The blast knocked Buchanan flat against the wall. He virtually had to peel himself off. He blinked and got his balance, then hacked his way through the billowing smoke. The groans and cries of men filled the confinement of the room. The stink was suffocating. Buchanan bowled into someone in the swirling fog—Race Koenig.
“What the hell?” Buchanan said.
Koenig coughed. “They must’ve got their hands on that keg of blasting powder in the tack shed.”
A six-foot halo of light streamed where the bolted front door had been. Buchanan saw shapes weave into sight—unmistakable by their shoulder-length hair, the flopped-over tops of their knee-length moccasins, the squat, broad shapes of their bodies.
The Apaches had blown down the front door. They were coming in.
Buchanan had lost his rifle somehow in the explosion. His hand whipped down, brought up the six-gun, and balanced it on the flat, wide shape of an Indian in the swirling light. He fired and saw the man go down.
Another silhouette took the place of the first. Koenig fired twice, and the silhouette staggered back. Shoulder to shoulder, Buchanan and Koenig stood in the center of the room and braced their withering fire against the weaving Indians who appeared, half vague, in the light.
Within seconds other cowhands joined in. A vicious volleying blasted through every square inch of the opening.
It drove the Apaches back, stumbling over the corpses of their comrades. Some stooped to drag fallen friends away with them. Buchanan reloaded feverishly and stalked toward the doorway. Beside him, Race Koenig was cursing in awe. “Jesus. Looks like the set of the last act of Hamlet out there.”
Somebody said half hysterically, “It’s all that readin’ that done made Race nearsighted. I allus knowed that.” A cackle of laughter drifted eerily through the smoke.
Buchanan flattened himself just inside the jagged edge of the blown-out door. He peered around cautiously.
What he saw stiffened all his joints.
Rumbling toward the doorway like a ghost wagon was a coach full of flames.
The Apaches were pushing the Pitchfork buckboard straight toward the open doorway. Piled high with hay and set afire, the buckboard was a wheeled dreadnaught, spouting flames twenty feet into the sky.
Buchanan wheeled into the doorway and began to fire with grim, deadly fury. His bullets whizzed under and past the buckboard, chopping down legs, pinking arms, drilling through any half inch of flesh visible. Koenig rushed out and added the roar of his gun to the loud confusion. The searing heat of the flames burned hot against Buchanan’s smoke-blackened face. Above the charred cheekbones, his hard eyes burned like jewels. His gun blasted with deliberate, unhurried anger; and before the hail of bullets from Buchanan’s and the others’ guns, the Apaches who’d been pushing the wagon broke and ducked away to find the nearest cover.
Buchanan’s slug found one of them, pitched him rolling to the ground. Then his gun was empty.
Johnny Reo shifted into the doorway beside him, beside Koenig. Reo slip-hammered his six-gun, carving a wicked hole in the ranks of the running Apaches, Buchanan distinctly heard Reo’s grim, low-pitched laughter.
The wagon, its momentum built up, kept coming. It rolled ponderously forward, straight for the doorway; above the rumble of its wheels crackled the roar of the fire, blue-hot and raging, whipped up by the wind.
“Come on!” Buchanan roared hoarsely. Ramming his gun into holster, he sprinted for the wagon and butted his shoulder against it, digging in his boots. The wagon almost capsized him; but then Koenig and Reo were with him, bending their weight against the buckboard. Flames licked around them. Somewhere Reo had lost his hat; his hair was indistinguishable in color from the flames. Buchanan felt his eyebrows singing. From the doorway half a dozen guns of the Pitchfork crew provided a heavy covering fire.
The wagon squeaked to a stop. Buchanan yanked the sleeves of his companions and made it back to the house on the run. A bullet scored the edge of his boot; an arrow thwacked into the adobe not six inches from his shoulder; and then, propelling Reo and Koenig ahead of him, he was pitching inside the smoky house. He fell over a crouching cowboy and slammed onto the floor.
Someone picked him up—Reo. Reo’s grin was broad and white against his burned flesh.
“Jesus,” someone said.
Buchanan wheeled. He saw the cowboy named Boat, laid out unnaturally on the floor just in the center of the doorway. An arrow had hit him in the face. Boat’s right eyeball was hanging out on his cheek by a string of tissue.
Johnny Reo swallowed. “Christ, what an ugly way to die.”
“Johnny, there are no pretty ways,” said Buchanan. His eyes searched the stinging billows of smoke. He saw Marinda’s blonde hair; she was unhurt. Koenig was with her. Cowhands stood just beside the jambs of the jagged doorway, keeping watch. There was a stretch of silence, uncanny and strange after the holocaust. Now and then a single shot boomed.
Buchanan loaded his gun and stepped to the door. He had a look outside. Down past the barn the Apaches were regrouping. He saw a sawed-off figure in a tall stovepipe hat, arms waving, voice lifting in husky rage, injecting bitter wrath into his speech with wild thrusts of his arms.
“We’ve got to stop this,” Buchanan said. He took a rifle from a man beside him. “I’m sorry, old man,” he muttered. He braced the rifle against the door jamb, calculated the elevation for extreme range, and killed Sentos with one clean-placed shot.
Buchanan’s eyes were bleak and hollow. Haggard and morose, he stood in the dusty yard with the rifle dangling at arm’s length. He was watching the disgusted remnants of the Apache war party scatter across the desert.
Race Koenig said, “It’ll take them a while to pick themselves a new chief. And by that time they’ll be cooled off enough not to come back.”
Buchanan was glad the Apaches had taken Sentos’ body with them. He wouldn’t have wanted to have to bury the old warrior.
Cowhands limped across the yard, carrying their wounded. Three or four men were dragging Apache bodies out of the yard. Nobody went near the burning buckboard, nobody had energy enough to try putting out the fire. It would burn itself out.
In the house shutters slammed, coming open. It would be days before the house could be aired out. To build a new massive front door would take considerable time.
Johnny Reo came outside rubbing his hip. “Judas Priest. Empty shell cases like glass marbles all over the floor in there. I about busted my butt.”
Buchanan nodded, bounced the rifle in the circle of his fist, and turned back into the house. Three men were cleaning up the debris in the parlor. It looked as if an earthquake had hit. Buchanan put the rifle down and went back toward the kitchen, figuring to wash his face and hands at the pump.
When he pushed the kitchen door open, he found before his eyes a tableau that shocked him more than anything he had seen in this battle-packed day.
Marinda was at the sink, wringing cloth bandages under the pump. And behind her, moving stealthily, Antonia was raising a long-bladed kitchen knife, ready to plunge it into Marinda’s unsuspecting back.
To distract Antonia, Buchanan slammed the door as hard as he could, and in the same motion he leaped forward.
Antonia jerked around with a start. Her mouth sprang open; and then Buchanan was on her, wrenching her arm down, yanking the knife out of her gasp.
“You big son of a bitch,” she snarled, “you’ve spoiled everything you could, ever since you set foot on this place.”
“You don’t look so pretty when you get mad,” Buchanan told her. He tossed the knife aside.
Marinda was watching it all, not yet comprehending entirely. She said, “What...?”
Antonia’s heavy, sensuous lips curled back. She spat at Marinda. “You. I wish those Indians had raped you and burned you at the stake with no clothes on. If it hadn’t been for you, this ranch would have been mine. It should have been.”
Marinda frowned at her, puzzled. “What?”
Antonia’s big breasts heaved with anger. She tossed her dark hair defiantly. Which was when two men came into the room—Steve Quick and Johnny Reo.
Antonia wheeled away from Buchanan and began to curse in low monotony. “Kill them,” she said. “Kill both of them.”
Quick’s eyes widened. He snapped his glance toward Reo. “They’re all that stands between us and Pitchfork, Reo.”
Reo licked his lips. “You’re crazy.”
“I’ll make it a half-interest in the place,” Quick said in sudden desperation. “Half of the whole kit and caboodle.”
Buchanan’s smoke-dusty face was working into a frown. “I wouldn’t do it, Johnny. I wouldn’t even think about doing it.”
Marinda said angrily, “What’s gotten into all of you? Steve, you’ve gone too far.”
“I was born too far,” Quick said tautly. “Go on, Reo.”
Buchanan said quietly, “Forget it, Johnny. I’ve taken a liking to you. We’ve gone through a lot together—too much to let gold get in the way.”
“Half of the whole works, Reo,” Quick breathed. His pale eyes were wide with excitement and fear; he was backing up against the wall, his hand hanging near his gun.
Reo said, “Sorry, Buchanan. Money speaks louder than words.” The familiar brash grin flashed across his cheeks.
Buchanan shook his head. “I won’t draw first on you.”
“You may as well. Because I’m going to draw on you.”
“It’ll be the biggest mistake you’ve ever made,” Buchanan told him. “It’ll be that whichever way it comes out.”
“I recollect I told you never to count on me,” Johnny Reo said. “Not where money’s concerned. Now pull steel, Buchanan!”
And Johnny Reo flashed for his gun.
Buchanan’s gun. It blazed, a single dazzling spear of muzzle flash and a single deafening roar of sound. The slug slammed through Reo’s flesh and bone, ramming him back against the wall, throwing him across the arm of Steve Quick, who was desperately trying to claw his gun up. Quick thrust the obstruction away and shouted hysterically, yanking his gun up. Buchanan watched bleakly, and when Quick’s thumb reached out to cock the gun, Buchanan fired twice.
The two big bullets pitched Steve Quick to the floor on rubber legs.
Buchanan’s gun slipped back into its holster. Buchanan walked forward and knelt by Johnny Reo.
“How’re you makin’ it, amigo?”
Reo said numbly, “I started my draw first and I never got a shot fired.”
“It was the biggest mistake, Johnny.”
“Yeah.” Reo coughed weakly. “Funny how your whole life can run out a tiny little hole like this. Like you pulled the plug on a drain. Know something, Buchanan? I think you’ve killed me.”
“I’m sorry, amigo.”
“I know you are.” Reo smiled vaguely. “Anyhow, it don’t hurt none. But hell, I always wanted to go out dead drunk with a bottle in my hand. Too bad about that. Buchanan?”
“Yes, Johnny?”
“I’ve been obliged to know you, amigo. I really have.” Reo grinned then. His eyes rolled up lifelessly in their sockets.
Buchanan reached out and closed the lids.
Marinda stood just outside the gaping hole where the door had been. She watched Buchanan lead his horse forward and test the cinch. Race Koenig put his arm around Marinda and said, “I wish you’d stay on, Buchanan.”
“Afraid I’ve got an appointment,” Buchanan said. “Some fish to catch up in the mountains.” He looked around the yard and added, “Besides, it’s about time I gave some other place a potshot at me.”
Marinda said very softly, “Thank you, Buchanan,” and turned quickly to go inside.
Buchanan said, “Hey, lady.”
“Yes?” She turned around.
He said, “I just wanted another look at you.”
It made her smile, with tears close beneath; she said, “I’ll cry at your wedding, Buchanan,” and hurried into the house.
Two cowboys came out of the barn leading a saddle horse and prodding Antonia roughly in front of them. Koenig took off his eyeglasses, blew on the lenses, wiped them clean, and hooked them back on over his ears. He said to Antonia, “Keep going until you’re clear out of the Territory. You show your face in Arizona again, and I’ll have a bench warrant sent out for you.”
“All right, Race,” she said in a muted voice.
“And make sure none of the Pitchfork herd attaches itself to you on your way out.”
She flashed. “I’m no cattle rustler.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past you.”
Buchanan said mildly, “I’ll see she gets on her way,” and climbed onto his horse. Settling into the saddle, he watched Antonia mount. His eyes studied her speculatively, the soft, ample curves of her body. He grinned and nodded at her. “You ride in front of me,” he said.
It promised to be an interesting ride.