BUCK LONESOME
Taken from the 1970 High
Chaparral Annual
See what you think of this one. Personally,
I feel it
shows that it was
written so long ago. Plus I don’t think the writer had watched much (if any)
High Chaparral
There
was one empty place at the breakfast table and Big John Cannon raised his
eyebrows and glanced at the empty place where his brother Buck should have been
sitting.
“Buck’s
late down,
Victoria
Cannon laughed; she shrugged her shoulders as she set down the coffee pot.
“That one,” she smiled. “Buck was in Ladston last night, John. It would seem
that he made what you boys call a night of it.”
Her
husband frowned. He glanced sharply at his son and brother-in-law.
“Were
either of you guys with him last night?” he demanded. “Buck’s altogether too
free with these wild nights of his. Going to be in trouble before he’s much
older. Fella like him should be setting a better example. Where is he?”
Blue
coughed and spluttered over his flapjacks and maple syrup.
Manolito
smiled ever so innocently at Big John. “How hard we tried, noble
brother-in-law. But --- you know what Buck is. We departed at
“So,”
grunted Big John, “he hasn’t come home yet and it’s six in the morning. Okay, if
either of you see him, tell him I’ll be wanting his help over at the Deep
Sixty. The fences are down and I’m taking a party. Tell him to look lively.
We’ve got a living to earn.”
But
by sundown there was still no sign of the missing Buck and after supper Big
John got up grimly and buckled on his gunbelt again. “Blue, and you, Manolito,
we’re riding for Ladston. Something almighty queer about this long absence of
Buck. He’s always come home before this, some time at least.”
In
town, Buck’s trail was easy to find and then as easy to lose. It led from the
Ladston Tavern to a clump of firs half-a-mile out of town. Then it faded into
nothingness. Big John breathed hard and stared round him.
“That
bartender told us that Buck left at two in the morning, managed to climb onto
his horse and was seen riding at a walking gait out in this direction. There’s
horse tracks here; could be anybody’s. Horseshoes are very much alike, I
guess.”
“But,
Pa,” put in Billy Blue, “there’s unshod tracks here as well.”
“Indians!”
growled Big John. “That means Apaches. So, Buck met up with some Apaches. What
of that? So close to town even Apaches wouldn’t dare molest a white man, would
they?”
Manolito
was kneeling and peering at the ground. “Good brother-in-law, I find traces
here that someone has been busy wiping out tracks.” He scuffed the dusty earth
with his fingers and brought the hand up. There was a dark brown stain on the
fingertips and he showed it to Big John and Blue. “Blood!” he said, solemnly.
“Now,
now,” said Big John. “we mustn’t go off half-cocked like this. All we know is
that Buck vanished round about here. So we search. We each take different
directions. That stain might be blood or it might not be. Even if it’s blood,
no need to assume it’s Buck’s blood. Even if it was he might have had a scratch
or a nick.”
“Whose
side are you on, Pa?” asked Blue. “You seem to be making excuses for the
Apaches.”
Manolito
grinned, flashing teeth. “Always the optimist, Big John.”
Cannon
flushed and scowled. “Nothing wrong with being an optimist,” he grunted. “Until
you’re proved wrong, that is. Okay, we ride. Adios.”
It
was dark by now and they searched all through the night, meeting occasionally
to compare results, which were always nil. In the thickets and the copses they
trampled thinking maybe Buck might have crawled unconscious into some hideaway.
And all with no results.
By
dawn the next day when they all three cantered wearily back to the ranch-house,
none of them had found the least trace of the missing Buck Cannon. It was a gloomy
breakfast to which the four sat down.
“What
about the law, John?”
Big
John laughed bitterly. “Sheriff Watkins?” he snorted. “You think he’d bother?
He don’t approve of Buck so much. He might make a few half-hearted attempts, to
save his face, but ---“
“The
Apaches,
“Just
what does one do about Apaches?” Big John asked ruminatively. “Seems to me that
all one can do is fight ‘em, then fight ‘em some more, and then fight ‘em
again. The critters just won’t live in peace with us. You think we oughter
start a war with them, Blue?”
“The
U.S Army’s rather busy right now, Manolito,” John replied, but his sarcasm was
lost on his fiery Spanish brother-in-law.
“But
who else could have taken Buck except Apaches?” chimed in Blue Boy.
“So
we’ve got that far,” his father commented. “We agree that he’s been --- what
did you call it --- taken?”
“What
else?” persisted Billy Blue. “Kidnapped, abducted, taken. All one.”
“That
has to be proved.” Insisted Big John stubbornly.
He
had not very long to wait for the proof.
After
breakfast, when Big John Cannon strode out to the porch of the ranch-house, he
was met by three members of the race about which he had been thinking, the
Apache nation.
There
were three of them, one a chief and two braves. The chief bore a white flag of
truce and the two warriors carried rifles. These they held stock foremost and
with the white flag this denoted that they came in peace, for a parley.
Cannon
stood still, staring into the stone face of the chief. Blue Boy and Manolito
came out behind him. They, like himself, had taken off their gunbelts on
sitting down to breakfast. There was a heavy silence.
The
Apache chieftain was the first to break that silence.
“This
is the house of John Cannon?” came the grating voice. John nodded.
“We
have found a treasure,” went on the Apache. “A brother, from the same squaw.
His name is Buck.”
“Steady,”
muttered Big John as Blue and Manolito started forward. “Let me handle this.”
He turned to the Indian. “What do you know of my brother? Where is he and what
have you done to him?”
The
Apache stared arrogantly into his face. “Your kinsman is safe. He lies in my
tepee and he has been wounded. He was found senseless by two of my braves in
the dawn hours of the day before the last one. He is wounded, but not to death.
My head medicine man will not allow him to be moved.”
Big
John’s breath blew out in a great gust. So Buck had been found after all. “We
will bring a paleface doctor to him,” he began, but the chief held up his hand.
“That
cannot be,” he said solemnly. “No white man sets foot in my village armed and I
know you would not come otherwise. If you come for your man you come unarmed
and be searched by my braves. Otherwise we will leave him in some named place
and you will come for him.”
Big
John glowered into the blank eyes of the man. He had had many dealings with the
Apaches and well he knew the constant and bitter enmity between the tribes and
the white settlers.
“There
is still the price to be agreed,” continued the man calmly. “Before your
brother is released to you, you will deliver to us one hundred head of your
best cattle, fifty rifles and ammunition, and ten ploughs.”
Then
the white rancher exploded. “You would sell my brother to me?” he hissed in a
furious anger. “Get our guns, Blue. They’ll be needed.”
The
Apache chief remained calm. “If I do not return inside the hour the town of
The
three watched the Apaches depart a hundred yards, then climb down from their
mustangs and sit together on the earth, their backs turned away from the
ranch-house. Big John turned a sombre face towards the others.
“Now
here’s a pretty mess,” he ground out. “Buck goes on a spree and he lands all of
us in this. We’ve no choice, of course?”
Blue
and Manolito looked gloomily thoughtful.
Was
there a choice, thought Blue Boy? No, his father was right, there was none. It
was blackmail, of the most flagrant kind, but the Apaches held all the aces.
The army was far away and, if they defied the ultimatum, it would only be
vengeance the soldiers could wreak after their possible deaths. No army could
then save Buck, who would by then have been butchered or burned. Could they
rouse the men of the surrounding townships? They would answer the call, but
they were all weary of fighting Apaches by now, and their women would maybe
stop them from going, fearing they would never come back. All for one man.
“Darned
fool thing, Buck did,” growled Big John. “A wild night and then trying to ride
his horse home, close by the Apache encampment. He was asking for it and now
he’s got it. Or maybe it’s that’s got it. Well we’ll have to pay and I will
have to go into that Apache village and fetch him out.”
Billy
Blue started and put out a hand. “Can you trust them that much, Pa? They could
hold you too and then ask for more cattle and more rifles.”
“I
have no alternative, son,” said his father stonily. “Call them back.”
It
was decided. The cattle, the rifle and the ploughs were to be left on the
range, at such a place and at such a time and no white man was to linger within
five miles of the spot.
One
hour after they had been taken, John Cannon was to ride in with the buckboard
to the Indian village. He must come unarmed, or else surrender his guns to the
sentry. He could bring a doctor if he wished, but that doctor would also have
to be unarmed.
That
afternoon,
Victoria
and Manolito watched him go mournfully.
Blue
Boy, maybe unable to witness the signs of such an abject surrender to the
insolent demands of the Apaches, was hiding himself.
After
five miles the buckboard was met by six Apache braves. Big John stonily
suffered the indignity of being blindfolded as he laughed bitterly to himself.
This was all sheer melodramatic nonsense. The redskins must know well that
every white man in the locality well knew just where the Apache encampment was
situated.
At
the entrance to the village, the Apache warrior who had taken the reins threw
them over the horse’s head and leaped down, Another snatched the blindfold from
Big John’s head and flung it away.
The
chief who had come to the High Chaparral was waiting for him. His nut-brown
face was no longer stonily inscrutable. Now it bore the triumphant malice of
the man who has successfully tricked his enemy and now looks forward to his
triumph. Ringed by armed braves Big John stood before him unarmed.
“So
now I hold both of the so famous Cannon men,” the chief gloated. “I have the
cattle and the rifles and the ploughs. When dealing with white men my race has
always the great advantage. The white man is a fool and he does not lie. Like
the fool he is, he mostly keeps his word and we Indians can rely on that. Bring
him down and put him with the other prisoner.”
He
turned contemptuously away and Big John, dazed and scarcely believing the words
he had heard, was dragged almost unresisting away.
Buck
was still unconscious when Big John was thrown into the tepee beside him. So
the Apache chief had lied the whole way through. Buck had been wounded by the
Apaches themselves before they had taken him. Big John fervently hoped that
Buck had taken toll of the impudent villains before going under.
Quickly
he felt Buck’s pulse and respiration and he breathed again. At least he lived.
Then John sat down to await stoically whatever events fate should bring. There
was no alternative, with a fully armed brave at the tepee door and one at each
point of the compass, their shadows visible though the skin sides of the tepee.
It
was dusk before the chief came again. As the sentry threw back the flap, Big
John saw the blazing fires. Round them already were dancing the medicine man
and the warriors celebrating their victory over the hated palefaces.
This
time the chief was bland and courteous. “To whom,” he wanted to know, “should I
address my demands --- blackmail was the word you used? The price this time
will be much higher, for now I have the owner of the ranch as well. Shall it be
to the sheriff at Ladston, or to the territorial chiefs in
Big
John gave an involuntary leap from his squatting position, his eyes blazing
with fury. But the haft of a spear from the chief’s bodyguard hit him in the
chest and he reeled back.
Then
to his bemused ears there came the sound of shots in quick succession. The
sentry fell and then the chief himself. The bodyguard was the next to go and
then, like some ghost in a play, there loomed the face of Blue Boy himself.
His
face was browned and he wore a travesty of an Indian’s garb. A wig roughly
concocted from a pony’s mane mimicked the long hair of the Apache and the red
and white painted cheek was true to Apache custom.
But
this ‘Apache’ held a six-gun in each hand and another was thrust into Big John’s
nerveless hand. The elder Cannon was bewildered by what was happening but he
recognised Blue --- it was all like a miracle now --- and he obeyed
voicelessly.
“Keep
‘em away from the space in front of the buckboard,” hissed Blue Boy. “I’ll get
Buck…”
There
came rifle shots as Big John ducked out and a bullet nicked him. He paid no
heed and the six-gun barked and each time found a victim. Through the hail of
bullets strode Blue Boy, the limp form of Buck in his arms. Unceremoniously,
Buck was flung into the blankets at the rear of the rig and Blue leaped up into
the seat. His father clambered in after him and, lashing the horse, Blue turned
the rig round and made hell-for-leather for the open country.
A
solid phalanx of warriors barred the way and Blue gritted his teeth. His father
was firing steadily and they had to stop and reload. The horse, nostrils
flaring and flanks steaming, reared up at the row of spears presented by the
Apaches. But the driver lashed her on and, neighing loudly, the hooves fell and
she galloped forward.
The
tough Apache braves cracked and, as the thundering hooves came closer and
closer they broke ranks and divided. Still firing, they rattled through and
headed for the open country.
“Gotta
take him to the Doc in town I guess?” asked Blue Boy.
But
his father, breathing heavily, shook his head. “No, son, we got to go back home
first.
The
blankets behind them heaved and the bewildered face of Buck Cannon, dirty and
blood-streaked, looked up. “Say,” he wanted to know, “what am I doing out here
in a buggy with you and Blue, all dolled up like a comic Indian? I can remember
that last jigger of bourbon, then the slow ride and the dark figures. A shot in
the arm --- it hit me like a mallet. I saw all the stars there are and…then I
wake up here. Tell me, someone, willya, what’s all this ruckus about?”
“We’ll
try,” grinned Blue Boy, looking back at him.
As
the carriage, now proceeding at a more sedate pace, headed for the High
Chaparral ranch, Blue told all he knew up to the time when he had dressed
himself up like an Apache Indian and hidden himself in the blankets of the
buckboard which his father, unarmed, was driving to the meeting with the late treacherous
Apache chief.
“You
mean I missed all that!” groaned Buck. “You mean I’ve been lying senseless like
a stuck pig while all this glorious fighting’s been going on?”
“No
more senseless than you always are, Buck,” said Big John, with a wink at Blue, “Seems
like our ‘wounded’ invalid won’t need Doc tonight, eh? A good wash, a feed and
a warm bed --- “
Buck’s
eyes gleamed. “Food!” he said gloatingly. “Step on it, Blue. Ya wanta know
somethin’? I can’t feel a darned thing now except creeping starvation.”
THE END
Taken from the 1970 High Chaparral annual. Published
in
Printed in