by Jonas Ward
Black Jack Gibbons moved away from the door, knelt briefly beside the dead man, then made a curt signal for Gruber to join him at the quiet end of the bar.
"What did you have to do with this?" Gibbons asked in a fierce undertone.
"Not a damned thing."
"But it was your gun. I saw that much."
"Hamp said give the ranny my Colt. I gave it to him."
"Who is he? What was it all about?"
"A woman," Gruber said. "A poker hand." He shrugged his shoulders. "Hell, in Laredo Hamp plugged a puncher account of the way he wore his hat. He never needed a reason to throw down on somebody."
Gibbons knew all that and more about his bodyguard, but it seemed incredible that he would ever lose his life in a cowtown to a borrowed gun. He stole a glance at the winner, the big man being noisily feted at the other end of the room. If he had ever seen that one before he would remember, and he didn't.
A Ranger? He had been expecting trouble from Austin ever since Laredo, and it could be their tactics to try to infiltrate the militia, learn their strength and the identity of their riders before moving against him in force.
"Ride out fast to the bivouac," he told Gruber. "Bring back Kersh's squad and tell Lyman to keep everyone else ready to move."
"We working here?"
"They don't know it yet," Gibbons said, "but we are. Get back here quick."
Malcolm Lord was waiting for him when he returned to the private room.
"Where are the rest?" he asked and Lord answered him irritably.
"Gone, Captain," he said. "This shooting incident didn't exactly help our case."
"Are fights so uncommon in Scotstown?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, they are. Common gunfights, at any rate. I might also point out that your sergeant, or whatever you called him, didn't exactly stand up under your description as an expert with a gun."
The words raked Gibbons' excessive pride in his militia, and color climbed into his cheeks.
"That fellow will have other opportunities to prove himself," he said.
"How's that?"
"Let it go," Gibbons said, sorry he had spoken. "What about our business?"
"I obviously can't afford your organization by myself. This has been an especially poor year for beef growers."
"But you can subsidize half, as you offered?"
"Yes, I think I can undertake to pay you ten thousand."
"Let's call it settled then, Lord," Gibbons said. "I'll take the other half as I find it."
"I don't think I like the sound of that," Lord told him and the ex-Ranger smiled sardonically at the other man's self-righteousness.
"We each know what we want," he said, "and why we want it. Let's not short-change ourselves by any needless criticism." He picked up the decanter from the table and poured out two tumblers of the mellow liquor. "This is the age of realism, my friend. Let's drink to our mutual understanding."
Malcolm Lord studied the military man thoughtfully, hesitantly, then raised his glass and quaffed it with a single swallow.
"Keep in mind, Captain, that you are a transient. I have to go on living in the Big Bend when you are gone."
"Who knows?" Gibbons said, a worldly smile touching his lips. "I glimpsed a dark-haired beauty out there who would make the settled life damned attractive. What's the girl's name?"
"Rosemarie," Lord told him. "She's the niece to old Lauren MacKay."
"MacKay? Isn't he one of the river ranchers you mentioned?"
"Aye," Lord said, and there was bitterness in his face. "Six hundred acres of grass growing a foot high. High because the poor impoverished fool doesn't have fifty head of cattle to his name."
"A waste of riches," Gibbons agreed. "You'd think he'd sell."
"Sell? The stubborn old mule won't even lease the graze. But his pride isn't above sending the lass to pour out drinks in a saloon. Puts her to work while he sits on his duff in the shanty he calls a hacienda and prays for a miracle."
"Perhaps the miracle's at hand."
"But not the one he expects," Lord said. "When can your men move onto the land?"
"At any time," Gibbons answered. "They're encamped in the hills and awaiting orders."
"Hold them at the ready," Lord suggested. "I'll have Mulchay's land scouted, and if he's harboring any of his bandit friends your militia can strike."
Gibbons nodded. "I'll take some prisoners," he said, "and march the dirty beggars through town. They leave a good impression, get the right people on our side."
"Then what do you do with them?"
Try them for their crimes," Gibbons said. "I have a Sergeant Kersh with a knowledge of public trials, and a man named Lyman as interpreter."
"Trial by jury?"
"Always. Gives the town a sense of responsibility. Of course," he added, "I sit as special magistrate."
"But what if Mulchay won't press any charges? Isn't your jury trial likely to prove dangerous?"
"You have not seen Kersh and Lyman try a case against a Mex bandit," Gibbons reassured him. "They do not need the testimony of Mr. Mulchay, believe me."
"I leave it all in your hands," Lord said.
"In a month the riverfront will be evacuated," Gibbons told him. "You can bring your herds in then."
The rancher nodded, and his smile was hard as he shook hands with the ex-Ranger. "Good night, Captain," he said. "Good luck."
"Luck?" Gibbons echoed. "I make my luck as I go along. And make it for those who go along with me."
Lord left him alone in the room then and Black Jack filled his glass again, sat with it musingly, his mind on many things. He reflected that he was rarely left to himself these days, that the whole tenor of his life had abruptly changed since that assignment to Brownsville, the fateful decision he had made there.
Quo vadis? He asked himself. Well, where was he going? How far did his ambition reach? Did Caesar have it all carefully planned when he defied the authorities and crossed the Rubicon? How about little Mr. Napoleon? Had his career been all so crystal clear to him that afternoon he took the law into his own hands?
This was not a new subject with Gibbons. Several times he had been reminded of a parallel between what he was doing along the Texas border and what other men had done in their own times. Like them, he had a cause to fight for, a rally-round. "Texas for Texans" meant one thing to Malcolm Lord and another to Hamp Leach-but they both followed where Jack Gibbons led.
Except that Leach was lying dead just beyond this door. Gibbons felt no blame for that, but he did know a responsibility. Just as Caesar would have, had a man outside the ranks triumphed over a trusted centurion. Leach the individual meant nothing—but Leach the hand-picked bodyguard for the captain stood for the gun-fighting reputation of the entire militia. Now that reputation had been challenged, besmirched openly.
Gibbons would have liked to do the gallant thing, throw another of his fighters into the arena, and another, and another until the defeat had been wiped from the record. That would have been noble Caesar's way, but Caesar probably didn't have Jack Gibbons' particular problems. For though he had infused a certain esprit de corps into his militia they were hardly what a commander would call a dedicated company. What they were; were hardcases, the lot of them, and every time he gave an order they first considered what was in it for them. Gibbons thought he had convinced them that the very size of their force was its own best protection, but beyond that simple law of the pack they felt no moral compulsion toward one another. Besides that, it would not strike them as reasonable to take on singlehanded the man who had stopped Hamp Leach.
Still, the fellow had to be handled. Not only because he was living proof that the militia wasn't the best in Texas, but also because of Gibbons' nagging suspicion that he might be a Ranger. And if he had been sent from Austin his handling had to be done in a certain way.
Well, Gruber would be back before long with Kersh's squad, and surely then there'd be enough for the job.
FIVE
ANGUS MULCHAY was one of those outspoken, nimble-witted pepperpots who always either instigated some action or naturally gravitated to the very eye of it. That and his own violent brush with Hamp Leach earlier led him to feel that he had a special companionship with this fellow Buchanan, and convinced him that he had some proprietary interest in the big stranger.
He felt the same about the body of Hamp Leach.
"Leave him lay!" little Mulchay commanded when more sensitive souls went to cover the sprawled corpse with an old horse blanket. "Leave him lay, boys. There's a lesson there for all of us."
"Mr. Mulchay!" Rosemarie scolded.
"There is, lass, there is!"
"And what's the lesson?" Hamlin inquired.
"The Sermon on the Mount," Mulchay recited. "And the meek shall inherit the earth."
His audience heard and ran their eyes over the roughshod Buchanan, remembering the un-meekness in him when Leach had thrown down the gauntlet a few minutes ago. Someone on the fringe of the group laughed.
"And what is humorous?" Mulchay demanded.
"You," the man told him. "But you don't mean to be.""
Mulchay was preparing a devastating rejoinder to that when Malcolm Lord appeared from the private room and began making his way out through the saloon proper.
"Well, now," Mulchay said, shifting targets, "did we break up the big secret powwow? I notice you all scurryin' for home soon as the pistols start poppin'."
"Mulchay," Lord said thinly, "I'll thank you to stay out of my affairs."
"Somebody's got to watch you sharp. And where's your new friend, the Brownsville butcher boy?"
"That mouth of yours," Lord said, pausing between the swinging doors, "is going to buy you an early grave. Mark my words!" He was gone then and Mulchay kept staring at the exit somberly.
"Boys," he said at last, "there's trouble coming to the Big Bend. It'll be hell on horseback if we don't prepare ourselves, and quick."
"You're always seeing trouble, Angus," Macintosh told him.
"I see what's plain to see. Or do you think Black Jack Gibbons came to pay Scotstown a social call?"
"What did he come for?"
"We'll all find out soon enough," Mulchay predicted, "but by then it'll be too late."
The men's voices sounded all around Buchanan's head like so many droning flies, and held about as much interest to him. He was not geared for town life, had no feeling for it, and as he stood here now looking down into a half-empty whisky glass the big man was asking himself unhappily just what the hell kind of living he was meant for. From the top of the mountain the lights down here had looked warm and inviting, promising a night of companionship with other men. But all that had gone down the trough in sixty seconds, and when Fargo asked him what kind of good time did he have all he could answer was that he had killed a man he'd never even seen before.
He raised his melancholy glance to find the girl watching him from the back bar. There had been the start of something there, too, he remembered, the possibility of a little harmless dallying that might have been good for both of them. But there was no mischief in her eyes now, no smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
She's got you all pegged out, Buchanan told himself. You couldn't even get the right time from her now.
"Drink up, laddie, and Rosemarie will pour another," Hamlin offered heartily.
He shook his head and stood erect.
"Had enough," he said. He thought, Enough of everything for this night.
"Where you off to?"
"Going to take some air," he said, swinging from the bar.
"But how about your money?" Hamlin protested and Buchanan looked over his shoulder at the currency and coins scattered on the floor.
"Use it to bury him with," he said and walked out of the place, leaving a studied silence in his wake.
"Now there's a type for ye," Macintosh commented.
"Footloose and fancy-free," Angus Mulchay said. "Just like I was thirty years ago."
"Ay, I saw the resemblance at once," Hamlin said. "Only you've shrunk a foot since your wild days."
"Size ain't all. You notice I didn't shy from that bully when it was my chance."
"And wound up on the back of your mugg."
"Where d'ye suppose he came from?" Macintosh asked.
"And where did he come across the gold Hamlin bought?"
"You'll never know, boys," Mulchay said sagely, "and you'll likely never lay eyes on him again. I say we tip the bottle all around and drink one to a gunfighter . . . Rosemarie, what's up, lass?" The girl was retreating along the bar, her head bent low, and Mulchay looked around at his friends. "What's gotten into MacKay's niece?" he asked. "What did I say?"
"Somethin' about us never seein' the fellow again. I don't think that was in the lass's plans for him."
"You mean she's taken with him?"
"From the minute he strolled in."
"With that wildness on him?" Mulchay asked incredulously.
"A moment ago you were drinking his health."
"And will again, for he's a man's man. But he's not what any innocent lass should be fillin' her head with."
"Maybe not," Macintosh said, "but she's gone off into the black night nevertheless."
Rosemarie fled through the storeroom, her mind in a storm of confusion, and came out onto a dark alley. She found herself next standing in the center of Trail Street, looking in every direction but seeing no sign of Buchanan.
"Mister!" she called plaintively, taking a dozen aimless steps north. "Mister!" Her eyes tried to pierce the darkness, her ears strained for some sound of him. She retraced her steps, went another short distance the other way. "Wait up, mister!" she cried out, feeling even sadder for the very reason she had no name to call him by. She was standing now in the center of Trail Street, a somehow forlorn figure, lost-looking, and made incongruous by the gaily colored bar apron tied at her waist. Beyond her was the familiar front of the Glasgow, beyond that the flickering lights of Armston's Dance Palace. She didn't want to serve drinks any more tonight, and she didn't want to be danced with. In fact, she had a vast number of things she didn't want to do, except be alone, and she started walking toward the river.
A deep voice reached out of the night and caressed her.
"Want any company?" Buchanan asked.
"You! You were there all the while?"
"No, but I wasn't sure which particular mister you were looking for." He came out of the shadows. "Still ain't."
"I know every other name in Scotstown," she explained quietly.
'Tom Buchanan."
"Rosemarie MacKay."
Silence descended over them and they stood looking at each other steadily, seeing only the character outlines of each other's face, and a great many seconds in time passed between them.
At last she spoke.
"Mr. Mulchay said you would not pass this way again."