Collection 1981 - Buckskin Run (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  The sheriff had carried a little grub and a lot of coffee, and with what Matt Ben had they could live out the storm.

  Matt Ben walked over to Zeke and rubbed the old burro’s back. “Zeke, you old gray devil. I think we Jacksons have come back to Horntown to stay.”

  He stood a moment, his hand resting on the burro. Outside the wind moaned around the eaves. It was cold out there, but the stable was snug and warm.

  He went outside, closing the door carefully behind him, then, turning the top of his head into the wind, he crossed the street to The Waterhole.

  At the door, half-sheltered from the wind, he looked back. Old Enoch had built well. The barn was old but it was strong against the wind.

  Enoch had meant to sink roots here, to found a family. Well, it was up to him now, to Matt Ben Jackson the Younger.

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  TASCOSA

  IT WAS MARCH 20, 1886, and four cowboys from the LS Ranch took a notion to ride into town to see the girls and have a few drinks. It was a notion they could well have ignored, for only one of them would ever ride back.

  They were tough men, hired as much for their fighting ability as their skill in handling stock, or so it was said. They were Ed King, Fred Chilton, Frank Valley and John Lang.

  When they rode past the Jenkins & Dunn Saloon Lem Woodruff left the porch and went inside, for Lem had good reason to expect trouble. The others stayed where they were.

  Louis Bousman, the Catfish Kid, Tom and Charley Emory were there and none of them had good feelings about the four riders from the LS. It is very likely that the cowboys had come to town either looking for or expecting trouble.

  It was a hot, sultry evening, and Jesse Sheets, who had been in Tascosa for about a year, decided to sleep in a room in back of his cafe where it was cooler. It was a decision he would not live to regret. He was a peaceful man, in no way involved in the troubles of town or range. He had a large family and a small business, which offered worries enough.

  Women were also involved in the troubles, but basically it was the old story of nesters and small ranchers against the big cattlemen, and the LS was one of the big outfits. Lem Woodruff, however, had been Sally Emory’s man, but she had thrown him over for Ed King. Lem had rebounded quickly, however, and landed in the willing arms of Rocking-Chair Emma. Despite the fact that she had dropped him for Ed King, Sally was irritated by Lem’s quick recovery, and haunted by the idea that maybe he had been planning just such a move. A rumor was around that she had been urging Ed King to kill Lem. Without a doubt, Lem Woodruff knew of the rumors.

  Ed King was known as a tough man, with at least one killing behind him. He was known around Mobeetie and Fort Griffin as a dangerous man, and was a leader among the LS cowboys.

  Shortly after arriving in town, he was walking by the Jenkins & Dunn Saloon with Sally Emory when King overheard a remark which he resented. Sending Sally along by herself, he turned back and started to enter the saloon, where the lights suddenly went out. Although the men on the porch were known to him, the sudden darkness could have given him no more than a quick glance of who was within.

  He must have seen the flash at the instant the bullet hit him. Caught in mid-stride, he fell, dead before he hit the floor, his gun half-drawn. Who doused the light was never known, but it is likely that the last thing Ed King saw was Lem Woodruff holding a rifle.

  With the report sounding in their ears, the men on the porch scattered, knowing very well what was to come. Someone, later surmised to have been Lem Woodruff, rushed from the saloon and fired another shot into King, to make sure he was dead.

  John Lang, who had left Ed and Sally just before they reached the Jenkins & Dunn Saloon, turned back when he heard the comment from the darkness that had stopped Ed King.

  He heard the shot, saw Ed King fall, and ran up the street to alert his companions. Guns drawn, they converged on the spot, and an instant’s check told them Ed King was dead. Hearing a sound from behind the saloon, they rushed around into a blaze of gunfire.

  In the area immediately behind the saloon five or six men had gathered, apparently concocting some plan for future action. Frank Valley opened fire as he charged into them. Emory was shot in the leg, Woodruff took two bullets in the body, but retreated into the saloon, holding his fire. Valley, poised for action, went after him and was shot dead.

  Jesse Sheets, awakening from a sound sleep, blundered into the night to see what was happening, and was killed. Undoubtedly, whoever shot him saw the looming figure and simply fired. Fred Chilton, rising from behind a woodpile to fire, was hit by two bullets in the chest and fell.

  John Lang, the only survivor, retreated up the street, firing. Right at that moment what he wanted most was a fast horse and the road to the LS line camp.

  Sheriff Jim East, accompanied by a deputy, found Sheets dead, then came upon the bodies of Ed King and Frank Valley in the saloon, either in or near the front and back doorways.

  The saloon was empty. Lem Woodruff, the Emorys, and the Catfish Kid had vanished into the night.

  Conducting a swift search, East came upon Louis Bousman in bed, smoking a half-burned cigar. Jim East, who knew Bousman well, for they had ridden on posses together, said, “Always go to bed with your boots on, Louis?”

  Bousman smiled, dusted ash from the dead cigar and replied, “I was just tired tonight, Jim. Would you believe it? I just dropped down on the bed and fell asleep!”

  Charlie Emory was found, badly wounded. Lem Woodruff, in even worse shape, had gotten to the house of a friend, some distance away.

  A bystander, emerging from a nearby store, pointed out the body of Chilton, behind the woodpile.

  Four new graves were dug, three of them on Boot Hill, and two men seriously wounded.

  It had been a hot night in old Tascosa.

  THERE’S ALWAYS A TRAIL

  HE SAT ON a bale of hay against the wall of the livery stable and listened to them talk. He was a lean, leather-skinned man with bleak eyes and a stubble of beard on his jaw. He was a stranger in Pagosa, and showed no desire to get acquainted.

  “It’s an even bet he’s already dead,” Hardin said, “there would be no reason to keep him alive once they had the money.”

  “Dead or alive, it means we’re finished! That was all the money we could beg, borrow, or steal.”

  “Leeds was killed?” Hardin asked. He was a burly man with a hard red face. Now his blue eyes showed worry. “Then he can’t tell us a thing!”

  “That’s just the trouble!” Caughey said. “We haven’t a clue! Salter starts to town from our ranch with our fifteen thousand dollars and Bill Leeds along as body-guard. Leeds is dead, two shots fired from his gun, and Salter is gone.”

  “It’s a cinch Salter didn’t take our money,” Hardin said, “because he would have shot Leeds down from behind. Salter knew Leeds was good with a gun, and he’d never have taken a chance.”

  “Jake Salter isn’t that sort of man,” Bailey protested. “He’s a good man. Dependable.”

  The stranger in the dusty black hat crossed one knee over the other. “Anybody trailin’ them?” His voice had a harsh, unused sound.

  Hardin glanced around, noticing him for the first time. “There isn’t any trail. Whoever done it just dropped off the edge of the earth. We hunted for a trail. The body of Bill Leeds was lyin’ on the road to town, and that was all there was!”

  “There’s always a trail, but you aren’t going to get your money back if you stand around talkin’ about it. Why not scout around? There’s always some sign left.”

  “Hunt where?” Hunt asked irritably. “A man’s got to have a place to start. There’s no trail, I said!”

  The stranger’s eyes were bored but patient. Slowly, he got to his feet. “If I’d lost that money, I’d go after it.” He turned on his heel and started along the street toward the Star Saloon.

  “Wait a minute! Hold on there!” Cass Bailey said. “Hey! Come back here!”

  The man turned and w
alked slowly back. The others were looking at Bailey, surprised. “What’s your name, friend?” Bailey asked.

  “There’s places they’ve said I was right handy, so just call me that, Handy.”

  “All right, Handy. You’ve done some talking. You said if that was your money you’d go after it. Well, four thousand of that money happens to be mine, and it represents every head of beef that was fit to sell on the CB range. As of now, half that money is yours, if you can get it. You lost two thousand dollars in the holdup, so now we’ll see whether you’re going to find a trail or not.”

  Handy stuck his thumbs behind his belt. “You said if you lost that money you were through, finished. Is that right?”

  “It ain’t only me,” Bailey said. “We’re all through if we don’t get our money back.”

  “All right, Bailey, I like the way you talk. I’ll accept that two thousand on one consideration. If I get it back it buys me a full partnership in your CB range.”

  Hardin jumped up. “Well of all the—!”

  Cass Bailey stood, feet apart, hands on his hips, staring at Handy. Obviously, the man was a rider. There was something about his hard assurance that Bailey liked.

  “If you can get that money back, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  “Find me a place to sleep,” Handy said. “I’ll be along in a few days.”

  Handy turned away and walked along to the Star Saloon and ordered a beer. He took a swallow of the beer then put the glass back on the bar.

  “Too bad about Leeds,” the bartender suggested. He was a lean, loose-mouthed man with straw-colored hair and watery eyes.

  “Too bad about Salter, too. Probably they’ll kill him. That will be hard on his family.”

  “Salter? He’s got no family. At least none that anybody knows of.”

  “What about his woman?”

  “You know about her, huh? From all I hear, Maria won’t do any frettin’. That Maria, she’s a case, Maria is. She sure had ol’ Jake danglin’. He was all worked up over her. Every time he saw her he acted like he’d been kicked in the head.”

  “Maria? Is she over at Cherry Hill?”

  “Cherry Hill? You must be thinkin’ of somebody else. There’s nobody like Maria! They tell me those Spanish are somethin’ special. Never knew one, m’self.”

  Handy finished his beer and strolled outside. Cass Bailey was nowhere in sight, but Handy had no sooner appeared on the boardwalk than a storm descended upon him.

  It was five feet, three inches of storm, and shaped to make disaster inviting. Ann Bailey. Her hair was red, and there was a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and what were probably very lovely lips were drawn into a thin line as her boot heels clackity-clacked down the walk toward him.

  “Listen, you! If you’re the one who sold my dad a bill of goods and got him to give up half his ranch—! Why you no-good fish-eatin’ crow-bait, I’ve a notion to knock your eyes out!”

  “You’ve already done that, ma’am. But what’s the trouble? Don’t you want your money back?”

  “Want it back? Of course, I want it back! But you’ve no right to talk my old man into any such deal as that! Besides, what makes you think you can get it back? Unless you’re one of the outlaws who stole it!”

  “Do you live on the ranch?” he asked mildly.

  “Where else would I live? In a gopher hole?”

  “Ain’t no tellin’, ma’am, although if you did, that gopher would feel mighty crowded. Still an’ all, I can see where makin’ my home on the CB might be right nice.”

  He stepped into the street and tightened the cinch on the evil-eyed buckskin who stood at the rail looking unpleasant.

  “Ma’am, I like my eggs over, my bacon not quite crisp, and my coffee black and strong. You just be expectin’ me now!”

  Handy reined the buckskin around and loped away down the street, followed by some language that, while not profane, certainly made profanity unnecessary.

  “Spirit,” he told the buckskin, “that’s what I like!” The buckskin laid back his ears and told himself, ‘You just wait until the next frosty morning, cowhand, and I’ll show you spirit!’

  Hondo could have doubled for Pagosa, except that the Star Saloon was two doors further along the street and was called the Remuda, probably because they played so much stud.

  The bartender was fat, round, and pink-cheeked. He was also, by looks and sound, very definitely an Irishman. “I’m not one of the fighting Irish,” he said, “I’m one of the loving Irish, and I like the girls when they’re fair, fat, and forty.”

  “You wouldn’t like Maria, then,” Handy commented. “I hear she’s slim, dark, and twenty.”

  “Don’t you get any ideas, cowboy. Maria’s spoken for. Her time’s taken. Anyway, from a mere sideline observer I’d guess that twenty was a shade closer to thirty. But she’s spoken for.”

  “I heard about Salter,” Handy said.

  The bartender’s smile was tolerant, the smile of one who knows. “That’s what Salter thinks! Maria is Buck Rodd’s girl. She lets Salter hang around because he buys her things, and that’s all it amounts to.

  “Believe me,” the bartender took a quick glance around the empty room and lowered his voice, “if she’s smart she won’t try any funny business with Buck Rodd!”

  “Heard of him,” said Handy, who hadn’t, “and that crowd he runs with.”

  “You’ll be liable to hear more before the day’s over, if you stay in town. Buck rode in last night with that whole crowd, Shorty Hazel, Wing Mathy, Gan Carrero, and some other gent.”

  “That’s enough for me,” Handy said, finishing his beer. “I never heard of Maria. I’ll stick to blondes when I’m in Hondo.”

  The bartender chuckled agreement and Handy went outside, where he found a chair and settled down to doze away what remained of the afternoon.

  “The trouble with folks,” Handy mused, “is they make it hard for themselves. A man leaves more than one kind of a trail. If you can’t find the tracks that shows where he went you can nearly always back-track him to where he came from. Then it usually comes down to one of them ‘searches la fammy’ deals like that tenderfoot was explainin’ down at El Paso. If you’re huntin’ a man, he said, look for the woman. It makes sense, it surely does.”

  Three horsemen fast-walked their horses to the hitchrail near his own, and swung down. The slim, dark one would probably be Carrero, the one with the short leg would be Wing Mathy, and the one with the hard face and sand-colored hair would be Shorty Hazel.

  Handy built himself a cigarette, innocently unaware of the three. The two guns he wore took their attention, but he did not look around when one of them muttered something to the others.

  Wing Mathy stepped up on the boardwalk. “Hey? Ain’t you from the Live Oak country?”

  “I might be,” Handy said, “but I could be from Powder River or Ruby Hills. So might you, but I ain’t askin’.”

  Mathy smiled. “I ain’t askin’, friend. It’s just that you looked familiar.”

  The three went inside and as the door swung to, Handy heard Wing say, “I’ve seen that gent somewhere. I know I have!”

  Handy looked down at the cigarette. He rarely smoked, and didn’t really want this one. It had been something to keep his fingers busy. He dropped it to the boardwalk, careful it did not go through to the debris below, and rubbed it out with his boot-toe.

  He was on the trail of something, but just what he was not sure. Right about now Buck Rodd was probably seeing Maria. At least, he might be.

  Most people, when they went to chasing outlaws, spent too much time wearing horses out. He found it much more simple to follow the trails from a chair, even though he’d spent the largest part of his life in a saddle.

  What had become of Jake Salter? That was the next problem, and just where was the money?

  Jake Salter was out of his skull over Maria, and Maria was Buck Rodd’s girl. Jake Salter, trying to impress her with how big a man he was, might have
mentioned carrying all that money. She would surely have told Buck Rodd. There is very little, after all, that is strange about human behavior. All the trails were blazed long, long ago.

  Handy led his horse to the livery stable. Livery stables, he had discovered, were like barber shops. There was always a lot of talk around, and if a man listened he could pick up a good deal. He led the buckskin inside, bought it a night’s keep for two bits, and began giving the surprised horse a rubdown.

  The buckskin was a little uncertain as to the proper reaction to such a procedure. Upon those past occasions when he had been rubbed down it was after a particularly gruelling time on the trail, but on this day he had done practically nothing. He was gratified by the rubdown, but felt it would only be in character to bite, kick, or act up somehow. However, even when preoccupied, as he was now, Handy rarely gave him opportunities. The buckskin relaxed, but the idea stayed with him.

  For two days Handy had idled about the livery stable in Pagosa before coming here, so he knew that Salter owned a little spread over on the Seco. The brand was the Lazy S. A few minutes now sufficed to show there was no Lazy S horse in the stable, but he waited, and he listened.

  As night settled down he saddled the buckskin again and strolled outside. The night was softly dark, the stars hanging so low it seemed a tall man might knock them down with a stick. Handy sat down on a bench against the stable wall. A lazy-fingered player plucked a haphazard tune from a piano in the saloon up the street. Occasionally the player sang a few bars, a plaintive cow country song born some centuries ago on the plains of Andalusia, in far-off Spain. Nothing stirred. Once there was a burst of laughter from the saloon, and occasionally he could hear the click of poker chips.

  Down the street a door opened, letting a shaft of lamplight into the darkness. A big man swaggered out. The door closed, and Handy could hear the jingle of spurs and boot heels on the boardwalk, and then, in the light from over the swinging doors of the Remuda, Handy saw a big man enter. He wore a black hat and a black shirt, and his handle-bar mustache was sweeping and black. Buck Rodd.