Frank did likewise. He had lowered his aim a little, hoping that some bullets whizzing around their heads would make the men think twice about continuing this fight.
One of the riders suddenly threw up his arms and half-fell out of the saddle, catching himself at the last instant. The man slumped on the back of his horse, obviously badly wounded.
Frank was about to say something to Salty about not following the plan when he saw puffs of powder smoke coming from the rocks where the four riders they’d seen earlier had taken shelter. Those fugitives were taking a hand in this game, and considering that they had been the object of the chase to start with, Frank supposed he couldn’t blame them.
With the four men in the rocks and Frank and Salty behind the knoll, the gunmen were caught in a crossfire. First one, then another, and then the whole group yanked their horses around, as they must have realized what a bad position they were in. They spurred their mounts and galloped back toward the trees.
Salty lowered his rifle and crowed, “They’re lightin’ a shuck!”
“For now,” Frank agreed as the men disappeared into the pines, including the one who had been wounded. “We’d better be careful, though. They might double back and try again. I think we’ll stay right here for a while.”
“Really? I figured we’d go talk to those other fellas and find out what this is all about.”
“If they want to palaver, they know where to find us. They’re probably pretty curious who it was that pulled their bacon out of the fire.”
Curious, maybe, but definitely cautious. Long minutes crawled by with no sign of the four men emerging from their cover in the boulders.
But then one rider appeared, guiding his horse with his knees and holding his rifle ready in both hands, and the others trailed slowly out of the rocks behind him. They were on the alert for trouble as much as the first man was.
Nothing happened, though, as the four men rode across the grassy flat toward the knoll. Frank and Salty watched them come. When they were about twenty yards away, the men reined in, and the one in the lead called, “You still up there?”
“We’re here,” Frank said.
“Who are you?”
“Could ask the same thing of you, Mister.”
The man sheathed his Winchester. He took off a flat-crowned brown hat and sleeved sweat from his forehead. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, a well-set-up young man with brown hair and the sort of permanent tan that indicated he spent his days working outdoors.
Without putting the hat back on, he looked up at the top of the knoll and said, “My name is Hal Embry. My father is Jubal Embry. This is his range we’re on, the Boxed E.” Hal turned in the saddle and waved his hat at the other three men. “These are three of our hands, Bill Kitson, Ike Morales, and Gage Carlin.” The young man put his hat back on. “Now you know who we are. Reckon it’s only fair you return the favor.”
“I’m Frank. My pard is called Salty. Just a couple of rannies riding through these parts.”
“Well, we’re surely obliged to the two of you for taking a hand in that fight, Frank. If you hadn’t, Morgan and his gunnies might’ve done for us.”
At the mention of that name, Frank stiffened and glanced over at Salty with a frown. The old-timer shrugged. It wasn’t like Morgan was such an uncommon name. There were plenty of hombres carrying it around, all over the West.
Hal Embry went on, “Why don’t you come back to the Boxed E headquarters with us? I know my pa would like to thank you, too, and we can offer you a mighty fine dinner in partial payment of the debt. Our cook’s the best you’ll find in Montana.” A sudden grin split the young man’s face. “She’s my ma.”
Salty scratched his beard and said quietly, “I could do with a home-cooked meal. It’s been a few days since we left the Circle C, and trail grub just ain’t the same as woman-cooked.”
Frank felt an instinctive liking for Hal Embry, and the men with him seemed to be sturdy cowhands of the type he knew well and admired.
Besides, he wanted to know more about this man called Morgan, who evidently led a crew of killers.
“All right,” Frank called down to Hal. “Hang on, and we’ll join you.”
He and Salty went down the hill and retrieved their horses. They swung into leather and rode around the knoll, leading Stormy and the pack horse, and Dog came with them.
As they came up to the other men, Frank saw that the three punchers were keeping a watchful eye on the trees. They were being careful, too, in case the gunmen came back and started shooting again.
Hal Embry nodded and said, “I’m pleased to meet you fellas. Just passing through these parts, you said?”
“That’s right,” Frank told him.
“You don’t happen to be acquainted with a man named Gaius Baldridge, do you?”
“Guy Us,” Salty repeated with a puzzled frown. “What in tarnation sort of a name is that?”
“Latin,” Frank said. “The ancient Romans used it some.” He had unexpected bits of knowledge in his head because he was an avid reader and always had a book or two in his saddlebags.
“Well, as far as I’m concerned, it’s Latin for low-down snake,” Hal said. “You don’t know him, then?”
“Never even heard of him until just this minute,” Frank replied with a shake of his head.
“That’s what I figured, since Brady Morgan works for him and that was Morgan and his men you were shooting at. But since you just rode into this part of the country, it was possible Baldridge might have sent for you.”
“To do what?” Frank asked, although he suddenly had a hunch that he might know the answer.
“To sign on as regulators for him.”
That was what Frank expected to hear. It must have taken Salty by surprise, though, because the old-timer exclaimed, “Regulators! You mean we just waltzed right into the middle of a dad-blasted range war?”
Hal smiled thinly and said, “I’m afraid so. Baldridge is an old open range man. He doesn’t like it that my pa filed an official claim on part of this valley last year and moved out Baldridge’s stock. He’s been trying to run us off ever since.”
“And he brought in regulators to do it,” Frank mused. “Most of the time, that’s just a fancy name for hired killers.”
“Brady Morgan and his crew sure fit the bill,” Hal agreed. “But there’s no need to sit around here all day jawing. It’ll be nigh on to supper time before we get back to the house.”
He lifted his reins and turned his horse. Frank and Salty fell in beside him. The three cowhands brought up the rear, spreading out some and riding with their rifles across the saddle in front of them.
“Those gunnies jumped you for no good reason?” Frank asked.
“That’s right,” Hal said. “The boys and I were just checking on the stock in this part of the valley when Morgan and the others showed up and started shooting. We lit out, but I don’t figure we would have gotten away if you and Salty hadn’t pitched in and given us a hand.”
“They still outnumbered us by quite a bit.”
“Yeah, but we were forted up good in those rocks, and it wouldn’t have been easy to roust the two of you from that knoll. Plus we had them between two fires. Morgan may be a lot of things, but he’s not a fool. Once he saw the layout, he knew he’d suffer some heavy losses, even if he managed to kill us all. I guess he figured it’d be better to wait and try to wipe us out some other day.”
Frank nodded. Hired guns were nothing if not practical. A hired killer would risk his life for wages. That was part of the job. But he wouldn’t do it foolishly. Frank had known plenty of them even though he had never sold his gun himself, his reputation to the contrary. He fought only for causes he believed in.
“You said this isn’t open range anymore,” he commented to Hal Embry. “I haven’t seen any fences.”
“We haven’t gotten around to fencing off most of the Boxed E just yet. Barb wire costs money, and we’re sort of cash-poor. And to tell you
the truth, my pa is enough of an old-fashioned cattleman that he doesn’t like the stuff. He’s a little slow to change. It took my ma and my sister quite a while to convince him to file a claim on the land legal-like, but he finally saw that that’s the way things are going these days. The land’s ours, all right. The claim’s on file official and proper down in Helena.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Frank said.
“Yeah, things are changin’ all over,” Salty put in. “Most of it sticks in my craw, too.”
“You’ll get along with my pa, then,” Hal said with a grin.
True to the young man’s prediction, the sun was almost directly overhead when the six men rode up to the ranch headquarters. It was a nice-looking layout, Frank thought, with a two-story, sturdy-looking log ranch house, a bunkhouse and barn made of whipsawed planks, and several pole corrals. A smaller pen near the ranch house held a couple of milk cows, and someone had put in a vegetable garden, too. There was nothing fancy about the Boxed E, but it had a comfortable look about it, as if a family could make a good home here.
If they got the chance.
Several shaggy yellow dogs came bounding out from the barn to greet the newcomers. They stopped short, their legs stiffening and the hair rising on their necks as they spotted Dog and caught his scent. Growls came from deep in their throats, and the big cur answered in kind.
“Dog!” Frank said. “Easy.”
The ranch dogs approached warily. Considerable sniffing and circling went on, then Dog turned his back on the others and strode on next to Frank and Goldy, his disdain for the other dogs palpable.
The ranch house had a big porch along the front of it. As the riders approached, a heavy-set man with thinning gray hair and a gray goatee stepped out of the house with a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. From the man’s powerful bearing, Frank guessed this was Jubal Embry, the owner of the Boxed E.
“You all right, Hal?” the man asked in a challenging tone as the riders drew rein in front of the porch. “One of the hands said he thought he heard some shots coming from the west pasture a while ago.”
“He did hear shots,” Hal said. “Brady Morgan and his gun-wolves jumped us while we were checking the stock over there. Might’ve done for us, too, Pa, if these drifters hadn’t come along and helped us out.”
“Drifters,” Jubal Embry muttered. Then his eyes widened abruptly in recognition, and the shotgun in his hands came up. “Hal, you damned fool!” he shouted. “That’s Frank Morgan, the gunfighter! He’s Brady Morgan’s father!”
Chapter Three
Frank didn’t know what was more of a shock: having that scattergun pointed at him, or hearing that he was the father of a regulator, a hired killer.
Frank had one son, Conrad Browning, who had been led by tragedy to abandon the life of a successful businessman and now roamed the Southwest, using the name Kid Morgan. And there was a girl down in Texas named Victoria who might be his daughter. Frank wasn’t sure about that, and Victoria’s mother had always refused to say positively one way or the other. Victoria was confined to a wheelchair, the victim of a bullet intended for Frank himself, but she was married to Frank’s old friend, Texas Ranger Tyler Beaumont, and he knew she was doing well. Every so often, one of her letters caught up to him.
Those were his only two children, as far as he knew, although to be honest he had been with other women from time to time over the years. None of them had ever said anything to him about being in the family way. But maybe they wouldn’t have.
And he hadn’t learned of Conrad’s existence until the young man was nearly grown, he reminded himself. Was it possible that he had other offspring out there somewhere?
He had to admit that it was.
Those thoughts flashed through his head as he looked down the twin barrels of Jubal Embry’s shotgun. He hadn’t budged since Embry pointed the Greener at him. He didn’t want to give the rancher any excuse to jerk those triggers.
“Pa, wait!” Hal said. “You must have it wrong. These hombres helped us.”
Embry squinted at Frank over the shotgun’s barrels and said, “Are you denyin’ it, Mister? Are you Frank Morgan or not?”
“I’m Morgan,” Frank said. “But I never heard of anybody called Brady Morgan until today.”
Hal stared over at him.
“I trusted you,” the young man muttered.
“Are you loco?” Salty burst out. “You trusted us for good reason! We kept those no-good varmints from gunnin’ you!”
One of the ranch hands spoke up, saying, “That’s true, Mr. Embry. As soon as they saw what was goin’ on, they opened fire on Baldridge’s regulators.”
Hal glared at Frank and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me your real name?”
“I did. Frank’s my real handle. But once you started talking about somebody else named Morgan, I thought it might be a good idea to wait a while and see what else I could find out about what’s going on around here.”
“Well, now you know,” Embry said. “That bloodthirsty whelp of yours is workin’ for Baldridge and tryin’ to run us off land that’s rightfully ours. But he can’t do it. He can’t get rid of us without killin’ us.”
“I believe you,” Frank said. “But Morgan’s a common name. Just because the man ramrodding Baldridge’s regulators is called that, it doesn’t mean he’s related to me.”
“Then why does he keep goin’ around tellin’ everybody he’s the son of the famous gunfighter Frank Morgan?”
Frank couldn’t answer that, so he just shrugged and shook his head.
“All I can tell you, Mr. Embry, is that Salty and I didn’t know anything about any of this until today. Not about Baldridge, not about the trouble you’ve been having, and for sure not anything about this Brady Morgan.”
Doubt began to appear in Hal’s eyes. He said, “I suppose he could be telling the truth, Pa—”
“You think it’s a coincidence they showed up just as those gunnies were tryin’ to kill you?” Embry demanded. He didn’t lower the shotgun. “Don’t be so blasted dumb. It’s a trick, that’s what it is! Baldridge is tryin’ to slip these men in amongst us, so they can work against us.”
“I don’t see how—”
“Did they shoot any of those regulators?”
“Well ... no,” Hal admitted. “I think it was Gage’s shot that plugged one of them. Looked to me like they might’ve been firing high.”
Embry snorted.
“Ain’t that a surprise,” he said. “I swear, boy, they’ve pulled the wool over your eyes! But they can’t fool me.” The shotgun’s barrels shook slightly from the depth of the rage that possessed the man holding the weapon. “Get off my range! Get out now before I blow you both out of the saddle like I ought to!”
“You’re makin’ a mistake, Mister,” Salty said. “You got it all wrong.”
“I don’t think so. Now git!”
Frank lifted Goldy’s reins and said, “We’re going.”
He was angry, too, but he could see that he wasn’t going to able to change Jubal Embry’s mind. Circumstances had conspired to convince the rancher that he was right, and he wouldn’t be swayed, no matter what.
“Hal, get in the house,” Embry went on sharply. “You three, ride along with Morgan and whatever that old pelican’s name is, and make sure they get off our range. If they give you any trouble ... shoot ’em!”
Hal looked over at Frank and said, “I’m pretty mixed up about all this, but I appreciate what you did for us.”
“You’re welcome,” Frank said with a faint smile.
“Hal!” Embry roared. “Now!”
Frowning in embarrassment and anger, Hal dismounted while Frank and Salty turned their horses away from the ranch house. Frank saw that several more punchers had emerged from the bunkhouse and the barn. The men watched with wary, slitted eyes as Frank and Salty rode past. They had heard enough of Embry’s bull-like bellowing to believe that these two strangers were enemies of the Boxed E.
&nbs
p; “Maybe this’ll break you of the habit of goin’ around tryin’ to help folks,” Salty said as they rode east and the ranch headquarters fell behind them. “That’s the most surefire way of gettin’ in a heap of trouble I ever saw.”
“Seems like when you and I met, I was trying to give you a hand,” Frank drawled.
“Yeah, well, that was different.”
The three cowboys trailed behind them, rifles still held at the ready. But when they were out of sight of the ranch house, one of the men nudged his horse up alongside Frank’s mount.
“Gage Carlin,” he introduced himself. He was middle-aged, with the raw-boned, weatherbeaten look of a veteran cowboy. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Morgan, we’re obliged to you, too, like Hal said.”
“Thanks, Gage,” Frank replied. “And also for what it’s worth, I was telling the truth back there. I don’t know this Brady Morgan, or Gaius Baldridge, either.”
“My bones say you’re tellin’ the truth. Can’t go against the boss, though. No offense.”
Frank nodded and said, “None taken. I’ve ridden for the brand in my time, too.”
“Not for a while, I expect, judgin’ by the stories I’ve heard about you.”
“Not for a while,” Frank admitted. “But some of those stories you mentioned were likely just big windies.”
“Some, maybe. Not all, I’ll bet.”
“No,” Frank said, “not all.”
They rode on for a while, and finally Salty asked, “Is there a town somewhere the way we’re goin’?”
“Yeah. Settlement called Pine Knob. Didn’t start out as much, but it’s growin’.”
“Does the railroad pass through there?” Frank asked.
Carlin shook his head and said, “Nope. Closest train station is in Great Falls. But there are a couple of good eatin’ places in Pine Knob, and a decent hotel if you’re lookin’ for a place to stay.” The cowboy grinned. “And some nice saloons, too.”
Salty licked his lips and said, “Now you’re talkin’.”
Frank was still curious and asked, “Where does Baldridge’s range run?”
“He has the whole eastern end of the valley,” Carlin said. “Pine Knob sits in between, right on Loco Creek. Folks call it that because of the way it twists around so, but it runs generally north and south and cuts the valley right smack in half.”
MacCallister, The Eagles Legacy: The Killing Page 25
