Buchanan's Revenge (9 page)

"Thank you," she said and that reminded him.

"Thank you for the use o
f your bed last night," he told
her. "And the clean shirt."

She colored slightly, smiled at him. "I was
—surprised
to find you gone," she said, choosing that word at the
last moment.

"Yeh," Buchanan said, cutting off any further conver
sation. "Well, let's ride." He took off abruptly, at a restless
trot, and she was some seconds in following. This, Cristy thought, is a different man than the warm and easygoing one she had felt so comfortable with last night. She could
remember how he looked when she'd come back to the
room and found him so peacefully sleeping, how she'd sat
in the chair and been content to observe him in repose
for the better part of an hour. Gaze at him and know that
for all the strong and proud and fiercely independent men who came in off the trail this one here was what the Mexicans meant by un hombre
todo.
All man
—and, for
now, within the four walls of her small room, all hers.
Other women who had thought the
same? Oh, yes. The
battered nose and the crescent scar on his cheekbone had
come from men. But the gentle curve at the end of his
lips, the smile in his eyes, the caressing tone of his voice
—those had been gifts from beautiful women.

She could remember the sharp sense of loss to awake
this morning and find him gone. The impulse that had seized her to follow after him, to go wherever he went...

But he was changed now. He was hard and withdrawn,
cold and aloof on the outside but consumed by a fire that
raged in his mind and his heart. His partner had been
killed and robbed. He was going to avenge that even at
the cost of his own life. And there was no place in those
grim plans for a woman and her feminine ways. She knew
that and rode on behind him, keeping silent.

Six

T
he wildest
of the wild towns on the border of the
Rio Grande was Brownsville. There were five thousand
people living there, mostly Mexican, but it was the Amer
icans and French who raised all the hell. Escaped crim
inals headed for Brownsville
—thieves, murderers, rapists
—as if it were second nature. So did the deserters from
the army, and discredited gamblers, and swindlers, and
scores of other men whose souls were bankrupt. And their women. Women who belonged to everybody and anybody.
This is not to say there wasn't law in Brownsville. There was. His name was John Lime. Sheriff Lime had been a
captain with the famous Doniphan Raiders during the
war, a slim, medium-sized man possessed of outsized per
sonal courage, and though a lot of men wondered how
Lime perpetuated himself in office, or how he had come
to power in the first place, there were very, very few who
had ever asked out loud and lived to hear an answer.

Sheriff Lime, who was forty years old, considered
Brownsville as his personal preserve and dispensed his jus
tice on a personal level
—without wasting time on juries
and judges. Or jails. Oh, Brownsville owned a jail—a door-
less, open-air adobe building whose guards were a trio of vicious mastiffs—but John Lime considered confinement a
waste of effort except in special cases. A serious crime,
such as out-and-out murder, cheating at cards, armed rob
bery of a merchant or the bank, was punishable by hang
ing over in Shantytown. Lesser criminals were simply run
out of town by Lime's tough, well-disciplined band of dep
uties.

John Lime enjoyed dispensing the law for its own sake,
but there were other compensations. There were in
Brownsville, for instance, a total of fifty gambling houses, saloons and bordellos, and the sheriff was a full partner in
every one. He also participated in both the toll bridge
across the river to Matamoros and the ferryboat. Nor did
a single steamboat tie up at a Brownsville wharf without
paying tribute, in the form of a daily permit, to the sher
iff's office. His income was considerable, and John Lime
was a wealthy man.

But he did like his job and the power, and he did take a
proprietary interest in Brownsville
—which might just as
well have been called Limesville or Johnstown—and when
Bert Bronsen and Ezra Owens first thought of their
scheme to run contraband cargo past the Mexican cus
toms they were careful to bring it to John Lime for his approval. The sheriff heard them out with a thoughtful
expression on his lean, handsome face.

"I have no objection, gentlemen," he said then, "to
your wanting a larger return for your labors. But I don't
like Red Leech coming in here with his so-called army. I
don't like that part of your plans at all."

"Do you know him, John?" Bronsen asked.

"I know his reputation as a terrorist and bully. I've
heard of his insatiable lust for women. Keeps a veritable
- harem up at that fort of his, so I'm told."

"Yes, we've heard all that, too," Owens said. "But he
also has a reputation for licking Mexican armies at their
own damned game."

"And without him," Bronsen said, "we couldn't attempt
to put our goods across the river. Unless, of course, you'd
recruit an army of your own."

Lime put his hand up, shook his head. "That would be
out of the question. From an operation such as you gentlemen are planning there are bound to be repercussions.
Loud enough to be heard clear to Washington." He flicked
the ash from his panatella, smiled at them. "And as you
probably all know," he added urbanely, "I may have other
fish to fry in that direction."

There was polite laughter. Bronsen and Owens had
heard that their youngish sheriff was ambitious to test his

influence outside of Brownsville, that he was preparing to
challenge formidable old Sam Houston for his seat in the
U.S. Senate and control of state politics.

"Those fish, John," Bronsen said, "can get expensive.
Votes cost money."

"All contributions," Lime said, "are gratefully ac
cepted."

"The Merchants Association would be proud to have
our own sheriff sitting for us in the Senate," Bronsen
said. "And we'd be happy to contribute to his campaign
—out of any extra profits we might make in the near fu
ture."

Lime blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "In
stead of Red Leech," he asked, "couldn't you bribe the
Mexican general?"

"We've tried that," Ezra Owens said, "and gotten badly
stung. They're just not to be trusted."

"We need Leech and his gunfighters," Bronsen said
flatly.

The sheriff looked at him. "All right," he said. "But on
three conditions. Number one, that Leech and his men
be quartered beyond the city limits. Number two, that you
begin your operation within one week after Leech arrives in this territory. And number three, that Leech and com
pany do not return here when their work is concluded." He smiled. "And to guarantee that I want a bond in the sum of five thousand dollars posted for each condition."

The merchants looked from the smiling man to each
other, nodded. Owens got to his feet.

"We'll post the bonds in the morning, Sheriff," he said.

"Good. Of course, they're forfeit in any event."

"I assumed as much," Bronsen said. "Our contribution
to your campaign."

"Your first one, gentlemen," Lime said cheerfully. "I'm
told that General Houston has almost unlimited resources at his command."

The businessmen left the meeting. The embargo was
put in effect next day and the booming trade between the
United States and Mexico
—via Brownsville and Matamo
ros—ground to a shattering halt. For sixty days not a ship
ment crossed the river, not one of any importance, and
the eager Mexican buyers who came over to see what had
happened were advised to quadruple their orders for cot
ton and tools and await delivery some dark night in the
near future. The Mexicans paid their money and went
back home to wait and worry. The goods they'd bought,
meanwhile, piled
up on the Brownsville docks, fill
ed ware
houses to the bursting point.

Red Leech, escorted by Lash Wall and seven unshaven, rifle-bearing bodyguards, rode into Brownsville when the
embargo was in its forty-fifth day. And on that same afternoon six spruced-up mules were taking Rig Bogan and his
red wagon south out of San Antonio.

Bert Bronsen, Ezra Owens and Ed Boone were a com
mittee of three who took the renegade and his lieutenant
to a rendezvous with John Lime. Leech, mellowed by the
quart of whisky he had consumed since breakfast, took the
slender man's hand and gazed down at him with a benevolent leer.

"So you got this town in your back pocket, do yuh?" he boomed.

Lime withdrew his hand, hooded his eyes. "I enforce
the law here, yes," he answered.

"So I hear, brother! And, brother, you know what you
did one year ago?" He turned to Lash Wall. "Ain't this the
one?" he asked.

Wall, his cool gaze on Lime's face, nodded briefly.

"You know what you did?" Leech repeated.

"What?"

"Why, you sonofabitch, you hung one of my boys!"
Leech roared and it was hard to tell whether he was happy
about it or enraged. "Stretched poor old Chug Murrow,
that's what you did!"

"Murrow?" Lime repeated. "I think he's the one who
held up the Diamond Bar and shot Saul Petit."

"Wouldn't be surprised!" Leech agreed. "But, brother,
you went and hung old Chug. One of my boys!"

Lime waited patiently until the echoes died away. Then
he said, "And I'd do it again, Leech. To any of your
gang."

"Me included?" Leech demanded, grinning through his
beard.

"You and any man who breaks the law in Brownsville,"
Lime told him calmly.

Leech thumped him on the back. "Don't bite off what
you can't chew, brother," he shouted at him with a great pealing laugh. "And, brother, I'm some mouthful!"

Lime measured the red-haired giant for a moment,
glanced at Bert Bronsen. "Have you explained the condi
tions yet?
”

"We, ah, haven't had a chance."

"What conditions, Sheriff?" Lash Wall asked quietly.

"Yeah, what conditions?" Red Leech demanded.

Lime ignored them, gazed steadily at Bronsen. The
merchant cleared his throat nervously.

"We have agreed to certain things," Bronsen began.
"The first is that you and your men are to stay out of the
city. We have a very nice house prepared for you outside
town. It's large and comfortable and will make a fine
headquarters."

"But we're not good enough to come into your town, is
that it, Sheriff?" Lash Wall asked. He smiled then. "Or
maybe we're a little
too
good for you to handle?"

Leech roared an approving laugh. "You tell 'im, Lash! You tell 'im!"

John Lime and Lash Wall locked glances. There was mutual respect.

"Explain condition number two," Lime said to Bron
sen.

"We're to begin the operation in one week," Bronsen
said. "Will your men all be here by then?"

"My boys are to hell and gone, brother! How do I know when they'll get here?"

"And there's another thing, Sheriff," Lash Wall said. "I
want to go over the route foot by foot. Especially where
we cross the Rio with these goods. That'll take time."

"How much time?"

"More than a week. Two weeks. Maybe three."

"Two," Lime told him and somehow they had bypassed
Red Leech. Lash Wall nodded.