Buchanan on the Prod (Prologue Western) Read online

  “There is,” Kathie Lord said, eying Buchanan differently, almost uncertainly. “A man can find a hundred opportunities in this country and never have to touch a gun.”

  “Why, sure,” Billy Rowe the gunfighter said. “He can chouse cows through the bush till he’s old and bent. Or tend store, maybe. That’s a full life.”

  “I wouldn’t mind tendin’ bar for a short spell,” Pecos Riley said candidly. “Or be houseman in a lively poker parlor. For a while, anyhow.”

  “And you, Buchanan?” Doc Lord asked in a badgering tone. “How’d you like to tend bar or deal poker to some tinhorns?”

  “Oh, I’ve worked around places like that,” Buchanan said.

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Well, keeping the peace, mostly,” the big man admitted a little ruefully.

  The little bantam rooster laughed at him.

  “Sure,” he said, “sure. Keepin’ the peace! Puttin’ out fires! That’s what you were set down on earth for, Buchanan, don’t you realize it?” “No,” Buchanan said. “Fact is, Doc, I’ve broke the peace once or twice. And,” he grinned, “lit a few fires. Your theory don’t hold up.”

  “It holds up for me,” Lord insisted. “You didn’t set foot in Pasco County this morning by any accident. It was preordained, bucko.”

  “Then the army of Sonora State is in on it,” Buchanan told him. “They’re the ones did the urging.”

  “The Man Up There don’t care who gets used,” the doctor said. “Wastes manpower somethin’ fierce to get a job done. Sets fire to cities, knocks down mountains …”

  “Floods the whole works,” Pecos said, finding the doctor’s idea to his own fancy of things.

  “Why, sure,” Lord agreed. “Floods, famine, pestilence …”

  “Held up the Red Sea oncet,” Pecos chimed in.

  “Just so the job gets done satisfactory,” Lord said. “Why, just look at you. I’ve been doctorin’ forty years and never yet saw a man on his feet so quick after all the sewin’ I did on you. Never saw the beat of it!”

  “By golly, Doc, you must be right!” Billy Rowe said enthusiastically. “This son just ain’t meant to be kilt by Big M!”

  “I think you’re all talking pure foolishness,” Kathie Lord told them sternly. “God certainly has more important things to do than to take a hand in any fight between two ranches in Arizona.”

  “I second that motion, ma’am,” Buchanan said. “And point out,” he added, “that for a man who ain’t meant to be killed by Big M I’m sure being put through a lot of grief to stay alive.”

  “What do you think Jonah went through?” the Doc demanded. “Was that any picnic in that whale’s belly?”

  “And old Samson,” Pecos echoed. “Man, did he have his troubles.”

  “Now stop!” Kathie protested. “It’s plain sacrilegious to compare Buchanan with people from the Holy Bible.”

  “Maybe that book ain’t all written yet, daughter,” her father said. “Maybe there’s a Pasco County chapter comin’ up.”

  “And Big Bend is sure built like old Samson,” Pecos commented.

  “Now, listen, Pecos,” Buchanan said, “don’t go putting the blackmouth on me. I still got the sight of both eyes …”

  “Be all that as it may,” Billy Rowe said then, “There’s still the practical matter of one thousand dollars gold.”

  “Yeh,” Buchanan admitted. “My mind keeps nagging about that. Did Patton actually put a thousand in my name?”

  “Fact,” Billy said. “All yours.”

  One thousand, Buchanan thought. Living up to the style to which I’m accustomed, that thousand will buy me a full year of peace and quiet over to California. Twelve solid months of doing nothing.

  “I think somebody’s just made a decision,” Pecos said. Buchanan’s great face broke into a wide, almost boyish grin.

  “He has,” the tall man agreed. “Only now I wish I hadn’t gone against the Doc’s theory. Probably broke the magic spell.”

  “You mean you’re actually going to fight?” Kathie said. “In your condition?”

  “Honey,” Buchanan assured her quietly, “this condition ain’t nothing special. Not the way some folks’ve been abusing me over the last couple of months.”

  “But aren’t you in pain? Don’t you feel weak?”

  “If I didn’t hurt somewheres,” he said, “I’d think I’d died. And as for feeling weak,” he added with a wink, “it’s only when I look into those brown eyes of yours.”

  “Watch it, Miss Kathie,” Pecos warned her broadly. “The devil teaches them Big Benders their courtin’ ways.”

  “Now you got me on the opposite side,” Buchanan laughed.

  “Feels more natural, I suspect,” Billy said.

  “It does that, Billy. I’m with my friends now.”

  “Being serious for a moment,” Doc Lord broke in. “Not,” he added, “that I discourage any attention you care to pay my daughter …”

  “Dad!” Kathie cried, already unsettled by Buchanan as it was.

  “… because I don’t,” Lord went right on. “She’s already halfway promised to young Terry Patton …”

  “Dad!”

  “… but there haven’t been any banns read so I guess the field is still wide open.”

  “I’d like to enter,” Billy Rowe said. At that Kathie turned and fled from the presence of the men, outraged, but not unhappily so.

  “Anyhow,” her father went on, “and to be serious for a moment, I don’t care what kind of miraculous recuperation you’ve made, Buchanan, but if you fork a horse too soon those stitches of mine are going to snap out sure as shootin’.”

  “I ain’t much for walkin’, Doc,” Buchanan told him.

  “Never saw a Texan who was. But there’s a wagon coming down from Spread Eagle for you after sundown. It’s all prearranged.”

  “That’s me,” Buchanan said. “First class all the way.”

  “Also,” Pecos said in his dry voice, “first man ever got carried flat on his tokus to a gunfight.”

  “That Patton’s sure buyin’ a pig in a poke, ain’t he?” Buchanan asked with a laugh.

  “He seed some of your handiwork lyin’ around town today,” Billy said. “Liked the samples real fine.”

  “No foolin’?” Buchanan asked. “Was I all alone out there? Damned if I don’t recall a couple of tender young innocents walkin’ me all the way to the bank,” he said, and the three friends grinned at each other. Doc Lord watched their faces, beamed.

  “Buchanan,” he said, “do you really feel as good as you look right now?”

  “Well, like you say, Doc, I ain’t going to bust any bronc in before supper. But I don’t feel too bad.”

  “Then how about joinin’ me in a little party?”

  “Right enough. And after your little party’s over you can join me in mine.”

  “Then I’ll throw one,” Pecos said.

  “You’re all invited to mine,” Billy added.

  Doc fetched a quart of the bonded from the outer office and the four of them sat with it, swapping tall stories and true while the sun dipped lower in the west. The interest inevitably centered on Buchanan’s past, and in his quiet fashion he entertained them with his days of running with the notorious bandit, Campos, and the marvelous females in a place named San Javier, and a giant called Big Red who had actually knocked him off his feet in a bare-knuckle brawl.

  “Big Red,” Buchanan said affectionately. “Biggest, toughest, meanest old son ever put together.”

  “Flattened you, did he?” asked Pecos.

  “One punch,” Buchanan said. “Witness told me later he thought my head was going to come round full circle.”

  “Then what happened?” Billy asked.

  “Well, I got up …”

  “Nuff said,” Billy Rowe piped happily.

  “Licked ‘im good?” Doc Lord asked.

  “Hell, no, I didn’t,” Buchanan said. “Settled for a draw and got drunk together—which
I’m on the way to gettin’ now.”

  “On this little bit?” Pecos said, holding up the bottle. “Say, she’s near empty, ain’t she?”

  “More where that came from,” Lord said, rising a little unsteadily to his feet and making a zig-zag course to the other room. A moment later he poked his head back inside the doorway. “Fresh out,” he announced. “Going to the Silver Queen for more.”

  “My treat,” Buchanan said.

  “Not on your life, no sir. My party ain’t over yet.” With that he was gone, out into the dusk of Trail Street and up two blocks to the saloon. He bought two more quarts there and was heading back to his guest when Sheriff Judd cut across his path diagonally.

  “How’s your patient, Doc?” Judd asked him.

  “What patient?”

  “I know he’s in your place,” Judd said. “I know you fixed him up.”

  “Always said you had brains, Sam.”

  “More’n you have, maybe,” Judd said. “Bart’s goin’ to ask for an accounting from you one day soon. He’s goin’ to want a sawbones that’s a lot more friendly to Big M.”

  “Well, he’d better get one quick,” Lord said. “Might need a doctor up around that spread real sudden.”

  “Why is that, Doc?”

  “You wait and see. Now get out of my way.”

  “Sure, Doc,” Judd said and stepped aside, watched the little man make his way home. The big jasper was alive and kicking, he concluded, and Spread Eagle was fixing to go on with the war. The sheriff was debating whether to relay that information to Malvaise immediately, or watch developments, when a wagon and team came lumbering past. The driver he recognized as Herb Henry, a Spread Eagle hand, and his destination was Lord’s place. Come down to tote their new man back to the ranch? If so, then maybe the ranny wasn’t so fit and able to fight as Lord made out.

  Still and all, Judd decided, I’m not going after any personal glory. Let Malvaise take care of the job himself. The sheriff crossed over to his office, dispatched a deputy to Big M with the latest doings in town.

  • • •

  “OPEN THIS DOOR, Dolly!” Bart Malvaise ordered.

  “No,” the girl called from inside the room. “I don’t want anything to do with you!”

  “Open it, Doll, or I’ll break it open!”

  “It’s your door,” she said and Malvaise immediately threw his heavy shoulder against it, forcing the old lock. The girl stood in the corner of the room, near the dresser. The dresser drawers were open and she had been packing their contents into a small trunk. She had discarded the wrapper for a lace chemise, which contrasted oddly with the unflattering welt where he had struck her earlier.

  “Put those things back where they belong,” Malvaise told her.

  “I said I’m leaving and I am!” she said and her breasts rose and fell defiantly beneath the frilly bodice. The man’s eyes watched them and Dolly knew then that something had changed his mood, that the hunger was in him now.

  “Stay away from me, Bart!” she said. “We’re through with each other.”

  “Through, Baby Doll? We’re just beginning.” He moved to where she was and she held a dress hanger before her, defensively. Malvaise took it from her fingers, twisted it and tossed it atop the bed. “Come on,” he said huskily, “give us a kiss.”

  “After what you did to me downstairs? What you did and said?”

  “I wasn’t feeling myself,” he said. “I’d had big troubles all day long.”

  “Well, you can’t take them out on me!”

  “I’m sorry, Baby Doll,” he said. His hands went to her shoulders, slipped the straps of the chemise free.

  “No!” Dolly told him angrily. “It’s too late for being sorry!” She twisted away, pulled the straps into place again.

  “Ah, you’re just teasin’, ain’tcha?” he asked, moving in on her a second time, his face leering, hands grasping.

  “No, I’m not teasing! I can’t abide a bullying man. Don’t touch me!” She backed off, put the bed between them.

  “Listen, now, Doll—fun is fun,” he said in a different tone. “And that’s what you’re here for—fun.”

  “It isn’t any fun for me,” Dolly said. “It’s just one miserable day after another.”

  “Miserable? You got everything you want, don’tcha?”

  “Everything I want!” she echoed. “In this godforsaken place? I’d be out of mind if it hadn’t been for—”

  “Hadn’t been for what?” Malvaise asked when she suddenly broke off.

  She shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Hadn’t been for what?” he demanded. “What were you going to say just then?”

  “Nothing,” she repeated. “Forget it.”

  “Like hell I’ll forget it!” He lunged for her across the bed, got her arm in his powerful grip, pulled her to him. “Now finish what you were going to say!”

  “My arm!” she cried painfully. “You’re hurting it!”

  “I’ll twist it off if you don’t start talking damn fast! Have you been cheating behind my back?”

  “No.”

  “I can see it in your face!” he roared. “Who with? Who’s the man?”

  “No!” she half-screamed. “You’re hurting me!”

  Malvaise doubled the arm behind her back, forced the girl to her knees.

  “Name the dirty sonofabitch!”

  “No!” she said. “No …!”

  He forced the arm higher.

  “Name him!” he shouted hoarsely. “Name him, by God, or I’ll break your arm!”

  “Hamp!” she cried in agony. “It’s Hamp.”

  There was a strangled sound of rage in the man’s throat as he gave her arm a last vicious twist and let her drop to the floor. Then he lashed out with his boot, drove the sharp point into her side, turned and walked swiftly out of the room.

  Malvaise made a stop downstairs, for a drink and his pearl handled .45’s. He buckled the expensive rig around his waist and left the house. His destination was the second bunkhouse, the newer one, and his angry determination in getting to it made the few cowhands lounging in the yard study him curiously. He pulled the screened door open, stepped inside the narrow building with its double rows of bunks. There were two card tables, both filled, and the gunmen looked up in surprise at their first visit from the man who payed them. Stix Larson pushed himself to his feet, sensing trouble.

  “Something wrong, boss?”

  “Something I’m going to set right,” Malvaise said ominously, brushing past Larson and walking to the bunk at the far end. In it lay Hamp Jones, his busted arm in a makeshift sling. Since morning the man had been easing his discomfort with a jug of white corn and an hour ago he had passed out.

  Now Malvaise jerked him awake.

  “Look alive, you dirty, double-dealing bastard!” he growled.

  “Wha—?”

  “You’ve been messing with my woman! Do you deny it?”

  “Easy,” the injured man said groggily. “Take it easy.”

  “Do you deny it?” Malvaise shouted boomingly, his voice like thunder in the low-ceilinged room.

  “Just a little fun—didn’t mean nothin’.”

  Malvaise pulled one of the guns free. Stix Larson started forward to intervene. Hamp Jones’ eyes widened. The gun roared right into his startled face. Malvaise holstered the smoking .45, swung around with an expression of stern and righteous wrath on his face, strode the length of the bunkhouse and on out again.

  “My God!” Lou Nash murmured fervently, sounding the shocked astonishment of them all. “What’d he do that for?”

  “You heard what for,” a sour-faced man called the Deacon said. “Hamp was usin’ Baby Doll like she was his. Ask me, he got what was comin’.”

  “But to wake somebody up,” Nash said, “just to kill him. That don’t seem right, somehow.”

  “Right or wrong, it’s done,” Stix Larson said curtly. “Come on, let’s bury the bastard.” The late Hamp Jones was wrapped in a
shroud of his own blankets and a grave was dug out beyond the corral. The body was lowered into the hole and the Deacon said a few last words of parting as the others stood around.

  “Hamp,” he said, “this just wasn’t a good day for you. First you got plugged in your good arm and now your clock is stopped forever. That’s the way it goes sometimes, Hamp, and I only hope that the good times you had with the boss’ woman made it worthwhile. Amen.”

  “Cover him over,” Larson said, and the simple funeral was over. As he led the mourners back to the interrupted poker game he happened to glance up toward the main house and see Dolly watching them from the window. The girl, of course, had heard the gunblast—and for a moment the wish had surged through her aching body that Malvaise had caught the fatal bullet. But then she had seen Malvaise return from the bunkhouse, heard him resume his solitary drinking downstairs. And witnessed the burial.

  This day, which had dawned like just another day, was now grown into some horrifying nightmare. And something warned her that the climax was still to be reached, that there was more to come.

  Dolly’s own spirit was broken, her defiance gone. The girl had never been manhandled before, never been this close to such naked violence as Malvaise had shown her. And it wasn’t over, that was the awful certainty in her mind. She could feel his presence in the room downstairs, see him drinking and brooding, and her ears strained to hear the sound of his heavy footsteps ascend the stairs. When he came back up she knew he would kill her.

  Malvaise didn’t know it. He was still so full of the murder he had just committed that he hadn’t given any coherent thinking to what he would do next. Oh, he’d get around to her all right. He’d think of something—something with a bacchanal flavor to it, and then turn her loose among the wolves in the bunkhouse. But right now he was with Hamp Jones again, reconstructing the brief episode along more heroic lines. Jones, for instance, really had his own gun concealed beneath the blankets, cocked and ready. The sleep had been feigned. The man had actually been lying in wait for him.

  Which was reminiscent of Bart’s thought processes after he’d killed his foster-father. That had been done from ambush, without a word of warning, but afterward Bart had gotten into his cups and imagined a long, fiery argument between them, one in which he brought forth every grievance he had against John Malvaise, including the far-fetched, long-nourished notion that old John had murdered his real father and only taken him in to salve his conscience. He accuses the old man of this and Malvaise goes for a sneak gun beneath the cuff of his jacket …