Diamond Buckow by A. J. Arnold Page A

nickname. But his firmness held steady as he nodded.
    â€œFine, then,” Buck agreed. “I’ll get by alone OK tonight and tomorrow. At sundown tomorrow I’ll be in that bunch of rocks and scrub trees, kind’a off by itself, about three miles east of here. You know it?”
    â€œRight. It’s around halfway between Thompson’s and Blough’s ranches,” Jake confirmed.
    â€œYou got it. If you don’t make it before the sun is fully set, wait ’til the next night to come.”
    Strickland leveled a long and intense look at Buck as he muttered, “See you soon.”
    He saddled his sorrel and headed northeast, in the direction of his home ranch.
    Buck watched until the top hand was out of sight. Then he broke camp and got on the geld, traveling south. After riding for well over an hour, he came to the abandoned sod house with its corral of rotted poles. Just the way things were when he’d first discovered this place by accident, Buck knew hardly anybody came to the soddy or was even aware it was there. He guessed he was as safe as a man in his circumstances could be. Safer, at least, than staying behind, alone, where his own rope had been put around his neck.
    He watered the horse Jake had brought him out of a small pool caught below the spring of the stream close by, and hobbled it on fair graze. Making himself as comfortable as he could manage, he settled down to wait.
    But Buck’s mental turmoil refused him rest. The small dingy house did little to cheer him. He went outside to sit on a rise and watch the horizon, just to make sure nobody would stumble in on him. As he waited, his thoughts teemed and whirled around. What if Jake couldn’t set up the ranchers’ meeting without giving away Buck’s position?—Which was exactly why he’d moved camp so soon after Jake’s departure.
    In fact, could he really trust Strickland? The man had saved his hide, but then, he was definitely for law and order. Maybe he’d only done it to spite Newt Yocum’s high-handed way of doing things.
    Buck’s sweaty palm pushed the dark chestnut hair from his forehead and rubbed his throbbing temples. Damned if he knew what to think, but at least he reckoned he’d handled it right. The meeting place was good. Nobody could sneak up on it, with open prairie on all sides. He’d be able to see anyone coming long before they got there. Yeah, he’d taken care of that fairly decent.
    He started to think and plan again. If this didn’t work out, he’d have to disappear. It occurred to him to get hold of the money he’d hidden in the base log of Henry Blough ’s bunkhouse, at least.
    Sure! he thought as his pounding heart pulsed the first healthy color into his face in days. And if he didn’t want to be accused of horse thieving, he’d better go get his own mare. Then, too, he had another pair of pants and a couple of pairs of socks in the bunkhouse.
    And he needed a gun. He’d have to time it so as to arrive when Old Man Blough and Nancy were sound asleep, or at least too busy to notice him when he slipped in and lifted his stuff.
    An unbidden notion flushed Buck. Then he considered it more soberly. What was his boss’s wife really like? She’d appeared to him to be kind and gentle. Warm, friendly, and very feminine—but only in a proper and ladylike way. Certainly not like—it almost made him choke to reflect on the image. Not like what his sister Rebekah was: a chit who’d give herself openly to a man, and pleasure herself outright in it.
    And yet, he’d seen Newt Yocum leaving Nancy’s house in the dead of night, when her husband was away.
    Just who in hell did he think he was? Buck rebuked himself bitterly. He shook his head as if trying to throw away his guilt. After all, he’d damned near done it to Sarah.
    Buck couldn’t face his disturbed ponderings. He trained his mind instead upon the