by Jonas Ward
"No."
"You only came by for a bit of fun, didn't you?"
"Something like that."
"Are you—do you make your way with the gun?" By her hushed hesitancy Buchanan understood that the question went to the roots of her own principles. He also understood that during these past few moments the smoldering fires of his own healthy desires had been stirred, knew for the first time how keen his loneliness had been on that mountain. But some contrariness in the man would not let him compromise her.
"I don't make my way with anything," he told her true. "I'm a bum, a saddlebum—" and then the pixie took hold of him and he laughed. "If I owned a saddle, that is," he added.
And she laughed.
"You mean you ride without a saddle?"
"Without a horse."
"But where do you live?"
A casual twist of his head took in the whole Sierra Negras. "Up there," he said.
"In those fierce mountains? All by yourself?"
"I'm partners with an old gent."
"And you're going back now?"
"Might as well. Got to be there tomorrow anyhow."
"Seems such a lonely life for a—younger man. I mean, sort of wasteful."
"You're telling me it's wasteful," Buchanan agreed with warmth. "All work and no profit."
"I meant, well, physically ..."
"Yeah, there's wear and tear."
"I'm talking about the years of a person's life," the girl said impatiently. "A man wasn't intended to spend them alone."
"No," Buchanan said, suddenly thoughtful. "I guess not."
"And there's certainly better places to be right here in the Big Bend than on top of that mountain."
"You know something, you got the lonelies tonight yourself."
"Ay."
"Well, then, let's do something together."
"Oh, yes! Do you like to dance?"
"Till the cows come home."
"Then it's off to Armston's," she said, linking her arm through his and leading him back toward the dancehall.
"Fine night, isn't it?" he asked her.
"Fine and dandy," she assured him. "I have the feeling that anything could happen on a night like this."
SIX
They wheeled into Trail Street, seven of them riding abreast of each other, and a bystander marked the arrogance of that, the seizure of the right-of-way. He also noted the armament—not only revolvers but rifles in their saddles—and he watched them pass before he went his own way, uneasier than he had been a moment before.
Rig Gruber signaled the party to a halt some fifty feet before the Glasgow.
"Just you and me better go in to see Gibbons," he told Lou Kersh. "The rest of you spread yourselves in front of the place and wait."
"I could use a drink, Rig," one of them complained.
That's just what Hamp said, Mac, and Hamp ain't with us no more."
Mac spit into the dust to show what he thought of that. Bat he held his seat while Gruber and Kersh dismounted, hitched reins to the rail and entered the saloon.
"So you're back," Angus Mulchay said, the official greeter. "And brought another bully-boy to test the champion "
The cold eyes of both gunmen studied him impassively, taking his measure. But whatever decision they came to was their own secret as they passed on toward the closed door without speaking. While Gruber knocked, Lou Kersh directed the same impersonal glance at the sprawled form of Hamp Leach. The door opened a crack, then Gibbons pulled it ajar and let them inside.
"Where'd he go, Cap?" Gruber asked.
"He's not at the bar?"
"No."
"Did you pass anybody coming in?"
"Couple of families in wagons. No single rider his size."
"Then he's still around," Gibbons said. "Let's go look him up."
"One question," Kersh said. "What's so important about him, whoever he is?"
"Whoever he is," Gibbons answered; "he shot and killed a militiaman on duty."
Kersh was unimpressed by the army-like jargon.
"Hamp drew, didn't he?" he asked dryly.
"You're missing the point," Gibbons told him, his own voice testy. "We're an organization, all of us together, and what happens to one happens to all. Our reputation in this town and every other town depends on how we take care of our own men. Is that clear, mister?"
"It'd be clearer," Kersh said, "if it were anybody but Hamp Leach."
"Personalities don't enter into it. But. if you still need a reason to take this ranny, let me tell you that I think he could be from Austin."
"That's a lot different," Kersh agreed. "Been expecting some trouble like that since we hit Laredo."
"And this is the only way they could handle it. Most people don't realize it, but at fifty strong we're more than twice the size of all the Rangers put together."
"So they send one at a time."
Gibbons nodded. "And he's supposed to take as many of us as he can."
Kersh smiled cynically. "Hard work for poor wages," he said. "Even the boys at Alamo got better odds than that."
"And no boys have it better than Gibbons' militia," Gibbons told him. "Don't you forget it, Kersh."
"No complaints, Captain."
"Then let's flush this bird of ours." Gibbons opened the door and the three of them passed through into the saloon. Abruptly, Gibbons stopped. "For God's sake," he snapped at the remaining bartender, "are you going to leave this man's body here the whole night?" But the bartender shrugged his round shoulders. He only worked here, the gesture said; when Mr. Terhune got back, speak to him about it.
"We bury our own dead, Black Jack Gibbons," Mulchay said then.
"And you might be talking your way into a grave, old man," Gibbons told him, then switched his attention to Hamlin. "Isn't there an undertaker in town?" he asked.
"Simmons does a nice funeral," Hamlin answered civilly. "None of your fancy caskets and all, but he gets them under the ground in fine style." "And where is Simmons?"
"Bein' Saturday, he's up the street, playin' the fiddle and callin' the reel."
Gibbons took a twenty-dollar gold note from his vest, carried it to the bar. "Send for him," he told the bartender. "Tell him I want Sergeant Leach laid out in military fashion."
"It's all bought and paid for," Mulchay said. "By whom?"
"By the same lad that so calmly plugged your sergeant, and him with a borrowed weapon . . ."
Gibbons' hand came down on the bartop hard. "As you fust explained," he said angrily, "we bury our own dead." With that he strode from the place, Gruber and Kersh at his heels.
Angus Mulchay followed, showing none of the temperate caution of his neighbors. So far as they were concerned, Gibbons and his gunmen could come and go with BO interference from them. Especially they could go. Mulchay was back within sixty seconds, his face alive with concern.
"There's a gang of them—a whole dirty gang of them!" he said, outraged.
"Have a wee knock, Angus," Hamlin advised, "and be thankful they're not out there on your account."
"Ay," Mulchay retorted, "it's the lad's turn tonight. Tomorrow it's me, then you. And next, you, Macintosh .. ."
"Don't talk daft, man. What harm have I done the likes of Black Jack Gibbons?"
"You made the mistake of settlin' riverland that the almighty Malcolm Lord wants. You stood with me and MacKay and wouldn't sell out."
"And still won't. But what's that to do with anything?"
"Lord brought Gibbons to Scotstown, right?"
Macintosh nodded.
"And Gibbons don't roam the border for his health, right?"
"So it's said."
"Said? Man, I was there not two weeks after the massacre. I saw the graves with me own eyes."
"We know, we know," Hamlin told him.
"Then know something else," Mulchay said. "Lord and Gibbons are going to make a grab at our holdings."
"My title is clear," Macintosh protested. "I'll have the law on them!"
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Mulchay laughed in his friend's face.
"By law do you mean Bart Taggart, him so stiff with the misery he cannot even walk the length of Trail Street? Or the deputy, him more interested in dancin' Saturday night than whatever befalls?"
"The law in Austin, then," Macintosh said, suddenly less confident. "I'll have a Ranger down here to protect my rights."
"Better hitch up your buggy right quick then," Mulchay said. "You'll be there in a week. Maybe they'll even send two Rangers back with you—two against Gibbons' cutthroat army."
They were soberer men now than they had been two minutes ago.
"What is it you suggest, Angus?"
"That we do now; what we would have done in '37. Defend ourselves, man!"
"But this isn't '37. Why, I haven't even bought one of those new rifles ..."
"We'll fight them with anything we can lay hands on," Mulchay told him. "Knives and clubs, rocks—anything."
"But Gibbons is all proper military, so they tell me. Cavalry and the like, and every man a veteran of hard combat."
"There's one," Mulchay said, pointing to Leach. "Personal bodyguard to the great poobah himself."
"But it took the lad to lay him out. Most likely a gunfighter in his own right."
"What's your alternative, then—just roll over and play dead?"
"Ah, you're just making wild guesses," Hamlin told him. "You're worse at ringing false alarms than the boy in the meadow."
"Good night to ye," Mulchay said, turning his glass face-down on the bar, the classic, old-country symbol that his night's drinking was ended.
"Where you going?" his friend asked, much con-coned.
"Where Mulchay goes and what Mulchay does," he shouted at them, "is from now on Mulchay's business!" Something caught the fiery Scotchman's eye and he changed direction to cross toward Leach. He bent down over the dead man, rolled him over as he would a sack at meal and exposed the ex-gunman's once-fired .45. He picked up the weapon and jammed it deep into the pocket of his worn coat.
"Angus!" Hamlin. cried. "Ye can't go up against the lot of them. Not singlehanded!"
The gun's for the laddie-buck," Mulchay said. "This B his fighting chance—and may it prove luckier for him than the last man that owned it." With that he left the Glasgow.
"Try that place first," Gibbons said, indicating the noisy, brilliantly lit Armston's dancehall. He had not missed the added absence of the shapely bargirl from the saloon and now was guessing that she might have taken up with their quarry for a bit of Saturday nightlife in Scotstown. The five mounted men were afoot by this time and they formed a sort of phalanx with the other three; a tight, troublesome-looking group of eight.
"Do we take him on sight, or what?" Rig Gruber asked when they were at the foot of the dancehall steps.
"You're entitled to the first crack," Gibbons said.
"How come?"
"He shot Leach with your gun, didn't he?"
"But this gun don't swing just right," Gruber said. "Too much barrel."
"It worked all right for him."
"Man's got those long arms," Gruber argued. "Makes all the difference."
"Swing mine," his buddy Kersh offered.
"Swing your friggin' own."
"Who we bucking, anyhow?" Kersh asked. "Another Texan Thompson?"
"Go on in and find out," Gruber suggested.
"What's gotten into you?" Gibbons demanded angrily. "I was sure you'd jump at the chance."
"Thanks all the same, Cap'n, but I pass."
"Then he's yours, Kersh," Gibbons said, but Kersh shook his head.
"I'll brace anything that walks," he said, "if I have to. But since we all got stakes here why don't we all take him? Then adjourn to the oasis next door and pull the cork."
They were thinking very much of Hamp Leach, Gibbons knew, remembering that Leach had the rep. And the ex-Ranger was learning, too, that for a situation such as this he had done his work on them too well. Gruber and Kersh had grown accustomed to the Army way, fighting as a group, and their individuality was gone.
"We're waiting on you, Cap," Kersh said, but the words had a different meaning for Gibbons. They were waiting on him and his mind traveled back one year. He saw himself a Ranger again, imagined the man inside the dancehall a wanted criminal. He wouldn't have hesitated two seconds.
"What's it gonna be, Cap?" Kersh asked.
"Let's go," Gibbons said. "We'll take him together," and he started up the steps first, telling himself that he could still do that, at least. A year hadn't changed him that much.
". . . now doe-see-doe to the left and right—and swing your gal with all your might.'"
Buchanan took the fiddler at his word, swung Rosemarie clear off the floor, round and round, effortlessly, and the girl squealed in pretended dismay as her petticoats ballooned above her shapely knees.
". . . now promenade past all your friends . . . salute your partner as this dance ends/"
The amiable giant made a sweeping bow to the curtseying beauty and when their glances met an infectious smile passed between them.
"Never danced with a grizzly before, did you?" he asked as they walked off the floor.
"Why, you're as graceful as could be," she protested, and then lowered her voice confidentially. "Only not so vigorous with the swinging, Tom. I'm sure I shocked all the ladies present."
"And pleased all the gents, which brings you out even."
"Evenin', Miss MacKay," interrupted a puncher of Buchanan's own age, but clean-shaven, togged out in a bright new shirt and reeking of bay rum.
"Evening, Billy," Rosemarie answered. "I'd like you to meet Mr. Buchanan. Tom, this is Billy Neale."
"Howdy."
"Howdy."
The men shook hands and Buchanan stood by patiently until Neale had gone over him from shaggy head to scuffed work shoes. Neale switched his attention to the girl.
"Thought you had to work tonight, Rosemarie?" he said pointedly.
"I'm playing truant," she confessed. "I should be at the Glasgow now."
"Apparently you're more persuasive than I am," Neale said to Buchanan.
"No," Rosemarie answered for him. "It was I who did the persuading."
Neale didn't take that explanation very well at all.