Joe saw the whole thing from the boardwalk. In the back of his mind, something told him he ought to yell and cry, but he remained silent and his eyes stayed dry.
As bad a parent as Albert had been, he was better than nothing. With him dead, the good citizens of the town didn’t want some ’breed kid running around like a wild animal. To hear them tell it, that would be just as dangerous as the guerrillas.
So the local justice of the peace made arrangements for Joe to be sent to a reservation down in Indian Territory. That way, he could be with “his father’s people,” as the judge put it.
Only problem was, the Indians on the reservation weren’t really his people, either. They hated Joe for his white blood just as much as the citizens of the town had hated him for the red.
The only good thing he ever got out of the time he spent there was learning to read, which allowed him to realize there was a whole wide world beyond the reservation where things might be better for him. He knew the odds were against that, but he couldn’t stop hoping for it, anyway.
He ran off from the reservation when he was sixteen and got a job with a cow outfit from Texas trailing a herd through the territory to the railhead in Kansas. Normally, the trail boss wouldn’t have hired a ’breed, but he was shorthanded, having lost two men to drowning while the herd was crossing a rain-swollen river.
So Joe became a horse wrangler, did a decent job of it, and spent a couple of years going up and down the cattle trails. It was hard work, but he didn’t mind that.
Then he met a cowboy named Jared McSween, who took a liking to the young man and showed him how to use a gun. Turned out Joe was good at it—really good—and that was something he might not have ever known if not for McSween. McSween even bought him his first gun, an old Colt Navy .36.
McSween was also the first man Joe killed. A soiled dove McSween was sweet on in one of the trail towns decided she fancied Joe more, even though calling him handsome would have been on the charitable side. But he’d gotten his full growth by then and maybe the girl just liked the idea that he was part Indian.
McSween took offense to the whole thing and came after Joe to hand him a licking. That wound up with Joe knocking him on his butt. Still furious, McSween jumped to his feet, just liquored up enough to forget that he had seen Joe use a gun—hell, had taught him how to use a gun and given him one—and slapped leather.
Later, McSween’s friends claimed that no half-breed horse wrangler could have beaten him to the draw—but Joe Buckhorn knew better. He shaded McSween cleanly, and he had seen that realization in the cowboy’s eyes just before Buckhorn’s slug smashed into his chest and bored through his heart.
By that time, he had his own horse, so when he lit out before McSween’s friends could lynch him, at least nobody could accuse him of being a horse thief, too.
Word of the killing got around so that Buckhorn couldn’t find work with any of the cow outfits. He considered becoming an outlaw and might have gone that way if a man hadn’t recognized him in a saloon in Cheyenne and approached him with a proposition.
Another man had threatened to kill the fellow talking to Buckhorn; the reason didn’t matter. Could Buckhorn maybe take care of that problem?
For a price, Buckhorn could.
Since then, he had made his living with a gun. In more than a decade, he had killed more men than he could remember. If he had believed in such things as having blood on his hands, he could have scrubbed them for all eternity without getting it all off.
Most of the killings had been fair and square, either straight-up gunfights or battles between groups of men who had hired out to different sides in some conflict. He never shot a man from ambush unless the man really needed killing and there was no other way to do it.
Even though there were no murder charges hanging over his head, he supposed that technically he had been guilty of that crime a few times. But considering that all the men he’d killed were as bad or worse than he was—that’s what he told himself, anyway—he had never lost any sleep at night over it, either.
From time to time, Buckhorn worked as a bodyguard for some rich man, and that gave him a taste of what life with plenty of money was like. He started wearing suits and a bowler hat because he liked the way they looked, and he read books now and then. He developed a liking for good food and fine wine. He had seen what whiskey did to his pa and never had indulged much in it, but he figured wine was different.
He developed a taste for the sort of women who could usually be found in the company of rich men, too, and eventually that had backfired on him. He had done some dumb things, gotten himself shot up, and nearly died.1
He had heard stories about deathbed conversions and men who found God as they were climbing the steps to the gallows. That wasn’t what happened to him, and he hadn’t seen his whole life flash before his eyes when those bullets ripped into him, either.
But he had been laid up for a while, and that gave him a lot of time to think. He wasn’t going to apologize to anybody for the life he’d led. He believed he had done the best he could and played out the hand that life dealt him.
It might not hurt anything, though, to devote a little more time and effort to thinking about the things he did, and how they affected folks. If there really were such places as heaven and hell, Buckhorn had a pretty good idea where he would wind up. It was too late for redemption. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to do a little good in the here and now.
That was why he wasn’t sure whether or not he was going to accept the offer of employment that had brought him to Crater City. He wanted to find out a few more things first.
The telegram he had gotten in San Antonio a couple of weeks earlier had told him to meet the man who wanted to hire him here at the Irish Rose Saloon. A tidy sum of expense money had been wired along with the message.
Well, he was here. Now he had to find the man who had sent that wire.
Buckhorn felt quite a few eyes watching him as he moved toward the crowded bar with the graceful ease of a big cat. Without making it obvious that he noticed, he checked out the men who were looking at him.
Some wore scowls of disapproval, probably because his Indian blood was fairly obvious and they didn’t like having a redskin come into a place where they were drinking.
Others appeared to be a little nervous, because an aura of danger hung around Buckhorn. He knew it was there, cultivated it, and put it to good use sometimes.
Some just seemed puzzled, no doubt wondering what a big, ugly half-breed who dressed like a white man—like a dude, to boot—was doing here.
Sooner or later, you could see almost anything in a boomtown, though, and the men who traveled around to such places quickly grew jaded. They went back to whatever had brought them to the Irish Rose, in most cases drinking or gambling.
The closest open space at the bar was at this end. The auburn-haired beauty was working at the other end. Not surprisingly, she had a crowd of men in front of her. Among them, Buckhorn recognized Sid, the miner he had knocked down outside on the boardwalk, and the other men from the Jim Dandy.
Buckhorn didn’t like crowds, so he eased into the space closest to him and nodded to the bartender, who came to take his order.
The man was balding and had a prominent Adam’s apple. He wore a white shirt, a fancy vest, and sleeve garters. His eyes narrowed as he looked across the hardwood at Buckhorn.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Buckhorn said. “You don’t serve Indians in here. Well, I’m only half-Indian, so I’ll drink the beer you’re going to draw for me with my white half.”
The bartender tried to look stern, but a tiny smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He said, “You’re not gonna go loco and raise a big ruckus when you drink that beer, are you?”
“I’ll be as gentle as a lamb,” Buckhorn said.
“Huh. I’d hate to be the gent who had to try to shear you.”
The bartender filled a mug from a tap, cut the head from it with a paddle
, and set it in front of Buckhorn.
“That’ll be a dollar.”
“Pretty steep.”
The bartender shrugged. “You know how it is. Mines are booming, everybody’s making money hand over fist, even got a railroad coming in. A fella’s got to get his share.”
Buckhorn slid a coin across the bar and then sipped the beer, finding it surprisingly cool and good. As he set the mug on the bar, he said, “You make it sound like this is your place. You must be Dennis Conroy.”
That comment brought a musical laugh, but not from the bartender. It came from the throat of the redhead who had abandoned her admirers at the far end of the bar and come down to this one.
“No, he’s not Dennis Conroy,” she said. In an aside to the balding barman, she added, “I’ll take care of this gentleman for the time being, Walt.”
“Suit yourself, Miss Alexis.” The bartender shrugged. That seemed to be his response to most things. He headed down the bar, forestalling the redhead’s admirers, who were still clamoring for her attention.
She rested slim, long-fingered hands on the edge of the bar, looked steadily at Buckhorn, and asked, “What’s your business with Mr. Conroy?”
“That’s between him and me,” Buckhorn said.
“Discretion is a quality to be admired, and certainly not found often enough out here. But honestly, you can tell me. It’s all right. You see, I’m—”
He was certainly interested to know who she was, if for no other reason than her telling him would keep her talking to him a little longer, but at that moment a man yelled, “You cheatin’, tinhorn son of a bitch!” and a second later, a gun roared.
CHAPTER 3
A couple of the saloon girls screamed, but their shrill cries almost sounded perfunctory, like they were screaming out of habit because that was the reaction everybody expected from saloon girls when gunfire broke out.
Men shouted curses, too, and clamored to get out of the line of fire in case more bullets started flying around. Buckhorn knew that was unlikely, though, as soon as he swung around from the bar with his hand hovering near his gun.
A few yards away, a man lay on his back on the sawdust-littered floor, holding one hand to his chest as blood welled between his fingers. His shoulders and legs jerked erratically. The heels of his shoes drummed on the floor for a second, then went still. The man’s bloody hand slid down from his chest and flopped on the floor at his side.
Buckhorn knew death when he saw it.
So did the man who had dealt it. He looked down at the corpse, grinned, and slid his gun back in its holster.
The dead man was one of the gamblers. The man who had killed him was tall, lantern jawed, in a brown coat and brown, flat-crowned hat. The game that this killing had disrupted was the same one Buckhorn had noticed earlier, where the mustachioed man in the black vest was playing.
That hombre was still in his seat, looking on coolly, but Buckhorn figured he wasn’t quite as disinterested as he appeared to be.
A powerful voice spoke loudly from the top of the stairs leading to the saloon’s second floor.
“Damn it, Farley, I’ve warned you about that! I don’t want any killing in here.”
Buckhorn glanced up the stairs. The man who stood at their head was short, stocky, well dressed in a gray suit, and had a broad, florid face topped with graying, rusty curls. Light from the chandeliers glittered on the diamond stickpin in his cravat and the watch chain that looped across the top of his rounded belly. He held a long, fat cigar between the first two fingers of his left hand.
The man called Farley was still on his feet. The grin on his face got even cockier as he said, “Sorry, boss. But that tinhorn was dealin’ off the bottom of the deck—”
“No, he wasn’t.” The hard, flat words came from the man in the black vest. “You just didn’t like it because you’ve been losing all night, and you felt like killing somebody.”
The grin became a scowl as the gunman turned his head to look at the man who had just spoken.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Yancy?” he demanded. “I thought you were my friend.”
“I am, Chet, but I’ve warned you that you’re too quick to go for your gun sometimes. This is one of those times.”
Farley spat an oath and took a step toward the body of the man he had just killed.
“That’s far enough,” the man at the top of the stairs said. “Just leave him be.”
Farley glared and pointed at the gambler as he said, “He’s got a heap of my money.”
“That he won fair and square, according to Yancy. We’ll use some of it to bury him. The rest will go to the miners’ widows and orphans fund.”
“The hell with that.” Farley took another step. “I’m getting my money.”
“I’m warning you, Farley. Leave that man be and get out. You’re fired.”
The man in the black vest said quietly, but loud enough for Buckhorn to hear in the hush that gripped the saloon, “You’d better do what Mr. Conroy says, Chet.”
“The hell with all of you!” Farley yelled. His hand dropped to his gun with blinding speed as he half twisted toward the staircase.
As fast as Farley was, Buckhorn was faster. He took one step away from the bar and had his gun out by the time Farley cleared leather. Flame lanced from the barrel as the weapon roared.
The slug struck Farley in the chest and twisted him around. His gun slipped from nerveless fingers and thudded to the floor. He bent over, stumbled a step, then pitched forward to land on the table where the poker game had been going on. Cards, chips, coins, and folding money scattered around him.
The blast of the shot echoed for a second, then died away. Buckhorn glanced at the man in the black vest, saw the faint smile on his lips under the mustache. Buckhorn saw the satisfaction in the man’s eyes, too.
He looked the other way, toward the bar. The redhead’s green eyes were wide, but she didn’t appear to be overly shocked by the violence that had just erupted in front of her. More than likely these weren’t the first killings in the Irish Rose.
Buckhorn didn’t pouch his iron just yet. He had a pretty good idea what had just happened here and didn’t think there would be any more shooting, but a man could never be too sure about things like that. Best to be ready for trouble.
The man in the black vest hadn’t moved when Farley collapsed on the table right in front of him. He reached forward now, lifted the dead man’s shoulder a little, and picked up a wad of greenbacks it had been holding down.
“That’s how much I had in the pot this hand,” he announced. No one disputed the claim. “The rest of you boys go ahead and take what’s coming to you, then haul Chet and Hemmings down to Richardson’s place.”
Buckhorn assumed that Hemmings was the gambler Farley had shot and Richardson was the local undertaker.
The man who had appeared at the top of the stairs put the cigar in his mouth and started down. Things in the saloon quickly began to return to normal. Men went back to their drinks, poker games at the other tables started up again, and the man running the roulette wheel in the back of the room called for bets before he spun the wheel and dropped the ball again.
Since it looked like no one was going to take enough offense at Farley’s killing to do anything about it, Buckhorn took a fresh cartridge from one of the loops on his gunbelt and thumbed it into the cylinder to replace the round he’d fired. That was a habit of long standing. Then he slid the revolver back into leather.
“Sorry for the disturbance, ma’am,” he told the auburn-haired beauty behind the bar.
She smiled slightly. “That’s all right. I don’t care for the smell of gunsmoke, and blood’s always difficult to clean up, but that’s preferable to having my father killed. Chet Farley was mean enough to do that, the mood he was in.”
Buckhorn cocked an eyebrow and said, “Your father?”
“That’s right. My name is Alexis Conroy.”
“And I’m Dennis Conroy,” the man from
the stairs said as he came up to Buckhorn. He had taken the cigar out of his mouth and held it in his left hand again. He stuck out the right hand, which had thick fingers that looked like sausages.
Buckhorn shook with the man as he nodded. “Joe Buckhorn,” he introduced himself.
“Yes, I suspected as much,” Conroy said. He let go of Buckhorn’s hand. “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, Mr. Buckhorn, including the fact that you’re rather easy to pick out in a crowd.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Buckhorn said. “I reckon a big ugly Indian in a bowler hat sticks out, all right.”
“I’m not sure everything about that description is correct,” Alexis said.
Buckhorn looked at her and lifted an eyebrow again, but she just smiled at him.
“Whatever you’re drinking tonight is on the house,” Conroy went on.
Buckhorn picked up the still mostly full mug of beer. “This will do me just fine.”
“Of course, if you accept my offer of employment, you’ll drink here for free as long as you work for me. That’s just a little bonus I extend to my men.”
Four men had rolled Farley’s body off the table onto the floor. They took hold of his arms and legs and lifted the corpse, then started toward the entrance with it. Another four men picked up the gambler Farley had killed and followed them.
Buckhorn watched them go, then said, “Farley worked for you, didn’t he?”
Conroy sighed and said, “He did. However, when he tried to draw on me like that, I considered it to be the equivalent of him giving me notice.”
Buckhorn grunted and said, “Yeah, that’d pretty well do it, all right.” He sipped the beer. “This is your saloon?”
“It is,” Conroy said. “At least as far as the name on the deed goes. Alexis runs it.”
He nodded at the redhead.
“And does a fine job of it, I expect.”
“The place makes money,” Alexis said coolly. “In fact, it’s quite profitable.”
“Indeed,” Conroy agreed. “I also own the livery stable, one of the general stores, and the Donegal mine. I have excellent people running them as well.”
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