Buchanan's Revenge

  BUCHANAN'S REVENGE

  JONAS WARD

  Copyright © 1960 by Jonas Ward

  One

  Here’s to you, partner," Rig Bogan told Buchanan with a glass raised high, "and here's to me. Who's gonna stop us now?”

  Buchanan grinned back at the shorter man, touched the glass with his own. "We're hell on wheels," he admitted.

  “There is only one sure way to success," put in a third voice, with a nasal Eastern sound that contrasted sharply with the soft Texan drawl of the other two. “Hard work,” Banker Penney said. "Honest work."

  His reproving glance lifted to the pair of eagerly poised whiskies. "Sobriety the banker added.

  “Damn well told,” Rig Bogan said sincerely and drained the glass, set it down smartly atop the bar and refilled it from the just opened bottle. "Here's to you, partner," he said to Buchanan again, his freckled, devil-may-care young face aglow with an irrepressible, contagious joy. "And here’s to the Double-B Fast Freight! We deliver the goods, by damn if we don’t!”

  Banker Penney cleared his throat noisily.

  “I am confident," he said, "that the Double-B Fast Freight will safely and economically deliver all of the ship-consigned to its care. But unless you have received a contract since we entered this foul-smelling saloon…”

  "Hell's bells, Mr. Penney," Bogan protested, "we just took delivery on the damn wagon five minutes ago . . ."

  "For which I paid out three thousand and three hundred dollars in hard cash, young man," the banker snapped back.

  "Two thousand three hundred," Bogan countered. "Me and Buchanan got a thousand of our own invested in this business."

  "Your note is for the amount I stated," Penney said. "It includes the six mules, a year's rent on the freight yard, interest and—ah—other risks connected with any new venture."

  Tom Buchanan had been listening to this byplay with an expression of quiet neutrality on his rugged, battle-scarred face. Now he shifted his massive frame, getting the banker's attention, and gazed down at the man out of eyes that were uncommonly blue, deceptively tranquil. "We know what we owe you," Buchanan said.

  "Just so you do," the banker answered, unable to keep a nervous tremor out of his voice whenever the occasion arose to speak directly to this soft-spoken giant.

  "And much obliged for the loan, too," Buchanan said.

  Mr. Penney blinked. He seemed overwhelmed by the simple gratitude. "Glad to've been able to help," he murmured, then let his pinched face break into one of its rare, fleeting smiles. "You look at me, Mr. Buchanan, like one of the few sound risks I've found since I opened my little bank here in San Antonio." "Rig and me'll pay you back."

  "Sure will," Rig Bogan echoed. "Say, let's go have another look at that beautiful new wagon of ours." He downed the drink in his hand and led the way eagerly out of the saloon.

  "I’ll be getting back to my desk," the banker told Buchanan. "Good luck in your new venture."

  "Thanks."

  "And keep a tight rein on that partner of yours," Penney added in a worried undertone. "I tell you frankly, if I had known Bogan's background when we started negotiations, I doubt whether I would have taken the risk."

  “Rig’s straightened out," Buchanan said. "He's out of prison to stay.”

  "Let’s hope so," the little banker said fervently. "But keep a close haul on him. And watch his drinking."

  “Sure,” Buchanan promised and turned to follow Bogan up the street. A smile touched the big man's lips as he recalled Penny’s words. What the moneyman also hadn't known a month ago was that he was their last chance, that every other lender in San Antone had turned them down flat.

  Not that made one whit of difference to Tom Buchanan whether he got into the freighting business or not. The whole venture, as a matter of fact, was in the nature of a favor for Rig's old daddy, the sheriff of Alpine in West Texas. Buchanan had run into Jessie Bogan during one of his infrequent visits to the Big Bend country a year back.

  “How’s your boy Rig?” he'd asked sociably and the lawman’s expression clouded over.

  "RIG’S SERVINg time in Huntsville Prison," Jessie had told him bleakly. "Killed a man in a knife fight over to Hondo. Killed a man in a knife fight over to Hondo. Killed him over a woman.”

  "What I knew of Hondo," Buchanan had said, "that ain’t so special. Thirty days in the pokey, maybe, but not shipped off to Huntsville."

  This was special,” Bogan Senior had said. "The woman was this man’s wife. And he caught Rig dead to rights in his own bedroom.”

  "Well, yeah,” Buchanan had had to agree, embarrassed for the old man.

  “And the knife didn't help none," the sheriff had added with some bitterness. "Never knew a Texas jury to let up on a knifer.”

  “Guess not,” Buchanan had agreed again. "When does he get out?'"

  "Six months. But I had to find that out on my own, same as rest of the story. The boy hasn't written me a line.”

  “Figured to spare you.”

  “You reckon?”

  "Sure."

  The next day Jessie Bogan had invited Buchanan to take supper with him at the Alpine House. The sheriff had been in a remembering mood and he spoke of the men, good and bad, who had made his career such a colorful one in the Big Bend. Then, out of the blue: "You still got the wanderlust, big fella, or are you fixin' to settle down?"

  “I’m moving on," Buchanan had admitted, smiling, knowing that all sheriffs, everywhere, disapproved on principle of the restless breed.

  "Which direction this time?" Jessie Bogan had asked.

  Buchanan had shrugged his great shoulders. "Seen California from tip to top," he said. "Thought I might have a look at New Orleans. Met a fella in Paso last winter, gamblin' man. Told me he had a proposition if I was ever in his town."

  "What kind of proposition?" the sheriff had asked hawkishly.

  "Same old thing," Buchanan had said. "His money, my gun."

  "Got yourself honed pretty slick, have ya?" Bogan had snapped, making Buchanan grin again.

  "Not so slick as you, Mr. Jess," he'd said.

  "Bosh! Half the rannies I had to plug outdrew me. It's lookin' at the badge that unsteadies 'em. Hope you never shoot a peace officer, Tom Buchanan!"

  "Hope I never have to, Sheriff."

  Bogan had studied that broad, broken-nosed face across the table and some of the sharpness went out of his own. "So you're bound for the fleshpots of New Orleans?" he'd asked, switching the subject back abruptly.

  "Going in that general direction. If I get there it'll be in easy stages."

  "Got San Antone on your itinerary?"

  "Not especially, Mr. Jess. Why?"

  "Got a notion about my boy," the sheriff had said. "A hunch he might head there himself when he gets out of Huntsville."

  "Pretty close to Hondo, don't you think?" Bogan had nodded. "Too damn close. But I been writin’ back and forth to Warden Almy, an old friend of mine. He tells me that Rig gets mail regular from a woman by the name of Ruth Stell. From an address in San Antone." The man’s face darkened. "Sam Stell," he said, "happens to be the man Rig knifed to death."

  Buchanan nodded. He'd seen no reason to comment.

  “So I figure that's where Rig will go first thing," Bogan had gone on. "And I was also thinkin' that if you happened to be in that neck of the woods six months from now you might look the boy up."

  "Sure will, if I can," Buchanan had told him.

  “Couldn’t make it any more definite than that, though?”

  The big man had looked puzzled. "Mr. Jess," he'd said then, if you’ve got something you want me to tell Rig for you, why I’ll make it a point to be in San Antone."

  Then for first time, Bogan had smiled. He'd seemed relieved by Buchanan
's offer.

  “I’m asking for somethin' more than that, Tom. I'm askin’ you to stick with him for a spell, see him settled down into some honest work."

  “Me?” Buchanan had laughed. "A fine example I'd make.”

  “Rig’d listen to anything you told him to do. That boy thinks the sun rises and sets on your account alone." As the old man spoke he reached inside his vest and then he’d withdrawn a worn, mildewed leather billfold. He’ laid the thing in front of Buchanan. "Half of what's inside is for you, Tom," he'd said. "Half is for my son."

  Buchanan had looked into the wallet. He'd counted ten gold certificates each worth a hundred dollars. He removed half of them, folded them over and stuck them in the pocket of his shirt. Then slid the wallet back across the table.

  “No charge for friendship," he'd told the other man but Bogan had shaken his head vigorously, pushed the money toward him again.

  "It’s yours, son, to do with as you see fit. I won't have it any other way.”

  Nor would he. So, when Buchanan arrived in San Antone—after a six-month stint herding beef along the Rio Grande—he had the thousand intact in his kick plus an extra two hundred. In the first two saloons he was given the same information: they knew Rig Bogan, all right, but until he settled his bar bill and stopped his everlasting brawling he was not welcome in either place. ". . . and, stranger, if that worthless tramp owes you money, too, then you'll just have to take it out of his hide."

  In both places Buchanan settled the accounts, a total of sixty dollars, and when he inquired in the third saloon the name that Jessie Bogan had mentioned came back to him.

  "Do you know a lady name of Ruth Stell?" he asked and the bartender snickered unpleasantly.

  "A lady, no," he answered. "But there's a Ruthie works down to Queenie's place."

  "Works at what?"

  "Oldest work there is, mister."

  "And where is Queenie's?"

  "Down in La Villita, the Spanish section." He smiled crookedly. "You won't have to look for it," he said, "you'll hear it coming."

  Buchanan did hear it, four blocks away—blaring music, sporadic gunfire, squealing girls and shouting men. A great, gaudy pile of wood was Queenie's, four stories high, where four different businesses were being run at the same time, under the same roof, and each one going full blast Every seat at every gambling table was taken, every foot of dance floor was in use, they clamored three deep at the sixty-foot bar and the procession going up and down the wide staircase to the rooms above was about as continuous as Buchanan had seen since he'd left San Francisco.

  And surveying it all from a balcony high on one wall, gazing down like some pagan goddess, was absolutely the grossest, ugliest accumulation of female flesh ever stuffed into a tent-like black beaded gown. Absolutely, Buchanan told himself judiciously, looking at her with the same frank wonder that his own appearance nearly always occasioned.

  His concentration was broken by a hand pulling insistently on his arm and he glanced down into a pair of mischievous brown eyes, an apple-cheeked face and a ripe young figure enclosed in a green silk dress that eliminated all speculation.

  "Hey, big honey," she shouted above the din, "how about me?"

  "You Ruth Stell?"

  "I'm Lottie-Mae, big honey! And all yours ..."

  "Show me Ruth Stell, would you?"

  "Find her yourself," Lottie-Mae said sulkily and flounced off with her tailgate carried high. Buchanan shouldered his way to a place at the jam packed bar, ordered a beer from the sweating, bad-tempered barman. His nickel was scooped up.

  "Wait a minute, friend."

  "Now what?"

  "Which one is Ruth Stell?"

  "Jesus Christ! Fifty chippies floating around and I'm supposed to . . ."

  "Hey, where's that drink I ordered?" a voice bellowed and the bartender fled. Buchanan tried a waiter next, a young Mex, but the boy only shrugged his thin shoulders and hurried his full tray to the gambling section. Then Buchanan was being asked for information by a slim, silky-voiced man in a tailored black jacket and string bowtie.

  "What's our problem tonight, cowboy?" he asked and Buchanan got the definite impression that brush poppers were this fellow's social inferiors.

  "Why, no problem, dudey," he said softly. "Unless you brought one with you."

  "Queenie's been watching you," the man told him, the slightest edge in his tone. "Queenie says for a nickel beer you're disrupting a lot of service and on top of that she don't like the way you stared at her when you came in."

  Buchanan swung his back on the man and raised his glance to the woman on the balcony again. "What does the queen bee weigh, you reckon?" he asked aloud.

  "Cowboy," came the tight reply, "you're looking up at the best lip reader in all the States and Territories—see what I mean?"

  "I saw her move her ten chins up and down. What does that mean?"

  "It means you're leaving the premises immediate."

  Buchanan looked back over his shoulder at the man, grinned wickedly.

  "What'll you bet?" he asked him.

  "Lay you six to one," was the confident answer. "And I ain't lost yet." His dark, cynical eyes were watching something developing beyond Buchanan and the big man turned to see it, too.

  One, two, three, four, five he counted. Five scowling, dull-eyed beef-eaters bearing down on him in a group, in cadence, one simple idea in their collective mind. The dancers stopped dancing, opened up to let them through. The music faded away. The mob at the bar swung silently to watch and even the sound of clinking chips and whirring roulette wheels ceased, for the regulars knew that rarely, rarely did Queenie send her whole riot squad against a single offender.

  "You said six to one," Buchanan was saying conversationally to the man at his back. "You including yourself in on the doin's?"

  "If it comes to that, cowboy. Now why don't you just about face and walk out of here with your health?"

  "I like the bet," Buchanan said cheerfully. "A hundred dollars worth?"

  "You're faded." The five of them were there then, forming a truculent, slavish semi-circle around the object of Queenie's disfavor. Buchanan looked into each face, his grin grown broader, wilder. Behind him the dapper houseman was exchanging a last glance with the balcony, spread his arms expressively. Queenie's chins jiggled up and down with great eagerness.

  "Put him in the street, boys," said the silken voice. "Hard!"

  The first surprise was a tactical one. By ancient tradition the bouncer attacks the troublemaker. The troublemaker's role is a defensive one, delaying tactics, commit as much damage in retreat as he is able. He is, also, by tradition, either very drunk or very angry. Buchanan was neither. He was joyously sober, in a gala mood, and the prospect of a good rough and tumble after six hard, dull months herding cattle brought a thunderous, rather frightening roar of laughter bursting from the depths of his chest.

  On that note he waded in, having chosen Number three, in the middle, as his first objective. He caught him in the middle, too, marking the soft bellies on all of them, and with his left fist buried wrist-deep into flesh he clubbed the man senseless with a short, choppy, overhand right Number four never got his hands up, either. He stepped flat-footed, in fact, into a hard, straight left that had all of Buchanan's incredible shoulder driving it.