by Jonas Ward
He left the bunkhouse then, made his way to the main building and let himself inside very quietly. His destination was the attic, and after he’d climbed up there he quickly located the gun locker Ellen had mentioned. Her father had collected a variety of weapons, all of them rusted and risky-looking, but at the bottom of the chest, wrapped in a heavy flannel shirt, Buchanan found a Colt .45. Its workings might not be as smooth and quick to the touch as the gun Hallett had confiscated, but it certainly seemed like a piece that would give a good account of itself. He loaded it from an ample supply of ammunition, appropriated a belt and holster, and descended again. Requirement number two was food, and the larder yielded up flour for biscuits and coffee. Minutes later he had his fire going in the big stove, and not long after that his breakfast was acooking. Buchanan was in the midst of enjoying it when he looked up to find Ellen Booth watching him from the kitchen doorway. She had found an old blouse in a bureau drawer, one she had worn before her figure had ripened, and beneath it a faded skirt from the same days of her girlhood.
“Mornin’,” Buchanan greeted her, pleased to have company but a little disconcerted at the snug fit of the thin blouse. “Lead weights and mud on the menu—if you’re that starved.”
Ellen smiled at him, walked into the spacious room. “I’d enjoy a biscuit,” she said, “if there’s enough.”
“That’s the worst thing about them—there’s plenty.”
“Don’t get up,” she told him. “I can help myself.” She went by him to the stove, returned with two half-burned, dry-looking biscuits on a plate and a mug of the blackest coffee she’d ever seen.
“Never cooked on a stove before,” Buchanan explained apologetically. “Fire got so hot it fooled me.”
“These are delicious,” Ellen said in kindness if not in truth.
“Well, you can always throw ’em at Hallett if he comes bothering you up here.”
She didn’t smile at that, only looked at him over the rim of the mug.
“You’re leaving, then?”
“Soon as my niece is ready. And I’d like to buy this rig I found in the attic.”
She shook her head. “You can have it,” she said.
“Couldn’t do that.”
“I want you to.”
“Well, I’ll send it back from Sacramento—” Buchanan stopped, surprised by the curious expression in her face. “What’s the matter?”
“I want to go with you,” Ellen said. “The way we planned.”
“But your husband is here,” Buchanan answered, puzzled. “No point anymore in going to ‘Frisco.”
“He’s going to rob the bank in Salvation. I’m leaving him …”
Frank Booth’s voice broke over hers. “Now ain’t this a cozy, though,” he said sarcastically. “Not intruding, am I?”
Buchanan studied him for a moment. “Come on in, Booth,” he told him. “Help yourself to breakfast—such as it is.”
“Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Not often a man gets invited to eat at his own table with his own wife.”
Buchanan looked from one to the other, frowning. Booth got his biscuits and coffee, sat down with them.
“Nice outfit you got on, Mrs. Booth,” he said then. “Fine for entertaining guests.”
“It’s all I have, Frank,” she told him. “I couldn’t abide wearing my dress another day without washing it.”
“Imagine you prefer this getup, anyhow—don’t you?” Booth asked Buchanan.
Buchanan set his coffee down, spoke evenly. “Any opinion I have of your wife’s clothes,” he said, “doesn’t matter one way or the other.”
Booth’s caustic glance raked Ellen’s face. “Is that true?” he asked her. “His opinion doesn’t matter to you?”
“Frank—remember that warning I gave you last night.”
“I remember it all right,” he said, swinging back to Buchanan. “I’ve got to be real careful with you, don’t I?” he asked. “You’re about the toughest man-eater that ever rode the turnpike.”
Buchanan started to say one thing, changed his mind, ended up by pushing his chair away from the table and slowly rising.
“Yes, sir,” Booth went on in the same tone. “I better not say what I’m thinking—even though I know it’s a fact.”
“Frank!”
Buchanan’s big hands rested on the top of the chair. His face betrayed no emotion. “You know what to be a fact, mister?” he asked.
Booth looked up at him. “You’re too damn friendly with my wife,” he said, hedging now that the chips were down.
“And what’s your meaning of ‘friendly’?” Buchanan asked then.
“Having her nurse you. Taking breakfast together, just the two of you.”
“Anything else?”
“You tell me if there’s anything else,” Frank Booth said.
Buchanan sighed. “I’ve seen men throw away their chances,” he told the other man. “Everybody’s entitled to make at least one mistake. But you’re convincing me that you are this world’s prize fool.”
“Is that your answer?”
“Yeah, that’s my answer,” Buchanan said wearily, turning his back on him and walking away.
“Buchanan—where are you going?” Ellen called after him.
“To wake Juanita,” he said. “We’ve got to get a move on.”
“I’ll wake her,” Ellen offered, moving toward him quickly.
“Thanks.”
“I take it you’re leaving,” Frank Booth said.
“That’s right.”
“With the Mex girl?”
“That’s right.”
“You got all the women you want, don’t you?”
“That’s right, too,” Buchanan said, determined not to fight with Ellen’s husband no matter what the provocation.
“Makes for an interesting life,” Booth said.
“Sure does.”
“But not a helluva lot of money in it.”
“No,” Buchanan agreed. “But what I do make is my own.”
“How’s that?” Booth asked sharply.
“My own, mister. I don’t take what another man has worked for.”
“I’m taking what’s owed me!” Booth shouted, getting to his feet. “I’m paying Sid Hallett back for the three long years he stole out of my life!”
Buchanan cocked his head curiously at the man’s choice of words.
“Your wife says you claim to’ve gotten a railroading,” he said.
“You’re damn well told I did! I never touched a nickel of that money—but by God he’s going to pay me now!”
“Well,” Buchanan said noncommittally, “this Hallett bird ain’t a particular pal of mine, either. I mean, I don’t figure to put him down in my will. But even if I had the grief you claim I don’t think I’d plunder his bank to square it.”
“How would you square it?”
“Man to man,” Buchanan answered simply. “I’d ride on down into that town of his and call him out.”
“Call him out? What chance do you think I’d have of getting to his front door?”
Buchanan was stroking his chin, looking unhappy again.
“I’m long overdue north of here,” he began, “but I’ll tell you what. You and me’ll go down there right now and brace them. Matter of fact, he’s shy a deputy at the moment …”
“You and me and Luther?” Booth asked, interested in the proposal. But Buchanan shook his head firmly.
“I wouldn’t take help from that one if I was snake bit,” he said. “What I’d do, were I you, is boot his tail on out of camp.”
“Reeves is a friend of mine. We served time together.”
“And that young lady inside is a wife of yours. Give her a chance and she’ll serve all the rest of your time with you.”
Booth brushed that aside with an impatient wave of his head. “I like your idea,” he said. “I like it even better than robbing his damned bank. But I wouldn’t do it without Luther …”
“Wouldn
’t do what, Frank?” Luther Reeves said, crossing the threshold of the kitchen, coming to stand quartered from Buchanan. He had his guns strapped on again, and though he’d spoken to Booth his full attention was on Buchanan—and the gun he now sported.
“Wouldn’t call a showdown with this sheriff,” Booth answered. “Not unless you were there to side me.”
“Since when are we showdowning with any sheriff?” Reeves said. “What we been planning for two years is a stick-up.”
“Well, like he says—a lot of people get hurt that don’t deserve it.”
“They sure worried about you, those poor innocents,” Reeves said. “But, hell—you go on ahead with your new scheme. Take on the law in his own backyard.”
“Would you go along?”
Reeves laughed. “Not today, Frank. Not tomorrow, neither. I came along for something that made a whole lot of sense—like the Salvation bank. But you want to play games, you go right ahead.” He said it all with a curled lip, and his eyes fastened rigidly on Booth’s face. Booth turned to Buchanan.
“Luth is right,” he said. “Just playing games. We came for money—a bankful of it.”
“And when you take it—what’ve you got then, Booth?” Buchanan asked him.
“The only thing in this life that counts, that’s what I’ve got.”
“Even if you lose the likes of the girl you married?”
Ellen had been listening to it all, from the hallway, and now she came into the room.
“Thank you,” she said quietly to Buchanan. “I know how much it means to you to be gone from here—how much you were willing to give up.” She turned around and faced her husband squarely. “This man owes you nothing,” she told him. “Not a damn thing,” she added for emphasis. “But he offered you—us—a chance to make a go of our marriage. You turned it down, Frank. What you did was choose a life with this rapist and thief for a life with me. And I’m leaving you.”
“To go with him?” Booth asked.
“To travel with him,” she said. “To ride along under his protection!”
Reeves guffawed. “That’s a new word for it,” he said and Buchanan hit him right in his offending mouth. The effort was costly, so far as his own shoulder was concerned, but there was full compensation in seeing Luther slam back against the wall, bounce from it and then sink floorward with a glassy-eyed expression on his slack face.
“Now you see what I meant,” Ellen Booth said to her husband and promptly walked out of the kitchen. Buchanan hung back, troubled by the new development.
“Go on after her, Booth,” he urged the other man. “Take her down by that little pool and talk things out. By the time you get back I’ll have this Reeves bum gone and forgotten …”
Booth shook his head. “There’s nothing to talk out. I’m getting even with Hallett and Luth is my partner.”
“So be it,” Buchanan said, giving up on him, turning away.
Some twenty minutes later Buchanan swung into his saddle, began walking his horse in tight circles to test the hoof. She seemed relaxed under him, even a little too relaxed, and he felt she would make it to journey’s end without discomfort.
Wish I could say the same for myself, the man thought unhappily, seeing Ellen and Juanita emerge from the house and start toward the horse they were going to share for the trip. It was not that he could find it in himself to say that Ellen’s decision was a wrong one. After waiting for her man as she had, Booth was sure letting her down now. Buchanan knew he was guessing, but he imagined that having this ranch to come back to had been the one bright spot in the girl’s hopes for the future. There’d be no coming back to it with Frank Booth now—not after he robbed the bank in Salvation. They’d be on the dodge from then on—running, running, always looking back over their shoulders.
No, there was no blaming her for pulling stakes. What Buchanan didn’t like was his role in the break-up. It couldn’t be helped, he supposed, but he sure wished that Frank Booth would come to his senses.
He dismounted, hoisted Juanita into the saddle of Bull Hynman’s horse, then stood for a moment beside Ellen.
“You sure you want to go?” he asked.
She nodded her head.
“Did you talk to him at all?”
“We said goodbye,” Ellen said, her voice catching in her throat.
“Look,” Buchanan said. “How about me going inside and booting Luther on out of here? Frank wouldn’t try that job alone …”
“No,” she said. “That wouldn’t change anything. Frank would have to break with Reeves on his own decision.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Buchanan admitted gloomily.
“Let’s get started,” Ellen said. “Would you give me a hand up?”
Buchanan started to and Frank Booth’s voice cracked out at him from the house.
“Touch my wife and you’re a dead man!”
Buchanan looked around. Booth was kneeling before a bedroom window, aiming a rifle over the ledge. The door opened and Luther Reeves stepped through, also armed with a rifle. There was a look of impatience about Reeves, as though he were being restrained from doing something he wanted very much to do.
“Go on, back away from her!” Booth commanded, motioning with the rifle barrel. “Ride out with your Mex—and keep riding.”
Reeves was the one who had all of Buchanan’s attention, and he very slowly edged himself between the man and Ellen.
“I said get away from her!” Booth shouted wildly.
Without turning his head, Buchanan began speaking very calmly to Ellen.
“When I count to three,” he said, “throw yourself flat on the ground. One—”
“What are you going to do?” Ellen demanded.
“Take Reeves,” he said, “One, two—”
“No!” Ellen cried, and then she was out from behind Buchanan, moving away swiftly. She stopped and turned to him, began shaking her head emotionally. “You wouldn’t have a chance,” she said. “Not a chance. Do what they want, Buchanan. Ride away from here.”
Buchanan couldn’t risk a glance at her. He and Reeves were staring into each other’s eyes.
“Go on,” Reeves said goadingly. “Go for it.”
“Let him leave, Luth,” Frank Booth said from the window.
“He don’t want to, Frank. He wants to show me his draw. Go ahead, you sonofabitch—show me …”
Ellen stepped directly in their line of fire, her slim back to Reeves. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said to Buchanan. “I want to stay here. I really want to stay here. Even—even if you won I’d stay.”
Some expression softened the lines of Buchanan’s face then, some of the warmth crept back into his eyes.
“Reeves,” he called.
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you give these two people a break? Why don’t you pull out and let them work things out different?”
“Why don’t you mind your goddam business?” came the surly answer to the proposition. “Why don’t you fish for that shooter and stop crawlin’?”
“Go now,” Ellen said. “Please go away!”
“All right.” He backed off toward the waiting mustang, not able to trust the man with the rifle even that far. And when he mounted he kept his right hand free, only inches from the .45. But Booth, apparently, had gotten some sort of promise out of Reeves. Not to shoot without provocation, maybe. Still he watched him like a hawk as he moved up alongside Juanita.
“Vamos,” he told the girl.
They started off at a walk, and then Buchanan chanced a farewell glance at Ellen Booth.
“So long,” he called back to her with a touch of his hand to the brim of his hat. “Wish you all the luck you deserve.”
She waved her own hand, but for some reason said nothing. He looked at her again, more closely—and now he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. He reined up.
“No!” Ellen cried. “No! I want you to go away!”
Buchanan kneed his horse, impatiently, and rode away from t
here at a gallop.
Twelve
It had been so long since Sid Hallett had taken a licking from anyone that two days after the event he was still brooding about the upset Buchanan had handed him. (Which would have surprised the tall man, who didn’t mark his brief sojourn in Salvation as a personal triumph when he had picked up two new bullet scars, assorted maulings and had to be rescued from the field of battle by a pair of women. Buchanan, when he ever got around to writing his memoirs, would briefly mention the clash with Hallett & Co. as a Mexican stand-off—one in which everybody takes some amount of clobbering and no issue is decided.)
But the High Sheriff and Good Shepherd of Salvation considered that the arrival and the departure of the transient rider had cost him a great deal of personal prestige and standing in his town. The death of Lafe Jenkins was an affront, a reflection on the efficiency of his office—especially since Pete Nabor and some other loudmouths claimed that the deputy had his man in his sights and even fired three times. The Bull Hynman incident could be shushed up. No one need know that an unarmed man had not only overpowered the mighty Bull and laid him cold, but had added insult to injury by locking the chief deputy in a cell with his own key. But Sid Hallett knew it had happened and the thing rankled in his mind, chipped away at the belief he’d grown to have in his invincibility.
The sheriff had gone through the proper motions, of course. He still showed an outward appearance of stern, cold dignity and he had clamped the lid down tight on Salvation. The curfew was moved up an hour, and now Hynman and Enos enforced it along River Street. Doc Allen had been promptly arrested and jailed for aiding and abetting a fugitive. Birdy Warren’s saloon was padlocked, and even Maude had been told to suspend operations until Hallett was sure that the town was obediently at heel again, that the example of Buchanan didn’t give anyone else ideas about challenging the vested authority here.
But left alone the man brooded, let his mind roam all-unbridled over the past, and for the first time in his career the man began to see the events and the people in their proper focus.