A Colorado Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  He winced a little, further proof that the newcomer’s grip had some strength behind it. Peter let go of her arm and tried to turn around, but he couldn’t move very fast while the stranger had hold of him. He demanded, “What are you doing? Let go of me!”

  “Step away from the lady,” the stranger repeated.

  He wasn’t completely a stranger, Mercy realized. She didn’t know his name, but she had seen him before. He was the tall, sandy-haired man who had bumped into her in the train station back in New York, just before they’d boarded to head west.

  How had he gotten out there on the platform with them? She hadn’t seen him open the door and cross from that platform to where she and Peter were.

  He must have come from the next car back, she thought, frowning. He must be good at moving smoothly and quietly.

  Peter stepped back, giving Mercy plenty of room. His face was flushed with anger as well as cold. “I don’t know what you think gives you the right—”

  The stranger finally let go of his shoulder. Ignoring him, he said to Mercy, “Are you all right, miss?”

  That annoyed Peter even more.

  “I’m fine,” she told the man. “Did you think I was in some sort of distress?”

  A slight smile curved his lips as he replied, “Well, to be honest, it looked like you were about to lose your temper with this fellow, and I figured I’d better step in before he got hurt.”

  Peter’s eyes widened. He exclaimed, “Now see here—!”

  The stranger went on. “A lady like you, who seems like you know how to take care of yourself, I thought you might plant a hat pin or something like that in him. He wouldn’t have liked that at all.”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” Peter fumed.

  The stranger did exactly that. “You might have even kicked him where it would hurt the most. So, in the interest of keeping the peace, I thought I ought to take a hand. I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds.”

  “Well, I didn’t really need your help,” Mercy said, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “Mercy, don’t even talk to this man,” Peter blustered.

  “That’s your name?” the stranger asked coolly. “Mercy?”

  “You can call me Miss Halliday,” she told him.

  “I’m Ed Rinehart,” he said as he reached up to take off the brown fedora he wore. “It’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Miss Halliday.”

  “And this is Mr. Gallagher,” Mercy added as she nodded toward Peter.

  Ed Rinehart just grunted and gave Peter the most perfunctory nod possible as he put his hat back on.

  “We should get back to our charges,” Mercy went on.

  Rinehart’s eyes narrowed. “Are the two of you traveling together?”

  “Mr. Gallagher and his wife and I are escorting a group of orphaned children to California, where new homes will be found for them and they’ll be adopted.”

  “Noble work.” His scorn evident, Rinehart glanced at Peter. “You’re married, eh?”

  Peter turned, jerked open the door, and stepped back into the car. He held the door and asked, “Are you coming, Miss Halliday?”

  Mercy took a step toward the door, then paused to ask, “Where are you bound for, Mr. Rinehart?”

  “San Francisco,” he replied.

  “Oh. You’re going all the way west, then?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be on this train just as long as you are.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Denver

  Mitch Clark offered to return to the hotel where the others with him were staying, but Ray Morley said that wasn’t necessary. “I’ll take you to talk to Jim. If he likes you, and if you vouch for the rest of your bunch, that’ll be enough.”

  “What if he doesn’t like me?” Clark asked without thinking.

  A thin, cold smile appeared on Morley’s face, but he didn’t say anything.

  Clark liked to think his nerves were pretty good, but something about Morley’s smile bothered him. Realizing that Bleeker might think he already knew too much about the plan, especially if Morley told him he’d mentioned the name of the place they had in mind, Clark’s mind raced. If Bleeker didn’t take him into the gang, he might decide it would be better just to get rid of him so he couldn’t talk to anybody else about the job.

  He had come too far to back out, though. Agreeing to meet the boss outlaw, he left the saloon with Morley.

  They strolled along the streets of Denver, Morley smoking a thin black cigarillo. It was the first time Clark had been to the city, so he wasn’t sure where they were going.

  Morley led him to a large house on a tree-lined side street. Even bare, the spread of tree branches was impressive. The house sat behind a well-tended lawn bordered by flowerbeds, also empty. The place was fronted by an elegant, columned gallery that made it look vaguely like a Southern plantation house.

  “Looks like a fancy cathouse,” Clark commented with a chuckle as the two men went along a flagstone walk toward the gallery.

  “Not hardly, and don’t call it that when you’re inside,” snapped Morley. “The lady who runs the place wouldn’t like it.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean any offense. If it’s not a brothel, what is it?”

  “I didn’t say you couldn’t find any female companionship inside. Lady Arabella’s main business is gambling, though.”

  “Lady Arabella,” Clark repeated. “The woman who runs the place?”

  “That’s right.”

  The heavy front door opened before they reached it. An extremely large man with a shock of rust-colored hair and a handlebar mustache the same shade stood there wearing a suit that looked out of place on his brawny frame. He nodded curtly “Ray.”

  “Evening, Dorgan,” Morley greeted him. “Jim’s upstairs?”

  “No, he’s sitting in on a private game right now, along with Herself, a couple cattlemen, and a member of the board of the Union Pacific.”

  Morley laughed. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt that. Once Her Ladyship has cleaned out the cattle barons and the railroad man, let Jim know I’m here and need to talk to him, all right?”

  “Sure. There’s somebody else he plans to talk to first, though.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Frank Morgan’s here tonight.”

  * * *

  The man who stood at the bar in the quiet salon at the side of the main gambling room was big and muscular, but his frame was so perfectly proportioned that it didn’t appear overly large. He wore a brown suit instead of the range clothes he usually sported, but his wide-brimmed brown hat was the only one he owned. He had brushed it until it was halfway respectable. The same was true of his boots. He wasn’t the sort of man who went in for anything fancy.

  The gun holstered on his right hip fell into the same category. It was just a plain, dull gray Colt .45 with walnut grips that were starting to show some signs of use. Nothing distinguished it from thousands of other guns carried by men out on the frontier.

  You’d never know by looking at the gun—or the man—how many men they had killed.

  Frank Morgan lifted a brandy to his lips and sipped it. He wasn’t that much of a drinking man—a phosphate or a cup of coffee would have been more to his taste—but the bartender had promised him the cognac was excellent and so it was. Frank intended to nurse his one drink for as long as he was there.

  He didn’t feel comfortable in such a place. Raised on a ranch down in Texas in the days before the Civil War, he had gone off to fight in that great conflict and endured years of hardship, misery, and danger.

  Returning home hadn’t been much better. He had clashed with the father of the girl he loved, the girl he’d left behind when the war started. All that had ended badly. Had ended with Frank Morgan discovering just how fast and deadly with a gun he was.

  Unfortunately, plenty of other people had found out about it, too, and in all the years since, he had never been able to settle down. Wherever he went, somebody always wanted t
o prove he was faster on the draw, so Frank had drifted, hoping to someday find a place where he wouldn’t be forced to kill.

  So far that hadn’t happened.

  It was natural, given his unique skills, that eventually he had put them to work. He was a hired gun, some said the fastest of them all. He didn’t sign on with just anybody, though. Before he took up arms in a range war or a railroad dispute or any other conflict where men used violence to settle their differences, he needed some sense that he was fighting on the right side.

  He wasn’t sure what this next job involved. He had gotten a wire down in Santa Fe asking him to come to Denver and promising him five hundred dollars for making the trip.

  For that amount of money, Frank was willing to make the ride, even though it hadn’t been overly pleasant in December.

  The telegram had also instructed him to come to Lady Arabella’s place, let the man at the door know who he was, and wait to be contacted. Frank had done that, but he was getting a little impatient.

  Maybe if he could have done his waiting with Lady Arabella, it would have been different.

  He had heard of Her Ladyship, of course, although they had never met. The famous Lady Arabella had operated saloons in various places, from raucous trail towns to big cities. Mostly, however, she made her living as a gambler. She was supposed to be one of the best poker players west of the Mississippi.

  She was just as renowned for her beauty.

  Frank hoped that before the night was over, he would get to find out for himself. He had been serious with only two women in his life, but the dim trails got lonely, so he took his companionship and comfort where he could.

  He used his left thumb to poke his hat back on his graying brown hair and caught the bartender’s eye. When the man came over to him, Frank said, “I was supposed to meet someone here tonight—”

  “I know that, Mr. Morgan.”

  “I’m getting a little tired of waiting.”

  “Sorry, sir.” The bartender shrugged. “There’s really nothing I can do about—” He stopped short and looked over Frank’s shoulder.

  Frank didn’t turn immediately—he’d had enemies try to fool him into taking his eyes off of them just like that—but then he heard the sound of a soft footstep in the salon’s hushed atmosphere and knew someone actually was there.

  “Mr. Morgan?” The woman’s voice was quiet, but it packed a sultry heat similar to that of the cognac he had sipped a moment earlier.

  Frank turned and saw her standing there with a slight smile on her face. Her warm brown eyes were what he noticed first, then the cameo-like features made even more lovely by the imperfection of a tiny scar on the right side of her upper lip.

  Her raven hair was piled high on her head in an elaborate arrangement of curls. One or two of them had escaped and dangled enticingly beside her face. She wore a black skirt and a black jacket over a daringly low-cut red silk blouse. Rings sparkled on several of her fingers and jewels glittered on the black velvet choker she wore around her neck. She looked sinful and decadent but thoroughly beautiful.

  “I’m Lady Arabella Winthrop.” Her voice, still an intimate murmur, held just a trace of an accent to testify to her British heritage, but she had been in the States for a long time and had lost most of it.

  Frank reached up and took off his hat. He didn’t talk to a lady like that with his head covered. “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am. I mean, Your Ladyship.”

  Her laughter was like music. “Please, call me Lady Arabella. Or just Arabella. I don’t stand on formality with certain gentlemen, and I can see that you’re one of them.”

  Indeed, she looked him up and down with a boldness unusual to find in a woman. Frank had studied her with the same interest, so he supposed that was fair enough.

  “I understand that you’re here to discuss a business proposition,” she went on.

  “That’s right,” he said as a possibility occurred to him. “If that business is with you, I can tell you right now, I’m inclined to say yes to the deal.”

  She laughed again and shook her head.

  “No, I’m afraid not, although I must admit, the idea is intriguing. The gentleman who sent for you asked me to have you step into one of the private sitting rooms. If you’ll follow me . . .” She held out a slim, elegantly manicured hand.

  Frank had been led into more than one trap by a beautiful woman, but his instincts told him that wasn’t the case. He put his hat on, linked his left arm with Lady Arabella’s right, and told her, “Lead the way.”

  He was considerably taller than her, but he figured they made a good-looking couple anyway as they strolled through the gambling hall. She took him to a door and opened it. On the other side was a room furnished with four comfortable leather armchairs, a roll-top desk, and a small table with a granite inlaid top that had been polished to a high gleam. A tray with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses sat on the table.

  The room had no windows, but one wall was taken up mostly by a fireplace in which flames crackled. A man stood in front of the fireplace, obviously waiting for Frank. He was a couple inches shorter but probably thirty pounds heavier than the gunfighter. His thinning blond hair topped a face that at first glance didn’t seem very intelligent. A second look at the man’s pale blue eyes told Frank his first impression wasn’t correct. The man had plenty of cunning.

  “Frank Morgan, my name is Jim Bleeker.”

  CHAPTER 18

  The name didn’t mean anything to Frank, although he sensed that Bleeker expected him to recognize it. He gripped the man’s outstretched hand and nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bleeker.”

  “Since I hope we’re going to be working together, you should call me Jim.”

  Frank was blunt in his response. “I reckon that depends on what the job is.”

  From the doorway, Lady Arabella murmured, “I’ll leave you gentlemen to discuss your business.”

  Bleeker turned to smile at her. “You’re welcome to stay if you’d like.”

  She shook her head. “I never intrude on my guests. Whenever anyone comes through my door, I want them to treat the place as if it’s their own home. That’s why everyone is welcome and I don’t turn anyone away.”

  Frank thought he detected a faint edge in her voice, like maybe she didn’t care for Bleeker all that much but tolerated him being there because part of her business was not passing judgment on people.

  Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, he told himself, because already I don’t like Jim Bleeker very much.

  “Do you need anything else?” Lady Arabella asked.

  Bleeker shook his head. “How about you, Frank?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Very well. You can pull that bell cord if there’s any way I can help you.” She left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  Bleeker turned toward the table with the tray on it. “How about a drink?”

  “Maybe later. After we’ve talked business.”

  “A man who gets right down to brass tacks, eh?” Bleeker said with a chuckle. “I like that. I’m the same way. I think I may have you at a disadvantage here, though. I know who Frank Morgan is, of course. Do you know who I am?”

  Frank shook his head. “No offense, but I can’t say as I do.”

  “None taken. Our trails never crossed, and for the past eight years you wouldn’t have heard much about me.”

  “Is that a fact?” Frank could make a guess as to why Bleeker said that.

  “Yeah. I’ve been in the Texas state pen, down in Huntsville.”

  A vague memory stirred in Frank’s brain. Now that he knew how far back to cast his thoughts, he dredged through them and came up with the recollection he was searching for. “You held up some banks.”

  “Among other things,” Bleeker responded with a shrug. “That’s what I was in the process of doing when I got caught.”

  “Bad luck,” Frank said, although he didn’t really think so. He had no use for owlhoots. Just b
ecause he was a hired gun, lawmen tended to lump him in with all sorts of desperadoes, but in truth Frank Morgan was a law-abiding man and always had been. He wasn’t a back shooter, and he had never killed a man who hadn’t been trying to kill him. He didn’t prod them into gunfights, either. He’d never had to.

  Trouble always came to him.

  He had a hunch it was doing the same thing tonight.

  Bleeker shrugged. “Luck didn’t have anything to do with it. A fella I depended on ran out on me. He’d only been riding with my bunch for a short time, but I trusted him to watch my back. The job was already planned when he decided he didn’t want to go through with it. Said he wasn’t cut out for robbing banks.” Bleeker snorted in evident disgust. “Don’t know what would make a man get all high and mighty like that. It’s not like he was some backsliding deacon! He’d been a hired gun before he threw in with us. Probably did plenty of things he could’ve wound up behind bars for.”

  “You were in prison in Texas,” Frank said. “Did they let you out?”

  “Or did I escape, you mean? Might as well ask the rest of it.” Bleeker laughed and shook his head. “The governor commuted the rest of my sentence. You see, Frank, I was what they call a model prisoner. Hell, I even saved the warden’s life during a riot down there. They were grateful to me, so they let me go.”

  “Are you trying to say you reformed while you were behind bars?”

  “Reformed?” Bleeker shook his head. “I didn’t cause any trouble because I knew they’d let me out sooner if I kept my nose clean. And the sooner I got out of there, the sooner I could settle the score with that gunfighter who ran out on me.” His face was flushed with anger at the memory of what he considered a betrayal. He snagged the bottle of whiskey, pulled the cork from its neck, and splashed liquor into one of the glasses. “Sure I can’t pour you one?”

  “Not just yet,” Frank said.

  Bleeker grunted, picked up the glass, and downed the shot.