Buchanan's Revenge (2 page)

“No charge for
friendship," he'd told the other man but
Bogan had shaken his
head vigorously, pushed the money
toward him again.

"I
t’s yours, son, to do with as
you see fit. I won't have it
any other way.”

Nor would he. So, when Buchanan arrived in San Antone
—after a six-month stint herding beef along the
Rio Grande—he had the thousand intact in his kick plus
an extra two hundred. In the first two saloons he was
given the same information: they knew Rig Bogan, all
right, but until he settled his bar bill and stopped his
everlasting brawling he was not welcome in either place.
". . . and, stranger, if that worthless tramp owes you
money, too, then you'll just have to take it out of his
hide."

In both places Buchanan settled the accounts, a total
of sixty dollars, and when he inquired in the third saloon the name that Jessie Bogan had mentioned came back to
him.

"Do you know a lady name of Ruth Stell?" he asked
and the bartender snickered unpleasantly.

"A lady, no," he answered. "But there's a Ruthie works
down to Queenie's place."

"Works at what?"

"Oldest work there is, mister."

"And where is Queenie's?"

"Down in La Villita, the Spanish section." He smiled
crookedly. "You won't have to look for it," he said,
"you'll hear it coming."

Buchanan did hear it, four blocks away
—blaring music,
sporadic gunfire, squealing girls and shouting men. A
great, gaudy pile of wood was Queenie's, four stories high,
where four different businesses were being run at the
same time, under the same roof, and each one going full
blast Every seat at every gambling table was taken, every foot of dance floor was in use, they clamored three deep at
the sixty-foot bar and the procession going up and down the wide staircase to the rooms above was about as continuous as Buchanan had seen since he'd left San Fran
cisco.

And surveying it all from a balcony high on one wall,
gazing down like some pagan goddess, was absolutely the
grossest,
u
g
lie
st acc
u
m
u
l
a
tio
n
of female flesh ever stuffed
into a ten
t-l
ike black beaded gown. Absolutely, Buchanan told himself
judiciously
, looking at her with the same frank
wonder that his own appearance nearly always occasioned.

His concentration was broken by a hand pulling insistently on his arm and he glanced down into a pair of mis
chievous brown eyes, an apple-cheeked face and a ripe
young figure enclosed in a green silk dress that eliminated all speculation.

"Hey, big honey," she shouted above the din, "how
about me?"

"You Ruth Stell?"

"I'm Lottie-Mae, big honey! And all yours ..."

"Show me Ruth Stell, would you?"

"Find her yourself," Lottie-Mae said sulkily and flounced
off with her tailgate carried high. Buchanan shouldered
his way to a place at the jam
packed bar, ordered a beer
from the sweating, bad-tempered barman. His nickel was
scooped up.

"Wait a minute, friend."

"Now what?"

"Which one is Ruth Stell?"

"Jesus Christ! Fifty chippies floating around and I'm
supposed to . . ."

"Hey, where's that drink I ordered?" a voice bellowed
and the bartender fled. Buchanan tried a waiter next, a
young Mex, but the boy only shrugged his thin shoulders
and hurried his full tray to the gambling section. Then
Buchanan was being asked for information by a slim, silky-
voiced man in a tailored black jacket and string bowtie.

"What's our problem tonight, cowboy?" he asked and Buchanan got the definite impression that brush poppers
were this fellow's social inferiors.

"Why, no problem, dudey," he said softly. "Unless you brought one with you."

"Queenie's been watching you," the man told him, the
slightest edge in his tone. "Queenie says for a nickel beer
you're disrupting a lot of service and on top of that she
don't like the way you stared at her when you came in."

Buchanan swung his back on the man and raised his
glance to the woman on the balcony again. "What does
t
h
e queen bee weigh, you reckon?" he asked aloud.

"Cowboy," came the tight reply, "you're looking up at
the best lip reader in all the States and Territories
—see what I mean?"

"I saw her move her ten chins up and down. What does
that mean?"

"It means you're leaving the premises immediate."

Buchanan looked back over his shoulder at the man,
grinned wickedly.

"What'll you bet?" he asked him.

"Lay you six to one," was the confident answer. "And I
ain't lost yet." His dark, cynical eyes were watching some
thing developing beyond Buchanan and the big man
turned to see it, too.

One, two, three, four, five he counted. Five scowling,
dull-eyed beef-eaters bearing down on him in a group, in
cadence, one simple idea in their collective mind. The dancers stopped dancing, opened up to let them through.
The music faded away. The mob at the bar swung silently
to watch and even the sound of clinking chips and whir
ring roulette wheels ceased, for the regulars knew that
rarely, rarely did Queenie send her whole riot squad
against a single offender.

"You said six to one," Buchanan was saying conversationally to the man at his back. "You including yourself in
on the doin's?"

"If it comes to that, cowboy. Now why don't you just
about face and walk out of here with your health?"

"I like the bet," Buchanan said cheerfully. "A hundred
dollars worth?"

"You're faded." The five of them were there then,
forming a truculent, slavish semi-circle around the object
of Queenie's disfavor. Buchanan looked into each face,
his grin grown broader, wilder. Behind him the dapper
houseman was exchanging a last glance with the balcony,
spread his arms expressively. Queenie's chins jiggled up and
down with great eagerness.

"Put him in the street, boys," said the silken voice.
"Hard!"

The first surprise was a tactical one. By ancient tradition
the bouncer attacks the troublemaker. The troublemaker's
role is a defensive one, delaying tactics, commit as much
damage in retreat as he is able. He is, also, by tradition,
either very drunk or very angry. Buchanan was neither.
He was joyously sober, in a gala mood, and the prospect of
a good rough and tumble after six hard, dull months herd
ing cattle brought a thunderous, rather frightening roar
of laughter bursting from the depths of his chest.

On that note he waded in, having chosen Number three, in the middle, as his first objective. He caught
him
in the middle, too, marking the soft bellies on all of them, and with his left fist b
uried wrist-deep into flesh he cl
ubbed the man senseless with a short, choppy, overhand
right Number four never got his hands up, either. He
stepped flat-footed, in fact, into a hard, straight left that
h
ad a
ll
of Buchanan's incredible shoulder driving it.

Now speed was everything, and he was a blur of motion
as
h
e swung on Numbers one and two, wrapped his great
lands around their thick necks and brought their skulls
crashi
ng
together with a sickening sound that carried loud
a
n
d
cl
ear to the gawking, open-mouthed spectator in the
balcon
y seat

Buchanan let them drop, turned leisurely, expect
antly t
o Number five. But that one had seen enough and
h
e wa
sn
't having any. Not for any forty a month. He
backed off,
hands upraised before him as though Bu
chanan carried
two guns rather than fists, almost tripped
over
one of his unconscious friends, then whirled
and broke
into full retreat.

From
th
e bar came a loud, warm-sounding cheer and
Buchanan
waved a greeting. "Drink 'er down, boys," he
invited.
"I
g
ot six hundred dollars coming!" But as he
turn
ed t
o coll
ect the bet the smile faded from his face and t
h
e
blue
eyes grew dangerously chill. The slim houseman
had drawn
a two-barrelled Derringer, had it leveled at
B
uchanan’s h
eart.

"
You ain’t won a
thing, cowboy," he said tensely. "Get
out or get killed.
"

A six-gun roared t
hree
times, and three times the man's
body
jerke
d convulsively.
He was dead as he fell to the
floor
. A dark-be
ard
ed, heavy-set individual stepped from
his
p
l
ace at the ba
r
,
h
olstering the Colt as he came.

"Obliged to von," B
u
chanan said.

"He
ll
, fun is fun," that one growled, rolling the dead
man on his back with the toe of his boot "What'd you say
the snake owed you?"
"That debt's paid, friend."

"Anything else you need?"

"Ye
a
h," Buchanan said, "an introduction to Ruth Stell."

His new friend looked around at the silently staring
crowd, pointed his arm at a brunette woman who had been
dancing. "Step over here, Ruthie," he commanded, "and
meet a man for a change."

Ruth Stell hesitated, looked to the balcony for instruc
tions. But Queenie, white-faced, kept her own gaze riveted
on Buchanan.

"Come on, Ruthie," the bearded man shouted. "Since
when are you so bashful?" The brunette moved from her
companion, came toward them with an expression of defiance and a confident sway of hips that was obviously
feigned.

"You lookin' for me?" she asked tartly. Buchanan found
a kind of prettiness in her face, but hardness, too, and a
whore's calculating eyes. Her best attraction was her fig
ure, but the tall man doubted if it was worth a hitch in
Huntsville.

"You seen enough?" she snapped, a hand on her hip.

Buchanan nodded. "Where can I find Rig Bogan?" he
asked.

Suspicion flooded her. "What's Rig to you?"

"A kid I used to know."

"Well, he ain't no kid now."

"So I hear. Where can I find him?"

"He don't want to see anybody."

"He'll want to see me," Buchanan said. "I got something for him."

"What?"

"Money," he said, and smiled at the magic change that
worked.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" she said in an entirely
new voice. "Come on, I'll take you to him."

She had attached herself to his arm like an eager leech,
but Buchanan held back for another moment, extended
his hand to the bearded man.

"The name's Buchanan," he told him, "and I hope I
can return the favor."

Tm Jeb Wilson," the man said in his gruff way, "and
you
can do yourself a favor by staying away from that Bogan maverick. Nothin' but a drunk and a deadbeat."

Of all the estimates of Jess Bogan's boy that Buchanan
had heard, this one from Jeb Wilson counted the hardest.
Rig was more even than a fellow West Texan. He was Big
Bend, born and raised, and Buchanan's best recollection
of him was a friendly, gangling, freckle-faced kid that his
own bunch, two and three years older, let tag along on
whatever business they were about. He was the sheriff's
son and that gave him a certain standing, but to hear
what he had made of himself was a real discouragement.

"There's going to be a change in Rig Bogan," Buchanan
told Jeb Wilson. "You'll be proud to know him, one day
soon."

"Could be," Wilson said, gazing around the floor at the
wreckage of Queenie's feared riot squad. "I saw some
thing else happen tonight that I didn't believe possible."

Buchanan bid him good-by, tipped his Stetson toward
lie balcony in a good-natured gesture of peace, and let
R
u
thie Ste
ll
lead him out. When they reached the street he
q
ui
t
e
expected they would turn uptown, but they went
left, instead, deeper into the dark and unpromising heart
o
f La Villita. They came, finally, to a shabby gray frame
house
—a sagging shack, really—and she started inside.

"He lives here?" Buchanan asked, wondering how any
Alpine
son
could choose this when he had the whole
Toss sky for a roof.

“I
live here," the girl said. "Rig sort of boards, but I
never
see no rent money." She pushed the creaking door
capes and Buchanan followed her into the musty-smelling
room. He made out the outline of a table in the darkness,
t
w
o
c
ha
irs
.

"Rig?" she called aloud into the opening of the other
"Company come to call, Rig!" The
r
e was no answer
beyond. "I
’
ll go wake him if I can," she said.
"What'd you say your name was?"

"Tell him if s Tom Buchanan. From old Alpine."

She went in there and he could hear her talking to him,
urgently, saying "Tom Buchanan" and "Alpine" and "Got money for you, baby." And a voice he had to assume was
Rig Bogan's was murmuring groggily, unintelligibly. She
kept at him with persistence, and after another full minute a man's form appeared in the doorway. Not so tall as Buchanan, but taller than most men, and Buchanan tried to associate it with the tagalong kid of other, more care
free days.

"Hello, Rig," Buchanan said, his voice sounding espe
cially deep and resonant in this small dark place.

"What the hell do you want with me?" Bogan answered,
the drink and sleep making his own voice furry.

"Come on and take a walk outside," Buchanan said, de
ciding that now was not the time to tell the other man
his mission in San Antone.

"Ruthie said you had money for me ..."

"Let's walk a while."

"Walk, hell! I walked for two straight years in Hunts
ville. Or ain't you heard about that?"

"I heard, Rig."

"Yeah? Who told you?"

"Your daddy told me."

"Pa?" he said, stricken-sounding. "Oh, Jesus, how'd Pa
hear it?"

"Lawmen write back and forth. That's what you should
have done ..."

"Let's get to the money," Ruthie said, lighting one
candle and then a second. Buchanan stared unhappily at
what he saw of Rig Bogan now and what he remembered
of some ten years ago. Unshaven, haggard-eyed, gone slack
around the mouth. He even had to lean against the door
frame for support. And the clothes on his back looked as
though they hadn't been washed or aired for a month.

"Rig," Buchanan said with his natural candor, "you
look like hell."

"Who asked you anyhow?"

"Just give him his money," Ruthie said, "and leave him
be. I know how to take care of him."

B
uch
anan's glance was sardonic. "Don't do me the same
fa
v
or
,
ma'am," he requested.

""Give Rig his money," she repeated.

"There is no money," Buchanan told her.

"You said there was!"

"I figure
d that would make you cooperate some. Com
e on,
Rig, let's get some fresh air."

"O
h,
no you don't!" the girl said angrily. "You give him
that
money right here wh
e
re I can see it . . ."

"You didn't marry this boy, did you?"

"No,
I’
m not married to him. But I been keeping him
since he got out of prison and I'm entitled to my
share.”

"
You
do any share of his two years at Huntsville?"

“
What?"

"Story I heard," the big man said quietly, "Rig did his
time
on your account. Maybe you owe him a lot of
keeping.”

“I
do
n
't owe him a goddamn thing! Was it my fault
that stingy
old man got back from Abilene a night earlier?
Did
I put the knife in Rig's hand and tell him to use it?"

"
I w
asn't there, ma'am," Buchanan said. "Come on,
Rig.”

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Bogan said, straighten
ing his
body
and taking a step toward Ruthie. "What the
do you
mean, you didn't put the knife in my hand?"

“I didn’t!”