Diamond Buckow (3 page)

The faint light in the small shed grew suddenly even dimmer as a large figure imposed itself in the doorway. Pete glanced up sharply to see his stepfather staring at him. A short, thick plank already waited in his hand. The boy backed into the farthest corner of the shed, turning his face to the wall. Gerald, without so much as a word, grabbed him and brought blow after blow down on his buttocks.

After a time Hamm stopped the punishment long enough to take a look at Pete's white, but stonelike, face.

“Think you're too big and brave to cry out, do you, boy?” he challenged. “Well, we'll just have to see about changing your tune.”

Sweating, he began to beat harder and faster until Pete couldn't stand any more, started shrieking, and couldn't stop.

“There, that's better,” Hamm grunted in satisfaction. He grinned, dropping the plank as he wiped his hands on the sides of his pants and wheeled around to leave.

Pete sank to the earthen floor, sobbing, grateful to be alone in the quiet mustiness of the woodshed. Then he was abruptly aware of the door creaking open again, and this time the shadow cast was from someone not much taller than himself.

“Brother?” a high, sharp voice demanded. “Brother, I know you're in here. I could hear you screaming from 'way up in front of the house. What's the matter?”

“Rebekah!” Pete breathed harshly, his humiliation now complete. “Just leave me alone. Don't ask any questions. Go away, Sis. Please.”

The door squeaked softly, and the light shifted. “Thanks for being here,” he muttered bitterly at the girl, who had already gone.

Pete Buckow was unknowingly alone in his misery. “You make me feel like hell. Thanks, Sis.”

“Thanks, Sis. You just can't know how much that cool water helps.”

In the summer Sunday twilight, the fifteen-year-old shifted his bruised body against his bed. A pallet on the back porch of the house where he and Rebekah lived with their mother and stepfather.

“I sure did take a beating this time,” Pete said ruefully, wincing as he moved.

His sister's cold gray eyes traveled without emotion from Buckow's torn clothes to his battered face.

“Who were you scrapping with, Brother? It's easy to see you got the worst of it.”

He tried on a grin, but it hurt. “Well, believe it or not, Sis, it was on account of you.”

“Me? What do you mean?” Rebekah's lithe, slender body tensed as she knelt over him with the dipper from the well in her hand.

Pete was aware of her tautness, even in her firm small breasts that mounded just above his head.

“Tell me more,” she demanded, giving him another gulp of water. “Because I certainly don't need anyone to fight battles for me.”

“Oh, yes, you do. Especially when it's a lowlife like that Jim Gates you've been seeing.”

Buckow ignored her gasp of astonishment.

“Sis, you'll have to be more careful who you go out with. Jim's known as a pretty bad customer. After I saw him tangling with you on the porch this afternoon, I laid in wait for him. Figured he'd either treat my sister honorable, or leave you alone.”

“Peter D. Buckow!” Rebekah shrilled. “When will you learn to mind your own business and not meddle in the affairs of grownups? I tell you, Brother, one of these days you'll come to some horrible end from your busy-bodying!”

He watched, fascinated, as some of the steely silver light faded from her eyes. She stood up straight as if remembering something. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and began to sway sensuously.

Rebekah's tone softened as it took on a husky, feline quality that bewildered, and somehow frightened, Pete. “You were only there for the first part, Brother. You should have stuck around for Act Two, you might have learned something.”

“Sis!”

She ignored him, and purred on. “After I got the promise I wanted from Jim, I gave him what he wanted. Which, by the way, I like even more than he does. It was perfect, with Ma and Gerald gone visiting ...”

Rebekah paused, staring at the stricken, world's-end expression on Buckow's features.

“Oh, grow up, will you?” she snapped. “Here, maybe this will cool you off.”

Flinging the remainder of the drinking dipper's contents into her brother's face, she stamped away into the house.

Stunned beyond belief, Pete lay the rest of the night on his soggy pallet without even noticing the dampness. He stared up at the vast array of stars, asking questions and demanding answers that didn't come.

Nothing was left for him, he concluded miserably. Uncle Ed was drunk all the time, Pa was dead, Ma was married to that bastard of a land pirate. And now—oh, God, Sis was a fallen woman—she'd become a soiled dove!

Angry hot tears joined the residue of well water on the soggy pallet. All Buckow had was himself, and the way he saw it right now, it didn't count for much. In the morning the word would be out that he'd gotten himself half killed over the honor of his sister. Rebekah, who was, in fact, little better than a whore. Pete would be a laughingstock, to boot.

He'd just leave. Nobody cared about him, anyhow, nobody but Unc, and he couldn't help. Pete would just take his odd-job money and grab the westbound stage in the morning.

He watched the first mauve ribbon of dawn struggle to lift the cumbersome layers of blackness above it. If he started now, he decided, he'd have time to say good-by to Uncle Ed before he left town.

Buckow got up too quickly, his aching legs buckling underneath him. Panting, he realized the condition he was in and wondered if he should put off his destiny until the next week's coach. No, by God, he admonished himself. If he didn't make a clean break now, he might never get away.

Grinding his teeth and swallowing his groans of pain, Pete sneaked through the house, gathering only what few belongings and supplies he felt sure had not been paid for with the land pirate's money.

It was still fairly dark out when he reached Edward Malvers's place and pounded insistently on the door. After an eternity the boy heard a thump and the shuffle of footsteps.

“Who in tarnation is tryin' to beat my door down in the middle of the night?” the grumpy voice slurred.

“Unc, it's me, Buckshot. Wake up enough to let me in.”

Swearing and muttering, Ed opened the door a crack. As the not-quite-daylight wedged into the aperture, Pete could see Malvers yawning and scratching his chest through the rough material of a much-used nightshirt.

“Uncle Ed, I'm sorry to bother you. But I've decided to leave on the morning stage, and I came to say good-by. And it's not really the middle of the night, Unc. It's almost dawn.”

Grumbling good-naturedly now, Malvers backed off to let his nephew in. He couldn't help but notice the purple, swollen face as the boy turned to shut the door. Pete tried to bide from his uncle's worried stare, but Edward lit a candle and held it under the kid's chin.

“Here, now, Buckshot, don't shy off. I aim to look over them bruises. Whooee, lad! Who put you through the butcher's grinder? That the reason you fixin' to leave town?”

Pete pulled away from the flame. By and by he managed to get out the results of his nightlong soul-search, ending with the sordid tale of Rebekah.

Uncle Ed took it all with calmness and gravity. At length he cleared his throat. “Buck, I won't be orderin' you about—I ain't Gerald Hamm. But if you go now, certain people will say you're running.”

“So what?” Pete challenged, his eyes so bright they threatened to rain a river down his face.

“So—” Malvers paused and coughed, as if to unstop the words and emotions that had gotten bottled up deep inside him.

“So it ain't fun, nor right, to run all your life. I'm afraid I'm still running, Buckshot, even if it is only from drink to drink. And jails is full of folks who keep runnin' and runnin'.”

“Unc, there's nothing more you can say!” Pete shouted. “I'm going, anyways, and I'm going right this minute. Do you hear me? I'm goin'!”

“Go, then,” Ed said wearily, his voice as soft as Buckow's was loud.

Pete slammed out the door and ran, just in time to save them both from seeing the unmanly wetness on each other's faces.

The stage from Pete's home town had stopped in Dallas, and he'd had to make connections for a different one to parts further West. In his turmoil over his stepfather, his sister, Uncle Ed, and the whole situation—he took the wrong coach and found himself in Houston. Not really caring where he ended up, from there he caught a ride with some teamsters hauling freight to San Antonio.

The taciturn group gave Buckow the job of helping with the teams of mules in exchange for his meals and transportation. He had never before come in contact with this species of either beast or human, and he soon decided the mules made better company than the generally close-mouth men.

Folks around where he lived were never very complimentary to the hybrids, but Pete began to think they were wrong. The mules were allowed to graze at night, they were fed grain once a day, and were watered only when the heavy wagons came to a stream. Yet they toiled through the daylight hours without complaint.

After five days of observing their treatment and habits, Pete turned to the teamster on whose wagon he'd been riding.

“Sam, do these animals get to rest at San Antonio?”

“No, kid, mules only rest when they're dead or when a wagon breaks down.” Then the man with the slow voice looked aside and fastened his attention elsewhere again.

Buckow stared at him. On the whole trip he hadn't spoken more than a word or series of grunts. Pete had never met anyone who kept to himself as much as Sam did.

Well, it gave Pete a lot of thinking time. This afternoon in particular, he ruminated over where he'd been and where he might be going. One persistent notion kept bouncing back into his head. He had no real past to cling to, no family ties. Not unless he could somehow find Red Pierce and avenge Pa's death could he make the Buckow name mean something. Could he dare hope to find Pierce somewhere, someday?

Next morning, Pete ran forward and climbed up on the seat of the first wagon, with the leader of the freighters.

“Mind if I ride with you today for a change, Phillips?”

“Naw, come ahead.” The scruffy, thin man grinned in welcome, gesturing for his passenger to settle himself.

“You know,” Buckow said, “I been with old Sam all the time, and he ain't said three kind words in the five days we been on the road.”

“Yeah, that's dead right. He ain't much on palaver,” Phillips agreed.

A small hole opened in the gray-brown beard, and a stream of tobacco juice launched itself between the rows of mules.

“You ever been away from home before, fellow?”

With a swift glance at the teamster, the runaway figured he could manage part of the truth without embarrassing himself.

“Nope. This is my first trip out.” He thought it best to change the subject.

“By the way, what kind of place is San Antonio?”

A gleam of anticipation lit Phillips's small eyes. “She's some old metropolis after six days on the road. I allus like to spend some time in Santone. Get a little drunk, have my pole greased—”

He chattered on, too happy to notice the sudden flush that rolled up Pete's neck and over his ears. Pete knew he'd have to see to his inexperience as soon as possible.

“—Sleep a night or two in a real bed. An hombre can do all that in Santone and not get into no trouble at all. The law mostly lets an honest man have a good time, and tries to keep the owl-hoots in their own part of town.”

The mention of lawless men brought his father's killer sharply to Pete's mind. He blew out a small sigh and queried the freight man as offhandedly as he could.

“Ever hear of a two-legged maverick, name of Red Pierce? He's a carrot-top, and his right hand is withered and stiff, like it got froze one time and never thawed out.”

This time Phillips's glob of brown spittle splashed over a horsefly sitting halfway along the wagon tongue.

“Sure. Red's real sudden with that left-handed draw of his'n. He was in Fort Worth my last trip there. Let's see...must've been 'most three months ago. What's a young fellow like you got to do with an ornery polecat like him?”

Buckow held a straight-ahead stare, just over the ears of the lead mules. “One of them people he used that draw on was my Pa.”

The bare, harsh words hung between them like a pall. The teamster watched the grinding movement of Pete's tight jaw, realizing that there was a poison there which would have to be drained some day.

With deliberately even tones, Phillips commented, “Pierce was headin' south when I seen him. He used to be in and out of Santone two, three years ago. Could be you'll run acrost him, ‘cause he purely enjoyed shootin' at Mex greasers down this way.”

His gaze darkened, and he shifted his bony weight on the seat. “Boy, he's had a lot more practice gunnin' at people than you have. Be best if you was to avoid him, 'til you pick up a little more knowhow.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Pete growled, turning his face to the crisp spring breeze.

The quiet thickened like campfire coffee as they rode on to their midafternoon destination. As soon as they stopped at the edge of town, Buckow jumped from the wagon with barely a nod of farewell to Phillips. Shouldering his small sack of possessions, he started out to see this city that the freight man had called “Santone.”

Pete walked along briskly toward the center of town, stopping in a narrow alley-like space between the first pair of buildings he came to. He'd noticed most of the teamsters had strapped weapons to their belts that morning.

Even Sam, his seatmate who had spoken so little, and who depended on his bullwhip for emergencies out on the trail, had stuffed a sixgun into his waistband.