Comanche Gold (13 page)

Durant’s hands had clenched into two huge
fists resting on the desktop. Then he glanced nervously at Tucson's
right hand lying loosely next to his Colt and he made an effort to
control his temper. “That's a lot of interesting speculation you’re
throwing around,” he said, after clearing his throat. “But since
you don't have even a shred of evidence to back it up, it makes me
wonder why you're here saying this at all.” He jabbed a blunt
forefinger at Tucson. “If you try to spread any of this around,
I'll have Marshal Calloway on you faster than you can spit. At the
very least, I'll slap a charge of slander on you.”

“You won't charge me with anything,” Tucson
replied coldly. “You can't afford to have any word leak out that
there's gold on the reservation. After all, you're aiming at the
governor's mansion. You want Comanche gold to buy your way there.
And you can't take a chance that anyone will find out you're trying
to steal it away from the Comanche. At a guess,” he suggested, “I'd
say no one but you and Prince know exactly what's going on. A man
like Prince doesn't cooperate without knowing the score. But what
does he tell Ed Thompson's boys when they go onto the
reservation?”

Durant's face went from red to white as
Tucson spoke, and his eyes became malevolent slits of lurid flame.
The way he was hunched forward in his chair, it was clear that if
it wasn't for Tucson's Colt, the banker would try to beat him to
death.

Tucson smiled, and it was a smile every bit
as malevolent and deadly as Durant's eyes. They sat staring at each
other in silence, and the ticking of the clock standing in the
corner seemed unusually loud. Then Durant relaxed and sat back, his
mouth warping into a twisted smile.

“Like I’ve already said,” he waved his hand
dismissively, but his fingers shook slightly, “since you have no
evidence, it makes me wonder why you're here telling me all of
this.” His face took on a crafty look. “Although I'm certainly not
admitting anything—these accusations are patently absurd—it's also
true that I'd prefer not to have anything, even lies, jeopardize my
plans for the future.” He paused to see how Tucson was responding.
When Tucson just stared at him, he went on, “It occurs to me that
we might be able to make some kind of a deal.” His smile broadened
and became suave, one businessman negotiating with another. “We're
both reasonable men. There's no point in arguing when arguing is so
unprofitable. Name your price, Mr. Tucson. For the convenience of
having this whole issue go away, I'm prepared to be generous. Of
course,” he added, “any deal we make will include your leaving
Howling Wolf immediately and never coming back.”

The tricky part had finally arrived. Tucson
had no way of knowing if Durant kept gunmen on the premises. He
guessed Durant did because, with the play he was making with the
Comanche, it was reasonable to assume that if they left the
reservation they would come after him here at home.

Durant would want men here to protect
him.

Tucson was gambling that he would be able to
move fast enough to stay alive.

“I'll tell
you
how it's going to be,”
he said, his voice tight. “You're going to leave the gold to the
Comanche, give up your interests in the bank and the other
businesses around town, forget about the governor's mansion, and
get out of Howling Wolf. And you're going to get out by tomorrow
night.”

Roaring with rage, Durant lurched to his feet
and leaned over his desk. “Why you goddamn two-bit, chiseling,
tin-horn saddle tramp! Who the hell do you think you are coming
here and talking to me like that?” He raised his clenched fists.
“I've broken better men than you in two with my bare hands.” His
craggy face was livid. “Do you think you can threaten me and get
away with it?”

The door flew open and Jessup appeared in the
entrance.

“Get out!” Durant thundered and the door
slammed shut.

Tucson's hand had gone to his gun when the
door opened, when it closed again he took his hand away. If only
Jessup showed up it must mean that Tucson had guessed wrong. Durant
wasn't keeping any men on the premises after all. But Tucson didn't
relax. Durant alone was still a formidable opponent. It was only
the threat of Tucson’s Colt that kept the banker from lunging for
his throat.

It amused him to watch Durant's veneer of
polish and class crack like cheap gilding when he felt threatened,
exposing the tough street brawler that lurked beneath.

“Listen to me, Durant,” Tucson said coldly.
“You've already tried once to have me killed. And you've had three
Comanche murdered. As far as I'm concerned I could snuff you now
and it'd be no more than stepping on a bug. But I'm giving you a
chance. It could be that you're just stupid. Maybe you don't know
that snakes get shot. So I'm telling you again: Be out of town by
tomorrow night or I'll kill you on sight.”

Durant stood frozen, leaning over his desk,
measuring his chances of reaching Tucson before he pulled his gun.
Then he made his decision, the lines of his face relaxed, and he
sat back down. He took a pen from his desk and twirled it in his
fingers while he stared pensively into space.

Then he focused again on Tucson. “Doesn't it
mean anything to you,” he asked quietly, “that I said you were
wrong about my involvement in any Comanche gold?”

“No.”

“Are you so certain that you'd kill a man
without any proof?”

“Yes.”

“You know,” Durant said musingly. “I built
this town. Before I got here, Howling Wolf was just a dusty spot in
the road. I saw the potential here. It was me who got the railroad
to build a rail head. I invested in the businesses the town needed
to grow, and it was my money that saw the ranchers through drought
and hard times, and helped them build up their herds.” He studied
his hands spread out on the desktop, then looked again at Tucson.
“And I can do the same thing for Texas. The state's growing by
leaps and bounds, and needs men with vision—men like me. With my
ability and my drive I don't have to stop at the governor's
mansion. I could move on to Washington—to the White House. Are you
willing,” he asked incredulously, “to cancel all that out for the
sake of a few flea-bitten Comanche that don't mean jack-shit to
anybody?”

Tucson’s face was stony as he listened to
Durant’s speech. But even as he listened, another part of his mind
ranged over the mansion, listening for any unusual sounds -
creaking floorboards or softly closing doors. But he detected
nothing.

All was silent.

“You're right, Durant,” he said finally.
“Texas is growing—the whole country's growing. It's growing into
the kind of place where carpetbaggers like you are taking charge,
amassing power and making decisions.” He shrugged. “I don't have
any doubt that you, or someone like you, could make it to the White
House. But unlike you, I think the way things are going is
sad—maybe even a catastrophe.

“You're building a society based on greed,
control, money and machines,” he continued. “It'll be a society
without any roots sunk into real values, because men like you have
sold us the idea of progress—the need to buy more, own more, to be
more comfortable. You'll make sure everything's fenced in with more
laws then we know what to do with telling us what we can and can't
do. Eventually,” he pointed out, “those who come after you will
pass laws protecting us from ourselves, and putting policemen on
every street corner so we'll believe we're safe.

“And you're right.” He leaned forward and
rested his forearms on his knees. “There isn't a place in that
world for the Comanche, or for anyone else who still remembers what
freedom was like before men like you turned us into a society of
sheep.”

As he continued to speak, Tucson’s voice was
edged with nostalgia. “The Comanche were born into the wide open
spaces where they could ride their ponies with their faces in the
wind. Where there were no fences, no towns and no one telling them
where they could camp and where they could hunt. But people who
remember how things used to be threaten the world you're creating,”
he added accusingly. “It's not just the Comanche and other Indians
that you want to destroy, it's men like me—men who don't have a
price tag attached to them. If you can't buy us or control us, you
kill us—one way or another.”

“So you’re nothing but a god-damned
romantic!” Durant sneered. “You look back to the ‘good old days.’”
He shook his head. “I expected more than that from the Tucson
Kid.”

“What you think means less than nothing to
me,” Tucson responded. “Still,” he returned to his subject, “I'm
not fool enough to think that men like you can be stopped. You
answer a need in people themselves, or you wouldn't be able to
succeed so well. Now that the west is getting tamed, the signs are
all around us. The country's going the way it's going and it won't
stop until all freedom's been snuffed out in the name of freedom.
But it's the way people themselves want it, because deep down all
we really want is to be taken care of. We're only as tough as we
have to be.” He sat back in his chair. “If someone like you comes
along and promises to protect us, we follow you like a herd of
sheep.”

“If you find the way things are going so
inevitable,” the banker asked, genuinely curious, “why bother to
stand in the way?”

Tucson shifted his gaze to the curtain-draped
window behind Durant’s head as he thought about his reply. “I
represent a very ancient tradition,” he said finally. “The path
that I follow, the Warrior’s Way, isn’t identical to the Way that
the Indian Tribes follow, but it has a lot of similarities. They
both stem from the same spirit and carry the same ethos. So when I
see that tradition being trampled on by people like you, I consider
it a sacred duty to do something about it.

“Taking you out may not stop things,” Tucson
said. “But you never know, maybe it'll slow them down a little.
Besides,” his voice hardened, “you've had Indians murdered who
can't protect themselves. And as far as I'm concerned that's the
act of a coward and a snake. So what I told you still stands.” His
voice took on the ring of doom. “You either get out of Howling Wolf
by tomorrow night, or you're a dead man.”

Durant had listened silently to what Tucson
had to say and seemed to be more than a little impressed. Then he
replied quietly, “Until tomorrow night, then.”

Reading the banker’s mind, Tucson grinned
wolfishly. “I know. That gives you plenty of time to get your
riders in from the Lazy T and have me assassinated.” He leaned
forward and stared into Durant’s face, but kept his hand close to
his Colt. “Let me give you a warning. If you try to have me taken
out, after I’ve taken care of the assassins I'll come back here and
kill you real slow. I'm giving you the chance to get out of Howling
Wolf with your life. If you blow it, you'll get no mercy.”

* * * *

It was close to midnight when Tucson let
himself into his room. He had stopped off at the livery stable to
put the stallion into its stall, feed it and rub it down. It was an
inflexible habit with Tucson never to neglect his horse. He had
been through many tight spots where his life hung in the balance
and where a weak horse could have gotten him killed. Besides, there
was a deep bond between Tucson and the stallion—they were
partners.

He opened the door softly and pushed it back
against the wall as he scanned the room. There was an unfamiliar
lump lying in the bed and his right hand whipped down and came up
holding the Colt.

The shape sat up and whispered, “It's only
me, Tucson. Don't shoot!”

Recognizing Catherine's voice, he grinned and
slid the gun back into its holster. “What're you doing here at this
time of night?” he asked, as he crossed the room to the stand that
held the pitcher of water and the washbowl.

Covered to the chin with the blanket,
Catherine drew her legs up and clasped her arms around her shins.
Her face was a pale oval in the darkness, and her auburn hair
cascaded in a fiery aureole over her slender shoulders.

“I missed you,” she replied shyly. “After
today at the pool, I realized that I've gone without what a man can
give for too long.” Her full lips parted in a smile. “I'd like some
more before you leave.”

Tucson unbuckled his gun-belt and draped it
over the back of the chair, then slipped out of the leather jacket
and shrugged off the shoulder rig. He paused after Catherine
finished talking to look back over his shoulder at her, feeling
himself already responding to the heat of her desire.

“Wait while I clean up a little.” he said,
“Then I'll see what I can do.”

Catherine giggled expectantly as he poured
water into the basin.

He stripped the rest of the way down and
washed himself with the cloth all over. The cold water made his
body tingle. That and the nervous energy he had built up during his
conversation with Charles Durant made him feel more than ready for
Catherine.

When he had toweled off, he picked up the
gun-belt, walked around the right side of the bed and looped the
belt over the bedpost and positioned it so that the Colt's butt was
pointed forward. Then he leaned over, gripped the bedspread and
whipped it down to the end of the bed. Catherine gasped with
surprise, then grinned happily and slid down on the sheet, holding
her arms up to him.

Tucson's hungry gaze raked down the length of
her beautiful body. It shimmered in the darkness like molded ivory
and threw mysterious shadows that toyed with his imagination. Then,
grinning with anticipation, he lowered himself into her waiting
arms.

Chapter
Nine

Tucson reached the Twin Trees Comanche
Reservation late the next morning. He rode easy in the saddle, his
right hand close to his gun, his grey eyes scanning the country. He
wasn't fool enough to think Charles Durant would take the notice he
had given him lying down. Durant had one day to kill Tucson off
before he came after him. It would be stupid of him not to try, and
one thing the banker wasn't was stupid.