Paid in Blood

Book 2: Buckhorn Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns; General Fiction

Synopsis

From the best-selling chroniclers of the American West comes a riveting new chapter in the epic Buckhorn saga — the legendary adventures of a young gun-for-hire with Indian blood, a lightning-fast trigger, and his own special brand of justice....

When a wealthy cattle baroness hires Joe Buckhorn to track down her son, it sounds like easy money. But when he learns that the boy has run off with a girl — whose father is the leader of the cattle-rustling Riley clan — Buckhorn's only hope is to infiltrate the gang. Gain their trust. Live the outlaw life, even at the risk of death. There's just one problem: there's more than one gang. The Riley girl may have stolen a runaway boy's heart but the other gangs are stealing the baroness's cattle. Which puts Buckhorn in the middle of a violent, bloodsoaked range war. If he chooses the wrong side, he's as good as dead...but if he follows his gut and lives, there's going to be the darkest kind of hell to pay.

Release date: August 28, 2018

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

When Joe Buckhorn emerged from the livery stable and spotted the town marshal striding in his direction, he couldn’t suppress a twinge of apprehension.

Looked like trouble was coming his way already.

Buckhorn had only just arrived in the town of Forbes, Texas. With the sun hanging low in the afternoon sky and the place looking peaceful and sort of welcoming from the knob of a distant hill, he’d decided he would ride in for a good meal and a cold beer, maybe a bath, and then a night’s sleep in a soft bed before moving on in the morning. He wasn’t wanted for anything and wasn’t looking for trouble.

But the lingering memory of times past, when his business and the interests of the law had often been at cross purposes, tended to make him leery whenever he saw somebody wearing a badge headed his way.

Not that the badge-toter in this case looked particularly menacing. He was on the short side, had more than a few years on him, was potbellied and bespectacled, and sported a high-crowned, cream-colored Stetson that appeared at least one size too large so that it rested on the tops of a pair of jug ears.

As if in acknowledgment of his mild appearance, the man walked with somewhat tentative steps rather than the bold, clear-out-of-my-way strides that marked the bullying tactics of too many law enforcers in small settlements across the West. And, if Buckhorn wasn’t mistaken, it sounded as if the man was humming a soft tune as he came down the street.

Buckhorn was still trying to decide what to make of this vision when the livery proprietor, a fellow named Hobbs, came out of the barn and stepped up to stand beside him. Chewing on a long piece of straw that poked out one corner of his mouth, Hobbs said, “Okay. Here comes Elmer now.”

“Elmer?”

“Elmer Dahlquist. Our town marshal.”

“I see the badge. You expectin’ him?”

Hobbs cut Buckhorn a sidelong look.

“Well, yeah. I sent my boy to fetch him right after you rode up.”

Buckhorn looked puzzled for a moment before working that expression into a scowl.

“You sayin’ you called the law on me?”

Hobbs felt the heat from those narrowed eyes and cleared his throat, then said, “No, sir. Not like that, not the way you make it sound—I just let Elmer know you’d showed up, the way he asked some of us business owners to keep an eye out for.”

Buckhorn was growing more confounded and annoyed by the minute.

“The marshal had business owners around town on the lookout for me to show up?” he asked. “What the hell for?”

“Probably be simpler,” Marshal Dahlquist said as he drew closer to the two men, “if you just went ahead and let me explain, Mr. Buckhorn. You are Joe Buckhorn, ain’t that right?”

“That’s right,” Buckhorn said, still with the scowl in place. “But I don’t understand what makes you so doggone interested in me.”

A wan smile came and went on the marshal’s round face.

“Me, personally? I got no special interest in you at all. Not as long as you behave yourself and don’t cause no trouble while you’re in town. My interest in you is strictly on account of this telegram I got a couple days ago.”

Dahlquist produced a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket, unfolded it, held it out to Buckhorn. In the dimming light of early evening, Buckhorn saw that it was from a man named Tolliver, addressed to Dahlquist.

When Buckhorn lifted his eyes after he was done reading, Dahlquist said, “Thad Tolliver is a sheriff farther west and south some. Good man. Works out of the town of Barkley. Don’t know this Danvers personally, but I’ve heard the name. Runs a big ranching operation in that area.”

“Big enough to have the local sheriff acting as a messenger boy for him, it seems,” observed Buckhorn.

“Don’t know about that. Like I said, Tolliver has always been a good man, so I got no problem doing him this favor. You familiar with him or Danvers, either one?”

“Can’t say I am.”

“Well, at least one of ’em seems to know something about you. Enough to describe you and want to hire your, ah, ‘services,’ as the message says.”

“I’ve been doin’ what I do for a while now,” Buckhorn replied. “Long enough for folks to have heard about me and long enough for me to know how to stay on the right side of the law. As far as the description . . . how many big, ugly Indians do you run across wearing a bowler hat and packing a six-gun they look like they know how to use?”

“You make a point there,” Dahlquist said.

There was no denying that Buckhorn’s appearance tended to leave a lasting impression. Tall, lean, solid looking; crow’s wing-black hair and skin bronzed to a deep reddish-brown hue that spoke clearly of the Indian blood in him; hawklike facial features that most would consider to be on the homely side although a surprising number of women seemed to find them intriguing. All decked out in a brown suit jacket and matching vest, neatly knotted string tie, and topped off with a rakishly tilted bowler.

At first glance he might be mistaken for a whiskey drummer or some such—but nobody would maintain that assessment for very long. Not after closer consideration of the hardness around his eyes or the way the Frontier Colt .45 pistol hung loose and ready in the well-worn holster on his hip.

“I guess the only question left now,” Dahlquist went on, jabbing a finger to indicate the paper Buckhorn was still holding, “is how you want to respond to that? I’m sure Virgil Holmes, who runs our telegraph office, has closed up shop for the day. But he’s a pretty amenable fella, especially after he has a good meal in him. Once I know he’s finished supper, I could ask him to send a response to Tolliver and probably have something direct to you from Danvers back in the morning. Unless none of it is any interest to you, then we can just forget the whole thing.”

Buckhorn didn’t have to think on it for very long. His last job, moneywise, hadn’t worked out nearly as well as he’d expected. So if a big Texas rancher had a new proposition to make, he was willing to hear the man out.

As far as Dahlquist’s friendly offer to help speed things along by providing a little extra go-between service, there was a part of Buckhorn that wanted to take him up on it. But at the same time there was also part of him that stubbornly hated being beholden to anybody. He had wrestled with that pride many times in his life, and pride usually won.

So his response was, “I’d be obliged for the chance to hear what this Danvers has to say, Marshal. But I sure hate to step on your telegraph man’s suppertime, not to mention yours. I can wait until morning to respond to this message from the sheriff myself, then see what Danvers comes back with.”

“Nonsense. I still got my evening rounds to make and it won’t take Virgil but two shakes to send that telegram. You wouldn’t be stepping on our time to amount to nothing. You see, Mr. Buckhorn, folks in and around Forbes are real friendly that way—to each other and to strangers passin’ through alike.” Here the marshal showed another brief smile, this one a bit toothier than before. “And when it comes to hired guns like yourself passin’ through—meaning no disrespect to you personally, mind you—I figure our best chance to keep things that way is for me to help move situations like this along.”

Now it was Buckhorn’s turn to smile as he said, “You know, Marshal, I think that was about the most pleasant get-your-ass-out-of-town speech I ever heard.”

Dahlquist held up an admonishing finger.

“Nobody said anything about kicking anybody out of town. Just helping to move the situation along, like I said, that’s all.”

“Well, I guess I can’t hardly blame you for that. And since all I ever intended was to stop for the night anyway, reckon we’re both aimed in the same direction.” Buckhorn handed back the telegram. “If you’ll contact that sheriff over in Barkley, I’d appreciate it. Suppose I can count on you lookin’ me up in the morning when you’ve heard something back?”

“Bright and early.”

Buckhorn gestured toward one of the buildings across the street.

“Sign over there says Hotel and Restaurant. That’s where you’ll find me.”

“Fine place. I recommend it. See you there in the morning.”

In the Star Hotel dining room, Buckhorn enjoyed a fine meal of steak with all the trimmings, washed down by a couple of cold beers and then followed by coffee and a generous slice of just about the best peach pie he’d ever tasted.

When he was done eating, he was directed to a back room on the hotel side where a tub of fresh, hot water was waiting. While he soaked and scrubbed, his clothes and boots were taken for a good brushing.

If anyone had an issue with him being part Indian, Buckhorn saw no sign of it. No sidelong glances or veiled, hostile stares. It appeared Marshal Dahlquist had it right about the folks in his town being real friendly.

In his second-floor room, Buckhorn hung up his freshly brushed outer clothes. He’d changed to clean socks and long johns downstairs and now he took a fresh shirt from his war bag, which he hung with the other garments he’d dress in tomorrow. The dirty items he stuffed down at the bottom of the war bag, telling himself that he’d have to remember to look up a laundry service in Barkley or whatever the next town was that he landed in for any length of time.

Early in his profession as a hired gun, Buckhorn had done some bodyguard work for a rich man whose attention to grooming and attire had left a lasting impression. Buckhorn decided he would pattern his own way of dressing after much of what he’d seen practiced by that wealthy man and others in his circle.

As the son of a “tame” Indian father and a white trash mother who’d abandoned them both when Joe was only six years old, his beginning had been a shabby one. The years that followed with his remaining parent were grim, as Albert Buckhorn took to drink and feeling sorry for himself until he staggered into the middle of the street and got trampled by a runaway freight wagon.

That left Joe facing almost a decade of abusive, filthy living on the reservation where his father’s people didn’t want any more to do with an orphaned half-breed than the white folks in town did.

As a young man, he had left that miserable existence behind and soon discovered that he was good with a gun, but people still regarded him as little better than a cur. If he wanted to climb to a better station in life, he told himself, then he would start by dressing the part. And he’d adhered to that goal ever since.

Tonight, settled into his room at the Star Hotel, Buckhorn was feeling pretty good. Full belly on the inside, boiled and scrubbed clean on the outside, the prospect of a new job on the horizon. The big, soft-looking, fresh-smelling bed beckoned him, and he could hardly wait to stretch out. But first, he decided, he wanted to let in some cool night air.

The room’s single window was tall and narrow, opening onto an elongated balcony that ran across the front of the hotel building. After first dimming the bedside lantern so he would not be silhouetted against a background light, Buckhorn went to the window and prepared to crack it open a few inches.

Looking down on Forbes’s main street, softly illuminated by a series of oil lanterns hung on posts at well-placed intervals, he saw Marshal Dahlquist strolling unhurriedly along on the opposite side, stopping to check and make sure the front doors of each of the buildings he came to were securely locked.

Buckhorn made a little bet with himself that, when he got the window open, he’d be able to hear the marshal softly humming a tune as he went along. It wasn’t very often you ran across somebody who seemed so content in his work.

Buckhorn pushed aside the window’s gauzy curtains. An instant before he twisted the lock tab that would allow the bottom half of the window to be raised, the roar of a heavy caliber gun split the night. Buckhorn jerked back a half step. The sound of the gunshot came from somewhere very close—outside and directly under the balcony, the way it sounded.

Across the street, Elmer Dahlquist’s oversized hat flew off and went spinning one way while the marshal made a dive in a different direction. Buckhorn watched the little man hit the ground and go scrambling with surprising nimbleness toward a thick-walled water trough. As he squirmed in behind the tank he grabbed his pistol.

Two more shots boomed. One slug tore a deep gouge in the dirt, throwing up a geyser of dust and grit right behind where Dahlquist’s heels had been digging a moment earlier. The second one whapped! loudly against the side of the trough.

After spinning and snatching his Colt out of the holster and gunbelt he’d hung on a bedpost, Buckhorn turned back and used the noise of those latest blasts to cover the sound of him throwing the window open wide. He slipped over the sill and onto the balcony, creeping shadow-quiet in his stocking feet.

Below, somewhere in the blackness beyond the reach of the streetlamps at the mouth of an alley running beside the hotel, a voice called out.

“I’ve got you right where I want you, Dahlquist, you son of a bitch! I’ve got seven years of payback built up in my craw, and now it’s time to settle accounts for what you did to me and my little brother Varliss. I ventilated your stupid hat and now I’m gonna do the same to your damn head!”

“Who is that talking, you ambushin’ skunk?” Dahlquist wanted to know. “You got something to settle with me, let’s step on out in the street and do it face to face. Like men!”

“The hell with that! I like things just the way they are,” the gunman in the alley called back. To emphasize his words he fired again and sent another round hammering against the water trough.

Dahlquist popped out long enough to reach around one end of the tank and snap off two shots, shooting blindly into the inkiness of the alley.

“Stretch out like that again, you old bastard, and see what it gets you,” the ambusher mocked.

Having crept to the end of the balcony, Buckhorn eased forward to peer over the railing. It took his vision a moment to adjust, but then, in the murkiness below, he could make out the man shooting at the marshal. He was hunkering behind an enormous rain barrel, an angular specimen clad in a pair of one-strap overalls, lace-up work shoes, and a slouch hat. He was doing his shooting with a long-barreled rifle, a modified Spencer carbine turned into a buffalo gun, probably .56 caliber.

Ordinarily, Buckhorn made it a point never to stick his nose in a situation unless his life was in danger or he had been hired to get involved. But there were times, like now, when a fella had to make exceptions. Elmer Dahlquist had gone out of his way to be fair and friendly, something a half-breed rarely ran into. On top of that, Buckhorn loathed ambushers and back shooters.

Another exchange of shots crackled back and forth across the street. Once again the water trough took a hit, and its contents sloshed and slopped over the edges. Many more impacts like that from the buffalo gun and the tank was liable to rupture wide open, Buckhorn knew.

“Mighty good shootin’ to be able to hit this big ol’ tank from clear across the street. You must’ve been target practicin’ for those seven years,” Dahlquist taunted. Then: “Wait a minute. Seven years? And a brother named Varliss . . . Is that you over there, Clyde Byerby?”

“Give the man a great big see-gar!” crowed the shooter in the alley. “Too bad you ain’t never gonna get the chance to enjoy it, Dahlquist, ’cause I’m gonna blow apart your smoke puffer like a melon dropped from a church steeple.”

Buckhorn could have easily leaned over the balcony and fired down on the ambusher before the man ever knew he was there. Could have killed him with one shot. But the varmint’s own words about dropping a melon from on high gave Buckhorn another idea—one he had a hunch Marshal Dahlquist would be far more approving of.

“You blamed fool, Clyde,” Dahlquist called. “You couldn’t have got out of prison more’n a couple weeks ago. So now you’re gonna shoot me and land yourself right back in?”

“They’ll never put me in the pen again,” Clyde said. “If I can’t make it across the border after I’ve done for you, they’ll have to cut me down. But no matter, however it turns out, at least I’ll have squared things with you!”

While this exchange was taking place, Buckhorn was silently on the move. A row of brightly painted clay pots holding cactus rose plants sat along the railing of the balcony. Buckhorn hefted the nearest of these and found it to have what he judged to be sufficient weight.

Setting his Colt aside, he picked up the potted cactus and carried it over to the end of the balcony. Held at arm’s length, it was almost directly above Clyde Byerby. When the man snugged the buffalo gun to his shoulder again and braced very still, getting ready to trigger another round, Buckhorn released the pot.

He scored a direct hit.

The pot struck the top of the target’s head with a dull clunk! and, mashing flat the slouch hat, broke apart like flower petals opening. Clay shards fell away, spilling clumps of dirt and pieces of cactus down over the ambusher’s shoulders and back. Byerby went limp, arms falling loosely to his sides, rifle slipping from his grasp, body sagging against the big rain barrel like a pile of soiled laundry.

When Buckhorn was satisfied he had knocked the man cold, he straightened up behind the railing and called across the street to Dahlquist, “War’s over, Marshal. You can come claim your prisoner now.”

Dahlquist peeked cautiously above the edge of the water trough, and then he, too, stood up. He still held his pistol at the ready. The front of his clothes were soaked and there was a smudge of mud on one cheek. Lifting his chin to gaze up at the hotel balcony, he said, “Is that you, Buckhorn?”

“None other.”

Now that the shooting had stopped, lights started appearing in the windows of living quarters over some of the businesses lining the street. Two or three men emerged tentatively from the front of the saloon down in the next block, and Buckhorn thought he could hear a sudden scurry of activity downstairs in the lobby of the hotel.

“What did you do to Byerby?” Dahlquist wanted to know.

“He found out he was allergic to cactus rose plants. You’d better get over here and slap some cuffs on him before he regains consciousness. I’ll be down as soon as I get some pants on.”

By the time Buckhorn made it down through the lobby and out to the street—after donning not only his pants but also his boots and gunbelt—quite a crowd had gathered in front of the alley next to the hotel. There was an edge of annoyance in Elmer Dahlquist’s normally mild tone as he tried to answer jabbering questions as politely as he could while alternately barking orders in an attempt to keep the scene under control.

When he spotted Buckhorn shouldering his way through the crowd, the marshal’s frown fell away. Smiling, he said, “Here’s the man of the hour now. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Joe Buckhorn—not only a hired gun of wide renown, but well on his way to becoming one of the most feared potted plant-slingers in the West.”

There was actually a smattering of applause from some of those present, thinking the marshal was truly being serious. Most of the others just looked a bit puzzled.

Unruffled by the good-natured rib, Buckhorn came to stand before the marshal and said, “I may quit carrying a six-gun altogether, soon as I’ve perfected a brace of holsters so’s I can pack a potted plant on each hip.”

Dahlquist’s expression turned serious.

“Well, you sure got the job done with one tonight,” he said for everybody to hear. “And you just may have saved my life in the process. For that I’m mighty grateful.”

“Trouble is,” Buckhorn said, gesturing to the shredded Stetson Dahlquist had retrieved from the middle of the street and now stood fidgeting with, “I wasn’t in time to save that fancy hat of yours.”

“This old thing?” Dahlquist said, continuing to worry the Stetson between his hands. “It was a gift from my late wife, just before she passed on. Special ordered from some fancy haberdashery in Dallas.” A lingering sadness touched his face for a moment before he realized it, and he quickly covered it with a wry twist of his mouth. “Anybody could see the blamed thing was a mile too big, but I didn’t have the heart to hurt her feelings by not wearing it. And after she was gone, well, I just kept on wearing it. Reckon I’ve got cause to buy one that fits proper now.”

“Reckon so,” Buckhorn agreed in a somber tone. “The right hat’s a serious thing for a man.”

Shortly past noon on the following day, Buckhorn rode out of Forbes and headed southwest toward Barkley County and the Danvers ranch that reportedly occupied a large percentage of it.

In an exchange of telegrams earlier that morning, he had gotten the basic details of the job he was being offered, what it would pay, and a sweetener in the form of a promise for a healthy up-front fee that would be waiting for him if he could come right away. Buckhorn had wired back his acceptance of the job and his assurance that he was on his way.

Elmer Dahlquist, wearing a new hat that fit much better but unfortunately did nothing to hide his jug ears, had shown up at the livery stable to see him off.

“Still don’t see why you don’t wait and start out fresh in the morning,” he’d said. “You ain’t gonna make it all that far before sundown catches you.”

“You said Barkley County is about a day-and-a-half ride,” Buckhorn reminded him. “I knock off the half part today, I’ve got a chance of being there by tomorrow night. You read the sense of urgency in those wires from Danvers. Sounded like time was pretty important.”

Dahlquist sighed and said, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Besides, speaking of time—yesterday you were pushing for me to make my time here as short as possible. Now you’re suggesting I stay extra.” Buckhorn smiled. “Make up your doggone mind.”

“Havin’ somebody save your life changes a fella’s outlook considerable.”

“Aw, come on,” Buckhorn said, starting to feel more than a little uncomfortable from all the praise that had been heaped on him by that point. “I helped you out of a tight, yeah. But there’s no way of knowing that I saved your life. Hell, you would have figured out a way to handle that Byerby character.”

“Not if he’d’ve blasted apart that blamed water trough—which he was on the verge of doin’ with that big old buffalo gun, and you know it.”

“The only thing I know for sure,” Buckhorn said, “is that all that shootin’ was keeping me from getting a good night’s sleep. So I was able to help quiet things down. By the way, what are you gonna do with that varmint?”

“Byerby? Send his ass back to prison if I have any say in the matter,” Dahlquist huffed. “I tried to help the blamed fool the first time around. I couldn’t keep his brother Varliss from being hanged, but I spoke up at Clyde’s trial and he served prison time instead. Look what it got me!”

“More important,” Buckhorn said solemnly, “look what it damn near got you. Don’t go soft and speak up for him no more. Let the ungrateful dog rot behind bars.”

“Don’t worry. I might be a sentimental old fool sometimes,” the marshal assured him, “but never twice over the same thing.”

“Once can be enough to get you killed. Best to tighten up all the way around,” Buckhorn advised him as he swung into the saddle and pointed his steeldust to the west and some south.

“I’ll work on that. Wishin’ you luck on your job over in Barkley. You ever come back around these parts, stop by. You’ll always be welcome in my town.”

Words like those were damn seldom handed out to somebody in Buckhorn’s line of work, and a half-breed to boot. Hearing them made the gunman feel strange inside. But then he remembered his own advice.

“See? Right there,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re too damn sentimental for your own good.”

“Don’t worry,” Dahlquist called after him. “I see you comin’, I’ll hide all the potted plants.”

He held the steeldust to a steady pace throughout the balance of the day, across rolling, treeless plains interrupted occasionally by lonely, flat-topped buttes or sudden, twisting canyons that made Buckhorn think of gouges torn in the earth by a giant, ragged fingernail.

As darkness descended, Buckhorn stopped and made camp near the base of one of the buttes where a row of stubborn pines had taken root. After seeing to his horse’s needs, he got a small fire going and boiled a pot of coffee. Along with a cup of the bitter brew, he ate the two beef sandwiches he’d purchased from the hotel restaurant before leaving Forbes.

When he was done eating, he poured himself a second cup of coffee, liberally doctoring this one with sugar. Then he set the pot off the coals and left the fire to fade as he stretched out on his bedroll with the sweetened coffee and willed himself into a relaxed state that would eventually allow sleep to come.

He thought about the job he was headed to take on. It sounded a bit more complex and intriguing than most of the work that had been coming his way of late. Usually he found himself hiring out to serve as a menacing presence on one side (ordinarily the most aggressive one, sometimes the most desperate) in a range war or land grab, or to body-guard some rich individu. . .