CHAPTER 5
As he left the house and rounded its far end, heading toward the stable and other outbuildings he’d seen as he and Lucien had rolled into the turnaround circle out front, Buckhorn felt certain of one thing. Too much hesitation, any attempt at trying to reason or negotiate with Oscar and whoever he had with him, anything that might smack to them of scheming or trickery, would only heighten the risk to Lucien.
And Buckhorn handing himself over unarmed, meeting their demand, would basically amount to suicide and probably do nothing to save the boy, either.
The response that held the most hope, risky though it might seem to others, was to retaliate swiftly and unexpectedly. Do the last thing Oscar and his bunch would count on.
The descent of late evening darkness and the deep shadows thrown by the canopy of leaves high in the numerous trees surrounding the Haydon residence gave Buckhorn good cover. The only problem was the brightness of the boiled white shirt and colorful tie he was wearing. Crouching momentarily in some bushes, he quickly unbuttoned his vest and shirt and discarded them along with the tie. The smoothly muscled, dark copper skin of his torso blended almost invisibly with the other shadows.
As he edged along the back side of the house, he could hear voices not too far ahead.
“Tell that damn breed he better be quick about showing hisself or this little darky errand boy is gonna be the one to pay for it,” the all-too-familiar voice of Oscar Turlick bellowed. “I want to see him with his hands held up empty and high and he’d better make it real sudden.”
“He’s comin’, I tell you,” Melody called from the back door to the kitchen. “Please, please don’t do nuthin’ to my little boy. He’s all I got.”
“That’s up to the stinkin’ breed you’re hidin’ in there! I’ll give him to the count of five to show hisself before we start making this baby boy of yours do some squealin’!”
“No! Please!”
“One . . .”
Buckhorn had moved up to where he could see into the stable. One of its double doors was propped open. In a cone of weak light poured down by a lantern hanging from a nail on a post, Lucien was on his knees in front of the post.
A tall man stood directly behind him, one hand wrapped around both of the boy’s suspender straps, holding them jerked tight between his bony shoulder blades. The man’s other hand held the blade of a clasp knife to the side of Lucien’s throat. The lantern’s illumination angled across the tall man’s chest, leaving his shoulders and face lost in shadows.
“Two . . .”
The man with the knife wasn’t the one doing the talking. It was Oscar’s voice, like Buckhorn had judged from the beginning, but it was coming from somewhere outside the lantern light. Buckhorn peered intently, trying to penetrate the deeper shadows. He thought he saw a murky trace of movement about four feet beyond where Lucien knelt.
That could be where Oscar was—if there were only two men involved. The elongated skunk by the post certainly wasn’t the second, much shorter mule herder who’d been with Oscar the other day. Was he lurking somewhere in the stable, too, making it three men? Or was Oscar simply operating with another partner?
“Three . . .”
Buckhorn felt his vocal cords vibrate with a silent snarl deep in his throat. It was time to make his big gamble and play the surprise card he hoped would be an ace.
He drew his Colt, took careful aim just above the downward sloping edge of the cone of light where he calculated the center of the tall man’s chest to be, and pulled the trigger. The Colt bucked in his fist and he heard a satisfying grunt as what he could see of the tall man’s body jerked and fell back into the shadows, releasing his grip on the boy’s suspenders. The knife in his other hand dropped from lifeless fingers.
A fraction of a second later, Buckhorn’s next bullet screamed out and shattered the lantern, plunging everything into sudden blackness.
“Duck, Lucien! Run for cover!” he shouted. With no light to judge by, he could only hope the boy obeyed.
Buckhorn suddenly found himself occupied by return gunfire sizzling in his direction.
The muzzle flashes of whoever was shooting gave momentary bursts of illumination, but not exactly the welcome kind. Still, they did offer a target to pour more lead at, even though that meant continuing to mark his own position.
“Stay low, Lucien!” he hollered amid the fierce bullet exchange.
Triggering his last round ahead of having to reload, Buckhorn heard a gurgling yelp of pain that caused him to believe he’d scored a meaningful hit. Before he got too cocky or too quick to expose himself, he punched the spent shells from the Colt’s cylinder. As he thumbed in fresh loads he became aware that the lantern he’d blasted apart had sprinkled enough sparks into its own spilled fuel for the mixture to reignite. Flames quickly spread into the loose straw scattered across the stable floor, fanning wide and crawling up the post from which the lantern had originally hung.
Snapping shut the loading gate of his Colt, Buckhorn moved forward, still with caution. An unplanned fire was always cause for concern but, in this case, for a brief time it also had the benefit of reintroducing some illumination to the inside of the stable.
In the flickering glow, the sprawled shapes of the two men Buckhorn had put down became visible. Both, he was relieved to see, lay motionless. The bulky form of the second one he’d shot, the one who’d begun firing back at him, was unmistakably that of Oscar Turlick.
But what of the boy?
The pulsing light thrown by the spreading flames reached a little wider and Buckhorn made out a third sprawled form—a very slight one with feet encased in oversized shoes!
Buckhorn threw caution to the wind and ran forward. Holstering his gun, he skidded to his knees beside the boy and scooped one arm under his shoulder, lifting his upper body gently. “Lucien? Lucien!”
The only response he got was the crackle and heat as the flames crept closer. Startlingly, he became aware of another presence. Looking up in the eerie pulse of the firelight, he saw a man looming over him with a raised pitchfork, ready to strike.
In the instant of time he had before the gleaming tines thrust down, Buckhorn recognized the man as the other mule herder from the river dock. He also recognized that even as fast on the draw as he was, he had no chance of bringing his Colt into play before he was impaled.
Suddenly, a thunderous gunshot rang out. The man with the pitchfork hurtled backwards as a gaping red hole blossomed in the center of his forehead. The pitchfork clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Twisting around, Buckhorn saw Andrew Haydon and Sterbenz standing on the edge of the shadows at the corner of the house opposite the one he had come around. Sterbenz was planted tall and rigid with a long musket held at the ready. Slightly ahead of him, Haydon leaned slightly to his right, supported by his crutch, left arm still extended forward, Colt Navy revolver gripped in his fist, a worm of smoke curling up out of its muzzle.
Before anyone could say anything, the kitchen door slapped open wide and Melody burst out. “My boy,” she said in a quaking voice. “Is he . . .”
Buckhorn stood up with Lucien in his arms and moved away from the spreading fire toward the anxious mother. “He’s breathing good and strong,” he reported. “He got knocked out, but I think he’s gonna be okay.”
Closer to the house, Buckhorn lay the boy down on the soft grass where his mother could fuss over him. Straightening up, he turned to face Haydon and Sterbenz as they came walking over. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but none of you take orders very good about staying clear of the fray, do you?”
Haydon pinned him with a steely gaze. “I’m a former officer in the Confederate Army, sir. I don’t take orders, I give them. I never hid from a skirmish in my life and wasn’t about to start tonight . . . especially not in the backyard of my very own home!”