The Loner: Seven Days to Die

by J. A. Johnstone

  The Kid kept his teeth clamped together so he didn’t make any sound. Haggarty felt like he weighed a ton, and it seemed like it took him an hour to climb up to the window, rather than a minute or so.

  At last Haggarty pulled himself through the window and sprawled on the floor next to The Kid.

  “Made it,” he said, and the gasp in his voice indicated that the climb hadn’t been easy for him.

  The Kid unwound the rope from his body, grateful the wide leather gunbelt had kept it from cutting too deeply into his flesh. He got to his feet, as did Haggarty.

  “What now?” the bounty hunter whispered.

  “We wait for Brady and the men with him to make their move,” The Kid replied.

  They didn’t have long to wait. Even though the open window was on the back of the building, they heard Brady’s shout from the street a few minutes later.

  “Harrison! Hey, Harrison, you hear me?”

  The Kid eased open the door. It led onto the balcony that overlooked the saloon’s main room. A hubbub of surprised voices drifted up from below.

  A moment later, Bledsoe’s voice called, “Who’s out there? Speak up, damn you!”

  “It’s the whole town,” Brady shouted, “come to tell you to take your gunmen and get the hell out!”

  “Kill that fool,” Bledsoe snapped.

  The Kid hoped Brady had sense enough to duck for cover.

  A second later, shots roared down below and were answered by a thunderous volley from outside. It sounded like a small-scale war had broken out in Gehenna, which was about what it amounted to.

  The Kid looked at Haggarty and nodded.

  Both men drew their guns and stepped out onto the balcony.

  Chapter 36

  The scene spread out before them wasn’t unexpected. Several of Bledsoe’s gunmen were crouched at the saloon’s front windows, which had been shattered by the gunfire from outside. They were returning the fire as fast as they could.

  Back in the corner, Jillian and Drake still sat at the table with Bledsoe, while Malone, Woods, and Dakota Pete stood tensely nearby with guns in their hands. The three gun-wolves were going to protect their boss.

  Bledsoe’s eyes caught the movement as The Kid and Haggarty stepped out. His head jerked up and he stared at them in shock.

  He wasn’t the only one who was surprised. Haggarty had time to mutter, “Son of a bitch! I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it with my own eyes!”

  Then Bledsoe surged to his feet as his hand clawed under his coat for a gun. He shouted, “On the balcony! Kill them!”

  With the speed and instincts of true professional killers, Malone and Woods whipped their revolvers up and opened fire. Flame was already spouting from the muzzles of the Colts in the hands of the two men on the balcony.

  Shots thundered in the saloon. Splinters flew from the railing along the front of the balcony as slugs struck it. The Kid felt more than heard the wind-rip of bullets past his ears.

  He didn’t panic. His cool-nerved steadiness allowed him to put two bullets in J.P. Malone’s chest. Malone dropped his gun and went over backward as crimson welled from the wounds.

  Beside The Kid, Haggarty’s gun roared and bucked as well, and Clyde Woods doubled over as the steel-jacketed rounds punched into his guts, shredding them. He collapsed face-first on the table in front of a horrified Jillian.

  Bledsoe had his gun out, but before he could fire, Dakota Pete bellowed, “No!” and struck with his own pistol. The barrel thudded against Bledsoe’s skull and dropped the boss outlaw senseless on the floor beside the table.

  Pete let go of his gun. It fell on the table. He thrust both hands up to shoulder height and shouted, “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot, Kid!”

  The sudden outburst of violence inside the saloon had taken the gunmen at the windows by surprise. One of them jerked up to his feet and had started to turn when a rifle cracked somewhere outside and drilled him.

  As that man flopped to the floor, Brady bounded in through the batwings carrying a shotgun. He swung the Greener at the second man and fired just as the man got a shot off. The slug tore through Brady’s leg and knocked him off his feet, but the load of buckshot had done a lot more damage to the gunman, blasting him out through the broken window in a bloody heap.

  That left just one gunman. The blacksmith, Bonham, who had rushed into the saloon right behind Brady, took care of him with a swing of the big hammer in his hand. The killer went down with his skull crushed by the blow.

  A few more shots sounded outside, but the battle in the saloon was over.

  The Kid straightened from the gunfighting crouch into which he had instinctively dropped as he traded shots with Malone. He looked down at the big Viking standing with his hands up and asked, “Are you out of this, Pete?”

  “Damn right I’m out of it,” Pete rumbled. “I never did cotton to some of the things Harrison had us doin’. Robbin’ banks and holdin’ up trains is one thing. Stealin’ from ordinary folks and killin’ ’em if they stand up to you is another.”

  “All right. Move away from the table.” Gun in hand, The Kid started down the stairs trailed by Haggarty. “Bonham, see if you can tie up that wound in Brady’s leg.” The Kid hurried over to the table. “Miss Fletcher, are you all right?”

  She looked pale and shaken, but as far as The Kid tell, she wasn’t wounded. She confirmed that by nodding and saying, “I’m fine, Kid.” She summoned up a weak smile. “You were supposed to call me Jillian, remember?”

  The Kid chuckled, although it sounded out of place in the room choked by acrid clouds of gunsmoke that were only slowly drifting away.

  “How about you, Drake?”

  The man nodded. “Yeah, except for what that bastard did to me earlier.” He spat on the unconscious Bledsoe.

  “There’s probably a doctor in town,” The Kid said. “We’ll have him take a look at your hand and see what he can do for you.”

  A couple of townsmen carrying rifles stepped in from the boardwalk. “Is it all over in here?” one of them asked.

  “Yeah,” Brady replied as Bonham tied a rag around his bloody thigh. “What about out there?”

  The man nodded. “We got ’em all, except for a couple who grabbed horses and lit a shuck when they realized they’d run into an ambush.”

  The Kid knew that two fleeing hardcases wouldn’t cause any trouble. The men probably wouldn’t stop running until they were a long way from Gehenna.

  Haggarty loomed over Bledsoe’s unconscious form. He shook his head.

  “It’s still hard to believe, but that’s him, all right. We’ll tie him up and find a secure place to keep him until we’re ready to head back.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Drake asked.

  “Name’s Haggarty,” the bounty hunter said. “I’m taking you and Bledsoe back to Hell Gate, Drake.”

  Drake looked over at The Kid. “Morgan?”

  “Sorry, Drake. I appreciate your help, but it’s out of my hands. I made a deal with Haggarty.”

  “You made a deal with me, too, damn it.”

  “And I kept it,” The Kid snapped. “We found Bledsoe. I couldn’t do anything about how things played out after that.”

  Haggarty nodded toward Dakota Pete. “How about this big fella?”

  “You have any paper on him?” The Kid asked.

  Haggarty thought about it and then shook his head. “No, not that I recall.”

  “Then you don’t have any claim on him.”

  Haggarty shrugged. “That’s fine. I’ve got Bledsoe and Drake. That’ll be a nice payoff.”

  Supported by the blacksmith, Brady limped over to the table. “You need us for anything else, Morgan?”

  “No, I don’t suppose so.”

  “Good. We got a town to clean up, now that it belongs to its real owners again.”

  An hour later, The Kid stood on the boardwalk in front of the saloon and looked up and down Gehenna’s single street. Everything looked quiet and
peaceful. The bodies of the dead gunmen had been hauled to the undertaker’s, along with the two townsmen who had been fatally shot in the battle. The wounded had been tended to by the harried town doctor. Bledsoe and Drake were locked in a windowless storeroom at the back of the saloon, and Dakota Pete stood guard outside the door. Haggarty clearly didn’t like not trying to collect a bounty on Pete as well, but for the time being, they had become allies.

  A soft footstep behind The Kid made him turn. His hand started toward his gun, but he relaxed as he recognized Jillian Fletcher.

  She moved up beside him. “It’s hard to believe this is all over,” she said. She stood close to The Kid, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her body. “There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to go back to Hell Gate.”

  “I know what you mean. I’d just as soon never see the place again.” The Kid smiled in the darkness. “But I am looking forward to the look on your father’s face when he sees me and Bledsoe and realizes he was wrong.”

  “Don’t expect him to apologize. I know he’s my father, but…he’s not a very good man, I think.”

  The Kid didn’t say anything. Whatever Jillian believed about Fletcher, she would have to come to terms with it on her own.

  She went on, “I hope that on the way back, you and I can…get to know each other better.”

  Both Rosarita and Aliciana had expressed similar sentiments a short time earlier when The Kid paid a visit to the whorehouse to make sure everything was all right there. He had turned them down as gently as possible, and he intended to do the same with Jillian. It was still too soon for him to get involved with another woman, whether it was just for their mutual, momentary pleasure, or something more.

  When the time was right, if it ever was, he would know it.

  For the time being, he gave Jillian a noncommittal, “We’ll see,” then went on, “You’d better go on over to the hotel and get some sleep. It’s been a long day and a longer night.”

  “Yes, I know. It seems almost like a waste, since it’ll be light in a couple of hours—”

  The sound of another footstep stopped her. Both of them turned to see that a man had come up behind them. The Kid tensed as a rifle came up in the man’s hands.

  “Jillian, get away from him!” Jonas Fletcher ordered. “Now!”

  Chapter 37

  “Father!” Jillian gasped.

  She wasn’t any more surprised than The Kid was. As far as he had known, Fletcher was still in New Mexico Territory, at Hell Gate Prison.

  Obviously, that wasn’t the case. The man was right there, pointing a rifle at him, and The Kid knew that the whole mess wasn’t over at all.

  In fact, it was about to get worse.

  “Get away from him, Jillian,” Fletcher said again.

  “Father, wait,” she pleaded. “This isn’t Ben Bledsoe. He was telling you the truth before. His name is really Kid Morgan.”

  That wasn’t completely true, but it was close enough.

  “I know he’s not Bledsoe, damn it,” Fletcher grated. “I’ve known that ever since about a week after Haggarty brought him in.”

  That revelation sent a surge of anger through The Kid. “You knew?” he asked in a low, dangerous voice. “You knew I wasn’t Bledsoe, but you pretended you thought I was and put me through all that hell anyway?”

  “I had to make your situation dire enough that you’d have no choice but to take Drake up on his offer and break out,” Fletcher said with a smirk on his face.

  Understanding broke in The Kid’s brain with stunning force. “You and Drake are partners!”

  “That’s right. He and Bledsoe were supposed to break out together, and Drake would leave a trail I could follow while Bledsoe led him to that fortune in stolen loot he had hidden. But then Bledsoe double-crossed Drake by escaping without him, after I’d set up the whole thing to make it easy for him.”

  “Is Drake even a real convict?”

  “Oh, yes,” Fletcher replied. “A cold-blooded killer who double-crossed his own men. That brute Otto was right about him, you know. But Bledsoe proved to be even more devious. I sent my men after him, but he gave them the slip. I was about to give up on ever getting my hands on that money…and then you dropped right into my lap.”

  “Father, I…I don’t believe any of this,” Jillian said, sounding shaken.

  “Believe it,” he snapped. “You think it’s been easy sitting there watching your mother dying, knowing that if we were rich, there might be something I could do to help her?” Fletcher gave a shake of his head. “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” he said with brutal harshness. “She died right before I left Hell Gate to follow you and Morgan and Drake.”

  Jillian put her hands over her face. Soft but terrible sobs came from her.

  The Kid was certain Fletcher hadn’t come all that way by himself. He would have brought men with him, possibly some of the guards from the prison but more likely hired guns, since his goal was to steal the money Bloody Ben Bledsoe had already stolen. If Fletcher wasn’t as big an outlaw as Bledsoe was, it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  “I can’t believe you’d risk your own daughter’s life like that,” The Kid said contemptuously. He wanted to keep Fletcher talking until he found out as much as he could about the danger facing him.

  “That was Drake’s idea, not mine,” Fletcher said. “I told you, the man has a penchant for treachery. Jillian was never supposed to be involved, and it was just an accident that she was. Since she’s here, though, she can help me.” His voice sharpened. “Jillian, stop that crying and take his gun.”

  “Wha…what?” she asked as she lowered her hands.

  “Take Morgan’s gun, or I’ll just go ahead and kill him.” He sounded disdainful as he added, “A few moments ago you sounded like you have feelings for this drifter, although I don’t see why. If you don’t want him dead, do as I say.”

  She turned her head to look up at The Kid. “I…I’m sorry,” she said as she reached out with both hands to lift his Colt from its holster.

  “That’s all right,” The Kid said. “I reckon this has thrown you for a loop, too.”

  “Where are Bledsoe and Drake?” Fletcher asked as Jillian stepped away from The Kid.

  “What are you going to do with them?”

  “Make Bledsoe tell me where to find that money, of course. And kill Drake.”

  “You’ll be the fugitive then, Fletcher. You’ll never be able to go back to Hell Gate.”

  “There’s nothing there to go back to,” Fletcher said bleakly.

  Since the crooked warden had the drop on him and Jillian was still close by, in the line of fire, there was nothing The Kid could do except say, “They’re locked up in a storeroom in the back of this saloon.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Jillian said, “Father, you have to promise that you won’t hurt Mr. Morgan or anybody else.”

  “Of course, of course,” Fletcher said. “I just want the money.”

  The Kid didn’t believe him for a second. Fletcher didn’t intend to leave any witnesses alive behind him—which meant that Jillian would be forced to spend the rest of her life on the run with him.

  The Kid hoped she realized that. He turned and pushed through the batwings into the saloon. Fletcher was right behind him, accompanied by three hard-faced gunmen he motioned out of the shadows of the alley beside the building. Jillian, looking dazed, brought up the rear, still holding The Kid’s revolver.

  The Kid opened a door leading into a short hallway. At the other end of the corridor was the storeroom where Bledsoe and Drake were locked up. Dakota Pete sat in a ladderback chair in front of that door.

  Pete looked up in surprise when he saw The Kid, and surprise turned to alarm when he spotted Fletcher and the three gunmen. He said, “Kid, what the hell?” as he came up out of the chair. His hand moved toward his gun.

  “Take it easy,” The Kid said quickly. “They’ve got the drop on us, Pete. And they want Bledsoe and Drake.
Get the two of them out here.”

  Pete frowned. “Kid, are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” The Kid hoped that while Fletcher and the other men were distracted by Bledsoe and Drake, he and Pete would be able to make a move. The prospect of getting their hands on a lot of loot was too much for most men to ignore.

  Pete turned the key in the lock. Fletcher ordered, “All right, come away from there. Get out into the main room.”

  His men covered The Kid and Dakota Pete. Meanwhile Fletcher approached the door of the storeroom and called, “Bledsoe! Drake! It’s all right. Come on out.”

  The door opened. Drake emerged first, followed by Bledsoe. Both men looked wary, but an expression of relief washed over Drake’s face as he recognized the warden.

  “Fletcher!” he exclaimed. “I thought that was your voice, but I wasn’t sure. Thank God you got here. We’re going to clean up. Bledsoe’s got even more than we thought—”

  “That’s good to know,” Fletcher said. He brought the rifle to his shoulder and fired.

  At that range, the slug smashed into Drake’s chest and knocked him back against Bledsoe, who caught him and kept him from falling. Blood bubbled from the bullet hole and a crimson trail wormed its way out of Drake’s mouth. His eyes were wide with shock and disbelief.

  “That’s for double-crossing me and putting my daughter in danger,” Fletcher said. “And one less share of the loot, of course.”

  Drake’s eyes glazed over in death. Bledsoe let go of him, and he crumpled.

  “Come on out, Bledsoe,” Fletcher ordered.

  “Sure, warden,” Bledsoe said with a faint smile on his face. He emerged from the hallway into the big main room of the saloon. “It’s good to see you again. From the way you were just talking about a payoff, I’m assuming that you turned out to be as big a crook as I am, is that right?”

  “Shut up,” Fletcher snapped. “Where’s the loot?”

  “What’s left of it is in the safe in my office,” Bledsoe answered easily. “Plus three or four times as much that I’ve collected here in Gehenna. It’s all yours if you let me go. Better yet, stay here. We’ll be partners. I need some good men on my side. We’ll finish taking this town for all its worth.”