“Some plan,” Gratton sneered. “Anyway, just like I told you, boss, it’s all a pack of lies. I heard the shooting and came running up in time to see Buckhorn gun down Miss Conroy, just like I told you when I rode out here last night. No doubt in my mind that he killed the Garrett kid, too.”
“I dunno,” Woodrow said. “Sounds to me like Buckhorn’s tellin’ the truth.”
“It’s a pretty convincing story,” Thornton agreed.
“Boss, you can’t believe him!” Gratton said. “Hell, I’ll bet he’s still working for Conroy.”
“Then why would I shoot the man’s daughter? Why would I have any reason to shoot Alexis, no matter who I’m working for?”
Gratton shrugged.
“Like you said, maybe it was an accident. Some of Conroy’s men tried to stop you from getting away, and you shot your way out.” Gratton threw up his hands. “Hell, I don’t know! I wasn’t th—”
“Wasn’t there?” Buckhorn finished the thought for Gratton, smiling faintly as he did so. “You just claimed you were.”
Thornton swung around slowly to gaze at Gratton. He said, “What about that, Ernie? It did sound like you were about to say you weren’t there, and yet a minute ago you claimed you were.”
“Of course I was there. I told you what I saw.”
“Where was I standing?” Buckhorn asked. “Where was Miss Conroy? Did she have her back to me, or was she facing me? Did she say anything before she was shot?”
The questions lashed at Gratton. Buckhorn saw the gunman getting more tense and upset. He pressed on.
“You don’t know the answer to any of those questions because you weren’t there. Madison told you what to say, after he got you to agree to double-cross Thornton, but all he said was for you to back up his story that I shot Alexis. He knew Thornton would take your word for it, so he didn’t bother giving you any details. Then if I showed up here at the Jim Dandy, Thornton would blame me for what happened to Alexis and kill me. I’d be out of the way, and things could go on like they were before I came in and muddied up the waters.”
Thornton rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head slowly.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” he said.
“Let me take care of Buckhorn,” Gratton suggested. “Whatever happens to him, he’s got it coming. You know that’s true, boss.”
Buckhorn said, “You turn me over to him and he’ll kill me, Thornton. But not before he tries to get me to talk and tell him where Matthew Garrett is. Conroy and Madison still have to find the old man and put him out of the way so he’s no threat to them.”
“If you’re telling the truth, that’s right,” Thornton said. “What about Matthew Garrett?”
“I’ll tell you where he is,” Buckhorn said. It was a gamble, but he had to take it. “But only if you swear you’ll keep Gratton here. Otherwise he’ll light a shuck for Crater City and tell Conroy and Madison.”
“That ain’t a bad idea,” Woodrow said. “If Gratton’s tellin’ the truth, there’s no reason he ought to mind stayin’ here for a while, until ever’thing gets straightened out.”
Buckhorn smiled and said, “Maybe you could put him in the powder magazine.”
“Damn it! I’ve never been locked up in my life,” Gratton blustered. “I won’t start now.”
“Take it easy, Ernie,” Thornton said. “Nobody’s going to throw you in the powder magazine.” He turned to Buckhorn. “Where’s Matthew Garrett?”
“At Miss Quinn’s,” Buckhorn said.
Thornton and Woodrow were both watching Buckhorn closely, which meant that their attention had strayed from Ernie Gratton.
And as soon as the words were out of Buckhorn’s mouth, the gray-faced gunfighter made a lunge for the table and the revolver that was lying on it.
CHAPTER 34
Buckhorn yelled, “Look out!” and shoved Thornton aside. Woodrow tried to swing his Winchester around toward Gratton, but the gun was already in Gratton’s hand and flame spurted from the muzzle as it roared.
Woodrow yelled in pain and staggered back a step as Gratton’s hasty shot slammed into the rifle’s breech and knocked it out of the old-timer’s hands. Gratton kept turning and triggered again, this time at Buckhorn.
Buckhorn was already diving forward, though. The slug whipped through the air a couple of inches above his head. Buckhorn crashed into Gratton, wrapped his arms around the man’s thighs in a diving tackle, and drove him over backward.
Buckhorn might have figured that because of Gratton’s medical condition, the gunman wouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. That proved not to be the case. Gratton battled like a wildcat. He swung the revolver at Buckhorn’s head, and even though Buckhorn jerked aside, the blow still fell on his left shoulder and numbed that arm.
He hooked a right into Gratton’s midsection as Gratton drew back the gun to try a second blow. Gratton hesitated, his face turning even grayer as Buckhorn’s fist sunk in his belly.
The feeling came back into Buckhorn’s left arm. That hand clamped around the wrist of Gratton’s gun hand and slammed it against the floor. Gratton lost his grip on the revolver. It slid away across the planks until it came to a stop against one of the Navajo rugs.
Gratton shot his left fist straight up and caught Buckhorn under the chin. The punch rocked Buckhorn’s head back and stunned him for a split second.
That was long enough to allow Gratton to lift a knee into Buckhorn’s stomach. That drove the wind out of Buckhorn. Gratton grabbed Buckhorn’s shirtfront and rolled over. That put Buckhorn on the bottom. Gratton’s knee dug into his abdomen, barely missing his groin.
Then a thud sounded loudly in the room, and Gratton slumped forward to lie senseless across Buckhorn’s face. Buckhorn shoved him aside and looked up to see Woodrow standing there holding the damaged rifle Gratton had shot out of his hands a few moments earlier.
“He may have ruined it for shootin’, but it still makes a fine club,” Woodrow said.
Buckhorn sat up and looked around. Hugh Thornton had scooped up Gratton’s revolver and stood nearby, holding the gun so that it pointed in the general direction of the other gunmen who had rushed in after hearing the shots.
“It’s all right, men,” Thornton told them. “Buckhorn was right about Gratton. He sold us out.”
“Are you sure about that, boss?” one of the men asked. “I’ve known Ernie a long time and worked with him in other places. He’s always been straight as an arrow.”
Buckhorn pushed himself to his feet and said, “Gratton wouldn’t have made the play he did if he wasn’t desperate to get out of here and tell Conroy and Madison where they could find Matthew Garrett. He figured the payoff they promised him was worth the risk of shooting his way out.”
Thornton lifted his left hand and rubbed his chin as he frowned in thought.
“I have a hunch you’re right,” he said. “There’s just too much evidence stacked up against Gratton.” He lifted the revolver a little as he stared coldly at the other gunmen. “If any of the rest of you want to try selling out to Conroy, go ahead and make your play.”
“You can forget about that, boss,” one of the men said. “We’ll stick.”
Nods and mutters of agreement came from the other gunmen. One of them added, “If Gratton was up to no good, none of us knew a thing about it, Mr. Thornton. I’ll swear to that.”
“Good enough for me,” Thornton said with a nod of his own. He lowered the gun slightly but didn’t point it at the floor just yet. “A couple of you tie him up.” A thin smile appeared on Thornton’s face. “Put him in the powder magazine.”
Gratton was still in a stupor as they lifted him to his feet and hauled him out of the house. Woodrow said, “I reckon I’ll go along and supervise.”
“Thanks, Amos,” Thornton said.
When he and Buckhorn were alone in the room, the mine owner went on, “I’m putting my trust in you, Buckhorn. If you’re trying some fancy trick, or if I find out that yo
u really did shoot Alexis, I’ll see to it that you pay for what you’ve done, if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Buckhorn told him. “I want to see Conroy and Madison get what’s coming to them just as much as you do.”
“How are we going to do that?”
“Matthew Garrett’s still the key,” Buckhorn said after pondering for a moment. “Except for a handful of people, nobody knows that he hasn’t recovered from that beating. We can still use him to draw Conroy and Madison into the open. But to do that without risking his life, we’ll have to go into Crater City, get him, and bring him back here.”
“You can’t go into Crater City. It would be too risky.”
“I’ll have to chance it,” Buckhorn said. “I’m not sure Miss Quinn would turn Garrett over to you.”
“I wouldn’t give her any choice in the matter,” Thornton said.
“Yeah, but that might cause too big a ruckus before we’re ready. I’ve got an idea how we could go about it.”
Before Buckhorn could explain further, Woodrow hurried back into the house with an agitated look on his whiskery face.
“Company comin’ up the main trail from town,” he reported. “It’s Conroy, Madison, and a passel o’ them gun-wolves who work for ’em.”
“Conroy and Madison!” Thornton exclaimed. “What the hell do they want?”
“Me, more than likely,” Buckhorn drawled.
Thornton and Woodrow both looked at him. Thornton asked, “How would they know you’re here?”
“Gratton showed up last night to let you know what happened in town—his version of it, anyway. I figure that later, after your boys grabbed me, Gratton sent somebody back to Crater City to let Conroy and Madison know that you’d captured me.”
“Somebody else who was double-crossing me, you mean,” Thornton said grimly.
Buckhorn shrugged and said, “That seems to be the most likely way it played out. I’ll bet that if you checked, you’d find that one of your men is unaccounted for this morning.”
“Oh, I’ll check,” Thornton said. “You can be sure of that. In the meantime, what do we do about Conroy and Madison?”
“You’re going to have to tell them that I got away, or that I was never here. You can’t let them know I’m here now, or they’ll insist on taking me back to town with them.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Then you’ll have a fight on your hands,” Buckhorn said, “and I don’t know if you’re ready for that.”
Thornton considered his options for a moment, then nodded.
“Stay out of sight,” he told Buckhorn. “I’ll deal with this.”
“Why don’t you give me that gun?” Buckhorn suggested.
Thornton looked down at Ernie Gratton’s revolver like he had forgotten he had picked it up. He handed it over and said, “Don’t use it unless you have to.”
“If I have to,” Buckhorn said, “you’ll know it.”
Outside on the porch, the dog started to bark. Thornton said to Woodrow, “Amos, you stay in here with Buckhorn.”
“You’re having him keep an eye on me?” Buckhorn asked. “I thought you’d decided to believe me.”
“I do believe you,” Thornton said. “But if anything goes wrong, I want another man in here to pull my fat out of the fire. Amos, get yourself another rifle. You know where they are.”
“Yes, sir, I do,” Woodrow said with a note of eagerness in his voice. Buckhorn figured there was a part of the old pelican that would welcome the chance to shoot it out with Conroy’s bunch.
The dog was still barking. Thornton opened the door, said, “Hush, Sammy,” and stepped out onto the porch, leaving the door partially open behind him. That way Buckhorn and Woodrow would be able to hear what was going on.
Woodrow stepped to the window and peered through a gap in the curtains for a moment.
“I count eight men with Conroy, includin’ Yancy Madison,” he reported in a quiet voice that wouldn’t carry outside.
“How many of Thornton’s guards are with them?”
“Four.”
“So they’re outnumbered two to one. If Conroy wants a fight, he’ll have the advantage.”
“Not for long,” Woodrow said. “There are twenty men in and around the mine who’ll come a-runnin’ if they hear a ruckus.”
“Miners, not gunfighters,” Buckhorn pointed out.
“Yeah, but they’re tough hombres, and they’re always spoilin’ for a fight. They’d overrun that bunch o’ gun-wolves.”
“Not without getting quite a few men killed.”
Woodrow cocked his head to the side and said, “Let’s hope it don’t come to that.”
Dennis Conroy was in his buggy again. Buckhorn heard it pull up outside as the men on horseback came to a halt as well.
“What are you doing up here again, Conroy?” Thornton challenged. “I don’t recall issuing any invitations.”
“I don’t need an invitation,” Conroy snapped.
“You seem to forget this is my property.”
“A man has the right to go where he needs to in order to get justice! Justice for the man who gunned down his daughter!”
“I heard about what happened to Miss Conroy.” Buckhorn noticed the faint tremor in Thornton’s voice and knew the man was struggling to keep from revealing his true feelings for Alexis. “I’m sorry. I mean that, Conroy. There’s no place for a woman in the fight between us.” He paused, then couldn’t resist asking, “How is she?”
“She’s alive,” Conroy replied sullenly. “That’s about all I can say right now. Doc Cranford still doesn’t know whether she’ll pull through.”
“I hope she does.”
Conroy didn’t acknowledge that. Instead he said sharply, “I want Buckhorn.”
“Joe Buckhorn? He’s not here.”
“I was told he was.”
Buckhorn couldn’t see Thornton’s shrug, but he could hear it in the man’s voice as Thornton said, “You were told wrong. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of Buckhorn. If we do, you can be sure we’ll capture him and turn him over to you.”
A moment of silence passed. Buckhorn imagined Conroy was fuming. He couldn’t bring up Gratton without tipping his hand that the gunman had double-crossed Thornton and was now working for him.
“I’m curious,” Thornton said. “Who told you that Buckhorn was out here?”
“Oh, hell, I don’t know!” Conroy exploded. “Word got around town. One of your men probably came in and said something about it in the saloon.”
“Not one of my men. Everybody’s been right here at the Jim Dandy since last night.”
Again there was a tense silence, finally broken by Conroy.
“Damn it, I intend to have a look around! My men are going to search the place, just to make sure that half-breed bastard isn’t here.”
With a dangerous edge to his voice, Thornton said, “That sounds an awful lot like you’re calling me a liar, Conroy.”
“Take it however you want,” Conroy snapped. “Yancy, search the house and all the other buildings, and the mine tunnel, too.”
Thornton said, “Madison, if you get off that horse, my men will open fire the second your boot touches the ground.”
Madison drawled, “Mister, if there’s any shooting, my first bullet’s going right in your chest.”
Inside the house, Woodrow grinned over at Buckhorn and said, “I told you all hell was gonna break loose one o’ these days!”
CHAPTER 35
“I don’t want hell to break loose just yet,” Buckhorn said.
“Why in blazes not?” Woodrow demanded. “We got a chance to plug Conroy and Madison both! We can ventilate ’em from in here before they ever know what hit ’em!”
“Yeah, they’d be dead, but it wouldn’t prove anything about Conroy’s land grab south of the Mesteños. Everything would still be up in the air, and those folks down there wouldn’t get their ranches back. I stil
l want evidence against those two.”
“All right,” Woodrow said grudgingly. “But there’s a hell of a lot to be said for shootin’ some son of a bitch who’s got it comin’, whenever you get the chance!”
Outside, Conroy said, “What’s it going to be, Thornton? Are you going to let my men search this place, or is there going to be trouble?”
“I’m ready for it if you are,” Thornton said.
Before any gunplay could break out, a new voice called, “You need a hand here, Mr. Thornton?”
The voice was vaguely familiar. Buckhorn moved closer to the window and risked a glance through the curtains. He saw those twenty men from the mine Woodrow had mentioned. They must have seen what was going on, left the tunnel, and circled around the other buildings, because they had come up behind Conroy and his men. The brawny miner called Sid was in the forefront of the group, holding a pickax. His expression said that he was eager for trouble.
“Don’t let those ore-grubbing bastards spook you, boss,” Yancy Madison told Conroy. “I don’t see a gun among them.”
“You ever seen miners have fun by throwin’ pickaxes, Madison?” Sid asked. “I can sink this one in your back before you turn around in that saddle.”
Thornton said, “Give it up, Conroy. I’ve told you Buckhorn isn’t here. My God! Don’t you think I’d turn him over to you if I had him? The man’s a murderer.”
Madison leaned over in his saddle and urged Conroy, “Don’t listen to him, boss.”
Conroy hesitated. He had to know that if a fight erupted, he would be in as much danger as any of the other men. It would have been smarter to send Madison and the other gunmen up here without accompanying them, but in his rage over what had happened to Alexis, he clearly hadn’t been thinking straight enough to do the smart thing.
As that thought went through Buckhorn’s mind, he realized that Conroy probably didn’t know who was really responsible for shooting Alexis. He might actually blame Buckhorn for it.
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