by Jonas Ward
"Fire." Leech was bawling out front and the blast of his guns was instantaneous. But Buchanan was running at right angles to the building, low and fast. He was spotted in the bright orange gunflashes.
"Somebody gettin' away, Red!"
"That's him!" Turkey Forbes yelled piercingly. "That's the scudder kilt Jules!"
"Get the son!" Big Red Leech thundered. "Ride the bastard down!"
The fox and the hounds. Buchanan plunged on into the darkness, and as unnatural as it felt to run out on an argument the tall man adapted himself to the situation with such gusto as to make himself wonder how his Highland ancestors had made their living.
He took his pursuers west for fifty yards, directly into a thick cluster of shacks and stores that was the market place of the Mexican section, then led Leech's Gang through a maze of narrow streets and alleyways toward the slaughterhouses, where a hundred busy men labored at their butchering by torchlight and a thousand head of cattle bawled dolorously in their pens. Leech's men suddenly found themselves on skittish, unwilling horses—animals with the scent of fresh blood in their sensitive nostrils and no desire to come any closer.
That was Buchanan's pure luck, not design. In fact, he could have stayed in the neighborhood indefinitely, but now he changed direction, went south to the riverfront, slid down the black, sloping bank of the Rio and caught himself a second breath. He could hear Leech and company thrashing around in the night, making a great commotion, but no one came within three hundred feet of his hiding place.
Then the noises died down, the pursuit was abandoned, and a frustrated, bad-tempered Red Leech turned his crew back to the hacienda. Lash Wall, his own temper simmering close to the surface, pulled abreast of the massive, bearded man.
"Well?" Wall asked curtly, "what did this night accomplish?"
Leech, stung, swung his head sharply. "We give that high-and-mighty sheriff a lickin', didn't we?" he demanded. "Showed him what we can do, by damn!"
"And lost Fred Perrott, which we couldn't afford.”
"Why the hell don't you whistle another tune?" Leech snarled at him.
Wall lapsed into silence, retreated into the fortress of his mind. He was, he knew, dangerously close to an open breach with Big Red. For a long time now the other man's loud voice and high-handed manner had chafed, made his resentment grow. And with each passing day it was becoming more and more clear to Lash Wall that Red Leech had neither the ability nor the ambition to realize what could be done in this raw, disorganized country with a private army such as this one.
This raid on the jail tonight was a case in point. Wall had given a lot of quiet thought to the setup John Lime had in Brownsville. He had also come to the conclusion that at the proper time, Lime could be taken. But not tonight. Tonight they should have stayed at the headquarters, saved their energy and their enthusiasm for the big unit tomorrow. As it stood now they had accomplished —nothing with this raid except to be one valuable gun shy for the operation. And if Lime had not chosen to coop himself up in that building they would surely have lost more. Just as serious, Lime was on his guard now. The sheriff would be waiting for them next time, in force, and the price for taking over rich Brownsville would be ten times as expensive.
All because this big blowhard riding next to him had to protect his reputation. Which he hadn't, because the man they had come to town for was still on the loose. Still loose, and apparently with some score still to be settle with Sam Gill.
What the hell was that all about, anyhow? He pulled his horse up, let Leech move ahead, and when he spotted Gill's blocky, stolid-looking 6gure among the body of riders, he eased in beside the man. "How you feeling, Sam?"
"I could use a drink," Gill answered gruffly. He didn't like Lash Wall especially and the feeling was mutual. Sam Gill didn't like a great many men, and that was mutual, too.
"Tough break for Fred tonight," Wall said.
"Yeah."
"Bad night for Perrotts all around."
"Yeah."
"What's this gent so burry about, Sam? What'd you and Fred and Jules do to him?"
Gill looked at Wall for the first time.
"Ask Fred and Jules," he said. "Me, I wouldn't know."
"Some husband, maybe? A brother?" said Lash,
“I wouldn't know."
"You have any trouble like that up in Uvalde?" Wall persisted.
"What the hell is it to you what we had in Uvalde?”
"I'll tell you what it is to me, Sam," Wall said calmly. "I pulled this crew together very carefully, handpicked every man for the biggest job that ever came our way. As of tonight I count three dead and one who can't wield his gun. One man did all that, Sam, and I'd like to know what's biting him."
"I wouldn't know," Gill said again.
"But you do know you're on his list?"
"If I'm on anybody's list," Gill said, "I'll take care of it myself. Don't you worry about me."
"I'm not, Sam," Lash Wall told him. "It's your gun I'm worried about." He parted company from the truculent man, pushed on up to the front of the pack.
What was it all about? he wondered still. What had Sam Gill and the Perrotts done?
Sam Gill, Buchanan was thinking at that very moment. He had climbed up from the riverbank, duly grateful for the refuge it had given him but feeling unnatural in his mind just the same for having been chased into hiding.
Sam Gill, he thought as he traced his way back past the slaughterhouse and reached the scene of the lopsided battle at the jail. There was activity of another kind there now, of mercy and sorrow. An ambulance and several other wagons were drawn up before the battered building; half-a-hundred citizens of Brownsville milled around in the bright light of as many torches.
Buchanan borrowed one, went looking for his horse and came upon her grazing imperturbably in a field a quarter mile away. He checked the filly carefully, found her unmarked, lifted himself onto her back and took her back to the jail.
John Lime, his own arm in a makeshift bandage and sling, was directing the removal of his men. Boyd and another deputy were badly wounded but still alive. The other two were fatalities of Leech's raid.-
"Anything I can help with, Sheriff?" Buchanan asked and Lime looked up at the mounted man with a surprised smile.
“I had word they'd caught you," he said. "Down by the river.”
"Not yet they didn't. How's the wing?"
"Damned annoying," Lime said, gazing at Buchanan intently. "I have something I want to ask you," he said
"It may sound rather strange in view of other that have occurred tonight."
“Ask it.”
"How would you like a job? An important one?"
“Doing what?"
"Being my chief deputy," Lime said and now it was Buchanan’s turn to be surprised.
"Strange is right, Sheriff."
"Well, man, how about it?"
Buchanan shook his head. "That's out of my line," he said. "Sitting around an office all day playing checkers, pulling in drunks and stopping fights all night."
"There's a lot more to law enforcement than that," Lime said, his voice indignant. "And in Brownsville there's a great future for my chief deputy."
"Thanks for the offer," Buchanan said, "but it's not for me."
"Will you do this—will you think it over tonight? Give me your final answer in the morning?"
"All right, Sheriff, if you'll do me a little favor."
"Name it."
"Tell me where the old Wagon Road is from here."
"The Wagon Road? Why, that runs out that way, due west. What do you want—" He broke off, frowning. "You're not seriously thinking of going out there after them?"
"Just one," Buchanan answered. "Name of Gill."
"I see. And you'll simply knock on the front door and tell them to send Gill out."
"Something like that." ' 1
"And Gill, of course, will just hand himself over to you."
"No," Buchanan said. "I expect he'll argue some."
<
br /> "You're damn well told he will! And he'll have every one of his hardcase friends to back him up."
"Excepting two," Buchanan said, smiling as he swung the filly around. "Hasta," he called back to the other man as he rode away west.
Rode steadily but unhurriedly, reminding himself that there was no special rush now. Sam Gill would be waiting for him.
The hacienda loomed large and graceful and was ablaze with light. Buchanan took a full turn around the place studying the physical layout, observing the activity within the walls. There were men moving around on the second floor, talking and drinking, and others were gathered in a big room below, some playing poker, some watching.
Just a bunch of boys in a bunkhouse, Buchanan thought, then chuckled aloud. Some fancy bunkhouse.
In the right wing of the second floor he saw two men seated at a table in earnest conversation. One had a thick beard and a long mane of hair, reddish-hued even from out here in the dark, and he had his big hand wrapped around a whisky bottle. One moment he gesticulated with it, shook it in the other man's face, and the next he pulled at the neck. The other man was slender and clean shaven—and listening.
Red Leech, Buchanan decided, dismounting. He slid the Winchester from its boot, levered the rifle and then settled down to a prone position behind a small hillock, shifting his hips and elbows into the soft ground until he was comfortable.
Then he blasted the bottle out of Red Leech's fingers.
All they could do—Leech and Lash Wall—was stare at the jagged glass, its top half still dripping whisky onto the floor. Wall recovered first.
"It's him," he said.
"What?"
"Him," Wall repeated, unshocked enough to turn down the wick in the lantern, uncertain about dimming the light across the room. "He's after Sam Gill."
Red Leech flung the neck of the whisky bottle back through the shattered window, stood up furiously.
"Well, goddamn it, I ain't Sam Gill!" he roared out into the night. And dropped to all fours as the rifle out there all but parted his hair.
"Sonofabitch," Red Leech said from the floor, chastened. "We got to put a stop to that mutt."
"It'll cost us before we do," Lash Wall pointed out.
Down below, the crack of the first shot had caused confusion among the poker players. The second sent them scurrying for guns and cover. One man, Frank Hanack, had just drawn a third queen to a full house and his anger at the interruption outweighed his discretion. He polled open the window, raised his .44, and was promptly brought to his senses by a pair of screaming 30-30 slugs past either ear.
Some of the besieged inmates got off angry answering shots from various parts of the big house, but by and large Buchanan kept objections down with his pinpoint fire. Their disadvantage, he well knew, was in trying to decide whether they were escaping death by luck or if the sniper was missing on purpose.
He watched with interest as the room on the first floor emptied out and a conference began to take place on the floor above. One would-be hero didn't attend the meeting, tried to sneak out of the house. The 30-30 kicked up dust at his boots, drove him back inside again.
The conference looked to Buchanan to be a personal argument between Leech and the other fellow. Finally a vote was taken, on something, and the cleanshaven man seemed to have won his point by an overwhelming show of hands. A minute later the main door was opened and a flag of truce appeared.
"How about a parley, friend?" Lash Wall called out into the dark.
"Sure, friend," Buchanan answered genially.
"I'm leaving my gun inside," Wall promised. "I'm coming out without it."
"Come any damn way you please," Buchanan advised him.
Wall stepped from the big house and his heels clicked sharply as he crossed the flagstone courtyard, seemed extra loud because it was the only sound there was. Watchful faces began to appear in the windows behind him.
"This way," Buchanan said, getting up slowly, keeping a prudent eye out for any treachery from some other direction. Not too worried, though. There had been a note of sincerity in the voice of the man approaching him. Then he and Lash Wall were facing each other.
"Wall's my name."
"I'm Buchanan."
"And damned handy with that rifle," Lash said dryly.
"She's a Winchester," Buchanan said, as if that explained his shooting.
"Well," Wall said, putting an end to the brief amenities, "what can we do for you, Buchanan?"
“I've come for Sam Gill," Buchanan said. "Send him out here."
"Come clear from Uvalde, did you?"
"Uvalde? No."
"You're some kind of law, then? A marshal?"
"No," Buchanan said again. "Not even collecting bounty for the skunk, though I reckon there's some along his back trail."
"Where's your profit, then? What do you want with Gill?"
"Satisfaction, friend. Now go send him out here to me."
"Satisfaction for what? What did Sam and the Perrott brothers do to you, anyhow?"
Buchanan hesitated for a moment, took a deep, troubled sigh and began to speak very quietly. "Them three bastards," he said, "dropped some money in a game of blackjack one night. Next morning they followed the winner out of town. They rode up behind him and shot him in the back. They killed this boy, robbed him, destroyed his goods and didn't even have the decency to bury him. Send Sam Gill out here."
Now it was Lash Wall who sighed, whose voice shook when he spoke again.
"This boy was your brother?"
"Just as close to me as one. Rig Bogan was my partner. Now let's cut the damn palaver. Tell Gill I'll be waiting for him over yonder, back of the caretaker's place."
"All right," Wall said, "I'll tell him." He turned, paused, and looked back for another moment. "Watch yourself real careful, Buchanan," he said. "I hear you spotted Jules Perrott a shot tonight. You can't do that with Sam Gill.”
"Thanks for the warning," Buchanan said, and as Wall made his way back to the hacienda the tall man slid the Winchester back in its boot, walked leisurely toward the dark, squat shape of the caretaker's house and the equipment shed adjoining it.
Lash Wall stood before the entire gang assembled up-and repeated Buchanan's grievance. He spoke as neutrally as he could manage to, and when he was done he stepped aside. There was a long embarrassed silence. Red Leech, himself, broke it.
"You been called a bushwhacker, Sam. What do you have to say for yourself?" The voice, for Leech, was strangely-subdued.
Gill looked around at the familiar faces, his own expression contemptuous, settled his gaze defiantly on Red.
"Me and Fred and Jules," he said slowly, "decided we had been cheated by this freight driver. What we give was just what every card shark deserves in this country.'*
"How come you waited till mornin'?" Leech asked. "How come you didn't know you was bein' cheated at the time, Sam?"