Buckhorn Read online

  “Not hardly,” Buckhorn said with a faint smile. “That was just a temporary job.”

  “In your line of work, aren’t all jobs temporary?”

  “Some of them permanently so,” Buckhorn said.

  Alexis laughed and offered, “Let me get you a drink.”

  Buckhorn had told Madison he didn’t want a drink, but he said to Alexis, “Beer will do fine to cut the dust.”

  “All right.” She filled a mug from a tap and slid it in front of him. “It’s on the house—but you already knew that.”

  Buckhorn sipped the beer gratefully. It had been a long time since he’d eaten and he planned to stop at the café before he went to the hotel and turned in, but for now the beer did him just fine.

  “What do you think about this race between your father and Hugh Thornton?” he asked.

  “You mean to see which one of them can bring in a railroad spur first?” Alexis shook her head. “It’s just more of the same. They’ve been competing ever since they both came to this part of the country. They started their mines about the same time, struck silver veins less than a week apart, and have tried to get the jump on each other ever since. There were already two general stores in town. My father bought out one of them, and less than an hour later Hugh Thornton bought the other one. My father would have founded a bank and a newspaper of his own, but Hugh thought of the ideas first, while my father was buying a piece of the hotel and taking over the livery stable from Sol Baker.”

  “That’s the old man who runs the place now?”

  “That’s right. He started the business. My father paid him top dollar for it.”

  Buckhorn drank some more of the beer, then asked, “Where’s this rivalry going to end?”

  “That’s a good question. I’m afraid the railroad may be it. Each of them is investing a lot of money in his own operation. Maybe more than they can afford.”

  “That’s pretty blunt talk.”

  “My father always taught me to speak my mind,” Alexis said. She smiled. “Sometimes to his regret. He told me that a beautiful woman can always find somebody to give her what she wants—but a beautiful woman with a brain who knows how to use it can take whatever she wants.”

  “He’s probably right about that,” Buckhorn allowed.

  “Anyway, to answer your question, I think both of them regard this business with the railroad as the showdown. I think they’re going to do their best to crush each other once and for all . . . no matter who gets hurt in the process.”

  “That’s the sort of thing that could turn into a full-fledged war. The town won’t be able to stay neutral any longer.” Buckhorn paused. “Neither will you.”

  Alexis’s nostrils flared slightly as she took a deep breath in response to his comment, but before she could say anything, Buckhorn heard his name called. He turned his head to see Yancy Madison standing at the top of the stairs. Madison motioned with his head for Buckhorn to join him.

  “I enjoyed our conversation,” he said to Alexis as he picked up his beer.

  Judging by the look on her face, she couldn’t say the same thing.

  CHAPTER 11

  “The boss wants to see you,” Madison said when Buckhorn reached the top of the stairs.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “You mean did I tell him that you let that bushwhacker get away?” Madison chuckled. “I wouldn’t stab a partner in the back that way, Joe. I told him the bushwhacker gave us the slip, but I didn’t lay all the blame on you.”

  “I’m obliged.”

  “De nada. I’m sure you’d show me the same consideration if I was in your boots.”

  Buckhorn grunted noncommittally and followed Madison along the hallway to Dennis Conroy’s suite.

  The hour was still relatively early, especially going by boomtown time, but Conroy was already wearing a silk dressing gown over pajamas. He had one of his ever-present cigars between two fingers of his left hand and held a glass of whiskey in his right.

  As Buckhorn and Madison came in, Conroy nodded and said, “I hear you ran into some trouble out there in Gunsight Canyon, Joe.”

  “That’s right,” Buckhorn said.

  “There’s nothing like jumping right in and getting your feet wet, I suppose. I just wish you’d been able to drill the son of a bitch who was shooting at my men. Yancy said that none of you got a good look at him?”

  “That’s right. I saw him better than anybody, I guess. Big fella, black clothes. That’s about all I can say.”

  Conroy waved the hand holding the cigar.

  “The man’s identity doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that he was working for Hugh Thornton. I know that beyond any doubt. I can feel it in my bones. And now Thornton’s gone too far. I won’t have my men gunned down from ambush.”

  “What are we going to do about it, boss?” Madison said. He seemed genuinely interested to know the answer to that question, which told Buckhorn that Conroy and Madison hadn’t discussed the next move yet.

  Conroy put the cigar in his mouth, clamped his teeth on it, and said, “Tomorrow I’m going to see Thornton. I’m going to let him know that if anything else happens, I’ll consider it a declaration of war and act accordingly.”

  Madison looked surprised as he said, “You’re going out to the Jim Dandy?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to do. And you and Joe are coming with me. Pick four men to come with us.”

  Madison frowned and cautioned, “If you ride in there with half a dozen gunhawks at your back, things could get dicey.”

  Conroy rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

  “Are you worried about facing Gratton and the rest of that bunch, Yancy?”

  “You know better than that, boss.” Madison sounded angry now. “I just want to know that you’re sure about this.”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” Conroy snapped.

  “Then that’s what we’ll do, I suppose,” Madison said with a nod. “What time?”

  “We’ll leave from here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “We’ll be ready. Won’t we, Joe?”

  “Sure,” said Buckhorn.

  “All right, that’s settled,” Conroy told them. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

  His tone was an obvious dismissal. Buckhorn and Madison turned and left the suite.

  “Did you know that’s what he had in mind?” Buckhorn asked.

  “Hell, no. I thought he’d play it safer than that. Once the boss gets an idea in his head, though, he’s not one to let it go.” Madison chuckled. “Thing of it is, I’m not sure I disagree with him. This trouble between him and Thornton has gone on long enough. They need to settle it.”

  “By one of them backing down? How likely is that?”

  “Not much,” Madison admitted. “That’s why I’m going to do more than take four extra men with us. I’m gonna have some reinforcements following us, so if we find ourselves in a tight spot, they can get there in a hurry to lend us a hand.”

  That sounded like a pretty good idea to Buckhorn.

  As they started down the stairs, Buckhorn saw that Alexis was busy again, serving drinks, laughing and talking with the customers. He wouldn’t have minded spending some more time with her himself, but that probably wasn’t a good idea.

  “How about a few hands of poker?” Madison asked as Buckhorn started for the batwings.

  “I think I’ll get some supper and then head for the hotel.” Buckhorn smiled thinly as he added, “You heard what the boss said about getting a good night’s sleep.”

  “Well, it’s too early yet for me to turn in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Buckhorn lifted his left hand in a small wave of farewell.

  He went out without letting himself look at Alexis again.

  Woodrow, the old-timer who worked for Hugh Thornton, wasn’t in the Crater City Café tonight. Either none of the miners from the Jim Dandy had come into town, or el
se they had gotten here some other way besides Woodrow’s wagon.

  Buckhorn had a bowl of beef stew and a cup of coffee. He mopped up the last of the stew in the bowl with a chunk of fresh bread.

  When he stood up he left a half-dollar on the table. Olaf saw that and said, “You don’t have to pay, Mr. Buckhorn. I put your meal on Mr. Conroy’s tab.”

  “I know, but I leave my own tips.”

  “In that case, I am very much obliged to you,” the Swede said with a friendly nod.

  Buckhorn went straight to the hotel from the café. No stopping by the livery stable tonight, or seeking female company at Miss Quinn’s. And for a change it didn’t take him too long to fall asleep once he stretched out in the four-poster bed.

  Long enough, though, to think about the encounter with Lorna McChesney and everything the girl had told him about the way Dennis Conroy did business.

  * * *

  Buckhorn and Madison met for breakfast in the hotel dining room the next morning. Madison had a bleary-eyed look that said he’d had a late night or a lot to drink—or both.

  “How’d the game go?” Buckhorn asked.

  Madison picked up the cup of coffee the waiter had just put in front of him and took a long swig from it, grimacing slightly because it was hot.

  “The game went fine,” he replied. “I came out fifty dollars ahead.”

  “Well, then, you turned a profit yesterday, I suppose.”

  Madison grunted and said, “Any day men like you and me stay alive, we’ve turned a profit.”

  Buckhorn chuckled and sipped his own coffee, then said, “I can’t argue with that.”

  The waiter arrived carrying plates heaped with food, the same as they’d had the previous morning. Buckhorn dug in but noticed that Madison picked at his food, another indication that maybe the gunman was hung over.

  “What do you think of the boss’s daughter?” Buckhorn asked after a few minutes.

  “Alexis? You’ve got eyes in your head. She’s the most beautiful woman in this part of the territory. Smart as a whip, too. I reckon any man in Crater City would almost cut off an arm to be her beau—even the married ones.”

  “Does that include you?”

  “I’m here for the money, not for any woman, no matter how good looking she is.”

  Madison’s disavowal didn’t sound entirely convincing, though, especially when he went on, “Don’t go getting any ideas in your head about her, Joe. The boss wouldn’t like that.”

  “Because I’m a ’breed?”

  Madison laughed and said, “Because we’re the hired help. I reckon we rate higher than the swamper in the Irish Rose or old Sol shoveling manure over at the stable, but when you come right down to it, we’re not all that much different in the boss’s eyes. We just exist to do his bidding, that’s all. I reckon that’s the way he feels about almost everybody . . . except Alexis.”

  Buckhorn stiffened at the mention of the swamper, but Madison couldn’t have meant any personal insult by the comment because he didn’t know anything about Buckhorn’s background.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Anyway,” Madison said, “you wouldn’t get anywhere with her, even if you tried. She’s friendly to everybody, but it never goes any further than that.”

  He sounded as if maybe he had put that theory to the test himself.

  They finished their breakfasts, then headed for the livery stable. When they got there, they found ten men waiting for them. Buckhorn recognized two of them as the men he and Madison had relieved of guard duty in Gunsight Canyon the day before.

  “Howdy, Joe,” the one called Jimmy greeted Buckhorn.

  The gunman named Carlson asked Madison, “What’s this all about, Yancy? Why’d you spread the word for all of us to meet you here this morning?”

  Madison looked around at them and said, “Get your horses ready to ride. The boss has got it in his head to go up to the Jim Dandy today and have a word with Hugh Thornton.”

  That announcement drew a few surprised mutters and some raised eyebrows.

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” one of the gunmen asked.

  “It’s sort of like stickin’ your arm in a badger hole, ain’t it?” another added.

  “If Mr. Conroy says that’s what we’re doing, then it’s a good idea,” Madison said. “He pays the bills, so what he says goes.”

  None of them were going to argue with that, but Carlson said, “Gratton and Dunn and the rest of that bunch are probably in town, but Thornton will have some pretty tough hombres up there at the mine, too. We could be riding into trouble, Yancy.”

  “That’s why we’re not all going together,” Madison said. “Six of us will be with the boss. The other six are going to follow about half a mile behind, so if you hear any shots, you can get there in a hurry to back our play.”

  He pointed out the four men who would accompany him, Buckhorn, and Conroy, leaving the other half dozen to function as reinforcements if necessary. Jimmy and Carlson would be part of the main party; the other two were named Hackberry and Miller.

  At Madison’s orders, the extra six men mounted up and rode out of Crater City. They would wait outside the settlement and fall in behind the others once Conroy and the men with him had started up into the mountains on the road that led to the Jim Dandy mine.

  “Stay far enough back that the boss won’t be likely to notice you,” Madison ordered as the extra men left. “I don’t want him to think I’m going against his orders. But if there’s trouble up there, he’ll be glad I did.”

  While Madison, Buckhorn, and the other four men were saddling their own mounts, Sol brought two magnificent black horses out of the livery barn and hitched them to a fancy buggy that was parked under a shed next to the building. Then he drove it out front and climbed down just as Dennis Conroy came along the street.

  Conroy wore a black pin-striped suit and a dark gray derby. A diamond stickpin glittered in his cravat. He looked very dapper and distinguished.

  “Are we ready to go, Yancy?” he asked Madison.

  “We sure are, boss.” Madison paused. “Are you still sure about this?”

  Conroy frowned and asked coolly, “Have you ever known me to change my mind about something once it’s made up, Yancy?”

  “No, sir, I don’t suppose I have.”

  “And it’s not going to happen this time, either.”

  “You want one of us to handle the buggy team?”

  “No, I’m perfectly capable of doing that. What I expect you to do is see to it that we’re not ambushed by Thornton’s men on the way up there.”

  “If they try anything like that, boss, they’ll sure be sorry.”

  Conroy gave him a curt nod, climbed into the buggy, and took up the reins. Buckhorn, Madison, and the other men swung into their saddles. In a matter of moments, Conroy had the buggy rolling briskly along the street and then out of Crater City, bound for the mountains.

  CHAPTER 12

  It was pretty country, no doubt about that. Pine trees covered the mountain slopes, and as the riders climbed higher, Buckhorn glanced back and could see for miles across the rolling hills and the sage-carpeted flats that led to the Mesteños. From up here he could even make out the notch that marked the location of Gunsight Canyon. Neal Drake and what was left of his surveying crew would be working there this morning, and with any luck, Lorna McChesney wouldn’t be shooting at them.

  Buckhorn and Madison had taken the lead. Buckhorn didn’t know where the Jim Dandy mine was, but Madison obviously did. Conroy followed about twenty yards behind them in the buggy, with Carlson flanking him to the right and Hackberry to the left. Jimmy and Miller brought up the rear, another twenty yards back.

  Madison had drawn his Winchester from its scabbard and rode with it held across the saddle in front of him, so Buckhorn followed suit and did likewise. Both men not only watched the trail in front of them but also scanned the terrain on either side closely.

  “Where’s Conr
oy’s mine?” Buckhorn asked.

  “We’ll come to a fork here pretty soon,” Madison said. “The left branch goes to the Jim Dandy. The right leads to the Donegal. It’s a couple miles east of Thornton’s mine, and a little higher in the mountains.” Madison paused, then added, “Mr. Conroy said the mountains remind him of where he grew up in Ireland. That’s what the place is called, so he gave the mine the same name. A little sentimental, I reckon.”

  “Sentimental’s not a word I’d use to describe Dennis Conroy.”

  Madison chuckled.

  “No, and not many other people would, either. But I reckon there’s a streak of it in just about everybody, even the most hard-nosed, whether they want to admit it or not.”

  Buckhorn just grunted and didn’t admit anything.

  After another half mile or so, they came to the fork in the trail Madison had mentioned and angled left. The trail continued to climb, occasionally dipping into a small valley but mostly zigzagging up the slopes and providing spectacular views to the south. The sky was a deep blue, dotted here and then with puffy white clouds. The sun was warm, but the breezes that swept through the mountains were cool enough to keep any of the men from getting overheated.

  The trail leveled out onto a mile-wide bench. The far side ended at a steep, rocky slope. A short distance up that slope was the black mouth of a mine tunnel. Steel rails on a wooden ramp supported by a trestlelike arrangement of beams stuck out straight from the tunnel, running for fifty yards and ending at a huge wooden box that stood on thick legs, similar to a water tank at a train station.

  Buckhorn had seen similar operations many times in the past. Miners pushed carts loaded with ore along those rails, then dumped them in the box, which had a trapdoor in the bottom of it. That door could be opened to drop the ore into a chute that led to the back of a wagon parked under the box. It was a fairly efficient setup that allowed for steady movement of ore out of the mine.

  A number of plank buildings stood on the level ground not far from the mine tunnel. One was a barracks, another a combined cook shack and mess hall. A two-story log cabin was probably the mine’s office and maybe where the superintendant lived. Several buildings likely used for storage of tools and other equipment were scattered nearby. There was also a barn with an attached corral that had a dozen or so horses in it.