by Jonas Ward
"I'll tell 'em both, Big Red," the loyal Lash said.
"Yeah," Leech said sleepily. "Man don't want to play favorites."
That was a month ago, and during the next thirty days the word ranged far and wide that Big Red needed his boys in Brownsville. Something real special this time.
Four
Buchanan RODE into Beeville two hours after he left San Antone went directly to the stable.
"I want this horse fed and watered," he said. "Have her ready to go in an hour." The liveryman shook his head.
"Got to wait your turn, fella."
"Not tonight," Buchanan said. "I'm on the move."
"On the prod, too, seems like."
“Yeh."
"After somebody?"
"Don't know yet. Listen, where do the freighters water their mules in this town?"
"There's a public trough outside a ways. But I sell 'em water, too."
"Remember anything of a new red wagon, six mules? Would have come through about a week ago."
"Sure do. Remember the wagon and the driver."
"Why do you remember him?"
"Never saw anybody so particular about getting mud off the wheels. Proud as a peacock over that wagon."
"He stay for the night?"
"Don't think so. He was pushin' it, just like you. Say, you ain't after that fella, are you?"
"Shouldn't I be?"
The man scratched his head. "Well, now you ask me, I don’t know. Can't judge a book by the cover, so they say."
""He looked all right to you?"
"Yeah," the man said. "I kind of liked his looks."
Buchanan grinned. "Take my horse in her turn," he said. "Think I'll go have a steak."
'Have 'er ready in an hour," the man said, not to be outdone.
Buchanan went off to his dinner in considerably better spirits than the dark mood that had gripped him up in San Antone. Hell, he told himself, a lot of things could have gone wrong to delay old Rig. Lose a wheel, a sick mule, bad weather. Maybe he had trouble getting a full load for the return trip. Buchanan blamed himself, now, for attaching so blamed much importance to that eight days business. Since when, he demanded, are you such a Johnny-on-the-spot?
He ate leisurely, rode out of Beeville at a far easier and less determined pace than he'd ridden in. He was feeling so good, in fact, that he kept looking up the trail, half-expecting to see the Double-B Fast Freight rolling his way.
But he didn't see it. It was midnight when he reached Shelby, just the time when things seemed to be opening up in that rugged burg, and Buchanan entered the crowded lobby of the only hotel, shouldered his way to the desk.
"Full up, mister," the clerk told him and Buchanan got the curious notion that the dapper little man enjoyed delivering such a message.
"That's all right," he said, "like to see the register, though."
"What for?"
"Looking for a friend that might be in town." He extended his hand for the open book but the clerk moved it aside.
"What's his name?"
"Bogan."
"Ain't here."
"You can tell without even looking?"
"Maybe it ain't worth my while to look."
Buchanan studied him more closely now, wondering what made people like this one tick. And wondering where he got his confidence from. He reached out again, not for the register this time but for the clerk himself. He took the man by his collar and was preparing to lift him bodily from behind the desk when there was interference from the rear. A gun barrel in his ribs and a gruff voice at his shoulder.
"Leggo of Henry," it said. : ,
Buchanan didn't, but he paused to look into the tough face of the gunman. Or maybe not a gunman, unless that tarnished deputy badge on his shirt was a local joke. But there was whisky in him, and the click of the gun-hammer cocking was not funny at all.
"You gonna let Henry down?"
Buchanan did, not gently.
"That mouth of Henry's must keep you busy fulltime," he told the deputy.
"Just keep your own mouth shut up tight," was the surly, uneven reply.
"That's telling him, Jake," Henry said encouragingly.
"What's his beef, anyhow?" Jake asked the clerk.
"Just another damn troublemaker off the trail," Henry explained. "Thinks he's running things."
"You think you're running things?"
"I think if you don't pull that gun out of my ribs you're gonna eat it," Buchanan warned him. The deputy leered, shoved the barrel deeper. Buchanan's forearm dropped like a cleaver and his elbow clamped tight. The deputy grunted, dropped the forty-four to the wooden floor. Buchanan kicked it deftly away, and so far as he was concerned the incident should have ended right there.
Except that in brawl towns like Shelby the law are wolves, they travel in packs, and the gun-butts that began crashing down on Buchanan's skull and neck and shoulders were being wielded by old hands at the game of gang-up. He sunk to his knees, groggy-eyed, and they still kept slashing at him. He fell over on his side and the one who smashed the toe of his boot into his face was Jake. Except that Buchanan was beyond caring.
He was brought to justice as soon as he was able to stand again and murmur his name through bloody lips. The trial was in the back room of a saloon, before a judge so drunk he could hardly keep his head up. The bailiff read the charges—disturbing the peace of Shelby, resisting lawful arrest and atrocious assault and battery. Jake was a witness and so was Henry, who turned out to be the sherriff’s nephew. The case was open and shut and the judge handed down a unanimous verdict.
"Guilty," the bailiff explained. "A hundred dollars or a hundred days in the mine."
Naively, Buchanan reached for his money. It was gone, and now he remembered that he had ridden into Shelby with exactly the amount of the fine.
"You already paid, ranny. Now mount up and get the hell out of this town. We don't abide troublemakers."
Jake and two friends escorted him out of the saloon, stood by like a trio of grinning apes as he climbed stiffly into his saddle. The night air seemed to clear Buchanan's head and he straightened his seat, made a slow turn with the horse. That brought him abreast of the three watchful deputies.
"Got some business south of here, boys," he said softly, managing a special smile of his own, a smile of anticipation. "But I'll be back one of these days. Count on it." He right-reined, all but brushed their faces with the filly's high rump and trotted out of Shelby with his quiet promise hanging in the night air.
Buchanan made his camp for the night just off the trail, arose with the dawn and pushed on. The traffic grew heavier as the new day got older, but none of the northbound freighters he questioned had knowledge of the Double-B wagon or its driver. These men, in fact, seemed to be without any knowledge of what might be coming along their back trail. Or were they evasive? Then it occurred to him that these were a lonely breed unto themselves, one for another, and that he probably looked like their common enemy: the man with the sheriff's order in his pocket, the hen on their wagons and their goods for a payment missed.
"The Double-What Fast Freight? Rig Who? Never heard of them, and I been hauling this route for ten years..."
But in Robstown there was freely given information about the bright red wagon, and in Bishop and Kingsville. Passed through a week or so ago. Remembered the color of the paint and the happy young cuss that drove her. Looked like he was sitting on top of the world in that seat.
No, he hadn't come back this way again. And today, Buchanan noted unhappily, would make the ninth day.
Even if Bogan had been here in Kingsville this afternoon he had another two long days travel to reach San Antone.
A man don't tell his partner he'll be back in eight days when he isn't even going to make it in eleven. Or twelve. Or ever.
Buchanan, broke moneywise, busted in spirit, limped into Aura on a dragging, leg-weary horse. They were both also very hungry and he got off and walked her the length of Main Street to the stabl
e.
"We need a meal," he told the owner.
“I’ll work for both of us."
The man, graying, in his sixties, peered through the darkening light at the face with its fresh bruises and old battle scars.
"Well, you're different, anyhow."
"Different?"
"You ain't swaggerin' in like you had the money then go off and deadbeat me for the feed and service."
"So how about it?"
"Ain't hardly enough this afternoon to buy my ownself supper. Especially since those three deadbeats came through town."
"You mean those stalls are all cleaned out?" Buchanan asked mildly. "The floor's soaped and hosed? Tomorrow's hay all forked and waiting for that big train I passed outside Kingsville?"
"How big a train?"
"Ten span, mister," Buchanan lied glibly. 'Twenty mules that looked like they were accustomed to the best."
"Twenty head? Well!"
"Not to mention the damn carriages that clogged the trail out of Corpus Christi."
"Clogged?"
"One of those electioneering parties," Buchanan said. "Fella said it was Sam Houston campaigning for the Senate again. But I didn't see any sign of Houston myself."
"General Houston coming this way?"
"Not on my say-so," Buchanan said. "Though he could have been sleeping in that big gold coach in the middle. You've taken care of Sam's coach, haven't you?"
“Here? In this stable? I've sure heard about the General's coach, but I never had the honor of servicing it."
"Well, how about it, mister? You got enough work for two meals?"
"I sure have! Just lead that horse to the trough, son, and get busy on them dirty stalls. Soap and pail's over there in the corner somewhere. Give the floor a good wash. And don't forget tomorrow's hay. Better pitch it clear to the roof, all them mules comin'!"
He left the premises to Buchanan altogether, no doubt to spread the word about The Great God Houston, and as the teller of tall tales fell to with the manure shovel, the hard brush and the powerfully odorous lye soap he had good reason to suspect that he had overcooked his own goose.
But he saw to it that the filly got hers. She ate at the head of the table that evening, got bathed, curried and combed, a stall with a thick mattress of clean, fresh straw, a headway that faced west—so she wouldn't have the glare of the morning sun—and an ear-scratching to top it off.
After two hours his work was done—everything short of painting the stable—but when the owner still didn't return to pay him Buchanan's patience began to wear thin. As thin as his hunger was large. He wandered into the man's cluttered cubbyhole office and sat down in a sagging straw chair. On the desk was an invoice sheet bearing the name of the Aura Livery Co., Jason Hix, Owner, and Buchanan's glance went idly down the entries penciled onto it. One of the entries all but jumped up from the page.
"Double-B Freight," he read, "San Antonio. 6 mules. Feed p.m. & a.m. R. Bogan. $6—Pd. in full."
There were three other entries grouped under the same date, a date just one week ago tonight, and reading the words again he realized that instead of being surprised that Rig had fed the animals and stayed overnight in Aura he should be reassured. For it meant that his partner was right on schedule; so far as the southbound trip was concerned. He read the other names for that date. "Fred Perrott. Horse. Feed p.m. & a.m. $1—Deadbeat."
Deadbeat, Buchanan thought. That's an ugly word. But right below was a second one, a Jules Perrott, and he had skipped town without paying a dollar. Father and son? Buchanan wondered. Brothers? And a third deadbeat. Somebody named Sam Gill.
"Say, fella!" the liveryman's voice broke in, "you got this place looking just fine!" Buchanan got up out of the chair. "About given you up," he told him.
"Got into the blackjack game over to the saloon and lost track of the time. Sure some job you did here, though. How much do I owe you?"
"Whatever's the price of a meal in town," Buchanan said. "And I eat pretty hearty, too," he added.
"Imagine you do, furnace that size to stoke. Let's see now. You can get steak, spuds and pie at the saloon for a dollar. Probably want seconds on everything, won't you?"
"It's likely."
'Two dollars, then?" "Fine."
"And one extra for good measure," Hix said, handing Buchanan three silver dollars.
"Two is fair," the tall man said. Hix smiled up at him. "I won a little in the game," he said slyly. "In fact, the whole three dollars is on the dealer."
Buchanan accepted the coins. "See you lost three a week ago," he said.
"How's that?"
Buchanan glanced at the ledger. "The deadbeats," he said.
"Oh, them skunks. Not only cheat a man but get ornery about it." Hix looked at Buchanan sadly. "Liked to've had you here that morning," he said. "Wonder how hard they'd talk then."
"The fella with the mules paid, though," Buchanan said.
"On the barrelhead."
"You talk to him at all?"
"The night he drove in I did. Dished out the feed for his mules himself." Hix shook his head. "Looked like regular donks to me," he said, "but he was real particular. And that red wagon! Why, he spent one solid hour out back just scrubbing that thing till it shined like new." The remembering made the old man chuckle. "I joshed him some about that, told him he acted like it was all paid for."
"What did he say to that?"
"He said no, there was a long ways to go yet. But he said it was going to be paid for, and then he was going to get another, just like it. Sure had the vinegar in him, that one."
"But you haven't seen him since?"
"No," Hix said, his face becoming puzzled.
"What is it?"
"You ask me if I've seen that driver and it reminds me that he should have been back from Matamoros three, four nights ago. Least, that's what he planned. Said this was his lucky town."
"Lucky?" Buchanan repeated. "What did he mean?"
"Don't rightly know," Hix said, then smiled. "But he did take a real shine to Cristy."
"Who?"
"Cristina, the pretty gal that deals the games over at the saloon. Everybody calls her Cristy," Hix said, "and I guess just about everybody off the trail shines up to her. Just like the fella we're talking about. Say, do you know him?"
"I'm his partner," Buchanan said.
"Why, sure!" Hix said. "Sure you are! Ten feet tall he said you was and ate wildcat raw for breakfast." The man laughed. "I think he even put you up a notch over that red wagon and them six mules." The smile faded. "Ain't nothing gone wrong, is there?"
"That's what I came down the trail to find out," Buchanan said. "Right at the moment, though, I'm going to hunt up that steak you mentioned." He went out of the stable and moved up Main Street. On the corner was the saloon, just that—SALOON—and he went inside.