One-Man Massacre (10 page)

"Better take it easy, Buchanan," he told him doubt
fully. "Don't push your luck."

"Don't push what luck? I was in pretty fair shape till
I came down here."

"Please, Tom, lie down," Rose
m
arie asked him plain
tively.

"Man, just look at my duds," Buchanan said, observing
for the first time that half his shirt was cut away, that
only one trouser leg was intact. "Town looked so peaceful,
too, from the mountain."

"I'll outfit you," Neale said, bridling at the disparage
ment of Scotstown. "But don't blame the folks here for
your troubles. It came from outsiders, just
—"

"Just what?" Buchanan asked him. "Outsiders just like
myself?"

"True, ain't it? You're a stranger, and all of them are
strangers. You just happened to pick this town to fight it
out."

"Billy!"

"Well, that's what happened, isn't it?" Neale replied
to the girl. "This is quiet, decent cattle country. Every
body works hard and takes time out Saturday night. Fist-
fights, sure. But a man don't take a gun into town." He
paused, stared defiantly at Buchanan. "I'm twenty-eight
years old," he said, "and you're the first man I ever knew
that killed another
—that ever even pointed a loaded gun
at another."

"Billy
—stop!" Rosemarie cried. "He did what he had to do tonight. They gave him no choice ..."

"No," Buchanan said, his voice calm against the charged
emotion of theirs. "I had a choice. In the saloon I could
have walked out, like the proddy told me to. In the dance-hall I had even less excuse. I pointed a loaded gun at that
son, whoever he was, for no better reason than I was sore
at him."

"I talked without thinking, Buchanan," Billy Neale
said. "Sorry."

"Not as much as I am. Also much obliged, which is
more important. Damned if I could have kept opening that door."

"You would."

"I don't know," Buchanan said. "A man likes to think
he would, but I don't know."

"It was a wonderful, brave thing," Rosemarie added.

"And I'm living proof of it," Buchanan said. "I was
there!"

"If you're trying to pull my stinger, mister," Neale said,
then smiled, "well, you've done it. I'll go see what I can
do about a shirt and pants." He looked the big man over
again and shook his head. "Going to fit damn quick, I promise you that."

The cowboy left, and left a silence behind him. Not a
tranquil, comfortable sort of quiet, but an electric one,
charged with the woman's awareness of the bare-waisted
man and his awareness of her interest.

Rosemarie spoke into it, uneasily.

"Even if you get another outfit," she said, "you can't travel anywhere. Not yet, Tom."

"You don't happen to smoke, do you?" Buchanan asked.

"Smoke?"

"Somewhere along the line," he said wistfully, "I lost
my makings. A little tobacco would be fine right now."

"Would there be any in a hardware shop?" Rosemarie
wondered, momentarily untracked from her main subject
—as he had intended.

"Not likely."

"I
’
ll ask for some in the Glasgow," she offered. "You
wait right here, now."

"I
’
ll wait."

Neale returned first, bring
ing a rider's work shirt of dur
able flannel and twill trousers with reinforced knee
pads.

"These are brand new," Buchanan said, feeling the
cl
oth respectfully.

"Bought 'em this evening," Neale admitted, "Must've
h
ad a premonition."

"How much they set you back?'

"Bought 'em at the company store. Forget about it."

"Ten dollars?"

"Not half. Where's Rosemarie?"

"Beggin' me some tobacco."

"Hell, I got some. Here."

"Got my own, thanks."

"Then how come
—"

"Just hoping you'd get back first," Buchanan explained,
peeling off the remnants of the trousers with an effort,
having to sit down on the cot again while he slowly put
his legs through the new ones.

"You're really going to leave tonight?"

"Got to."

"And you're afraid she'll hold you back?"

Buchanan pushed himself to his feet and pulled the
shirt around his shoulders. As Neale had warned, the out
fit was snug. He began to button it across his chest, la
boriously, when the cowboy realized there had been no answer to his question.

"Must be tough, Buchanan
—girl like Rosemarie throw
ing herself at you."

The tall man continued to dress himself, stuffed the
shirttail deep into the trousers, still not answering. But
then his eyes lost their preoccupied look and focused in
tently on Neale's face.

"You bet it's tough," he said, almost threateningly. And
that was all he said, leaving the other man puzzled.

"I'd trade places with you," Neale said.

"And do what different?" Buchanan asked, moving slowly across the small room to the desk where Smith kept his books. He found a marking pencil there and a
sheet of yellow paper.

"I'd take her with me," Neale said. "Wherever I was
going."

"No you wouldn't," Buchanan told him without inter
rupting his writing. "Not if you'd ever been where I'm
going." He straightened up then, carried the paper back
to Neale, and handed it to him. To Mr. B. Neale, it read.
I.O.U. ten (10)
dollars gold, U.S.A. currency. T. Bu
chanan.

"You're a stubborn son," Neale told him.

"Must be." He held out his big hand. "So long, Billy Neale," he said.

Neale shook the hand. "Where's your horse at? I'll
walk you there."

"Had a horse four months ago," Buchanan said.
"Traded him for a burro team
—" he grinned—"and the
burros died on the mountain."

Neale shook his head. "Man, you're really hard up,
aren't you?"

"Not according to my partner. He tells me I'm worth
a couple of million, at least. See you in church," he said
from the doorway, and limped out.

Scotstown was quiet now, the street deserted, and the
only light still glowing came from the Glasgow. As
Buchanan glanced that way the swinging doors parted
and Rosemarie came onto the street, her head bent in
earnest conversation with Angus Mulchay. He watched her come on for another moment, long enough to make
her image indelible, and then slipped out of sight around
the corner of the building. He went that way until he
reached the next street, swung south and headed for the
towering black mass that was the mountain.

You
bet it's
tough, he said, but nobody heard him.

NINE

G
oing
to church on Sunday morning was an integral
part of the life in Scotstown, and it would be safe
to estimate that on this particular sunny Sunday in June
some ninety per cent of the town's three hundred-odd
population were attending services in the handsome new
building Malcolm Lord had been so instrumental in
erecting.

And because the rancher was such a prominent member
of his congregation, the Reverend Jamieson was willing to forego his regular sermon and permit Lord the use of
the pulpit for what the minister had been told was an
important, though non
-
sacred, message. That, as a matter
of fact, was what Dr. Jamieson told the congregation by
way of introduction
—and Angus Mulchay, who had been
settling down for the half-hour nap he always took at this
time Sunday, suddenly sat up straight in his pew, eyes
wary and suspicious.

Malcolm Lord made a fine figure in the pulpit, hand
some in a distinguished manner, affluent and benign,
aristocratic, even, and there were few there besides Mul
chay who didn't feel prouder of themselves because this
was their good neighbor, their benefactor and first vestryman.

Lord thanked Dr. Jamieson and took a sweeping glance
at the upturned faces of Scotstown.

"My friends," he told them in his sure, rich-toned
voice, "I am going to speak to you of two matters. One
of them is the unpleasantness that occurred within our
peaceful community last evening. For those who may not
yet
have heard, there was a common
gunfight in Mr.
Terhune's otherwise perfectly respectable establishment.
A man, unfortunately, was shot to death—the first such casualty in our town since the board of councilmen ap
pointed the present sheriff.

"More unfortunately still, there was a second gun-
fight
—brought on by the first as such things generally happen—and other casualties. No Scotstown man, I am
deeply gratified to say, was involved in either fight . . ."

"The hell he says!" Mulchay whispered indignantly'
and irreverently, earning for himself a dozen hostile
glares.

". . . although one of Overlord's young men, Billy
Neale
, was instrumental in ending the disturbance. Now
you may wonder why I asked Dr. Jamieson to speak of
last night's trouble to you all on this, the day of prayer.
The reason, my friends, is that some of the men who did
take part in the shootings were in Scotstown at my own
personal instigation. Therefore, I take full responsibility
for everything that happened, and will make complete
restitution for all property damage that occurred.

"Now who were these men? They are Texas soldiers
—
cavalry troopers, to be exact—and they are members of
that elite and courageous corps known as Gibbons' Mili
tia. This group, formed a year ago by the famous Ranger
Captain John Gibbons, are becoming famed far and wide
for the great and valorous service they perform along our
strife-torn border.

"These few, the cream of Texas manhood, have stepped
into the bre
a
ch where our do-nothing state and federal
governments have left us to defend ourselves against an
other Mexican invasion . . ."

"Invasion!" echoed a startled lady in the rear.

"Ay, invasion, Mrs. Watkins. Did you think they had
given up just because a treaty was signed? Did you be
lieve they wouldn't really make a try to conquer Texas
again, put us under the rule of a foreigner? My friends,
in this house of holy worship I will not say more of what
an invasion will mean
—I will not conjure up pictures in your minds of what the invaders will do to our fair
sex when all the men have been tortured and killed.

"But we are in imminent peril of being attacked. Their
advance patrols already come and go across the border
with impunity. These scouts spy us out, choose their
f
u
ture victims for the main attack . . ."

"Merciful heavens!" Mrs. Watkins said, and there
were other ladies now to join her in voicing fear.

"But be assured," Lord went on, his voice rising. "You
w
ill be saved! Captain Gibbons and his militia are taking up defensive positions along the river this very minute
—"

"What's that?" Mulchay demanded, not whispering.