Diamond Buckow (10 page)

He dismounted, shaking his head. Hell, at least he tried. But if the kid was dead, he'd bury him and still feel guilty the rest of his life.

Jake stopped to ground-tie both his own sorrel and the rawboned gelding he'd brought with him from the Blough corral. If the boy hadn't made it, then at least from this distance the smell of death wouldn't spook the horses.

As he moved forward, he first noticed the rope they used to hang Buck. It curved lazily up over the limb, with the end Jake had knotted to the root a couple of feet off the ground.

It's free, he thought with a degree of relief. So that meant it had come off and let him down, all right. But it was hanging there so still, had it been soon enough?

Strickland paused, looking at the huddled form in front of him. He couldn't make out if Buck was breathing. There was no breeze, no birds singing, no insects pestering—nothing. It was like the whole world had stopped.

Shivering as he broke the spell, Jake bent over and held the back of his hand half an inch from Buck's nose. Jake's heart jumped as he felt a short, shallow stirring of air. Buck was alive!

With painstaking care, Strickland lifted the victim's head and slipped the noose off. Soberly he took in the pattern of tiny diamonds that the Mexican braided lariat had necklaced across Buck's throat. Next he freed the bound hands.

“Come on, boy,” he muttered grimly, even though he knew he wasn't being heard.

“Prove you didn't pull through this just to die on me now. 'Cause I sure as hell don't know what else to do to help.”

As Jake knelt and watched him intently, Buck kicked down hard with both feet, just as he had done when he first slid off the mare. Only this time his hands were free, and they came around him in an involuntary self-protective gesture. His head slipped into a more comfortable position. His breathing began to sound like a saw slicing through lumber, but at least it became regular.

Strickland let go of a deep sigh, deciding all he could do now was help Buck keep warm and rest easy through what he knew would be a long night. Getting up, he brought the two horses in close and hobbled them, using both saddles and blankets to make a low wind break for the injured kid, just in case a breeze whipped up.

As the hours dragged on, Jake went to make himself a pot of coffee over the fire he'd started and kept going for heat. Getting ready to fill his mug, he heard a hoarse groan come from the direction of Buck's bed.

Strickland bet the kid needed a drink, too, and he hurried toward him. Carefully, he lifted Buck's head and tried to give him some water from the canteen. But most of it ran out of his mouth and down his chin. It made a wet spot on the blanket already damp from horse sweat. When he was about to give up, Buck's throat jerked, and Jake realized the water was choking him.

The top hand quickly rolled him over, holding his head down so that the rest of the liquid spilled out. When Buck at last seemed to breathe more rhythmically, Jake turned him on his back and tried to settle him some. Buck's blue eyes flickered open for a second. A pine-needle rasp came from between his lips, unlike any human sound Strickland had ever heard.

He pondered. If Buck was saying something, he'd never figure out what it was. It was going to be a hard night for sure. Hell, he thought, he'd bet he didn't get away from there even tomorrow.

Jake turned out to be right about the dark hours, but the victim of Newt Yocum's wrath was awake the next morning. Looking up, carefully, Buck saw Jake Strickland's well-trained sorrel following the sun into the camp. He watched while the top hand got a fistful of grain from his saddlebag, then held it behind his back. The friendly horse came right up to Jake, trying to reach around him to get the treat.

Buck thought to himself that it looked like a game they played, regular. He wondered why some people controlled their animals with love and others used the spur and the whip. Glancing around to see where his own mount was, Buck saw a long-legged gelding but not the little grulla he'd been riding.

Surprised, he swung around to ask Jake about it. But the damaged cords in the back of his neck sent a blinding wave of pain to his head. Once more he felt he was sliding off the mare with a rope around his neck.

Strickland moved the unconscious Buck back to the blanket where he'd spent the night.

Well, Jake thought ruefully as his gray eyes studied the inert form. He guessed he sure enough wouldn't get in to see Mr. Thompson today. But probably another day wouldn't make much difference, anyhow.

The top hand had to stay put for two more days, talking to his charge and watching while Buck answered in sign language. On the third morning Buck was able to swallow his first solid food, and it tasted good to him after so long.

“Thanks,” he said, hoarsely but unmistakably.

The single word shattered the silence and startled Jake. “Huh? Yeah, sure, kid, any time. How's your throat? If you can eat and talk, maybe we can get away from here.”

Buck had by now developed the habit of quietness, and found it hard to think in words.

As his right hand explored the diamonds on his still-sore throat, he managed, “You say you got questions?”

Jake hesitated, rubbing his palms together. “You see, I don't
like
to hurry a man in your position. But if I don't get back and report to my boss—”

Buck held up his hand. “What you're wonderin' is if you were justified in savin' my hide.”

Strickland paused again before he spoke, watching Buck closely.

“It's not for myself, you understand, or even just my boss. But I'll most likely need to say something to the sheriff, too, if he ever gets back to this range.”

“Like I told 'em when they put the noose around my neck, I only took enough to cover my wages.”

Buck cleared his throat and went on, his new-found voice gaining a little in strength.

“When I went to sell the steers, that bastard trail man would only give me a quarter of what he'll get in Dodge. So I still never got all the money I had comin' from Old Man Blough.”

Strickland shook his head in disbelief at Buck's boldness.

“How'd you come to know where to sell stolen cattle? If I was to pull that, I'd probably pick the sheriff to try and sell them to, and get caught right away.”

Buck's fingers still touched the diamonds, etched in a chain on his throat, as if he were counting them.

Finally he rasped, “It's a long story. My voice ain't in good shape to do the telling.”

“Make it as short as you like, or as slow as you need,” came the resigned reply. “After all, I
did
ask.”

Buck had time to think. In the last three days, it felt like he'd had too much time. He considered how much to tell this man who had saved his life, and had come to the conclusion that he owed Jake. But only Jake, and nobody else.

He started with his fast ride out of San Antonio, and why he'd taken a horse that he had no title to. Then he described Glenn Saltwell 's trail drive, and his own subsequent discovery that he was helping to move stolen cattle.

Buck had to stop often for sips of water, and also to take rest periods for his voice. It sounded to Strickland's ears like a crow with a sore throat. By late afternoon, Buck managed to get to the actual delivery of cattle to Glenn Saltwell. Jake could hear his anger at how he felt both the rustler and Henry Blough had used him. His voice was bitter as he concluded he'd tallied up and had still come out seventy dollars behind.

Jake grunted, wondering about it all. He knew he was only hearing one side of the story, and yet he wanted to believe it. Could this kid somehow be totally in the right? God, he hoped so.

Buck spoke again, raw with pain and rage.

“'Course, I was sore as a boil at Glenn, but I wanted my money. So when I saw his men changing the Standing Arrow brand to a pine tree, I figured here was the way to get my wages' worth. And that's how I came to get caught rebranding my boss's steers.”

Strickland sat digesting the tale, his head down and his elbows resting on his knees. At last he raised his searching eyes to Buck's face, probing for the look of truth.

“Question comes to mind,” he said finally, as he settled on what he thought he saw.

“Will you give what money you got for the cattle to Mr. Blough?”

Buck's tone was as metallic as a sixgun. “Sure. I'll give Old Blough the thirty, soon as I get the hundred he owes me. Ain't much to ask, seein' it's fair.”

His words cracked with a powerful emotion Jake hadn't as yet seen him show.

“Seein' I've forever lost the chance to follow my girl to Oregon.”

Jake shook his head. Yeah, the kid would feel marked, all right. And betrayed, and screwed, and a hell of a lot more.

He said, “OK, I see your point. I'll do what I can, but it'd look better to the ranchers on this range if you was to give Blough the thirty, regardless. Think you could sit a horse, come tomorrow early?”

A vein of clear strength cut through what would be Buck's permanent huskiness of speech.

“Yes, I can do whatever I set my mind to. If you want me to meet Old Man Blough and a couple of the other ranchers, I'll show. I ain't sure right now how much I'll tell on Saltwell's operation. Maybe I never cottoned to Glenn, But I
did
work for him. Ain't used to being Judas to nobody.”

Jake's eyes narrowed. Not only did his young friend show the blunt, practical honesty he'd seen at the hanging tree, but a fast shot of maturity, as well.

“I take it you don't aim to meet with Newt Yocum at all? And Blough only so long as other and neutral men are there?”

“You hit the nail square, Jake.”

Buck shrugged his shoulders. “If you mean to set up a meet, I'll wait someplace 'til you come and let me know I'll be treated fair.”

“Tell you what,” Jake bargained, uncoiling like a length of rope as he stood up. “I'll leave right now. I'll bypass Blough and that so-called deputy and go right to my own boss. Then I'll join you wherever you say at dusk tomorrow, and we'll decide from there.”

“Daniel Thompson?” Buck demanded. “You'd speak to Wide Loop on my behalf?”

Strickland flinched at his boss's nickname. But his firmness held steady as he nodded.

“Fine, then,” Buck agreed. “I'll get by alone OK tonight and tomorrow. At sundown tomorrow I'll be in that bunch of rocks and scrub trees, kind'a off by itself, about three miles east of here. You know it?”

“Right. It's around halfway between Thompson's and Blough's ranches,” Jake confirmed.

“You got it. If you don't make it before the sun is fully set, wait 'til the next night to come.”

Strickland leveled a long and intense look at Buck as he muttered, “See you soon.”

He saddled his sorrel and headed northeast, in the direction of his home ranch.

Buck watched until the top hand was out of sight. Then he broke camp and got on the geld, traveling south. After riding for well over an hour, he came to the abandoned sod house with its corral of rotted poles. Just the way things were when he'd first discovered this place by accident, Buck knew hardly anybody came to the soddy or was even aware it was there. He guessed he was as safe as a man in his circumstances could be. Safer, at least, than staying behind, alone, where his own rope had been put around his neck.

He watered the horse Jake had brought him out of a small pool caught below the spring of the stream close by, and hobbled it on fair graze. Making himself as comfortable as he could manage, he settled down to wait.

But Buck's mental turmoil refused him rest. The small dingy house did little to cheer him. He went outside to sit on a rise and watch the horizon, just to make sure nobody would stumble in on him. As he waited, his thoughts teemed and whirled around. What if Jake couldn't set up the ranchers' meeting without giving away Buck's position?—Which was exactly why he'd moved camp so soon after Jake's departure.

In fact, could he really trust Strickland? The man
had
saved his hide, but then, he was definitely for law and order. Maybe he'd only done it to spite Newt Yocum's high-handed way of doing things.

Buck's sweaty palm pushed the dark chestnut hair from his forehead and rubbed his throbbing temples. Damned if he knew what to think, but at least he reckoned he'd handled it right. The meeting place was good. Nobody could sneak up on it, with open prairie on all sides. He'd be able to see anyone coming long before they got there. Yeah, he'd taken care of that fairly decent.

He started to think and plan again. If this didn't work out, he'd have to disappear. It occurred to him to get hold of the money he'd hidden in the base log of Henry Blough 's bunkhouse, at least.

Sure! he thought as his pounding heart pulsed the first healthy color into his face in days. And if he didn't want to be accused of horse thieving, he'd better go get his own mare. Then, too, he had another pair of pants and a couple of pairs of socks in the bunkhouse.

And he needed a gun. He'd have to time it so as to arrive when Old Man Blough and Nancy were sound asleep, or at least too busy to notice him when he slipped in and lifted his stuff.

An unbidden notion flushed Buck. Then he considered it more soberly. What was his boss's wife really like? She'd appeared to him to be kind and gentle. Warm, friendly, and very feminine—but only in a proper and ladylike way. Certainly not like—it almost made him choke to reflect on the image. Not like what his sister Rebekah was: a chit who'd give herself openly to a man, and pleasure herself outright in it.

And yet, he'd seen Newt Yocum leaving Nancy's house in the dead of night, when her husband was away.

Just who in hell did he think he was? Buck rebuked himself bitterly. He shook his head as if trying to throw away his guilt. After all, he'd damned near done it to Sarah.