Bloodthirsty

by William W. Johnstone

  “Careful,” Carl said, barely suppressing a chuckle.

  “You open those eyes too wide, you’re liable to bleed to death out of ’em.”

  “That’s not even funny.”

  “Just as well. You don’t want to be laughing when you go through those doors. Your public is out there waiting for you and they’ll expect you to look serious when you set about your business.”

  “What do you mean, my public?” Goodwin said.

  “I mean the folks who’ve taken such a big interest in what you’re doing. The ones who sort of collected around and began looking on yesterday . . . after they came to understand what it was you were up to. There’s six or eight of ’em out there already, waiting to watch you go at it again today.”

  Goodwin groaned again. “You’re just full of good news.”

  * * *

  Looking out through the front window of the Sun Ledger building, Justine York was relieved to see her brother and Martin Goodwin emerging from the Traveler’s Rest Hotel. Goodwin was carrying the leather case that contained his divining rod and other bits of paraphernalia.

  Milling nearby was a small crowd of citizens who could only be waiting to see the dowser resume his attempts to find some indication of underground water. Justine was relieved to see this also.

  All of these indicators meant the roughly assembled plan they had put together with Buckhorn seemed to be showing promising results. One of her biggest concerns had been that her brother could go on a pretend drinking spree with Goodwin and stop short of having it turn into the real thing.

  She didn’t know everything that had transpired in the nameless Mexville cantina last night, but the fact that both men were up and about this morning was a good sign . . . although Goodwin did look a little green around the gills, now that she watched him move into the sunlight.

  The townsfolk showing interest and apparent belief in the possibility there just might be an alternative water source somewhere close by, fell right in line with how they hoped their plan would work.

  Justine stepped out onto busy Front Street, leaving a note on the door of the newspaper office saying she would return in fifteen minutes. She was headed to the telegraph office to see if she’d gotten a reply to any of her inquiries as to the state of the latest revolution brewing in Mexico. If she succeeded in establishing communication with someone who had their finger on the pulse of the situation, they could consider that another piece of the plan in place.

  She’d taken only a few steps when she saw Buckhorn and Leo Sweetwater leaving the sheriff’s office and coming down the boardwalk on the opposite side of the street. She knew this was all part of the ruse, but seeing them like that—striding side by side, all friendly-looking—made a chill run through her.

  God, they were banking so much on Buckhorn, the way he was the solid core to everything. If he decided to betray them in any way, perhaps get caught up by the wildly ambitious dream of Thomas Wainwright, it would be absolutely devastating.

  She gave her head a little shake. No, Buckhorn would never do that. No matter how relaxed and natural he looked at the moment, walking alongside Sweetwater.

  Buckhorn’s whole purpose for being here was to crush Wainwright.

  Nothing could ever swerve him from that . . . could it?

  CHAPTER 35

  Sweetwater stopped walking. “Well, looky there. Judging by the gaggle of folks who appear to be waiting for him and all, I’d say that stranger who just came out of the hotel with Carl Orndecker might be our dowser boy. What do you think?”

  “Could be,” Buckhorn said. “That stranger had just checked into the hotel before I checked out. I never caught his name or what his business was, though. You’re right about there seeming to be a lot of interest in him, so I’d say it’s likely he’s the dowser.”

  “I wonder what Orndecker is doing with him.”

  Buckhorn made no comment.

  Sweetwater looked at him. “You know Orndecker. Right?”

  “Uh-huh. Sort of fell in with him and his sister on my first day here. Giving them a hand is what first put me crosswise of your man Conway, which led in a roundabout way to me having to kill Dandy Jack and then eventually Conway himself when he tried to ambush me in my hotel room.”

  “Boy, you hit town like a holy terror, didn’t you?” said Sweetwater, grinning crookedly.

  “Reckon so. Even if it was never my intent.”

  “Lucky for you all the Flying W men you shot were no-accounts. Conway wasn’t part of our gun crew, just a wrangler, and not a very good one at that. Ol’ Jack . . . well, you already know my feelings on him.”

  “Luck of the draw. That was just the way they came at me.”

  “And now you’re working for the Flying W yourself. Kind of . . . what’s the word? Ironic, that’s it. Kind of ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not to mention surprising. Leastways to me.”

  “Imagine that’s how it will seem to a few others, too. You already saw the sheriff’s reaction. And, if I’m not mistaken,” said Sweetwater, “you’re getting more of the same from right there across the street.”

  Buckhorn had already been aware of Justine drawing nearer on the other side of the street. It bothered him not to be able to acknowledge her in anyway, but that’s the way it had to be. As for her, she was playing her part almost to perfection, looking his way with strong dislike and then hiking her nose in disapproval.

  “That’s Orndecker’s sister, the newspaper lady, ain’t it? You said you gave them a hand right after you got to town. And then, if I heard right, you even had lunch with the lady the other day. But unless I’m badly mistaken, as of right now you are getting a first-class cold shoulder.” Sweetwater chuckled. “By that snooty look she just shot us, I highly suspect she don’t approve of the company you’re keeping.”

  “Reckon that’ll have to be her problem,” Buckhorn said.

  “She’s got a real dose of hard feelings toward Wainwright, you know. Just like her husband before her. It shows plain in that newspaper they put out . . . well, that she continues to put out now since she’s a widow. You know about how her husband died and how she blames Wainwright for it, don’t you?”

  “No, can’t say I ever heard that part.”

  They started walking again in the direction of where Goodwin and Carl had struck out farther toward the town’s north end, with the group of interested watchers following in their wake.

  “This was back before I came aboard,” Sweetwater went on, “but it seems York started walloping Wainwright pretty regular in the newspaper just as Wainwright was gaining land and cattle and wealth and was on his way to becoming the big he-wolf of the whole region. Wainwright didn’t like it, naturally, but he couldn’t get York to back off and York was sharp enough in what he printed to give no legal grounds for stopping him.

  “Late one night, York rode out to some unnamed place to meet with an informant who supposedly had some real damning information on Wainwright. Somewhere along the way, something—a rattler, a coyote, or maybe a wolf, maybe even the two-legged kind, a lot of folks suspected that—spooked the newspaperman’s horse and it threw him. Not all the way, though. One of his feet got caught in a stirrup and York was dragged to death. Horse showed up back in town with his battered body still trailing along behind.”

  “Real convenient accident for Wainwright,” Buckhorn muttered, unable to hide some of the bitterness in his voice.

  “Yeah, that’s the way a lot of folks saw it at the time. But nobody could prove anything. York never told anybody where he was going or who it was he was supposed to meet.” Sweetwater grinned. “Me, I figure that was probably the one worthwhile piece of business ol’ Dandy Jack did during the time he was working for Wainwright. Like I said, I wasn’t here at the time so I was never made privy to the full story on what happened. The widow kept the newspaper going, as I guess you’ve seen, and she keeps using it to go after Wainwright. But she doesn’t seem to get under his skin the way her
husband used to. Was I her, though, I think I’d still avoid going for lonely horse rides late at night.”

  As Buckhorn listened to this, he cast another brief look at Justine and remembered something from the other night. When they were making their plans in Justine’s kitchen and he’d made the sarcastic remark about riding back to the Flying W and simply shooting Wainwright and Don Pedro to end the whole problem, Justine had taken a sudden, sharp interest. She’d asked, “Could you really do that?”

  At the time Buckhorn had taken it for a sign of disapproval from someone a bit startled another person could suggest something so cold-blooded. He wondered now if that interpretation was wrong and what he’d heard was the somewhat hopeful tone of a woman who wouldn’t mind at all the prospect of her husband’s likely killer meeting that same end.

  He filed away further thought on that question for another time. For one thing, he had other more pressing matters to deal with.

  For another, before this whole thing was over with, Thomas Wainwright was slated to be dead regardless of how Justine York felt about it.

  For the next forty-five minutes or so, Buckhorn and Sweetwater mingled with the rest of the group following Goodwin around and watching him go about his dowsing rituals. Now and then, some members of the group would drift away and then new ones would show up. The size of the pack fluctuated a bit but stayed generally between twelve and fifteen.

  As far as what Goodwin was doing in the way of his dowsing, there didn’t seem to be much to it. He simply walked around holding his divining rod in a certain way, muttering to himself part of the time but always concentrating very hard on his task. Sometimes he would backtrack and go over the same piece of ground a second or third time. When he did this, a mild ripple of anticipation would pass through the crowd, but otherwise everybody stayed respectfully quiet.

  Sweetwater decided it was time to stir things up a bit. “Okay,” he announced in a loud voice, elbowing his way forward out of the pack. “This is about as exciting as watching buffalo chips dry on the prairie. You been poking that stick around in the air and mumbling to yourself for a day and a half now, Mr. Dowser. Ain’t it about time you get to the meat of the show? Hate to break it to you, but your act is getting mighty boring, pal.”

  Goodwin gave him a look. “I beg your pardon? This is neither an act nor a show, sir. I am working here, trying to provide a desperately needed service to this community, indeed to this whole region.”

  The crowd grumbled its disapproval of Sweetwater’s interruption, but he ignored them.

  “Whoooee! You got that spiel down mighty fine,” he said to Goodwin. “You’re damn near good enough to convince me. Except I happen to have a brain just a little bigger ’n a mosquito’s, unlike the rest of these suckers you’re stringing along.”

  Carl edged forward to stand slightly in front of Goodwin. “What’s your problem, Sweetwater? Nobody’s bothering you.”

  “No, Carl, you’re wrong. Stupidity bothers me. And liars and confidence artists. All of those things are on display right here in front of me, so I’m bothered. I hope you ain’t planning to try and bother me, too.”

  “I don’t intend to stand by and let you hoorah this fella, if that’s what you mean.”

  Buckhorn decided it was time for him to step into it. Number one, because Sweetwater would expect it of him. Number two, because he didn’t want a confrontation to spin too suddenly out of control. He was responsible for Carl siding Goodwin. He’d seen for himself that the former lawman could still handle a gun, but he didn’t think Carl was a match for Sweetwater. He didn’t want to get somebody killed, not if he could help it.

  “I don’t see nobody hoorahing anybody,” Buckhorn said to Carl. “You’re the one sticking your nose in and acting belligerent. My pal here was just expressing his concerns about these folks getting flimflammed.”

  “Your pal, eh?” smirked Carl. “Boy, you didn’t waste no time switching the direction you ride to and from, did you, Buckhorn? You really had me fooled.”

  “And that’s just what this smooth-talking hombre with his goofy-looking stick and oily promises is doing—fooling you. Fooling all of you,” said Sweetwater. “Making fools out of you is more like it. You’re desperate enough to just open your arms wide and let him do it. Is that it?”

  “Yeah, and who is it that’s made us feel desperate?” said an old man in the crowd. “We’ve seen your boss squeeze out the smaller ranchers all around him by starving them of water while he has the only lasting source. Who’s to say he won’t do that to our town, too, if this drought continues much longer?”

  “You’d better be careful what you’re implying, you old geezer,” Sweetwater warned.

  “I ain’t implying a thing,” the stubborn old fellow replied. “I’m saying it straight out.”

  “And you coming around with your threats at the first sign we might have hope for a new water source,” a heavyset woman spoke up, thrusting her chin defiantly at Sweetwater, “is a perfect example of why we do feel desperate and concerned if things stay the way they are.”

  “Lady, I ain’t threatened nobody,” Sweetwater said, growing irritated, biting the words out through clenched teeth. “If and when I do, it will damn sure be clear enough.”

  “Well, whatever it is you’re doing, or trying to do,” Carl said, “all you’re accomplishing is interfering with Mr. Goodwin doing his job. A job he has every right to do and one all these other people want to see him continue. Since you’ve had your say, how about just moving along? Ride back to Wainwright and tell him your scare tactics didn’t work so easy. Not this time.”

  Buckhorn could see Sweetwater’s body growing more rigid. He felt himself tensing, too.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, Orndecker?” Sweetwater demanded. “You forgetting you’re just an embarrassing drunk and has-been? You think you’re still some kind of badge-wearing town tamer who can order people when to come and go?”

  Buckhorn could see Carl also starting to tense up, old habits and reflexes kicking in. The fingers of his gun hand straightened, splaying wider.

  “Leo,” Buckhorn said in a low voice. “Don’t you think we’ve pushed this far enough for the time being?”

  “No, I don’t,” Sweetwater snapped. “You just keep quiet and be ready to back my play.”

  An uneasy ripple passed through the crowd and several of the onlookers moved back, sensing the exchange of words was suddenly on the brink of becoming something more.

  At the same time, two men who’d been hanging back on the rear fringe of the gathering, staying largely unnoticed, shouldered their way forward. They were Mexicans cut from closely matching cloth. Thirtyish, whip lean, and coiled for danger, they had narrow faces and hard eyes under broad-brimmed hats. Fully loaded cartridge belts were cinched low around their trim waists and from each belt hung a tooled leather holster heavy with the weight of a shiny revolver. They might as well have had signs that read PISTOLERO dangling from around their necks.

  “Amigo,” one of them said to Sweetwater, “if you are concerned for the well-being of these people as you claim, why is it you are so determined to stop the chance for them to be presented with their own freshwater supply?”

  Sweetwater eyed the speaker coldly. “First off, greaser, get it straight that I ain’t your amigo. Second, why the hell are you up here worrying about Americano business anyway? Why ain’t you back down in Mexville eating frijoles and sucking tequila and resting up so’s you’re ready for your siesta this afternoon?”

  The pistolero smiled. “Because I decided I wanted to be up here instead. That is all the reason I need.”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” Sweetwater wanted to know.

  “Sí. You are the one they call Sweetwater. The name amuses me. Considering the work you do for Señor Wainwright and what you are trying to do here to these people, you should be called Mr. No-water.” The pistolero smiled broadly and his companion followed suit.

  Sweetwater’s
face flushed red with anger. “You think you’re too damn cute for words, don’t you? But what you really are is too damn cute for your own good.”

  Buckhorn was waiting and watching for Carl to glance his way. When he did, Buckhorn gave a quick, barely perceptible jerk of his head, motioning for him to step back and stay out of the way.

  Carl seemed to hesitate reluctantly but finally complied.

  “Maybe,” the pistolero said in reply to Sweetwater, “it is you who do not know who I am.”

  “I know all I need to know,” Sweetwater told him. “You’re one of Don Pedro’s pistoleros. Names don’t matter. You’re all second rate. You drifted down there and went to work for Don Pedro after Wainwright had hired all the best gunmen up here. You could say you sort of dribbled down there. You know, like piss dribbling down a coward’s leg and ending up in a boot heel print in the mud.”

  Unlike the flush of anger that had flooded Sweetwater’s face, the fury that gripped the pistolero manifested itself by all the color draining from his face. “You are an arrogant pig with an offensive mouth. You have convinced yourself that you are a pistolero by using your guns on slow, thick-fingered farmers and ranchers who stood no chance against you. You have fooled yourself into believing you are as fast as your reputation.”

  “I’m damn sure too fast for the likes of you, greaser,” Sweetwater said, grating out the words. “The only reason I haven’t already drilled you is because your boss Don Pedro and my boss General Wainwright are friends and business partners. That buys you one chance and one chance only to haul your asses out of here and go back to minding your own business on the other side of the border.”

  The pistolero sneered. “Don Pedro’s business interests reach farther than you understand, Mr. No-water. . . and it is our job to protect those interests wherever we find them.”

  Simultaneously, the pistoleros grabbed for their guns. They were fast, real fast . . . but not faster than the double-draw of Sweetwater—or that of Buckhorn.

  Sweetwater’s revolvers blurred into his fists and became twin muzzles extended at waist level. He triggered three rounds in a rolling clap of gun-thunder.