For that reason, Buckhorn was glad to see Obie re-stopper the jug and put it away once he had drained the cup.
“Don’t know about you,” Buckhorn said, removing his jacket and starting to unbutton his shirt, “but I think I’m ready to stretch out and give this big old chair of yours a serious try. No tellin’ what tomorrow’s gonna bring, but I’m sure it will prove to be interesting.”
“Not much doubt about that,” Obie agreed. “Reckon we’ll find what, if anything, Micah was able to arrange with the ranger as far as layin’ for those rustlers he figures are itchin’ to make a move. From what you saw out there on the hogback, you think he might not be so far off the trail, eh?”
They’d only had the chance for a limited discussion of what Buckhorn had found on his visit to the area around the meadow, and even that was filtered through what the gunman was willing to reveal.
“I saw the tracks,” he admitted again now. “If Micah and the other two are convinced they didn’t come from Circle D riders, then, yeah, I’d have to go along with ’em belonging to somebody possibly up to no good.”
“Like you said, whatever it turns out to be is likely to prove interestin’.” Obie walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge. “As for your part, you’ll be swingin’ your attention mostly to huntin’ for young Jeff, won’t you?”
“That’s the way Mrs. Danvers wants it.”
“You got in mind how you’re gonna go about it?”
“Still kinda wrestlin’ with that, to tell you the truth. For starters I figure to go into town tomorrow and meet with Sheriff Tolliver, ask him to check out a couple things I think ought to be covered, and he’s in a position to do it quicker and easier than I can.”
Apart from failing to mention his intent to also follow the trail of the ambusher who’d made the try for him earlier, Buckhorn was telling the truth. No matter that Pamela thought it a waste of time, he was hoping he could convince Tolliver to check the passenger listings on any stagecoach runs or train departures from surrounding towns for the time frame matching when Jeff and Eve Riley might have used either as a means to put some distance between themselves and the general area.
“After that,” Buckhorn continued, “I guess I’ll be staking out Milt Riley’s ranch. I know it’s already been done, but maybe I can have better luck spotting something that looks like it could tie in.”
“I got to hand it to you, Powder-burner,” Obie said, reaching awkwardly, due to his bad hip, to pull off his boots. “You’ve got a thinkin’ head on your shoulders as well as lightnin’ in your gun hand. Not a combination you tend to see all that often. For quite a spell now I ain’t been able to keep from fearin’ the worst where young Jeff is concerned. But now, with you on the job, I got reason to hope maybe it can turn out better after all.”
Buckhorn made a face. “There you go again, heaping too much in the way of expectations on me. Give it a rest, you old rascal. Remember, I’m just a hired gun. Nothing more, nothing less. Now get some sleep and let me do the same.”
* * *
“You really think he might be good enough?” The eagerness in Micah Danvers’s tone clearly conveyed what he hoped the answer would be.
Hank Boynton scuffed his feet on the ground, wanting to be careful about picking the right words for his response.
“No way of knowin’ for positive. But he sure seems confident about it,” he said. “And, even before this, I’ve heard the other fellas comment more than once on the way he wears that fancy tie-down rig of his. You know, how it looks like he sure knows how to use it.”
“That don’t amount to a hill of beans,” Micah grumbled. “A rooster struts around wearin’ spurs, too, but that don’t mean he knows how to ride a horse.”
“Yeah, but there’s more to it than that,” Dave Millard spoke up. “There’s some of the fellas who’ve seen him shoot, too. Target practice and such. They say he’s fast as blazes and mows down anything and everything he aims at.”
Micah frowned thoughtfully.
He’d run into Dave and Hank on his way to the bunkhouse. They, in turn, had been on their way to the main house to see him about the matter now under discussion.
One of the Circle D riders, it seemed, a man named Gonzalez, had heard about the hiring of Buckhorn and ever since had done little but make noise to the effect that he could handle such a job if he’d only been asked. The noise had steadily escalated to the point of him boasting he intended to challenge Buckhorn first thing in the morning and, after he outdrew and killed him, he would claim the hired gun job—and the big payday that came with it—for himself.
“Where’s Gonzalez now?” Micah wanted to know.
“He turned in for the night,” said Hank. “He’s in his bunk, sleepin’ like a baby. Can you believe that? Not nervous one damn bit.”
“Whether it means anything as far as how good he might be, you sure got to give it to him for bein’ a cool customer,” allowed Dave.
The three men were leaning against a corral fence not too far from the bunkhouse and cook shack. A fat moon was on the rise, casting their shadows into long, distorted shapes.
“How long has Gonzalez been with us?” said Micah.
“Not too long. Only a few months.”
“What does anybody know about him?”
“He mentioned to a couple of the boys that he got in some trouble down on the border before headin’ up to these parts. Gave the impression he was sorta layin’ low until things settle down back wherever he came from.”
“So he’s got no family around close?”
“Not that anybody knows of.”
Micah was thoughtfully quiet again for a few seconds. Then his mouth slowly spread into a wide grin and he said, “You know what, boys? I think more and more luck is finally startin’ to pile up on our side of the line. First, the ranger shows up just in time to help us stomp out those pesky rustlers. Then we hit on the notion of ol’ Dan Riley risin’ up to help us with our Injun problem. And now, from right under our noses, we got Gonzalez as plan B for takin’ care of that damn ’breed.”
“If he makes his play right away in the morning,” Hank said, looking confused, “wouldn’t that make Gonzalez plan A? And then, if it’s still necessary, Riley would be plan B.”
Micah chuckled tolerantly.
“Plan A, plan B—what the hell difference does it make? We’ll call it our one-two punch if it makes you feel better. And you’re right, if Gonzalez throws his punch in the morning and that gets the job done, then we won’t have to worry about involvin’ Riley at all. Fellas, I tell ya it’s an embarrassment of riches!”
CHAPTER 20
Buckhorn reckoned that Obie’s oversized easy chair was about as comfortable as any bed he could remember ever occupying. Half swallowed by it, he slept straight through the night. But from practically the first moment he woke the next morning, he sensed something in the air. Not danger exactly, not any kind of immediate threat. But trouble nonetheless. Something brewing. Like a sky thickening with the buildup of an oncoming storm.
He got to his feet and spent a minute stretching out the kinks from too many miles in the saddle and too many bedrolls spread on cold, hard ground—an accumulation amounting to more than just one night in the soothing chair could manage to erase. After buckling on his gunbelt and stomping into his boots, a routine that never varied no matter under what conditions he awoke and arose, Buckhorn went to the kitchen area to get some coffee going.
Once he had a fire crackling in a chamber of the cookstove and a pot starting to bubble over top of it, he stepped to the window and gazed out on the Circle D spread. In contrast to his premonition about a gathering storm, shafts of butter-yellow sunlight slanted in, washing over him.
Although the clanking of the stove lid and the coffeepot didn’t disturb Obie, the wafting aroma of the cooking coffee rousted the old-timer without Buckhorn having to say a word.
“Hallelujah and Glory-be,” the old handyman declared as he clambered to a s
itting position on the edge of his bed, “now that is the way to wake up of a mornin’. Lured by the sweet perfume of fresh-brewed coffee.”
“You haven’t tasted my coffee yet,” Buckhorn warned him. “You might want to hold off on that praise.”
“Paugh! When you’ve poured down as many gallons of burnt bean juice as I have over the years, Powder-burner, you’ll come to conclude same as me that coffee is sorta like the warm embrace of a pretty gal. The worst I ever had, wasn’t bad.”
Buckhorn grinned.
“If you say so. I thought about gettin’ some vittles going, too, but I didn’t see much in the way of breakfast fixin’s.”
In between grunts and groans as he pulled his boots on, Obie said, “We’ll get ourselves some chow over at the grub shack. That’s where I usually take my breakfast. Cookie’ll have plenty more coffee, too, but this here that you’ve brewed up will fuel us up for the hike over there.”
Buckhorn glanced out the window again, at the cook shack only a short distance away.
“Good thing I made enough to stoke us for that long journey,” he said.
The low-ceilinged cook shack was filled with a dozen or so raucous wranglers, the low rumble of overlapping conversations, and the smells of sweat, dust, and tobacco. Overriding it all was the mingled aroma of frying bacon, boiling coffee, and pancakes scorching on a griddle.
When Buckhorn and Obie walked in, everything stayed the same except for the low rumble of talk. All conversation stopped and suddenly the hiss of the frying bacon seemed very loud.
The gathering storm, Buckhorn thought to himself. Without changing his expression or turning his head, he cut his gaze first to one side of the room and then to the other, scanning faces and reading body language, looking for any sign of trouble coiled to spring loose.
Off to his right, seated with their backs to the wall, he spotted Micah Danvers and his men Dave and Hank. Their eyes met his and their expressions registered faint bemusement. They knew something.
Obie kept walking, slow but steady, down a middle aisle that ran between tables and benches on either side, making his way toward a particularly long table positioned across one end of the kitchen area. The top of the table was crowded with a stack of clean plates, eating utensils, and several pans of food. Buckhorn, walking behind Obie, glimpsed bacon, scrambled eggs, and flapjacks among other things; but mostly he continued to scan the faces and bodies surrounding him.
When they got to the edge of the table, a voice with a heavy Spanish accent rang out from behind them.
“You may go ahead and fill your plate, old one. Eat as much as you wish. For you, raza, it would only be a waste of good food. Because you are not going to live long enough to digest it.”
Buckhorn took his time turning around. His gaze came to rest on a dark-skinned man of medium height standing in the middle of the aisle they had just walked down. The man’s feet were planted wide, his eyes narrowed into dangerous, intensely focused slits. A tied-down holster of shiny black leather adorned with silver studs rode low on his right hip. A Colt with bleached white pearl grips rested loose in the holster. The man’s right hand, covered by a skintight glove of the same shiny black leather as the holster, hovered close at his side, ready to hook and draw.
Buckhorn gave him an unhurried looking over, then said, “And you are the reason I’m not gonna live long enough to digest my breakfast. That the general idea?”
“That is exactly the idea.”
“Since you’re so certain of the outcome, I guess you obviously don’t believe in the practice of allowing the condemned man a hearty final meal.”
“Like I said, it would only be a waste of good food.”
“What about you? Did you eat?”
“Yes, I did. It was very enjoyable.” The dark-skinned man smiled. “Fortunately, I will have plenty of time to digest it.”
Addressing Micah and his two cohorts, Obie said, “What’s goin’ on here? What’s the big idea? You three set this up, didn’t you?”
“Calm down, Obie,” Micah said with a lazy smile. “You get yourself too worked up, your food ain’t gonna digest good, either. No matter how long you got. As far as Mr. Gonzalez’s issue with your friend Buckhorn, that’s strictly his own doing. I’m hearing it play out for the first time, same as you.”
Keeping his eyes fixed on Buckhorn, Gonzalez said, “I have no quarrel with the old one. But you should advise him that if he keeps blabbering to the point of annoying me, I may decide to change my mind.”
A ghost of a smile played across Buckhorn’s mouth.
“Comes to talking—or blabbering, as you say—the old gent is sorta hard to turn off.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Comes to unfortunate,” said Buckhorn, “I got no problem killing you, since you’re working so hard to earn it . . . but before I do, care to explain the why of it?”
Gonzalez’s eyes narrowed even more as he said, “The question of which of us is capable of killing the other is the whole point. Mrs. Danvers saw fit to hire you, an outside gun, when I was already right here, perfectly able to do anything you can. That offends me, plus it takes money that I could have earned and puts it in your pocket instead of mine. I intend to show her the error of her ways by demonstrating that I am faster and better than you. Then, when you have been removed, she will see the wisdom of hiring me in your place.”
“That was quite a mouthful. For a minute there I thought you figured on talking me to death.”
“The talking that counts most I do with the gun from my hip.”
Now Buckhorn’s eyes narrowed and turned as cold as two chips of black ice.
“Let’s get to it then. You figure on slapping leather here, or do we step outside?”
By then, the other men in the room had edged back wide of the aisle where Buckhorn and Gonzalez stood faced off.
“You are a tall one, señor,” Gonzalez said, one side of his mouth curling into a sneer, “but there is plenty of room right here for you to fall.”
For those watching, it seemed like several heartbeats passed with the two men frozen in place, glaring at one another, poised for action. In reality, it only took a second before hands blurred, too fast for the eye to follow, streaking to draw and fire.
When the guns blasted, however, there was one big difference: Buckhorn’s Colt was leveled and aimed, Gonzalez’s had only just cleared leather and hadn’t yet started to rise.
Buckhorn’s slug struck just below Gonzalez’s chin, snapping his head back and throwing a splash of exiting gore as the Mexican pitched backward and started to topple. It was only then that his gun spoke, trigger finger spasming reflexively in death, bullet ripping into the floorboards and spitting a harmless puff of dust and splinters.
That fast, it was over and done.
With the bluish gunsmoke still roiling in the air, Buckhorn swung the muzzle of his Colt and brought it to bear on Micah, Dave, and Hank.
“You wantin’ any of this?” he demanded to know.
Three sets of hands shot into plain view, palms open and empty.
“Nothing doing here, mister,” Micah was quick to assure him. “It’s like I told Obie—all of that was strictly the crazy Mexican’s play. You can leather that hogleg now. You, too, Obie.”
For the first time, Buckhorn became aware that Obie had drawn his revolver and was sweeping it around the room, covering the gunman’s back. Their eyes met. Buckhorn gave a simple nod, signaling his gratitude. Only then did they pouch their irons.
CHAPTER 21
“And if that wasn’t enough,” Micah Danvers was lamenting as he paced back and forth, “for the second time in two days he pointed a gun at me. Right there in front of all the other hands! Do you have any idea how undermining that could be to my authority over them, how damaging to their respect for me?”
“A man is dead, Micah,” his mother replied in a strained voice. “Don’t you think that should be of greater concern than your bruised ego?”
Micah stopped pacing and made an imploring gesture.
“That’s exactly my point! A man is dead—because of the hired gun you brought into our midst. He killed one of our own! How are the other men going to react if we just let it go at that? What is Ranger Menlo going to think when he comes out to help with our rustling problem? If we accept and harbor a killer, what right do we have to complain about others breaking the law?”
They were gathered—Pamela, Micah, Obie, and Buckhorn—in the parlor of the main house. Less than an hour had passed since the shooting of Gonzalez. The body still lay where it had fallen in the grub shack, covered by a tarp. Dave and Hank had gone into town to fetch Sheriff Tolliver. It was expected and hoped that Ranger Menlo would also come.
“You seem to be conveniently forgettin’,” Obie spoke up, “that Gonzalez forced Powder-burner’s hand. He had a gun strapped on, too, and he called the tune that got him plugged. Unless you know something that nobody else has ever heard of, shootin’ a man in self-defense ain’t against the law and don’t amount to murder. Not nohow.”
“When one of the men is a professional killer,” Micah objected, “and the other is a simple wrangler who’s goaded into—”
“Goaded by who?” Obie wanted to know. “By you and those two boot-lickers who follow you around like a coupla pet dogs? I figured something like that right from the get-go.”
“That’s a damn lie,” Micah said. “You heard what Gonzalez said. He was goaded by the fact an outsider—nothing more than a hired killer, I still claim him to be—was brought in to do work that could be handled by men we already have on our crew.”
“So it’s my fault then. Is that what you’re saying?” Pamela asked. “Gonzalez is dead because I chose to seek out a professional rather than solicit some common cowpuncher to take on a complex, risky job—part of which may involve saving the life of your own brother?”
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