The Loner (12 page)

Outside, one of the men howled, “Come on out, you redheaded bitch! If you’re nice enough to us, maybe we’ll let you and your folks live!”

“Why doesn’t somebody come and help us?” Eve asked in an anguished voice.

“They gunned down the marshal,” Morgan reminded her. “Before that, they attacked your uncle. Everybody in town probably knows that. They’re scared. Garrity and Jessup have Sawtooth buffaloed.”

McNally asked, “What are you going to do, son?”

A cold smile touched Morgan’s lips in the darkness. “With any luck…buffalo them right back.”

They had to be curious about what he meant by that, but he didn’t explain as he hustled them into the bedroom and closed the door. Outside, the two hardcases were still yelling at the house, their words growing angrier and more obscene as they went on. Morgan went back into the room where he’d been recuperating, and felt around until he found the chest of drawers where Eve had put his gunbelt.

He opened the top drawer, reached inside, and felt the smooth walnut grips of the Colt. He pulled out the belt and buckled it around his waist. He still wore the tight bandages around his midsection, which caused him to move a little stiffly, but he was able to reach down far enough to tie the holster’s thong around his leg. Then he opened the Colt’s cylinder and explored the chambers to see if the gun was still loaded.

Morgan grimaced as he felt the empty chambers. Eve must have unloaded it. He reached into the open drawer again and brushed his hand over the bottom. Cartridges rolled across the wood. Morgan gathered them up and thumbed them into the Colt. He had carried out this task enough times so that he could do it without any light, although it would have been easier if he could see what he was doing.

Then he closed the cylinder, slid the revolver back into the holster, and took a deep breath.

“I’m warnin’ you, girl!” one of the men outside shouted as Morgan reached the front door. “If you don’t come out now, we’re gonna start shootin’! We’ll ventilate that house and everybody in it!”

Morgan opened the door, stepped out onto the porch, and said, “You’re not going to do anything except either get the hell out of here—or die!”

His sudden appearance on the porch took them by surprise. Both men fell silent. Morgan could feel them staring at him.

After a couple of heartbeats, one of the troublemakers demanded in a loud, angry voice, “Who the hell are you?”

“The man telling you to leave these people alone.”

“Do you know who we are?” the other man asked. “We just killed this town’s marshal!”

“Do you know who
I
am?” Morgan shot back. If he was going to run a bluff, he knew it had to be a good one. Without waiting for them to answer, he went on, “They call me Kid Morgan.”

“Never heard of you,” one of the men said with a sneer in his voice.

“I’ll bet you’ve heard of Wolf Dunston,” Morgan said, plucking the name out of his memory. “I killed him last year in Santa Fe. And what about Linc McSween?” he hurried on, not giving Garrity and Jessup too much time to think. “He drew on me in Tucson, and he’s dead now. Hardy Williams? Mart Dooley? Ed Cambridge? All notches on my gun, boys.”

Every one of those names was fictional. Morgan had gotten them from dime novels he had read about his father. To Frank’s great chagrin, he was the hero of dozens of those gaudy pamphlets, all of them featuring lurid stories made up by scribblers who probably kept bottles of whiskey on their desks so they could take slugs of hooch whenever what they were writing started to make too much sense. Although the man who used to be Conrad Browning probably wouldn’t have admitted it, he’d read quite a few of those dime novels, and some of the names of the vicious outlaws and gunslingers who appeared in them had stuck with him.

Garrity and Jessup looked at each other. “You ever hear of any of those fellas?” one of them asked the other.

“Yeah, I think I have. They’re supposed to be bad hombres.”

Morgan heard a trace of nervousness edging into their voices. He added, “The last two men I killed were the Winchell brothers, Jeff and Hank.” That much was true.

“I
know
I’ve heard of them. Damn it, Jessup, what the hell’ve you got us into?”

“I don’t care who he is!” Jessup said. “There’s two of us and one o’ him! We can take him! You want to have some fun with that pretty little redheaded gal or not?”

“There were two of the Winchell brothers, too,” Garrity pointed out, “and he killed them.”

“So he says. All we got is his word for that!”

“It’s true,” Morgan said calmly. “Turn around and ride away, or you can ask them about it yourselves, once you meet up with them in hell.”

“You’re a big damn talker.”

That was true. Talk was Morgan’s best weapon right now, because he had no idea whether or not he could beat these men to the draw. Considering that they outnumbered him two to one, it was mighty unlikely he could kill both of them before one of them got him.

But they had already gunned down Marshal Chambliss, he reminded himself. They had nothing to lose. If he didn’t stop them somehow, they would carry off Eve McNally and do God knows what to her. He couldn’t allow that to happen. If he could bluff them, make them ride off, that was his best chance. He didn’t like the idea of letting them get away after they’d killed the marshal, but once they were gone from here, the law could go after them and deal with them. That wasn’t his job.

“I’m done talking,” he said now. “Anything else I’ve got to say, I’ll let my gun do it.”

For a second, he thought it was going to work. He really did. But then Jessup yelled at his companion, “Kill him!” and grabbed at the gun on his hip.

In that moment, Morgan became a creature of pure instinct. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached for his gun, closed his hand around the grips, lifted the weapon from its holster, tipped up the barrel, and fired. The double-action Colt .45 was in excellent shape. Its mechanism worked smoothly. Morgan continued pulling the trigger as he raised the gun, extending his arm. Flame lanced from the muzzle again and again as the Colt bucked against his hand. Garrity and Jessup fired back at him from their saddles. What felt like a gust of hot wind fanned his face. The roar of gunshots was so loud and overpowering, Morgan felt like he was trapped in the center of the world’s worst thunderstorm.

Approximately three seconds after Morgan drew his gun, the hammer fell on an empty chamber. He had turned sideways without even realizing it, making himself a smaller target, and now he stood there on the porch with his right arm held out straight from the shoulder, the empty revolver in his hand.

Garrity and Jessup were dark, motionless shapes on the ground. Their horses stampeded off down the road, the empty stirrups flapping as they ran.

A pounding roar still filled Morgan’s head. After a moment, he realized it was the sound of his own pulse. Slowly, he lowered the gun.

He had fired all the rounds in the Colt, he told himself. The smart thing to do now would be to reload, as quickly as possible, just in case one or both of the gunmen weren’t dead. Did he have any bullets? Or was the rest of his ammunition in the house?

The gunbelt had loops on it so that cartridges could be carried in them, he remembered. That was why some people called a belt like this a shell belt. He reached around to his back and felt of the loops. Sure enough, there were bullets in them, although at this moment he didn’t recall putting them there. He pulled out five of them—the hammer always sits on an empty chamber, unless you’re reloading in the middle of a fight, his father had taught him—and opened the cylinder to let the empties fall out. He thumbed the fresh rounds into the gun.

A dark figure loomed up beside him. Morgan snapped the cylinder closed and turned quickly. The figure stuck his arms into the air and said, “Whoa! Take it easy, Kid. It’s just me, Phillip Bearpaw.”

Morgan lowered the gun and heaved a sigh of relief. “Phillip,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard there was trouble in town,” the Paiute answered, “and came over in case Patrick needed anybody to stay with Lucinda. I figured he and Eve might be busy tending to the wounded.”

“I think the only person who was shot was Marshal Chambliss.” Morgan nodded toward Garrity and Jessup. “Except for those two.”

“I saw the fight as I came up,” Bearpaw said. “I heard some of what you told them, too, Kid. We’ll have to talk about that…later.”

Morgan frowned. What did Bearpaw mean by that?

“Right now,” Bearpaw went on, “we’d better make sure those two miscreants are dead. I’ll go inside and get a lantern.”

The front door opened then, and Dr. McNally stepped out. “No need for that, Phillip,” he said. “I’ve got one right here.”

The doctor scratched a match into life and lit the lantern. As its glow washed over the porch, he went on. “Are you all right, Mr. Morgan?”

“I reckon.” Morgan hadn’t really thought about it, but now as he took inventory of himself, he realized that he hadn’t been hit. Some of the bullets fired by Garrity and Jessup had come close to him, but not close enough to do any damage.

“What about that wound in your side? Does it feel like it’s opened up again?”

Morgan shook his head. “I really think I’m fine.”

The three men walked down the steps. McNally held the lantern high so that its light spread out over the bodies of the two gunmen. Bearpaw was carrying an old Sharps rifle, Morgan saw. The Paiute kept the weapon trained on Garrity and Jessup as he used a toe to roll them onto their backs.

Morgan felt a twinge of surprise as he saw the dark stain on the chest of each man’s shirt. From the looks of it, he had hit them dead center.

“They won’t bother any more young women or gun down any more marshals,” he said.

“No, they won’t,” Bearpaw agreed. “They’ve gone west of the divide.”

Morgan holstered the Colt. As he did so, he heard a rush of footsteps behind him. He turned, and Eve threw her arms around him.

“Are you all right, Mr. Morgan?” she asked as she hugged him tightly—tightly enough, in fact, to make a tiny twinge of pain go through his side.

“I’m, uh, fine,” Morgan said. He lifted a hand and awkwardly patted her on the back. “Just fine.”

He had been a widower for a little less than two weeks. He had no business having an attractive young woman in his arms, even one who was just hugging him out of gratitude. He put his hands on Eve’s shoulders and gently moved her away from him. In the lantern light, he thought he saw a hurt expression flicker across her face.

“Doc! Doc McNally!”

The shout drew everyone’s attention. They turned to see half a dozen townsmen hurrying toward them. As the men panted up and stopped, one of them went on. “Zeke Chambliss is hurt, Doc. He needs your help.”

“Garrity and Jessup said they killed him,” McNally exclaimed.

The townsman shook his head. “No, Zeke ain’t dead, but he’s got a busted shoulder and a crease on his head that bled like a stuck pig. Can you come help him?”

“Of course I can. And thank God he’s still alive,” McNally added as he handed the lantern to Bearpaw. “Let me get my bag.” As he started to turn toward the house, he paused and said to Morgan, “If you’re sure you’re all right…?”

“I’m fine,” Morgan said again. “Go tend to the marshal.”

The townies were gawking at Garrity and Jessup. “Who killed these two?” one of the men asked.

Bearpaw nodded toward Morgan. “The Kid here did that. He’s Kid Morgan, the famous gunfighter.”

“Wait a minute—” Morgan began.

“Kid Morgan!” another of Sawtooth’s citizens repeated. “I think I’ve heard of you. You’re the fella Bearpaw found in the creek, all shot up.”

“What happened?” a third man asked eagerly. “Did you get wounded in a gunfight, Kid?”

Morgan opened his mouth to explain that the whole thing was a pack of lies. His father was the famous gunfighter, not him. All he’d been doing was trying to scare off Garrity and Jessup so they’d leave the McNally family alone.

But then a realization struck him, and he stopped the explanation before he started it. He wanted everybody to believe that Conrad Browning was dead back in Carson City. The best way to insure that was to create a totally new identity for himself, and if these people wanted to believe some yarn he had made up that contained only a few shreds of truth, then so be it. Kid Morgan, he thought. It had a ring to it.

The townsmen were still clamoring for answers. Morgan hooked the thumb of his right hand in his gunbelt and raised his left hand to silence them.

“I don’t talk too much about what’s happened in the past,” he said. “That’s sort of a rule of mine.”

“We understand,” Bearpaw said. “Let’s leave him alone, fellas. He needs some rest. He’s still recuperating.”

One of the men laughed and jerked a thumb at Garrity and Jessup. “Looks to me like he’s healed up just fine.”

Dr. McNally emerged from the house with his medical bag. “Let’s go,” he said briskly. “Phillip, would you mind staying here to keep an eye on things? Not that it’s really necessary, I guess, with Kid Morgan staying with us.”

“Yeah, I can stick around,” the Paiute replied with a nod.

“And I’ll send the undertaker back for those bodies,” McNally added over his shoulder as he hurried away.

Morgan turned wearily toward the house. He still had a little difficulty believing that he had actually killed those two men in a gunfight. Their bullet-riddled bodies were vivid proof of it, though.

He stopped in surprise as he saw the way Eve was looking at him. Her eyes were wide and staring, and from the expression on her face, she had just seen something ugly wiggle out from under a rotten log.

“Eve,” Morgan said with a frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Is it true?” she asked. “Are you a gunfighter?”

“Well…” It seemed like it was a little late to start denying it now.

Eve turned and ran back into the house without another word.

Morgan turned to look at Bearpaw. “What the hell was that all about?”

Bearpaw tucked the Sharps under the same arm he was using to hold the lantern, then clapped his other hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it,” he said, “but not until you’ve told me what all that Kid Morgan bullshit was about.”

“So you knew I was making it all up?” Morgan asked a short time later as he and Bearpaw sat at the table in the kitchen of the McNally house. He kept his voice down so that they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Yeah, I just played along until I got a chance to talk to you in private,” Bearpaw said. “Your name may really be Morgan, for all I know, but like I told you, I got here in time to see that fracas, and I know you’re not a professional gunfighter. I don’t recall ever hearing about any gunslinger named Kid Morgan either, no matter what the other folks around here have talked themselves into believing. The only Morgan I know of who’s a fast gun is Frank Morgan.”

Since Bearpaw already knew some of the truth, Morgan figured the only thing to do was to tell him the whole story. The Paiute was too smart to be taken in by lies.

“I come by the name honestly. Frank Morgan is my father.”

Bearpaw’s eyebrows rose. “I never knew The Drifter had a kid.”

“The fewer people who know about it, the better. I realize I already owe you my life, but now I have to ask you for another favor. I have to ask you not to tell anybody about this.”

“I can’t make a promise like that without knowing what the truth is,” Bearpaw replied with a shrug. “But if you’re not out to hurt the McNallys or any of my other friends, I don’t suppose I’d have any reason to break your confidence.”

Morgan clasped his hands together on the table in front of him. “All right,” he said. “It’s like this.”

He spent the next fifteen minutes telling Bearpaw everything that had happened, from that interrupted picnic on the hillside above Carson City, to riding away from his old life while the carriage house burned behind him with Jeff Winchell’s body in it. Bearpaw listened in silence for the most part, breaking in only to ask an occasional question.

When Morgan was finished, Bearpaw frowned across the table at him and said, “You never considered telling the McNallys the truth? Don’t you think you owe them that much?”

“I thought about it,” Morgan replied with a curt nod, “but I decided not to.”