A Reason to Die

by William W. Johnstone

  Not that the badge-toter in this case looked particularly menacing. He was on the short side, had more than a few years on him, was potbellied and bespectacled, and sported a high-crowned, cream-colored Stetson that appeared at least one size too large so that it rested on the tops of a pair of jug ears.

  As if in acknowledgment of his mild appearance, the man walked with somewhat tentative steps rather than the bold, clear-out-of-my-way strides that marked the bullying tactics of too many law enforcers in small settlements across the West. And, if Buckhorn wasn’t mistaken, it sounded as if the man was humming a soft tune as he came down the street.

  Buckhorn was still trying to decide what to make of this vision when the livery proprietor, a fellow named Hobbs, came out of the barn and stepped up to stand beside him. Chewing on a long piece of straw that poked out one corner of his mouth, Hobbs said, “Okay. Here comes Elmer now.”

  “Elmer?”

  “Elmer Dahlquist. Our town marshal.”

  “I see the badge. You expectin’ him?”

  Hobbs cut Buckhorn a sidelong look.

  “Well, yeah. I sent my boy to fetch him right after you rode up.”

  Buckhorn looked puzzled for a moment before working that expression into a scowl.

  “You sayin’ you called the law on me?”

  Hobbs felt the heat from those narrowed eyes and cleared his throat, then said, “No, sir. Not like that, not the way you make it sound—I just let Elmer know you’d showed up, the way he asked some of us business owners to keep an eye out for.”

  Buckhorn was growing more confounded and annoyed by the minute.

  “The marshal had business owners around town on the lookout for me to show up?” he asked. “What the hell for?”

  “Probably be simpler,” Marshal Dahlquist said as he drew closer to the two men, “if you just went ahead and let me explain, Mr. Buckhorn. You are Joe Buckhorn, ain’t that right?”

  “That’s right,” Buckhorn said, still with the scowl in place. “But I don’t understand what makes you so doggone interested in me.”

  A wan smile came and went on the marshal’s round face.

  “Me, personally? I got no special interest in you at all. Not as long as you behave yourself and don’t cause no trouble while you’re in town. My interest in you is strictly on account of this telegram I got a couple days ago.”

  Dahlquist produced a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, held it out to Buckhorn. In the dimming light of early evening, Buckhorn saw that it was from a man named Tolliver, addressed to Dahlquist.

  BE A FAVOR IF YOU’D STAY ON THE LOOKOUT FOR A JOE BUCKHORN WHO MIGHT BE PASSING YOUR WAY. HIRED GUN, BUT NOT WANTED BY THE LAW.

  PART INDIAN. WEARS A BOWLER HAT.

  RANCHER HERE NAMED DANVERS HAS NEED OF HIS SERVICES. LET ME KNOW IF HE COMES AROUND. I’LL HAVE DANVERS WIRE HIM THERE DIRECT. THANKS.

  When Buckhorn lifted his eyes after he was done reading, Dahlquist said, “Thad Tolliver is a sheriff farther west and south some. Good man. Works out of the town of Barkley. Don’t know this Danvers personally, but I’ve heard the name. Runs a big ranching operation in that area.”

  “Big enough to have the local sheriff acting as a messenger boy for him, it seems,” observed Buckhorn.

  “Don’t know about that. Like I said, Tolliver has always been a good man, so I got no problem doing him this favor. You familiar with him or Danvers, either one?”

  “Can’t say I am.”

  “Well, at least one of ’em seems to know something about you. Enough to describe you and want to hire your, ah, ‘services,’ as the message says.”

  “I’ve been doin’ what I do for a while now,” Buckhorn replied. “Long enough for folks to have heard about me and long enough for me to know how to stay on the right side of the law. As far as the description . . . how many big, ugly Indians do you run across wearing a bowler hat and packing a six-gun they look like they know how to use?”

  “You make a point there,” Dahlquist said.

  There was no denying that Buckhorn’s appearance tended to leave a lasting impression. Tall, lean, solid looking; crow’s wing–black hair and skin bronzed to a deep reddish-brown hue that spoke clearly of the Indian blood in him; hawklike facial features that most would consider to be on the homely side although a surprising number of women seemed to find them intriguing. All decked out in a brown suit jacket and matching vest, neatly knotted string tie, and topped off with a rakishly tilted bowler.

  At first glance he might be mistaken for a whiskey drummer or some such—but nobody would maintain that assessment for very long. Not after closer consideration of the hardness around his eyes or the way the Frontier Colt .45 pistol hung loose and ready in the well-worn holster on his hip.

  “I guess the only question left now,” Dahlquist went on, jabbing a finger to indicate the paper Buckhorn was still holding, “is how you want to respond to that? I’m sure Virgil Holmes, who runs our telegraph office, has closed up shop for the day. But he’s a pretty amenable fella, especially after he has a good meal in him. Once I know he’s finished supper, I could ask him to send a response to Tolliver and probably have something direct to you from Danvers back in the morning. Unless none of it is any interest to you, then we can just forget the whole thing.”

  Buckhorn didn’t have to think on it for very long. His last job, moneywise, hadn’t worked out nearly as well as he’d expected. So if a big Texas rancher had a new proposition to make, he was willing to hear the man out.

  As far as Dahlquist’s friendly offer to help speed things along by providing a little extra go-between service, there was a part of Buckhorn that wanted to take him up on it. But at the same time there was also part of him that stubbornly hated being beholden to anybody. He had wrestled with that pride many times in his life, and pride usually won.

  So his response was, “I’d be obliged for the chance to hear what this Danvers has to say, Marshal. But I sure hate to step on your telegraph man’s suppertime, not to mention yours. I can wait until morning to respond to this message from the sheriff myself, then see what Danvers comes back with.”

  “Nonsense. I still got my evening rounds to make and it won’t take Virgil but two shakes to send that telegram. You wouldn’t be stepping on our time to amount to nothing. You see, Mr. Buckhorn, folks in and around Forbes are real friendly that way—to each other and to strangers passin’ through alike.” Here the marshal showed another brief smile, this one a bit toothier than before. “And when it comes to hired guns like yourself passin’ through—meaning no disrespect to you personally, mind you—I figure our best chance to keep things that way is for me to help move situations like this along.”

  Now it was Buckhorn’s turn to smile as he said, “You know, Marshal, I think that was about the most pleasant get-your-ass-out-of-town speech I ever heard.”

  Dahlquist held up an admonishing finger.

  “Nobody said anything about kicking anybody out of town. Just helping to move the situation along, like I said, that’s all.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t hardly blame you for that. And since all I ever intended was to stop for the night anyway, reckon we’re both aimed in the same direction.” Buckhorn handed back the telegram. “If you’ll contact that sheriff over in Barkley, I’d appreciate it. Suppose I can count on you lookin’ me up in the morning when you’ve heard something back?”

  “Bright and early.”

  Buckhorn gestured toward one of the buildings across the street.

  “Sign over there says Hotel and Restaurant. That’s where you’ll find me.”

  “Fine place. I recommend it. See you there in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 2

  In the Star Hotel dining room, Buckhorn enjoyed a fine meal of steak with all the trimmings, washed down by a couple of cold beers and then followed by coffee and a generous slice of just about the best peach pie he’d ever tasted.

  When he was done eating, he was directed to a back
room on the hotel side where a tub of fresh, hot water was waiting. While he soaked and scrubbed, his clothes and boots were taken for a good brushing.

  If anyone had an issue with him being part Indian, Buckhorn saw no sign of it. No sidelong glances or veiled, hostile stares. It appeared Marshal Dahlquist had it right about the folks in his town being real friendly.

  In his second-floor room, Buckhorn hung up his freshly brushed outer clothes. He’d changed to clean socks and long johns downstairs and now he took a fresh shirt from his war bag, which he hung with the other garments he’d dress in tomorrow. The dirty items he stuffed down at the bottom of the war bag, telling himself that he’d have to remember to look up a laundry service in Barkley or whatever the next town was that he landed in for any length of time.

  Early in his profession as a hired gun, Buckhorn had done some bodyguard work for a rich man whose attention to grooming and attire had left a lasting impression. Buckhorn decided he would pattern his own way of dressing after much of what he’d seen practiced by that wealthy man and others in his circle.

  As the son of a “tame” Indian father and a white-trash mother who’d abandoned them both when Joe was only six years old, his beginning had been a shabby one. The years that followed with his remaining parent were grim, as Albert Buckhorn took to drink and feeling sorry for himself until he staggered into the middle of the street and got trampled by a runaway freight wagon.

  That left Joe facing almost a decade of abusive, filthy living on the reservation where his father’s people didn’t want any more to do with an orphaned half-breed than the white folks in town did.

  As a young man, he had left that miserable existence behind and soon discovered that he was good with a gun, but people still regarded him as little better than a cur. If he wanted to climb to a better station in life, he told himself, then he would start by dressing the part. And he’d adhered to that goal ever since.

  Tonight, settled into his room at the Star Hotel, Buckhorn was feeling pretty good. Full belly on the inside, boiled and scrubbed clean on the outside, the prospect of a new job on the horizon. The big, soft-looking, fresh-smelling bed beckoned him, and he could hardly wait to stretch out. But first, he decided, he wanted to let in some cool night air.

  The room’s single window was tall and narrow, opening onto an elongated balcony that ran across the front of the hotel building. After first dimming the bedside lantern so he would not be silhouetted against a background light, Buckhorn went to the window and prepared to crack it open a few inches.

  Looking down on Forbes’s main street, softly illuminated by a series of oil lanterns hung on posts at well-placed intervals, he saw Marshal Dahlquist strolling unhurriedly along on the opposite side, stopping to check and make sure the front doors of each of the buildings he came to were securely locked.

  Buckhorn made a little bet with himself that, when he got the window open, he’d be able to hear the marshal softly humming a tune as he went along. It wasn’t very often you ran across somebody who seemed so content in his work.

  Buckhorn pushed aside the window’s gauzy curtains. An instant before he twisted the lock tab that would allow the bottom half of the window to be raised, the roar of a heavy-caliber gun split the night. Buckhorn jerked back a half step. The sound of the gunshot came from somewhere very close—outside and directly under the balcony, the way it sounded.

  Across the street, Elmer Dahlquist’s oversized hat flew off and went spinning one way while the marshal made a dive in a different direction. Buckhorn watched the little man hit the ground and go scrambling with surprising nimbleness toward a thick-walled water trough. As he squirmed in behind the tank, he grabbed his pistol.

  Two more shots boomed. One slug tore a deep gouge in the dirt, throwing up a geyser of dust and grit right behind where Dahlquist’s heels had been digging a moment earlier. The second one whapped! loudly against the side of the trough.

  After spinning and snatching his Colt out of the holster and gunbelt he’d hung on a bedpost, Buckhorn turned back and used the noise of those latest blasts to cover the sound of him throwing the window open wide. He slipped over the sill and onto the balcony, creeping shadow-quiet in his stocking feet.

  Below, somewhere in the blackness beyond the reach of the streetlamps at the mouth of an alley running beside the hotel, a voice called out.

  “I’ve got you right where I want you, Dahlquist, you son of a bitch! I’ve got seven years of payback built up in my craw, and now it’s time to settle accounts for what you did to me and my little brother Varliss. I ventilated your stupid hat and now I’m gonna do the same to your damn head!”

  “Who is that talking, you ambushin’ skunk?” Dahlquist wanted to know. “You got something to settle with me, let’s step on out in the street and do it face-to-face. Like men!”

  “The hell with that! I like things just the way they are,” the gunman in the alley called back. To emphasize his words he fired again and sent another round hammering against the water trough.

  Dahlquist popped out long enough to reach around one end of the tank and snap off two shots, shooting blindly into the inkiness of the alley.

  “Stretch out like that again, you old bastard, and see what it gets you,” the ambusher mocked.

  Having crept to the end of the balcony, Buckhorn eased forward to peer over the railing. It took his vision a moment to adjust, but then, in the murkiness below, he could make out the man shooting at the marshal. He was hunkering behind an enormous rain barrel, an angular specimen clad in a pair of one-strap overalls, lace-up work shoes, and a slouch hat. He was doing his shooting with a long-barreled rifle, a modified Spencer carbine turned into a buffalo gun, probably .56 caliber.

  Ordinarily, Buckhorn made it a point never to stick his nose in a situation unless his life was in danger or he had been hired to get involved. But there were times, like now, when a fella had to make exceptions. Elmer Dahlquist had gone out of his way to be fair and friendly, something a half-breed rarely ran into. On top of that, Buckhorn loathed ambushers and back shooters.

  Another exchange of shots crackled back and forth across the street. Once again the water trough took a hit, and its contents sloshed and slopped over the edges. Many more impacts like that from the buffalo gun and the tank was liable to rupture wide open, Buckhorn knew.

  “Mighty good shootin’ to be able to hit this big ol’ tank from clear across the street. You must’ve been target practicin’ for those seven years,” Dahlquist taunted. Then: “Wait a minute. Seven years? And a brother named Varliss . . . Is that you over there, Clyde Byerby?”

  “Give the man a great big see-gar!” crowed the shooter in the alley. “Too bad you ain’t never gonna get the chance to enjoy it, Dahlquist, ’cause I’m gonna blow apart your smoke puffer like a melon dropped from a church steeple.”

  Buckhorn could have easily leaned over the balcony and fired down on the ambusher before the man ever knew he was there. Could have killed him with one shot. But the varmint’s own words about dropping a melon from on high gave Buckhorn another idea—one he had a hunch Marshal Dahlquist would be far more approving of.

  “You blamed fool, Clyde,” Dahlquist called. “You couldn’t have got out of prison more’n a couple weeks ago. So now you’re gonna shoot me and land yourself right back in?”

  “They’ll never put me in the pen again,” Clyde said. “If I can’t make it across the border after I’ve done for you, they’ll have to cut me down. But no matter, however it turns out, at least I’ll have squared things with you!”

  While this exchange was taking place, Buckhorn was silently on the move. A row of brightly painted clay pots holding cactus rose plants sat along the railing of the balcony. Buckhorn hefted the nearest of these and found it to have what he judged to be sufficient weight.

  Setting his Colt aside, he picked up the potted cactus and carried it over to the end of the balcony. Held at arm’s length, it was almost directly above Clyde Byerby. When the man snug
ged the buffalo gun to his shoulder again and braced very still, getting ready to trigger another round, Buckhorn released the pot.

  He scored a direct hit.

  The pot struck the top of the target’s head with a dull clunk! and, mashing flat the slouch hat, broke apart like flower petals opening. Clay shards fell away, spilling clumps of dirt and pieces of cactus down over the ambusher’s shoulders and back. Byerby went limp, arms falling loosely to his sides, rifle slipping from his grasp, body sagging against the big rain barrel like a pile of soiled laundry.

  When Buckhorn was satisfied he had knocked the man cold, he straightened up behind the railing and called across the street to Dahlquist, “War’s over, Marshal. You can come claim your prisoner now.”

  Dahlquist peeked cautiously above the edge of the water trough, and then he, too, stood up. He still held his pistol at the ready. The front of his clothes were soaked and there was a smudge of mud on one cheek. Lifting his chin to gaze up at the hotel balcony, he said, “Is that you, Buckhorn?”

  “None other.”

  Now that the shooting had stopped, lights started appearing in the windows of living quarters over some of the businesses lining the street. Two or three men emerged tentatively from the front of the saloon down in the next block, and Buckhorn thought he could hear a sudden scurry of activity downstairs in the lobby of the hotel.

  “What did you do to Byerby?” Dahlquist wanted to know.

  “He found out he was allergic to cactus rose plants. You’d better get over here and slap some cuffs on him before he regains consciousness. I’ll be down as soon as I get some pants on.”

  * * *

  By the time Buckhorn made it down through the lobby and out to the street—after donning not only his pants but also his boots and gunbelt—quite a crowd had gathered in front of the alley next to the hotel. There was an edge of annoyance in Elmer Dahlquist’s normally mild tone as he tried to answer jabbering questions as politely as he could while alternately barking orders in an attempt to keep the scene under control.