Diamond Buckow (11 page)

Buck couldn't face his disturbed ponderings. He trained his mind instead upon the dirty, blood-loving sheriff's appointee. Newt and his stupid twin cohorts, Willy and Clem, had shared the bunkhouse with Buck while they made their search for the cattle rustlers. What in hell would he do if he found them still sleeping there?

Yes, but he had to go, he determined as he flung off a shiver of fear. He needed to get his money and gear, and he'd best get the mare back. If he had to run, at least he'd be on his own horse.

Buck grew pleasantly tired now that he'd made some plans, but forced his eyes to stay open in watchfulness until full dark. At length, exhausted, he rolled up in his sleeping blanket on the knoll and had a long and dreamless sleep.

It was well past midnight when Buck walked the long-legged gelding into the Blough yard, dismounting near the corral gate. He put his hand over the geld's nose in warning. God, if it whinnied now! But it stilled, obedient. Buck took his lariat and slipped into the enclosure, finding his grulla standing against the far fence. She waited expectantly, recognizing him and flicking her ears in greeting. The other animals in the corral moved away, all but one yearling stud Buck had liked to pat and tease.

The little horse raced up to him, but when he reached out to touch its nose, it wheeled and kicked up its heels. Buck would have sworn its loud, raucous snorting could have been heard half a mile away. He tensed and froze while he waited to see if a light would come on. But when it appeared that the brief commotion hadn't stirred anything up, Buck led the mount out and changed his saddle from the gelding to the mare.

Turning the geld into the corral and tying the mouse-brown to the fence, he crept toward the bunkhouse. As he reached the door, he remembered that it always shrieked shrilly.

If he could just pull up on it, that might do the trick, Buck reassured himself. He moved with painstaking effort, getting riled at how long it seemed to take to lift the latch. At last he pushed the door inward, gently, but still the screech should have wakened the dead. When it didn't, he took heart, sure now that nobody was in there.

But, on the other hand, Buck fretted, what if somebody had heard that damned door and was standing in the dark with a sixgun? If he flung it wide, he'd be a good target, silhouetted in the doorway. He held on rigidly to the latch while he sucked in a deep breath and willed his galloping heart to slow down.

In the stillness his eyes finally adjusted to the dark in the little cabin while he nudged the door open, open—an inch at a time. As he sneaked into the room on cat feet, Buck's jaw dropped at the sight. Faint moonlight through the single window showed Yocum and the two brothers. Turned on their sides in heavy coma-like sleep, the wall by their faces absorbed the ragged broken snores.

As Buck's mouth snapped shut, his stomach lurched and seemed to leap into his throat. Should he quit now and get the hell off Blough's property, as far and as fast as he could ride? Or should he wake up these bastards one by one and kill them?

He fought against the hate-filled battle inside him. No, he thought at last, shaking his head to clear it. Buck forced his common sense to prevail. He'd come for his money and belongings, that was all. Anything else, and it would all be for nothing. He had to go and find his gear.

Quietly he went down the length of the quarters to the last bunk. Reaching underneath it, with an eye on the sleeper there, Buck felt for his bag, found it, and fished it out with caution. He was thankful that all his clothes were as he'd left them. Next he got down on his belly and groped for the split in the base log where he'd hidden the money from Glenn Saltwell, three gold eagles.

Examining with his fingers in the crevice, he thought, holy cow! It wasn't all there. One—no, there was another one, after all. Ah, yes, all three. Good!

Suddenly Clem, sleeping above him, groaned loudly and flopped over onto his back. Buck panicked and rolled out from beneath the bunk, clutching his possessions. He leaped to his feet, ready to run. As he straightened up, his shoulder whacked against a hard object.

Buck realized after a minute that he hadn't awakened anybody. He forced his labored breathing to quiet while he reached out to touch what he'd bumped. To his surprise and relief, he found a gun in a holster, hanging on the post that supported the bunk. He grabbed it, cocked it, and began to back with a tortoise pace toward the squeaky door.

Step by aching slow step, he inched down the length of the bunkhouse until at last his free hand touched the still partly opened door. A thought flashed through Buck's mind. If he pulled it shut, the damn thing' d shriek fit to rouse a cadaver. He'd just go out and leave it be.

As a wave of renewed terror surged through him, the scar on his neck burned with a pain he remembered well. His head picked up the awful thumping and banging of his heart. Unaware of the passage of time, Buck's brain finally cleared enough to feel a rhythm to the pounding as his whole body shook with it.

Wind in his face—firm, fast hoofbeats—he was riding away as swiflty as the grulla mare could take him. Damn, damn, damn, he gritted in cadence to her thundering stride. He wasn't even conscious of having broken across Henry Blough 's yard and having climbed up on the mouse-brown.

Shortly the chill night air put coolness back into Buck's thinking. As he gulped in a lung-filling breath, he reckoned that riding a running horse through the darkness just before dawn was not a very safe way to start a day. Nevertheless, he felt some satisfaction that there seemed to be no immediate pursuit.

He inhaled deeply again, taking stock of where he was. He suddenly realized he was headed north instead of southwest to the spot where he'd planned to meet Strickland. Buck grinned into the heavy night. Well, hell, at least he'd done something right. If Newt and the twins tried to track him, this way he had a fair chance to lose them.

Pulling the mare to a halt, he dismounted and walked out of earshot of her loud panting. As he strained to hear the sound of horses on his backtrail, the thick silence comforted him. Buck at last decided that even if his hasty departure had wakened Yocum and company, they weren't too hot on his heels.

He'd lead them farther yet in the wrong direction, he planned as he went back to the quieted grulla. He'd turn towards Dodge 'til he came to that outcrop of rock. Then he'd ride southeast so's anybody following him would figure he was headed for the herds coming up from Texas.

Buck felt more cheerful as he rode away. He reckoned he could easily turn west wherever he found a place that his tracks wouldn't be obvious. And still he could get to the meeting place by midafternoon.

The afternoon sun beat down on the ring of rocks and trees with heat too intense for so early in the spring. Buck got to his feet as he mopped his brow with a bandanna already wet enough to wring out. He walked slowly and stopped often, making again the circuit just inside the oval.

His clear eyes never stopped looking around as he watched the prairie for any sign of movement. When he arrived at the spot where he'd hidden the mare, he saw nothing out of the way, so he sat down to rest.

Buck propped his back against the rough bark of a gnarled old tree and almost dozed. He followed his pattern the rest of the afternoon and checked the prairie every half hour or so, resting in-between. A fly's persistent buzzing kept him from nodding off to sleep, but the heat made him lethargic. He had to concentrate his willpower to make himself do the rounds.

The red fireball sun was over half below the horizon when Buck caught sight of a horse and rider approaching. He looked long and hard at the oncoming man to make sure it was Jake Strickland. When he was satisfied, he turned to make one more trip around the perimeter of his hideout.

Supposing Jake was a diversion to keep his eyes busy while the so-called law slipped up behind him? But he wasn't, and Buck returned to watch him come.

Strickland had drawn close enough for Buck to see his face. Jake didn't pull his plan off, his weathered features read. The ranchers weren't going to let Buck off.

Buck stepped out into the open and waved him down.

“Over here, Jake. There's room enough in the shade for your sorrel, alongside my cayuse.”

Strickland darted a glance at his new friend's face, then looked away. His voice sounded full of discomfort.

“Sorry to tell you this, Buck. But my boss wouldn't do nothing without Blough. So we went over to the Standing Arrow to see him.”

“What'd he say?”

Jake snorted. “Stubborn old coot won't give an inch. Says either you pay for what cattle you took, or hang for sure, and he'll oversee the job himself. I asked his price, said you only got three dollars a head—I know, but that's what I quoted, trying to help you. He said nothin' doin', the buyers in Dodge the other day quoted him ten, just as they came off the range. I'm awful sorry, like I told you. But he will not take a penny less.”

Buck's gaze went toward the setting sun. He could see in his mind's eye a man on horseback, running. He heard his Uncle Ed's voice proclaiming, “Jails is full of folks who keep on runnin'.”

He dropped his glance to his boots.

“Shit.”

The one word came out, expressing all his hurt and frustration. Its quiet vehemence told Jake that Buck never used it much, that he'd saved it just for a time like this. Jake couldn't take much more of looking at those slumped shoulders. He dismounted and settled his gelding in the shade.

When he turned again to the man he'd up to now considered just a kid, he saw that Buck had already accepted his lot. Even now he was checking the prairie again, making sure once more nobody'd used Jake Strickland. Used him to lead them to a cattle rustler who'd already been hanged, once.

Buck finished his circuit and came back to Jake, his voice tight with compressed anger.

“I got three gold eagles for them twenty steers. At ten a head, I'd owe Blough a couple hundred dollars. Even if I was to give him all I have, I'd still owe him seventy. If you consider I'm due a hundred for back wages, then the rope's still on the wrong maverick.”

Strickland tried to interrupt. But Buck plunged on, shaking his head decisively.

“No, Jake, it's just not fair. If the son-of-a-bitch would've paid me, none of this would've happened. The way I see it, it's his fault. If he's not man enough to own up to what he owes me, then leastways, he could call it even.”

Jake stretched out a weather-browned hand toward Buck, reaching out for understanding.

“Believe me, I talked 'til I got hoarse. Blough won't budge even a little bit. And, well, I know you won't cotton to what else he wants. But I'd best spell it out. Buck, he wants the thirty you got right now, and then you're to work for your room and board for three months to make up the rest.”

He paused to search his companion's features, hoping to find something there. Something that said, “OK, Jake, I know you tried.”

But he could read no such thoughts on the shocked and pale, but determined, face before him.

Strickland forced a thin smile. “Well, like I was saying, I dido 't figure you'd go for that. So I brought you a sack of provider, keep you going a goodly space if you're careful. I don't see no other way, Buck. You got to high-tail it to some other range, where everything is new.”

“God, Jake! I'd be running the rest of my life.”

Buck turned away, his blue eyes out of habit searching the open country. Even then he almost missed the three horsemen coming along the same trail Strickland had followed. Wheeling back to Jake, his voice held a hard, bitter tone that was new to him.

“Here comes trouble. I'll allow you didn't
mean
to lead them to me, but they sure are following your trail. And, by their speed, they're going to be in shootin' distance real soon. Wish to hell I had a rifle, I'd drop 'em in their saddles! I tell you, Jake, I'm not going to run.”

“I didn't bring 'em with me.” His voice had a ring of truth.

”Don't think anybody can actually follow a trail on hard ground at that speed, and in this light. You'd best get your horse and slip out on the far side. I'll try to keep 'em talking, and give you a chance for a head start.”

As Buck made to protest, Strickland's manner and voice turned to stone.

“You got to be careful, Buck. You kill one of them, and you'll be marked even worse than now.”

“I can see 'em plain,” Buck hissed from between clenched teeth. “It's the same three who hanged me. I can get 'em all!'

Watching the horsemen, he drew the sixgun from his belt. He was unaware that Jake had brought out his own hog leg until he felt it pushing against his spine.

“I'll just take that gun, Buck. And don't move fast.”

Abashed and furious at once, he handed it over.

“Good.” Strickland's mouth was grim. “Now get back in the brush with the horses and keep quiet, or you'll get yourself killed. I'll try to steer them in some other direction.”

“You win this time, Jake,” Buck muttered. “But if I live through this, I swear nobody'll ever get the drop on me again.”

As Buck crawled behind the concealing scrub, Jake trained his attention on Newt Yocum and the twins. When they got in pistol range, Strickland stepped out in front of them, his weapon hanging loose in his hand. As they pulled up a dozen or so yards from him, he was thinking he'd need to be steady if he was going to run a bluff.

“That's close enough,” Jake ordered as Newt started his stud forward again.

“You all just sit your saddles and keep your paws away from those sidearms. This here is a real nice talking distance.”

Yocum stopped short. When his surprise wore off, the sometime-deputy demanded, “Strickland, what the hell are you a-doin' here? I reckoned we was on a hot trail, then come to find you a-standin' in the way.”