The Loner: The Devil’s Badland

by J. A. Johnstone

  It had been an idyllic existence—right up until the night when more than a dozen outlaws had invaded their home and kidnapped Rebel, holding her for the ransom that Conrad was to deliver in Black Rock Canyon. He had taken the money with him when he drove out to the rugged canyon northwest of Carson City, but he had been prepared to fight, too. For the first time, perhaps, he had truly become Frank Morgan’s son on that terrible night.

  It was terrible because Rebel had died. So had some of the kidnappers. The way things worked out, it appeared to the world at large that wealthy young businessman Conrad Browning was dead, too. That was fine with Conrad. He had assumed another identity in order to track down the kidnappers who had escaped. With the help of new friends he had run the kidnappers to ground and killed them, one by one, until finally he caught up to the leader of the gang, Clay Lasswell, the gunman who had killed Rebel.

  By that time, however, Conrad had figured out that Lasswell had been acting on someone else’s orders, some enemy who had set up Rebel’s kidnapping in the first place. He wanted Lasswell dead, but he also wanted to know who was truly to blame for what had happened.

  Fate had conspired against Conrad once again. Lasswell had died, but without revealing the identity of the mastermind behind the kidnapping. For all the blood he had spilled, Conrad’s vengeance was still hollow and unfulfilled. His true enemy was still out there somewhere.

  That was why Conrad Browning lived again. Rebel was buried in the mission cemetery in the small settlement of Val Verde, east of Lordsburg. She had been raised in the Davis Mountains of West Texas, where her father had a ranch, but the spread had gone under because of rustlers and the family had moved to New Mexico Territory. The Callahans had lived for a time in Val Verde, and Rebel’s brothers knew she had liked the place. They had chosen to have her buried there. Tom and Bob had been forced to make the arrangements because at the time everyone believed Conrad to be dead.

  Conrad was on his way to visit his wife’s grave, and he intended to do so right out in the open. He wanted everybody in Val Verde to know why he was there. Whoever had set up Rebel’s kidnapping hadn’t been interested in the ransom money; that was just to pay off the owlhoots who had carried out the job. Lasswell’s actions in killing Rebel had made it clear that the real objective was to torture Conrad, to make him suffer the almost unendurable pain of watching his wife die.

  Someone had a damned strong grudge against Conrad Browning. That was why he intended to use himself for bait to lure them out into the open.

  And once he knew who it was…

  The killing wasn’t over yet. It had just gotten started.

  Those thoughts whirled madly through Conrad’s brain. Waking, sleeping, it made no difference. The painful memories were always there. He let out a long sigh and rolled onto his side. He would try to sleep now, but he didn’t figure it would work out well.

  He had just closed his eyes when he heard a horse neigh.

  The sound was faint, and Conrad was sure that it hadn’t come from inside the barn. That meant a horse was moving around outside somewhere, and where there was a horse, there was usually a rider.

  He couldn’t think of a single good reason for somebody to be skulking around the MacTavish place on a stormy night like that, but he could think of plenty of bad ones. Leaving the lantern unlit, Conrad reached out in the darkness and closed his hand around the butt of his gun. The Colt’s grips fit his palm like they had grown there.

  He came up on his knees and crawled quickly over to the little door that allowed bales of hay to be lifted into the loft from outside. It had a simple latch on it. Conrad unfastened it and pushed the door open several inches. The rain was falling straight down now, since the wind had died away, and the barn’s eaves kept it from coming in the opening.

  Conrad’s eyes narrowed as he peered through the wet, murky gloom. He saw several figures moving around near the dugout, but they were just deeper patches of darkness. He couldn’t make out any details. Given the fact that he had heard a horse, though, he was fairly sure they were men on horseback. He leaned forward to watch them.

  Suddenly, despite the rain, a match flared to life. They had to be shielding it somehow. Conrad saw hands moving in the harsh glare, holding something toward the flame…

  Sparks spurted. Conrad’s hand tightened on the Colt as he realized what he was seeing. One of the men had just lit a fuse. The powder-laced length of cord would burn in spite of the rain.

  At the other end of that fuse was a stick of dynamite!

  Chapter 4

  Conrad didn’t waste any time wondering who the men were or what they intended to do. His keen brain understood instantly what was going on. Devil Dave Whitfield, or at least, some of his men, had returned to the MacTavish ranch with the intention of blowing the dugout to kingdom come.

  The Colt in Conrad’s hand leveled and fired in the blink of an eye, as the man with the dynamite drew back his arm to hurl the explosive at the dugout. The man yelled in pain and stiffened in the saddle.

  “Throw it!” one of the other men yelled. “Throw it, you damned fool!”

  Instead, the dynamite slipped from the wounded man’s hand and fell to the ground at his horse’s feet. Conrad hoped the mud would put out the fuse, but it continued spitting sparks as it burned.

  The men stampeded, mud flying under the hooves of their horses as they tried to put as much distance as they could between themselves and the dynamite.

  The wounded man had the presence of mind to try to get away, too, but he was too late. With a booming crack and a blinding flash, the dynamite went off. The explosion sent man and horse flying through the air.

  “In the barn!” a man shouted. “The son of a bitch is in the hayloft!”

  Conrad threw himself down as gun flame bloomed in the stormy night. He guessed there were three or four of the raiders left, and they were all doing their damnedest to kill him by blazing away at the hayloft door. He heard slugs thudding into the door and the wall around it. The lead chewed splinters from the wood.

  Conrad poked the Colt through the opening and returned the fire. At the same time, shots roared from inside the dugout. The explosion had roused the MacTavishes from sleep, and they were joining the fight.

  That put the raiders in a crossfire. A couple of them sagged in their saddles as if they were hit, even as they turned and fired back toward the dugout. After a moment, they realized they were in a bad spot, wheeled their horses and put the spurs to the animals, galloping out of the muddy yard between the dugout and the barn.

  They left behind the man and the horse that had been caught in the blast. Neither dark shape on the ground was moving. Conrad figured both of them were dead.

  Working easily by feel, because he’d had plenty of practice these past few months, he thumbed fresh cartridges into the Colt to replace the ones he had fired. Then he climbed down from the hayloft and lit the lantern. Draping the oilcloth over his head and his left arm, he carried the lantern in that hand and the revolver in the other as he walked out of the barn.

  The dugout door opened. Hamish and James came out of the dwelling, wearing slickers and hooded ponchos. Hamish had the shotgun, James his Remington. They stopped on the other side of the bodies from Conrad, who held the lantern high enough for its yellow glow to spread over the gruesome sight.

  The man and the horse were torn up pretty bad. The man’s face was unmarked, though, and James said, “That’s another of Whitfield’s men. I think his name was Dugan, or something like that.”

  “Dumont,” Hamish corrected. “He was there that day in Val Verde, the day your brother…”

  Hamish’s voice choked off, but Conrad knew what he was talking about—the day Charlie MacTavish had died in a gunfight with one of Whitfield’s men.

  “They were going to blow in the front of the dugout with dynamite,” Conrad said. “I was still awake and heard their horses. Once I realized what they were planning, I did what I could to stop them.”

&nbs
p; Hamish nodded at the bodies. “It looks like ye did a good job of it. I think we winged a couple o’ the other bastards, too.”

  Conrad agreed. He gestured toward the dead man and said, “You should take his body to the law in Val Verde. The authorities can’t ignore the fact that Whitfield’s men tried to dynamite your home.”

  “They can’t, eh?” James asked with a disgusted snort. “No offense, Mr. Browning, but that shows how little you know about the law. Whitfield can claim that he didn’t know anything about it. Just like he’ll claim that he didn’t send his hired killers over here earlier to harass us. And the sheriff will believe him, because the Circle D is one of the biggest spreads around here. The law won’t side with the likes of us against Whitfield.”

  Conrad knew the young man was probably right, although things might be different if he threw the weight of his own name behind the MacTavishes. Dave Whitfield might be an important man in these parts, but he didn’t carry as much influence in the entire territory as Conrad Browning did.

  The problem was that Conrad had his own mission, and he couldn’t allow anything else to get in the way of it.

  “We appreciate what ye’ve done for us, Mr. Browning,” Hamish said. “This makes twice ye’ve saved us from disaster. If there’s anything we can do for you…”

  “You’ve done plenty,” Conrad said with a shake of his head. He realized that the rain had stopped spattering down on the oilcloth. He moved it aside and looked up at the sky. Stars peeked through here and there. The clouds were beginning to break up. It looked like the storm was over.

  That particular storm, anyway.

  James dragged the dead man’s body into the barn. “Looks like you’ll have company for the rest of the night,” he told Conrad with an unfriendly grin. Conrad wasn’t sure what he had done to earn the young man’s dislike, other than having money. Evidently that was enough where James MacTavish was concerned.

  They left the horse where it was. Come morning, they could tie ropes to the carcass and drag it off.

  Conrad didn’t figure Whitfield’s men would try anything else tonight, after the losses they had already suffered, but after he climbed back into the hayloft, he slept fitfully, waking often to open the loft door and have a look around. Knowing that a dead man lay below him in the barn didn’t make him sleep any better, either.

  The atmosphere at breakfast the next morning was subdued. The MacTavishes knew their troubles weren’t over, not by a longshot. With Conrad’s help, they had turned back two attacks on their homestead, but Conrad was leaving, and their enemy Dave Whitfield remained. It was just a matter of time until he struck at them again.

  When they were finished eating, Hamish said, “Rory, go out and hitch up Mr. Browning’s horse to that buggy.”

  “I can take care of that,” Conrad said.

  Rory got to his feet. “No, really, I don’t mind, Mr. Browning. I like working with horses, and those two of yours look like fine animals.”

  “They are,” Conrad admitted. The buckskin had carried him hundreds of miles already on his quest for justice, before he’d started this trip to New Mexico Territory in the buggy.

  Rory went out to the barn, followed by James. Conrad thought the boy looked a little nervous about the idea of going in there where Whitfield’s dead gunman lay under a piece of canvas, but Rory wasn’t going to let that stop him from carrying out the chore his father had given him.

  As Conrad and Hamish lingered over cups of coffee, Hamish asked, “If ye don’t mind me pryin’, Mr. Browning, how did your late wife come to be buried in Val Verde?”

  “Her family lived there for a while,” Conrad explained, “and her brothers thought it would be a good place.”

  “I would have thought it would be up to ye to decide such a thing.”

  “I wasn’t available at the time,” Conrad said with a shrug. “One place is as good as another.” That might sound callous, he thought, but it was true. Where a person was buried did nothing to change the fact that he or she was dead.

  “Well, I hope that visitin’ her grave brings ye some peace,” Hamish said. “Beggin’ your pardon again, but ye have the look of a haunted man about ye.”

  That was an apt description. He had been haunted since that awful night in Black Rock Canyon. He hoped that settling the score with the people responsible for Rebel’s death would lay those ghosts to rest, but he had come to doubt it. He wasn’t sure anything would ever ease the pain.

  But he had learned to function in spite of it. He could even smile from time to time, as he did now. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. MacTavish,” he said, “but I think you have enough problems of your own to deal with, without worrying about mine.”

  Hamish sighed. “’Tis true. Whitfield will be upset that he’s lost another man.”

  “I’m the one responsible for this death,” Conrad said. “Tell Whitfield to look for me in Val Verde if he wants to take it up with me.”

  While Margaret cleaned up after breakfast James hurried back inside, an anxious expression on his face. “Riders comin’, Pa,” he reported.

  “Whitfield’s men,” Hamish guessed heavily.

  “Not just them. I think the big skookum he-wolf himself is with ’em this time.”

  Hamish scraped his chair back and stood up. He took the shotgun down from its pegs on the wall. “Let me do the talkin’,” he ordered. “I’d like to get through this without any more killin’, and you’re a bit of a hothead, James, if I do say so meself.”

  James looked like he might have argued, but Hamish was already on his way out the door. James followed, loosening the Remington in its holster on his hip as he did so.

  Conrad still sat at the table, savoring the last of the strong, black brew in his cup. Margaret came over to him and asked, “Are you going out there, Mr. Browning?”

  Conrad drained the coffee cup and sighed. “I am. But before I go, let me say thank you for breakfast, Miss MacTavish. It was mighty good.”

  Margaret blushed again, as she seemed to at every compliment. “You said it yourself,” she told him in a low voice. “This isn’t your fight.”

  “I don’t reckon Dave Whitfield will be in much of a mood to listen to explanations right now.” Conrad pushed his chair back and stood up. He hadn’t put his coat on yet, but he wore the trousers and vest from his dark gray tweed suit, along with a white shirt and a black string tie. He walked over to the open doorway and leaned a shoulder against the jamb as half a dozen men rode into the yard in front of the dugout.

  The man in the lead, who rode a big, handsome palomino, was a thick-gutted, barrel-chested hombre. A granite-like slab of jaw dominated his face. He jerked his horse to a halt, and the rough way he handled the reins made Conrad dislike him on sight.

  The other five men brought their mounts to a stop behind him. Hamish and James faced them, not backing down. Rory watched from the barn doors. Conrad knew the boy had taken his Winchester with him. The rifle was probably leaning against the wall just inside the doors, out of sight.

  The odds weren’t too bad, Conrad thought, instinctively assessing the situation and trying to figure out what would happen if gunplay broke out. They were four against six, and the four of them were spread out a little, while Whitfield and his men were bunched up. That was potentially a tactical mistake on Whitfield’s part.

  But maybe it wouldn’t come to shooting. Hamish spoke up, saying, “What are ye doin’ here, Whitfield? Ye know that ye ain’t welcome on my spread.”

  “I came for my man Dumont,” Whitfield replied, his voice harsh with anger.

  “He’s dead.”

  Whitfield’s scowl didn’t change. “I figured as much,” he snapped. “I hear you’ve got some sort of hired gun working for you now, MacTavish. Did he kill Dumont, or was it you or one of your boys?”

  Without straightening from his casual pose in the doorway, Conrad called, “It was your own man who blew himself up, Whitfield. If anyone’s to blame for his death…it’s the m
an who sent him over here with dynamite.”

  Whitfield turned his horse a little so that he could glare murderously at Conrad. “You’d be the hired gun,” he snapped.

  “No,” Conrad said flatly. “I’m just passing through these parts on my way to Val Verde. I stopped and took a hand because I didn’t like the odds against the MacTavishes. That’s all.”

  “What’s your name, mister?” Whitfield demanded.

  “Conrad Browning.”

  Whitfield frowned, as if the name was somehow familiar to him but he couldn’t place it. “Well, you’ve made a bad mistake by stickin’ your nose in where it ain’t welcome, Browning. This bunch you’re defending is nothing but a gang of rustlers and murderers.”

  “You’re a damned liar, Whitfield,” Hamish burst out. “My son told ye that to your face, and now I’m tellin’ you.”

  One of the men edged his horse forward. “Want me to take care of this trash for you, boss?” he asked.

  The man wasn’t very impressive-looking. Even on horseback, he wasn’t very big. The marks of some childhood disease pocked his dark, narrow face. He wore a cowhide vest and a black Stetson pulled down low. A quirley dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  Conrad knew, though, that appearances were deceptive. The way this man carried himself in the saddle with his hand never straying far from the butt of his gun, the muscular thickness of his right wrist, the cold, dark eyes…They all added up to the fact that he was a gunslinger. Conrad had grown to know the signs all too well.

  “That’s all right, Trace,” Whitfield snapped as he lifted a hand to motion the gunman back. “I can stomp my own snakes.”