Authors: Jonas Ward
The senorita, as Buchanan remembered, hadn't been as
quick
getting up from there as she might have been. Dur
f
ee
’
s companion got in two quick ones with his heavy fists
before Buchanan could get the lady out of the way. Then,
more happy than angry at the break in the siesta, and
neither drunk nor out of condition, the tall man con
cluded the entertainment and settled the matter: The
girl could sit on Buchanan's lap to he
r
heart's content.
Durfee and the second man stayed out of the brief
r
uc
kus
, showing only one bit of partiality when they re
vived their unconscious friend with a bucket of kitchen
water.
Even more surprising, Durfee invited him to drink
from his own bottle of honest-to-God American rye whis
key.
Buchanan accepted the hospitality gracefully, and
the
next clear thought came two nights later. By then he
wa
s no longer in the little Mexican bar. He was not even
in
Yuma. He was in a chuck wagon, being carried along on a strange cattle drive. Strange because the beeves moved
between dusk and dawn, and called as little attention to themselves during the daylight hours as the crew could
manage. Moreover, so Durfee told him, the two of them
had a firm agreement: Buchanan was working for Durfee
when he was fit to sit a saddle again.
A deal is a deal, Buchanan told himself, and a job
was a job—though it was obvious that this herd of Chi
huahuas had come north of the border without benefit
of bill of sale. But Durfee, as it turned out, hadn't stolen
the animals himself. Mexicans had, from other Mexicans,
and Durfee took
delivery outside Yuma in exchange for
U.S. Army-issue rifles and ammo. All this innocent crew
was doing was providing safe passage for the herd to a man in Bella, California Territory.
Boyd Weston was the name Durfee had mentioned this
morning, and Mr. Weston hadn't come through on his
part of the bargain. But Buchanan felt that he'd done his
fair share, and now he meant to collect his wages. All in all, he was happy to have the episode end in this fashion.
He'd ridden with happier crews than
D
urfee's bunch, and,
if anybody asked him, professional gunmen were pretty dull company on the trail. Also, it had gone against the
grain to do everything they did so furtively, to keep look
ing over their shoulders for both the law and the soldier
boys with their embarrassing questions. The night was no
time for an honest man to do his work.
They had been riding for nearly an hour when the lights
of a busy town clustered on the horizon. Impulsively, each
man leaned a little forward in the saddle, urged his horse
to a smarter pace. Those lights promised much, and these two had eaten enough dust in forty days to be in a prime
mood for promises fulfilled. Mike Sandoe stared directly
ahead and Buchanan glanced at him, marking the tight
set of the gunfighter's mouth, the hunger and the longing, and he hoped for Sandoe's sake that this Bella was a
broad-minded town.
For himself, Buchanan understood why the place was
off limits to Durfee's crew. Those who were swinging this
operation obviously headquartered in Bella and hardly
wanted a liquored-up crew detailing
i
t in every bar a
n
d
bordello in town. And, for himself again, Buchanan had
no other intention but to pick up his pay and quietly move
on, northwest to the gold fields, perhaps to have a per
sonal look-see at this San Francisco town and make him
self a couple of million dollars like every other son. As
for Bella, it would be
i
n and out quick, without fuss, fight,
or foolishness.
"Ain't we never gonna get there, Buchanan?" Sandoe said plaintively, and Buchanan laughed.
"Man
,”
he said, "how'd you like to have your life de
pend on these nags?"
For answer, Sandoe kneed his jaded mount. The effort
got him nothing but an uncomfortable quarter-mile
stretch from the horse,
grown surly from the stiff and
un
accustomed pace.
But every trail ends, even the one into Bella, and then
t
hey
were topping the rise and hitting the long curve that
opened onto Signal Street. They entered the town at an
easy lope, peace in their hearts, and wheeled in before a
plac
e advertising itself as "Sam Osgood's Livery Stable—
Horses for Sale & for Hire—Honesty Is the Best Policy."
The riders dismounted and stretched their tired muscles
indelicately. A sleepy-eyed boy came out of the livery
office.
"Help you, mister?" he asked, directing the question
naturally at Buchanan.
'Take care of these two beauties first-class," Buchanan
told him, "Comb, curry, and feed. You might even hose
them down if it suits you
,”
"Yessir," the boy said, hooking a hand around each
b
ri
dle knowingly and leading the animals into the stable proper. Buchanan followed, helped with the unsaddling,
and then moved off to one side with his own war bag.
When he came back he wore a gun
belt at his waist and a
Colt .45 hung easily below his hip.
"What names are these for?" the boy asked,
"Charge it to Mr. Bill Durfee's account," Buchanan
said. "He
’
ll be along for them in a day or so." He rejoined
Mike Sandoe. Sandoe stared at the addition.
"I almost thought you didn't own any weapon but that
Winchester. Must say it looks real natural."
Buchanan grinned. "Man likes to feel dressed in town."
"And you also figured you might have to persuade some
body?"
Buchanan began to shake his head when the voice of
the stable boy cut in.
"There's no Mr
.
Durfee on our books, mister!"
"How about Mr. Boyd Weston?"
"Oh, sure," he said.
"Then charge their keep to him. Where would I most
likely find Boyd Weston this time of night?"
"His wife's staying at Bella House," the youngster said,
pointing the length of Signal Street "I just now collected
her buggy
.
”
"Obliged," Buchanan said, reaching automatically for a coin, stopping midway and grinning sheepishly when he
realized he didn't even have that much to his name.
"Much obliged, boy," he murmured again, and started off
down the street with Mike Sandoe
,
walking with a re
newed purpose now, forcing the shorter man to widen his stride to keep abreast. Being stony broke was nothing new
to the big man. Being held out on was.
Chapter
T
wo
Half an hour earlier a great white stallion had wheeled
into Bella's brightly lighted main drag, raising a cloud of
choking dust and scattering humanity in its path with an
arrogance conferred by th
e
broad-backed, ramrod-straight
man who forked the saddle. Frank Power was neither
heedless of the disturbance he created nor unaware that lesser men raised their fists as he passed and cursed him
out fervently. Power's entrance into the town was calcu
lated to make an impression on Bella, put his name on
everyone's lips
.
He meant to leave no doubts that in this
little corner of the world. Frank Power ran things.
He had
t
his town tamed, but should some stranger resent
his insolence with some quick-triggered show of anger, the
man would lea
rn
to his immediate sorrow that Power
tempered his show of bravado with a certain amount of
caution, a measure of insurance. For closely in his wake, like an echo, came a pair of sharp-eyed riders—a blunt double warning not to resent being nearly trampled on to
the point of taking direct action.
Having made his entrance, and having progressed into
t
he obviously more prosperous end of town, Power brought
th
e snorting stallion under closer rein and eventually drew
n beneath the pretentious, white-pillared portico of Bella
House, a sprawling, four-storied frame building whose bulk
dominated all of Signal Street. The nearest challenge came
from Troy's, directly across the way, but though the
gambling place and saloon was half a block long, it was
o
nl
y
one story high.
Frank Power dismounted, tossing the reins negligently
over
the horse's head to the waiting colored lad, and
c
limbed the entrance stairway in his brisk, forceful fashion.
He seemed unmindful of the glances of those who sat in
th
e rockers on the wide porch, seemed not to have noticed
t
h
e gleaming black, red-trimmed buggy tethered to the
rail
And for all any stranger could tell, there was no con
nection between this well-dressed man and the two non
descript horsemen who melted into the shadows beyond
th
e lights of the hotel
.
Power went on inside the chandeliered lobby, nodding
brusquely to several acquaintances as he crossed the deep-
piled rug to the desk. He went to the far end of the desk
an
d in a moment he was joined there by the head clerk,
a
round, apple-cheeked little man named Callow.
"Hot enough for you, Mr. Power?" Callow
asked
his
eyes aglow with something very close to veneration as he
raised them to the square-jawed, granite-like face above
him.
“N
o mail for me?" Power asked impatiently, cutting
through the small talk.
The clerk didn't appear to mind. "Nothing for you on
the evening stage, Mr. Power
,”
he said servilely.
"Boyd Weston leave a message?"
"Why, no
,”
Callow said, somehow looking distressed because he couldn't have more satisfactory answers. "Mr.
Western's been over at Troy's since early this morning.
They say," Callow added eagerly, "that it's the biggest
game since that marathon you won last winter."
But he guessed wrong if he hoped to titillate the man
with this morsel. The information, in fact, gave Frank
Power a sharp and sudden annoyance. He pulled a long
cigar from the inside pocket of his pearl-gray coat and
wrenched off the tip with an angry gesture.
"How long has Mrs. Weston been here?" he asked
crisply, lighting the cigar, and whatever question Callow
thought he would be asked, it was not that one.
"Why, ah, she drove into town about an hour ago. She
inquired at the desk for Mr. Weston and then took supper
in the dining room."
"Where is she now?"
The clerk blinked.
"Now? Well, I imagine the lady has
retired to her suite. It's nearly nine o'clock," he pointed
out rather primly.
Frank Power was no longer listening.
"Get me my own
key," he said abruptly, and Mr. Callow scurried to the
rows of boxes. From the one numbered 15 he fished out a
key and returned with it, handed it over, and watched
with some speculation as Power strode to the curving stair
case and started up.
Power reached the second floor and walked the length
of that quiet corridor, going past Number 15, and turned
in at the service stairs. He climbed these to the fourth
floor and finally halted before the door of Room 46. At his
knock the door was opened and he stepped wordlessly
across the threshold. The door closed again at his back and was double-locked.
"You're late, Frank," a woman said to his back, but
Power didn't answer. Instead, he moved through the little
foyer and into the main room, noting that the single
lamp gave out only a dim light, that the heavy drapes were
drawn tightly across the window. Then he swung around
to the woman, his eyes appraising.
"I'm more than late, Ruby," he said. "I'm mad as hell."
"At Boyd?"
"Your husband makes a damn poor agent."