Chapter 11 #2
Johnny looked around. The mansion burned bright as flames climbed skyward from the windows.
Fire ran up the tower and across the carved gables, consuming everything Buckner had bought with other men’s money.
Rain fought it, lost, then fought again.
Wind took sides and changed them. The house meant to be seen had never been seen like this.
He turned his collar up and trotted down to the mesquite. Whiskey rose from the shadows and pressed his shoulder against Johnny’s knee. Meg blew softly through the rain.
“Not our fire,” Johnny told them.
He swung up and headed for town, Whiskey loping close, the storm pushing them like a hand at their backs.
Marshal White dimmed the office lamp and pulled a blanket around his shoulders. He stood in the doorway, watching the ridge burn. The rain made a gray curtain. Behind it, the burning house came and went, like a lantern that couldn’t decide to die.
Johnny stepped onto the porch and shook his hat. Water ran from his coat and hat brim, forming a small river that flowed off the steps and onto the street.
“Buckner?” White asked.
“Gone.” Johnny’s voice was flat. “He lit his own fire and rode out. Took a satchel. I’d guess it was cash.”
White’s eyes flicked to the ridge again, then back. “You sure it was him?”
Johnny reached inside his coat and drew out a folded sheet. He handed it over. The old paper creaked. White held it so the lamplight could find it.
“Buckskin Lewis,” he read. He turned it over and saw the scrawl. Wish I still looked like this. Damn that fire to hell.
White let out a long breath. “Well, I’ll be damned. All this time.”
Johnny nodded once. “Money’ll buy a man a new name in most places. It can’t replace a ruined face.”
White put the poster on the desk as if it might break. “Rain’ll wash out his tracks.”
“Maybe. But a horse like his leaves more than mud. I’ll find where he put his feet.”
White studied Johnny’s face. “You’re leaking blood?”
“Not mine,” Johnny said. “Tangled with his butler. He’s going to need to hire another one.”
The marshal set the coffee cup aside and rubbed his bandaged head. “You keep going like this, and one day I’ll be singing over your pine box. You know that.”
Johnny looked past him, into the lamplight. “If a man gets what he came for, he doesn’t mind the road.”
White’s grin was tired. “You talk like an old-timer when you mean to be stubborn.”
“Maybe I do.”
They stood quiet for a minute. Rain shouldered against the windows and rattled along the roof. Somewhere down the street, a door banged, and a man swore about weather he couldn’t whip.
“You’ll ride at first light?” White asked.
“Soon as it breaks gray.”
“Take a man with you.”
“No.”
White didn’t argue. He’d learned the boy didn’t bend when it wasn’t right. “You’ll look south,” he said. “Bisbee. Then the line.”
Johnny nodded. “He probably had enough cash to buy Mexico.”
“Hmm, we already bought the best parts,” White said, lifting the poster again and looking into the eyes of the younger man pictured there. “If you bring him back, I doubt I can find a jury with enough spine to do what’s needful. This ain’t enough proof.”
“If I catch him, you won’t need a jury,” Johnny said.
White looked up sharply, then let it pass. “Get dry if you can,” he said. “You smell like a drowned cat.”
Johnny almost smiled. “I’ll bed in the livery.”
“Your fashion.”
Johnny tipped his hat and stepped back into the rain again. He crossed the street with Whiskey at his heels and cut toward the stable lights. The storm had lost some of its anger. It didn’t mind sharing the night anymore.
Inside the livery, Wally had a lantern hanging from a rope inside the door. He looked Johnny over and shook his head. “You ain’t a duck, you know. You picked yourself the worst night for sheriffing business,” he said. “You hungry?”
“Wet’ll do,” Johnny told him. He stripped off his coat and shirt, wrung out the water, and set both near the heat. Wally brought coffee in a tin cup.
“House up there burns like fatwood,” Wally said.
“It’s earned the fire,” Johnny answered.
Wally grunted. “How about the owner?”
“Probably halfway to the border by now,” Johnny said.
Johnny finished his coffee, then walked over to Meg’s stall. He lay down with his back to the wall, the Walker under the folded coat. Whiskey turned twice and lay across Johnny’s feet like a bar across a door.
“You riding at dawn?” Wally asked, sticking his head through the door.
“I am.”
“Then you’ll want waking.”
“I’ll wake,” Johnny said, then closed his eyes.
The stove ticked. Rain eased. Somewhere, a horse stamped and blew in its sleep. Johnny dreamed of nothing.
Gray came slow, as if the storm had to be argued with.
When it finally loosened its grip, Johnny was already up, shrugging into a damp shirt and a drier coat.
He checked both Colts by habit. The Walker turned smoothly.
The Pocket Colt seated as it should. He rubbed Meg’s nose and told Whiskey to drink while he could.
They rode for the ridge first. Smoke drifted low and lazy from the ridge. The mansion was a black tooth against the morning. Stone chimneys stood; everything else had leaned and fallen. The fire had devoured money without chewing.
Johnny circled the ruin wide. Mud told a dozen lies—tracks ran together, prints softened to mush. Near the stable eaves, where the ground had stayed dry, he found a story that didn’t lie: a sharp, narrow hoof cut deep.
“Thoroughbred,” he said. “Heels high. Steel shoes thin.”
He pointed. Whiskey lowered his nose and drew in the scent, working it from print to print. Then the dog looked south and barked once.
Johnny swung up. “That’s the way of it, then.”
They went out of the burned circle and down through mesquite flats where the sun would warm first. The trail bent along shallow washes, then kicked south. It moved like a man who knew the land and meant to make ten miles before another man made five.
Johnny let the mule jog and gave her head on the short, sandy stretches. The black horse would be fast. He’d also be soft—stable-fed, corral-legged, not used to rocks and thorns. There were places a thoroughbred had to choose his feet. A desert mule never bothered.
They crossed a dry wash that wasn’t dry, water hiding beneath the sand, and the scent was lost. Whiskey ranged, found it again, and trotted steadily with his ears up.
Toward noon, the clouds shredded, and the day warmed. Johnny took water where the wash collected it and let Whiskey and Meg drink. He ate dried beef, shared some with Whiskey, and tucked the rest away. The trail kept heading south.
Toward dusk, the hills ahead took on the look of Bisbee—scarred slopes, raw cuts, canvas towns huddled among them. Lanterns winked on early. Wind carried the smell of wet ore and old whiskey.
Johnny pulled up just outside the first tents. The trail angled straight through. He sat for a moment and took it in.
“He’s here,” he said to Whiskey. “He’ll have money in his pocket and a mind to spend some of it where a man can still get a bottle.”
They rode in slow. Men moved like they were already tired of tomorrow. A fiddle scraped off-key. Somewhere, a woman laughed too loud. Johnny tied Meg outside a low-slung saloon, with Lucky Seven painted across a board that had seen both rain and lead.
He touched the Pocket Colt under his arm and stepped through the batwings, Whiskey at his heel.
The room went half-quiet. That happened in a lot of rooms Johnny walked into. He didn’t take pride in it, nor did he ignore it. He stepped to the bar.
A big Mexican with a heavy black mustache and a clean white apron set his hands on the wood. “No dogs,” he said.
Johnny looked at him with eyes that had seen too much for his years. “He’s quieter than your customers.”
The man studied Whiskey’s big head and the way he sat with dignity and no drool. After a beat, he shrugged.
“Sarsaparilla,” Johnny said. “And a question.”
The bottle came. Johnny slid a coin across, took a pull, then set the bottle down. “You seen a man with burn scars on his face?”
The barkeep’s eyes didn’t stay on Johnny’s long. “No, se?or. No such man.”
His voice was smooth. His eyes weren’t. Johnny let the lie settle and said nothing more.