d been shoeing horses, a yellow-haired gent wearing a gun on his hip—“shuck that gunbelt of yours, real slow and careful, and fling it away. Then you can help with your two injured pards.”
As far as Buckhorn could see, neither Slim Bob nor the other horse-shoer was armed. Once the yellow-haired man had done as instructed, the three of them gently lifted down Tully and Sweetwater and laid them on the ground. Larraine went over to help tend the men.
As this was taking place, Buckhorn backed Sarge off a few paces and turned him so that everyone was directly before them, where Buckhorn could effectively cover anybody who might be foolish enough to try something.
All the while, he was keenly aware that Milt and Joey were back to glaring at him. Buckhorn didn’t take either of them for being foolish, but the hate in their eyes made it plenty clear that, if given a fraction of a chance, they’d love nothing better than to nail his hide to the wall.
“All right,” Milt said, his voice harsh. “Ain’t it about damn time you spilled what this is all about? If you think you can go up against my brother and continue getting away with these kind of tactics, then you’re in for a rude awakening!”
“That’s the part you’ve got all wrong,” Buckhorn told him. “I’m not looking to talk to your brother because I’m out to go against him. Not anymore. What I’m aiming for now is to join him.”
“You expect anybody to believe a load of bull droppings like that?” snapped Joey. “You heard me say that we know all about you hiring out to Pamela Danvers. Everybody in the territory knows how much she hates my uncle.
Can’t be any doubt what she brought in a hired gun to do.”
“And you’ve made it plenty clear how willing you are to live up to your reputation,” Milt added.
Buckhorn heaved a ragged sigh and said, “I also tried to make it clear that if I’d come here to do gun work, those two over there would be dead, not just busted up.”
“It might be one and the same if we don’t get these boys some medical attention,” Larraine said anxiously, from where she was on her knees beside the injured men. “They’re hurt bad and they surely deserve better care than they can get lying here on the ground!”
Seeming to ignore her, Buckhorn kept his focus on Milt.
“Appears you aren’t keeping up with things near as good as you think you are, not when it comes to my hire-out to the Widow Danvers. Happens I had to shoot and kill one of her wranglers yesterday morning when he prodded me into a showdown. On top of that, Micah, the cocky little puke she calls a son, was in my face right from the first . . . until I had to pull a gun on him, too. Long story short: my service to Pamela Danvers and the Circle D is over.”
Milt’s reaction was a look of surprise followed quickly by one of suspicion.
“Come to think on it,” spoke up Slim Bob, “a couple of our fellas who’d gone into town last night said something at grub this mornin’ about hearin’ of a shoot-out over at the Circle D yesterday. The sheriff and undertaker even got called out.”
“That’s right,” said Buckhorn. “They tried to sic the law on me. Not only the sheriff, but also that Texas Ranger who showed up the other day.”
Milt scowled.
“Texas Ranger, you say?”
“Uh-huh. The boys mentioned something about that, too,” confirmed Slim Bob.
Milt found someone other than Buckhorn to aim his glare at.
“Jumpin’ blazes, Bob! You ever think about passin’ on some of these things you hear?”
“I’d’ve got around to it,” Slim Bob said defensively. “The day is still young and you only came down from the house a bit ago when we heard Joey’s signal shots.”
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