The Loner

by J. A. Johnstone

  As he left the dining room and started down the hall toward his study, the image of Rebel in boots and jeans and a buckskin shirt drifted through his mind. Maybe if he could get ahead on his work, he could take some time off and they could head up into the high country on an extended trip. They could go on horseback, just the two of them, taking along enough supplies to last for a week or two. They wouldn’t have to worry about fresh meat; the mountains were full of game, and Rebel was a superb shot with a rifle. Conrad could handle a long gun fairly well, too. They would be fine.

  It was such an appealing prospect that Conrad stopped just outside the door to his study and sighed in anticipated pleasure.

  A knock on the front door broke that reverie and put a puzzled frown on Conrad’s face. They weren’t expecting any visitors tonight. He had no idea who could be at the door.

  “I’ll get it,” he called to Rebel as he started toward the front of the house. He didn’t know if she had heard the knock, but in case she had, she would know that he was answering it.

  When he swung the door open, the light from the foyer revealed Edwin Sinclair standing there on the porch, his hat in one hand and what appeared to be a yellow telegraph flimsy in the other. Conrad was surprised and not very happy to see Sinclair, especially after he had told the man not to come to the house this evening. But the telegram in Sinclair’s hand meant that something important might have happened, so Conrad supposed he had to hear him out.

  “Hello, Edwin,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Sinclair held up the yellow paper. “I received this wire that was intended for you, sir. I’m not quite sure how the messenger boy managed to make a mistake and deliver it to me instead, but that’s what happened.”

  Conrad took the telegram and scanned the words printed on it in a bold, square hand. “Your name is on it as well as mine,” he pointed out. “I’m sure that’s what caused the mix-up.” He continued reading as he spoke, then exclaimed, “What? Has Kirkson lost his mind? Did you read this, Edwin?”

  “I did, sir. I was worried about the news, too.”

  “If Kirkson goes ahead with this plan, he’ll cost us thousands of dollars.” Ronald Kirkson was the manager of a steel plant in Pennsylvania owned largely by Conrad and his father. Conrad was no engineer, but even he could see that the changes in the manufacturing process Kirkson proposed would be tremendously inefficient.

  “I imagine you’ll want to wire him first thing in the morning to hold off on implementing the changes,” Sinclair said. “In the meantime, since I’m already here, I’d be glad to help you go through some of that paperwork—”

  “In the morning, hell!” Conrad broke in. “I’m going to wire Kirkson tonight. Right now, in fact. I’m going to write out a message, and you can take it to the Western Union office and send it as a night letter.”

  “That will cost more,” Sinclair said.

  “Penny-wise, pound-foolish,” Conrad quoted. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going, sir?”

  “To my study. I want to sit down while I’m figuring out the best way to tell Kirkson that he’s a damned fool.”

  “Oh. All right.”

  Conrad closed the door and then stalked down the hall toward his study. Sinclair was close behind him.

  “What about that other work?” Sinclair asked as they entered the study. “Those reports?”

  “They can wait,” Conrad snapped. “They’re nothing but an annoyance. This is a crisis, or at least it will be if we don’t avert it.” He went behind the desk. “Pull up one of those armchairs, Edwin. This may take a little while.”

  “Perhaps I should go out to the kitchen and brew some coffee for us.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Conrad said. Rebel was probably still in the kitchen, and the last thing he wanted was for her and Sinclair to spend even a few minutes alone in such an intimate setting. He was probably wrong to distrust Sinclair, but wrong or not, he wanted to keep the man where he could see him.

  He sat down behind the desk, pulled a blank sheet of paper in front of him, took up a pencil, and started composing a strongly worded message. “What do you think about this?” he asked Sinclair, then read the sentences to the secretary as he scrawled them on the paper. He might not fully trust Sinclair where Rebel was concerned, but the man was a good secretary and knew the business.

  “That’s very good, sir.”

  “Do you think it’s clear enough that Kirkson will regret it if he goes through with this?”

  “Oh, I think so, Mr. Browning. Quite clear.” Sinclair paused. “I hope all this uproar doesn’t disturb Mrs. Browning.”

  Conrad shook his head. “It won’t. She’s upstairs.” He didn’t know if she had gone up or not, but he wanted Sinclair to think she had.

  Sinclair started to look uncomfortable, shifting around in the chair like a man with something bothering him. Conrad frowned at him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but, I’m not feeling well. If I could use the, ah . . .”

  Conrad waved a hand toward the door. “Of course, of course. You know where it is.” Despite not fully trusting Sinclair, Conrad couldn’t deny him the use of the facilities. He stood up and began to pace back and forth, reading the message over to himself as he did so. “I’ll have this ready to go by the time you get back.”

  “Of course.” With a vaguely embarrassed expression on his face, Sinclair slipped out of the room.

  The thought crossed Conrad’s mind that Sinclair might run into Rebel while he was gone, but he decided that was unlikely. When she was finished cleaning up in the kitchen, Rebel would probably use the rear stairs to go up to their room. She’d said she was going to read while Conrad worked on the reports from the office.

  He didn’t care about the reports now. As he’d told Sinclair, they weren’t really urgent. This telegram from Kirkson had upset him, and he wasn’t going to worry about the paperwork anymore. As soon as he’d sent Sinclair off to the Western Union office with the scorching reply, Conrad intended to do his best to forget all about work for the rest of the evening.

  He went back to the desk, stood in front of it, and leaned over to cross out several words and substitute others. There, he thought as he straightened. That made the message even stronger. All he needed to do now was recopy it with all the corrections made. Or perhaps he’d get Sinclair to do that. The man had excellent handwriting.

  Suddenly, Conrad frowned. He put down the message he’d been writing and picked up the telegraph flimsy he had dropped on the desk. Something about the printing on it was familiar. He had assumed that a telegrapher from the Western Union office had printed the message, but something about the bold strokes of the letters reminded him of Sinclair’s writing.

  That made no sense. Sinclair had said that the message was delivered to his room at a boardinghouse several blocks away. He couldn’t have written it.

  The secretary had left the door partially open when he left the study. Conrad heard it swing open behind him now, and he started to turn so that he could ask Sinclair what was going on here.

  He didn’t make it. A swift step sounded behind him, and something crashed into his skull. The blow’s impact sent Conrad slumping forward. He dropped the telegram and caught himself by slapping his hands down flat on the desk. Groggy, half-stunned, he tried to push himself upright again.

  The intruder hit him a second time, and this time his knees buckled. He couldn’t hold himself up. The floor leaped up to smack him in the face. Conrad felt the rough nap of the rug in front of the desk scraping his cheek. He let out a groan that sounded to his ears as if it came from far, far away.

  Then the sound faded out entirely, along with everything else, as Conrad lost consciousness.

  It would have been easy to finish him off, Edwin Sinclair thought as he stared down at Conrad Browning, who lay on the study floor, out cold. A few more blows from the bludgeon he had carried into the house, concealed under his coat, and
Browning’s head would be a shattered, misshapen mess. He would never have Rebel again.

  But he wouldn’t be able to pay the ransom either, and without that, Lasswell, Moss, and the other hired gunmen wouldn’t carry out their part of the plan. It was vital that Conrad Browning live through this night. That was why Sinclair had gone to the trouble of forging the message from Kirkson on a telegraph flimsy he had lifted from the Western Union office.

  He didn’t think that Browning would recognize his hand if he printed the words in as blocky a style as he could manage, and sure enough, the ruse had worked. Browning had accepted it as a genuine message from Kirkson. For a while, Sinclair had worried that there wouldn’t be an opportunity for him to strike down Browning without being seen, but in the end, luck had been with him.

  Now all that was left to do was to let Lasswell and the others into the house through the rear door. Sinclair slipped his watch out and checked the time. Five minutes until eight. He had almost shaved it too close.

  As he put his watch away, he glanced down at Browning. Maybe it would be a good idea to tie him up. That was what real kidnappers would do, wasn’t it? Of course, Lasswell and the others were real kidnappers, he reminded himself. They just had help that no one else would ever know about.

  Sinclair yanked down one of the cords from the drapes and used it to bind Browning’s hands behind his back. He wasn’t any too gentle about it either, jerking Browning’s arms around without worrying about whether or not he injured the bastard. He had hit Browning twice, so he didn’t think there was any chance he’d regain consciousness any time soon, but just in case he did, this would take care of the problem. Sinclair used Browning’s own handkerchief to gag him, tying the ball of cloth in place with another piece of drapery cord.

  There, Sinclair thought as he straightened from his work, all trussed up like a pig on its way to market.

  But now there was really no time to waste. He almost broke into a run as he hurried from the study and down the hall. His heart pounded heavily in his chest as he pushed open the door into the kitchen. He didn’t know if it was from fear or anticipation or just sheer excitement at being part of something so audacious. He stepped into the room . . .

  And his heart seemed to leap into his throat and freeze there as he saw Rebel standing at the foot of the rear stairs.

  “Edwin!” she said, obviously surprised to see him. But then she smiled, like the sun coming up and chasing away the shadows of night, and went on. “I didn’t know you were here. Did you come to help Conrad with all that paperwork after all?”

  Before he could answer, a soft knock sounded on the rear door.

  Judging by Rebel’s expression, she was even more surprised by that than she was by Sinclair’s unexpected appearance in her kitchen. She said, “Who in the world can that be at this time of night? Maybe Mrs. O’Hannigan forgot something.”

  She started toward the door, clearly intending to answer it.

  Sinclair sprang forward. “Let me,” he said. “You seemed to be on your way upstairs. You should go ahead. It’s probably a tradesman at the door. I’ll deal with him.”

  “Nonsense,” Rebel said. “This is my house. I can answer my own—”

  Lasswell must have run out of patience. A boot heel crashed against the door just below the knob, springing it open. The door flew back. Rebel let out a startled cry as she jerked herself out of its way.

  “Edwin, run!” she shouted. “Get Conrad!”

  Shocked, struggling to figure out what to do next, Sinclair stayed rooted to the floor. A couple of hard-faced men rushed into the kitchen with guns drawn. Sinclair had never seen either of them before, but he knew they must be some of Lasswell’s men.

  Rebel reacted with the sort of blinding speed that Sinclair would have expected from that gunfighter father-in-law of hers. She snatched up an empty coffeepot from the stove and swung it at one of the men, crashing it against the side of his head. He stumbled into his companion and dropped his gun. Rebel was on it like a hawk, scooping it up before it hardly had a chance to hit the floor. She shot the second man at such close range that the flame licking out from the gun muzzle scorched the man’s shirt as the bullet punched into his chest.

  Sinclair had made it clear to Lasswell and Moss that Rebel wasn’t to be hurt, but he didn’t know if the gunmen would be able to control themselves when someone started shooting at them. They might return her fire. He couldn’t let that happen. He leaped toward her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, and said, “Rebel, no!” He got one hand on her wrist and forced the gun toward the floor.

  More men burst into the room, among them Lasswell and Moss. Lasswell’s bearded, leathery face creased into a grin as he said, “Looks like you decided to jump right in there and grab her yourself, Sinclair.”

  Sinclair bit back a groan of despair. Now everything really was ruined. He had hoped for a second that he could pass off his actions as merely fearing for her safety, but now Rebel had to realize that he was part of the plan. Otherwise, Lasswell wouldn’t have known his name.

  He would just have to make the best of it. If he disappeared along with Rebel, Browning and everyone else would believe that the intruders had kidnapped him, too. He could go with Lasswell and the others, and once the ransom was paid and he had his share, he could take Rebel and leave Carson City far behind. They would go to Mexico, he thought. She would go with him, and in time, she would learn to love him.

  He twisted the gun out of her hand and threw it on the floor, then shoved her toward the outlaws. “Here,” he snapped. “Get her on a horse, and let’s get out of here.”

  Two of the men grabbed her. One of them was a giant with a moon face. Sinclair didn’t like the leer the man wore as he looked at Rebel.

  She twisted and struggled in their grip, but she had no chance of getting away. Turning her head, she looked straight at him and said, “You son of a bitch. Conrad will kill you for this, and if he doesn’t, I will!”

  Lasswell chuckled. “Better be careful, boys, she’s a wildcat. Hurry up now. That shot means we ain’t got time to waste.”

  One of the men pointed at the one Rebel had shot and said, “What about Ray?”

  “Get him on his horse, too,” Lasswell ordered. “Maybe he’ll make it.” He looked at Sinclair. “You talked like you was comin’ with us, mister.”

  “Of course I’m coming with you,” Sinclair snapped. “I can’t stay here now. She knows I was part of it.”

  In fact, Rebel was still glaring murderously at him as the two men dragged her out of the house. Sinclair hoped they wouldn’t treat her too rough.

  “Well, here’s the problem,” Lasswell said. “We ain’t got a horse for you.”

  “I’ll ride double with someone, then.” Sinclair took a step toward the door. “Let’s go. As you said, there’s no time to waste.”

  Lasswell put out a hand to stop him. “Sorry, Sinclair. Your part in this is over here and now.”

  “What? You’re insane! I can’t stay here. She knows.” Sinclair shook his head impatiently. “I realize we can’t follow the original plan now, with me pretending to rescue her and everything—”

  “That was never the plan,” Lasswell said.

  Sinclair frowned. “Of course it was. I was going to rescue her—”

  “Nope. You were just here to knock out Browning, so we could grab the gal without havin’ to worry about hurtin’ him. Like I said, you’re done.”

  “I most certainly am not!”

  Lasswell looked past Sinclair and said, “Julio.”

  Sinclair hadn’t realized that one of the men was behind him. He’d been so upset about his part in the plan being revealed to Rebel that he hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else. Now as he started to turn, he felt a sudden, sharp, white-hot pain in his back. He gasped.

  A second jolt of agony lanced through him. Someone had stabbed him, he realized as he stumbled forward. Then Moss stepped up and hit him in the belly, causing him to
double over and fall to his knees. An icy chill that coursed through his entire body replaced the hot pain in his back.

  “When Browning comes to and gets loose, he’ll figure you got yourself killed tryin’ to defend his poor wife,” Lasswell said as he loomed over Sinclair. “He won’t know better until he gets her back . . . if he gets her back.”

  “You . . . you can’t . . .” Sinclair gasped.

  Lasswell looked past him again and nodded. Someone grabbed his hair and jerked his head back, and he felt something tug at his throat, followed instantly by a hot, wet gush.

  “Your throat’s just been cut, you damn fool,” Lasswell told him. “You’re so stupid, you had it comin’.”

  Sinclair blinked. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, and he suddenly felt incredibly sleepy. There was surprisingly little pain. Someone shoved him from behind, and he fell facedown. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he smelled the coppery scent of his own blood pooling around his head.

  It wasn’t fair, he thought. He was going to die on the kitchen floor of Conrad Browning’s house. He was going to die without ever seeing Rebel again. He was going to die . . .

  He did.

  Chapter 5

  Conrad heard someone groaning, and gradually became aware that it was him. He was adrift in a deep, black sea, the waves jolting him back and forth. After what seemed like an eternity, he realized that the waves were actually the pulsing of blood in his head.

  He was alive.

  That knowledge brought strength and determination with it, but they seeped slowly into his body and brain. Finally, he tried to move his arms, but they were pulled behind him in an awkward position and wouldn’t budge. Someone had tied him up, and the uncomfortable, soggy lump in his mouth was a gag of some sort. He moved his head and felt his chin scrape against something rough. He knew that he was lying on the rug in front of his desk.