A short time later, they spotted two riders coming toward them. Buckhorn and the others reined in and waited. Stockbridge, Thornton, and Woodrow had their hands on their guns, just in case the newcomers weren’t friendly.
“That’s Charlie Dowd and Tim Calvert,” Buckhorn said after a moment.
The gunman and the young cattleman waved in greeting as they rode closer. As they reined in, Dowd drawled, “You got back quicker’n anybody figured, Buckhorn—and brought a lawdog with you.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, gunfighter,” Stockbridge snapped.
Thornton explained to Dowd and Tim what was going on and where they were headed, then Tim declared, “We’re coming with you. You’ll be outnumbered by Conroy’s men when you get to the settlement.”
“I never aimed to deputize no crowd of civilians,” Stockbridge protested.
“Don’t deputize us, then,” Dowd said. “But honest citizens have a right to step in when the law’s being broken.”
“You probably ain’t been accused of bein’ an honest citizen all that often, mister,” Stockbridge said.
“Charlie works for me,” Thornton said. “That’s why he’s coming along, to help look after my interests. And Mr. Calvert’s got a right to ride to Crater City, I’d say.”
“Not disputin’ that,” Stockbridge rumbled. “Just don’t go takin’ the law into your own hands, none of you. If you’re comin’ with me, you’ll follow my lead.”
Dowd shrugged and nodded, saying, “I can go along with that.”
Now numbering six, they rode on.
* * *
The sun was sinking below the western horizon by the time the group of riders approached Crater City. Shadows had already started to gather over the settlement.
“Conroy’s probably got men on the prowl,” Buckhorn said. “They’d be liable to open up on me as soon as they see me.”
“Not if you go in as my prisoner,” Stockbridge growled. He reached inside his coat and took out a pair of handcuffs that had been draped over his belt. “Stick out those meat hooks.”
Buckhorn frowned and said, “I don’t much cotton to being cuffed.”
“Hell, I’m gonna give you the key, so you can get shed of ’em in a hurry if you need to. You want to confront Conroy and Madison, don’t you? This is the best way to do it.”
Buckhorn had to admit that the plan had some natural cunning to it. He sighed and said, “Give me the cuffs and the key. I’ll put them on myself.”
“Fine.” With a jangling of metal, Stockbridge handed over the bracelets and the little key that unfastened them. Buckhorn clamped the cuffs around his wrists and snapped them shut. He kept the key concealed in his closed left hand.
Buckhorn’s return appearance in Crater City set off an uproar, as expected. Some men shouted questions from the boardwalks while others hurried to spread the news. Buckhorn rode along stolidly through the commotion, glad that Stockbridge’s badge was displayed so prominently on the lawman’s vest. That ought to keep anybody from taking potshots at him.
By the time they reached the Irish Rose Saloon, quite a crowd had gathered. Stockbridge yelled for them to stand aside, away from the batwings. The hard-faced presence of Hugh Thornton, Amos Woodrow, Charlie Dowd, and Tim Calvert added weight to the command. The six men dismounted—Buckhorn a little awkwardly because of the handcuffs—and stepped up onto the boardwalk.
Buckhorn heard the mutters from the crowd—“Got him!” “Damned redskin!” “Ought to string the murderer up!”—and once again was glad for Stockbridge’s badge. He didn’t seem to have many friends in Crater City tonight.
If everything went as planned, that would change.
One of the men who had run ahead must have told everyone in the saloon who was coming, because Yancy Madison and ten of Conroy’s gun-wolves were waiting, Madison desultorily laying out a hand of solitaire at a table while the other men were ranged along the bar. The tension that gripped the place as Buckhorn and his companions stepped in overcame the curiosity of the bystanders and made them start to scatter. People were realizing that gun trouble might erupt at any second with little or no warning, and nobody wanted to be in the line of fire.
“Hello, Joe,” Madison drawled. “I see the law caught up to you at last. That’s good. I’ll be pleased to attend your hanging.”
“The hell with that,” Buckhorn snapped. “How’s Alexis Conroy?”
He knew that was the main thing on Thornton’s mind, and he wanted to know, too.
Some of Madison’s careless attitude vanished. He sat up straighter and said, “She’s alive. Doc says she’s past the crisis and will likely pull through.”
“Thank God,” Thornton said.
That caused Madison to frown at him, but the gunman kept any questions to himself.
“Is she awake?” Buckhorn asked.
Madison shook his head and said, “She hasn’t regained consciousness yet. According to Cranford, it’s only a matter of time until she does.”
That put some pressure on Madison, Buckhorn thought. When Alexis could talk again, she could tell everybody that he wasn’t the one who shot her. It would be better for Conroy and Madison if they made sure he was safely at the end of a hang rope before then.
Stockbridge stepped forward, hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt, and said, “I’ll be wantin’ to talk to the young lady. I’m a federal marshal, name of Oliver Stockbridge.”
From the top of the stairs, Dennis Conroy said, “I’m very glad to see you, Marshal Stockbridge. Crater City has been needing some real law and order for a long time.”
Woodrow sputtered at that and said, “Why, you lowdown, smooth-talkin’ coyote—”
Thornton put out a hand to stop him, then looked up at his longtime rival and said, “We’ve come for an accounting, Conroy. You’ve been getting your own way around here long enough.”
Conroy smiled and said, “I own most of this town, Thornton. I ought to get my own way. That’s how things work.”
“Not anymore. Marshal Stockbridge has proof that you were mixed up in the rustling that allowed you to grab all those ranches south of the Mesteños.”
Conroy waved his cigar dismissively.
“That’s ridiculous,” he declared.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Stockbridge said. “I sent a wire to El Paso askin’ the authorities there to grab your partner Nickerson and hang on to him until I can get back to question him. Reckon there’s a good chance once I have a little palaver with him, he’ll be happy to spill everything he knows about what you been up to over here.”
Buckhorn saw the way Conroy’s fleshy face tightened. Conroy hadn’t known until this moment that the law was aware of his connection to the crooked cattle broker. Madison’s casual air was completely gone now, as well.
“What about Buckhorn?” Conroy snapped. “The man’s a murderer. He should hang for killing Edward Garrett, and I don’t see any reason we should waste the time or expense on a trial.”
Sensing that this standoff couldn’t go on much longer, Buckhorn carefully used his left hand to slide the key into the lock on the cuff around his right wrist. A quick twist and it would be loose.
“You can’t hang Buckhorn for killing Edward Garrett—” Thornton began.
“That’s right,” a new voice interrupted. “Because I’m not dead.”
All eyes in the saloon jerked toward the entrance, where two figures had just appeared. Edward Garrett stood there looking pale and haggard but very much alive, and beside him, helping him stand up, was Dr. Cranford.
“Anyway, Buckhorn didn’t shoot me,” Edward went on. “Yancy Madison did, on Conroy’s orders. He boasted as much before he pulled the trigger.”
“You fool!” Conroy yelled down the stairs at Madison, who was staring at Edward in disbelief.
Madison’s shock lasted only a second. Then he bolted to his feet and his hand flashed to the gun on his hip as he ripped out an oath.
CHAPTER 42
Buc
khorn was just as fast. Freed of the cuff, his right hand reached around and plucked the .38 from the holster at the small of his back. Marshal Stockbridge hadn’t known he was carrying it, and Buckhorn sure as hell hadn’t volunteered the information when he turned over his other revolver.
“Get down!” he yelled at Edward and Cranford as he twisted away from Stockbridge, Thornton, and Woodrow. Madison’s gun came up spitting flame. Buckhorn felt the slug whip past his cheek. He slammed out two shots from the Smith & Wesson and saw both of them punch into Madison’s chest. Madison lurched sideways and rammed a hip into the table where he’d been playing solitaire, upsetting it and sending the cards flying.
At the same time, from the top of the stairs, Conroy shouted, “Kill them!” as he dropped the cigar and clawed under his coat for a gun. The men at the bar crouched and slapped leather, knowing they could still preserve their paydays if they wiped out everyone else in the saloon.
Buckhorn spun toward them as Madison collapsed. The. 38 had three more bullets in it, and he put each of them to good use. One smacked into a gunman’s forehead and bored into his brain, the second ripped through the throat of another killer, and the last round punched into the guts of a third gun-wolf.
By now, Stockbridge, Thornton, and Woodrow had their guns out and roaring, too. The inside of the Irish Rose was a hell of muzzle flame and powder smoke, of guns blasting and men crying out in pain. The front windows shattered, and so did the long mirror behind the bar.
As bullets chewed splinters from the floorboards next to him, Buckhorn launched himself in a low dive that carried him to the gun that Yancy Madison had dropped. He snatched it from the sawdust-littered floor, rolled over, and came up shooting again, emptying the Colt in a storm of lead that had two more of Conroy’s men jittering backward in a dance of death. The echoes of the deafening reports began to die away, to be replaced by an eerie silence.
That silence was broken by Amos Woodrow saying peevishly, “Dadgum it, I’m hit.”
So was Marshal Stockbridge. Blood dripped from the fingers of the lawman’s left hand as that arm hung useless at his side. He still held his revolver in his right hand, though, and a curl of smoke wisped from the barrel as he pointed it at the fallen gunmen along the bar.
Hugh Thornton appeared to be unharmed. He dropped to a knee next to Woodrow and asked, “How bad is it, Amos?”
“Why the hell are you askin’ me? I ain’t no sawbones!”
Dr. Cranford hurried back into the saloon. He had ducked through the batwings with Edward Garrett when the shooting started. He knelt beside Woodrow, quickly examined the wound in the old-timer’s side, and said, “It looks like you’ll live, Amos.”
Buckhorn looked up at the empty landing at the top of the stairs and said, “Where the hell is Conroy?”
There was no sign of the man. All his gun-wolves were down, either dead or wounded, and while he might have other hired killers around, for the moment he was on his own. Buckhorn figured Conroy had fled.
He started for the stairs. Behind him, Stockbridge called, “Buckhorn, wait just a damned minute!”
Without turning around, Buckhorn said, “Don’t try to stop me, Marshal.”
“I’m not tryin’ to stop you, blast it.”
That made Buckhorn paused. He looked around, and Stockbridge tossed the stag-butted revolver to him.
“It’s only got a couple of rounds left in it,” the lawman said.
“I’ll make that do,” Buckhorn said.
He went up the stairs in a rush, grabbing the lintel post at the top with his left hand—the hand that still had a cuff dangling from it—and swung himself around toward Conroy’s suite. He glided toward the door, wary now, and with good reason since the door suddenly swung open and shots roared as Conroy fired along the balcony. Buckhorn dropped to a knee as the slugs whistled past him and caught a glimpse of Conroy in the doorway, gun in one hand and a carpetbag—no doubt filled with cash—in the other.
Buckhorn fired twice and saw Conroy rocked by the bullets’ impact. Conroy reeled against the doorjamb and dropped both the carpetbag and the gun. Buckhorn expected him to fall, but Conroy caught himself and somehow found the strength to charge toward Buckhorn as he let out a bellow of rage.
Buckhorn tossed the empty gun aside and stood up to meet Conroy’s attack. Conroy outweighed him, and the collision drove Buckhorn back against the balcony railing. With a sharp crack, the railing broke and Buckhorn fell.
He grabbed Conroy and pulled the man over with him. Twisting desperately in midair, Buckhorn put himself on top and Conroy on the bottom. Conroy landed on the edge of the table Madison had overturned while dying, and with Buckhorn’s weight on top of him, that snapped his spine like a piece of kindling. Both men rolled off into the floor.
The bullet wounds probably would have been fatal even without the broken back. Now, Conroy’s life was slipping away fast. Buckhorn got a hand on the floor, pushed himself up, and loomed over the dying man. The fall and the hard landing had knocked the breath out of him, but otherwise he was all right.
Conroy opened his mouth and tried to say something but couldn’t get any words out. Buckhorn looked down at him and said, “Quoth the raven . . . nevermore.”
The light faded from the man’s eyes, and Buckhorn knew Conroy had died without knowing what the hell he was talking about.
“Good Lord, what a massacre,” Marshal Stockbridge said. “Reckon that means the town’s got a clean slate, though. You better be sure it ain’t wasted, Thornton.”
“It won’t be, Marshal,” Thornton said. “You can count on that.”
Buckhorn walked over to where Dr. Cranford was still tending to Woodrow and said, “Was it your idea to hide out Edward Garrett and let everybody think he was dead?”
“Well, I admit I was inspired by your ruse with Edward’s uncle Matthew, but it seemed like the safest way to proceed. After all, it was unlikely anyone would try to kill him if everyone believed he was dead.”
“That was good thinking, Doc.”
“When Julietta came in with the news that a lawman had just ridden into town and had you with him, Edward decided it was time to come out into the open again. He said the law had to know the truth.”
Stockbridge and Thornton joined them. The marshal said, “I’ll be wantin’ to talk to that young fella. Got a hunch he can tell me a lot about what’s been goin’ on around here.”
“You’re convinced now that I didn’t murder anybody?” Buckhorn asked.
“Reckon I gotta be, since I heard it from the horse’s mouth. I’ll make sure those charges against you are quashed, Buckhorn.”
“I’d appreciate it. I’d be obliged to you, too, if you’d look into the way Conroy got his hands on those ranches and see if you can get them returned to the rightful owners.”
Stockbridge nodded and said, “I’ll do that. I’m gonna be a mite busy for a while just cleanin’ up your mess.”
“Not my mess,” Buckhorn said. “I’m just a hired gun.”
“That might’ve been true once,” Stockbridge said. “I got a sneakin’ suspicion it ain’t no more.”
* * *
Alexis Conroy regained consciousness the next day and confirmed, just for the record, that Buckhorn hadn’t shot her. She would inherit everything her father had owned, and once she and Hugh Thornton were married, they would control an empire the likes of which this part of the territory had never seen.
Buckhorn didn’t see any point in saying anything to Thornton about what had happened between him and Alexis. That had been more a matter of her ambition than anything else, and now that she had everything she wanted, she’d probably make Thornton a good wife. Or not.
The best thing about it was that it was none of Buckhorn’s business.
Conroy’s men who had survived the shoot-out in the Irish Rose had been talking, too, trying to save themselves from a trip to the gallows. Naturally, they laid the blame for everything at the feet of Conroy and Madison, with Mad
ison getting the lion’s share. It had been his idea, several of the men told Stockbridge, to take potshots at Conroy’s own surveying crew, just to keep trouble stirred up between Conroy and Thornton. Madison wanted to keep Conroy dependent on him and the crew of gun-wolves.
That explanation answered the only question Buckhorn had still had about the whole affair. He was in the livery stable, saddling his roan and getting ready to ride out of Crater City, when Lorna McChesney came in. She grinned at him and said, “You are a dapper son of a bitch, you know that?”
Buckhorn ticked a finger against the brim of his brand-new bowler hat and said, “You need to learn how to watch your mouth. Most young fellas won’t want to court a gal who cusses like a mule skinner.”
“Shoot, you think I care about that?”
“You will one of these days,” Buckhorn said.
“Maybe . . . when I get too old to raise hell.”
Buckhorn wasn’t sure she would ever get that old, but he kept the thought to himself.
“Marshal Stockbridge says he’s gonna see to it that Pa and me get our spread back,” she went on. “And Mr. Thornton’s gonna partner up with Miss Alexis and build their railroad on the Gunsight Canyon route. He’s givin’ up on the Mulehead Pass route. Only they’re gonna make a real right-of-way deal with us that’ll pay enough for Pa and me to restock our herd that Madison rustled from us.”
“Sounds like everything’s going to work out just fine,” Buckhorn said as he tightened a saddle cinch.
“Yeah, it does. Things could still go wrong, though. You ever think about stayin’ around these parts, just to keep an eye on things?”
“How long would I have to do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Lorna said. “Another four or five years, maybe.”
Buckhorn chuckled and said, “I’ll be long gone by then, little sis. And you won’t even remember me.”
He swung up into the saddle, lifted a hand in farewell, and rode out. Behind him, Lorna gazed after him and said softly, “I wouldn’t count on that, Mr. Buckhorn.”
But he was already too far away to hear her, and he kept riding.
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