Buchanan Says No

by Jonas Ward

  Sandoe—that was something that had to be taken care of immediately, and without making Moose Miller's fatal mistake. Troy pulled the desk drawer out, picked up the shiny new Colt, and checked the load. This big gun was hardly his favorite weapon, but nothing less would do. The hand that held the revolver began to shake and he set it down again on the desktop. From the decanter he poured himself a man-sized drink and downed it quickly. The whisky warmed his stomach, firmed him, and he hefted the .45 a second time. Now he could hold it at arm's length without trace of a tremble.

  Troy slipped out of the office, advanced cautiously to the drapes that separated this small foyer from the main room beyond. He parted them very slightly, peered toward the bar.

  Mike Sandoe stood with his heavy-muscled back squarely to him. The distance was not more than twenty-five feet. Troy pushed the gun barrel through the opening, thumbed the hammer back. So intense was his concentration on the single target that he didn't see Carrie James cross directly into the line of fire until it was almost too late.

  Just in time he held off the trigger squeeze, and in the same instant Sandoe swung around toward the girl, grinning wolfishly. His arm snaked out, circling the redhead's slim waist, and drew her up against his body roughly.

  Carrie had seen the gunfighter at the bar as soon as she entered the place, but she had passed unmolested through Troy's so many other nights that it never occurred to the girl to stay out of his vicinity. Now she realized her mistake and struggled to break the powerful grip, and to keep his reeking mouth from closing down on her own,

  Bernie Troy burst from his hiding place.

  "Let go of her!" he shouted wildly. "Take your filthy hands off her!"

  Still holding tight to Carrie, Sandoe looked up. What impressed him most was the gun in Troy's hand, and his reaction was purely automatic. In an instant his own hand was filled. Carrie screamed, struck out to deflect his aim even as the Colt roared. Troy's slim body was spun completely around and he fell with his back to them. Then, from another direction, Sandoe was given a second command,

  "Drop it, killer!" Grieve warned him in a tight voice. "You're through!"

  Sandoe swung the terrified, half-hysterical girl as a shield. Grieve had his own protection, the bar, and all that was visible was his head and the arm that held the covering gun.

  "Drop it!" the marshal said again, knowing that he should have fired the first time, when he had the man in his sights. Now, with Sandoe holding the girl that way, it was a stand-off. That was his second mistake.

  Sandoe fired past the girl's head, heedlessly. The slug broke Grieve's forearm and a second came so fast he could not even drop out of sight. He took that one in the collarbone, close to the neck, and with the vision of Sandoe closing in for the kill he summoned what strength he had to half stumble, half crawl through the bartender's private door. He was in the storeroom now, and using the piled cases of whisky to support himself, Grieve made his way out into the alley. He leaned his weight against the building then, too weak even to protest mentally the steady bleeding that was taking his life.

  There's no one left, the lawman thought bitterly. Not a gun in town to stop the dirty killing bastard. If he'd only let him have it when he had the chance. If he'd only guessed the black depths of the man's treachery, the animal's instinct for survival that would let him gamble with the girl's safety. God help her now. There was no one else who could.

  Grieve had edged along the side of the building toward the alley's end. Now he staggered out into the middle of Signal Street and fell there, A Bella man, one of those fleeing Troy's in fear of his life, recognized the still figure and knelt beside it.

  "I'll get Doc Brown,” he said. "Don't try to move, Mr. Grieve,”

  23

  "To hell with Brown," Grieve said in a pained voice. 'Get Buchanan."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mike Sandoe advanced on the bar, shoving Carrie to one side. He went around it, but all that remained of Grieve was a trail of blood leading through the narrow doorway. Sandoe swung then to the dozen-odd terrified customers cowering in the corner.

  "Out," he said into the heavy silence. "Get out of here!" They did, and now he turned to the girl. "I still want that kiss," he told her, thick-voiced. "Come on over here, Red."

  Carrie held his gaze, stared directly into his nakedly rapacious face.

  "You’ll have to kill me, too," she said, and the words just carried between them.

  Sandoe's harsh, chilling laughter broke against her ears. He holstered the gun. "Not gonna kill you," he said. "See?" He closed the space between them, hovered above her insolently, ominously. "Gonna take you back to that office. . . ."

  Carrie tried to make a dash for it. Sandoe caught her wrist, stopped her, then ducked his shoulders and lifted her bodily across his back. He walked with her out of the brightly lighted room toward the drapes that guarded the office beyond.

  Carrie twisted violently, beat at him with her fists, but his grip on her bare legs was unbreakable and they moved forward relentlessly, the man taking his pleasure from the very resistance she gave him.

  The office door was ajar and Sandoe reached it, started across the threshold, then stopped abruptly. Coming from the opposite direction, almost leisurely, was a dark, very familiar figure.

  'That's my woman, Mike," Buchanan said. "Set her down,”

  "I got her," Sandoe answered. "That makes her mine,"

  "Go away,” Carrie cried, "before he kills you, too!"

  "You heard her," Sandoe snarled. "Back off from here."

  "Set her down," Buchanan repeated.

  "You want to die, you goddam fool? You know you can't draw with me!"

  "Set the girl down, Mike "

  Sandoe stared at him. "All right," he said, his voice suddenly cold. "But don't say you didn't come begging for it." He let Carrie's feet reach the floor, then shoved her inside the office and swiftly pulled the door closed, muffling her sobbing protests. Sandoe stepped back, gave Buchanan his full attention.

  "You can still back down," he said, "I never killed a son yet that didn't act hostile to me."

  "Like Kersey, kid?"

  "What?"

  "The gent you jumped by the hotel last night. Ever occur to you he was watching my move when you made yours?"

  "What the hell you talking about?"

  "And the fat man up on the balcony. Free as the breeze, you told him."

  "Shut up, Buchanan."

  "I also don't see one man taking out that crew without some particular advantage going his way."

  "Draw, you son of a bitch!"

  "I'll count, kid. Make your play when it suits you,”

  "Make my play?"

  "One," Buchanan tolled quietly. "Two . . "

  His protective sixth sense guided Mike Sandoe then. He saw the extra advantage he had, over and above everything else. With Buchanan's voice still echoing "Two," Sandoe flashed for his gun.

  A blow of incredible force rocked his body, A dazzling light blazed, and even as a wave of sound rolled over him, a second .45-caliber slug slammed through flesh and bone, pitching him to the floor on buckled legs. He lay there gratefully, feeling no sensation of pain at all, and despite the tremendous shock dealt to his brain, he was able to think with extraordinary clarity. He knew, in short, that hehad started his draw first and been shot twice without ever firing. It was some humbling, Sandoe thought, oddly peaceful.

  “How's it going to be, kid?" he heard a friendly voice say, and when he focused his eyes, there was Buchanan standing above him.

  "Deal me out of the next hand," he said. "And don't call me kid."

  "That's all you ever were. A man-sized kid."

  Sandoe seemed to think that over. A thin trickle of blood leaked from between his lips. Buchanan wiped it away with the back of his hand.

  "I should have stood in your shadow," Sandoe said then, his voice blurred.

  "Sure," Buchanan told him gently,

  "Wish you'd told me you could gu
nfight."

  "Wish you'd asked me, kid,” Buchanan said, and when Sandoe's eyes rolled up lifelessly into his head, he closed the lids over them.

  He stood up, crossed to the office door, and pushed it open. Carrie stood in the far corner; her back turned, sobbing uncontrollably.

  "It's all over," Buchanan told her, and the girl slowly swung around, lifting her eyes to him in disbelief.

  "You!"

  "Me," he agreed. "Come on, Carrie, I'll take you home."

  They passed through the emptied place, their footsteps echoing hollowly, but on the street outside such a crowd had gathered that Buchanan had to clear a path for the girl. Someone tugged at his arm.

  "Where's the gunfighter?"

  "Dead."

  There was a rush then to get back inside Troy's, to see for themselves. They saw, and at the bar they held a wake and laid the groundwork for a legend. They knew very little of Mike Sandoe, even less of his conqueror, but out of this Buchanan would acquire a rep—something to live up to or disavow, at his own peril in either case.

  But if there was trouble waiting on some distant horizon, there was also some still to inherit in Bella. For as he and Carrie were going by the Happy Times, Buchanan glanced inside, and what he saw made him frown.

  "Be with you in a minute,” he said to the girl, and stepped through the doors.

  The saloon was more raucous now than good-natured, and there was a particular disturbance at the faro table. Buchanan shoved his way there, pulled Ruby Weston free from the bear hug of a bearded customer, then had to floor the drunk when he pulled a knife.

  "On with the game, gents," Billy Burke announced, directing the removal of the unconscious man.

  "Not for me," Ruby said, hanging onto Buchanan protectively. "Take me home, honey, I need gentling, and lots of it."

  She had exchanged the damaged red gown for a fetching black costume, and those who heard her make that interesting proposition to Buchanan, and saw her clinging so intimately to the big man's arm, wondered what was wrong with him, what caused him to hesitate as he did. By their figuring, he wore the luckiest boots in Bella tonight, but of course they hadn't looked out on the street.

  Ruby led Buchanan from the Happy Times, saw Carrie standing there, and stopped.

  "Where did she come from?" she asked,

  "Carrie's going home, too," Buchanan explained uncomfortably, and the redhead took possession of the other arm. They held that formation all the way to the second-floor landing of the Green Lantern boardinghouse. Then, smiling innocently at Carrie and murmuring a good night, Ruby gave Buchanan's hand a very meaningful squeeze and started down the hall to her room. Carrie also managed a smile, pressured the hand she held, and went off in the same direction.

  Buchanan stood where he was, watching each one promenade in her turn, knowing that they had left the decision squarely up to him.

  Ruby reached her door and disappeared from view. A moment later Carrie's door closed softly behind her.

  Alone now, his mind freed from the two powerful distractions, the man made the only choice he could.

  By the first gray light of morning Buchanan was gone from Bella, gone in the direction of Indian Rocks, where he intended to gather up exactly eight head of cattle, approximately four hundred dollars' worth of beef when delivered to the nearest military outpost. Then on to Frisco.

  He left word behind for Little Joe, thanking him for his help and his friendship in his time of need, promising to send the twenty-five dollars back to Bella when he disposed of his goods. He asked Little Joe to pay his respects to Marshal Grieve and to try to find something good to say over Mike Sandoe before the sod was shoveled over him.

  Later that same morning Carrie James and Ruby Weston met at the breakfast table. They looked at each other steadily, searchingly, making no effort to conceal the fact that this was a frank appraisal.

  It was Ruby who finally broke the silence. "Congratulations, Carrie," she said, her voice sincere.

  "Congratulations on what?"

  "On the man you won last night"

  But Carrie shook her head. "Buchanan was with you. All I got from him was a little note."

  "You? You got a note?" Suddenly Ruby was laughing, reaching into the bodice of her gown for a tightly folded piece of paper. "I'll trade you even,” she said, handing it over.

  "I tore mine up," Carrie said, opening Ruby's and reading it. She read it again. "Why, the big coward," she said then. "The dirty dog."

  "Is it the same?"

  "Word for word. It was really you, sweetheart. You're the girl I'll never forget. Yours truly, T. Buchanan.'" The redhead returned the note. "The big coward," she said again.

  "Yes," Ruby said, mischief in her low voice. "Do you think he could have had us both?"

  "That," Carrie said, "is something T. Buchanan will have to wonder about. What are your plans now, Ruby?"

  "I'd sort of made up my mind to go up to Frisco. How about yourself?"

  "It's a right lively town. Let's travel together."

  "Fine," Ruby said. "And who knows? Maybe we'll run into a certain bashful friend of ours."

  The two beautiful faro dealers smiled knowingly, sealed the new partnership with a handshake, and left the room the best of friends.

  Buchanan had only three hours' head start.

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