The Name's Buchanan by Jonas Ward

Author:Jonas Ward [Ward, Jonas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-4914-4
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 1984-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

THE SOUND of the horses pounding in the street outside brought Lew Agry hurrying to his office window. But the tongue-lashing he planned for Pecos and Lafe died aborning. It was not his deputies hurrying past but Gomez and three Del Cuervo vaqueros.

Now what? the sheriff thought irritably. According to Simon it was going to take Gomez forty-eight hours. What was he doing here tonight? Had Don Pedro reneged? Was there a counter offer? He swung back to the desk and poured liquor into his glass. Whatever it was, they’d have to come to Lew Agry. Lew held the trumps this time around.

That thought flowed effortlessly into another, one not so satisfying, and for the tenth time within the last hour he glanced at the wall clock and wondered where his missing men were. And that brought his mind full circle to the big worry: Abe Carbo.

Lew knew he could handle the gunman. If it came to that, he’d take him. He slammed the glass down. But why should it ever have to come to that? What the hell did he have all those deputies for, anyhow? By hell, they’d feel his spurs when they showed up.

• • •

Abe Carbo heard the same horsemen five minutes later, heard them turn into the entrance to Simon’s house. He was out on the protected veranda in an instant, to see what was going on and to see what Simon called the Home Guard. Not bad, he thought, seeing the dozen guns that both confronted the riders and covered them from the low roofs of the adjacent buildings. Not good, either. These were third-rate fighters at best, a motley collection of drifters and dodgers that he’d had to prime with raw whisky to drive off the Del Cuervo outfit last year.

But they were all that Simon Agry would let him buy. He said he couldn’t afford to pay gun wages to a first-class crew. He said he wasn’t the governor of California, he was only a private citizen. He said.

The fat man was afraid. Afraid of the past, afraid of the future. Afraid of his brother, of his kid, of Carbo — especially of Abe Carbo, who guarded his life for him….

“Carbo! What’s going on out there?” Simon demanded.

“The ambassador from Mexico is calling,” Carbo answered with his insolent drawl. “You want to see him?”

Simon stepped heavily onto the veranda.

“What’s he doing back here tonight? Who’s that with him?”

“I don’t know. But the vaqueros are his safe-conduct pass when you turn over the kid.” Carbo suddenly laughed. “Look at them.”

Gomez and his men pretended to have trouble halting their snorting, high-spirited mounts before the semi-circle of armed men. Almost as one, the four horses reared back on hind legs, scattering the line, then wheeled and came back on all fours with their rumps presented contemptuously to Simon Agry’s Home Guard. Gomez alone dismounted, glanced at the riflemen on the roofs, spit at the ground and bore down on the pair waiting on the veranda.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.