The Loner: The Devil’s Badland

by J. A. Johnstone

  She looked sharply at him. “That’s not necessary.”

  “I insist.” Conrad gave Rowlett a stern look as the man’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Miss Tarleton and I are old friends.”

  “Yes, sir, of course. None of my business, Mr. Browning. That’s a lesson you learn mighty quick in the hotel business.”

  Conrad felt a prickle of irritation at Rowlett’s smug attitude and the assumption the hotelkeeper had obviously made. Going on about it would just be protesting too much, though, and would probably only strengthen Rowlett’s suspicions.

  Let the man think whatever he damned well pleased, Conrad decided. He was long past the point himself where he gave a damn what anyone thought about him.

  “Just give Miss Tarleton her key,” Conrad said in a stony voice once Pamela had signed in.

  “You’ll, uh, want her room near yours, I reckon…”

  Resisting the impulse to reach across the desk, grab the man by the collar, and shake some respect into him, Conrad said, “That doesn’t matter.”

  In fact, he did want Pamela’s room near his, but only for the sake of her safety. Now that she had escaped from her uncle, Anthony Tarleton might guess that she was at the hotel with Conrad. He could send men to kidnap her and take her back to him.

  Tarleton wouldn’t get away with kidnapping any more women. Conrad made that vow to himself.

  To make sure it didn’t happen, he intended to strike first, no matter what he had told Pamela.

  Rowlett handed over a key. “Room Eleven. It’s a couple of doors down from Mr. Browning’s.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Conrad said. He took Pamela’s arm and led her toward the stairs.

  As they climbed to the second floor, he went on, “I’m sorry you had to abandon all your things at the other place. We’ll go to the store and get you everything you need tomorrow.”

  “Conrad,” she said with a soft laugh, “you’re sweet, but surely you don’t really think that a general store in a town like Val Verde will have everything that a lady needs.”

  She hadn’t changed completely. She still had a touch of superiority about her. Conrad hadn’t really expected otherwise.

  “We’ll do the best we can,” he promised. “Until you can get to a bigger town.”

  He took the key from her as they approached the door of her room. There was no reason to worry about an ambush here, he told himself. Anthony Tarleton couldn’t be sure where Pamela was, and he couldn’t possibly have found out already which room was hers.

  Still, Conrad made sure that his right hand wasn’t far from the butt of his gun as he unlocked and opened the door.

  The room was empty. Conrad lit the lamp. He turned back to Pamela and said, “Tell me what your uncle looks like.”

  “Why?” she asked with a puzzled frown.

  “So that I’ll recognize him if I happen to see him,” Conrad said. He didn’t add that he fully intended to see Anthony Tarleton just as soon as possible. “He may still be here in town.”

  “That’s true,” Pamela admitted. “He’s a big man, a powerful man. He’s worked all over the world. He has brown hair, starting to go gray, and a mustache. I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you about him.”

  “What about Hogan?”

  “Medium-sized. Balding. He’d be a rather handsome man if not for a bad scar down the left side of his face.”

  “What about the other two gunmen?”

  “One is a Mexican called Vicente. The other is a man named Loomis. You’ll know him right away if you see him. He’s an albino.” Pamela shuddered slightly. “I hate to look at him. He reminds me of some creature you’d find under a rock.”

  Conrad nodded. He would know his enemies now if he saw them. Which he intended to do, soon.

  “I’m in Room Seven, if you need me,” he told Pamela. “Don’t hesitate to call on me.”

  She smiled at him. “You’ve been remarkably considerate, Conrad, considering the history between us.”

  “So have you,” he said. Even though her father had been a criminal, his death must have been painful for her. It wasn’t unreasonable for her to think that he and Frank had been partially responsible for what happened—although Conrad himself didn’t feel that way and never would. Clark Tarleton had made his own bed.

  Pamela moved closer to him. Her head tilted back slightly so she could look into his eyes. She said, “Conrad, I know this isn’t the time or place—”

  He didn’t let her go any further. “No, it’s not,” he said. He saw the brief flare of hurt in her eyes. It couldn’t be helped. In an odd way, he was glad to see her again. She was a link to his past, and yet he would never be able to think of her without thinking of Rebel as well.

  And thinking too much about Rebel was just too damned painful.

  Pamela swallowed hard. “I guess this is good night, then.”

  “Yes,” Conrad agreed. “Good night. I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t worry about anything.”

  She summoned up a smile. “I won’t.”

  Conrad had left the door open. He turned and put his hat on as he left the room. He eased the door closed behind him, glad that he didn’t have to look at Pamela anymore. Beautiful though she might be, she was a painful reminder of his past and everything he had lost.

  Maybe things would be different tomorrow, he thought.

  By tomorrow morning—by the time he saw her again—he would have settled things, El Señor Dios willing.

  And her uncle would be dead, just like her father. The only difference was that Anthony Tarleton was going to die by Conrad Browning’s hand.

  Or rather, by the hand of Kid Morgan.

  As soon as he was inside his room, Conrad unbuckled the plain black gunbelt, took off his boots, and began stripping off the sober gray tweed business suit he wore. When he was down to the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, he opened his bag and took out denim trousers and a fringed buckskin shirt. He unwrapped the shirt from around a brown gunbelt and buscadero holster.

  Conrad pulled on the trousers and strapped the gunbelt around his hips. He took the Colt Peacemaker from the black holster and settled it in the one he wore now. The buckskin shirt went over his head. He took a hat from the bag. It had been flattened to fit in the bag, but it took him only a moment to punch it back into shape and put it on. The brown felt hat had a broad brim and a flat crown. The last thing he took from the bag was a red-checked bandanna that he tied around his neck. Then he stepped back into the high-topped black boots he’d been wearing before. As he turned toward the door, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the dresser.

  With the broad brim of the hat pulled down to shield his face, no one would recognize him from a distance. Conrad Browning had returned to life for a while, but now he was dead again.

  Long live Kid Morgan.

  The Kid took the hotel’s rear stairs so he wouldn’t have to deal with Rowlett’s curiosity. He slipped into the alley out back and walked toward Val Verde’s main street. Even his walk was a little different, a bold stride that proclaimed he would back down from no man.

  Pamela had said there was another hotel in the settlement. Conrad hadn’t noticed it while he was there—but The Kid intended to find it.

  He walked along the street, checking the buildings he passed. He held out a hand to stop the first man he encountered and asked in a gruff voice, “Is there a hotel around here?”

  The man swayed a little. The smell of whiskey came from him as he answered, “Yeah, the Val Verde Hotel. Right up the street.”

  “No, another one,” The Kid said. “I’m not partial to anything that fancy.”

  The man turned and indicated a building in the next block. “Go down to Sloan’s, then.” He chuckled. “Nothin’ fancy about that place, but Sloan’ll rent you a room if he’s got any empty ones.”

  “Obliged,” The Kid said with a curt nod.

  The townie called after him, “From what I hear, if you stay at Sloan’s, you’ll
have company. Lots of little, crawlin’ company.”

  The Kid’s jaw tightened. The idea of Pamela being forced to stay in a place like that rubbed him the wrong way. She must have been miserable.

  He walked on and found the place he was looking for, a ramshackle frame building that looked like it would be drafty. The sort of place where sand would get in and grate constantly underfoot. A crudely lettered sign read SLOAN’S—ROOMS FOR RENT—BEER.

  It was half saloon, half hotel from the looks of it. Lights still burned on the lower floor, but the upper story was dark.

  The Kid circled the building, looking for a rear door. He found one, but it was locked. He grasped the knob, put his shoulder against the panel, and shoved hard as he twisted the knob. He could have kicked it open, but that would have made too much noise. Instead he kept up the pressure, and after a minute, the door gave with a small, splintering sound. With luck, no one up front had heard it.

  The Kid eased inside and found himself in a dark hallway. He drew his gun and moved toward the front of the building. The floor was gritty with sand, just as he expected.

  He reached an arched doorway with a dimly lit room beyond it. Staying back where the glow wouldn’t reach him, he studied the room and saw that it was a dusty, shabby hotel lobby. To the right, another door led into the saloon part of the establishment. The Kid heard the clink of glasses and bottles and a few voices, all of them male.

  He edged forward and risked a glance into the lobby. A sleepy-looking clerk dozed behind the desk. No one else was in the lobby.

  The stairs were on the other side of the desk. The Kid couldn’t reach them without going past the clerk. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a double eagle. Crouching, he reached around the edge of the door and, with a flick of his wrist, rolled the coin along the floor.

  The gold piece rolled right under the stool where the clerk sat and came to a clinking, clattering stop against the first step in the staircase. The sound roused the clerk from his half-slumber. He looked around, blinking in puzzlement. Then his gaze lit on the coin. Like a flash, he was off the stool, hurrying over to pick up the double eagle.

  A couple of long, swift strides brought The Kid right up behind him. The Colt’s barrel dug into the man’s back as The Kid’s left hand reached around and clamped over his mouth. Leaning close, The Kid breathed into his ear, “Don’t make any commotion, or I’ll blow your backbone in two.”

  The clerk stiffened, but he didn’t fight. “We’re taking the stairs,” The Kid went on. “Not a sound, you understand?”

  The clerk jerked his head in a nod.

  “Up you go,” The Kid said.

  They climbed the stairs in near-silence. When they reached the landing at the top, The Kid took his hand away from the clerk’s mouth. “Don’t yell,” he warned. “This gun’s got a hair-trigger.”

  It didn’t, but the clerk didn’t have to know that.

  “There are four men staying here with a woman,” The Kid went on. “The leader’s a big man, with graying brown hair and a mustache. One of the other men is an albino. You know the bunch I’m talking about?”

  It was possible that this wasn’t the hotel Pamela had meant, The Kid thought. But the clerk nodded. He licked lips that had gone dry with fear and husked, “They’re here, all right, mister. But I just rented ’em the rooms. If you got a grudge against ’em, I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”

  “Just tell me which rooms they’re in.”

  The clerk pointed with a shaking finger. “Them two right down there at the end of the hall, across from each other. The woman on the right, the fellas on the left.”

  “Are they in there now?”

  “Hell if I know, mister. I don’t keep up with folks’ comin’s and goin’s.”

  “All right. I reckon that’s all I need from you.”

  The clerk started to relax. “Don’t you worry, mister, I know how to mind my own business—”

  The Kid brought the gun up and chopped down with it. The barrel thudded against the clerk’s skull. The man’s knees buckled. The Kid caught him and lowered him silently to the threadbare carpet runner. He hadn’t hit the clerk hard enough to put him out for very long. But for a few minutes The Kid didn’t have to worry about the hombre raising a ruckus.

  He knew that Pamela’s room was empty, since she was up at the Val Verde Hotel. With any luck, Anthony Tarleton and his hired gunmen would be in the other room, trying to figure out what to do now that their ambush had failed. The Kid cat-footed up to the door of that room and took his hat off so that he could place his ear against the panel. He listened for voices but didn’t hear anything. A lamp was burning in there, though. He could see the glow through the cracks around the poorly fitted door.

  The knob was locked, he discovered when he wrapped the fingers of his left hand around it and tried to turn it silently. That left only one way in. The Kid backed off as much as he could in the narrow corridor, lifted his right leg, and lunged forward, driving his boot heel against the door beside the knob. The jamb splintered. The door flew open. The Kid went into the room low, ready to fire as he tracked the Colt from side to side.

  The creaking of a floorboard behind him was the only warning he had before the roar of a shotgun crashed through the hallway.

  Chapter 11

  That split-second of warning was enough. The Kid was already twisting aside as the scattergun belched fire and lead from across the hall, from the door of the room where Pamela had been held prisoner. He felt the sting as several of the balls scraped his leg and side, but the double load of buckshot hadn’t had room to spread out very much.

  Since the man with the shotgun had fired both barrels, that meant the weapon was useless to him until he reloaded. The Kid didn’t intend to give him that much time.

  He spun so hard that he lost his balance and went down on one knee. His left hand slapped against the floor to catch himself. His right brought the Colt up and he squeezed the trigger. The muzzle flame lit up the dim hall. In the glaring flash, The Kid saw a stocky figure in charro jacket and sombrero throwing aside the empty shotgun and clawing at a holstered revolver. The Mexican didn’t make it. The Kid’s bullet punched into his midsection. He doubled over and staggered back a couple of steps before collapsing.

  The Kid surged up and sprang across the corridor. He had already seen for himself when he first charged into the room on the left that it was empty. The bitter realization that he had walked into yet another trap filled his mind for a second.

  Frank Morgan wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. The Kid had plenty of gun-speed and guts. What he lacked was experience, and he was going to need luck to live long enough to gain that wisdom.

  He would worry about that later, he told himself. He saw that the Mexican had one hand pressed to the wound that welled blood through his fingers, but the other hand was still trying to fumble that revolver free of its holster.

  The Kid bent and jerked the gun away. He tossed it on the bed, then knelt beside the Mexican. Pressing the Colt’s barrel hard under the wounded man’s chin, he leaned over and said, “Listen to me, Vicente. You’ve got a bullet in your gut. You’re a dead man. Question is, will you die now…or five or six hours from now after you’ve gone through hell?”

  Vicente blinked tear-filled eyes up at him. “You…you would spare me that pain…Señor?”

  “Tell me where to find Anthony Tarleton,” The Kid said.

  “He and Hogan…and Loomis…rode out,” Vicente gasped. “They left me here…in case you came looking for them. The señorita…aiiieee…” The spasm in his gut left the Mexican breathless with agony for a moment. Then he was able to resume, “The señorita…told you…where to find us…just as…just as…”

  “Just as Tarleton expected,” The Kid finished. “Where were they going?”

  Sweat beaded on Vicente’s face. He shook his head. “I don’t know…No one told me…”

  The Kid heard loud voices downstairs. No one had come t
o check on the gunshots yet. It was the sort of place where people minded their own business. He knew that their curiosity would get the better of them in a minute or two, and then footsteps would sound on the stairs.

  “How many men does Tarleton have? Just Hogan and Loomis?”

  “No, Señor…Twelve more…camped outside of town.”

  So the odds were more than a dozen to one. The Kid didn’t care. He would take on hundreds—thousands, if he had to—in order to avenge Rebel.

  “Sorry you had to die, Vicente,” he said. “That’s what you get for throwing in with a man like Tarleton.”

  “A man like…” The Mexican began to laugh.

  Then he brought up the bloody hand that he had pressed to the wound in his belly. The Kid’s eyes caught a flash of light on cold steel. He realized that Vicente had slipped a knife from his belt, below the bullet hole. The Kid threw himself backward as the blade threatened to rip open his own belly.

  The Colt in his hand roared and bucked again as the knife missed him by a whisker. Vicente’s head snapped back. There was a small black hole in his forehead, and a much larger one where the slug had blown out the back of his skull after boring through his brain. Blood and gray matter smeared the floor behind him.

  Vincent had made it to hell quickly, all right, but he hadn’t managed to take The Kid with him.

  The Kid stood up. He didn’t glance at the body again as he went into the room where Tarleton and the other men had been staying. He stalked over to the window and thrust the sash up. The clerk hadn’t gotten a look at him, and Vicente wasn’t going to be doing any talking. Even if Marshal Saul Winston bothered to investigate Vicente’s death, he wouldn’t find out much.

  The Kid holstered his gun and threw a leg over the windowsill. He climbed out, hung by his hands, and then dropped the six feet or so to the ground.

  He was in an alley behind Sloan’s, so he followed it back up the street toward the Val Verde Hotel. He had to cross the street to reach the hotel. As he paused at the corner of a building, he saw the marshal and his deputy hurrying toward Sloan’s. Winston had probably heard the shotgun go off and was going to see what the ruckus was about.