Buchanan 17

by Jonas Ward

  He came awake, with all his fibers alert; he did not move. He heard the soft run of Reo’s voice, intended to reach no farther than his ears: “Buchanan—you awake?”

  “I am now.”

  “Look easy, amigo. Don’t move. Relax and don’t lift your head. We got company up on the hill.”

  Buchanan had gone to sleep with his six-gun in his hand. His thumb slowly curled over the hammer; that was the only motion he made. Reo said, “They’re gettin’ set. I count three. Two up on the hill and one back out on the flats, about a hundred yards. Squattin’ behind that big ball juniper. You got it placed in mind?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s yours, then.”

  Buchanan said, “Better get ready to move, now. They look like Indians?”

  “No. White men. Spotted a bandanna and chaps on one of ’em.”

  That was strange. But there wasn’t time to ponder it. Buchanan’s muscles tensed. “I’m going for the piñon. Don’t bump into me.”

  “Going the other way,” Reo murmured. “Now?”

  “Now.”

  He rolled, overturning twice, flattening against the ground in the heavy shadow of the thick little piñon—and as he made his move the hard, flat echo of a rifle shot slammed across the night. A bullet clipped up dirt close by his heels and ricocheted into the sky.

  The shot’s echoes still rolled out when Buchanan’s attention was whipping out along the flats, narrowing toward the ball juniper Reo had spotted for him. Buchanan’s gun roared and bucked in his fist.

  On the hill two rifles opened up in harsh signals. Their bullets churned down into the camp. Buchanan blasted three quick shots forward, all of them chewing low through the juniper; then he dived to the side and rolled to the next bush. Just in time. Seeking the point where Buchanan’s muzzle flame had appeared, half a dozen shots from up above whacked cruelly into the piñon he had only just deserted.

  Buchanan fired. He heard a scream from the juniper. He fired again and had the grim satisfaction of hearing the man’s cry cut off in its middle. A figure flopped out onto the ground beside the juniper.

  Rolling among the bushes, Buchanan found a new spot of cover shielded from the gunners up above. He plugged fresh cartridges into his revolver and caught the quick orange stab of a rifle’s muzzle flash upslope. He let go on that target, and heard the loud, angry clang of ringing metal. The next shot fired from that point was fired by a six-gun. Buchanan’s bullet must have smashed the rifle.

  He heard the loud popping of Reo’s gun and saw its scattered flashes well to his left; Reo was moving back and forth rapidly, never targeting himself. Back in the brush the hobbled horses were beginning to make a racket. The rifle uphill was going hard, methodically raking the brush with fire, and Buchanan spread himself thin to the ground. He raised his sights on the muzzle flash and let go. The bullet, deflected by some intervening branch, screamed harmlessly off.

  Buchanan impatiently gathered himself and made a run for a hump of ground thirty yards ahead. Dodging and zigzagging, he made the slope with bullets plowing creases in the sand all around his boots. He belly-flopped against the uptilted ground, concealed by the ground-hump from both gunners, and crawled upward toward the crest.

  Reo’s laugh rang through the night; then Reo’s gun quit firing, and the only shots were a ragged after volley from the higher rifle, which presently subsided for lack of target. In the sudden silence Buchanan inched uphill with his head turned to one side so that he could catch on the flats of his eardrums any slight sounds that might come down from above.

  In time he heard the crunching of a man’s boots; Buchanan lifted his head two inches and poked his gun forward. He could see the man coming down, crouching, a vague shadow drifting forward. Then Johnny Reo’s voice shot forward from a point not far away on the hill. “All right, friend. Let’s get it done.”

  The crouching figure stopped, and Buchanan could hear his breathing. The man’s head swiveled around, searching the night, trying to find Reo.

  “You’re rigged for a cross fire. Freeze. Drop the gun,” Buchanan said.

  There was no motion for a moment; and then the ambusher broke and started running back up the hill, breaking the quiet with the pounding of carelessly thrown shots. Buchanan leveled his gun deliberately, but then Reo’s six-gun roared twice, and the ambusher turned from his rushing course, turned as if to walk away; his high shape jerked once and fell.

  Johnny Reo’s soft laughter floated across the hill. “One more to go, Buchanan. What do you say we carve him up in halves, one for each of us?”

  A new voice rolled downhill. “You’ll have fun tryin’ that, pilgrim.” That was Trask’s voice, full of anger and impossible to mistake. “I’ve hung tougher men than you two out to dry.”

  Buchanan knew better than to speak again. By turning his head while Trask spoke, he had a fair idea of where Trask was on the hill. He began to work his way forward and then stopped, hearing the soft brush of footsteps approaching from his left. He swung the gun around and caught Reo’s lanky silhouette vague against the stars; he said, “Make more noise when you walk, Johnny,” in a gentle whisper.

  Trask roared, “I’m going to kill the both of you, one bullet at a time!”

  Reo replied hotly, “You’re burying yourself with your mouth, Trask.”

  And that was a mistake. Placing Reo by the sound of his voice, Trask fired. Buchanan plainly heard the thwack of the bullet, a soft thump heeled by the thunder of the shot and the stab of orange muzzle flame from higher along the hillside. Buchanan thumbed three shots in answer and rammed forward, butting Reo, knocking Reo down.

  “Where’d he hit you?”

  “I dunno.” Reo sounded confused. “I don’t think he hit me at all.”

  “I heard something.”

  “Yeah, so’d I.” Reo rolled around on the ground, feeling his legs and back. “Nothing—wait a minute, they’s a slice chewed out of my gun belt! That’s all. Jesus! Guess I’m all right.”

  “Then, you’re lucky,” Buchanan whispered. “Don’t let him hear you again. He’s got good ears.”

  “And he shoots like a wizard,” Reo said. He cursed mildly and dusted himself off. “What now?”

  Trask yelled an oath. Gun flame lanced out, after which his running figure emerged from the shadows and scrambled across the hillside. Buchanan fired, and knew he had missed. He said under his breath, “I want him alive, Johnny.”

  “What the hell for?”

  “To find out whose idea this was.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  Buchanan said, “Keep him busy for a few minutes while I work up toward him. Then start moving up. Circle to the left, so I’ll know where you are.”

  Reo nodded and laid his sights on Trask’s position. Buchanan pushed off, dodging from brush clump to brush clump. Reo’s gun sent out covering fire at irregular intervals, receiving the answer of Trask’s shots. Buchanan meanwhile roved steadily uphill, cautiously advancing. A slight sound lifted his glance, and on the rim, for a split instant, a silhouetted figure appeared. It dropped immediately from sight; and Buchanan thought, He’s gone over the top. He began to climb rapidly from cover to cover, gun up, eyes and ears attuned.

  He heard Reo scratching uphill somewhere off to his left. Near the rim he dropped belly-flat and squirmed onto the hilltop. Trask hadn’t skylined again; he had to be somewhere down the backside of the hill, possibly angling to one side or the other. The murmur of a running creek drifted up, and Buchanan could vaguely make out the thicker shadow of thicket bottoms at the foot of the hill.

  Man-sized boulders were scattered across this face of the hill. Trask might be behind any one of them.

  There was one way to find out. Buchanan began working his way down, running soft-footed from rock to rock. He kept his head down and his gun braced before him, ready to fire.

  Either Trask was in the rocks or he might have gone right on down into the thickets. Either way, Buchanan couldn’t play a wai
ting game; he didn’t want Trask to get loose. He prowled downslope deliberately, exposing himself when he had to; he drew no fire and presently reached the edge of the bottoms, counting on Trask to have difficulty taking aim on a constant-moving shadow in the deep darkness.

  He was low along the edge of the thicket when the shot roared.

  He couldn’t tell how close the bullet came, but he saw the muzzle flash. He fired, deliberately shooting wide; he launched himself to the side, breaking into a hunched dogtrot, batting branches away from his face. An enormous rock squatted in the thicket, a boulder eight feet high. He gained the edge of it and began to stalk around, and then the slightest of sounds froze him.

  A faintly visible shape came swinging up past the rock, and Buchanan leaped. He caught Trask at chest-level, capsizing him, carrying him backward through the bottoms. They tumbled headfirst into a foot of water. Buchanan had his shoulder on Trask’s chest; he fumbled for Trask’s gun hand. The rolling foam of the stream splashed Buchanan’s face, into his mouth and nostrils, and he had to throw back his head to breathe. That was when Trask rolled beneath him. It upset Buchanan’s uncertain balance; he felt the barrel of Trask’s gun glance off his jaw, raking a thin slice of flesh with it. Before Trask could use the gun, Buchanan slapped down with the great slab of his hand and tore the six-gun out of Trask’s skinny fist.

  Trask clawed and scrambled. Somewhere his arm bent back a branch; it came whipping out of the dark, across Buchanan’s eyes. The sudden stinging blindness overturned him into the water.

  He rolled over, scraped a palm across his eyes to clear them, and saw Trask on his knees feeling in the mud bottom for his gun. Trask’s arms were in water up to the shoulders; his hawk face was just above the surface. Buchanan waded in and hurled the sledgehammer of his right fist. It skimmed across the water and slammed Trask full in the face. The man didn’t live who would be quite right, ever again, after that blow.

  It rocked Trask’s head back cruelly. He fell back on his haunches, spluttering and hawking. He raised both hands, palms forward, and husked spray out of his throat. “Okay—enough.”

  “Get up, then.”

  “Gimme a minute.” The dark glisten on Trask’s face was blood; his nose was smashed. He got to his feet and stood weaving with water slapping his knees. He hung there, spent.

  From the creek bank Johnny Reo fired.

  The bullet slammed Trask back. His hands rose to his chest; he sat down in the water.

  Reo ran splashing into the bottoms. Buchanan wheeled on him and roared, “You damn fool!”

  “What?”

  Buchanan reached down and lifted Trask out of the water. Trask coughed weakly. Buchanan said, “Still alive.”

  “The light was bad for shootin’,” Reo apologized.

  “Help me drag him out.”

  They hauled Trask onto the bank. He was breathing like an overheated teakettle, ragged and wheezy. Reo struck a match. Trask’s eyelids fluttered.

  Buchanan said, “How you makin’ it, Trask?”

  “Hurts like hell. But I reckon that’s one way to know I ain’t dead yet.”

  “Maybe,” said Reo, “but it ain’t but a short ways to where you’re going. You’ve just dealt yourself out of the game.”

  “You’re a bastard, Reo.”

  Buchanan leaned close to him. “Who were those two with you?”

  “Pair of gunnies I hired for peanuts. Which is all they was worth, I see.” Trask coughed weakly. He roused himself onto his elbows. “I hope you go right on into that Injun camp. Because they’ll roast your hides over an anthill. You ain’t got a chance.”

  “I make my own chances,” Buchanan drawled.

  “Go to hell,” Trask said. His arms went slack, and he fell back. The match went out.

  Buchanan laid his hand along the side of Trask’s throat, feeling for a pulse. After a moment he shook his head.

  Reo said, “I thought he was pullin’ his gun. Must have been a reflection on the water.”

  “Is that a fact.”

  “All right,” Reo said. “So I cold-decked him. I seldom lose my temper except when I get mad. He got me mad.”

  “No point in crying over him,” Buchanan said. “It’s done.”

  “That’s the way I always look at it,” Reo agreed. He stood up and methodically plugged empties out of his gun.

  Buchanan squatted by the dead man, frowning. The wind touched his wet clothes; he could feel with his cheeks the direction from which it came, warm and dry and threatening. He looked up at Reo, graven-faced. “Anything strike you funny about this?” he asked.

  “I guess not. Why?”

  “He knew we were headed for Sentos’ camp.”

  “So?”

  “He wasn’t at Pitchfork when we left. He was in town. How’d he know where we’re headed?”

  Reo’s hands became still. “Yeah,” he said.

  Buchanan said, “Somebody sure enough tolled him out here after us.”

  “Which is something to think about,” Reo murmured.

  Buchanan nodded. “Bring that saddle spade and my Bible. I’ll read over them.”

  Nine

  Steve Quick had an inborn ability to mimic manners. He stood by the sideboard with a glass in his hand, one finger stuck out and his lips pursed like a rich dude. Warrenrode rolled silently into the big room in his wheelchair, catching Quick by surprise; but if Warrenrode noticed Quick with his private stock of whisky, he gave no sign of it. His look was dry, barren; his shoulders were straight and his voice curt. “No word?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Jesus,” Warrenrode cried. Quick could see how much graver he had become, how much more beaten down. It was waiting that did that—waiting and silence and not knowing. Quick’s lip began to curl with secret contempt.

  The kitchen door opened. He watched Antonia enter, her skin the color of bronze, heavy breasts bubbling under the thin cotton dress. She said, “Where’ve you been? I’ve waited supper for you.”

  “I had a chore in town,” Quick said.

  “It would’ve waited, couldn’t it?” Warrenrode snapped. “You were needed around here today.”

  “What for? To join the mourning crowd?”

  Warrenrode’s head turned slowly, heavily like a tired lion’s. He glared at Antonia. “Maybe love makes a woman blind, but it sure seems to make you see a lot more in this cowboy than I do.”

  Quick’s lips pinched into a thin, pale line, but he didn’t say anything. Warrenrode prowled toward the back of the house, thrusting the wheels of his chair with powerful, impatient rolls of his big shoulders. Before he disappeared into the corridor, he said, “’Tonia.”

  “What?” Her answer was sullen.

  “Stay tough,” Warrenrode muttered. “Don’t ever get sentimental.” He rolled himself out of the room. The door slammed.

  Antonia said, “What was that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothin’. Don’t pay him no mind. He’s all busted to pieces.”

  “You want to eat?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  Quick followed her into the kitchen and sat down. He watched her put food in front of him. She took the seat across the table. Quick picked at the steak. “What I need is a drink, that’s what I need.”

  “You just had one.” He pushed his plate aside and cursed. Antonia said, “Why are you staring at me?”

  “You know.”

  “Someday I’d like to get inside that clever little brain and find out what you really think.”

  “I’m thinking I used to like to leave my women where I found them.”

  “You want me to bawl?” she said. “Nobody’s keeping you here.”

  “No,” he said. “I ain’t runnin’ out this time. I won’t start at the bottom. I been there, and it’s too crowded.”

  “What a shame.”

  He said, “Don’t get high and mighty with me, querida. You want to eat beans the rest of your life? You need me as bad as I need you.”


  She reached across the table. “Do you mean that, Steve? Do you love me?”

  Eyes at odds with his lips, Quick made a smile. “You’re a lot of woman, ’Tonia.”

  He got up and walked around the table, lifted her to her feet, and kissed her. Her lips were still and stiff under his; he said, “What’s the matter?”

  “I never know when to believe you.”

  Mainly he felt indifference; but he made his voice sound earnest. “What have I got to do to prove I love you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Get me out of this dismal place for a start.”

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “Then, when, Steve?”

  “When we’ve got what we want. When we’re ready.”

  “Suppose I don’t want to wait?”

  “You’ll wait,” he said coolly.

  “Nobody ever crosses you, do they, Steve?”

  “Not more than once.”

  She said, “Sometimes I get scared of you.”

  “You got nothing to be scared of, long as you play my game, querida,” He touched the points of his trivial mustache and added, “Calm down. Have I ever let you down?” He turned toward the back door. “Get your hat.”

  “What for?”

  “We’re riding into town. To the preacher’s house.”

  She didn’t say anything, and he looked back at her. He said, “Your mouth’s open.”

  “But, Steve, I—”

  “Get your hat,” he said again. “I’ll meet you down front.” He went out into the night, tramped along the outside of the house to the front yard, and saw a cowboy just entering the bunkhouse. Quick yelled at him, “Boat, cut me out two horses.”

  “You asked me to prove I loved you,” he said. The smell of the grass was a warm spice in the night. Their horses kicked up little dry balls of dust from the road. Stars sparkled on the surface of the sky, and a coyote yapped on a hill.

  “It’s so sudden,” Antonia said in a small voice. “Steve, I’m not sure we ought to—”

  “Forget it,” he said. “I got to copper my bets, don’t you see?”

  “What do you mean?”