Buckhorn by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-01-11T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Tim Calvert insisted on coming with Buckhorn as they searched the area around the ranch headquarters for any more of Conroy’s men. They found seven corpses in all, including the man who had been burned up by the torch he’d intended to throw on the house.

Counting the two prisoners Buckhorn had captured, that meant only one or two men had fled with Yancy Madison. Buckhorn wasn’t sure exactly how many men Madison had brought with him to the C Cross.

Both prisoners were in the blacksmith shop now. Buckhorn lit a lantern. Its yellow glow washed over the angry faces of Jocko Flood and Jimmy. Charlie Dowd nodded toward the second man and said, “I know this fella. Name’s Jimmy Kincaid. We were mixed up in the same fracas in Kansas about five years ago.”

“Were you on different sides then, too?” Buckhorn asked.

Dowd grinned and said, “No, we were both ridin’ for the same side. But that don’t make a lick of difference when it comes to this fight.”

That was the way of it, all right. A gunman’s loyalties and friendships were always shifting, depending on whose wages he was taking. In the end, nothing was real except the money—and Buckhorn had gotten tired of feeling like that.

He pulled the gags out of Jimmy’s and Flood’s mouths. Immediately, both men started cursing him. Jimmy’s normally affable nature had vanished when he was knocked out and taken prisoner.

The two men shut up when Buckhorn drew his Colt and eared back the hammer. They must have been able to read the cold menace on his craggy bronze face.

“You were shooting at a house with a fourteen-year-old girl, a woman, and a couple of wounded men in it,” Buckhorn said. “You were going to burn it down around them.”

Jocko Flood’s mouth twisted in a sneer above his jutting beard.

“Don’t tell me you ain’t done just as bad or worse, when you was ordered to,” he said.

“That’s what I want you to tell me about. The orders you were given. Who told you to kill the Calverts?”

Jimmy said, “Don’t talk to him, Jocko. He’s just trying to trip you up and get you in worse trouble.”

Buckhorn smiled thinly and said, “Mister, there’s not any more trouble you could be in, this side of the grave.”

Then he smashed the Colt in his hand against Jimmy’s head, jolting it to the side and leaving a trail of blood trickling down his forehead from the cut the gunsight had opened up. Jimmy’s eyes went vacant for a second before awareness and fresh outrage came back into them.

“Good Lord, Buckhorn!” Flood exclaimed. “You’re gonna stove in his head and kill him!”

“Who told you to kill the Calverts?” Buckhorn asked again.

“What’s wrong with you?” Flood said. “You took Conroy’s money, damn you. How can you just turn on him like this?”

“Did Conroy give the order for you to murder those people?”

“Damn it,” Jimmy rasped thickly. “Nobody ever said anything about murder. Yance said that in the eyes of the

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