Buchanan's Revenge (12 page)

"It won't be." *
- :

"But suppose it is."

Perrott shrugged his bony shoulders. "So I lose," he
said.

Lash Wall shook his head. "I've played cards with you,
Jules," he said. "You don't like to lose."

"Whatta you mean?"

"I mean you brood about it. You climb inside of a bot
tle. And then you get mean and start to make trouble."

"Listen, Wall-"

"You listen. You make trouble in Brownsville and that sheriff'll be on you like a blanket. Stay here tonight, Jules.
We need your gun for the job. Understand?"

Perrott's thin lips formed a smile. "Sure, Lash," he
said. "I understand."

"Those are Leech's orders, Jules. Personal."

"Sure. Big Red himself. I understand."

One hour after the sun set Jules Perrott rode out of the
hacienda toward the beckoning lights of Brownsville. Tur
key Forbes reported it to Lash Wall and Wall passed a
hand across his cheek, finished the gesture with fingers crossed. Somehow he couldn't shake the premonition that this was Jules' night to lose.

Buchanan visited Brownsville's five hotels
—if that was
the word for them—without finding anyone named Per
rott or Gill registered. Playing a long shot, to be sure, but
in this case justified by the simple fact that he had no
clear picture of the three men he was looking for. To say
that they were tough and swaggering and liked to play
cards hardly distinguished them in this man's town.

He wasn't discouraged, though
—it wasn't his nature to
be—and when he learned in the fifth hotel that a night's
lodging cost twenty-five cents he decided to invest that
much of the two dollars he still owned and continue the
search in Brownsville for at least another twenty-four
hours.

"We got a fifty-cent accommodation, too," the clerk
said, bouncing Buchanan's silver coin on the desk to test
its ring.

"What's wrong with the twenty-five-cent one?"

"Nothin', mister. We also got a dollar room. That in
cludes a girl and a towel."

"Sounds like a real bargain," Buchanan agreed. "But
just slip me my six-bits change and I'll scout up my own
entertainment."

"Suit yourself, mister," the clerk said. "Take those stairs
two flights up, and then take your chances."

Buchanan climbed to the third floor and found himself
in a crowded, noisy, highly fragrant dormitory. The four
walls were lined with double bunks, some fifty of them,
and five more-or-less even rows of iron cots filled the cen
ter area of the barracks-type room. Men's voices filled the
air
,
men milled to and fro, played cards, drank whisky, read newspapers, slept soundly, just sat on the edge of
their cots and stared into space.

Buchanan worked his way toward a far corner, asked if
a particular lower bunk was taken when he got there,
tossed his hat on it when told it wasn't. He unhitched his
gunrig then, emptied the cylinder of the Colt and sat
down with it to do a little cleaning and adjusting. A fine
piece of hardware, he thought, and was proud of it. But
up in Aura, night before last, he'd detected a slight sluggishness in the mechanism. A man gets used to a hair-
trigger and he's just plain spoiled by anything less.

He worked on the trigger with the small blade in his
jackknife, tightening the delicate mainspring infinitesi
mally, testing the action studiously, and as he worked, lis
tened to the jabberwocky all around him.

Chaz Murto, Buchanan learned, had lost three teeth in
a brawl at the Lone Star Saloon.

Jack Boyd, on the other hand, had cleaned up at Faro's
place.

And did everybody hear that the fiesta out to the ha
cienda had finally ended?

No!

Yes! They brought a load of, girls back as usual this
morning but none went out again.
What the hell was Leech's Army doing down here, any
h
ow?
S
omebody asked and Buchanan's head came up at
mention of the name again.

Leech, a man answered knowingly, was fixing to take
over the whole border country. Set up the Republic of
the Rio Grande, with him as major domo.

He'll have to get past John Lime first.

Looks like a filly did the job already.

Say, did you see them together? Lime paraded her
around town like he had the Queen of Sheba on his arm.
Never saw the man smile before.

And some looker, too. First girl I ever saw him take a
shine to in public.

"Excuse me," someone said close to Buchanan's ear
and he turned to find a dapperly dressed man seated be
side him on the bunk. The man stared at the Colt as if
fascinated.

"Howdy."

"You sure like that gun, don't you?"

"An old friend of mine," Buchanan said.

"Never saw such loving care before. Use it much?"

"Now and then."

"Pretty good with it, though?"

"Fair," Buchanan conceded. "Got a tendency to hit left
of center."

"How much left?"

"A good sixteenth of an inch." He held up his thumb
and forefinger, separated them the width of a .45 slug.
"Missed that far night before last," he reported.

"But you got him?"

"Yeh."

The little man stood up, extended his hand eagerly. "I'm Hal Harper," he said. "Own a blackjack table over
at the Crystal Palace."

Buchanan shook his hand, looked on him with interest.

"My name's Buchanan," he said. "You deal blackjack?"

"Honest Hal and an honest game," the gambler said.

"I believe it. You g
ot any customers name of Perrott
?
Two brothers? Fella name of Sam Gill?"

Hal Harper shook his head. "Friends of yours?"

Buchanan smiled. "Not exactly, no."

"They owe you some money?"

"Something like that." He flipped the cylinder open,
satisfied at last with the trigger, and began dropping in
the lead. Harper watched with great interest.

"I don't place those names," he said. "Wish I could
help you."

"Thanks."

"But you could help me, friend. About twenty-five dol
lars worth."

Buchanan looked up from his loading. From time to
time today he'd given a random thought to his sorry fi
nances, reduced at the moment to one lonely dollar.

"What would I do for the twenty-five?" he asked.

"Keep an eye on me tonight. And that big gun handy."

"Why?"

"It's like this," the gambler said
confidentially
. "I've
had a hardcase on my hands all week. A gunny with the
blood in his eye, if you know what I mean."

"On the prod," Buchanan said.

"Right. And he's picked my game, personal, out of all
the blackjack dealt in this town. Every night he's there,
waiting for me.
”

"You beating him?"

Harper shook his small head. "No, and that's the point. He's, I guess, five, six hundred into me. But some night,
maybe tonight, things are bound to go my way. And,
friend, I'm scared. So scared of what this jasper will do
that I'd just about decided not to go to work tonight.
Then," he said, "I got to watching you work that shooter
and decided to make you this proposition. How about it,
Buchanan?"

Buchanan's eyes held the gambler's fast. "Proddy or
not," he said, "this fella gets an honest deal?"

"Never cheated another man in my life," Harper said
a
nd Buchanan believed him.

Then I'd be glad to watch your game," he said, smiling.
"An
d grateful for the twenty-five."

"Well, fine! Say, I'm hungry. How about you?"

"I would be," Buchanan admitted, "if I had an advance
my night's wage."

The gambler's hand darted beneath his coat, came back
holding a thick roll of bills. He deftly peeled off two tens
and a five, handed them to his new bodyguard.

"And the meal's on me," Harper added. "I got an idea
my luck is riding high."

They left their lodgings, and enroute to the restaurant
Hal Harper gave a rapid-fire account of his life and times.
He'd been born in New York City, the first of nine children whose father had migrated from Ireland and joined
the police force.

"The old man's an Inspector now, but, of course, he dis
owned me a long time ago."

Harper had left the crowded home in New York when
he was fifteen, taken a job on the boat that plied the Hud
son River to Albany.

"Supposed to be working for the line," he said, "but
what I really did was mark for the gamblers. Mark the
passengers who had the best luggage and tipped big."

He did that for a year, and when one of the gamblers
invited him to come along down to New Orleans for the
winter he accepted.
"Is that town all they say?" Buchanan asked.

"Ain't nobody said it all about New Orleans," Harper
said, his voice wistful.
j

"How come you left?"

"A woman," Harper said. "A Creole gal with a Creole
husband. I wasn't going to be much good to her dead."

He had declined the invitation to duel the husband, an
expert swordsman, and left New Orleans for the West, via
Missouri and Kansas.

"Ever get to San Francisco?" Buchanan asked.

"Ever get there? Friend, I spent the five happiest years
of my life on the Barbary Coast. You can have Paris and
London," Harper said, "if you'll give me that Frisco
town!"

"How come you left?"

"A woman," Harper said. "Sweetest little gal I ever laid eyes on. Always smiling and good-natured."

"She had a husband?"

"Me," the gambler said sadly. "I married her. Never saw
a person change overnight once they had a wedding ring.

Wanted me to give up gambling. Wanted me to give up
whisky. Started coming down to my game nights and
raising three kinds of hell."

A cantankerous wife had chased him clear out of Cali
fornia, made him miss the big gold strike and the chance
of a lifetime to make his fortune. He'd tried his luck in
Mexico for a time, then slowly drifted eastward along the
Rio.

"Now I'm in Brownsville," he said as they took their
seats in the restaurant. "Going to build my stake to ten thousand and take another go at New Orleans."

"That's my destination, too," Buchanan said. "Some
time soon, I hope."

"Really?"

"Got a friend there with a good deal. Fella named Duke
Hazeltine
—"

"Duke? You know the duke?"

"We've split a bottle or two. Met him over in El Paso."

"Well, Duke Hazeltine is one of the best! A real gent."

"Glad to hear you say so," Buchanan said, studying the
menu the pretty little waitress had brought. "What's
good?" he asked her.

"The steak."

"Is it long or thick?"

"Thick," she said.

"That's it, then. A little underdone on the inside,
please."

"Same here, Tillie," Harper said, then had his attention
caught by something across the room. "Well, say, she
is
a
looker!" he said enthusiastically.

"Who?"

"The blonde that just arrived with the man himself.
Been hearing about her all afternoon."

Buchanan turned his head to catch the grand entrance
of Miss Cristina Ford and Sheriff Lime. His trail partner
sad shed the boots and levis for a gown of gleaming blue
s
il
k, with a bustle in the back, and her golden-hued hair
was piled atop her head in a maze of ringlets. She looked
to
Buchanan like one of those elegant paintings that hung
in th
e posh bars of San Francisco.