The Loner

by J. A. Johnstone

  Morgan thought about all the times Bearpaw had quoted Milton and Shakespeare and John Donne from memory, for hours at a time. Chances were, the Paiute knew more poetry by heart than these three louts had read in their entire lives combined.

  But that wasn’t the sort of thing that Kid Morgan would be thinking about, he reminded himself. Instead, he forced himself to stoop to their level and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the redskin. I won’t let him get into the whiskey, just regular water.”

  The first man sneered. “That’s fine as far as it goes,” he said, “but what about the stink?”

  “Oh, I reckon he can put up with it. It ought to fade after a while anyway, since you fellas are leaving.”

  Bearpaw turned his head slowly and stared at Morgan.

  He didn’t know where the words had come from. Just a few seconds earlier, he’d been trying to be conciliatory. But then something had snapped inside him. He was tired of everybody’s bullshit. Right now, Phillip Bearpaw was the best friend he had in the world, and he was damned if he was going to let these sorry-ass bastards talk about his friend that way.

  The three men weren’t quite as quick on the uptake as Bearpaw was, but it didn’t take them long. Then Donkey-Laugh looked offended and exclaimed, “Hey! He’s sayin’ we stink worse’n an Injun!”

  “You got a big mouth, boy,” the first man growled.

  “You can try to close it if you want,” the Kid said.

  Something about his stance and his cold, level eyes must have warned the men. None of them made a move toward a gun. But their leader, who was also the biggest of the trio, said, “You need a lesson in manners, you son of a bitch. And I’m just the man to give it to you!”

  He lunged across the porch and swung a malletlike fist at Morgan’s head. Morgan leaned quickly to the side. As long as he didn’t let any punches land where that bullet had wounded him, he ought to be all right, he thought.

  Of course, that might be easier said than done.

  Morgan’s swift move made the man’s fist miss. As the man stumbled forward, off balance, Morgan grabbed the front of his shirt and heaved as he turned. The man flew past him and sailed off the shallow porch to go rolling and sprawling in the dust.

  Donkey-Laugh yelled, “Hey!” again, and charged. Morgan met the attack by stepping in and hooking a hard left into the man’s belly. Donkey-Laugh doubled over as the blow knocked the wind out of him. Morgan grabbed the back of his head and shoved it down as he brought his knee up. His knee cracked into Donkey-Laugh’s jaw with stunning force. As the man crumpled, Morgan thought that he wouldn’t be letting loose with any more of those braying laughs for a while. Not with a jaw that was either broken or was going to be pretty sore for a while at the very least.

  That left the third man, but as Morgan turned toward him, he saw that the hombre was backing away, hands held at shoulder level. “Take it easy, amigo,” the man said. “This ain’t my fight. I know I stink.”

  A few feet away on the porch, Bearpaw suddenly lifted his Sharps and eared back the hammer. The Kid looked over his shoulder and saw that the first man was on his feet again. His hair and face and clothes were covered with dust. So was the hand that had started to reach for the gun on his hip. That hand had frozen where it was as the man found himself staring down the ominously large barrel of the Sharps.

  “They say that discretion is the better part of valor, my friend,” Bearpaw told the man. “You’d be wise to heed that advice.”

  The man gaped at Bearpaw and muttered, “What the hell—?” But he slowly moved his hand away from the butt of his gun.

  “I told you we weren’t looking for trouble,” Morgan said. “We still aren’t. Why don’t the two of you pick up your friend and head on to wherever you were going when you stopped to harass us?”

  “You’re lucky you got that redskin watchin’ your back, mister,” the man said between clenched teeth. “I was about to blow a hole in you.”

  “You were about to try,” Bearpaw said. “The way I see it, I just saved your life. You were going to draw on Kid Morgan.”

  “Who?” the man asked with a frown.

  “Kid Morgan. The man who killed the Winchell brothers and Duke Garrity, not to mention Garrity’s little brother and a man called Jessup.”

  The third man put in, “Say, I’ve heard of Duke Garrity. He’s pretty fast.”

  “Was pretty fast,” Bearpaw said.

  Morgan saw the nervousness in the first man’s eyes now. He was starting to realize that he might have bitten off too big a chunk. He said, “Look, Kid, let’s just let this go, all right?”

  Morgan nodded. “Fine by me.”

  The man motioned to his companion, and together they picked up the half-conscious Donkey-Laugh, who started moaning as they helped him to his horse. They got him into the saddle and then mounted up themselves. Flanking their injured pard, they rode off. Morgan and Bearpaw watched them go, just to make sure the men didn’t try to double back and attack again.

  “Was ist los?” a voice asked from the doorway. “What is this disturbance on my porch?”

  They turned to see a tall, gaunt man with a white spade beard. The man’s lean, leathery face creased in a sudden grin as he recognized the Paiute.

  “Bearpaw!” the man said. “I thought I recognized your voice. If you had started spouting poetry, I would have known for sure, ja.”

  Bearpaw shook hands with the man. “It’s good to see you, too, you old Dutchman. How long has it been, seven or eight years?”

  “Ja, about that. Who is your friend?”

  “This is Kid Morgan.”

  The Kid nodded and said, “Guten tag, Herr Immelmann.”

  “Ah! Sprechen sie Deutche?”

  “Ein bischen.” Morgan hoped he hadn’t make a mistake by greeting the trading post’s proprietor in German. He had about exhausted his knowledge of the language when he told Immelmann he spoke only a little.

  “Come in, come in,” Immelmann urged them. He waved a knobby-knuckled hand toward the retreating riders. “Don’t worry about those three. They think they are tough hombres, but they are really not.”

  As Morgan and Bearpaw stepped into the trading post, which was even cooler because of its thick log and adobe walls, the German went on. “You must tell me what brings you here, if such a question will not be considered impolite.”

  “Things got a mite too warm for us where we were,” Bearpaw said.

  Immelmann let out a laugh that sounded too hearty for his slender frame. “The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh, my old friend? Come. The beer is cold, and the women are warm! What more does a man need?”

  Vengeance, the Kid thought. That was what some men needed—and he was one of them.

  Chapter 16

  Immelmann had a Mexican bartender working for him, so he was able to sit with Morgan and Bearpaw at a round table in the rear of the big, shadowy barroom half of the trading post instead of serving drinks. The three men nursed beers. Bearpaw explained to Morgan that while he couldn’t handle whiskey, like most of his people, beer never muddled his mind.

  Immelmann said, “The two of you are on the dodge, ja?”

  “Not exactly,” Bearpaw said. “I don’t think there’s any paper out on us, so you don’t have to worry about any bounty hunters showing up to look for us. We’d just as soon avoid any lawmen, though, just to be on the safe side.”

  Immelmann nodded sagely. “I understand.”

  The German thought he understood anyway, the Kid mused. That was what he and Bearpaw wanted.

  “Have you seen an hombre called Moss pass through these parts lately?” Bearpaw went on. “We heard that he’s looking for some men for some sort of job up north, and we thought we might try to sign on with him.” He and Morgan had decided that would be a safe enough question to ask, grounded in truth as it was.

  “Do you mean Vernon Moss?”

  “Yeah, that’s the fellow’s name.”

  Imm
elmann gave a solemn shake of his head. “Have you not heard what happened to him?”

  Bearpaw leaned forward and frowned. “No. He get shot up or something?”

  “Both of his legs were crushed in an accident. I’m told that he will be a cripple for the rest of his life. And this happened while he and some other men were engaged in that job you mentioned.”

  “You mean we missed out on it?”

  A sour look appeared on Immelmann’s face. “You would not have wanted to be part of this, old friend. It was an ugly business, nothing like rustling or stealing horses. Moss and some other men kidnapped a woman.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty bad,” Bearpaw agreed with a frown.

  “It was even worse than you think. They held the woman for ransom, and even though her husband agreed to pay, they murdered the poor woman. Clay Lasswell shot her. Do you know Lasswell?”

  Bearpaw shook his head. Across the table, the Kid kept a stony expression on his face, but it took an effort to do so.

  “I thought better of Lasswell, to tell you the truth,” Immelmann went on. “He has killed a number of men in gunfights, true, and I suspect he may have shot a few in the back from long range while he was working as a regulator in Wyoming, but I would not have guessed that he would murder a woman in cold blood.” The German shrugged. “I suppose as we get older and more tired, the list of things we will not do for money grows shorter and shorter.”

  “How do you know about all this?” Bearpaw asked, still making it sound like he was only idly curious.

  “Julio Esquivel told me. You remember Julio? Short, has a beard, very good with a knife?”

  Bearpaw shook his head. “I don’t think I ever crossed his trail. How about you, Kid?”

  Morgan said, “Nope.”

  “Well, Julio stopped here about a week ago with a couple of other men.” Immelmann made a face. “One of them was a huge brute who treated one of my whores badly. I was glad to see them go.”

  Morgan remembered Esquivel and the big, moon-faced man from that awful night. Trying not to sound like he was prying, he said, “Who was the third man?”

  “I hadn’t seen him before,” Immelmann replied. “They called him Buck.”

  So Buck, Esquivel, and the giant Carlson had ridden through here a week earlier, Morgan thought. “Did they say where they were headed?” he asked.

  Immelmann frowned, and the Kid saw a warning look flash in Bearpaw’s dark eyes. He might have pushed things too far by asking such a direct question. But after a moment, Immelmann shrugged and said, “I might not tell you if that monster had not been so rough on my girl, but when they left here they were riding east. I heard them say something about going over to the Four Corners.”

  “We’re obliged,” Bearpaw said.

  Immelmann looked back and forth between Morgan and the Paiute. “You had no interest in joining up with Moss,” he said coldly. “You’re looking for him and the men who rode with him on that job.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You and I go way back, my friend,” Bearpaw said. “I know we can count on your discretion.”

  An angry frown creased the German’s face. “You used me,” he accused. “Played on our friendship.”

  “As you said, those men did a very bad thing.”

  “I think perhaps you two are the bounty hunters now. Such men are not welcome at my trading post.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Bearpaw said. “But you won’t mention to anybody that we were here, will you?”

  “Doing so might make people suspect that I gave you information.” Immelmann shook his head. “I will say nothing. But I would ask you to leave now.”

  Morgan and Bearpaw started to get to their feet. The Paiute paused and said, “For what it’s worth, if anything, there’s no blood money involved in this hunt, Immelmann. It’s personal.”

  Immelmann held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t wish to hear any more. Anyway, any time you set out to kill a man, it is personal, is it not? How can it be any other way when you end another life and risk your own?”

  Those were good questions, the Kid thought. And from the way Immelmann was looking at him, he wondered just what the German was thinking. He would have been willing to bet, though, that Immelmann didn’t suspect Conrad Browning and Kid Morgan were one and the same.

  As he and Bearpaw rode away from the trading post a short time later, Morgan said, “Sorry. I know I pushed too hard back there. I should have waited and let you get the information out of him at your own pace.”

  Bearpaw shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. We found out what we needed to know.”

  “Can we trust Immelmann?”

  “Maybe. I think so. Like he said, he can’t tell anybody too much about us without making them suspect that he gave us the information we were looking for. He’s better off keeping his mouth shut, like he would have if it had been anybody but me asking. He owed me a favor.”

  “And now I’ve ruined your friendship,” Morgan said.

  “Justice doesn’t come without a price.”

  “This isn’t your fight, you know,” Morgan pointed out.

  “Maybe it didn’t start out that way, but after everything you did for the McNallys, and the way you stood up for me back there . . . I reckon I’ve made it my fight.”

  The silence that fell between them was awkward, since neither was the sort of man who expressed emotion all that well. After a moment, the Kid asked, “What’s the Four Corners?”

  “That’s the area where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico all come together,” Bearpaw explained. “Some of the most desolate country you’ll ever see. A fitting place for the sort of men we’re after.”

  “We’ve got some ground to make up on them,” Morgan said. He heeled the buckskin into a faster pace. Bearpaw followed suit, and soon the trading post at Las Vegas fell far behind them.

  Bearpaw had warned him that they were heading into some desolate country, and the Paiute was right. As they traveled almost due east over the next two weeks, Morgan didn’t know if they were in northern Arizona or southern Utah. It didn’t really matter, Bearpaw told him. One was just about as ugly as the other, seemingly never-ending wastelands of dirt, sand, and rock.

  And yet, here and there, great beauty existed, such as the long line of sandstone cliffs that shone a brilliant red in the sunlight. Wherever there was water, grass grew and flowers bloomed, little bits of paradise among the desert vastness.

  They came to such an oasis a couple of days after leaving Las Vegas, late in the afternoon, and when Morgan spotted an adobe ranch house among the cottonwoods that lined a small creek, he was eager to ride on in and find out if the people who lived on this isolated ranch had seen the three men they were after.

  But as Morgan lifted the reins and started to heel his horse into a trot, Bearpaw reached over and grasped his arm, stopping him.

  “Take it easy, Kid,” the Paiute said. “Something’s wrong up there.”

  “What do you mean?” Morgan asked. Then, black shapes circling in the sky caught his eye, and he answered his own question. “Damn. Those are vultures, aren’t they?”

  “Buzzards, some call them. They’re bad news, regardless of the name.” Bearpaw pulled the Sharps from the saddle sheath in which he carried it. “Unlimber that Winchester of yours. We’ll ride in, but we’re going to be careful about it. Slow and easy.”

  That was how they approached the ranch, which consisted of the adobe house, an adobe barn, and a pole corral. The lack of a bunkhouse meant the family that owned this place worked it by themselves, without any hired hands. As Morgan and Bearpaw drew closer, Morgan expected at least one dog to come running out to meet them, barking its head off. Instead, an ominous silence hung over the sun-blasted day.

  “If this was twenty years ago, I’d say the Apaches had been here,” Bearpaw commented quietly. “I don’t know what to make of this yet, except that it can’t be good.”

  The Kid spotted a dark shape on the ground in
side the corral. “Is that a horse?” he asked, pointing toward it with the barrel of his Winchester.

  “No. Milk cow more than likely. Another bad sign.”

  “Bad how?”

  “A ranch with a milk cow usually has kids around.”

  Morgan grimaced. He hadn’t thought about that.

  “In the door,” Bearpaw said a moment later. His voice was bleak, and his face looked like it had been carved out of the same red sandstone that had formed those cliffs a ways back.

  Morgan saw the body lying across the threshold of the ranch house door. The man lay facedown, a large black stain on the back of his shirt. That stain shifted as the riders drew closer, and Morgan heard a loud buzzing. His stomach twisted in sick revulsion.

  “Those are flies,” he said.

  Bearpaw nodded. “That’s right. They’re after the blood on the man’s shirt. Quite a feast in surroundings like this.”

  Another huddled shape between the house and the barn turned out to be the family dog. Morgan averted his eyes, thinking of the big cur that traveled with his father. He had a soft spot for dogs. He was sure he and Rebel would have gotten one sooner or later if . . .

  Those thoughts wouldn’t do any good. The Kid forced them out of his head.

  “So we’ve got a man, a dog, and a cow,” he said. “Where is everyone else?”

  “Inside, I suppose.” Bearpaw reined to a stop in front of the house. “Why don’t you stay out here, Kid? I’ll have a look.”

  “I can stand it,” Morgan said. “I’ve already seen things worse than any man should ever have to see.”

  “I reckon you have, at that.” Bearpaw nodded. “Come on then, if you’re sure.”

  Both men dismounted. Holding their rifles at the ready, in the unlikely event that any danger still lurked inside the ranch house, they stepped over the body of the man who sprawled in the doorway. Morgan felt sick as he heard flies buzzing again. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness inside the house—and when they did, he almost wished that they hadn’t.

  A boy about eight or nine lay on his back on the hard-packed dirt floor, staring sightlessly at the ceiling. He appeared to have been shot once in the chest. The flies had been at him, too.