Buchanan Says No (19 page)

"I'll get Doc Brown
,”
he said. "Don't try to move, Mr
.
Grieve
,”

23

"To hell with Brown," Grieve
s
aid in a p
ained
voice.
'Get Buchanan."

Chapter Seventeen

Mike Sandoe advanced on the bar, shoving Carrie to
one side. He went around it, but all that remained of
Grieve was a trail of blood leading through the narrow
doorway. Sandoe swung then to the dozen-odd terrified
customers cowering in the corner.

"Out," he said into the heavy silence. "Get out of here!"
They did, and now he turned to the girl. "I still want that
kiss," he told her, thick-voiced. "Come on over here,
Red."

Carrie held his gaze, stared directly into his nakedly
rapacious face.

"You
’
ll have to kill me, too," she said, and the words
just carried between them.

Sandoe's harsh, chilling laughter broke against her ears.
He holstered the gun. "Not gonna kill you," he said.
"See?" He closed the space between them, hovered above
her insolently, ominously. "Gonna take you back to that
office. . . ."

Carrie tried to make a dash for it. Sandoe caught her
wrist, stopped her, then ducked his shoulders and lifted
her bodily across his back. He walked with her out of the
brightly lighted room toward the drapes that guarded the
office beyond.

Carrie twisted violently, beat at him with her fists, but
his grip on her bare legs was unbreakable and they moved
forward relentlessly, the man taking his pleasure from the
very resistance she gave him.

The office door was ajar and Sandoe reached it, started
across the threshold, then stopped abruptly. Coming from
the opposite direction, almost leisurely, was a dark, very
familiar figure.

'That's my woman, Mike," Buchanan said. "Set her
down
,”

"I got her," Sandoe answered. "That makes her mine,"

"Go away
,”
Carrie cried, "before he kills you, too!"

"You heard her," Sandoe snarled. "Back off from here."

"Set her down," Buchanan repeated.

"You want to die, you goddam fool? You know you
can't draw with me!"

"Set the girl down, Mike "

Sandoe stared at him. "All right," he said, his voice
suddenly cold. "But don't say you didn't come begging for it." He let Carrie's feet reach the floor, then shoved
her inside the office and swiftly pulled the door closed, muffling her sobbing protests. Sandoe stepped back, gave
Buchanan his full attention.

"You can still back down," he said, "I never killed a
son yet that didn't act hostile to me."

"Like Kersey, kid?"

"What?"

"The gent you jumped by the hotel last night. Ever
occur to you he was watching my move when you made
yours?"

"What the hell you talking about?"

"And the fat man up on the balcony. Free as the breeze,
you told him."

"Shut up, Buchanan."

"I also don't see one man taking out that crew without
some particular advantage going his way."

"Draw, you son of a bitch!"

"I'll count, kid. Make your play when it suits you
,”

"Make
my
play?"

"One," Buchanan tolled quietly. "Two . . "

His protective sixth sense guided Mike Sandoe then.
He saw the extra advantage he had, over and above every
thing else. With Buchanan's voice still echoing "Two," Sandoe flashed for his gun.

A blow of incredible force rocked his body, A dazzling
lig
ht blazed, and even as a wave of sound rolled over him,
a
second .45-caliber slug slammed through flesh and bone,
p
i
t
ching him to the floor on buckled legs. He lay there
gratefully, feeling no sensation
of pain at all, and despite t
he tremendous shock dealt to his brain, he was able to
th
ink
with extraordinary clarity. He knew, in short, that
he
had started his draw first and been shot twice without
ever firing. It was some humbling, Sandoe thought, oddly
peaceful.

“
How's it going to be, kid?" he heard a friendly voice
say, and when he focused his eyes, there was Buchanan
standing above him.

"Deal me out of the next hand," he said. "And don't
call me kid."

"That's all you ever were. A man-sized kid."

Sandoe seemed to think that over. A thin trickle of blood
leaked from between his lips. Buchanan wiped it away
with the back of his hand.

"I should have stood in your shadow," Sandoe said then,
his
voice blurred.

"Sure," Buchanan told him gently,

"Wish you'd told me you could gunfight."

"Wish you'd asked me, kid
,”
Buchanan said, and when
Sandoe's eyes rolled up lifelessly into his head, he closed
the lids over them.

He stood up, crossed to the office door, and pushed it
open. Carrie stood in the far
corner;
her back turned, sob
bing uncontrollably.

"It's all over," Buchanan told her, and the girl slowly
swung around, lifting her eyes to him in disbelief.

"You!"

"Me," he agreed. "Come on, Carrie, I'll take you home."

They passed through the emptied place, their footsteps
echoing hollowly, but on the street outside such a crowd
had
gathered
that
Buchanan
had to clear a path for
the girl. Someone tugged at his arm.

"Where's the gunfighter?"

"Dead."

There was a rush then to get back inside Troy's, to see
for themselves. They saw, and at the bar they held a wake
and laid
the groundwork
for a legend. They knew
very
little of Mike Sandoe, even less of his conqueror, but out
of this Buchanan would acquire a rep—something to live
up to or disavow, at his own peril in either
case.

But if there was trouble waiting on some distant hori
zon, there was also some still to inherit in Bella. For as
he and Carrie were
going by the Happy Times, Buchanan
glanced inside, and what he saw made him frown.

"Be with you in a minute
,”
he said to the girl, and
stepped through the doors.

The saloon was more raucous now than good-natured,
and there was a particular disturbance at the faro table.
Buchanan shoved his way there, pulled
Ruby
Weston
free from the bear hug of a bearded
customer, then
had to
floor the drunk when he pulled a knife.

"On with the game, gents," Billy Burke announced,
directing the
removal of the
unconscious man.

"Not for me,"
Ruby said,
hanging onto Buchanan pro
tectively.
"Take me home, honey, I need
gentling, and lots
of it."

She had
exchanged the damaged red gown for a
fetching
black costume, and those who heard her make that in
teresting proposition to Buchanan, and saw her clinging so
intimately to the big man's arm, wondered what was wrong
with him, what caused him to hesitate as he did. By their figuring, he wore the
lu
ckiest boots in Bella tonight, but
of course they
hadn't looked out on the street.

Ruby led Buchanan from
the Happy Times, saw
Carrie
standing there, and stopped.

"Where
did she come from?" she asked,

"Carrie's going home, too," Buchanan explained
un
comfortably, and the redhead took possession of the other
arm. They held that formation all the way to the second-
f
loor landing of the Green Lantern boardinghouse. Then,
smiling innocently at Carrie and murmuring a good night,
Ruby gave Buchanan's hand a very meaningful squeeze
and started down the hall to her room. Carrie also man
aged a smile, pressured the hand she held, and went off in
the same direction.

Buchanan stood where he was, watching each one prom
enade in her turn, knowing that they had left the decision
squarely up to him.

Ruby reached her door and disappeared from view. A
moment later Carrie's door closed softly behind her.

Alone now, his mind freed from the two powerful dis
tractions, the man made the only choice he could.

By the first gray light of morning Buchanan was gone
from Bella, gone in the direction of Indian Rocks, where
he intended to gather up exactly eight head of cattle, ap
proximately four hundred dollars' worth of beef when de
livered to the nearest military outpost. Then on to Frisco.

He left word behind for Little Joe, thanking him for
his help and his friendship in his time of need, promising
to send the twenty-five dollars back to Bella when he dis
posed of his goods. He asked Little Joe to pay his respects
to Marshal Grieve and to try to find something good to
say over Mike Sandoe before the sod was shoveled over
him.

Later that same morning Carrie James and Ruby Weston met at the breakfast table. They looked at each other
steadily, searchingly, making no effort to conceal the fact
that this was a frank appraisal.

It was Ruby who finally broke the silence. "Congratula
tions, Carrie," she said, her voice sincere.

"Congratulations on what?"

"On the man you won last night"

But Carrie shook her head. "Buchanan was with you.
All I got from him was a little note."

"You? You got a note?" Suddenly Ruby was laughing,
reaching into the bodice of her gown for a tightly folded
piece of paper. "I'll trade you even
,”
she said, handing it
over.

"I tore mine up," Carrie said, opening Ruby's and reading it. She read it again. "Why, the big coward," she said
then. "The dirty dog."

"Is it the same?"

"Word for word. It was really you, sweetheart. You're the girl I'll never forget. Yours truly, T. Buchanan.'" The
redhead returned the note. "The big coward," she said
again.

"Yes," Ruby said, mischief in her low voice. "Do you
think he could have had us both?"

"That," Carrie said, "is something T. Buchanan will
have to wonder about. What are your plans now, Ruby?"

"I'd sort of made up my mind to go up to Frisco. How
about yourself?"

"It's a right lively town. Let's travel together."

"Fine," Ruby said. "And who knows? Maybe we'll run
into a certain bashful friend of ours."

The two beautiful faro dealers smiled knowingly, sealed
the new partnership with a handshake, and left the room
the best of friends.

Buchanan had only three hours' head
start.