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  Pamela Danvers regarded him for a moment before asking, “Do you always do that—work so hard to clarify the Indian heritage in you? Do you think I may not want to hire you because of your bloodline?”

  Buckhorn frowned.

  “I wasn’t aware I was laying it on overly thick about my Indian blood. It just sort of fell into what the conversation was covering. As far as whether or not you’d change your mind about hiring me because I’m a half-breed . . . well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve run into something like that. I’d survive. But, since you contacted me on account of my reputation, I figured you already knew that part and didn’t have a problem with it.”

  “And you’d be exactly right,” Pamela declared. “As for the rest of it, me apparently reading too much into your words, you’ll have to pardon me. But now let us back up to before any of that—What did you say, Thad, about Mr. Bu—er, Joe—bringing in some bodies?”

  Tolliver grinned around the forkful of beefsteak he’d just put in his mouth. “I was wondering how long you were going to leave that slide. Probably be best to just let, er, Buckhorn tell the story.”

  “Unless or until we learn more about the identities of those two skunks,” Buckhorn said when Pamela’s gaze shifted expectantly to him, “there’s not a whole lot to tell. Earlier this afternoon, some miles before I got to town, two men tried to ambush me. Came close enough to kill my horse, as a matter of fact. But after waitin’ ’em out for a spell, letting their nerves and impatience get the better of their caution, I was able to turn the tables on them. Didn’t have much choice but to bring them in facedown over a saddle.”

  “Good Lord,” Pamela said. “And no one knows who these men are?”

  “Were,” Tolliver corrected her gently. “But no, nobody recognizes them. Leastways not me, Deputy Scanlon, or Joe. But we’re working on trying to scrounge up identities for one or both of ’em.”

  “And you have no idea why anyone would want to ambush you?” Pamela asked Buckhorn.

  “Oh, I can think of plenty of folks who’d like to see me ambushed and dead. But none from any time recent and none I’d figure to be in this area. I didn’t know I’d be headed this way myself until a couple of days ago.”

  “How about these troubles of yours somehow being behind the attempt, Pamela?” said Tolliver. “It’s certainly no secret about the rustling problem you’ve been having and your claims that Dan Riley is behind it.”

  “Nor is it any secret that my claims are accurate, even if the law can’t prove them!” Pamela responded quickly and with some heat.

  Tolliver sighed patiently and continued, “And word is spreading more and more about Jeff having gone missing and how you decided to hire somebody from the outside to help get to the bottom of things. So it wouldn’t be so hard to figure that maybe somebody on the other end—whether it’s one person or maybe two, depending on if the rustling and Jeff’s disappearance is connected or not—decided not to waste any time getting rid of your hired gun and making you all the more upset and desperate.”

  “There’s just one thing wrong with that,” Pamela said, eyes blazing and mouth twisting in a momentarily unflattering way. “I don’t get desperate. I get all the more determined to get even and come out on top!”

  CHAPTER 8

  The waitress reappeared with Pamela’s tea, allowing everybody a few moments to calm down and some of the tension to ease.

  When the waitress had left, Buckhorn said evenly, “There’s a couple more things wrong with the notion of that ambush coming from somebody wanting to stop me from hiring on with Mrs. Danvers. Mostly the same reasons I named as why it likely wasn’t somebody from my past. Word might’ve got around about Mrs. Danvers lookin’ to hire somebody to come in and lend a hand. But how could they have known it was me? Not to mention when I was due in and which direction I’d be comin’ from?”

  Tolliver pursed his lips thoughtfully and said, “Those are fair points.”

  “Unless,” Buckhorn offered, “somebody’s got a real talkative telegraph operator, either here or back in Forbes. They’re the only two who had all the details. And as far as the fella back in Forbes, I don’t know how he could have gotten word ahead, strictly on his own, for somebody to be waitin’ for me.”

  Tolliver and Pamela shook their heads in unison.

  “Sam Beckel, our operator here, is so tight lipped you couldn’t drive a chisel between his flappers with a sledgehammer if he didn’t want to open up,” said Tolliver. “Believe me, I’ve tried to get information out of him as a lawman and, without a court order, even I got nowhere.”

  “I can vouch for Sam, too,” Pamela agreed. “Nothing like we’re talking about leaked from him.” Once again those lavender eyes settled on Buckhorn and regarded him as if with renewed interest. “Let me add, Joe, how encouraged I am that you not only have already proven your prowess with a gun—as evidenced by the way you survived that ambush—but how you are now demonstrating a quick, analytical mind. I think I made an excellent choice in contacting you. I already feel better with you on my side.”

  Buckhorn actually felt himself flush under the praise. He hoped it didn’t show and then thought, wryly, for once the deep copper color of his face might be coming in handy. He replied, “I appreciate the kind words, ma’am. I’ll try to keep measuring up to them, for your sake and my own. A man who’s just good with a gun won’t last long if he doesn’t have some brains to back it up.”

  “Recognizin’ that,” Sheriff Tolliver put in, “is another sign that Pamela has got it right about you, Buckhorn. Lord knows I’ve seen my share of gunslicks come and go over the years who tried to do all their thinking with their gun hand. Their kind never lasted long, like you said. Not on my account, I don’t mean—I never considered myself anywhere near the category of a fast gun. But there usually are other ways to hold your ground if, as you say, you take time to use your head.”

  “You’ve done a good job as sheriff here in Barkley, Thad. Everybody knows that,” Pamela assured him. “But there’s only so much you can do with no town marshal and only two deputies to cover both the town and the whole wide county.”

  Tolliver’s eyes remained on Buckhorn.

  “With all that said, you must still find yourself wondering why I’m being so cooperative about Pamela hiring an outsider like you to come in and get involved.”

  “I figure you got your reasons,” Buckhorn said. “Mrs. Danvers probably just ran down most of ’em.”

  Tolliver nodded and said, “Yeah, I guess she did at that. A man has to know his limitations, Buckhorn, and I’m not too proud to admit mine. Just like admitting I’m no faster than average with a gun. You think I wouldn’t like to be the one to round up those rustlers who are raisin’ hell all through my jurisdiction and seem to be gettin’ bolder and bolder with each passin’ month?”

  “If you’d concentrate on a single person, you could wrap up all or most of your problems in one fell swoop,” Pamela said rather haughtily.

  “Yeah, I know, Pamela. If I believed like you that every foul deed in the territory, short of maybe poison ivy, was the fault of Dan Riley, then things would be a lot simpler. Trouble is, I can’t go on just bitterness and a gut feeling like you want me to. I’m hampered by pesky little details like motive and opportunity and proof.”

  Pamela lifted her teacup and said only “Hmpf!” before taking a sip.

  Buckhorn cleared his throat and tried to steer things back in line with where he might fit in.

  “You say there are a number of other ranches around besides Mrs. Danvers’s?”

  “Half a dozen or so, yeah. None near as big as Pamela’s Circle D, but they all run fair-size crews. And, in anticipation of your next question, yes they’ve been hit by rustlers, too. They haven’t lost as many head, but that sort of stands to reason since their operations are smaller to begin with.”

  “With widespread trouble like that,” said Buckhorn, “I’m surprised you didn’t try callin’ in the Texas Ranger
s.”

  “Thad did just that,” Pamela answered. “We had a ranger show up a while back, a young man by the name of Peck. But he only stayed around for a few days. He got called away to help with some kind of bigger trouble down along the border. We haven’t heard from him since, and I, for one, don’t miss him a bit.”

  Tolliver grinned tolerantly.

  “Pamela has the same stubborn streak as her late husband. I don’t know if it was always just naturally in their blood or if it got added to from the two of ’em being together. But the Danvers way is to handle things as independently as possible.”

  “You’re damned right it is,” Pamela said. “It’s the Danvers way and it’s a good way.”

  Buckhorn felt a corner of his mouth quirk up slightly. He said, “I guess me bein’ a hired hand and therefore on your payroll ain’t the same as a ranger.”

  “Same here,” Tolliver joined in, his grin still in place. “You know, me being just the local law dog and all.”

  “Oh, stop it, you two,” Pamela said. “Of course you each represent outside help of a sort. But it’s different. I can discuss and reason with you, like we’re doing now. That ranger was as cold and secretive as a damp old cave deep in the ground. Not once in the whole time he was here did any of us know what he was doing or thinking. And then suddenly he was gone and left us no better informed than when he got here.”

  “Yeah, that part’s true enough,” Tolliver agreed, his grin finally fading. “I understood he had to take off kinda urgent-like, but I’ll admit I was more than a little rankled that he didn’t take time to give me, the local law, even the bare bones as far as any kind of report on what he’d found.”

  “From everything I’ve seen and heard,” Buckhorn said, “the rangers don’t take a back row to anybody when it comes to showing a streak of independence—except from their own, of course—as far as how they go about handling a situation.”

  Tolliver grunted.

  “That was sure the case with the one who showed up here.”

  Buckhorn’s brows furrowed some as he fixed his gaze on Pamela Danvers.

  “I guess that makes it about as good a time as any to mention that my way is usually to run on a sort of loose rein, too, when it comes to most jobs I take. If that’s gonna be a problem, I reckon we better settle on some guidelines before we go much farther.”

  Pamela lowered her cup of tea after taking a sip and said, “I’ll naturally want some sort of periodic reports on whatever progress you’re making. But, considering the way you’ve presented yourself so far, I don’t see a problem with allowing you, as you say, ‘a sort of loose rein.’”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “I guess it would also be a good time to finish makin’ it clear where I stand on your involvement, Buckhorn,” spoke up Tolliver. “Whatever arrangement you arrive at with Pamela is, of course, between the two of you. From the standpoint of the local law, I’d appreciate my own occasional update on any developments. You handled yourself well by coming directly to my office after your trouble on the trail. You need to follow that example and let me know as soon as possible if any more shooting is necessary.”

  Buckhorn tipped his head and said, “Fair enough.”

  “Good,” said Pamela. “Now we can proceed with . . .”

  She let her words trail off at the sight of Deputy Scanlon entering the dining room and plodding purposefully in their direction.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Sorry I ain’t got more to report, Sheriff,” Scanlon stated, a tone of genuine regret ringing in his voice. “But me and Schmidt went all through those two varmints’ stuff and came up with next to nothing. They each had a few coins in their pockets, only a couple dollars total. And one of ’em had a deck of playin’ cards, the kind that have . . . uh, pardon me for mentionin’ this, ma’am . . .” His eyes darted briefly, nervously to Pamela Danvers and then dropped to look at the floor as his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. “The kind with naughty pictures on the backs. That was about it. Nothing to identify ’em.”

  “You did your best, Scooter,” Tolliver consoled him. “You can’t help it if there was nothing there to find.”

  “What about their saddlebags?” Buckhorn asked. “Did you check them?”

  Scanlon nodded.

  “Yeah, we did. Wasn’t much there, neither. A handful of jerky and a couple badly withered apples in one of ’em; some corn dodgers, a half-used plug of tobacco, and a can of peaches in the other.”

  Buckhorn cut his gaze to the sheriff and said, “A lack of supplies like that tells me they didn’t travel very far to get to the ambush spot and didn’t figure on traveling very far after they were done doin’ what they came for. I’d say that makes them local. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Tolliver frowned thoughtfully.

  “A couple local boys that nobody recognizes. That’s both puzzling and troubling.”

  “Not if they were sent by that rat Dan Riley,” said Pamela. “You know he’s got an outlaw pack gathered around him. He keeps them hidden away like the light-fearing vermin they are, so why should it be a surprise that, when he turns a pair of them loose, nobody recognizes them?”

  “But that brings us right back to how Riley, or anybody else we can think of, would know it was me who was on the way and which way I’d be coming,” Buckhorn pointed out.

  Scanlon said, “Could it be, since they were so low on supplies and all, they were just a couple of saddle tramps after all? Lookin’ to ambush anybody who came along for whatever they could steal?”

  Tolliver shook his head.

  “No, we already covered that. Buckhorn is convinced they came strictly to kill and, from what he overheard when they were talking back and forth up in the rocks, it was him they wanted.”

  “Why does everyone refuse to accept the obvious?” Pamela said somewhat shrilly. “Who else could be behind it but Dan Riley? I don’t know how he found out the things he needed to know, but it had to be him. Nothing else makes sense.”

  “I’ll go along with that much. There’s a lot about this that doesn’t make sense,” said Tolliver, his mouth pulling into a hard, straight line. “But, damn it, Pamela, I’m not willing to jump to the conclusion that it’s the work of Riley just because you want it to be.”

  Eyes blazing once more, Pamela responded, “No, it’s becoming more and more apparent you’re not willing to jump at anything when it comes to confronting Dan Riley. In fact, if you drag your feet any more, the sheriff’s office is liable to end up with a moat around it.”

  Color rose in the sheriff’s cheeks and there was a flash of fire in his eyes, too, as he said, “That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me! It’s unfair and untrue and you damn well know it.”

  Where this heated exchange would have gone next was left unanswered due to another interruption in the form of someone else approaching the table. All eyes shifted as awareness spread of the man walking up behind Deputy Scanlon.

  The newcomer was a tall, rawboned hombre, well over six feet, with faded blue, seen-it-all-before eyes set deep in a narrow face under a gnarled ledge of brows and above a drooping mustache, both shot with streaks of iron gray. He was clad in range clothes that had seen more than a little wear and bore the dust of recent time on the trail.

  But, more than any of that, what drew the focus of those tracking his advance was the star-in-circle badge of a Texas Ranger pinned prominently on the man’s shirtfront.

  “Pardon the intrusion, folks,” said the ranger in a low, even voice as his eyes swept the faces around the table. “I just got into town and a fella down the street said he thought he saw the sheriff head this way.” His gaze came back to Tolliver and settled there. “My name’s Lyle Menlo. I’m with the Texas Rangers. Don’t mean to step on your meal, Sheriff, but when you’re done and have a free moment, I’d be obliged to have a few words with you.”

  Tolliver pushed back from the table and stood up, extending his hand.

  “Name’s Thad T
olliver, Ranger. Welcome to Barkley. Wish you’d’ve wired you were coming, I would have been on the lookout and not made you have to hunt me down.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Menlo, grasping the offered hand.

  Tolliver introduced Deputy Scanlon and the two men also shook hands. Then the sheriff added, “And my tablemates are Mrs. Pamela Danvers and Mr. Joe Buckhorn.”

  Menlo pinched his hat brim to Pamela, pointedly made no move to shake hands with Buckhorn.

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am . . . Buckhorn.”

  “Actually, as you can see,” said Tolliver, gesturing to his empty plate, “you caught me just as I finished eating. Since it appears you’ve been on the trail a while and probably want to catch a meal for yourself, not to mention making overnight accommodations, the least I can do is spare you the time you need without delay.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” Menlo said. “Perhaps we can go to your office where we can talk in private.”

  “If you want.” The sheriff hesitated. “However, if you’re here on the matter of the rustling and some of the other crimes we’ve had around here lately, as I suspect, then you’d probably be interested to know that Mrs. Danvers has a very direct interest in that. The rustling part, that is. In fact, it was the main topic of the discussion we were having when you showed up. You see, Mrs. Danvers owns the biggest cattle spread in the county and has been hit harder than anyone by the rustlers.”

  Menlo nodded and said, “Yes, I recognized the Danvers name. The Circle D spread, right?”

  “That’s correct,” said Pamela. “How is it you’re familiar with my name and our brand?”

  “One of my fellow rangers spent some time hereabouts a while back, didn’t he? Young fella named Kirby Peck?”