Buchanan 21 Page 6

  “What do you think of it?” Hallett asked then. “What does your convict husband intend to do?”

  “He is no longer a convict,” Ellen pointed out quietly. “And he intends to meet me in San Francisco.”

  “I see. And what urgent business does he have, this man who has been imprisoned for the past three years?”

  “What concern is that of yours?”

  “I am sworn to uphold the law,” he intoned. “It is my duty to prevent crime just as it is to bring criminals to the bar of justice.”

  “What crime? Frank has paid in full!”

  “Ah, but has he repented in full, Sister? Or is his heart full of bitterness and sin?”

  She stared at him. “What are you trying to say?” she asked.

  “That Frank Booth has sold his immortal soul. He was devious in his crime before, cunning and circumspect. But now he has found a partner …”

  “That’s not true!”

  “It is true.” Hallett picked up the letter that Hynman had laid on the desktop. “This is from the warden at the penitentiary,” he said. “Let me quote him. ‘During the past year Frank Booth has formed a close friendship with another inmate, one Luther Reeves. Reeves is a large man, domineering of character, and with a well-earned reputation as a desperado. His previous record,’” Hallett continued, speaking more slowly, “‘includes desertion from the army, armed robbery—and rape.’” He paused there, lifted his eyes to Ellen’s shocked face. Then he read on. “‘Reeves was sentenced to this institution for a bank holdup for a term of five years. He was released on June the third, this year. I include the above information for the reason that the Chief of Guards believes that Booth and Reeves plan to join forces following Booth’s release and continue their criminal careers.’”

  He finished, held out the letter for her to read. Ellen looked at it as if it were a coiled snake.

  “Now what have you got to say?”

  “I don’t believe it. Frank wouldn’t have anything to do with a—with a man like that.”

  “Then why is his rapist friend already on the scene?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, yes. He is the same man who tried to kill my deputy earlier. They have gone to River Street to capture him.”

  “No,” Ellen said, her voice barely audible. Whatever else that man named Buchanan was, he was not any of the things described in the letter. A woman knew, her instincts warned her. If Buchanan was a formidable type, a gunman and a roughneck, she had not known a moment’s fear of him because of her sex.

  “No,” she said again to Sidney Hallett. “You are making a mistake. He is not the man described in that letter.”

  “He is. And when I’ve questioned him I’ll know where your husband is hiding himself, what he’s up to. Then,” Hallett said, “I’ll deal with him as I should have in the beginning.” As he spoke the last words the man’s voice seemed to catch in his throat, emotionally, and the expression in his eyes was not entirely sane.

  “What do you mean—in the beginning?”

  “You were young,” Hallett said. “You didn’t know your own mind. He came here, from San Francisco. You were as innocent to resist temptation as Eve in the garden …”

  “Stop it!” Ellen cried at him. “Stop such talk! That’s what you said to my father nearly four years ago—and it’s all a lie! I fell in love with Frank Booth. I married him of my own volition, willingly! There was no temptation, no seduction …”

  Once again Hallett raised his arm, cutting off her protest.

  “That is water under the bridge,” he said. “What I had you brought in for was to tell you that you are not going to San Francisco. You are staying here.”

  “Here?” Ellen repeated. “Here in the jail?”

  “For your own protection,” Hallett told her. But he gave her a different reason than he had given Bull Hynman. “This time your husband intends you to be the receiver of stolen money.”

  “He wouldn’t,” she said loyally. “Frank wouldn’t do that.”

  “You’ve forgotten his paramour?” Hallett chided. “What was the Jezebel’s name?”

  “Ruby Fowler,” Ellen said, automatically speaking a name that was never very far from her thoughts.

  “Ruby Fowler,” Hallett echoed. “His mistress. What an irony that she should betray him for another man—and that be his undoing.”

  Ellen looked down at her lap.

  “So you will be the guest of the township,” Hallett said. “For your own good.”

  “I can look after myself.”

  “No, you cannot look after yourself.” The man stood up from the chair, rose to his impressive height above the girl. “Come along,” he told her then and led the way through the adjoining door to the jail cells beyond. He pointed to the same one that the Mexican girl had occupied briefly earlier in the afternoon, and when Ellen entered it, despondently, he closed the iron door behind her and locked it.

  The Sheriff of Salvation strode back across the room then, paused for a lingering moment at the door.

  “This is for your own good,” he said a second time. “No harm can come to you here.”

  Seven

  Now what? old Pete Nabor wondered as he watched Hynman, Lafe and Enos canter past the hotel toward Damnation. The sheriff’s men rode three abreast along Sinai Street, their faces rock-hard, stolidly ruthless, and anyone coming from the other direction would have had to pull aside for them or be run over.

  Now what? the old man wondered, cursing the infirmity that rooted him to the rocking chair, kept him from tagging along to observe the happenings that he knew must be going on over at River Street. But what was happening? It was not a blessing but a torture to have a mind so bright and curious about the life all around him and a body no longer capable of exploring it.

  He remembered very clearly the big man who had passed this way at high noon, a man with the wildness in him, and a concern for a misbegotten pony. And Ellen Booth went down that way a short time later, a suitcase in her hand, too distracted by the blow Sid Hallett had dealt her to give anything but a farewell nod of her head. Then Bull Hynman, that arrogant bully, driving the covered wagon. Hallett, himself, riding down Genesis Street at an unusual clip, returning. Lafe and Enos came by next, paused for an agitated conversation with Hynman—and the treat of seeing the Chief Deputy with that marvelous swelling along his jaw. Nabor even observed Hynman’s empty holster, made himself a canny bet that somehow, for some reason, the big stranger was involved.

  But whatever satisfaction he got from that disappeared when the other two came back with Ellen in their custody. Not even Enos’ shiner could brighten the picture that conjured up.

  What was going on? he wondered worriedly. He felt a premonition that whatever it was, Sidney Hallett was invincible in this little corner of the world. There was no surer sign of it than the set of the backs of the three troopers he was dispatching to River Street.

  The three of them felt that way about it themselves, although Lafe Jenkins—who probably had all the imagination in the group—voiced an objection.

  “How come we got to take him alive?” he asked Hynman.

  “There’s reasons,” Hynman answered mysteriously, always jealous of his rank.

  “There’s reasons why somebody could get himself hurt, too,” Lafe grumbled. Hynman looked at him.

  “For all the rep you’re supposed to have,” he sneered, “I never saw such a cautious gunny.”

  “Like I told you, Bull,” the other man said. “Any time, any place.”

  “It’ll come sooner’n you expect, you don’t quit lickin’ Hallett’s boots.”

  “How about right now?” Lafe said thinly, pulling in on his reins. Enos veered his own mount sharply, got between them.

  “Cut it out!” he protested. “We all of us eat at the same trough. And we eat friggin’ well good!”

  The quarrelers looked at each other balefully, reflecting on the words of wisdom just spoken. They were all too true, for no
t anywhere west of Dodge were the pickings so good as in little, out-of-the-way Salvation, the town their boss carried around in his vest pocket.

  “We got work to do,” Bull Hynman said then. “Let’s get it done with.”

  A man named Bones McGrath spread the word. He ran into the saloon, shouted the news in a breathless voice.

  “Hallett’s crew! Comin’ this way!”

  Birdy Warren came out from behind the bar, made a beeline for the back room where Buchanan and the girl were finishing their meal. He threw the door open.

  “You got trouble,” Birdy said. “Hallett’s sent his boys.”

  Buchanan set down his mug of coffee. “Damnation,” he said. “Ain’t they got other work to do?” He pushed his chair back, stood up from the table. His glance fell on Juanita, full of concern.

  “We got to hide her somewhere,” he said to Birdy.

  “There’s a halfway sort of cellar under the bar,” Birdy said. “It’s dark and none too comfortable.”

  “Be some better than the bawdyhouse,” Buchanan said. Then, to the girl: “You go with him. To hide yourself.”

  “No. I want to stay where you are.”

  Buchanan shook his head. “I’m going to be busy. Go on, now. Pronto!”

  She hadn’t heard that fiber in his voice before and her reaction was to obey instantly.

  “How about you?” Birdy asked him.

  “Best bet is to draw ’em away from here,” Buchanan said, crossing to the open window. He threw a long leg over the sill, looked back into the room. “You sure got yourself some real law in this town,” he commented.

  “The worst,” Birdy admitted.

  “Well, do what you can for Juanita. And in case I don’t make it, try to get her to Salinas safe and sound.”

  “Do my best,” Birdy promised. “Good luck to you.”

  Buchanan waved, went on out the window. He was in an alleyway now, between the saloon and the barber’s, and the destination he had decided upon was the stable. With a little luck, he thought, it might be possible to hold them off there. With a little more luck he might even survive until nightfall, buy himself a riding chance to slip out of their damn town and never return.

  But it was also necessary that they know he wasn’t in Birdy’s. Therefore he started out for the stable at a leisurely pace, in full view of anyone coming along River Street.

  Lafe Jenkins spotted him almost immediately.

  “Hold it, Rannie!” he ordered. “You’re under arrest!”

  Buchanan broke into a run. He ran unevenly, sprinting one moment, jogging the next, his tall body jackknifed to make it as difficult a target as he could. Ninety feet ahead loomed the brown, flat-roofed stable—but thirty yards of that was clearing, with no cover. As he angled his way across it he knew that he was giving his luck one hell of a test. Then he had the stable’s big back door open and was inside, bolting the door shut with the four-foot beam that lay on the floor. This was the area where the smith worked—the familiar forge, the anvil, assorted hammers and iron shoes—and to one side was a wall-ladder that led to the loft above. Buchanan mounted it, unhurriedly, all his senses attuned to the sound of pursuit.

  Halfway up the ladder he halted. Where was the pursuit? Here he’d taken a damn fool’s own risk to show himself, made a sitting duck of himself. It suddenly dawned on Buchanan that not a shot had been fired. There had been that shout to halt, and following that nothing.

  He finished the climb into the loft, thinking about it, crossed to the little window and looked down. They were there, three of them, badges glistening officiously on their shirtfronts. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but the one he’d fought with in the brothel was waving off the one he’d belted in Birdy’s a little while ago. That one rode his horse around to the front of the building, but not willingly.

  Why hadn’t they opened up on him when they had such a chance?

  Buchanan considered himself a practical type of man. Not that he condoned the sad state of law and order in Salvation—that signpost, ‘We are God-fearing and Law-abiding,’ was somewhat misleading. But he understood, in his practical fashion, what this Sidney Hallett was trying to put over—understood why his deputies had to wipe out any interference before the idea became fashionable.

  But there he’d been, running across that clearing, in their gun sights for a long ten seconds, and not one crack had they taken at him. A practical man doesn’t like the unorthodox. Buchanan was bothered by the realization that they hadn’t come to kill him but to take him alive. Bothered because it put him at a disadvantage, morally speaking.

  For how could you pull a trigger on a man if he didn’t intend the same?

  But that didn’t change the fact that they had come at him. ‘Under arrest’ they said. For what? Was it always this Hallett’s game that was played?

  The hell with that, Buchanan told himself and broke the pane of glass with his gun barrel. Bull Hynman and Lafe Jenkins looked upward sharply, in surprise. Then their horses reared and nearly threw them as Buchanan threw down two wicked shots at their feet. And still they kept their guns holstered.

  “Either fight or go on home,” he called out. “I got better things to do.”

  “Come down outta there, you bastard.”

  Buchanan let loose two more shots, even closer. “Give it up, boys,” he advised them. “I might miss next time and drop you both.”

  They dismounted, faces furious, found the door bolted tight and started around front.

  “Some goddam job this is gonna be,” Lafe complained angrily.

  “Whatta you want me to do about it?” Bull growled back at him. “The boss wants to talk to him.”

  Enos had entered the stable and been confronted by Doc Allen. The vet had worked his way well down on the bottle of corn and his eyes were bleary.

  “Can’t arrest me,” he told the deputy. “Immune to the law.”

  Enos brushed him aside, started for the rear of the building and suddenly stopped short at the sound of firing from the loft overhead. He heard the man tell them to go home.

  “What’s that?” Allen asked. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “Keep out of the way,” Enos said to him. “Go somewheres and sleep it off.”

  There were two more shots, then it was quiet. A few moments later Hynman and Jenkins entered.

  “Thought he might of plugged you,” Enos said. “Bull, how you figure to get him down outta there?”

  “Who?” Doc Allen asked. “Down outta where?”

  “Me, Doc,” Buchanan answered from above. He was standing on the loading platform, straddle-legged, all but inviting the sheriff’s men to have a try at him.

  “What you been up to?” Allen asked. “What’d you do?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Come on down,” Bull Hynman ordered. “Sheriff wants to ask you some questions.”

  “About what?”

  “About Frank Booth.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “You’re a liar!”

  “Not about any Frank Booth, I’m not.”

  “Your handle is Luther Reeves, ain’t it?”

  “Nope.”

  Hynman turned to the vet. “You know him,” he said. “What’s his name?”

  Allen opened his mouth to answer, then looked puzzled. “What is your name, anyhow?” he called up to the platform.

  “Buchanan, Doc. Alpine, West Texas.”

  “His name is Buchanan,” Allen reported to Hynman. “And I can vouch for him. Any man that feels like he does for that horse over there is all right.”

  The sentence seemed to hang in the air, and it was as if Lafe Jenkins and Buchanan got the idea at the same time. For Buchanan’s .45 jumped into his hand just as Lafe darted under the protruding platform and out of the other man’s vision.

  “Don’t do it,” Buchanan said warningly.

  “Your filly’s in my gun sights, Rannie,” Lafe answered. “Come on down here.”

  “You’ll
be trading your two friends for her,” Buchanan said. “And yourself, so help me God.”

  “Watch close,” Lafe said. “At five she gets it. Right in the belly. One,” he counted. “Two. Three …”

  “Coming down,” Buchanan said, his voice sad.

  “Throw the gun and belt first,” Bull Hynman said then, miffed that Jenkins had made the play. “And move quick.” Buchanan holstered the Colt, unfastened the belt and dropped the rig to the stable floor. He came down himself, and when he got there walked to Lafe Jenkins and stood gazing at him silently.

  “I guess you would have at that,” he said to him finally.

  Then Doc Allen tried to shout a warning, but Bull Hynman was moving too quickly. He stepped in behind Buchanan and swung his gun savagely against the base of the tall man’s skull. Buchanan’s knees buckled, he half-turned around, and Hynman hit him again alongside the temple. Still he wouldn’t go down.

  “Watch out,” Enos snarled and drove his fist into the pit of Buchanan’s stomach. Buchanan grabbed for him and Hynman smashed the gun across the bridge of his nose. He fell face forward to the floor and Enos kicked him hard.

  “Why, hell,” Hynman said. “He ain’t so tough.”

  It took the three of them to drag him out of the stable, and in full view of the onlookers Buchanan’s wrists were lashed behind his back. The rope was then used to bind his ankles and the free end was made fast to Hynman’s saddlehorn. All of this was done at Hynman’s direction; he was determined to reassert himself. Now he mounted up, dragged the half-conscious Buchanan to the saloon entrance.

  “Where’s the girl?” he asked Birdy Warren.

  “Gone to Salinas,” Birdy answered worriedly.

  “And you’re a liar. I come back for him and I’ll come back for her. Don’t get in my way.” With that he swung the horse around, started off down dusty River Street at a trot: the punishment that inflicted had the added effect of reviving the man at the end of the rope. Buchanan was well aware of his pain, but he’d been worked on before—by Mexicans—and he could live with that when he had to. The real hurt was in the thing itself, the degradation. They came into Sinai Street—peaceful, quiet Sinai—and Pete Nabor watched them ride past, saw his gloomy prophecy about the stranger come true.