One-Man Massacre (6 page)

"Mister!" she called plaintively, taking a dozen aimless
steps north. "Mister!" Her eyes tried to pierce the dark
ness, her ears strained for some sound of him. She re
traced her steps, went another short distance the other
way. "Wait up, mister!" she cried out, feeling even sadder
for
the very reason she had no name to call him by. She
was standing now in the center of Trail Street, a somehow forlorn figure, lost-looking, and made incongruous by the
gaily colored bar apron tied at her waist. Beyond her was the familiar front of the Glasgow, beyond that the flicker
ing lights of Armston's Dance Palace. She didn't want to
serve drinks any more tonight, and she didn't want to be
danced with. In fact, she had a vast number of things she
didn't want to do, except be alone, and she started walking toward the river.

A deep voice reached out of the night and caressed her.

"Want any company?" Buchanan asked.

"You! You were there all the while?"

"No, but I wasn't sure which particular mister you
were looking for." He came out of the shadows. "Still ain't."

"I know every other name in Scotstown," she explained
quietly.

'Tom Buchanan."

"Rosemarie MacKay."

Silence descended over them and they stood looking at
each other steadily, seeing only the character outlines of
each other's face, and a great many seconds in time passed
between them.

At last she spoke.

"Mr. Mulchay said you would not pass this way again."

"No."

"You only came by for a bit of fun, didn't you?"

"Something like that."

"Are you
—do you make your way with the gun?" By
her hushed hesitancy Buchanan understood that the ques
tion went to the roots of her own principles. He also
understood that during these past few
moments the
smoldering fires of his own healthy desires had been
stirred, knew for the first time how keen his loneliness
had been on that mountain. But some contrariness in
the man would not let him compromise her.

"I don't make my way with anything," he told her
true. "I'm a bum, a saddlebum
—" and then the pixie
took hold of him and he laughed. "If I owned a saddle,
that is," he added.

And she laughed.

"You mean you ride without a saddle?"

"Without a horse."

"But where do you live?"

A casual twist of his head took in the whole Sierra
Negras. "Up there," he said.

"In those fierce mountains? All by yourself?"

"I'm partners with an old gent."

"And you're going back now?"

"Might as well. Got to be there tomorrow anyhow."

"Seems such a lonely life for a
—younger man. I mean,
sort of wasteful."

"You're telling me it's wasteful," Buchanan agreed with
warmth. "All work and no profit."

"I meant, well, physically
..."

"Yeah, there's wear and tear."

"I'm talking about the years of a person's life," the
girl said impatiently. "A man wasn't intended to spend
them alone."

"No," Buchanan said, suddenly thoughtful. "I guess
not."

"And there's certainly better places to be right here
in the Big Bend than on top of that mountain."

"You know something, you got the lonelies tonight
yourself."

"Ay."

"Well, then, let's do something together."

"Oh, yes! Do you like to dance?"

"Till the cows come home."

"Then it's off to Armston's," she said, linking her arm
through his and leading him back toward the dancehall.

"Fine night, isn't it?" he asked her.

"Fine and dandy," she assured him. "I have the feeling
that anything could happen on a night like this."

SIX

They
wheeled into Trail Street, seven of them riding
abreast of each other, and a bystander marked the
arrogance of that, the seizure of the right-of-way. He also
noted the armament
—not only revolvers but rifles in their
saddles—and he watched them pass before he went his own way, uneasier than he had been a moment before.

Rig Gruber signaled the party to a halt some fifty feet
b
efore the Glasgow.

"Just you and me better go in to see Gibbons," he told
L
ou
Kersh. "The rest of you spread yourselves in front
of the place and wait."

"I could use a drink, Rig," one of them complained.

That's just what Hamp said, Mac, and Hamp ain't
with
us no more."

Mac spit into the dust to show what he thought of that. Bat he held his seat while Gruber and Kersh dismounted,
hitched reins to the rail and entered the saloon.

"So you're back," Angus Mulchay said, the official
gre
eter. "And brought another bully-boy to test the
ch
am
pion "

The cold eyes of both gunmen studied him impassively,
taking
his measure. But whatever decision they came to
was
their own secret as they passed on toward the closed
door
without speaking. While Gruber knocked, Lou
Kersh
directed the same impersonal glance at the sprawled
f
orm
of Hamp Leach. The door opened a crack, then
G
ib
bons pulled it ajar and let them inside.

"Where'd he go, Cap?" Gruber asked.

"He's not at the bar?"

"No."

"Did you pass anybody coming in?"

"Couple of families in wagons. No single rider his
size."

"Then he's still around," Gibbons said. "Let's go look
him up."

"One question," Kersh said. "What's so important
about him, whoever he is?"

"Whoever he is," Gibbons answered; "he shot and
killed a militiaman on duty."

Kersh was unimpressed by the army
-
like jargon.

"Hamp drew, didn't he?" he asked dryly.

"You're missing the point," Gibbons told him, his own
voice testy. "We're an organization, all of us together, and
what happens to one happens to all. Our reputation in
this town and every other town depends on how we take
care of our own men. Is that clear, mister?"

"It'd be clearer," Kersh said, "if it were anybody but
Hamp Leach."

"Personalities don't enter into it. But. if you still need
a reason to take this ranny, let me tell you that I think
he could be from Austin."

"That's a lot different," Kersh agreed. "Been expecting
some trouble like that since we hit Laredo."

"And this is the only way they could handle it. Most
people don't realize it, but at fifty strong we're more than
twice the size of all the Rangers put together."

"So they send one at a time."

Gibbons nodded. "And he's supposed to take as many
of us as he can."

Kersh smiled cynically. "Hard work for poor wages," he
said. "Even the boys at Alamo got better odds than that."

"And no boys have it better than Gibbons' militia,"
Gibbons told him. "Don't you forget it, Kersh."

"No complaints, Captain."

"Then let's flush this bird of ours." Gibbons opened
the door and the three of them passed through into the
saloon. Abruptly, Gibbons stopped. "For God's sake," he snapped at the remaining bartender, "are you going
to leave this man's body here the whole night?" But the
bartender shrugged his round shoulders. He only worked
here, the gesture said; when Mr. Terhune got back, speak
to him about it.

"We bury our own dead, Black Jack Gibbons," Mulchay
said then.

"And you might be talking your way into a grave, old
man," Gibbons told him, then switched his attention to
Hamlin. "Isn't there an undertaker in town?" he asked.

"Simmons does a nice funeral," Hamlin answered civilly.
"None of your fancy caskets and all, but he gets them
u
nder the ground in fine style."
"And where is Simmons?"

"Bein' Saturday, he's up the street, playin' the fiddle
and callin' the reel."

Gibbons took a twenty-dollar gold note from his vest,
carried it to the bar. "Send for him," he told the bar
tender. "Tell him I want Sergeant Leach laid out in mili
tary fashion."

"It's all bought and paid for," Mulchay said.
"By whom?"

"By the same lad that so calmly plugged your sergeant,
and him with a borrowed weapon . . ."

Gibbons' hand came down on the bartop hard. "As you
fust explained," he said angrily, "we bury our own dead."
With that he strode from the place, Gruber and Kersh
at his heels.

Angus Mulchay followed, showing none of the tem
perate caution of his neighbors. So far as they were con
cerned, Gibbons and his gunmen could come and go with
bo
interference from them. Especially they could go.
Mulchay was back within sixty seconds, his face alive
with concern.

"There's a gang of them
—a whole dirty gang of them!"
he
said, outraged.

"Have a wee knock, Angus," Hamlin advised, "and be
thankful they're not out there on your account."

"Ay," Mulchay retorted, "it's the lad's turn tonight.
Tomorrow it's me, then you. And next, you, Mac
intosh .. ."

"Don't talk daft, man. What harm have I done the
likes of Black Jack Gibbons?"

"You made the mistake of settlin' riverland that the
almighty Malcolm Lord wants. You stood with me and
MacKay and wouldn't sell out."

"And still won't. But what's that to do with anything?"

"Lord brought Gibbons to Scotstown, right?"

Macintosh nodded.

"And Gibbons don't roam the border for his health,
right?"

"So it's said."

"Said? Man, I was there not two weeks after the mas
sacre. I saw the graves with me own eyes."

"We know, we know," Hamlin told him.

"Then know something else," Mulchay said. "Lord and
Gibbons are going to make a grab at our holdings."

"My title is clear," Macintosh protested. "I'll have the
law on them!"

Mulchay laughed in his friend's face.

"By law do you mean Bart Taggart, him so stiff with
the misery he cannot even walk the length of Trail Street?
Or the deputy, him more interested in dancin' Saturday
night than whatever befalls?"

"The law in Austin, then," Macintosh said, suddenly less confident. "I'll have a Ranger down here to protect
my rights."

"Better hitch up your buggy right quick then," Mul
chay said. "You'll be there in a week. Maybe they'll even
send two Rangers back with you
—two against Gibbons'
cutthroat army."

They were soberer men now than they had been two
minutes ago.

"What is it you suggest, Angus?"

"That we do now
;
what we would have done in '37. Defend ourselves, man!"

"But this isn't '37. Why, I haven't even bought one
of those new rifles
..."

"We'll fight them with anything we can lay hands
on," Mulchay told him. "Knives and clubs, rocks
—any
thing."

"But Gibbons is all proper military, so they tell me.
Cavalry and the like, and every man a veteran of hard
combat."

"There's one," Mulchay said, pointing to Leach. "Per
sonal bodyguard to the great poobah himself."

"But it took the lad to lay him out. Most likely a
gunfighter in his own right."

"What's your alternative, then
—just roll over and play
dead?"

"Ah, you're just making wild guesses," Hamlin told him. "You're worse at ringing false alarms than the boy in the meadow."

"Good night to ye," Mulchay said, turning his glass
face-down on the bar, the classic, old-country symbol
that his night's drinking was ended.

"Where you going?" his friend asked, much con-
coned.

"Where Mulchay goes and what Mulchay does," he
shouted at them, "is from now on Mulchay's business!"
Something caught the fiery Scotchman's eye and he
changed direction to cross toward Leach. He bent down
over the dead man, rolled him over as he would a sack
at
meal and exposed the ex-gunman's once-fired .45.
He picked up the weapon and jammed it deep into the
pocket of his worn coat.

"Angus!" Hamli
n
. cried. "Ye can't go up against the
lot of them. Not singlehanded!"

The gun's for the laddie-buck," Mulchay said. "This
b
his fighting chance
—and may it prove luckier for him
than the last man that owned it." With that he left the
Glasgow.