Paid in Blood

by William W. Johnstone

  Ulysses stepped back. Buckhorn promptly began bending and flexing his arms to work the kinks out.

  A barely audible groan escaped Dan Riley. Then, sighing raggedly, he said, “Okay, Buckhorn. Let’s hear why you think you’re fit to join my outfit . . . and what this nugget of information is that will make you even more so.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Before Buckhorn could go into his spiel, he was interrupted by the arrival of two additions to the gathering. First there was the sound of footfalls out in the other room and then the pair entered without announcement or ceremony. A slender, pretty strawberry blonde in a gingham dress came first, and following her, somewhat more tentatively, was a tall, thin young man with familiar dark eyes. Buckhorn knew instantly that he was looking at Eve Riley and Jeffrey Danvers.

  Confirming at least part of this, the girl went straight to Riley and said, “Father, you shouldn’t be sitting up like that, not without being propped on pillows. Look at you. You look tired and paler than you were just this morning. You’re not resting like you should and I’ll bet your wound is leaking again. I came to check on it; now I’ll have to open your bandages and re-dress it for sure.”

  “Doggone it, gal, you fuss over me like I was a toddler still in diapers,” grumbled Riley. “Don’t you believe in knocking? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a business discussion here? Your nurse-maiding is gonna have to wait until—”

  “No, it’s not,” his daughter cut him off with finality. “You’re going to let me change your dressing and look at that wound. Then—maybe, if I think you’re up to it—you can finish your talk.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake! You’d think—”

  “I already told you what I think, and that’s the way it’s going to be.” Eve stepped closer, bunched up the pillows at one end of the cot, and then placed her hands on her father’s shoulders. “Now lay back against these pillows and relax while we get fresh bandages ready. There’s no sense arguing with me because you’re weak enough I can out-wrestle you if I have to. Plus I have plenty of reinforcements if I need them. Now lay back.”

  Riley did as he was told, grumbling all the while. As she was getting him settled, Eve said over her shoulder, “Jeff, get that bag of bandages and the salve out of the cabinet there, will you please?”

  Straightening and turning to the others in the room, Eve then said, “Hi, Joey. I thought that was your pinto at the hitch rail out front. Sorry to barge in and interrupt like this, but I guess you know how these Riley men are. You’ve got one of your own back at the ranch.”

  “I sure do,” Joey replied. “But I’ve got the advantage of having Ma to help ride herd on ours—the two of us can always gang up on him if need be.”

  “Well, I wish I still had my ma around for a lot of reasons. But helping to ride herd on this stubborn old goat is sure one of ’em. When it comes to this gunshot, he’s not behavin’ worth a darn.”

  “How bad is it?” asked Joey.

  Eve scrunched up her face.

  “Oh, it’s actually healing up pretty good. He’s almost as tough as he is stubborn. Just not as tough as he thinks he is.”

  “Don’t count on it,” growled Riley.

  Eve turned back to face him. Jeff held out a bulging carpetbag that he’d taken from a cabinet over against the wall.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Joey said.

  “You can leave. Go in the other room, all of you,” Riley responded bluntly. “This ain’t something I want a damn audience for.”

  “Probably just as well,” Eve agreed. She looked at Buckhorn and Joey. “You two are a little bedraggled and still damp. You must have gotten caught in that storm a little while ago. So you likely could use some coffee. There should still be some hot coals in the cookstove out there, and there’s cups and coffee fixin’s in the pantry area right next to it. Jeff can show you. This’ll take a while, but I can handle it by myself okay. Unless he passes out on me.”

  “That’ll be the day,” Riley said.

  The rest of them departed as suggested. Jeff pulled the bedroom door partly shut behind them, leaving it open far enough to hear Eve if she called. In the kitchen area there was a large wooden table with a half dozen mismatched but sturdy-looking chairs gathered around it. Just beyond was the cookstove and pantry.

  Buckhorn and Ulysses pulled out chairs for themselves. Joey went to the stove and lifted the lid on the chamber that still had some hot coals in it. Jeff brought her the coffee makings and then, from behind the stove, some chunks of split wood to get a hotter fire going.

  Ulysses, who had been keeping the sawed-off handy and never aimed very far away from Buckhorn the whole while, now seemed to be studying him with a renewed interest.

  “Joe Buckhorn,” he said at length, putting equal emphasis on each syllable. “I’ve heard some about you.”

  Buckhorn returned his gaze flatly. “Uh-huh. And, unless I miss my guess, you’d be Ulysses Mason.”

  “You’ve heard of me, too, eh?” A corner of Ulysses’s mouth lifted, pleased at the thought.

  “Like you said . . . some,” Buckhorn allowed.

  “Coupla hardcases like us . . . Ain’t that many of our kind around no more.”

  “If you say so. I don’t keep particular track.”

  “You should. Always a good idea to keep track of the competition.”

  “I didn’t know we were in competition.”

  “You figure on signin’ on to this outfit, I expect we will be.” Ulysses’s mouth twitched again in another half smile. “You see, the top spot around here, next to Riley, has already got my notch in it. And I don’t reckon you’re the type to settle very long for havin’ somebody else’s notch above yours in any outfit you’re part of.”

  “Could be,” Buckhorn said. “But I don’t quite know how you could come to that conclusion seeing as how I haven’t ever made a habit of being part of any outfit in the past. Leastways, not for long enough to speak of.”

  “That’s another thing. How is it, after all these years of operatin’ mostly on your own, you’re lookin’ to throw in with an outfit like ours, anyway?”

  “I told you. I’m in a tight. I need a job, money. Gun work is what I know. So the stories I heard about the Riley gang made it sound like the nearest spot I could ply my trade and earn a payday. Plus, like I’ve also been saying, I picked up a piece of information I believe Riley will be mighty grateful to hear.”

  “Information that, strictly on its own, he might be willin’ to pay for? Is that what you’re hopin’?”

  “If he wants to throw down a bonus when he hears what I’ve got, I sure as hell won’t object,” Buckhorn replied. “But you heard me say I’m willing to earn my pay.”

  “Yeah, you did at that,” Ulysses allowed. He continued to study Buckhorn. “This piece of information . . . you come across it while you was workin’ for the Widow Danvers, did you?”

  At the mention of his mother’s name, Jeff Danvers wheeled about and took a step toward the table.

  “What was that? What did you say about my mother?”

  “Take it easy, Jeff-boy,” Ulysses was quick to respond, holding up a hand. “Nobody’s bad-mouthin’ your ma. Buckhorn here just came from bein’ hired on at the Circle D for a spell. That’s all.”

  Jeff’s eyes cut to Buckhorn.

  “Is that true? Were you there recently?”

  Buckhorn nodded and said, “For a fact.”

  “Did you happen to see my mother? Do you know how she’s doing?”

  “Besides being worried sick about you, you mean?” Buckhorn hadn’t intended to let his tone and words convey how he felt at finding Jeff here, unharmed and apparently of his own free will. But having seen Pamela’s torment over her missing son, the gunman’s anger at such thoughtless, uncaring behavior on the boy’s part got the better of him.

  Jeff’s expression fell.

  “I . . . I regret putting her through that. I really do. But . . . I have my reasons.”

 
Ulysses chuckled nastily. Then, to Buckhorn, he said, “I guess there’s some things you don’t know about Jeff-boy, just like there’s things he don’t know about you. What it boils down to, see, is that Jeff’s, er, extended stay with us ain’t necessarily been on account of that’s how he wanted things. After he shot Boss Dan, though, we sort of insisted on him sticking around.”

  Buckhorn normally kept a pretty tight rein on showing his feelings. But once again, like a moment ago with his anger at Jeff, the jolt of surprise carried by Ulysses’s words hit him harder than he was able to completely contain.

  Seeing this, Ulysses’s chuckle deepened.

  “After he did what he did, most of us was ready to fix it so the boy stayed here in this valley permanent-like, if you get what I mean. It was Dan himself who insisted we hold off on anything so drastic. So that’s sorta where we’re still at. Still holdin’ until we’re sure Dan is gonna pull through okay. If he does, he’s got the final say. If he don’t . . . well, it ain’t very likely Jeff-boy is gonna pull through, neither.”

  “Real friendly, how you grow so fond of folks who come to your valley that you never want ’em to leave,” said Buckhorn dryly.

  “Ain’t it, though? Something you might want to keep in mind.”

  “Coffee’ll be ready in a couple minutes,” Joey said, walking over from the stove and laying out some cups on the table. “In the meantime, it sounds to me like the two of you are snorting and pawing over things that aren’t gonna play out until Uncle Dan has his say over them. So, in the meantime, why don’t you try acting civil until Eve says she’s ready for us to come back in there.”

  Neither Buckhorn nor Ulysses put up an argument. Both Ulysses and Jeff, who’d pulled out his own chair and sat down, went into a kind of sullen silence. Buckhorn stayed quiet, but his mind was racing with dozens of questions he wanted to ask young Danvers about the shooting allegation and other matters. But now was not the right time or place to try to get into any of that.

  While they waited for Joey to pour some of the coffee, Buckhorn took the opportunity to study Jeff more closely. The dark eyes he shared with his brother were a match to the painting of his father in the main house back at the Circle D. And, if you looked close enough, some of the same delicate lines to be found in his mother’s facial features were present in his.

  Where Micah was roguishly handsome, Jeff was good looking but in a way that was less bold. Physically, he was taller, but much leaner and less muscular. Such features, combined with the lad’s meeker tendencies—especially compared to his brother and father before him—no doubt went a long way toward his mother (and others, more than likely) tagging him with having that “gentle side.”

  That could just as well be a sign of shortsightedness on the part of anybody who didn’t take note of the intensity in the young man’s eyes, Buckhorn judged. He did take note and suspected that, if angered or backed into a corner, Jeff might prove very un-gentle and capable of displaying a surprising kind of toughness.

  Not to mention making an unexpected choice like shooting the overly protective father of the gal he sought to marry.

  When the coffee was ready, it came hot and strong, just the way Buckhorn liked it. Joey filled cups for everybody, including herself, and then took her own seat at the table where they all sat in rather awkward silence until Eve called from the other room and said it was okay to come back in.

  CHAPTER 32

  “So the herd is in that pasture now?”

  “That was the plan last I knew. They were gonna move ’em in this morning. You gotta keep in mind, though, that I’ve been gone from the Circle D since early yesterday.”

  “That’s when you shot and killed the Mexican. And then the Widow Danvers fired you.”

  “That’s right. Gonzalez drew on me; I did what I had to. Plus there was a little more to it than just that. Me and Micah rubbed each other wrong right from the first. I saw fit to put him in my sights more than once. Even though I held off, I guess it added up to once too often.”

  “Too bad. You pulled the trigger on the wrong one,” Dan Riley said bitterly. “That waste of mother’s milk Micah shoulda been shoveled to the bottom of a shit pile before he was old enough to break in his first pair of boots.”

  “I know some about this Gonzalez,” spoke up Ulysses, breaking into the exchange that up until then had been taking place only between Buckhorn and Riley. “He was supposed to be good with a gun. Real good.” He paused and then added, “A greaser with greased lightnin’ in his gun hand, that’s what everybody claimed.”

  “Lot of claims bein’ made around here,” muttered Riley. “I could claim to be the King of Sheba if I wanted. But could I back it up? That’s the thing.”

  “Some of our Slash-Double R riders were in town last night and heard talk to back up the business about Gonzalez getting shot by a man named Buckhorn—and that was long before Buckhorn here showed up at our ranch this morning,” pointed out Joey. “The sheriff went out to bring the body back in. He was accompanied by the Texas Ranger who Buckhorn can tell you more about also.”

  Buckhorn would have preferred to parley with Riley under much more private conditions. But trying to hold out for that, if it could have been arranged at all, would have been difficult and would have only eaten up more time than the gunman was willing to burn. So when he and the others returned from the kitchen and Riley indicated he was ready to get on with their talk, even with everybody present, Buckhorn decided to proceed.

  Riley looked markedly better than he had earlier, before his daughter tended to him. The bandages around his middle were clean and fresh and there was more color in his cheeks. The cup of amber liquid he held in his lap, whiskey from the whiff of it that Buckhorn picked up, likely also played some role in that.

  “Wasn’t exactly news that the widow had gone and hired herself a gunman to come in and help with her troubles. We’d all heard about that,” Riley said. “I guess Gonzalez wasn’t smart enough to respect that a hired gun gets paid because he’s good with the tool of his trade.”

  “Ulysses can speak to that as well,” Joey said. “From the way they were talking in the other room, he and Buckhorn know each other by reputation.”

  Riley’s interest was clearly piqued. He glanced at the black man and asked, “That so, Ulysses?”

  Ulysses shot a displeased scowl at Joey and then said, with some reluctance, “Reckon so.”

  “He any good?”

  Ulysses shrugged.

  “S’posed to be. We never crossed paths directly before.”

  Riley turned to Buckhorn.

  “And you’ve heard of our Ulysses here. Is that right, Mr. Buckhorn?”

  “Same as he has about me,” Buckhorn allowed.

  Riley took a drink from his cup. Lowering it, he said, “Well now. With both of you on board, the ‘Riley Gang,’ as everybody insists on calling us, would surely gain increased status as a force to be reckoned with, wouldn’t it?”

  “Father,” said Eve, “you know that whole ‘gang’ thing has been blown way out of proportion.”

  “Has it really?” her father said. “Then again, whether it has or not, maybe it’s time for us to start taking ourselves as seriously as others insist on. Maybe we should be the ones to take our reputation by the horns and blow it out of proportion even more.”

  “If you’re going to start talking ridiculous, then I’ve got better things to do than hang around and listen to it.” Eve headed for the door, adding over her shoulder, “Come on, Jeffrey!”

  Jeff Danvers clearly did not want to leave. His eyes flicked plaintively to the other faces in the room. Then, reluctantly, he turned and followed Eve.

  Riley waited until the pair were out of earshot before rolling his eyes dramatically and saying, “Not meanin’ to be indelicate with Joey still here, but there’s a term for a fella who fawns over and follows every whim of a gal like that. Even though the gal’s my daughter and I sure wouldn’t stand for her bein’ with some lowdown
who argued with her and knocked her around every chance he got. But good God, that boy needs to grow a backbone!”

  “Didn’t he show enough of one when he shot you?” said Buckhorn.

  Riley arched a brow.

  “You heard about that, did you?”

  “Some. Gotta admit I’m curious to hear more.”

  “Yeah, I bet you are. Tell me . . . When the Widow Danvers hired you to come in and help with her troubles, was it mainly the rustling problem? Or did she also mention her missing son?”

  Buckhorn nodded and said, “She did for a fact. I tried to explain to her that I wasn’t no kind of detective for tracking down lost boys, but she wanted me to know about it and insisted I keep an eye peeled all the same. The way she saw it, the two would end up somehow tangled together on account of she was convinced you were behind both.”

  Riley’s expression tightened in an odd way, almost like a spasm of pain or sadness had passed through him.

  “That sounds like her. Bitter and blaming me for every bad thing that ever came down the pike.”

  Buckhorn was tempted to point out that Pamela’s blame hardly appeared misplaced. Although restrained somewhat loosely, Jeff certainly was being kept here against his will—at least as far as not being able to contact his mother. And so far no one had bothered denying the widespread rustling allegations.

  Riley took another drink of his whiskey, a long pull this time. After swallowing, he expelled his breath in a ragged hiss.

  “So there’s no denying we’ve got the boy here. You’ve seen that for yourself. We ain’t got him chained up like a dog or anything, but he’s not free to leave this valley, either. Not yet. Maybe never.”

  “Because he shot you or because he tried to steal away your daughter?” Buckhorn asked.

  “Both,” Riley said quickly, bluntly. He paused, released another sigh, and when he spoke again it was in a much mellower tone. “Although these past few days have reminded me that, when it comes to two young fools in love, there really ain’t no ‘stealing away.’ Not by one over the other, not when the both of ’em are bent on slipping off to start a life together. And considerin’ the situation they find themselves in around here, caught like they are between two families so full of hate for one another, who can blame them for wanting to light a shuck for somewhere else?”